Showing 4 results for:
autonomous cars
Popular topics
All results
Self-driving cars are quickly becoming a reality. Since 2016, Uber has launched self-driving programs across the United States. They’re a big technological advancement, but they may not be well received by the general public, or at least people don’t always react kindly when they come upon them. According to Eric Meyhofer, the head of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group , cameras mounted on the cars have caught people “bullying” them. “We’ve seen people bully these cars — they feel like they can be more aggressive because we won’t take a position on it, or we’ll allow it,” Meyhofer said, according to The Telegraph . “You’re on video but still people do bully them, and that’s a fascinating thing to see where people are testing the boundaries of what they can do to self-driving.” The bullying that Meyhofer refers to includes people making rude gestures, driving really close behind the cars and challenging the cars to brake. There have been other cases where people have extreme...
Self-driving cars are slowly becoming more of a reality, but there’s still a lot that needs to be worked out. In March 2018, Apple engineer Wei Huang died in a crash after his Tesla Model X hit a median on Highway 101 in Mountain View, California. At the time, Huang’s Tesla was in Autopilot, a driver assistance feature that Tesla made standard in all its models. The feature is supposed to make drivers safer by doing things like matching a car’s speed to existing traffic and automatically changing lanes. Now, Huang’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Tesla and the state of California, as reported by ABC 7 News . The lawsuit itself claims, “…the Tesla Model X was defective in its design, in that the passenger protection systems of the vehicle would not, could not, and did not perform in a manner as safely as an ordinary consumer would expect.” Sevonne Huang — Wei Huang’s wife — told ABC 7 News that her husband had mentioned the car veered towards the same barrier on Autopilot...
Self-driving cars used to be something only found in sci-fi and superhero movies, but they’re quickly becoming a reality. Waymo, the self-driving car company owned by Alphabet, has announced it is opening a factory in Detroit. Waymo is partnering with American Axle & Manufacturing to repurpose an existing facility that will house the production of the company’s L4 autonomous vehicles. The factory is set to open later this year. “We wanted this facility to benefit from a location in southeast Michigan — the heart of the American automotive industry — and its strong talent base,” Waymo said in a blog post. The factory is set to bring more than 400 jobs to the Motor City, giving it the economic push that it needs. Detroit filed for bankruptcy more than five years ago, as it suffered from more than $18 billion of debt, according to NPR. The city has since climb itself out of an economic hole and more tech companies have set its eyes on Detroit as they look to expand. Twitter and Google...
Zoox, the autonomous taxi startup in Silicon Valley, just named Intel’s former Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer Aicha Evans as its new CEO. Zoox focuses on autonomous mobility, and since starting in 2014, the company has raised more than $750 million. The startup currently has 700 employees, and its most recent hire is expected to take the company to new heights. “I’m thrilled to join Zoox and challenge the status quo with an autonomous mobility system built from the ground up,” Evans said in a statement . “Mobility is approaching a major inflection point, and Zoox has set itself apart from entrenched players as the only company creating a solution purpose-built to meet the needs of a fully autonomous future.” Evans spent 12 years at Intel before making the switch to Zoox. “Aicha is an accomplished business leader and a strategic thinker with the right mix of skills to help turn Zoox’s ambitious vision into a reality,” said Zoox Executive Chairman Carl Bass. Zoox has...