Zoox Seeks Up to $252 Million in Funding

Zoox Inc., a secretive autonomous-driving startup in Silicon Valley, is seeking to raise as much as $252 million in funding, according to a securities filing. If the fundraising is successful, the investment could give Zoox a valuation of more than $1 billion, according to an analysis by venture-capital research firm VC Experts. While Zoox has said very little about what it's working on, it's the only startup with a license to operate autonomous vehicles on the road in California. The other startup that had a similar license was Cruise Automation, which General Motors Co. acquired in March. California has also granted permits to Google parent Alphabet Inc., Ford Motor Co., Tesla Motors Inc. and about a half-dozen other companies. Uber Technologies Inc. has started testing self-driving cars in Pittsburgh, where it collaborates with the robotics group at Carnegie Mellon University. Technology companies and automakers are racing to build cars capable of driving without human intervention. Interest in such vehicles has helped spur demand for artificial-intelligence and automotive professionals. Driverless-car development is a costly endeavor, which could deter some venture capitalists. Zoox declined to comment. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported details of Zoox's fundraising. The newspaper said Hong Kong-based AID Partners Capital Holdings Ltd. invested $20 million into the round and that Zoox has 140 employees, including former Alphabet, Apple and Tesla workers. Before it went quiet, Zoox showed off sporty renderings of a concept car, one with a low roof and no windshields, designed to drive in both directions. Inside, passengers sit facing each other, like in a train compartment. Zoox is looking to create driverless cars for a ride-hailing service similar to Uber, according to a report last year in the trade publication IEEE Spectrum. Zoox's founders include an Australian designer and a Stanford University grad who worked on self-driving cars alongside Sebastian Thrun, co-creator of Alphabet's autonomous-vehicle project. In recent months, Zoox has brought on board members including Laurie Yoler, the former president of Qualcomm Labs, and Dan Cooperman, the former general counsel for Apple Inc. and Oracle Corp.

By 2030, 25% of Dubai transportation will be autonomous

Google Offering $20 Per Hour to Ride in Autonomous Cars

For all you philosophy majors out there looking for gainful employment, Google may be just the thing for you.

Google is on the lookout for people in Mountain View, California, holding a Bachelor’s degree to sit in the driver’s seat of its self-driving cars. The “Vehicle-Safety Specialist” would sit behind the wheel of the car for six to eight hours per day while the car drives itself, just as a precaution in case of emergency. The position pays $20 per hour.

Another person would sit alongside the driver-passenger and take notes for the engineering team about the car’s operations. Prospective candidates must be able to type 40 wpm and have clean driving and criminal records, and must pass in-car and out-of-car training.

Google’s ad on HireArt also mentions that prospective candidates should “operate comfortably in a fast-paced environment, sometimes managing up to four communication channels simultaneously via various high- and low-tech mediums.”

While Google focuses on self-driving passenger cars, the New York Times reported on Tuesday that another company, Otto, is focusing instead on self-driving big-rig trucks, banking that a commercial focus could be more financially viable since a single laser senor used on a Google car costs near $75,000.

Self-driving big rigs may also be more attractive to regulators who are concerned with the disproportionate number of big-rig-caused highway fatalities (9.5% of all highway fatalities, according to the Department of Transportation) when big rigs account for only 5.6 percent of the total miles driven each year on highways.

Otto, based in San Francisco, is, probably not coincidentally, made up in part by 15 former Google engineers, including major players from Google’s self-driving car division.

BMW to launch iNext autonomous car by 2021

Bayerische Motoren Werke, aka BMW, has shaped the history of mobility for the past 100 years and is on the threshold of a new era. The Munich-based automaker is waiting to seize the opportunities of digitalisation and has announced its plan to launch an all-electric autonomous car, called the iNext, slated to go on sale by 2021. The iNext will be “our new innovation driver, with autonomous driving, digital connectivity, intelligent lightweight design, a totally new interior and ultimately bringing the next-generation of electro-mobility to the road,” CEO Harald Krueger said in a speech prepared for the 96th annual general meeting of BMW. The BMW iNext, as the name suggests, will fall under the automaker’s i subbrand, which currently includes the i3 EV and i8 plug-in hybrid. In March, BMW has unveiled its Vision Vehicle, the BMW Vision Next 100, in Beijing. “This vehicle,” as Harald Krueger said in the annual general meeting, “embodies our philosophy perfectly: We are naturally proud of our tradition – but our sights are set firmly on the road ahead.” He added, “It provides a glimpse of ‘sheer driving pleasure’ in the years beyond 2030 – sustainable, connected, and highly automated.” BMW, however, isn’t the only automaker working on autonomous technology. Google and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) have recently announced that they will integrate autonomous vehicle technology into 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans — a part of Google’s testing programme.

