California’s DMV has granted the state’s first Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Permit to Nuro, which will begin operating a commercial autonomous vehicle service in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties soon, using Toyota Prius cars. Its courier vehicle R2 will be used later.

Show full article

Walmart will begin using fully driverless trucks in Arkansas in 2021. Gatik’s multi-temperature autonomous box trucks will move customer orders on a 2-mile route in Bentonville.

Show full article

General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit says it will pull the human backup drivers from its vehicles in San Francisco by the end of 2020, based on a permit from California’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

Show full article

With the unveiling of its latest autonomous test vehicle, the Escape SUV, Ford believes it’s one step closer to offering a commercial self-driving car service in 2022. Ford plans to start field testing the vehicle this month in Austin, Detroit, Miami, Palo Alto, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. , joining its fleet of about 100 other test vehicles.

Show full article

The Norwegian city of Trondheim is pioneering a zero-emissions, self-driving electric ferry in 2021. The ferry works like an elevator. Passengers on each side of the canal that separates the port and city center can press a button to call the boat to their side. The boat handles 12 passengers and bicycles, taking less than a minute to cross and saving pedestrians a 15-minute walk.

Show full article

Waymo will soon expand its driverless, 3-400 vehicle ride hailing service from the several hundred “early riders” to anyone in Phoenix, Arizona who happens to want a ride through its Waymo One app.

Show full article

FedEx is partnering with Reliable Robotics to incorporate the firm’s unmanned aircraft into its delivery fleet. Reliable Robotics, an aviation startup run by former Tesla and SpaceX engineers, completed test flights for two of its remote-piloted aircraft models in August, 2020.

Show full article

The Google subsidiary, Waymo, is road testing a driverless fleet of 13 Peterbilt 18-wheelers complete with cameras, lidar, and on-board computers. The trucks will always have a safety driver onboard.

Show full article

Xwing has performed numerous passenger-carrying autonomous take-off to landing flights in its modified Cessna 208B Grand Caravan, a first in aviation with this category of aircraft. The company targets regional passenger and cargo operations within a 500 mile range.

Show full article

TuSimple and several big name partners, including UPS and Penske, have plans for an autonomous freight network of self-driving trucks throughout the US with digitally mapped routes, terminals, and a central operations system to monitor the lot. The trucks will have a human in the cab (for now). 

Show full article

Moving goods by water could reduce pressure on roads and cut emissions, yet Europe’s shipping industry is held back by labour shortages. Automated shipping, working like autonomous cars, is an option once safety and regulatory hurdles are overcome. The project AUTOSHIP has two tests: a carrier that delivers fish feed along the west coast of Norway, and an inland cargo barge operating in Flanders.

Show full article

Uber’s self-driving cars are back on San Francisco’s streets in full autonomous mode after a two-year hiatus, after one of the company’s cars was involved in a fatal accident in Arizona in 2018. Uber will start with 2 Volvo XC90 self-driving cars, each with a safety driver in the front seat, driving on select public streets during daylight hours without passengers.

Show full article

The US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has provided a 2-year exemption to allow Nuro, based in Silicon Valley, to deploy its low-speed, occupantless electric delivery vehicle. Nuro will launch up to 5,ooo of its pint-sized, battery-powered vans for last-mile urban delivery.

Show full article

A specially modified 2017 electric Nissan LEAF travelled autonomouslyfrom the car firm’s base in Cranfield, Bedfordshire, UK, to the brand’s manufacturing plant in Sunderland – self-navigating itself 370km without attracting attention from passing motorists. It tackled country lanes with no or minimal road markings, junctions, roundabouts and motorways.

Show full article

Since May 2018, Lyft has partnered with Dublin, Ireland-based Aptiv (formerly Delphi) to launch a fleet of autonomous vehicles on Lyft’s ride-sharing network in Las Vegas on an opt-in basis. They’ve now passed 100,000 driverless rides with 98% of customers leaving a five-star rating. The cars now service over 3,400 destinations in the Las Vegas area.

