Waymo’s self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans spent a day with Chandler, Ariz Fire & Police Department, testing the car’s detection system for emergency vehicles. The minivans are outfitted with Waymo’s latest suite of sensors, which can hear from twice the distance and can also see flashing lights from much farther away. See Also: Google narrows case… Read more »
Self-driving cars are going to be fitted with a whole lot of sensors, chips, and other electronics, so it makes sense to check that all of this works in extreme environments. That’s why Waymo sent its self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans to California’s Death Valley this summer, which has the highest recorded temperature in the world,… Read more »
Waymo has dropped three of the four patent claims against Uber, as it tries to narrow the case against Uber before the October court date. The lawsuit centers on Anthony Levandowski, an ex-Google exec who allegedly stole 14,000 confidential documents when he left the company to start Otto, which was then sold to Uber. Levandowski… Read more »
Waymo, the self-driving division inside of Alphabet, has partnered with car rental company Avis to manage its fleet of autonomous cars in Phoenix, Arizona. Avis will be responsible for cleaning the car, managing oil and tire changes, and performing regular safety inspections. It will not manage the specialized hardware, like Waymo’s Lidar sensors. See Also:… Read more »
Google’s self-driving division Waymo has hired Satish Jeyachandran, the former director of hardware engineering at Tesla, a close competitor in the self-driving race. Jeyachandran will lead the hardware division, according to Bloomberg, focused on building Lidar, radar, cameras, sensors, and silicon for the company’s self-driving cars. See Also: Waymo working on competitor to Uber’s self-driving… Read more »
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, announced last December that its self-driving project would have its own division inside the corporation. That division became Waymo, which analysts at Morgan Stanley believe could be worth $70 billion if it is ever spun-out to a standalone company. The analysis works off the assumption that Waymo cars and… Read more »
Texas, like Finland, never had a law blocking self-driving cars from public roads, until Thursday when Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill that set out the rules of the road. The re-legalization makes a few things clear for automakers and tech companies testing their autonomous vehicles in The Lone Star State. First, self-driving cars without… Read more »
Today it might seem that “self-driving” cars are just around the corner, with companies such as Google, Uber and Apple investing billions in developing cars that can safely drive passengers without human intervention. But despite this promising early work, the truth of the matter is that we are still likely a decade or more away… Read more »
Waymo, the self-driving division of Google, has confirmed that alongside an expansion to its autonomous car efforts, it is looking to develop self-driving trucks. “We’re taking our eight years of experience in building self-driving hardware and software and conducting a technical exploration into how our technology can integrate into a truck,” a Waymo spokesperson said… Read more »
Uber fired the head of its self-driving unit, Anthony Levandowski on Thursday. He has been accused of stealing trade secrets from Google’s self-driving division, Waymo, in 2014 when he left the company. Levandowski contract with Uber was terminated after he failed to supply the court with information requested, according to The New York Times. Uber… Read more »