NXP Pushes Into Self-Driving Car Market With BlueBox Computing Platform

Four major automakers are already testing it.

NXP Semiconductor is already a leading electronics supplier to the automotive industry thanks largely to last year’s $12 billion merger with Freescale Semiconductor. Now the company is using its chips to try to gain a foothold in the emerging market for self-driving cars.

The chipmaker on Monday introduced a computing platform called BlueBox designed to help automakers build and test autonomous vehicles. And it’s already in the hands of four major automakers, the company says. The system, which shipped to automakers in September, is on display this week at the NXP FTF Technology Forum in Austin.

The BlueBox is a central computer that can be tied to all the sensors found in an autonomous car such as radar, cameras, and LiDAR—a light-sensitive radar that emits short pulses of laser light to allow the vehicle to create a real-time, high-definition 3D image of what’s around it.

Self-driving cars need a computer powerful enough to process all that incoming sensor data in real time and use it to make the right actions as they navigate streets and highways loaded with obstacles. This is what the BlueBox is designed to do, according to NXP.

“It’s really the intelligence, the brain in the car that is going to make the right decisions,” Kurt Sievers, executive vice president and general manager of NXP’s automotive business, explained to Fortune.

The BlueBox is a piece of hardware equipped with two different processors. It’s the interplay between these two processors—one a high-compute platform, the other a safety controller to make sure the right decisions are being made—is what gives NXP an edge over competitors, Sievers says.

For now, automakers are testing the system, although Sievers is confident it will be in production vehicles by 2020. Sievers wouldn’t name the automakers, but he did say the company is targeting deployment in high-volume passenger vehicles.

The product, if automakers like it, could be well-positioned to take advantage of a recent federal mandate to make automatic emergency braking a standard feature on all new cars no later than 2022 reporting year. Toyota has said it will achieve the emergency automatic braking goal by the end of 2017.

“Many of the car companies want to reach this mandate earlier in order to differentiate themselves,” Sievers says. “Cars that have emergency automatic braking are fantastic uses for our BlueBox because they will need central intelligence to take the information from the camera and the radar tells the car when to brake.”

BlueBox, which uses chips that are already in production, will enable automakers to put “Level 4” autonomous vehicles on the market by 2020, NXP says. NXP uses autonomous vehicle standards developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers. Level 4, by SAE’s definition, means the vehicle can handle all aspects of driving—steering, automatic braking, speed control—under specific scenarios such as on a merging onto an expressway or during a low-speed traffic jam. In Level 5, the car handles all aspects of driving at all times.

This isn’t NXP’s first foray into self-driving cars. In January the company introduced a postage stamp-sized single integrated radar chip designed to replace the ultrasonic radar traditionally used in emergency braking and other advanced vehicle safety systems found in today’s cars.

Shrinking the radar while increasing its power will lower the cost of advanced driver assistance systems. This drops the cost of self-driving cars, which could help accelerate efforts by companies like Google that are working on fully autonomous vehicles. Google GOOGL 0.22% engineers are already testing the chip in its self-driving cars as well as other unnamed major automakers, NXP said in January.

Audi "Jack" autonomous car becomes a kind, courteous driver

Over the years, Audi's piloted driving fleet has pushed autonomous driving forward with such feats as a Pikes Peak ascent and a Hockenheim lap. Audi's latest piloted driving accomplishment isn't quite so flashy, but it promises to be more important for everyday driving. A piloted A7 research car nicknamed "Jack" has become a smart, courteous defensive driver that should be a pleasure to drive beside, whether you're handling the wheel or rolling in an autonomous car of your own. Audi calls it a "research car with social competence."

Hot laps and hill climbs are nice, but the real future of autonomous driving isn't so much in competition; it's in routine, mundane commuting. So the latest look into Audi's piloted driving program may not have that "world first" sheen, but it's actually more pertinent to what autonomous cars will be doing on a daily basis.

And what they'll be doing if Jack is to serve as a preview is acting like civically responsible adults, and not the road-raging, offensive-minded children that actual adult human drivers sometimes act like. Jack has learned to use its autonomous driving suite to make decisions that demonstrate exceptional roadway decorum while helping efficiency and safety.

For instance, if you intend to merge into Jack's lane, he won't mutter "Hell no" and speed up so that you can't get in, the way an overworked, underpaid human commuter might. Instead, as Audi explains, he will either speed up or slow down to let you in, depending upon which action is deemed most favorable for all road users. More technically, Jack's onboard zFAS controller creates a dynamic vision of real-time road conditions from all the data pulled from the car's onboard sensors and car-to-X communications systems, allowing Jack to immediately analyze the traffic surroundings before acting. So not only is Jack able to be a kind gentleman to you, the driver trying to move over, but he thinks about the entire highway before doing anything too rash.