Show full article

A 57-page report including current industry attitudes, the top 3 companies, ethical and legal issues, communication and connectivity technologies, home delivery, and impact on car ownership. Sectors affected include shipping and logistics, energy, agriculture, transportation, construction, and infrastructure.

Show full article

UPS is working with autonomous trucking San Francisco startup TuSimple on a pilot project delivering supply-chain cargo along a 115-mile stretch between Tucscon and Phoenix, Arizona using self-driving trucks with a safety driver and engineer, who likely will be needed until late 2020. TuSimple installs 9 cameras and 2 LIDAR sensors in Navistar trucks.

Show full article

The 10 million miles Waymo’s self-driving vehicles have driven in the real world is dwarfed by the 10 billion virtual miles in simulations of multiple real driving scenarios. Thus its self-driving technology learns without the risk of causing road traffic accidents.

Show full article

As the comfort and safety of driverless cars become more accepted, a research study showed how people will choose them to replace air travel – or to cut out layovers.

Show full article

The Vera autonomous, electric truck from Volvo’s trucking subsidiary is totally self-driving. Its inaugural job: Moving goods packed in cargo trailers from a logistics center to a port terminal in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Show full article

Airbus has the technology to fly passenger planes without pilots at all – and is working on winning over regulators and travelers to the idea. Airbus hopes to be selling hybrid or electric passenger jets by around 2035.

Show full article

18-wheeler self-driving trucks built by startup TuSimple will haul trailers full of mail and packages for a USPS test with a certified driver and safety engineer aboard. The pilot project will last two weeks and include five round trips between Phoenix and Dallas distribution hubs. The USPS is working with the University of Michigan on a self-driving truck to handle rural routes.

Show full article

Panasonic is preparing for a future where autonomous and electric cars upend the auto industry, and most cars are sold to ride-sharing companies like Uber or Lyft, who are already placing large orders with the same specifications. Car ownership is reducing substantially amongst millennials, especially those living in cities. Costs are being reduced by integrating more components into a single module.

Show full article

Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and Volvo Buses have launched a driverless electric bus stretching 12 metres long that can accommodate 80 passengers.

Show full article

LG Uplus and Hanyang University have successfully trialled their 5G-connected autonomous vehicle, which rode on the streets of Seoul alongside regular cars. The vehicle rode through roads with heavy traffic, driving 8 km in 25 minutes, while changing lanes and reacting to cars cutting through traffic.

Show full article

Finnish vehicle manufacturer Sensible 4 has developed, Gacha, the first autonomous minibus that can navigate both city streets and small, unmarked suburban roads under all imaginable weather and lighting conditions.

Show full article

A description of what it’s like to drive in an autonomous car with the Waymo User Interface.

Show full article

The company behind Walmart’s giant self-service kiosks has developed a self-driving car that delivers packages to homes and businesses. The car uses a robotic arm to place the packages in pickup lockers outside homes and businesses. Eventually, it will be able to deliver to mailboxes and pickup towers as well.

Show full article

2017 worldwide sales of plug-in electric vehicles were 1,227,117 with U.S. sales of 199,826 (+26% over 2016). For Jan-Nov 2018, U.S. sales were 312,877 (+80%).

Show full article

Major mining corporation Rio Tinto’s autonomous train system in Western Australia has logged >1 million km since July 2018. Trains serve 14 mines, delivering to 4 port terminals, and remotely monitored from Perth. The system reduces the number of stops to change drivers, and runs 6% faster.

Show full article

Waymo is planning to launch the world’s first commercial driverless car service in early December, operating under a new brand, and competing directly with Uber and Lyft. It will start small—perhaps dozens of authorized riders in the suburbs around Phoenix, covering about 100 square miles. Waymo cars have driven 10 million miles since 2009, with manual intervention only required after about 5,000 miles.

