Car News

Self-driving cars are promising change the way our cities are laid out, how we commute, and how car manufacturers sell their products. According to a report from the USA, they're also going to change sex. Speaking with Fast Company, Scott Cohen, deputy director of research of the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey, said autonomous vehicles will "provide new forms of competition for hotels and restaurants" when they arrive.

As the push towards autonomous vehicles accelerates, car manufacturers are ramping up their claims about what their self-driving cars will be able to do, and when they'll be able to do it. General Motors wants to have a vehicle without pedals or a steering wheel on the road by 2019, while Ford says it'll be building self-driving cars at 'scale' by 2021. BMW is also planning to have drivers (sorry, passengers) rolling by 2021.

Modern cars are safer than ever before, but the complex sensors and cameras required to make features like autonomous emergency braking and lane-keeping assist work can be seriously costly to fix. That's according to a new report from the North American AAA, which found minor accidents damaging only the bumpers, door mirrors or windscreen can cost up to US$3000 ($4200) more when semi-autonomous technology is involved.

Honda has demonstrated its Smart Intersection vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology in Marysville, Ohio, the town where its first North American factory and research centre is based. Honda's Smart Intersection setup has four cameras mounted atop the traffic lights at each corner of an intersection. The company's image processing then uses that information to create a 360-degree feed, and classifies objects as cars, pedestrians, cyclists or emergency vehicles.

Amazon has unveiled a new in-car device that will enable users to access its Alexa voice assistant, as well as a raft of other advanced infotainment capabilities. Dubbed the Echo Auto, the device will connects to the user’s phone through Bluetooth, and to the car through either Bluetooth or a 3.5mm auxiliary input. The device is designed to sit atop the dash of the user’s car, and features eight built-in microphones to recognises different voices.