Driverless Features
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.
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.
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: Uber Finally Turns Against Levandowski to Save Its Own Skin
Uber's legal team may have finally sold their engineering golden boy down the river as their war with Waymo continues. Anthony Levandowski isn't your average sacrificial lamb either — given the alleged stealing and all that — but Uber seems set on distancing themselves from this whole fiasco as fast as they can.
News: Faraday Has Little Luck Filling Empty Engineer Slots, Left with Gutted Driverless Program
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.
News: Q&A with Senior Director Danny Shapiro: How Nvidia Is Working with Over 225 Different Driverless Customers
Nvidia's decades-long development of graphics processor units (GPU) for PCs has given it a major leg up in the driverless space.
News: Intel Hunts for Partners After Driverless Garage Launch
Intel launched their Advanced Vehicle Lab in Silicon Valley this week, and the tech giant is now on the hunt for potential partners.
News: Continental to Supply Driverless Tech to Startup NIO in China
Driverless partnerships continue to appear as Continental AG, leading German automotive manufacturing company, has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with global electric startup, NIO. The goal of this partnership is to research, share, and develop autonomous technology, among other developments.
News: Uber CEO Travis Kalanick Is Out Amid Turmoil
Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick is taking an indefinite leave of absence from the company, as Uber's recent upheaval has far overshadowed any developments in its driverless initiative during the past few days.
News: Nissan to Offer Driverless in Europe with SUV Launches
Nissan began to offer Level 2 driving capacities in a mainstream model when it debuted its ProPilot self-drive option for its Serena minivan in Japan last year.
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.
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: 'Pilotless' Commercial Ship to Set Sail by 2020
A Norwegian shipping company says it will launch an unmanned container ship within four years, as the shipping industry begins to apply driverless technology to commercial sea transportation.
Today's Top News: Baidu Reportedly Thinks It Can Lead the World in Driverless by 2020
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.
News: Analyst Says Apple Can Take Driverless Lead from Tesla
Apple CEO Tim Cook's June 5 announcement that the company is developing autonomous software should have some companies rattled. At least, Morgan Stanley thinks Tesla should be.
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: Uber Facing Criminal Probe, Maybe Much Worse
Uber's year is going from bad to worse, and they may be subject to a potential criminal probe in the ongoing Waymo legal battle.
Today's Top News: Unions Wise Up to Commercial Trucks
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.
Today's Top News: Automakers Put Driverless Through the Paces with Searing Heat & Chaotic Conditions
Many wonder how driverless cars will ever be able to navigate through any driving condition imaginable — but the point is self-taught machines, in theory, have the innate ability to adapt to chaotic and extreme driving conditions in ways far superior to what humans are capable of.
Today's Top News: Forget Volvo — VW Aims to Take Out Tesla with Worldwide EV & Driverless Rollout
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.
Today's Top News: Audi Slaps Silicon Valley with the First Level 3 Debut
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.
News: Uber's Next Big Step Is Convincing You to Fly
Uber wants you to forget about cars and start thinking about fully autonomous flying as an alternative—a more "economically favorable" way of getting to your grinding nine-to-five.
News: Life Becomes More Difficult for Driverless Hackers
The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), a leading IT trade association, has published its first report on risks and recommendations for connected-vehicle security, ahead of when driverless cars are about to see volume production in the near future.
News: Nissan & Renault Alliance Prepares Launch of Driverless 'Robo-Vehicles'
A spokesperson from the Nissan and Renault Alliance told Driverless the group is testing self-driving electric "robo-vehicles" for future mobility services and is "not ruling out anything" for future services the group might offer, as the alliance widens its driverless business model to include both fleets and private sales.
News: Toyota Puts Blockchain to the Test for Data Security
Toyota is testing blockchain and distributed ledger technology (BC/DL) for data sharing for driverless cars and other applications. This could eventually reassure buyers of its upcoming high-end cars by making sure their sensitive data is secure.
News: Uber's Driverless Car Program Executive Quits as Court Case Rages On
Uber's driverless car program lead has quit after just one year working for the ride-hailing company.
Forget Waymo or Uber: New Navigant Research Leaderboard Declares Ford the New King of Driverless
When we talk about driverless technology, the go-to companies are usually Waymo, Uber, or Tesla. However, traditional automakers like Ford and GM are also staking claims to the driverless and advanced driver assistance spaces.
It's Official: CEO Cook Confirms Apple Is Developing Driverless Software
Apple is working on autonomous systems for vehicles, which could then be implemented with the help of car manufacturers.
News: Baidu Announces Apollo Platform to Speed Up Development of Driverless Cars
Chinese search engine giant, Baidu, has just announced its own autonomous car platform which is intended to speed up the development of driverless vehicles.
News: BMW Stealthily Tries to Recruit 2,000 Driverless Engineers
BMW seeks to hire 2,000 engineers for its driverless program ahead of the launch of its iNext Level 3 model in 2021, a source close to the company told Driverless.
News: Chinese VCs Spent Over $900 Million on Driverless in Q1
Millions of dollars continue to pour into the Chinese driverless market. Now, according to research firm CB Insights, $929 million have been invested in the first quarter of this year.
News: Waymo Claims Former Uber CEO Kalanick Knew About Stolen Documents as More Case Details Unfold
Waymo claims in court documents filed yesterday in its lawsuit against Uber that ex-Uber CEO Travis Kalanick knew that former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski was in the possession of stolen documents while employed at the troubled ride-sharing firm.
News: Silicon Valley Big Shots Courted by Ford & GM
The driverless competition is heating up as Detroit automakers attempt to woo tech talent away from some of Silicon Valley's biggest players.
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: Udacity—The School for Robo-Cars—Just Spun-Off Its First Driverless Startup
Udacity, the online education startup that set out to train a school of self-driving car engineers, is now spinning off into its own autonomous tech company called Voyage.
News: Take Me to the Ballgame — in a Driverless Shuttle
Driverless transportation is definitely coming closer to the mainstream, but most companies developing the technology have said it will be another couple of years before we see autonomous vehicles being used as an alternative for typical transportation.
News: Partnership with nuTonomy Expands Lyft's Asian Footprint
Uber's struggles are expected help Lyft get ahead in driverless development as it confirms its third partnership with autonomous tech company nuTonomy today.
News: Uber Admits to Finding Stolen Waymo Document on Employee Device
In a twist in the tumultuous lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, Uber revealed today that they found a document on an employee device, allegedly stolen from Waymo.
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: One Step Closer to the Mainstream: Delphi and Transdev to Develop Driverless Cars
Delphi Automotive PLC has announced it is partnering with Transdev Group to develop on-demand driverless transportation systems, a deal that shows promise for autonomous development on a global scale.