This story was first published in 2015. As we move closer to a future where autonomous driving technology is expected to feature more and more in new cars, we felt a revisit of the basics is in order. Click here for our most recent stories on autonomous driving...
New rules from the US North American Highway Transport Authority (NHTSA) could allow fully driverless vehicles on American roads. An announcement from the US Department of Transportation, operating through the NHTSA, will "reconsider the necessity and appropriateness of its current safety standards" on autonomous vehicles, taking "active steps to prepare for the future by engaging with new technologies to ensure safety without hampering innovation"...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Michael McCormack today announced the establishment of a new Office for Future Transport Technologies, launched through a $9.7 million investment...
We've written about it before at CarAdvice and discussed it on our various radio shows and the podcast, and we're not the only ones who think that autonomous vehicle technology continues to grow at a rate much faster than the regulations required to police it. In many instances, manufacturers can already offer autonomy that far outstrips the legal framework we have...
The Mercedes-Benz Vision Urbanetic is a conceptual self-driving vehicle platform, which supports interchangeable people carrier and cargo lugging modules. Although it looks quite small in the supplied photos, the Urbanetic is actually rather large, measuring up to 5.14 metres from head to tail. The two bodies seem to be at least two metres tall...
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...
The manual gearbox might be living on a serious time overdraft in many parts of the world, but BMW’s M Division has no plans to stop offering it any time soon. When we spoke to boss Frank Van Meel at the launch of the M2 and M5 Competition earlier this week, he said we can expect to still have the option of a stick shift, even as the company moves to its new, modular fifth-generation architecture...
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...
The driver responsible for overseeing the self-driving Uber prototype that struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona earlier this year was watching The Voice on her phone before the crash, according to a new report from Tempe Police...
The Volvo XC90 is set to get some serious autonomous driving technology early next decade, according to a new report out of the US. Speaking with The Car Connection, Volvo's senior vice president, Henrik Green, said the next-generation XC90 will be able to transport "sleeping passengers" to their destination on "limited roadways" – likely referring to highways and freeways...
Just 24 hours after announcing it had raised US$500 million in a funding push, Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer Byton has revealed its second concept car. The K-Byte follows on from the M-Byte SUV revealed at CES in Las Vegas earlier this year, incorporating Level 4 autonomy into an interesting, luxurious package...
Two groups, The Center for Auto Safety and Consumer Watchdog, have called on the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate the Tesla Autopilot system. The two organisations claim Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, have deliberately misled and deceived "consumers into believing that Autopilot is safer and more capable than it is known to be", and have "made it reasonable for Tesla owners to believe, and act on that belief, that a Tesla with Autopilot is an autonomous vehicle capable of 'self-driving'"...
Nissan has revealed the Pitch-R at the UEFA Champion's League final in Kiev this week, which uses self-driving technology to draw soccer fields "wherever there is space". Using four cameras, GPS location tracking and collision avoidance systems, the Pitch-R can draw white lines on grass, tarmac, or gravel with its "eco-friendly dissolvable paint"...
The self-driving Uber test vehicle which struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona reportedly didn't take evasive action because of problems with how the on-board software responds to foreign objects on the road...
Waymo, self-driving research arm for Google, has been involved in the second major self-driving accident to hit Arizona in a matter of months – but the computer wasn't at fault. According to local police, the self-driving Chrysler was operating in autonomous mode when the accident occurred, while Waymo claims the car was under human control...
Seeing Machines is seeking 30 test drivers to get involved in a new self-driving trial in Canberra. The trial is designed to improve on the company's driver-monitoring technology, which currently features in the Cadillac CT6 (pictured). Rather than focusing on the car, it'll focus on how self-driving systems impact driver behaviour...
The world's car manufacturers are racing to have their autonomous technology up and running at the moment, testing ingenious solutions to the potential problems facing self-driving vehicles. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is currently working on technology to let its robo-cars 'see around corners' thanks to a combination of automated, connected and mapping tech...
Chinese brand Wey has revealed its latest creation – the X – an autonomous electric SUV concept bound for the 2018 Beijing motor show. While full details are yet to be revealed, the company has confirmed the X features artificial intelligence (AI) along with vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) technologies...
When we’re not creating it ourselves, the CarAdvice team spends a lot of time finding and consuming motoring content from all over the world. Here’s a handful of the articles, videos and social media posts that most caught our eye last week. Some of them are brand-new, others have been online for a while...
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Google's Waymo autonomous driving division have announced a long-term strategic partnership this week at the New York motor show. The two companies will work together to design and engineer a driverless version of the Jaguar I-Pace, with 20,000 units forecast to join Waymo's self-driving fleet in its first two years of production...
