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Volkswagen’s cars will be ‘talking’ to each other by 2019
Vehicles will be communicating with other as soon as 2019, if Volkswagen's plans come to fruition. Just one day after announcing its autonomous vehicle AI partnership with NVIDIA, the German car manufacturer says pWLAN (public wireless LAN) technology will be fitted to its cars as standard in just two years. The technology makes it possible for cars and transport infrastructure within a radius of 500 meters to share information about warnings, traffic and road conditions within milliseconds, giving drivers a head start on risky situations such as black ice, or a car making an emergency stop.
Volkswagen and NVIDIA want to help humans and robots work together
After just confirming its plans to help Volvo create self-driving cars, NVIDIA has now revealed that it's also working with another leading car manufacturer. Announcing a partnership with Volkswagen, the tech company states its artificial intelligence and deep learning tech will be used to help VW expand its AI business beyond just autonomous vehicles.
Lyft relies on autonomous EVs to meet climate impact goals
While Uber has been engulfed in a hurricane of scandal, its ride-hailing competitor Lyft has published its climate impact goals. The company says that with the help of autonomous and electric vehicles it'll be able to reduce CO2 emissions "by at least 5 million tons per year by 2025."
Audi teases self-parking A8 ahead of launch
Audi will launch its next generation A8, which is expected to have level 3 autonomous, on July 11th. Ahead of that unveiling, the company released a video of the new vehicle parking itself.
Tim Cook says Apple is working on 'autonomous systems'
Has Tim Cook made the first public admission that Apple is indeed working on self-driving car technology? Bloomberg seems to think so, based on comments made by the CEO in an interview at WWDC earlier this month. After remarking on the exciting automotive trends of self-driving cars, EVs and ride-sharing, Cook said: "What we're focusing on -- what we've talked about focusing on publicly -- is we're focusing on autonomous systems. And clearly one purpose of autonomous systems is self-driving cars. There are others, and we sorta see it as the mother of all AI projects. It's probably one of the most difficult AI projects, actually, to work on. And so autonomy is something that's incredible exciting for us, but we'll see where it takes us."
Self-driving 'InMotion' concept puts your living room on wheels
National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), the company that discontinued the Saab name last June, debuted its InMotion electric level 5 autonomous car concept at CES Asia that's essentially a modular room on wheels. There aren't even any dashboard controls: Occupants adjust the seating arrangements, lighting and environmental settings with a paired app. A concept for the self-driving living/working space of the future has arrived.
Waymo will battle Uber with its own self-driving trucks
Google was one of the first companies to show off self-driving car tech, but it's pretty late into the autonomous truck game. Well after companies like Daimler, Komatsu and Uber unveiled their own platforms, Waymo has started testing a single truck on public roads, it told Buzzfeed and Reuters. "Self-driving technology can transport people and things much more safely than we do today and reduce the thousands of trucking-related deaths each year," it said in a statement.
Ford replaces CEO Mark Fields with self-driving chief
Ford has fired CEO Mark Fields and replaced him with self-driving car chief Jim Hackett, the company announced this morning. The news comes amid turmoil in the company, including a steep 25 percent drop in car sales so far this year and layoffs of 1,400 salaried employees, with possibly more to come. The news confirms a New York Times report from earlier today.
Watch an AI teach itself to drive in 'GTA V' on Twitch
While automakers are still negotiating with local and state governments to let autonomous cars test drive on open streets, one programmer has found a more accessible proving ground to teach AI how to be a motorist: Grand Theft Auto V. It's not the first time folks have used the game to train their self-driving vehicles -- but you can watch this one learn in real-time on Twitch. One warning: If you're expecting a graceful, law-abiding AI driver...don't.
New York joins the growing list of self-driving car testbeds
The Empire State and its bustling metropolis are ready to get in on the autonomous vehicle party. According to an announcement from Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York Department of Motor Vehicles is now taking applications from companies that wish to test self-driving tech on the state's public roads.
Self-driving cars make me nauseous
One of the major benefits of our self-driving future is how much more gosh-darn productive we're all going to be. Instead of wasting brain power driving our cars to work, we'll sit back and let the ride do it for us. Suddenly, that time can be harnessed for our leisure or, more likely, to cram even more work into our days. But what will happen to all the people like me, who get sick at the thought of sitting in a car?
