Autonomous Cars

WayRay is a Swiss deep-tech startup, has introduced the Battery Electric Holograktor, which is the world’s first car with a holographic display that can superimpose items at any distance around the vehicle.

GM is once again toying with the idea of autonomous cars by envisioning an interior that at first sight looks like the ultimate man cave where two dudes could play their favorite console games while the vehicle handles all the real-life driving. Which is cute, but kind of a stretch and far from feasible for the time being.

Tesla’s Autopilot has changed the way cars are driven, and the automotive world will never be the same. While this was introduced as a technology to assist the driver, many people have taken it on its face value – or word value in this case. The company’s Level 2 self-driving system has come under scrutiny many times for various reasons, and it still haunts Elon Musk, who is tired of reiterating that people cannot rely completely on it as a full self-driving system. He recently spoke to Automotive News, and blamed the owners for not using it the way it was intended to be used.

Tesla’s Autopilot is about to get smarter now. According to new reports, the brand’s semi-autonomous technology will halt at red signals and stop signs. The feature is still in beta phase, but will be added to Autopilot in the future.

A video demonstrating the feature was uploaded on Out of Spec Motoring’s YouTube channel wherein a Tesla Model 3 automatically stopped at the red light when the Autopilot was engaged. This was perhaps rolled out to a group of people because Tesla hasn’t officially announced anything about it.

The Scania AXL Concept was started from a blank sheet of paper. Scania’s designers and engineers, however, had a clear task to abide by, though: the cabin had to be driverless. Which kind of contradicted Scania’s previous projects, where the cabin had to be wrapped around the driver, with all the adjacent aspects like safety and comfort. Oh, and to make things even more complicated, the design team was given one year to come up with a viable prototype. Did we mention it had to drive itself as well?

Let’s be honest here for a minute. When you first heard about autonomous technology and realized that a car can drive itself, the thought of having car sex would have crossed your mind. I’m not judging you for it; movies have shown us that amorous activities in the car are viable and feasible. The Wolf of Wall Street’s opening scene, anyone?

Anyway, before you get distracted and drift away from this page, let’s talk about what BMW did. It released a short commercial for the iNEXT that promotes in-car sex. Well, now we know what the ‘Vision’ stands for in ‘BMW Vision iNEXT’! *wink wink*

Driving nannies are already starting to get a little ridiculous. If you try to take a turn too quickly, your car’s advanced stability control system may automatically apply the brakes and keep you in check. Perhaps the car doesn’t think you brake soon enough, so it brakes for you – hell, there are even situations where autonomous braking systems have been accused of braking for no reason. What if your car could evaluate your driving skills and determine what you’re able to do? What if your car can determine whether or not you drive on the freeway, in snow, or in the rain. What if your car determines how close to the imposed speed limit you can get? Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, Toyota thinks that’s the answer to driving safety.

After successfully running the Robocar up the Goodwood Festival of Speed’s hill climb last year, Roborace is returning to the scene of one of its greatest public triumphs, and it’s bringing along a new developmental prototype with it. The Roborace DevBot 2.0 isn’t an entirely different model than the Robocar; it’s more of a second-generation evolution of the model that tackled the run up Lord March’s driveway a year ago. The 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed starts tomorrow, July 4, and will run until Sunday, July 7. In the event you see a futuristic, LMP1-inspired race car partaking in the festivities, be sure to give it a shout out. That’s Roborace’s DevBot 2.0.

Google is looking to enter the automotive infotainment operating system market with Android Automotive OS, not to be confused with Android Auto, a system that is already included in the infotainment system of most new cars and allows users to display their phone operating system on a car’s infotainment system. Android Automotive OS is different, and it is actually a fully-fledged operating system specially designed to have all the functions we’ve come to expect from automotive infotainment solutions.

Audi has released sketches of its new concept car called the AI:me that will be unveiled at the 2019 Shanghai Motor Show. The AI:me is Audi’s vision of a fully autonomous city car. The basic outline reminds you of the Audi A2, but with not so contemporary and conventional looks. Unlike the automaker’s last concept, the Q4 e-tron EV, this one looks like a far-fetched thought. Will it hit the production line anytime soon?

Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving tech in the automotive industry, but competitors are hot on its heels trying to match the broad array of features provided by its Autopilot system. Now the EV maker is consolidating its position as a leader in this field with its newly released Advanced Tailgater mode that will be added for free to all Autopilot-equipped Tesla models via an over-the-air update.

The age of autonomous or self-driving cars is slowly creeping up on us and, with each new year that passes, semi-autonomous technology is getting better and better as we inch toward the day when human driving could be outlawed altogether. With that said, a recent report provided by Cox Automotive points out that 84-percent of people surveyed would still prefer the option of driving themselves, leaving just 16-percent of those surveyed willing to give up full control. To make matters worse, the overall acceptance of self-driving technology over the last two years has fallen by 18-percentage points. That probably, at least in part, comes thanks to recent high-profile autonomous car accidents, like the fatal accident with one of Uber’s self-driving cars. As such, it’s not surprising that automakers are scrambling to prove that their autonomous technology is safe – we can always trust them, right?

In the video you see below, BMW has chosen one of its autonomous test vehicles with the co-star being none other than a scary-looking ghost in the woods. Naturally, the self-driving car stops in the middle of the road, long before it could run over the scary ghost because, you know, self-driving technology is just that good. As the video proceeds, the ghost opens the car door to find nobody in the driver’s seat, gets scared, and scurries off into the woods like a very naughty mouse that was caught in your kitchen cupboard. Then we see the phrase “NOTHING TO BE AFRAID OF” flash across the screen.

