Hot Driverless Posts

News: Ford Announces Plan for $337.9 Million Autonomous Car R&D Center in Canada

The race for the future of the automative world has never been tighter, with reports earlier this week that Tesla is now almost as valuable as Ford. The neck-in-neck companies are focused on the same next big step for automobiles: the driverless car.

News: Drama Amongst the Driverless—Did Waymo Unnecessarily Drag Uber into Its Lawsuit?

It's no secret Uber has had a pretty rough year, in no small part to being sued by Google. But Google doesn't seem to have intended a full lawsuit against Uber from the get-go, as news today shows Waymo pushed for arbitration against their former employee last fall, months before the news broke that they were suing Uber.

News: 4 New Updates to Tesla's Autopilot

It's been an exciting week for Tesla. First, Elon Musk offered a preview of the nearly complete Model 3, then China tech giant Tencent invested $1.78 billion in the company. Now, Tesla has officially updated its Autopilot software today for Tesla owners with Autopilot 2.0 hardware.

News: Here's How Much Top Driverless Engineers Get Paid at Waymo & Uber

Autonomous vehicles, aka self-driving cars, are not yet available to the public (at least not ones SAE Level 3 and higher). However, this doesn't make the jobs any less in demand. In fact, if you meet the right qualifications, you could make a lot of money in this industry.

News: Otto Cofounder Claims Autonomous Trucks Will Be Taking Over Highways Within 10 Years

Any truck driver who breathed a sigh of relief when US Secretary of Commerce Steve Mnuchin recently stated that driverless cars "will not affect jobs in a meaningful way for roughly 50 to 100 years" can go back to being anxious about job security again.

Timeline: Uber's Terrible Year Just Keeps Getting Worse

Uber's driverless cabs began picking people up in Arizona in February, after its attempt at a pilot test in San Francisco. Now, one of these cars has been in an accident, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

News: Three Days After Major Crash, Uber's Self-Driving Cars Are Back on the Streets

Uber resumed its pilot program for driverless cars after one of its autonomous vehicles crashed in Tempe, Arizona last weekend.

News: Elon Musk Gives Preview of Nearly Complete Tesla Model 3

Just like a rapper engaged in tweet feud, Elon Musk was working overtime on Twitter this morning, dropping information about the upcoming Tesla Model 3. He even gave a sneak peek of the "release candidate" version of the car, sharing a brief clip of the car driving, which, let's be real, doesn't really tell us anything. Aside from the video, Musk also revealed the fun fact that the car gots its name after Ford sued Tesla for trying to name it the Model E, which would make the abbreviation of ...

News: Baidu's AI & Driverless Expert Resigns

Baidu's self-driving car unit has had a tough week. Today, the company's leading artificial intelligence (AI) expert, Andrew Ng, announced in an optimistic blog post that he would be leaving the Chinese search engine company to pursue AI research on his own.

News: GM Is Pushing Anticompetitive Legislation to Slow Uber & Waymo

Lately, the biggest news in driverless has been the raging lawsuit between two autonomous spearheads, Uber and Google's Waymo. A new bill back by General Motors, however, could take them both out of the race towards driverless.

News: Australia Is Becoming a Hotbed for Autonomous Innovations

Australia is looking to the future and finding driverless cars and other autonomous vehicles to be a top priority. Spacial Source reports that the state government has put AU$10 million into their Future Mobility Land Fund "to drive local development of autonomous vehicle technology."

News: 'Hackers-for-Hire' Attempted to Steal Baidu's Self-Driving Car Secrets

Baidu Inc, the "Chinese Google" search engine and technology company, which has been actively pursuing self-driving cars, reported that a gang of hackers recently attempted to steal its driverless car technology.

News: Uber's Autonomous Cars Require Driver Intervention Every Mile

Leaked documents from Uber, obtained by Re/code, detail the ride-hailing app's latest wins and failures in their self-driving experiment. The reports detail the number of autonomous miles traveled, the number of driver interventions needed, and the number of times the drivers had to avoid serious damage.

