Electric Vehicles & Cars News - Page 73

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk was at the Stanford FutureFest recently, where he updated his timeline for the progression of AI.

During the chat, Musk said "If any given year you find your predictions are going further out or coming closer in, that actually one way to think of acceleration [of progress] because otherwise what's the quantitative measure of AI?"

While talking with Fortune's Kirsten Korosec, Musk said "We're going to end up with complete autonomy, and I think we will have complete autonomy in approximately two years". Now, keep in mind that Musk is referring to a "level 4 autonomous vehicle", which The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) describes as a "vehicle designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip".

Following Google's discovery driverless cars are a bit too good at driving for their own good, the company is said -- according to three sources aware of the plans -- to be partnering with classic car maker Ford to make new ones. This news is in line with what co-founder Sergey Brin said earlier in the year: it wants manufacturing partners interested in its self-driving technology.

The deal is said to be non-exclusive, meaning it can partner with other companies if it pleases. As well, it's understood Ford will not be liable for any accidents to come out of the venture.

The Ford deal makes sense because the head of Google's self-driving car project, John Krafcik, worked 14 years at the company. Other employees attached to the project have history there, too. More, Ford's previous chief executive Alan Mulally is on the Google board as of 2014. Giving additional credence to the rumor is Ford CEO Mark Fields consistent support of a future where it sells cars as "on-demand services".

Programmers and engineers at Google and the GM-Carnegie Mellon Autonomous Driving Collaborative Research Lab, among other institutions, are finding driverless cars are too good at what they do, and it's causing a crash rate double that of cars with human drivers. That is to say, a robot driver that obeys the law to the letter every time doesn't mesh so well with human drivers that don't do the same. For example, a driverless car will go the speed limit on a busy highway whereas everyone else will be going well above it, or be wanting to, thus increasing the probability of a crash. As well, the reflexes of a driverless car are better, which can catch a human off guard.

Though all crashes have been minor and none of them the fault of a driverless car, researchers are of course debating what to do about the situation. One possibility: programming the vehicles to behave more like humans and better fit into the "social game" (as Google describes it) that is driving, even if that means making them a little less lawful.

"It's a sticky area," says Brandon Schoettle, co-author of the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute's study. "If you program them to not follow the law, how much do you let them break the law?"

It looks like Google will be making a self-driving unit within its Alphabet company, according to "a person briefed on the company's strategy", reports Bloomberg.

Google's autonomous vehicles have clocked up over 1 million miles (or 1.6 million kilometers) on public roads throughout San Francisco, and Austin, Texas. These cities are where Alphabet (or Google, or whatever) will roll out their autonomous vehicles first, with an Uber-like service. The person that Bloomberg talked with asked not to be identified as "the plans are private". The new autonomous vehicles would be deployed in confined areas at first, such as "campuses, military bases or corporate office parks", according to Bloomberg's source.

One of Google's main goals with autonomous vehicles is to reduce traffic accidents, which claim around 33,000 lives every year in the United States alone. Back in September, Google and Alphabet co-founder Sergey Brin said that self-driving cars would first reach humanity as a form of service, saying that countless people could try the technology, and that having "the vehicle come back to us every day" meant that Google could update the machines at a much higher rate than consumer-owned autonomous cars.

After a tumultuous year for Volkswagen, there are rumors that the German carmaker is set to unveil an EV concept at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Volkswagen looks to be using a sexy futuristic design, with the electric vehicle sporting an awesome-looking illuminated grille and squinting headlights. We should see the full shape including some vintage cues from the iconic van, something that would include short overhangs, a wide D-pillar, and boxy overall aesthetic.

VW should be using the concept car as a way to push into the future, with Volkswagen's chairman set to unveil the EV during his keynote at CES on January 5, where he will focus on "the latest developments in electromobility as well as the next generation of connectivity".