Show full article

Ford’s driverless rides could be less than half the price of today’s ride-share journeys, if the cars were used day and night and carried interactive adverts. They are talking about launching tens of thousands vehicles, profitably. Their autonomous-vehicle service will involve fleet management software, dispatch, routing, and payment systems; a diverse group of delivery customers; and digital content and services for passengers – likely involving commercial sponsorship and in-car advertising.

Show full article

KT Corp. is using 5G technology to bring autonomous buses to South Korea’s Incheon International Airport. During the test, the self-driving bus was able to slow down at traffic lights and change lanes on its own, while driving 2.2 kilometers at 30 kph.

Show full article

Six autonomous trucks will transport limestone the five-kilometer (three-mile) route through tunnels between a mine owned by a local firm and a processing facility at a nearby port.

Show full article

The Swedish trucking start-up, Einride, is running its all-electric, cab-less truck on a commercial route – moving pallets of goods between warehouses. The absence of a cab means weight-saving, a more aerodynamic design, and more room for batteries.

Show full article

Alphabet’s self-driving car company Waymo’s autonomous vehicles have driven 10 million miles in 25 U.S. cities, and 7 billion miles in simulation of challenging situations. It will shortly launch a commercial ride-hailing service with fleets of self-driving vehicles.

Show full article

Rolls-Royce’s Intelligent Awareness System will serve as the ‘eyes and ears’ of shipping vessels, which can detect objects several kilometers away. Some, but not all, vessel classes, such as tug boats and some ferries, could be controlled by land-based crews.

Show full article

Waymo is the first company in California allowed to test <40 fully-autonomous cars to drive both day and night on city streets, rural highways and highways with posted speeds up to 65 mph. Show full article

Volvo Trucks has built a new all-electric and autonomous truck without a cab called Vera, primarily for urban transport.

Show full article

A start-up, ‘WiTricity’, will use magnetic resonance to wirelessly charge autonomous vehicles. Electricity is fed into a copper coil on the ground, creating a magnetic field. A 2nd copper coil under the vehicle creates electricity, when it comes within range of the 1st coil, which is used to charge the car’s battery pack.

Show full article

The world’s first autonomous tram, 65-feet-long, was developed by Siemens and launched in Potsdam, west of Berlin. Fitted with multiple radar, lidar (light from a laser), and camera sensors, forming digital eyes that film the tram and its surroundings, the tram reacts to trackside signals and can respond to hazards faster than a human.

Show full article

In San Jose, California, you can now get groceries delivered by a self-driving car from the start-up AutoX. Currently, there is a backup driver inside. The order is in the trunk, with extra food to buy in the backseat.

Show full article

Self-driving shuttles begin service June 27, 2018 in downtown Detroit, carrying Bedrock employees among the company’s offices, parking lots and other destinations. It’s the first commercial use of self-driving shuttles on public streets in the United States, according to May Mobility and Bedrock. The five six-seat electric shuttles will have human attendants to monitor the vehicles and explain the service to passengers.

Show full article

Waymo is partnering with the Phoenix area’s regional public transportation authority, to explore mobility solutions that use self-driving technology to connect travelers with existing buses and light rail.

Show full article

Einride, a Swedish start-up has unveiled an all-electric, driverless logging truck. Logging has the single highest industry fatality rate in America, and is one of the most dangerous industries internationally. The logging truck prototype has a range of about 120 miles on one charge, and can travel about 50 mph fully loaded.

Show full article

Rolls-Royce plans to create an ‘electric vertical take-off and landing’ flying taxi that could carry 4-5 passengers at speeds up to 250 mph for about 500 miles.

Show full article

Autonomous car company Nuro has created a diminutive ‘bot that drives itself to deliver groceries to people’s homes – and it will avoid collisions with pedestrians even if that mean harming itself.

Show full article

Kroger is partnering with autonomous car company Nuro to introduce driverless cars to its grocery delivery. – one of several investments in expanding its digital and online delivery business. ‘Last mile delivery’ is one of the hardest feats in the delivery of fresh food.

