Car News

Michelin is working on technology that could see the end of 'new tyres' as we know them today, by instead using 3D printers to bring worn-out rubber back to life. The idea forms part of the company's holistic 'Visionary Concept' with several innovative technologies including an airless wheel/tyre package, tyres made of wood, and 3D printing.

A tweet from Elon Musk has suggested a KITT-style voice assistant could appear in future Teslas, supplementing the in-dash (or on-dash, in the case of the Model 3) touchscreens.

Tesla customers have driven over 1.2 billion miles (1.9b kilometre) with the company's semi-autonomous Autopilot systems engaged, a new report says. First covered by Electrek, a team from MIT Human-Centered AI has produced (and is still updating a report) estimating the distance covered by Tesla vehicles operating with Autopilot turned on.

Baidu, China's equivalent of Google, has launched a new artificial intelligence chip, which will power its upcoming self-driving buses. The company unveiled its Kunlun AI chip last week, which will not only be used in autonomous vehicles, but also be employed in data centres where it will do natural language processing, crunch search rankings and other tasks. According to Bloomberg, the company has said it is increasing production of its Apolong self-driving bus.

More than 58 per cent of Australians don't trust autonomous cars, and more than 17 per cent think robots can't match human driving skills – according to a study from a local law firm. The report from Smith's Lawyers, titled Seven Problems Self-Driving Cars Face, found 58.6 per cent of people said "no, I like to have control of my car at all times", while just 7.1 per cent agreed with the statement "yes, [autonomous cars are] the future" when asked "would you trust an autonomous car?"