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We took Google’s self-driving car prototype through an obstacle course at the mall

As Google has expanded throughout Mountain View over the past decade, its repurposed office buildings have developed a certain sameness: perfectly mundane exteriors, accented by the multicolored Google bikes scattered outside. Building RSL2 is different: it was previously known as the Mayfield Mall, and for that reason, its roof is an enormous multilevel parking lot. On this day, there isn’t a car in sight — and if you live in the Bay Area, where parking spaces are conserved as zealously as water in Mad Max: Fury Road, it looks a little like the promised land.

And then something comes into view from across the lot. Something small and purposeful, moving toward you at an eminently reasonable speed. Its movements are self-assured and...

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#Connected Cars #Casey Newton

Self-driving taxis will begin trials in Japan next year

Self-driving cars are a few years away from becoming a thing, right? Not in Japan, where the company Robot Taxi has announced that it'll start testing robotic taxis in 2016. A report by the Wall Street Journal reveals that the firm will begin by of... Lees verder op http://ift.tt/1LTtclo

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GM will let employees ride around in self-driving Chevy Volts starting next year

General Motors announced this morning that it's rolling out a fleet of autonomous 2017 model year Volts to its Technical Center campus in Warren, Michigan in late 2016. Employees there will use an app to summon one of the Volts and select their destination, which sounds a little like Uber without a driver. Like the cars that Google has deployed on public roads, it's likely that these Volts will still have their steering wheels and pedals in case a human needs to take over.

GM describes the initiative as a "rapid-development laboratory," which is exactly what it needs to keep pace in autonomous driving: companies like Google and Audi have logged millions of miles in their self-driving vehicles, many on public roads. GM, meanwhile —...

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#Connected Cars #Chris Ziegler

Volkswagen is gearing up for the biggest recall in company history

Volkswagen's newly appointed CEO Matthias Müller says the car maker has a plan to refit customers' vehicles affected by the ongoing US emissions cheating scandal. Müller delivered the news to a group of company managers at Volkswagen HQ in Wolfsburg, Germany, following a long weekend with the project team tasked with helping dig the company out of its crisis, according to The Wall Street Journal. The plan awaits regulatory approval. Volkswagen's market value has plummeted by $25 billion since news of the scandal broke less than two weeks ago and former chief executive Martin Winterkorn resigned.

"[This will be] the biggest service action in the company’s history," Volkswagen spokesman Christian Buhlmann tells The Wall Street Journal....

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#Connected Cars #Nick Statt

Volkswagen ordered to recall 500,000 cars for gaming emissions testing

The federal government has ordered Volkswagen to recall almost 500,000 vehicles, saying the company unlawfully used special software to get around missions regulations.

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#Connected Cars #Colin Lecher

Volkswagen to recall about 500,000 cars over sneaky software

Volkswagen has been told to recall about 482,000 of its diesel passenger cars. The German automaker ran into trouble with the Obama administration for allegedly installing a sneaky software that's designed to disguise the cars' pollutants during En... Lees verder op http://ift.tt/1W8yHQf

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Google has deployed its cute little self-driving cars in Austin

Last month we learned that Google was planning to extend its autonomous vehicle project by bringing a few of its own tiny self-driving cars to Austin, Texas. Today, the company announced that new phase of the project is now underway. "A few" of the company's prototype vehicles are now roaming the streets of downtown Austin — with a Google-employed passenger on board to make sure everything runs smoothly, of course — alongside its self-driving Lexus SUVs, which have been there since July.

Google's autonomous vehicle project has been around for more than five years now, and the company's cars have driven more than one million miles without the help of a driver (1,158,818 miles as of August 31st, to be exact). The fleet is currently...