Show full article

Self-driving shuttles begin service June 27, 2018 in downtown Detroit, carrying Bedrock employees among the company’s offices, parking lots and other destinations. It’s the first commercial use of self-driving shuttles on public streets in the United States, according to May Mobility and Bedrock. The five six-seat electric shuttles will have human attendants to monitor the vehicles and explain the service to passengers.

Show full article

Virtual Reality (VR) is changing travel. There are 360-degree cameras, capturing absolutely everything, and producing photos and videos that a visitor can immerse themselves in. VR helps consumers ‘try before you buy.’ Destinations compete with resorts and other destinations that are providing potential customers with in-depth, immersive looks into what it’s like to stay there.

Show full article

On Wednesday, Target rolled out augmented reality (AR) and digital chat services to help customers more easily shop for cosmetics online and in stores. customers can virtually try on hundreds of makeup items, including lipstick, blush, and false lashes. This mirrors services offered by beayty giant Sephora.

Show full article

Waymo is adding up to 62,000 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans to its self-driving fleet, and its self-driving technology may be added to all Fiat Chrysler cars.

Show full article

Two driverless street sweepers are being used in an industrial park in Shanghai, cleaning the park in less than 20 minutes, They use radar sensors and AI to avoid obstacles, pass through traffic lights and park at designated spots.

Show full article

PBTS, a joint venture between Canada’s Bombardier Transportation and China Railway Rolling Stock Corp, recently got the contract to supply two driverless straddle monorail trains to Bangkok, Thailand.

Show full article

Apple is working with Volkswagen on a self-driving van that will be used as an employee shuttle. Self-driving shuttles are already used at the University of Michigan and in Las Vegas. For large businesses, they could make employee travel more efficient than taxis or public transportation.

Show full article

Waymo’s self-driving car service will begin operations by the end of 2018 in Phoenix, Arizona. People will download an app to secure rides on autonomous vehicles. Waymo has been operating autonomous vehicles on Phoenix roads since October 2017. Their sensors provide 360-degree views, and lasers see objects in 3 dimensions, up to 300 meters away. Waymo cars have driven over 6 million miles on the road and 5 billion miles through simulations.

Show full article

Uber’s flying taxis present new ways to shorten trips made long by distance or traffic congestion. Uber plans to start testing air taxis in 2020 with start-up in 2023. uberAIR will offer aerial electric ride-hailing and other air transport services, which will be cheaper than car ownership on a per-passenger, per-mile basis, as well as eventually autonomous. Partnerships are being developed with cities for testing, 70+ companies to provide eVTOLs, skyports, and batteries, and the FAA and NASA for ar traffic control.

Show full article

A new system, ‘Maplite’, developed by researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory will let autonomous vehicles navigate unmapped roads, relying on a combination of GPS data and sensors.

Show full article

The California Public Utilities Commission issued a proposal that would allow self-driving car companies to taxi passengers without a human driver present. The rise of autonomous vehicles could lower the cost of business travel for road warriors, and change the automobile industry forever.

Show full article

Driverless cars will begin operating on California roads as early as April under regulations that were passed in February 2018 by the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. Driverless cars being tested on public roads must have a remote operator monitoring the car, ready to take over as needed. That remote operator must be able to communicate with law enforcement as well as the passengers in the event of an accident. Companies like Phantom Auto aim to be the remote safety driver for autonomous cars. In the short term, Currently, 50 companies have received permits to test self-driving vehicles with a safety driver behind the wheel.

 

 

 

Show full article

The 73 implications which are starting to occur now, include the impact on how we travel and car ownership; The demise of most of the current automobile manufacturers, and of the internal combustion engine support infrastructure; Positive changes to city life; Changes to government services and taxation; and more.

