The news has been epically bad for Cruise robotaxis these past few weeks. GM’s driverless car subsidiary has announced a round of layoffs this week, with the CEO Kyle Vogt reportedly telling employees in an all-hands meeting. Plus, investigations have dredged up some incriminating news that the software’s algorithm had trouble detecting children.
GM’s Cruise autonomous taxi service is pausing driverless operations everywhere after having it’s license suspended in California on Tuesday.
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Waymo and Uber have rolled out a partnership in Phoenix wherein riders who order an Uber within Waymo’s service area might get picked up by a driverless Waymo vehicle, rather than a human-driven Uber car, starting today.
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Google’s Waymo driverless ride-hailing service is expanding operations to Los Angeles, California.
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The Dubai Future Foundation announced this week a new goal to convert 25% of the city’s traffic to autonomous driving by 2030. Sheikh Mohammed, the UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Emir of Dubai, announced the initiative which he hopes will “facilitate people’s lives and increase the productivity”.
To make the announcement, the city showcased a new driverless car concept featuring a Tesla Model S.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter Thursday night to announce that Tesla is ramping up the hiring for the Autopilot software team in order to achieve “generalized full autonomy”. Under its current version, the Autopilot can steer the car on highways and change lane by simply activating the turn signal, but to get to full autonomy, Tesla will need to update its software and suite of sensors.
[tweet https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/667516705116065792 align=’center’]
Musk describes the project as “super high priority”. The CEO added that the Autopilot team reports directly to him and no prior experience in the automotive industry is required, but he is looking for “hardcore” software engineers.
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Google’s driverless car project has been long in the making. The company lead development in the field since 2009 and as of September 30, they have accumulated 1,210,676 miles on autonomous mode through 2 fleets: one in Mountain View, CA and one Austin, TX. Google’s latest official comments on the timeframe of the project suggested a commercialization of the technology around 2020, but a consultant on Google’s driverless team revealed that the vehicle could be ready in less than 3 years…
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