Tag: self-driving cars

January 4, 2018

LESS THAN A decade after Google launched the age of the self-driving car, most of the main players have made some long-term commitments—not in the name of love, but to ensure success. With few exceptions, the companies eager to turn […]

December 29, 2017

OH, THE UNTAINTED optimism of 2014. In the spring of that year, the good Swedes at Volvo introduced Drive Me, a program to get regular Josefs, Frejas, Joeys, and Fayes into autonomous vehicles. By 2017, Volvo executives promised, the company […]

December 28, 2017

A WORLD DOMINATED by self-driving cars is no longer just possible, it’s inevitable. And the proof is everywhere. In Arizona, where Waymo (formerly known as Google’s self-driving car project) is testing minivans sans humans inside. In Boston, where Lyft and […]

December 8, 2017

IF YOU WANT to cheap out on a new shirt—you’re heading, say, to Target instead of Bergdorf Goodman—you probably expect to get a totally fine piece of cloth to hang on your back, and won’t get too upset when it […]

November 10, 2017

SELF-DRIVING CARS AREN’T just here. They are, it seems safe to say, just about everywhere—roaming the streets of San Francisco, New York City, Phoenix, Boston, Singapore, Paris, London, Munich, and Beijing. And as Waymo (Google’s self-driving car project) launches the […]

November 3, 2017

LATE LAST MONTH, dozens of automotive and tech journalists across the country got the digital equivalent of a golden ticket in their inbox: an invitation from Waymo to go “Behind Castle Walls.” This week, Alex joined that lucky cohort on […]

October 31, 2017

Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit demonstrated a self-driving minivan with no one behind the wheel, declaring the vehicle as ready for public use. “It’s safe to say we’re really close, but I don’t want to put a date on it,” John […]

October 27, 2017

FOR A MOMENT there, Arizona was the place for autonomous vehicles learning to drive. It’s a logical starting point for experimental tech—still in its wobbly, Bambi legs stage—that likes warm weather, little rain, and wide open roads. It’s easier for […]

October 18, 2017

Intel Corp. has developed a system it says ensures that self-driving vehicles can’t cause accidents where they are at fault, an effort to reassure a skeptical public and help speed adoption of driverless cars on the road. The world’s largest […]

October 18, 2017

Elon Musk famously thinks that cars can be made to drive themselves without relying on expensive laser-ranging lidars. But while Tesla is moving ahead with one fewer sensor than most self-driving car companies, a new startup wants them to add […]

October 13, 2017

THE MOMENTUM BUILDS. This week we saw a bunch of schemes to get self-driving cars on the road. The state of California released the latest draft of its regulations to make it easier for driverless cars to be on public […]

October 9, 2017

GENERAL MOTORS JUST took another step to prepare itself for the future of driving, acquiring a startup that makes what could prove a key technology to unlock self-driving cars for use in fleets. Cruise, GM’s self-driving car startup, will now […]

October 6, 2017

STEFANO DOMENICALI HAS abandoned his uniform. This is a man who, based on his public appearances, lives in suits worth more than your car. He is, after all, the CEO of Lamborghini. Any element of his appearance that doesn’t live […]

September 29, 2017

PITTSBURGH ― Lisa Franklin-Robinson started feeling nostalgic the moment she pulled into the quiet, wooded cul-de-sac in the well-heeled Pittsburgh suburb of Fox Chapel. The three-story house the 53-year-old Uber driverUber had pulled in front of was one she’d visited […]

September 27, 2017

RENTING OUT A 100,000-square-foot San Francisco cruise ship terminal feels ostentatious, even for a Silicon Valley coming out party. But Luminar, a small company dedicated to a far corner of the nascent autonomous vehicle industry, and its 22-year-old founder, Austin […]

September 21, 2017

Recently, the “trolley problem,” a decades-old thought experiment in moral philosophy, has been enjoying a second career of sorts, appearing in nightmare visions of a future in which cars make life-and-death decisions for us. Among many driverless car experts, however, […]

September 18, 2017

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT distracted driving is a problem, but it tends to fall in the “other people/not me” category of personal risk assessment among drivers. But when you consider that a staggering 80 percent of traffic accidents—and 17 percent of […]

September 7, 2017

The empty runway stretching before Mark Hendrickson extends so far that its edges vanish in the heat shimmer of a broiling Central Valley afternoon. Presidents have landed here, back when it was the center of a bustling Air Force base. […]

July 3, 2017

A couple of years ago, I raised eyebrows when I argued that autonomous vehicles would be a trillion-dollar industry. It turns out that I was being too conservative: A recent report by Intel and Strategy Analytics estimates that autonomous driving […]

June 27, 2017

YOU MAY REMEMBER Avis and Hertz as places where you arrive in a shuttle bus, waste time in line, then hand someone a few hundred dollars in exchange for a cheap car. You know, exactly the kinds of companies slated […]