Show full article

Next Transportation, launched in Dubai in February, uses swarming pods that connect and disconnect while transporting passengers, organizing riders based on upcoming stops. Each pod holds 10 people. When connected, the pods’ interior spaces are combined. Passengers are reassigned from pod to pod based on their end destination. The pods can also operate as a single car.

Show full article

Ford has not taken the route of rivals, including Google’s Waymo and General Motors, who are focusing on developing proprietary fleets of autonomous vehicles but has instead pushed for partnerships. Ford said that a pilot program has been launched in Miami with pizza maker Domino’s. Grocery delivery startup Postmates will be joining the roster in March. Ford and Lyft are already working together on software which will allow the Lyft app to communicate with Ford’s self-driving platform.

Show full article

The California start-up, Nuro, is planning a small, narrow box on wheels (half as wide as a )car, designed to be a lightweight way to get goods from a local business to a customer, or from one person to another within a neighborhood or city.

Show full article

Five autonomous barges, built by Dutch company Port-Liner, will connect the ports of Antwerp, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam in August. The vessel is powered solely by a set of 6 meters (20 ft) long batteries, charged using carbon-free energy, and, while designed to run completely autonomously, will initially be manned. The barges will help replace 23,000 freight trucks.

Show full article

The technology that allows autonomous cars to drive better than any human ever could, includes…
• Eight surround-view cameras that provide 360 degrees of visibility around the car for <250 meters.
• Twelve ultrasonic sensors that detect objects at nearly twice the distance as the cameras.
• A forward-facing radar with enhanced processing that provides additional data. It uses sensors that can see through rain, fog, dust, and even the car ahead.

Show full article

In an area of the Phoenix metro region, a subset of Waymo’s fleet of autonomous is operating in fully autonomous mode (i.e. no driver).

Show full article

Waymo’s fleet of vehicles has officially reached more than 4 million self-driving miles on public roads (representing nearly 300 years for an average American driver), and 20,000 unique situations tested.

Show full article

In addition to announcing the 3 cities as pilot sites for their flying taxis, Uber released videos showing what it will be like to use their UberAir service (with fees in the US$20 area). There are about 20 companies developing plans for flying taxis.

Show full article

Uber is working with NASA to develop an air traffic management system that could facilitate the launch of its flying car project ‘Uber Elevate’ and its flying taxi project ‘UberAir’. Uber is planning to have UberAir demonstrations by 2020 and to launch the service by 2023.

Show full article

Tesla’s big rig puts the driver at the center of the vehicle, surrounded with touchscreen displays. The trucks produce zero emissions. A fully loaded Tesla truck moving 60 mph can travel 500 miles on a single battery charge. Drivers will need to take a 30-minute break after six or seven hours of driving, giving them a chance to charge the truck. Amongst others, Wal-Mart has ordered five Tesla units in Walmart U.S. and 10 units in Walmart Canada. Competitors will include Volkswagen, the Swedish company Einride, and Uber.

Show full article

Pew Research polled a very diverse group of people, finding that 81% of Americans believe that driverless vehicles will eliminate jobs for many professional drivers, such as the 3.5 million truck drivers, but 56% said they don’t want to ride in driverless vehicles. While driverless and semi-driverless trucks are being developed and trialed by numerous tech companies in the US, the Teamsters have been lobbying against bills that would support their development.

Show full article

Voyager has deployed their first self-driving taxi service with 3 cars at The Villages, a 4,000+ retirement community in San Jose, CA.

Show full article

GM’s self-driving Chevy Bolts will be tested in 5-square-miles of lower Manhattan in early 2018 in semi-autonomous mode (with drivers). Testing has been underway in downtown San Francisco for almost a year to prove their ability to navigate complex road systems and city traffic.

Show full article

NVIDIA has announced that the world’s first AI computer designed specifically to support software that drives fully autonomous vehicles will be available by mid-2018. Pegasus extends the NVIDIA Drive PX AI computing platform to operate vehicles with Level 5 autonomy—without steering wheels, pedals, or mirrors. Pegasus delivers more than 320 trillion operations per second, or more than 10x the performance of its predecessor. Some 25 partners are currently developing fully autonomous taxis using the NVIDIA technology.