News: Elon Musk Says Tesla's Model 3 'Release Candidate' Prototypes Will Be Ready to Drive in 2 Weeks

According to Electrek, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in a covert conference call with a select few investors, commented in detail about his plan to have Tesla's Model 3 driving on the road earlier than we all expected.

News: Indian 'Driverless' Startups Like Swaayatt Are Daring to Navigate the World's Most Dangerous Roads

In Bhopal, India, a place nestled in between the royally pink city of Jaipur and the dry (i.e., alcohol forbidden) state of Gujarat, is a team of developers determined to make a fully driverless car suitable to the complexities of Indian traffic. An algorithm elaborate enough has yet to be made by any other company, but is the fundamental key to handling the intuitive habits of Indian drivers, the often intense and gridlocked traffic, and the country's vast expanse of jarring roads.

News: Level 3 Cars Could Be Required to Spy on Drivers

Both the US and UK seem to be leaning toward requiring level 3 autonomous cars to train their "eyes" not just on the outside world, but even on the driver itself.

News: Bosch to Use NVIDIA's New Xavier Chip to Help Automakers Reach Level 4

As Intel steps up their investment in driverless technology with a $15 billion acquisition of Mobileye, so have automotive supplier Bosch and NVIDIA teamed up to manufacturer driverless car systems with the much-awaited Xavier chip.

News: How Different Driverless Sensors See & Navigate the Road

The technology driving the automated vehicle revolution relies on the car's ability to see and understand the world around it.

News: Intel Steps Up to Driverless with $15 Billion Acquisition of Mobileye

In a race to make self-driven cars mainstream, Intel announced today that they've bought Israeli microchip technology company Mobileye for $15.3 billion, setting the stage for Intel to dominate a large portion of the driverless market.

News: NIO Shows Off World's Fastest Self-Driving Car at SXSW

This year's SXSW festival had a plethora of news and discussion about autonomous cars, but perhaps none was more exciting than the NIO EP9. The car was first shown off in November in London when it ran the Nürburgring Nordschleife track in record time.

News: Hino Motors Leads the Way to Japan's Planned 2020 Rollout of Commercial Truck Platooning

Japan is in the process of curbing its aging population and mature workforce. According to The Diplomat, the country's population has been declining at a steady rate. To meet future productivity demands in commercial and industrial sectors, local officials are turning to self-driving technology, including truck platooning, where three or five vehicles travel autonomously in a string formation. This practice, according to a study by MIT, can reduce fuel consumption by up to 20% (more about thi...

Video Analysis: New GM Cruise Self-Driving Video Shows More Mastery of SF Roads... This Time with PiP Proof

A couple weeks ago, GM's Cruise Automation released a remarkable self-driving video from the streets of San Fransisco that Driverless analyzed in detail. And now they've just released a new one giving more insight into their growing mastery of the complex roads in San Francisco, specifically, the Potrero Hill and Mission Dolores neighborhoods.

When Uber & Lyft Go Driverless: Why Transportation as a Service Means You Might Never Own a Car Again

The private automobile has been an intrinsic part of our lives for around a hundred years. But over the last decade, car sharing has gained a very small but growing part of the mobility market. The more recent rise of companies like Uber and Lyft is witness to a more dramatic shift in mobility and car ownership. Private vehicle ownership to a transportation-as-a-service model has already started, and high capability SAE Level 4 vehicles will complete this trend.

News: 2016 Disengagement Reports Show Waymo Absolutely Crushing the Competition on Every Single Metric

Disengagement report numbers for self-driving car testing in 2016 on public roads in California were just released, and the biggest point we can make about them is that Waymo is very far ahead of their competitors in almost every metric.

