The Latest on Driverless

Newly appointed Ford Motor CEO Jim Hackett admitted yesterday that demand for driverless transportation could take many different forms and that Ford was rethinking how it would tailor its cars and mobility services for self-drive modes of transportation in the future.

Google largely helped to pioneer the concept of a steering wheel- and pedal-free self-driving experience when it began testing its Firefly pod-like vehicles a few years ago.

Former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski's scathing accusations challenging the physics behind Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk's claims about Autopilot should force Musk to make his case that self-drive cars don't need LiDAR in the next few months.

A top executive from Baidu's telematics division believes the company will become the word leader in driverless by 2020, according to a report in today's South China Morning Post.

Ride-sharing firm Lyft says it will continue to rely on drivers in the near and long term even as it replaces them with driverless cars, Taggart Matthiesen, Lyft's director of product, said during a Podcast with Recode.

Cruise Automation, the driverless car startup General Motors (GM) bought for $1 billion in 2016, is readying a formidable fleet of robo-taxis for rollout in cities throughout the US. But when it comes to details about how the company plans to realize these lofty goals, it's been fairly tight-lipped.

Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk has repeatedly said this year all Tesla models made since October 2016 have the requisite hardware for "full self-driving" capabilities, yet the company has reportedly begun to add a second graphics processor (GPU) to its computer platform for Autopilot — without officially saying why.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is launching the world's most powerful rocket. The Tesla founder and CEO says the company is about to go through "manufacturing hell" to make delivery schedules for its new Tesla 3. Somehow, Musk says Tesla will offer Level 5 driving (so you can take a nap while your car drives you to and from work) within two years.

Cruise Automation follows Waymo's and Uber's lead with its debut of a beta version of an app-based driverless ride-hailing service for its employees in San Francisco, ahead of a possible launch of a full-fledged commercial offering within four years.

Recently released accident reports by the state of California's Department of Motor Vehicles show humans did a lot of dumb things to cause accidents with General Motors' (GM) Cruise Automation driverless vehicles in San Francisco this year.

General Motors (GM) seems to have gone to great lengths to avoid lawsuits as it launches its first hands-off driving system in its soon-to-be-launched Cadillac CT6.

The fatal crash of Air France Flight 447 is one of the most tragic accidents in avionic history — while it also serves as a stark reminder of what can go wrong when humans rely too much on driverless vehicles.

The ride-sharing firm Lyft and Faraday Future, a troubled electric carmaker and potential Tesla competitor, have quietly appointed new top executives, but like the rest of the industry, they struggle to find talent for their driverless programs.

Nissan has confirmed reports that the Nissan Leaf's Propilot option will go on sale in the US in September, but when it does, don't expect it to compete against the Tesla Model 3's driverless features.

Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk said during the Model 3 launch party Friday night that all Tesla cars in production have the same driverless hardware, signaling that Tesla's jump to Level 4 hinges on a software update — but Musk didn't exactly say that.

The AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Division, which represents 32 unions in the US, has successfully lobbied for the removal of 10,000-lb. and heavier commercial trucks from provisions in bills expected to pass that could allow for millions of driverless vehicles on public roads and streets, Bloomberg News reported.

Faraday Future's all-electric super sports car concept attracted a lot of attention at CES earlier this year, but now it is struggling to replace key driverless engineers and program directors who left the company amid its recent financial troubles.

All eyes will be on Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk tonight to see if he is reveals details about the status of Tesla's challenged Autopilot at tonight's official Model 3 launch party.

The status of Uber's driverless program remains a big unknown amid the company's recent woes, but a reported multibillion-dollar shot in the arm by Japanese tech giant Softbank could change all that.

There has been a lot of comings and goings among senior engineers and research staff at a handful of companies with the pretensions of offering the technology that will underpin the driverless revolution.

Long before Nvidia figured out how to embed neural networks in its graphics processor units (GPUs) for driverless vehicles, it and other chipmakers were already making the same kinds of devices for 3D games and other apps.

Lyft officially laid its stake in the ground to develop driverless fleets following its Friday announcement, but how fast it is catching up to ride-hailing competitor Uber's driverless initiative remains to be seen.

Research group OpenAI, a research institute co-founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, says it is possible to trick driverless cars' neural networks into mistaking images for something else.

Nvidia's decades-long development of graphics processor units (GPU) for PCs has given it a major leg up in the driverless space.

Nvidia has emerged as the indisputable leader in chips for Level 3 and even more advanced driverless applications, catching some of the world's largest semiconductor makers and automotive suppliers by surprise.

Self-driving car models and fleets get most of the media attention, but it is the suppliers that design and make the technologies underpinning the driverless revolution, says Guillaume Devauchelle, the vice president of innovation and scientific development for leading tier-one supplier Valeo.

Hyundai Motor Company says it will launch its driverless tech ahead of schedule, but the Korean carmaker will remain behind mainstream rivals, including General Motors (GM), Nissan, and Honda.

The launch of the Audi A8 marks the world's first Level 3 car on offer in retail channels, except there is one catch: it can only take full control of driving at speeds of 37.3 mph or less.

Data for mapping and other applications is the lifeblood of machine-driven cars, and so far, Tesla has taken a definitive lead in information it has gathered ahead of other driverless players, including Waymo.

Waymo and Lyft have remained highly secretive about their driverless car programs, but may be forced to reveal a lot about their plans after a judge in a US federal court granted Uber's request to review documents about Waymo and Lyft's partnership.

Forget Waymo, Uber, Tesla, and other other heavily mediatized driverless contenders — German premium carmaker Audi AG has become the first OEM to introduce a Level 3 car sold in retail channels.

Volvo Cars' "all-electric" announcement last week was seen as a direct threat to Tesla's electric vehicle (EV) and driverless lead, but German auto giant Volkswagen (VW) says it is in a better position to challenge Tesla.

A vulnerability in the design of LiDAR components in driverless cars is far worse than anything we've seen yet outside of the CAN bus sphere — with a potentially deadly consequence if exploited.

China's Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of Google, live streamed a video yesterday of CEO Robin Li riding a self-drive vehicle along the streets and highways of Beijing.

Volvo Cars' claims it will offer Level 4 models by 2021 means the premium carmaker will likely have to finalize the driverless design to meet the aggressive timeline by next year at the latest.

The automotive industry is traditionally very conservative, so when a carmaker says it will launch a particular model or feature by a certain date, it means a lot.