Much autonomous research has focused on highway driving, which involves fewer speed changes and unpredictable obstacles. Audi is preparing a "first mile" research study with its home city of Ingolstadt, Germany. Tests, which will begin in 2018, will center around the transition from freeway to city driving on the "Ingolstadt-Süd (South)" autobahn exit. New infrastructure will be built with autonomous driving in mind and will include things like new types of pavement and sensors at intersections.

Honda Debuts Next-Gen Automated Technology

Honda reveals the second generation of its automated-vehicle technology in the Acura RLX hybrid sedan.

The car is fitted with new radar, Lidar, GPS sensors, higher-performance central processing and graphics-processing units and more intelligent software algorithms, plus cabling, heat management and circuitry that is beyond what was on a previous RLX with Honda’s first-gen automated technology.

“The development vehicle is designed to achieve high reliability by fusing overlapping information together from various sensors (in a concept) known as sensor fusion,” Honda North America says in a release. “Test engineers (can) validate information from each signal with a higher degree of accuracy than can be obtained from any one of the sensors independently.”

Honda Research Institute USA will be testing the vehicle at the GoMentum Station, a former naval station in Concord, CA, near San Francisco, with 20 miles (32 km) of paved roads that simulates an urban driving environment. The automaker, like many working on automated and connected-vehicle technologies, has an introduction goal of 2020 for the application of automated-driving technology in production models.

When WardsAuto tested Honda’s first-generation automated driving tech in September 2014, the RLX could fully steer, brake and accelerate itself along a highway route, but became confused in a construction zone with heavy traffic, prompting the driver to take over.

Urban environments also were problematic, with a Honda official noting more-advanced sensors and better control algorithms were necessary to combat the “unpredictable, erratic behavior” of drivers and pedestrians in urban environments.

Germany Will Add Autonomous Cars To Its Railroad Network

Deutsche Bahn, the German government-owned rail system that manages efficient travel throughout the country, is planning to add autonomous vehicles to its transportation options to help passengers experience seamless door-to-door travel.

As Deutsche Bahn’s CEO Reedier Grube explained to the German publication WirtschaftsWoche, Deutsche Bahn already markets trains as a good alternative to driving because it helps passengers use their time more effectively. “If in the future autonomous cars can do this, then the operators of these cars can claim the same about their services. That’s why we will have to add autonomously driving cars to our offering.”

The railway operator has been discussing using self-driving cars internally for some time. A strategy document for Deutsche Bahn touts the importance of “multimodal mobility” and “end-to-end service” which specifically points to autonomous vehicles being used as an “integrated land transport system.” As you’re arriving at your station, a car might be summoned for you, zipping you the last few kilometres back to your home or office.

Transit operators in the US have partnered on-demand services like Uber and Lyft to connect passengers to buses and trains as a solution to the “last mile” problem. But this would be the first autonomous fleet to be integrated into a transit network, and a nationwide one, at that. As for whether Deutsche Bahn will partner with an existing self-driving program already in the works or invent their own from scratch, well, they are in Germany, where car manufacturers are on every corner How about calling the program the Autonomousbahn?

Apple and Google reportedly buying land for autonomous car facilities

Self-driving cars look to be in the pipeline for Apple, as the Silicon Valley tech titan is reportedly shopping for land to create facilities to develop and test autonomous vehicles.

The plans were let slip on a call by Victor Coleman, the CEO of a San Francisco real estate firm, the Wall Street Journal reports.

"We are seeing a definitive movement in the autonomous car from named companies and non-named companies," Coleman reportedly said. "And I haven't even mentioned the 400,000 feet that Google is looking to take down and the 800,000 feet that Apple's looking to take down for their autonomous cars as well."

While Google has been very open about its testing of driverless vehicles, there's been no official word from Apple about its plans for any type of car.

GM, Lyft to Test Self-Driving Electric Taxis

General Motors Co. and Lyft Inc. within a year will begin testing a fleet of self-driving Chevrolet Bolt electric taxis on public roads, a move central to the companies’ joint efforts to challenge Silicon Valley giants in the battle to reshape the auto industry.

The plan is being hatched a few months after GM invested $500 million in Lyft, a ride-hailing company whose services rival Uber Technologies Inc. The program will rely on technology being acquired as part of GM’s separate $1 billion planned purchase of San Francisco-based Cruise Automation Inc., a developer of autonomous-driving technology.