This video can be seen in one of two ways. The way BMW wants you to see it is that its self-driving technology is so good that it can even stop for a lifeless entity in the middle of a dark wooded road in the middle of the night – a place where no car (or driver for that matter) really has any business being anyway. That’s great- BMW’s self-driving tech will stop for anything. Not that I’d want my car to stop for a ghost, ghoul, goblin, or any other form of the undead – can you imagine how useless autonomous cars would be in a zombie apocalypse? Anyway, YAY; it is super safe.

I, on the other hand, look at this video a completely different way. First off, why was this self-driving car in the middle of the darkest, creepiest looking wooded road in the middle of the night? Maybe the car had gone rogue after the passenger stopped to take a leak. A brave soul that would have been. But, I digress. I think the real message here is that even ghosts – the leftover souls of those that once walked this earth – are scared of self-driving technology. Now, that, my friends, is something to take note of. If a creepy ghost walking down a dark road in the middle of the night, with clear intentions of scaring the hell out of someone, is scared of self-driving cars, then shouldn’t we be scared of them as well? Anyway, it’s just a thought. Enjoy the video!

The Renault EZ-Ultimo is a futuristic concept car that the French firm unveiled at the 2018 Paris Motor Show. A fully autonomous car, the EZ-Ultimo rounds out Renault’s trilogy of concept robo-vehicles designed for shared mobility. It joins the EZ-Go and the EZ-Pro, also unveiled in 2018.

Described as a "robo-vehicle for a premium mobility experience," the EZ-Ultimo was developed for increasingly congested city traffic and to meet new urban trends in which more and more people drop personal cars in favor of shared car services. Powered by an all-electric drivetrain, the concept car is intended to be offered as a service for "a single trip, a circuit or a day booking" provided by premium travel companies and resorts. One of Renault’s most luxurious vehicles ever, the EZ-Ultimo previews a production car that might become available over the next decade.

Update 3/28/2019: We stopped by Renault’s booth at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show and got some good shots of the Renault EZ-Ultimo. Check them out in the gallery at the bottom of the page!

Tesla has unveiled the final entry in its S3XY all-electric lineup - the 2020 Model Y! Revealed in a live stream event broadcast from Hawthorne, California, the Model Y offers impressive performance and surprising practicality, including a top speed up to 150 mph and optional seating for seven. Read on for all the early specs.

In the light of recent events, one thing is clear – not all people are ready to adopt new technologies. We have been hearing the ICEing cases where ‘Bro trucks’ block the supercharging stations and not allow EV owners to charge their vehicles. Now, people in Arizona are showing their anger towards Waymo’s autonomous cars in Arizona by attacking them.

Every automaker is working towards road and vehicular safety in some way or another. While most of them are doing it through autonomous technology, Toyota Research Institute had a breakthrough last year to fulfill its moral obligation towards road safety. In a nutshell, the technology, called “Guardian,” coordinates the skills of the human driver and the vehicle they’re driving. What’s even better is that Toyota intends to share this with other automakers as well.

The 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is just around the corner, and it comes as no surprise that the latest and greatest forward-thinking car concepts are just now trickling across our collective desks. The latest comes from Bosch, with this odd-looking all-electric, fully autonomous shuttle that promises big things for the future.

There are two sides to autonomous technology and self-driving cars – you’re either with them or against them. Sure, there are a few people other there that are still on the fence over the whole thing but, for the most part, people love ‘em or hate ‘em. Some people, as in the entire state of Arizona, apparently, seem to hate them. They hate them so much that they have, essentially, started a war with Waymo self-driving vans and their safety drivers. And we’re not talking about just flipping them the bird or cutting them off in traffic. No; this is much worse and beyond extreme. How do guns, playing chicken, and constant harassment sound?

We have been hearing stories about how the autonomous system has failed in cars and even killed people in some cases. How about we talk about a life-saving incident for a change? A 45-year old man in his Tesla Model S was spotted by the cops cruising on an expressway fast asleep. They chased the car for minutes before successfully stopping it. Imagine the dire consequences had it not been for the Autopilot system.

Uber has decided to revive its self-driving car program nine months after the fatal crash in Tempe, Arizona that took the life of an innocent pedestrian. Uber has hired a former National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) official, Nat Beuse, to work in the company’s self-driving car program. According to Reuters, Nat Beuse previously oversaw vehicle safety research at the NHTSA.

The big news from Volvo’s booth at this year’s L.A. Auto Show isn’t about any new models, because there aren’t any. In fact, the automaker didn’t bring a single car. Instead, Volvo’s emphasis was placed on a new Android-based operating system that is currently being co-developed with Google, and it could eventually be seen spreading throughout the Geely-owned family of marques.

Technology is paramount for Swedish automaker Volvo, this much we’ve known for years. But Volvo took it one step further by using the L.A. Auto Show as a place to talk about its future technologies, not about a futuristic concept car or a world premiere of sorts. We don’t really know too much about the new infotainment system that’s in the works but judging by the alliance involved; it should be impressive once ready.

While some companies are investing their time and money in autonomous car taxis, Audi has gone one step ahead with flying taxis. Audi, Airbus, and Italdesign have teamed up to present a flying and driving prototype of ’Pop.Up Next’ at the Drone Week in Amsterdam. Pop.Up Next is a basically a flying taxi that combines a self-driving electric car with a passenger drone. Sounds funky, right?