Automobiles – Page 12

Automation, Automobiles, Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Waymo is taking the safety drivers out to its autonomous taxis

December 26, 2019

No Hands!

Waymo, the Google-affiliated self-driving car company, has finally started to operate its self-driving taxi service without any humans sitting behind the wheel.

That means passengers using the company’s Uber-like Waymo One service might find themselves shuttled around Arizona in the back seat of an otherwise-empty minivan, as one reporter for The Verge did. Removing the drivers is a major milestone in the race for fully-autonomous transport — the vehicles are still supervised remotely, but Waymo is now confident enough in its cars to almost entirely take humans out of the loop.

Continue reading… “Waymo is taking the safety drivers out to its autonomous taxis”

Automobiles, Batteries, Electric Automobile, Science & Technology News

Electric-car battery prices dropped 13% in 2019, will reach $100/kwh in 2023

December 10, 2019

Tesla Model S lithium-ion battery pack in rolling chassis

Although electric cars haven’t quite taken off in the 2010s the way some had anticipated, sheer economics are pointing to the 2020s as the time when EVs will find that market fever pitch.

From 2010 to 2019, lithium-ion battery prices (when looking at the battery pack as a whole) have fallen from $1,100 per kilowatt-hour to $156/kwh—an 87% cut. From 2018 to 2019 alone, that represents a cut of 13%.

Those numbers were part of an annual report released Tuesday by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The report also suggested that we’ll reach the $100/kwh mark earlier than it had previously anticipated—by 2023.

Continue reading… “Electric-car battery prices dropped 13% in 2019, will reach $100/kwh in 2023”

Automobiles, Breakthrough Thinking, Inventions, Science & Technology News

Teenager solves car blind spots using a webcam and projector

November 13, 2019

It’s a relatively cheap and remarkably effective fix.

As every cyclist knows, the blind spots caused by a car’s roof pillars can be extremely dangerous. Although companies are working on various high-tech solutions for this problem, a 14-year-old from Pennsylvania has taken a more low-tech approach to create an ingenious fix for the issue.

Alaina Gassler of West Grove came up with the idea for the project after seeing her mother struggle with blind spots while driving. Gassler decided to put a webcam on the outer roof pillar of a car which could record everything that was masked from the driver’s view. Then, she used a projector to display the live feed from the webcam onto the interior pillar, with 3D-printed parts aligning the image exactly between the window and the windshield.

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Automobiles, City Planning, Science & Technology News, Tom Frey

Cities declare war on cars as more auto bans stop traffic

November 11, 2019

New York City fired the latest salvo in the war against automobiles Wednesday.

The City Council passed a $1.7 billion plan that will fundamentally change how the citizens of the Big Apple bike, bus, and walk through Manhattan, Queen, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island. The five boroughs in the next five years will see the building of 250 miles of protected bike lanes, 150 miles of dedicated bus lanes and create additional pedestrian plazas.

Two weeks ago, San Francisco unveiled a $604 million project to ban cars from their busiest thoroughfare, Market Street, where a half-million pedestrians walk on what is one of the most dangerous streets for traffic accidents, executive director of Walk San Francisco Jodie Medeiros recently told Curbed San Francisco

“It’s a war on cars, number one, bottom line,” Car Coach and automotive industry expert Lauren Fix told FOX Business. “It’s what’s called a road diet, restricting roads to force people to use mass transit, which is horrible! It’s filthy, never not on time, not in the U.S. at least, and it’s not safe. The city allows pan handlers and drug addicts to sleep on the trains and beg for money. I’ll take an Uber or a cab before I take public transportation.”

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Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Science & Technology News, Transportation

The problem with all self-driving cars looking alike

November 7, 2019

Self-driving cars within fleets will look alike, creating problems.

Have you ever seen a sea of yellow cabs, all of which seem indistinguishable from each other?

It used to be that if you booked a yellow cab for picking you up at a busy airport or similar venue, the odds were that a slew of other yellow cabs were also vying for picking up passengers there too. As such, you would have a tough time trying to figure out which among the multitudes of yellow cabs was the one designated just for you.

The cabs sometimes had a number displayed on the outside of the vehicle, and in theory, you could then spot your particular yellow cab, but possessing the number was one tricky aspect and the other was the arduous difficulty of trying to clearly see the number among the blur of so many cabs.

There was pretty much little point in reserving a cab beforehand and instead, it seemed wiser to take a chance at randomly hailing a cab.

Today’s world is a sea change, as it were.

Continue reading… “The problem with all self-driving cars looking alike”

Automation, Automobiles, Driverless vehicles, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Robocar: Watch the world’s fastest autonomous car reach its record-breaking 282 km/h

November 6, 2019

Autonomous cars are set to take over the world’s roads, transforming the way we travel.

Leading the pack is Robocar, a futuristic self-driving electric vehicle from British start-up Roborace.

Roborace demonstrated its robot’s capabilities by taking the car to 282.42 km/h (175.49 mph) – an average confirmed by the UK Timing Association – at RAF Elvington, Yorkshire, UK, claiming the record for fastest autonomous car.

