There have been enough crashes, including ones that killed people (sometimes the drivers and passengers), that there needs to be improvements in the technology. For example, a woman driving a Tesla on May 11, 2018, was using its “Autopilot” feature crashed into the back of a fire truck in Utah. Unfortunately, autonomous vehicles won’t make …
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First Steps for Driverless Vehicles
For at least the last two decades people (almost always male) have been tinkering with a wide variety of designs of self-driving cars that they have been dreaming of starting at least two decades earlier. Tinkering continues to be a very challenging pursuit. Finally, in early 2020 there was a modest step forward, in the form of an autonomous …
Las Vegas visitors had 100,000+ robotaxi rides from Aptiv / Lyft
A 2020 Lyft blog post lists the advantages of the partnership between Lyft, Dublin-based Aptiv, a self-driving vehicle firm. Through 2020, Lyft and Aptiv provided 100,000 commercial ‘robotaxi’ rides in Las Vegas. This partnership runs through Aptiv’s Command Center, and has been very successful with the Vegas customers. Lyft reports that is Vegas riders became Aptive advocates …
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Today’s Technology of Autonomous Vehicles is Ahead of Peoples’ Habits and Legal Aspects
Car manufacturers use Artificial Intelligence and other technologies, especially Lidar, in Self-Driving Cars. Conservative manufacturer Volvo, especially, supports Lidar. General Motors mentioned in the 2018 Self-Driving Safety Report that they envision a future with “Zero crashes, Zero emissions and Zero congestion”. (Source: General Motors)
Are Self-Driving Cars Safe?
Self-driving, or climate cars, are the future. Today, 66% of people believe that autonomous cars are smarter and safer than most drivers.
GM, Electric Vehicles & Flying Cadillac
General Motors surprised everyone at CES 2021 with their Flying Cadillac which looks like a cross between a drone and a helicopter. The Flying Cadillac has a 90-kW electric motor to power four rotors for vertical takeoff and landing. It is slower than an airplane, with a maximum speed of up to 56 mph. General Motors is …
Self-Driving Cars Need to Drive in All Environments
We have a weekly meeting in Mountain View, CA and every week we see at least one Waymo car (with one or two people inside) driving along the streets. (Since the company’s headquarters are in Mountain View, this is not surprising.) But Mountain View’s streets are easy to navigate compared with the myriad driving environments …
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