self-driving cars
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After years of trials aimed at remaking driving in the mold of the iPhone, Apple is finally building some self-driving electric cars to test on roads in the San Francisco Bay Area—and they're Volkswagen buses. The New York Times reported on Thursday that, after years of looking for a partner among automakers, Apple has teamed up with the German automaker to convert VW T6 vans into self-driving, electric shuttles to ferry Apple employees to and from work at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. The Times cited several former employees of the Apple self-driving car team. The...
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BMW reveals its self-driving, electric iNext vision for the future
At BMW's annual shareholders' meeting in Germany on Thursday the company released a teaser image of its future iNext electric car. The image shows an SUV silhouette similar is size to an X5, BMW's mid-size SUV. The iNext is designed to be a technology showcase for BMW: electric propulsion, full...
Eric C. Evarts -
British man caught on video leaving driver's seat after turning on Tesla autopilot
Patel set the Autopilot while he was driving up the country's busy M1 motorway, then climbed out of the driver's seat while the car piloted itself down the road.
Eric C. Evarts -
Jaguar I-Pace electric car to join Waymo's self-driving car fleet
British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover and Waymo said Tuesday the carmaker would sell Google's autonomous-car technology arm up to 20,000 of its new all-electric Jaguar I-Pace SUV to be used in self-driving service by 2020. While last week's news focused entirely on the fatal crash of a Volvo converted...
John Voelcker -
Self-driving Tesla to make LA to NYC trip this year, Musk says, without lidar
In June 2013, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced he would drive a Tesla Model S electric car across the U.S. to show off the company's new Supercharger fast-charging network. Indeed, two Tesla Model S sedans successfully completed the run from Los Angeles to New York City in February 2014. Last year...
John Voelcker -
Autonomous swarming electric pods: halfway between train and car?
There are cars and trucks, and then there are trains and buses. While multi-seat vans and wagons can serve the purpose of buses carrying multiple unrelated people, a California company has come up with an entirely new concept. The Dubai Roads and Transport Authority announced yesterday it would...
John Voelcker -
As it does in every other aspect of the auto industry, Korean carmaker Hyundai-Kia has set itself an aggressive goal and a fast pace for rollout of self-driving vehicles. The Korean carmaker has said it would offer a vehicle capable of Level 4 autonomy—meaning a car that can operate without human input, but only for certain road types, geographic areas, or weather conditions—by 2021. On Friday, five Hyundai prototype self-driving vehicles completed a route covering more than 100 miles without humans behind the wheel interfering with the cars' decisions and travels. DON'T MISS...
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Cruise AV, GM's autonomous electric Bolt EV, to go into production in 2019
How comfortable would you be in a taxi or car-service vehicle that had no steering wheel, accelerator or brake pedals? That's the question prompted by a photo that has already produced some subconscious anxiety among at least auto writers. How the public will react remains to be seen, but they'll...
John Voelcker -
Batteries in autonomous electric cars must be more durable: lithium-ion pioneer
We tend to take batteries for granted. Day after day, we recharge batteries and expect them to work without giving a thought to how they work or to their state of health. But Akira Yoshino is different. He's one of the pioneers of lithium-ion battery technology. DON'T MISS: Lithium-ion battery...
Mark Stevenson -
Musk confirms Tesla is designing its own computer chip for self-driving cars (update)
Early last year, with promises of self-driving cars in owners' hands well before any competitor, development of the Tesla Autopilot system for the maker's electric cars was proceeding nicely. Then, in May 2016, a dedicated Tesla owner was killed in a Florida crash when his Tesla Model S, operating...
John Voelcker -
What's a self-driving Chevy Bolt EV electric car like to ride in? Jerky, says one report
While such autonomous players as Uber, Tesla, and Waymo have already opened their car doors to the public, GM's autonomous subsidiary Cruise Automation has held its cards close to its vest. This past week, the Detroit-based automaker and Silicon Valley-based subsidiary allowed select members of the...
Mark Stevenson -
Commercial tests of self-driving Chevy Bolt EV to launch in many cities in 2019
General Motors officials made a bold announcement on a Thursday conference call with investors: the automaker plans to launch commercial autonomous fleet operations beginning in 2019. The Detroit-based automaker's vision for commercial, autonomous ride sharing will begin with self-driving Bolt EV...