Show full article

Bloomberg Philanthropies has been tracking all of the testing locations for self-driving cars, and they can be seen in 35 cities in 14 countries. Leading countries are US (11 cities), Netherlands (5), UK (4) and China (3).

Show full article

Airbus has successfully completed testing on its 4-propeller CityAirbus’ propulsion system, putting the VTOL on track for commercial operation in 2018. When its fully operational, it will be able to carry up to four people and maneuver around the city at 120km/hr. A pilot will be assigned initially.

Show full article

Harper Adams University (UK) researchers have managed to plant, tend, and harvest 1.5 acres of barley using only autonomous vehicles and drones. No human set foot on the field, although remote management was required. Person-free precision farming seems like an increasingly viable way to help keep the world fed.

Show full article

Rolls-Royce plans to make a self-piloting navy ship, powered by artificial intelligence, sophisticated sensors and advanced propulsion, for sale to military forces around the world. With a range of 3,500 nautical miles, the 60-meter-long vessel would be able to operate on its own without human intervention for more than 100 days.

Show full article

IMF and Georgetown University researchers suggest that, by 2040, it’s possible that 90% of passenger vehicles in the US, Canada, Europe, and similarly wealthy nations could be electric. The cost of electric vehicles will be a huge factor in how quickly things progress. Tesla’s Model 3 could be a gamechanger, with its price tag of $35,000. The UK will ban new gas- and diesel-powered cars in 2040, and China is working on a timetable for similar legislation.

Show full article

The startup Proterra just drove a Catalyst E2 Max electric bus 1,101.2 miles on a single charge, which is the furthest any EV has managed before recharging. The first buses will be used in Los Angeles later in 2017.

Show full article

Japan is experimenting with self-driving buses in rural communities, where elderly residents struggle with fewer bus and taxi services as the population ages and shrinks. Self-driving services for remote communities could be launched by 2020. Plans are to turn highway rest stops into hubs from which to ferry the elderly to medical, retail and banking services.

Show full article

Lyft is partnering with Drive.ai to bring driverless taxis to the San Francisco Bay Area. Drive.ai, founded by former scientists from Stanford U’s AI Lab, will be utilizing deep-learning to create artificial intelligence software for autonomous vehicles, as well as retrofit kits to make traditional cars smarter.

Show full article

The Tesla Semi is likely to be announced in September 2017. A Morgan Stanley analyst expects: Available in 2020; Cost about $US$100K with separately leased batteries; An all-purpose Class 8 semi-truck: Could be up to 70% cheaper to operate than a regular truck).

Show full article

A recent study from the U. of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, Texas A&M Transportation Institute, and Columbia U. supports the notion that ride-hailing will start to kill car ownership by giving urban dwellers a cheaper and more efficient way of getting around. Uber and Lyft left Austin, Texas in May 2016 and returned a year later.

Show full article

A driverless shuttle bus will hit NSW roads as part of a two-year trial at Sydney Olympic Park in August 2017. The trial will start with safety checks before the public is able to ride. The Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia started Australia’s first driverless electric bus trial in August 2016 in South Perth. Other trials using driverless shuttle buses in Adelaide and Darwin.

Show full article

Ford and Domino’s are teaming up on a research trial in the Ann Arbor, Mich. area to understand how people will react to, and interact with, autonomous service vehicles. Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Cars will be outfitted with pizza containers created by Domino’s partner Roush Enterprises designed to keep the pizzas warm en route and to unlock when a customer types in their unique delivery code.

Show full article

Two companies in Norway plan to develop the world’s first driverless ship by sailing fertilizer down a fiord in 2018. They expect to run fully-autonomously by 2020. British manufacturer Rolls-Royce also plans to launch robotic ships by 2020, including tugboats, ferries, and cargo ships.

