DeepRoute.ai — an autonomous technology startup based in China — is mapping out a strategy in the U.S. market centered on deploying self-driving medium-duty trucks to make commercial deliveries at night. The plan, explains founder and CEO Maxwell Zhou, seeks to address two primary issues in the commercial delivery sector: the logistical efficiency of deliveries
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Intel Corp. autonomous driving unit Mobileye is piloting a robotaxi service in Paris that’s ferrying employees of one of the French capital’s most famous department stores to work. The challenges of navigating Parisian traffic will help speed up the development of Mobileye’s self-driving system, said Johann Jungwirth, a company vice president. “It will certainly help
A vehicle operated by self-driving tech company Waymo struck a pedestrian in the road Wednesday night in San Francisco. A human safety driver was operating the vehicle, an electric Jaguar I-Pace, in manual mode at the time of the collision, according to a Waymo spokesperson, who further said the vehicle had been in manual mode
Dan Ammann, CEO of Cruise, is leaving the autonomous vehicle developer, General Motors said in statement Thursday. The self-driving vehicle company majority-owned by GM will be run by Kyle Vogt, co-founder, president and chief technical officer, for now. GM did not say why Ammann, CEO of the San Francisco startup since 2019, was leaving or
EV startup Canoo Inc on Wednesday said it was accelerating its production plans in the U.S. and ending its deal for VDL Nedcar in the Netherlands to serve as its contract manufacturer in Europe. Canoo shares were up 3 percent in after hours trading. The Arkansas-based company said the shift from using VDL Nedcar overseas
SAN FRANCISCO — A California regulator on Monday said it has suspended a driverless testing permit for startup technology firm Pony.ai following an accident — the first time it has issued such a suspension. On Oct. 28, a Pony.ai vehicle operating in autonomous mode hit a road center divider and a traffic sign in Fremont
Electric vehicle leasing startup Hive Technologies Inc said on Tuesday it closed a $30 million funding round to expand its fleet for ride-hail drivers who can otherwise not afford the vehicles’ higher upfront costs. Backed by environmental, social and governance (ESG)-focused investors, the company leases EVs to Uber Technologies Inc and Lyft Inc drivers on
The CEO of Uber Technologies Inc. on Tuesday said the company was looking sell stakes in what it considers non-strategic investments in other companies, including its shares in Chinese ride hailing company Didi Global . Speaking at a virtual fireside chat with a UBS analyst, Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said many of the companies Uber
The city council in Lansing, Mich., moved quickly Monday to endorse property tax breaks for General Motors Co. to build a $2.5 billion battery plant for electric vehicles adjacent to an existing Delta Township assembly plant in neighboring Eaton County. The council’s unanimously approved resolutions that would establish a Renaissance Zone on a 529-acre tract
DETROIT — Starting this week, some Dodge owners who want more horsepower can just download it. Ram owners will one day be able to buy extra payload capacity. The kinds of instant upgrades consumers are used to getting on their cellphones are now on the way to their cars and trucks as automakers salivate over
When Intel bought Mobileye in March 2017, it was considered a blockbuster deal, and not just because of the $15.3 billion price tag. The acquisition paired Intel’s vast chipmaking capabilities with Mobileye’s camera-based computer vision expertise, bringing an entirely new dynamic to automotive technology. Now the companies envision something far bigger. Last week, Intel unveiled
WASHINGTON — Autonomous trucks can offer a “generational opportunity” to not only improve road safety but also bring about far-reaching economic benefits, according to Ariel Wolf, general counsel for the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets. To advance automation in the trucking industry and beyond, the coalition has been involved in discussions with policymakers at the
State, county and municipal government fleets in Ohio, as well as private citizens who volunteer to participate, are expected to add hundreds more connected vehicles — specially equipped to test new advanced driver-assistance systems — along a 35-mile stretch of “smart” highway in central Ohio called the 33 Smart Mobility Corridor. Efforts are underway to
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story overstated Ryder Ventures’ role in Gatik’s funding round. Driverless operations. Deployment plans. Funding infusions. As the year nears a close, the self-driving truck industry is gaining momentum. Many companies notched major technical and business-related milestones in recent months. Here’s a look at what each company has done
As the stock market swoons over electric vehicle companies such as Tesla and Lucid, another EV revolution is about to change the way America works. This one, though, is unlikely to ever become a trending topic on Twitter. Electric work vehicles, including refuse trucks and buses, have started reaching streets across the country. One of