Tesla gets all the headlines when it comes to electric vehicles, but Porsche will soon be competing in the all-electric vehicle race with its forthcoming Mission E sedan.

Porsche showed off the four-door Mission E concept vehicle in September, saying that the all-electric vehicle would have the equivalent of 600 horsepower. This will provide the Mission E car with 0-60 mph times of under 3.5 seconds, with a range of more than 310 miles. At these specs, Porsche's Mission E car will be slower than Telsa's more-than-impressive Model S P85D, which is rated at 762 horsepower - enough power to usher in 0-60 mph in less than 2.8 seconds (with Ludicrous mode enabled).

Mission E will feature an 800-volt charger that will charge up the all-electric vehicle to 80% charge in only 15 minutes. This is impressive, considering Tesla's vehicle takes nearly twice as long to get to 80%. Porsche also promises to build its lithium-ion battery pack into the floor of the car, just like Tesla does. Porsche's chairman of the executive board, Oliver Blume, says that the Mission E is the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the sports car. We should expect the first vehicles to roll off the production line before 2020.

Automaker Volvo and Microsoft have announced they will work together to help develop autonomous car technology, with collected data aimed at delivering "meaningful services."

"Technology will transform when it comes to autonomous cars, connectivity and the car buying process," said Bjorn Annwall, senior VP of marketing at Volvo, in a statement to CNBC. "We believe this will happen it's naturally the tech and automotive industry comes closer to explore this together. We are exploring a number of different collaborations."

Specifics related to how the two companies will work together were not released - but the idea of machine learning and finding a way to promote Volvo vehicles using HoloLens are two likely solutions. Consumers can expect to begin seeing "mixed reality" solutions starting sometime in 2016.

Korean automaker Hyundai expects highly autonomous vehicle technologies available by 2020, with full autonomous models available by 2030, according to company senior executives. Over the next five years, almost $10 billion will be invested by Hyundai to bolster its autonomous research efforts.

"Fully-autonomous vehicles are still some way off, and a great deal of research and rigorous product testing will need to be carried out to make the 'self-driving car' a reality," said Lim Tae-won, VP of the Hyundai Motor Central Advanced Research and Engineering Institute. "Kia is still in the early stages of developing its own technologies, and we are confident that the latest innovations - both partially and fully autonomous - will ultimately make driving safer for everyone."

Meanwhile, the Hyundai Genesis self-driving vehicle recently completed a three-kilometer series of test runs in South Korea - marking the first time the vehicle hit public city streets. The vehicle will be showcased next month, with the sedan supporting semi-autonomous solutions.

Domino's has just unveiled an impressive new pizza delivery car, where it has heavily modified a Chevy Spark into the pizza delivery car to end the war between pizza delivery cars - it has a damn built-in oven!

The new '100 DXP' is being rolled out across 25 cities around the United States in the next 90 days, including Boston, Dallas, New Orleans, San Diego and Seattle. The vehicle has an outward-facing oven in the back, so that your pizza delivery driver can arrive to your house with pizza that has literally just come out of the oven.

Better yet, the modified Chevy Spark can hold 80 pizzas for those late night gaming sessions - you know, when you need 80 pizzas. The car makes sense, and once these bad boys have 3D printers in the back and get injected with some self-driving technology, we could see pizza delivery step into the future.

With its new autonomous, electric DeLorean, Stanford University has all the other Back To the Future Day creations beat.

Named after the film's iconic hoverboard-riding don't-call-me-chicken Marty McFly, Stanford's self-driving DeLorean was built in conjunction with the Revs Program at Stanford and Renovo Motors, and stands as the team's newest research project.

"We want to design automated vehicles that can take any action necessary to avoid an accident," said Chris Gerdes, a Stanford professor of mechanical engineering who orchestrated the project. "The laws of physics will limit what the car can do, but we think the software should be capable of any possible maneuver within those limits. MARTY is another step in this direction, thanks to the passion and hard work of our students. Stanford builds great research by building great researchers."