The Station is a weekly newsletter dedicated to all things transportation. Sign up here — just click The Station — to receive it every weekend in your inbox. Hello readers: Welcome to The Station, your central hub for all past, present and future means of moving people and packages from Point A to Point B. I’ll […]
China’s robotaxis charged ahead in 2021
Autonomous driving startups in China are in an arms race to put passengers in their machine-driven vehicles. Every few weeks, news arrives that another major player has got the greenlight to launch a new pilot program or a small-scale service. These press releases, often dotted with regulatory jargon and flowery language to aggrandize the companies’ […]
Waymo partners with Geely to make electric AVs for ride hail in the US
Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous driving technology arm, is partnering with Chinese automaker Geely to build an all-electric, self-driving ride-hailing vehicle. The companies will integrate Waymo Driver, Waymo’s AV system, into Geely’s Zeekr vehicles for use in U.S. markets “in the years to come.” While Waymo is not providing a specific time frame for either the start […]
Waymo says self-driving car that struck pedestrian in San Francisco was in manual mode
A Waymo self-driving Jaguar I-Pace that struck a pedestrian in San Francisco on Wednesday evening was in manual mode, the company told TechCrunch in response to an initial report posted on Reddit. Waymo says the vehicle was in manual mode at the time, meaning the human safety driver who was behind wheel was actually driving. […]
Intel to take Mobileye public next year
Intel plans to take Mobileye, the advanced driver assistance and automated driving subsidiary it acquired for $15 billion more than four years ago, public next year. Spinning Mobileye out into a separate publicly traded company could increase value for Intel shareholders, its parent company said in an announcement that went out late Monday. A source […]
Baidu’s robotaxi service aims to be in 100 cities by 2030
Baidu keeps ramping up its autonomous driving ambitions. The Chinese tech company made its name in search engines and still relies greatly on search ads for revenues. But it’s hoping that its heavy bet on autonomous driving will pay off down the road. Apollo Go, Baidu’s robotaxi service, aims to be in 65 cities by […]
Cruise plans to have ‘tens of thousands’ of Origin AVs on roads in coming years
Cruise expects to leap from a limited commercial robotaxi and delivery service that will start in earnest in 2022 to a business of “tens of thousands” of its purpose-built Origin AVs on the road over the next few years. The eye-popping projections will be reached, according to CEO Dan Ammann, through a combination of regulatory […]
GM invests $300M in China’s first self-driving car unicorn Momenta
General Motors has now joined a slew of other major automakers, including Toyota, Chinese state-backed SAIC Motor, and Mercedes-Benz AG in putting its chips behind Chinese autonomous driving startup Momenta. GM, the largest automaker in the U.S. in terms of vehicle sales, said Tuesday it will invest $300 million in Momenta to accelerate the development […]
GM invests in radar software startup Oculii as demand for automated driving features rise
Oculii, a software startup that aims to improve the spatial resolution of radar sensors by up to 100-fold, has scored a new investment from General Motors. The new funding, which the two companies say is in the millions, comes just months after Oculii closed a $55 million Series B. Oculii and GM have already been […]
Volkswagen and Argo AI reveal first ID Buzz test vehicle for autonomous driving
Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, a standalone VW brand responsible for the development and sales of light commercial vehicles, and Argo AI, an autonomous driving technology company, unveiled the first version of the ID Buzz AD (Autonomous Driving) on Sunday. The two companies shared plans to test and commercially scale the jointly developed, fully-electric self-driving van over […]