News: Boston Dynamics' Latest Nightmare Robot 'Handle' Is Humanoid with Wheels for Feet

Today, at Abundance 360, an exclusive event for tech entrepreneurs in Beverly Hills, California, Boston Dynamics unveiled a video of "Handle," a humanoid-like robot with wheels instead of feet.

News: Scandalous Details About Chris Urmson's Secretive Aurora Project Leak from Tesla Lawsuit

It looks like Chris Urmson has spent the six months since he left Google's Self Driving Car Project trying to build a get-rich-quick self-driving unicorn, along with Sterling Anderson, formerly with Tesla Motors. At least that is one of several scandalous accusations in a Tesla lawsuit aimed at the pair, and their secretive startup Aurora Innovation, LLC.

Video Breakdown: GM's Unicorn, Cruise, Shows Off Level 4 Skills in SF—Passing Uber & (Maybe) Waymo

General Motors acquired Cruise Automation in March 2016 for a reported $1 billion (well, at least $581 million). GM President Dan Ammann made a point of being in the press release photograph with Cruise founders Kyle Vogt and Daniel Kan (see photo below). On January 19, 2017, Vogt posted on Twitter: "Took GM Pres. Dan Ammann for a ride in a Cruise AV."

AutonomouStuff: How a Small Company Punching Above Its Weight Is Accelerating Driverless Car Development

Ask anyone that works on the development of driverless vehicle technology and there is a very good chance that AutonomouStuff will have supplied something to their project.

News: Quanergy's New $250 Solid-State LiDAR Could Bring Self-Driving to the Masses

One of the big hurdles when equipping vehicles with sensors for autonomous driving is the cost. For example, the Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors that power many versions of self-driving car technology are pricey, currently ranging from around several thousand dollars up to $85,000 per sensor—and vehicles often need multiple sensors to see enough of what is going on around them to drive safely.

News: Honda Is Breaking an Unspoken Automaker Rule by Partnering with Waymo

Google's former Self-Driving Car project, now graduated from Alphabet's X division as Waymo, has found a collaborator and potential new partner in Honda. This is an interesting turn of events given traditional automakers' reluctance to work with driverless-car startups over the years.

News: Driverless Vehicles Are Really Coming—If You're Getting a New Car, Read This First

When the time comes to replace your car, you most likely have a checklist of criteria that you would like on the new one. Your car is possibly the most expensive possession you have—or the second-most expensive, after your home—so you want to make sure that you are not only getting what you want, but that you are getting the best deal possible.

News: Google's New Self-Driving Car Spinout Waymo Debuts Their Fleet of 100 Chrysler Pacificas

Last week it was announced that Waymo, the former Google Self-Driving Car project, had graduated from Alphabet's X innovation center. This graduation had been in the cards for many months with senior members of the project team and X hinting that it would be soon.

News: Driverless, Autonomous, Self-Driving… Naming a Baby Is Easier Than Naming New Car Tech

Many new parents will tell you how hard it is to name a baby. Some have stories of how they knew what the name of their child would be from before conception, only to change their mind when they were born. Sometimes new babies can go weeks without a name since there is an endless selection to choose from.

News: 'Google's' Self-Driving Car Just Graduated—Welcome to Waymo

Earlier today, Alphabet announced that the Self-Driving Car Project has officially graduated from their innovation factory (X) and will now operate as an independent company called Waymo.

News: Google's Self-Driving Car Job Postings Hint at Big Things Coming

Alphabet's moonshot factory, X (formerly "Google X"), is a secretive place, but it seems that when they are close to graduating a project, then they need to staff it up quickly. Watching for these job ads is one easy way to know they're close to budding off a baby.

News: Google's Self-Driving Car Is Here & You've Gotta See This Thing in Action

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past five years, you've at least heard murmurs of Google's self-driving car, with Big G even getting California and Nevada to sign off on legislation to allow these motorist-less vehicles on the road. But now, Google is showing off their in-house manufactured vehicle, as opposed to the Prius' that doned their hardware in the past. And it's...well, it's something.