Mark Stevenson -
One California company has a different idea to ensure self-driving cars earn their "training wheels," so to speak. Instead of deploying self-driving cars on public roads, California-based mobility company Ridecell wants to tackle private properties with electric self-driving shuttles. DON'T MISS: Self-driving Chevy Bolt EV electric test cars to be deployed The company recently acquired Auro, which built an autonomous shuttle used to transport students and faculty at Santa Clara University, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. The battery-electric shuttle has a top speed of 25 mph and a...
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The 2018 Nissan Leaf has three types of cruise control: how they differ
When the 2018 Nissan Leaf electric car arrives at dealerships early next year, it will offer fresh styling inside and out, more power, a 150-mile range, and an array of standard or optional active-safety features. It will come in Nissan's standard three trim levels—base S, mid-level SV, and...
John Voelcker -
Audi's self-driving e-tron electric concepts: Aicon (Level 5) and Elaine (Level 4) at Frankfurt
The 2017 Frankfurt Motor Showed offered a very specific ethos this year: electric and self-driving cars. Many automakers used the bright lights and gleaming stands to reveal their interpretation of a future with all-electric and driverless vehicles. Audi was not absent from the theme. DON'T MISS...
Sean Szymkowski -
Fatal Tesla Autopilot crash: 'system safeguards lacking,' says NTSB
The Florida crash that killed the driver of a Tesla Model S while that car was operating under Autopilot software reverberated far and wide in global media. While human drivers are imperfect, with reaction times limited by millions of years of evolution, they at least provide a focus for blame if...
John Voelcker -
Autonomous electric truck prototype can be controlled remotely
Swedish company Einride has officially unveiled the first full-scale prototype of its futuristic autonomous electric truck. First announced back in April, the T-pod is touted as being more than a simple self-driving electric truck—it’s pitched as an entirely “new transportation...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
Tesla Model 3: do design features point to self-driving car-sharing service?
The Tesla Model 3 continues to generate an inordinate amount of interest from electric-car advocates and the general public, as pretty much any Tesla model has in the past. But unlike the Model S in 2012, which broke new ground on multiple fronts, the lower-priced Model 3 appears to be less...
John Voelcker -
While Uber, Tesla, and Google are fighting over who will be first to deploy self-driving cars on a large scale, the Dutch underdogs at mobility startup Amber are planning a surprise move to overtake them all. If all goes according to plan, Amber’s self-driving cars will hit the streets of Dutch cities by mid-2018. Amber CEO Steven Nelemans made the announcement at the Hannover Messe, one of the world’s biggest industrial fairs, in April. It’s a bold plan indeed, but the influential automotive consultancy firm Roland Berger recently ranked The Netherlands number one in its...
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House approves bill to exempt self-driving cars from safety standards, overrule state laws
The United States House of Representatives has taken the first step towards allowing automakers and technology companies to deploy self-driving cars on public roads. A House panel passed a proposal that would allow automakers and other companies to deploy up to 100,000 self-driving vehicles...
Sean Szymkowski -
Tesla Hardware 2: so what functions work in Autopilot and what don't?
The expanded collection of sensors known as Hardware 2 continues to bring new and revamped features to the Tesla Model S and Model X electric cars. But how do the latest features offered by Autopilot stack up against those offered until last fall by the superseded Hardware 1 setup? One owner has...
Sean Szymkowski -
Latest teaser for 2018 Nissan Leaf shows ProPilot Assist self-driving capability
Nissan has begun to release a slow trickle of information about the 2018 Leaf electric car, but the latest teaser has nothing to do with its zero-emission powertrain. Instead, Nissan has revealed the 2018 Leaf will arrive with ProPilot Assist, the automaker's driver-assistance technology. The...
Sean Szymkowski -
Tesla gets new Autopilot head after just five months
Tesla's most recent Autopilot software head has left the company after just five months on the job. Chris Lattner, who had previously worked at Apple for more than a decade, joined Tesla in January as head software engineer overseeing development of the electric cars' Autopilot active-safety...
Sean Szymkowski -
Is the latest Tesla Autopilot 'smooth as silk' as Musk claims? Video shows results
Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised that the latest iteration of Autopilot would be the most refined variation of the software yet. In fact, the Tesla chief recently tweeted that the new Autopilot algorithm would be "smooth as silk." One owner, James Hansbert, recorded his experience after receiving the...
Sean Szymkowski