Show full article

Virginia-based Torc Robotics has been working on autonomous vehicle tech since 2007, and it has applied autonomy in a range of commercial, industrial and military applications. It announced its entry into the consumer car market, with a self-driving car project, with more than 1,000 miles logged of autonomous driving in recent tests using two modified Lexus RX vehicles. These have been active on roads since February 2017, driving in “all weather” conditions, equipped with Torc’s in-house localization, mapping, navigation and object detection/tracking systems.

Show full article

Why the electric engine (18 parts) will replace the Internal Combustion Engine (2,000+ parts), and the implications for the automobile industry (ICE manufacturers and car dealerships, auto parts, car maintenance, gas stations) and related industries (insurance, highway motels and restaurants), and for society in general, and peak oil demand.

Show full article

Apple is leasing a small fleet of SUVs from Hertz, and Alphabet’s Waymo has signed a similar deal with Avis. 6 vehicles have been testing Apple’s autonomous technology on public roads in and around the San Francisco Bay area for at least a year.

Show full article

Japanese shipping companies plan to build 250 self-navigating cargo ships by 2025, that will predict malfunctions, reduce maritime accidents, and improve efficiency. They will travel the shortest, safest and most fuel-efficient routes.

Show full article

Testing the increased safety of autonomous cars when inter-connected with other cars and an administrative site, enabling out-of-sight information to be relayed. The University of Michigan’s Mcity Test Facility uses augmented reality to support the testing. A separate testing approach taps into data from 25 million miles of real-world driving from the Ann Arbor Connected Vehicle Test Environment, one of the world’s largest operational, real-world deployments of connected vehicles and infrastructure. Thousands of vehicles across the city are currently communicating with one another and wired infrastructure.

Show full article

By the early 1900s, around 38 percent of American cars were electric. Their short mileage range limited its use in rural areas but it was ideal for town or city travelers. The Detroit Electric could make it between 80-100 miles on a single charge, with a top speed of about 27 mph.

Show full article

Uber has unveiled its 2nd-generation big rig with an upgraded set of sensors, including a 64-channel LIDAR array purchased off-the-shelf from Velodyne. The vehicles are currently being tested in the San Francisco area.

Show full article

Governor Cuomo announced that New York is now accepting applications from companies interested in testing or demonstrating autonomous vehicles on public roads. Vehicles will have to comply with federal safety standards and all applicable New York State inspection standards, and a person holding a valid driver license must be present in the driver’s seat at all times while it is operated on public highways.

Show full article

Japan plans to allow package delivery by drone sometime from 2020 and the commercialization of self-driving trucks by 2022. This move is urgent because its workforce has shrunk dramatically enough to force companies to start scaling back operations. More use of Big Data and AI will be encouraged to help diagnose medical conditions. Regulations will be temporarily eased for some firms, using what is known as a regulatory sandbox, to allow companies to test new technologies right away, free of the burden normally imposed by regulation.

Show full article

Transport for New South Wales is exploring applications for connected and autonomous vehicles with artificial intelligence-powered transport networks, based on a future in which vehicle ownership is no longer important and lifestyles centre on mass transit.

Show full article

Forecasted earliest public availability of new transportation:
2020 – Driverless Cars and Delivery Drones
2021 – Mass Transit Hyperloop
2023 – Flying Cars
????? – Freight Delivery by Helium-powered Airships
Major time delays are the result of the need for new government travel and safety regulations.

Show full article

IBM and an independent carmaker, Local Motors, are developing a self-driving, electric shuttle bus that combines artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and smartphone apps to serve people with vision, hearing, physical, and cognitive disabilities. The buses, dubbed “Olli,” are designed to transport people around neighborhoods at speeds below 35 mph, and will enter production in 2018.

Show full article

The UK government announced an investment of £13 million dedicated to the largest test of self-driving vehicle technology to date, operating at high speed on public roads – a fleet of driverless cars with UK-built software is set to travel the 100 km distance between the cities of London and Oxford in 2019.

