Rideshare network Lyft has enlisted the help of self-driving and ADAS technology provider Mobileye to establish the widespread commercialization of autonomous vehicles to large fleet operators.
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Lyft continues to empower its gig economy drivers by tackling a significant pain point for its current base of EV drivers: range anxiety. With the help of the API platform Smartcar, Lyft has introduced a new feature that only enables ride requests within a driver’s available EV range.
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Unique remote-piloted EV delivery service Halo.Car has taken a big step forward in its progress of transitioning more people over to electric vehicles. Today, the carshare startup announced it had removed the safety drivers from all its EVs, claiming to be the first company in the world to enable electric vehicles to be commercially remote-piloted on public roads without a human present inside. Watch as the empty EV turns heads around downtown Las Vegas in the video below.
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During my time at CES in Las Vegas, I got the chance to visit the local HQ of Halo.Car – an EV mobility solutions provider that specializes in rental cars that are dropped off and picked up using remote pilots. Company founder and CEO Anand Nandakumar personally showed me around and explained how Halo.Car’s remote piloted technology looks to bridge the gap between car sharing, autonomous driving, and quicker EV adoption.
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Indigdo Technologies promises “a new class” of purpose-built electric vehicles that it says are smooth, spacious, sustainable, and aimed at the meaty middle of the rideshare and delivery markets. They’re also promising in-wheel electric motors, active suspension systems, wireless high-speed charging, and revolutionary battery management software at a competitive price.
Is the Indigo too good to be true?
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Autonomous rideshare startup Waymo has announced an additional $2.5 billion investment round of funding. Waymo plans to use the additional funding, led by parent company Alphabet Inc., to hire more staff and advance its self-driving technology toward more paid rides.
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Electric moped-sharing company Revel is discovering that “the more wheels the merrier” as the brand launches its first Tesla-powered ride-share program in NYC.
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One of Tesla’s future plans is to roll out a network of self-driving “robotaxis,” dubbed “Tesla Network.” In today’s Tesla shareholder meeting, CEO Elon Musk fielded a question from a shareholder about the possibility of having a human-driven rideshare fleet prior to the rollout of Tesla Network.
This would be similar to Uber/Lyft or other rideshare services, but driven through an owner’s own Tesla app which they already have installed.
Musk seemed responsive to the idea, stating that while the end goal is to have autonomous ridesharing, this might be a good stopgap prior to Tesla gaining regulatory approval for their robotaxi fleets.
During yesterday’s conference call about Tesla’s second quarter financial results, Elon Musk refused to answer a question from a financial analyst about Travis Kalanick’s, Uber’s CEO, recent comments that his company would buy 500,000 Teslas in 2020 if they are equipped with Tesla’s self-driving technology by the end of the decade.
The short conversation was very revealing. Here it is in full:
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