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Robocar news: Waymo starts pilot in Phoenix, Apple car gets more real, and the flying car takes off
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
26 Apr 2017
Waymo (Google) has announced a pilot project in Phoenix offering a full ride service in their new minivans. Members of the public can sign up — the link is sure to be overwhelmed with applicants, bu...
Looking ahead to the future of computer-driven cars
MIT News
21 Apr 2017
The field of transportation is undergoing a seismic shift with the introduction of autonomous driving — or computer-driven cars. Computer vision scientist and Mobileye co-founder Amnon Shashua PhD ...
Luminar unstealths their 1.5 micron LIDAR
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
15 Apr 2017
Luminar, a bay area startup, has revealed details on their new LIDAR. Unlike all other commercial offerings, this is a LIDAR using 1.5 micron infrared light. They hope to sell it for $1,000....
No, Detroit is not winning the robocar race
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
05 Apr 2017
A new report from Navigant Research includes the chart shown below, ranking various teams on the race to robocar deployment. It’s causing lots of press headlines about how Ford is the top company an...
LIDAR (lasers) and cameras together: Which is more important?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
29 Mar 2017
Recently we’ve seen a series of startups arise hoping to make robocars with just computer vision, along with radar. That includes recently unstealthed AutoX, the off-again, on again efforts of comma...
Bosch and Nvidia partner to develop AI for self-driving cars
Frank Tobe
17 Mar 2017
Amongst all the activity in autonomously driven vehicle joint ventures, new R&D facilities, strategic acquisitions (such as Mobileye being acquired by Intel) and booming startup fundings, two bi...
Choreographing automated cars could save time, money and lives
Horizon Magazine
15 Mar 2017
If you take humans out of the driving seat, could traffic jams, accidents and high fuel bills become a thing of the past? As cars become more automated and connected, attention is turning to how to be...
Intel to acquire Mobileye for $15.3 billion
Frank Tobe
14 Mar 2017
Intel announced plans to acquire Israel-based Mobileye, a developer of vision technology used in autonomous driving applications, for $15.3 billion. Mobileye share prices jumped from $47 to $61 (the t...
Split-second decisions: Navigating the fine line between man and machine
Horizon Magazine
13 Mar 2017
Today’s self-driving car isn’t exactly autonomous – the driver has to be able to take over in a pinch, and therein lies the roadblock researchers are trying to overcome. Automated cars are hurtl...
By 2030, will traffic jams be a thing of the past?
Catharina Elmsäter-Svärd
03 Mar 2017
Imagine a future where self-driving cars, trains and buses are all seamlessly connected through an app, where traffic jams are a thing of the past and redundant car parks have been turned into green s...
Should California electrify Caltrain or invest in robocars?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
20 Feb 2017
[Editor's note: According to a recent article on SFGate, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has put the brakes on $647 million for Caltrain to go electric. The delay may kill the project entirely.]...
Ford Motor to invest $1 billion in Pittsburgh startup Argo AI
Frank Tobe
15 Feb 2017
Argo AI, a Pittsburgh startup, has sold a majority share of their company to Ford Motor Co. which has agreed to invest $1 billion over a five-year schedule but will immediately become the majority sh...
5 global problems that AI could help us solve
Alex Gray
10 Feb 2017
There’s a great deal of concern over artificial intelligence; what it means for our jobs, whether robots will one day replace us in the workplace, whether it will one day lead to robot wars. But cur...
Uber talks of deal with Daimler which shows Uber’s great advantage
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
10 Feb 2017
I generally pay very little attention when companies issue a press release about an “alliance.” It’s usually not a lot more than a press release, unless there are details on what will actually b...
California publishes robocar intervention reports: Google/Waymo vastly outpaces competition
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
08 Feb 2017
California published its summary of all the reports submitted by vendors testing robocars in the state. You can read the individual reports. They are interesting, but several other outlines have creat...
Flying cars are coming, what will they mean?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
27 Jan 2017
Earlier I posted my gallery of CES gadgets and included a photo of the eHang 184 from China, a “personal drone” able, in theory, to carry a person up to 100kg.
Whether the eHang is real or not...
Combining automation and mobility to create a smarter world
MIT News
20 Jan 2017
By: Catherine Marguerite | Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology
Daniela Rus loves Singapore. As the MIT professor sits down in her Frank Gehry-designed office in Cambridge, Massachus...
NHTSA ODI report exonerates Tesla in fatal crash
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
20 Jan 2017
NHTSA released the report from their Office of Defects Investigation on the fatal Tesla crash in Florida last spring. It’s a report that is surprisingly favorable to Tesla. So much so that even I am...