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Automation, Automobiles, Driverless vehicles, Science & Technology News

Waymo tells riders that ‘completely driverless’ vehicles are on the way

November 6, 2019

‘You can enjoy having the car to yourself’

Waymo, the self-driving division of Alphabet, is about to put more passengers its fully driverless Chrysler Pacifica minivans. The company emailed its customers in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, to let them know that “completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way.” It’s a sign that Waymo is growing confident enough in its technology to increase the frequency at which it allows passengers to ride in autonomous vehicles without a safety driver behind the wheel.

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Automobiles, Electric Automobile, Ford Motor Company, Science & Technology News

Ford announces launch of largest electric vehicle charging network in the US

October 29, 2019

New York (CNN Business)Ford doesn’t currently offer any electric vehicles, but it announced Thursday that, once it does, it will offer the largest North American network of electric vehicle chargers of any automaker — including Tesla.

Unlike Tesla, though, Ford didn’t build this charging network on its own. Working with EV charging companies Greenlots and Electrify America, Ford has created what it calls the FordPass Charging Network. When needed, users will be directed to one of the network’s chargers using an app or in the vehicle’s central touch screen.

Next year, Ford will begin selling an electric crossover SUV with styling based on the Ford Mustang. It’s the first vehicle Ford has ever offered that was designed, from the outset, as an electric vehicle. That vehicle has not been unveiled yet. An electric version of the Ford F-150 pickup is also being developed.

The FordPass network will include more than 12,000 charging stations with a total of 35,000 plugs in the United States and some parts of Canada. Tesla has 4,375 public charging stations with about 15,000 plugs in the United States, according to the Department of Energy.

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Automobiles, Electric Vehicles, Ford Motor Company, Science & Technology News

Ford announces launch of largest electric vehicle charging network in the US

October 27, 2019

Demand for electric cars has grown slowly. But the tsunami is coming

New York (CNN Business)Ford doesn’t currently offer any electric vehicles, but it announced Thursday that, once it does, it will offer the largest North American network of electric vehicle chargers of any automaker — including Tesla.

Unlike Tesla, though, Ford didn’t build this charging network on its own. Working with EV charging companies Greenlots and Electrify America, Ford has created what it calls the FordPass Charging Network. When needed, users will be directed to one of the network’s chargers using an app or in the vehicle’s central touch screen.

Next year, Ford will begin selling an electric crossover SUV with styling based on the Ford Mustang. It’s the first vehicle Ford has ever offered that was designed, from the outset, as an electric vehicle. That vehicle has not been unveiled yet. An electric version of the Ford F-150 pickup is also being developed.

The FordPass network will include more than 12,000 charging stations with a total of 35,000 plugs in the United States and some parts of Canada. Tesla has 4,375 public charging stations with about 15,000 plugs in the United States, according to the Department of Energy.

Continue reading… “Ford announces launch of largest electric vehicle charging network in the US”

Alternative Transportation, Automobiles, Science & Technology News, Uber

The death of cars was greatly exaggerated

October 25, 2019

The founders of Uber and Lyft, among others, declared that people would no longer need to own cars. Instead, car ownership is rising.

Throw your driver’s license out the window. Better yet, don’t get one at all.

For nearly a decade, that’s been the message from buzzy transportation companies. In 2011, car-sharing company Zipcar touted a study claiming millennials believe car ownership is difficult. The same year, Zimride, founded by the guys who would later cofound Lyft, was touted as a startup challenging the “old model of individual ownership.” Former Uber head Travis Kalanick boasted that his driver’s license had expired and that his 1999 BMW M3 convertible—his only car—had a broken alternator.

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Automobiles, drones, Ford Motor Company, Science & Technology News

Ford patents drone that pops out of a car’s trunk

October 24, 2019

IMAGE VIA U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE/FORD

The spare tire stashed in your car’s trunk for emergencies might soon be joined by a drone.

On Thursday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark’s office published a patent application submitted by Ford Motor Company subsidiary Ford Global Technologies. It seems the American automaker is developing a system that would allow drivers to deploy and control a drone stored in their car’s trunk.

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Automation, Automobiles, China, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Self-driving taxis roll out in Shanghai

October 22, 2019

A man holds a door to a Didi self-driving car during last month’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai. Picture: REUTERS

Ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing plans to start using self-driving vehicles to pick up passengers in Shanghai and hopes to expand the scheme outside China by 2021.

Local authorities in Shanghai last week issued licences — the first in China — for operational tests of smart and connected cars with passengers in them, that would pave the way for commercial robotaxis in the future.

The licences were given to car-hailing ride service Didi Chuxing as well as to car manufacturer SAIC Motor and BMW that allow them to conduct autonomous driving projects in real urban scenarios.

Each of the three companies are permitted to run 50 vehicles for pilot programs including robotaxis, unmanned deliveries and other autonomous driving services. The licence holders can increase the number of test vehicles after six months if there are no traffic violations.

Continue reading… “Self-driving taxis roll out in Shanghai”