Tag: autonomous vehicles

September 16, 2019

The electrification of our streets is fully engaged. But is it time to start looking up? Now that motorists are embracing EVs for the morning commute and both enterprises and transit operators are actively exploring battery-powered vehicles to replace fossil-fuel […]

May 16, 2019

A number of articles in this issue address a variety of transit topics that reflect how the public transportation industry’s agenda has shifted to a more mobility focused one. Taken together, these changes will likely alter how our industry plans, […]

March 12, 2019

Widespread use of autonomous vehicles (AVs) could either massively increase or drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions depending, in large part, on public policy, according to new research from Princeton University. “We need fuel economy standards to ensure the cars are […]

February 18, 2019

Roadmanship n. A proposed safety standard for self-driving cars, based on the road etiquette of humans. In 1909, when horseless carriages were all the rage, a magazine called Country Life in America advised new drivers on “the ­ethics of good […]

February 14, 2019

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is awarding $10.2 million in Surface Transportation System Funding Alternatives (STSFA) grants to seven states to test new ways to finance highway and bridge projects. The program’s goal is to allow states to test user-based […]

October 11, 2018

CARS KILL PEOPLE. More than 37,000 over the course of 2017—what would statistically be considered a ‘good year.’ Big tech has a solution: Have the cars drive themselves, free of the distractions, drunkenness, and other human foibles. Flood the roads […]

October 1, 2018

Aeva, a Mountain View, California-based startup founded only just last year, has built what its two-cofounders claim is a next-generation version of LIDAR, the 3D mapping technology that has become instrumental for how self-driving cars measure the distance of objects […]

October 1, 2018

Nine Michigan companies and the City of Grand Rapids have come together to form a unique coalition that will place autonomous vehicles on city streets in March 2019. The Grand Rapids Autonomous Mobility Initiative is the next big step to […]

September 6, 2018

They are going to be a lot more than just cars that drive themselves. We’re giving a free annual subscription to the TreeHugger newsletter to the first person who tells us where this Volvo 360C is parked. But ignore the […]

August 20, 2018

SELF-DRIVING CARS ARE like snowbird retirees. Given the freedom to live, or operate, anywhere in the country, they turn their backs on wintry states and flock to the sun. There’s a reason Waymo, Uber, and even grocery story giant, Kroger, […]

August 7, 2018

FOR THE DEVELOPERS of self-driving vehicles, semi-trucks are a potential low-hanging fruit. Although big rigs are imposingly, intimidatingly huge, they also predominantly run on freeways and other fixed routes that are simpler to automate. Fleet managers are easier to convince […]

July 19, 2018

IN THE EARLY hours of January 11, 2000, US Coast Guard helicopter pilot Mark Ward responded to a distress call from a ship taking on water, caught in a Nor’easter off the North Carolina coast. Battling 70-mph winds and 30-foot […]

June 25, 2018

First Transit is partnering with the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (LAVTA) to pilot the first operation of a shared autonomous vehicle (SAV) on a public road by a transit agency in the state of California. This is the fifth […]

June 8, 2018

If autonomous vehicles are the future of the trucking industry, what is the future of the truck driver? On the surface, it might appear to some casual observers that automation could soon spell the end of the truck driving profession, […]

May 14, 2018

Waymo CEO John Krafcik announced last week that the company would be launching a driverless taxi service in Phoenix later this year. An application Waymo filed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for driverless testing, obtained by IEEE […]

May 7, 2018

Indeed, if you live along the millions of miles of U.S. roads that are unpaved, unlit or unreliably marked, you’re out of luck. Such streets are often much more complicated to map, and get a lot less traffic, so companies […]

March 16, 2018

Ride-hailing company Lyft is joining with large Canadian auto parts supplier Magna to develop self-driving vehicles, sharing expenses on a multi-year project that could vault them onto the leader board in autonomous technology. The companies announced the partnership March 14 […]

February 15, 2018

By driving smarter, autonomous cars have the potential to move people around and between cities with far greater efficiency. Estimates of their energy dividends, however, have largely ignored autonomous driving’s energy inputs, such as the electricity consumed by brawny on-board […]

February 9, 2018

IN A YEAR-LONG litigation process that featured alleged theft, mysterious deleted text messages, and the odd reference to Burning Man, Friday’s twist was perhaps the most unexpected of all: On the fifth day in court, Waymo accepted a settlement in […]

January 18, 2018

2018 MAY BE so new that you’re still complaining about how rough 2017 was, but these early weeks have already changed the course of the auto industry, or at least revealed the path forward. That’s because two of the most […]