Driverless Features


News: Argo AI's First Driverless Car Is Spied in Pittsburgh
Argo AI is coming late to the party, but has begun testing a fleet of driverless cars in hopes of developing robo-taxi services to eventually compete against those that Waymo, Uber, Cruise Automation, and others plan to offer.

Today's Top News: BMW, GM, Toyota Invest $114 Million in Camera Startup as the VC Spending Tap Gushes
Nauto, which develops driver-monitor cameras and algorithms for autonomous vehicles, is among a growing list of driverless startups able to attract tens of millions of dollars in funding after raising $159 million in its latest round of financing.

Today's Top News: Tesla Could Be Stretching Itself Thin by Chasing the Driverless Truck
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.

Today's Top News: BMW Slashes Combustion Engine Costs by 1 Billion Euros in Auto Industry Shift to Driverless & EVs
The auto industry continues to shift into high gear to lay the groundwork for driverless cars with an electric vehicle (EV) emphasis.

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.

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.

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: So Long, Bird Poop! Waymo's Plans for Dirty LiDARs Revealed
Waymo has done a lot of things over the course of their driverless journey, but their solution to little birdies pooping all over a self-driving car's LiDAR system is definitely our favorite.

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: Former Google Self-Driving Car Boss Receives Funds for New Project
Google's former driverless car boss Chris Urmson raised considerable funds to get his new startup company Aurora Innovation up and running. Axios initially reported that Urmson raised over $3 million to fund his brainchild in the wake of his Alphabet exit, according to an SEC filing.

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.

Today's Top News: Lyft, Faraday Recruit Top Brass, but Finding Driverless Engineers Remains a Struggle
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.

News: Tesla Seeks Deep-Dive Research Lead with Autopilot Firing & Hiring
Tesla hopes high-level personnel changes will help it gain an edge in neural network knowhow for its models' self-drive features, following the replacement of its Autopilot chief and the appointment of a recent Stanford grad to head its AI and Autopilot vision research.

News: Survey Finds the Obvious, Says Safety Top Concern of Potential Flying Car Owners
It seems like everyone wants to be flying without wings these days, and some big players in the autonomous car industry want a piece of that airborne action. Google co-founder Larry Page just invested in flying car startup Kitty Hawk, while Uber is adamant that its own-brand of flying vehicles will be zooming around the US come 2020.

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: Mobileye Calling the Shots from Israel After Intel Acquisition
Intel's driverless division will be managed by Israel-based Mobileye, as the chip giant emerges from relative obscurity in the driverless space to become a major supplier after completing its $15.3-billion purchase of Mobileye this week.

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.

Exclusive: Uber Driver Goes Full Driverless, Terrifying NYC Passenger
Well, well, well. Uber, we knew you were investing a ton of money into creating self-driving taxis and flying cars, but what we didn't know is that you were already testing out your driverless vehicles on the streets of New York City.

Today's Top News: Hyundai Rushes to Offer Level 2, but After GM Launch
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.

News: Velodyne Joins the Cheap Solid-State LiDAR Game with the Velarray Sensor
Velodyne wants to set the standard for the driverless industry when it comes to LiDAR. To do that, the Silicon Valley-based team just announced its next step — create a low-cost, fixed-laser sensor that can be embedded into a wide range of automotive and autonomous vehicles. That next step is named the Velarray. A sturdy, compact, and affordable LiDAR laser.

News: Can Volvo Deliver Level 4 by 2021?
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.

News: Waymo's Move to Trucks Should Be a Smooth Ride
Waymo's transfer of its driverless car know-how to commercial trucks will likely pose few challenges for the self-driving unit of Alphabet, which owns Google.

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: A 22-Year-Old May Be About to Disrupt the Entire LiDAR Industry
Uber has been in the hot seat for awhile now, for many reasons, especially for being sued by Waymo over stolen LiDAR designs. But now, perhaps the attention will be taken off both Uber and Waymo as a new contender enters the LiDAR arena; A small, independent company called Luminar has finally let the world in on what it has been cooking up.

News: Who the Heck Is NOT Using Nvidia?
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.

News: Why You're Probably Always Going to See Those Ugly Dome-Shaped LiDARs on Driverless Fleet Cars
The large, dome-shaped LiDARs that have become a fixture on driverless car prototypes are expensive and notably ugly. And yet, these unsightly devices should remain planted on driverless cars, even when they become available in commercial fleet services across the country in a couple of years.

News: Head of FedEx Freight Wants Laws to Make Truck Drivers More Like Pilots
We've heard a lot about self-driving taxis, as car and ride-sharing companies compete to win the driverless gold rush. But FedEx wants to bring its enterprise into the mix, as the head of its freight division has asked the US government to develop laws for self-driving trucks.

Today's Top News: Tesla Jumps Aheads with a Truly 'Silk Smooth' Autopilot Update
Some drivers give Tesla's Autopilot update released this week rave reviews, after version 8.1 has taken longer than expected to live up to Elon Musk's "smooth as silk" Tweet from earlier this year.

News: And Suddenly, Tesla Becomes a $5.9 Billion Car Brand with 32% Jump in Value
Demand for Tesla's driverless features as well as its ultra-long battery ranges and a reputation for offering the best-in-class electric car driving experience helped Tesla see a 32% surge in its value as a brand, topping out at $5.9 billion in the BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study, released June 5.

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: Waymo Kills Much-Hyped 'Fireflies' in Shift Away from Designing Own Cars
Waymo revealed more clues about its future business model after it said yesterday it plans to kill its Firefly pod-like car project and focus more closely on offering driverless systems for commercially available car and truck models.

News: Quanergy CEO & Founder Louay Eldada on Early LiDAR Development & the Driverless Revolution
Quanergy CEO and founder Louay Eldada is, by any standard of measure, a pioneer in the development of LiDARs for driverless vehicles.

News: A Fatal Airbus Crash Paints an Ugly Picture for the Future of Level 3 Cars
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.

News: Tesla Says New Autopilot Is Now as Good as Old One
Tesla says the new version of Autopilot is now as good as the previous one, after having completed over-the-air updates of the driverless software during the past few days.

News: Ford Pins Its Survival on Driverless with Its New CEO Appointment
Ford's appointment of Jim Hackett as its new president and CEO reflects how the company is largely pinning its long-term survival hopes on its driverless business. Following his previous role as head of Ford's Smart Mobility division, which overseas Ford's autonomous driving activity, Hackett will help the company take a more self-driving direction as a whole.

Today's Top News: CEO Arrested After Baidu Pulls Crazy Stunt to Show China's Still in the Driverless Race
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.

News: Valeo R&D VP Guillaume Devauchelle on Why Waymo Can't Go It Alone
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.

News: The Audi A8 Is Smart Enough to Read & React to Signposts
The Audi A8 may be short on the wow factor as the industry's first Level 3 car, but Audi has revealed some interesting details about one stand-out feature underneath the hood: the car's ability to self-pilot itself at stop signs and lights.

Today's Top News: Tesla Discretely Preps Autopilot Gearshift for Level 4 Before Everybody Else
Tesla's Autopilot self-drive interface in its new Model 3 signals the carmaker is already prepping its cars for Level 4 driving years ahead of the competition.

Today's Top News: Lyft Is Going to Keep the Dude in the Car
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.