Details of the autonomous-taxi testing program are still being worked out, according to a Lyft executive, but it will include customers in a yet-to-be disclosed city. Customers will have the opportunity to opt in or out of the pilot when hailing a Lyft car from the company’s mobile app.

In addition to driverless cars, GM aims to use Lyft and its growing army of drivers as a primary customer for the Bolt, an electric car that launches later this year amid soft demand for electric vehicles. The Detroit auto giant and Lyft currently rent the Chevy Equinox to drivers needing vehicles in Chicago, but that program will expand to more cities and will rely heavily on Bolts in the future instead of the sport-utility vehicle.

Because the Bolt’s battery is under the cabin floor, it opens up space in the front of the vehicle and offers back-seat passengers more leg room. GM executives have touted the car as an ideal fit for drivers needing space and lower operating cost.

GM’s effort to rapidly hem together recent big-dollar investments is an answer to the tech industry’s efforts to displace conventional auto makers. Many global auto makers have been lapped by key developments born in Silicon Valley, including Tesla Motors Inc. ’s electric cars, Alphabet Inc. ’s Google autonomous car program and Uber’s ride-sharing business.

The new effort is directed mostly at challenging Alphabet and Uber. The Google self-driving car program has gained a sizable lead over conventional auto makers via testing in California and other states, and it received an additional boost this week through a minivan-supply agreement with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. Uber, much bigger than Lyft, has its own self-driving research center in Pittsburgh and is preparing to usher autonomous vehicles in to its fleet by 2020.

Executives at Lyft and Uber have said one of the top hurdles to their success is navigating a patchwork of regulations that govern the use of autonomous vehicles and liabilities. In an effort to ease regulatory concerns, Lyft will start with autonomous cars that have drivers in the cockpit ready to intervene—but the driver is expected to eventually be obsolete.

“We will want to vet the autonomous tech between Cruise, GM and ourselves and slowly introduce this into markets,” Taggart Matthiesen, Lyft’s product director, said in an interview. That will “ensure that cities would have full understanding of what we are trying to do here.”

Lyft has a prototype smartphone application that would show customers the option of being picked up by an autonomous car. It would have options to contact a GM OnStar assistant for questions or to aid the rider if some problem occurred. The app also allows the passenger to tell the car when to “go” and when he is finished with the ride and the car can leave.

The app is only a prototype at this point, but it speaks to how the company is trying to solve issues of trust with an autonomous vehicle.

Mr. Matthiesen said his company also is working out how to design the program by which Chevy Bolts would be available to prospective Lyft drivers, many of whom can’t obtain acceptable vehicles for taxi customers. “Really the question is: ‘Is it Lyft that owns the vehicles or is it GM that owns the vehicles?’ ” At the Chicago hub, GM owns the vehicles and dealers service them.

Although Tesla has created demand for high-price electric vehicles and has a long waiting list for a car designed to compete with the Bolt in 2017, other auto makers haven’t been as successful, especially as gasoline prices are low. Electric vehicles and hybrid-electric vehicles make up less than 2% of vehicles sold, according to researcher Edmunds.com, and sales to date of pure electric cars like Nissan Motor Co. ’s Leaf generally have been modest.

Google and Fiat partner to build autonomous... minivans?

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV and Alphabet Inc.’s Google plan to develop about 100 self-driving prototypes based on the carmaker’s Pacifica minivan, the companies said today.

The collaboration is the first phase of a joint project to create autonomous vehicles, people familiar with the matter said. The vehicles will be used by Google to test its self-driving technology. The companies would remain free to cooperate in driverless technology with other partners, said people familiar with the matter.

Fiat won’t license any of Google’s self-driving technology, spokeswoman Dianna Gutierrez said. The minivans will be part of Google’s test fleet, she said in an e-mail.

The accord is Google’s first with a major automaker since the technology giant began developing self-driving cars on its own in 2014. Fiat Chrysler Chairman John Elkann said last month that the Italian-American carmaker should work with “new industry participants” like Google and Apple Inc. rather than compete with them.

Fiat Chrysler Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne, who mentioned a possible partnership with Google in December, has been directly involved in talks with the U.S. company, people familiar with the matter said in April.
Test Miles

Google, which has run more than 1.4 million miles of tests on its own driverless prototypes, has been in discussions with various auto manufacturers about working together. A deal with General Motors Co. couldn’t be concluded because of disagreements over ownership of technology and data, a person familiar with the matter said in April.

Partnering with Google is in keeping with Marchionne’s approach to development. He contends that carmakers waste capital developing multiple versions of the same technology and that the industry should consolidate to become more profitable. He intends to put Fiat Chrysler in a better position for a merger by the time he steps down as the manufacturer’s CEO in 2018.