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — For most of its 374 miles across New Mexico’s midsection, Interstate 40 runs straight through vast expanses of high desert. But there’s a geographic blip five miles east of Albuquerque, where the highway squeezes through a canyon in the Sandia Mountain Range, climbs to an elevation of 7,200 feet and wriggles around
Big rigs inadvertently drifting into another lane could become less of a hazard on roadways as Daimler Trucks North America and supplier Robert Bosch roll out a new driver-assist feature for trucks. In what the companies say is a first for the commercial vehicle market, Bosch and Daimler partnered to produce a Level 2 lane-centering
If you want to pick a milestone in the convergence of trucks and new mobility, rewind six and a half years to the evening of May 5, 2015. Daimler introduced what it called the world’s first autonomous truck licensed to drive on public roads, and it did so in a spectacle worthy of Hollywood. It
Self-driving tech company Robotic Research Inc. said Thursday it has raised $228 million in its first round of outside funding in the company’s nearly two-decade history. The money comes from not just the regular crowd of venture capitalists. Luminar Technologies, the lidar company working with many of the world’s largest automakers, is among the investors.
A truck driver shortage is contributing to ongoing supply chain issues in the U.S. — and making the thought of driverless trucks even more appealing to companies. According to an October estimate by the American Trucking Associations, the U.S. is short an all-time high 80,000 drivers, a factor in backups at ports and warehouses desperate
Michigan State University will deploy an electric autonomous bus on its campus in January pending additional testing and NHTSA validation, the school’s mobility research faculty announced in early November. The bus was produced by Turkish vehicle manufacturer Karsan and equipped with autonomous technology from Adastec Corp., a San Francisco-based company that offers autonomous transportation platforms
Fueled with hydrogen instead of diesel, electrically powered Class 8 trucks could offer a much cleaner way to move freight. But first, America’s national labs must light a development path toward more efficient and durable “heavy-duty” fuel cells. Many experts believe using these to energize massive electric motors could easily and affordably move tons of
More than 250 school districts across the U.S. have made commitments to at least test electric school buses, and many of them already have e-buses in use. In November, New Mexico announced it would invest more than $11 million in EV infrastructure and education programs, including about 20 charging stations for electric city buses. Two
WASHINGTON — As General Motors commits to investing billions of dollars in electric and autonomous vehicle development, its reputation in the nation’s capital will be essential for guiding policies that prop up the transformation. Once a company that was harshly criticized by U.S. lawmakers for an announcement in late 2018 that it would trim its
They say that travel broadens the mind. At the least, it should give some perspective. On a recent trip to Costa Rica, I was confronted with a different look at the soft Cold War between the U.S. and China — specifically on the front of transportation and mobility in Latin America. I was amazed at
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Not so many years ago, the Southeastern U.S. was largely off the map of the North American auto industry. But over the past three decades, states in that region have attracted — and continue to attract — billions in auto manufacturing and supply chain project investments. At a gathering of the multistate
SAIC Motor Corp. is planning a fresh round of fundraising for its mobility service platform Xiangdao Chuxing, according to people familiar with the matter, as it seeks to stay competitive amid shifts in the automotive industry. China’s largest carmaker, which counts Volkswagen AG and General Motors as partners, aims to raise as much as $157
Uber Technologies Inc. on Thursday said it will launch an optional audio recording pilot program in three U.S. cities to enhance safety, allowing drivers and riders to send trip recordings to Uber in case of a safety incident. Uber at the end of 2019 disclosed it had received 6,000 reports of sexual assault and 107
Self-driving tech startup Nuro said on Wednesday it was rolling out California’s first commercial autonomous delivery service in partnership with convenience store operator 7-Eleven. Nuro and rivals such as Waymo are launching or planning to launch autonomous delivery services with regulatory approval in the United States, though the services are limited or not in the
Amazon Web Services has launched a new cloud-based data service that it says could help automakers remotely diagnose issues in their vehicles to prevent recalls and improve safety, as well as manage related data. Called AWS IoT FleetWise, the latest tool in the company’s newly branded AWS for Automotive portfolio of products and services for