CES 2017, part one: Robocar technology and concept cars
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
17 Jan 2017
CES is the big event for major car makers to show off robocar technology. Most of the north hall, and a giant parking lot next to it, were devoted to car technology and self-driving demos....
No, a Tesla didn’t predict an accident and brake for it
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
11 Jan 2017
You may have seen a lot of press around a dashcam video of a car accident in the Netherlands. It shows a Tesla in AutoPilot hitting the brakes around 1.4 seconds before a red car crashes hard into a b...
CES 2017 pre-news: Ford Fusion, Nvidia, MobilEye, HERE, BMW, Intel and other partnerships
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
05 Jan 2017
Thursday night, and I am heading off to CES, and it’s become the main show it seems for announcing robocar news. There’s already a bunch....
What are the right disability rules for robotaxis?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
26 Dec 2016
Robocars are broadly going to be a huge boon for many people with disabilities, especially disabilities that make it difficult to drive or those that make it hard to get in and out of vehicles. Exist...
Uber must follow California’s laws
Bryant Walker Smith
19 Dec 2016
Uber is testing its self-proclaimed “self-driving” vehicles on California roads without complying with the testing requirements of California’s automated driving law. California’s Department o...
Google car is now Waymo
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
14 Dec 2016
Google’s car project (known as “Chauffeur”) kickstarted the entire robocar revolution, and Google has put in more work, for longer, than anybody. The car was also the first project of what becam...
What if the city ran Waze and you had to obey it? Could this cure congestion?
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
09 Dec 2016
I believe we have the potential to eliminate a major fraction of traffic congestion in the near future, using technology that exists today which will be cheap in the future. The method has been outlin...
Self-driving cars, networks, and the companies and people that are stimulating development
Frank Tobe
06 Dec 2016
Intel is establishing an autonomous driving division; hacker George Hotz is open-sourcing his self-driving software in a bid to become a network company; LiDAR and distancing devices are changing. Wh...
Robocar news: Comma One goes open source, creating simulations for robocars in New Zealand earthquakes
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
02 Dec 2016
There have been few postings this month, as I took the time to enjoy a holiday in New Zealand around speaking at the SingularityU New Zealand summit in Christchurch. The night before the summit, we en...
Understanding the four types of AI, from reactive robots to self-aware beings
Arend Hintze
30 Nov 2016
The common, and recurring, view of the latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence research is that sentient and intelligent machines are just on the horizon. Machines understand verbal commands, ...
Report examines China’s expansion into unmanned industrial, service, and military robotics systems
Robohub Editors
03 Nov 2016
In October, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission released a report, China’s Industrial and Military Robotics Development, prepared by the Defense Group, Inc. at the Commission’...
The delicate balance between brilliance, safety and arrogance
Frank Tobe
01 Nov 2016
Silicon Valley and other technology centers have their share of brilliant minds. Some of them have similarly outstanding egos. A few of those have very short fuses. Such is the story of George Hotz....
Comma.ai cancels comma-one add-on box after threats from NHTSA
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
31 Oct 2016
Comma.ai, the brash startup attempting to make a self-driving system entirely from a neural network has announced it will cancel the “comma one” add-on box it has planned to sell to owners of cert...
Oxbotica’s autonomous vehicle software learns its environment and how it changes over time
Kassie Perlongo
10 Oct 2016
Oxbotica, a UK technology company with a focus on mobile robotics and driverless vehicles, has created Selenium, an autonomous software system acting similar to a 'brain' for a vehicle. Selenium can...
46 research reports analyze the robotics industry and autonomous vehicles
Frank Tobe
29 Sep 2016
As autonomous cars begin to hit world markets in pilot tests and other ways, and before the International Federation of Robotics clarifies whether those vehicles are robots or not, two research firms ...
Robocar parking is incredibly cheap
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
27 Sep 2016
Some people have wondered about my forecast in the spreadsheet on robotaxi economics about the very low parking costs I have predicted. I wrote about most of the reasons for this in my 2007 essay on R...
Michigan’s automated driving bills
Bryant Walker Smith
26 Sep 2016
Michigan's Senate are reviewing several bills related to automated driving. SB995, 996, 997, and 998 are now out of committee, and SB 927 and 928 are not far behind. These bills seem to be a mixed bag...
Critique of NHTSA’s newly released regulations
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
22 Sep 2016
The long awaited list of recommendations and potential regulations for robocars has just been released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency that regulates ...