Korea is building a 'city' for self-driving cars
South Korea will soon open an 88 acre facility with everything an autonomous car might encounter, including expressways, parking areas and bus-only lanes, according to the Korea Business Times. First announced last year, it will be the world's largest, dwarfing Michigan's 32-acre Mcity facility that it's reportedly based on. The idea is to let companies test self-driving tech in a repeatable way, without the hard-to-get permits normally required to test vehicles on Korea's public roads.
Volkswagen shows off its vision for a driverless future
Back in March, the Volkswagen Group dropped rendered concept images of its futuristic Sedric, an autonomous vehicle that would take riders to their destination at the touch of a button -- no human driving required. At Auto Shanghai 2017, VW showed off a real version of its autonomous concept vehicle. As previously shown, the automater has completely removed the cockpit in favor of pure passenger space, which would which would make it capable of level 5 autonomous driving.
Portland wants to get driverless cars on its roads this year
A new initiative from the city of Portland, Oregon hopes to attract the fast-growing self-driving car industry to the city's streets. According to Bloomberg, Mayor Ted Wheeler and the city's Bureau of Transportation are working to finalize a new set of rules governing autonomous vehicle pilot programs and hope to have driverless vehicles on the roads by the end of this year.
Baidu wants to work with everyone on self-driving tech
Like many big technology companies, Chinese giant Baidu has been working on self-driving cars for a few years now, even investing with Ford in LIDAR sensor company Velodyne. Collaborations between tech firms and carmakers are now commonplace, but after an unsuccessful marriage with BMW, Baidu is seeking new partners -- or rather, all the partners. In a project Baidu calls "Apollo," the company is offering up its whole self-driving platform to the wider industry, from software to reference vehicles, to give the general pursuit of autonomous cars a NOS-like boost.
GM aims to put 300 more self-driving Chevy Bolts on the road
General Motors and its San Francisco-based autonomous vehicles division Cruise have made it clear they plan to put an autonomous taxi fleet on the road as fast as possible. Earlier this year, rumors from both the Wall Street Journal and Reuters claimed GM's project with Lyft could start in a test market sometime this year before a wider expansion in 2018. While Cruise has been quickly adding staff in San Francisco, GM will still need to more test cars on the road in order to get enough data and information to refine its autonomous systems for passenger use. According to a new report from IEEE Spectrum, GM and Cruise plan to add 300 more self-driving Chevy Bolts to their fleet and could be rolling them out as soon as next month.
E-volo's electric 'air taxi' picks up passengers next year
The last time we'd heard about E-Volo's 18-rotor electric helicopter was almost a year ago to the day. The latest news out of the company is that at AERO, an aviation trade show in Germany, E-Volo revealed its latest model, the Volocopter 2X. The firm says that the advantages of this version versus previous iterations (namely, the VC200) are that it's a "consequent evolution" geared toward everyday use as an autonomous urban mobility vehicle. Translation: it could be a pilot-free, or remote-flown taxi for two.
Another startup promises self-driving taxis 'soon'
Popular online learning service Udacity already trains engineers for work in the fast-growing autonomous vehicles field, but now the company is ready to harness all that talent and launch its own self-driving taxi company. Led by CEO (and former Udacity Vice President) Oliver Cameron, the new spin-off company will be called Voyage and has given itself the goal of getting autonomous taxis to "real users" in less than five years.
Uber's self-driving cars could be coming back to California
When Uber first tried to roll out its fleet of autonomous taxis on the streets of San Francisco, California's DMV quickly put the kibosh on those plans. But, after a brief stint in the sunnier parts of Arizona, Uber has announced its intent to bring its cars back to the Golden State -- this time with permits in hand.
Peugeot concept learns from your IoT gear to improve the ride
While the Geneva Motor Show is just days away, Peugeot didn't wait for the festivities in Switzerland to debut its latest concept. Instead, the automaker revealed an autonomous car here at Mobile World Congress. Dubbed the Instinct Concept, the vehicle blends self-driving tech, home automation and cloud-based connectivity to define user profiles. The vehicle uses Samsung's ARTIK IoT platform to pull in all of your information from mobile devices, wearables and connected home gear to adapt the best driving or riding experience.
