If the autonomous revolution ever arrives, it’s almost certain that self-driving cars will drive with an over-abundance of caution, which makes sense, but will surely irritate regular drivers on the road in the interim. Case in point: a new story from tech new outlet The Information dug into the ongoing Arizona pilot…
If you consider the massive amount of data Google has gathered on the world around you, it might be surprising—maybe reassuring?—to learn the company can’t track down something as simple as a trailer. But that’s indeed the case: Since January, Michigan police have been trying to locate a car hauler stolen from Waymo,…
While Volvo’s overall infotainment systems are widely hailed as some of the best out there, its navigation system, specifically, is known to be crap. But Volvo wants to remedy that. So now, if you can get one, your next Volvo will have Google Maps instead.
A self-driving minivan belonging to Google’s self-driving car unit, Waymo, was involved in a crash in Chandler, Arizona on Friday. The aftermath looks brutal. (Update: In a statement to the press, Waymo says the self-driving Pacifica was actually in “manual mode” just before the crash. This conflicts with the police…
When it comes to autonomous driving, car enthusiasts are first in line to nix the idea. There’s a bit of an overarching fear that, one day, human drivers could be rendered unnecessary and manually controlled driving is banned altogether. But even the CEO of the company with the most advanced autonomous driving fleet…
Google has published its first-ever trend report for the automotive industry, highlighting the interests of consumers and their search queries in the U.S., Germany and Japan. It turns out people are turning away from fuzzy steering wheel covers, and instead they want ways of recording what’s going on in and around…
When a salvage team pulled a Jeep from the bottom of a lake Monday, it had been there for more than a week. All the owner did was lend it to friends for a sight-seeing trip in Vermont, who, according to USA Today, said Google’s Waze GPS app instructed them to drive off of a boat launch and into Lake Champlain.
Billions are being spent on developing self-driving cars, as seen in megadeals like General Motors dumping $1 billion into Cruise Automation, or Intel paying $15 billion for chipmaker Mobileye. Now, thanks to an ongoing lawsuit between Google’s self-driving car project and Uber, we now know how much Google has spent…
Good morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Waymo, the self-driving car project launched by Google, has been at the forefront of developing autonomous technology, having rolled out an immense test fleet earlier this year while inking a partnerships with ride-hailing company Lyft to deploy robotcars on the road. Part of the company’s effort development efforts…
Waymo, Google’s driverless car developing unit, conducted an “emergency vehicle testing day” in the city of Chandler, Arizona last month to help driverless cars better understand the sights and sounds of police cars and fire trucks. Now, documents and interviews with the city and Waymo reveal Waymo did not pay…
A flurry of legal filings went public on Friday in the battle between Uber and Waymo, Google’s self-driving car operation that says Uber schemed with a former engineer to steal trade secrets and thousands of proprietary tech files to bolster its own autonomous vehicle project. But this one is rich: Uber now says…
Waymo, Google’s autonomous vehicle division, confirmed that it’s developing self-driving long-haul trucks earlier this month. Now we know what they look like.
Good morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are some auto stories that are fun and happy and uplifting in these dark days.
In the brief history of autonomous cars, Google’s self-driving-koala-pod is probably the most recognizable of its kin. Introduced back in 2014, Google named it the Firefly, and on Monday, the tech giant announced the fleet is being retired. Google’s self-driving car project, now called Waymo, will focus entirely on…
The man behind Google’s self-driving car project thinks he’s funny.
Good morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Airships are a wonderful and elegant, and Google’s co-founder is looking to build what could be the largest of its kind in the world, according to a report in The Guardian. I say they’re due for a comeback.
This is neat. For several years, Google heavily invested in efforts to build driverless cars, with a separate subsidiary named Waymo now entirely focused on it. Turns out, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin lured a high-profile autonomous car expert to the company at a driverless car race way back in 2005.…