Show full article

Waymo, formerly the Google self-driving car project, is testing the use of self-driving cars in the daily lives of a diverse group of hundreds of Phoenix residents, who will have access to their fleet of 600 minivans every day, at any time, to go anywhere within an area that’s about twice the size of San Francisco.

Show full article

Uber plans to team up with Aurora Flight Sciences to create and test out a network of aerial VTOL taxis for passengers to hire by 2020. The company’s so-called “flying cars” will cost as much as your average land fare. They will be part of the Uber Elevate Network, a system designed to give Uber users the opportunity to use both land and air to reach their destination.

Show full article

The driverless pods are the first autonomous vehicles to hit the streets of London. Created by tech firm Oxbotica, the shuttle pods can travel at speeds of up to 10mph and are controlled by a computer. The shuttles are designed to carry four people, and have no steering wheel or pedals.

Show full article

Advances in driverless trains continue to evolve unsung. Operating with or without a supervising driver, automated trains regulate their own starting and stopping mechanisms and speed, while the newest models are fitted with complex onboard computers and rechargeable batteries. Some do not even need to run on rails. Dutch tech firm, 2getthere, will employ the world’s largest fleet of non-rail-guided automated people movers to connect Dubai’s inner-city metro system to a waterfront development. 25 automated people movers will each carry up to 24 passengers to make the 2.5km trip in 4.5 minutes, operating on an elevated, bi-directional line. Each vehicle will also have the capability to navigate public roads.

Show full article

Fully autonomous driving has the potential to have as large an effect on our way of living as the car itself did. Ride-sharing allows purchasers to amortize the large capital cost over many drivers and high utilization, although safety drivers will be around for a long time. Adoption is going to be high as there becomes little incentive to own a car. Social impacts include Accident Avoidance (37,000 Americans die annually in car accidents; 1.3m globally; 100x injured); Revamping of Insurance Industry; Commute times go down; Elimination of parking space frees land but reduces municipal revenue and policing time; c45% reduction in energy demand across all road transportation. Opportunities for new transportation technologies.

Show full article

German carmaker BMW is on track to deliver a self-driving car by 2021, in partnership with Intel and Mobileye. he vehicle will have different levels of autonomy, depending on how and where it is used – from total autonomy to needing a steering wheel and driver to take over if the car encounters a problem.

Show full article

Volkswagen’s Sedric Concept car is essentially a mobile living room powered by electric motors, designed for all combinations of passengers, including children and the disabled. The inside is closer to that of a lounge, with no steering wheel or pedals. Sustainability and technology major design elements.

Show full article

By 2030, completely autonomous vehicles will be pervasive and will transform our cities and lifestyles. They’ll change the nature of businesses, reshape the urban landscapes, affect which suburbs we choose to live in and help us to save time and money. They could substantially improve our health and well-being by eliminating almost all road-related accidents and fatalities, and improving air quality. The article explores other potential benefits suggested in the first instalment of Stanford University’s One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100), titled, “Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030.”

Show full article

Uber put its self-driving cars back on the road three days after one of its cars was involved in a crash in Tempe, Arizona. The program had been suspended in the three cities where it operates a self-driving pilot program – Tempe, San Francisco and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – while the crash was investigated. A human-driven vehicle failed to yield to an Uber vehicle while making a turn. The Uber car was in self-driving mode at the time of the crash, and the collision caused it to roll onto its side. There were no serious injuries.

Show full article

A small autonomous bus ‘the Arma’ is running a short route along Las Vegas’ Fremont Street, the first time a self-driving bus has moved passengers on an American public road. The route is just 3 blocks for this January pilot test. The fully-electric Arma can carry about 12 passengers, at a top speed of 16 mph. The French manufacturer, Navya, has already deployed vehicles in Singapore, France, and Australia.

Show full article