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#Connected Cars #Sean O'Kane

Apple talks to California DMV about self-driving cars

According to a new report from The Guardian, Apple recently discussed self-driving cars with the California Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The report says that Cupertino's senior legal counsel Mike Maletic met with the DMV's self-driving car exp... Lees verder op http://ift.tt/1Kwp5ef

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Apple meets with California DMV to talk about self-driving cars, The Guardian reports

A new report today from The Guardian says that Apple met with several officials at California's Department of Motor Vehicles last month to discuss self-driving cars. The DMV tells the paper that "the Apple meeting was to review [the] DMV's autonomous vehicle regulations," though the exact topics of discussion aren't known. Attendees included a member of Apple's senior legal team — logical, considering how deeply involved lawmaking will be in the future of autonomous driving — plus a handful of the DMV's self-driving advocates and its chief counsel.

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#Connected Cars #Chris Ziegler

Google self-driving car patent reveals how you’ll let AI take the wheel

A new patent from Google published today has some fascinating insight into how the company thinks that production of self-driving cars of the future might take control from the drivers they're shuttling around — and how they could give it back, too.

The description of "Google Chauffeur," spotted by Stanford's Reilly Brennan, is a pretty straightforward concept. An arm on the steering column (not much different from a windshield wiper arm) could be pulled to engage a car's self-driving mode; at that point, the system would do a check to see whether it's ready and able to actually take control from the driver. If it isn't — the car can't get a GPS lock, for instance — the driver might see a "Not Available" light on the dash. Otherwise,...

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#Connected Cars #Chris Ziegler

Intel's new research group to tackle cybersecurity in connected cars

In order to reduce the risk of future connected car hacks, Intel is assembling a group of researchers to lend a hand. The Automotive Security Review Board (ASRB) will "help mitigate cybersecurity risks associated with connected automobiles while en... Lees verder op http://ift.tt/1ibk2of

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TomTom's RoadDNA system helps anyone build a self-driving car

TomTom has launched RoadDNA, a product aimed at bringing self-driving car tech to more potential developers. The system captures 3D roadside data from depth sensing cameras and compares it to a database of images, letting vehicles know their exact... Lees verder op http://ift.tt/1iIXL1H

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Google hires auto industry veteran to run self-driving car project

Google already has someone running the technical side of its self-driving car project, but what about making sure the spreadsheets and such match up? That's a job for a serious business type, which is why the firm has hired auto industry veteran Jo... Lees verder op http://ift.tt/1KNjORh

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Google hires ex-Hyundai America CEO to lead self-driving car project

Google has hired a new CEO for its self-driving car project. John Krafcik, who worked at Ford and was President and CEO of Hyundai's American operations before joining automotive price-comparison site TrueCar, will take the position in late September. In a statement, the veteran of the automobile industry said that Google's technology "can save thousands of lives, give millions of people greater mobility, and free us from a lot of the things we find frustrating about driving today."

Krafcik has a background in automobile manufacturing, having worked on two "lean production" manifestos during his time at MIT, but a Google spokesperson told Automotive News that his hiring did not indicate the company would start producing cars itself. "We...

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#Connected Cars #Rich McCormick

Honda will test self-driving cars on California streets

Honda just took a big step toward getting its self-driving car technology on to American roads. The automaker has quietly received the approval needed to test its autonomous cars on California streets, letting these robotic rides venture beyond a... Lees verder op http://ift.tt/1L90zAe

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Self-driving cars can be fooled by fake signals

You'd think that self-driving cars would be most vulnerable to remote hacks, but the biggest danger may come from someone nearby with a handful of cheap electronics. Security researcher Jonathan Petit has determined that you can fool LIDAR (the la... Lees verder op http://ift.tt/1g2dYwV

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Google’s self-driving car didn’t hit a duck-chasing granny

Google's self-driving car fleet has been hitting the roads of both Mountain View, California and Austin, Texas for the past two months — and it has some very eccentric happenings to report. Alongside newer street infrastructure and horizontal traffic signals, Google's autonomous vehicles have been getting acquainted with the stray renegade granny chasing ducks on her electric wheelchair, according to the company's most recent self-driving status report.

Google didn't originally specify whether its run in with one of the Many Mothers of Mad Max Fury Road happened in Mountain View or Austin. But a Google spokesperson later clarified that it happened in the sunny streets of Google's hometown in California — and the car and its Google...

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#Connected Cars #Nick Statt

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