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Auto accidents kill more than 33,000 Americans each year, more than homicide or prescription drug overdoses. Companies working on self-driving cars, such as Alphabet and Ford, say their technology can slash that number by removing human liabilities such as texting, drunkenness, and fatigue. But Christopher Hart, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, says his agency’s […]
Autonomy isn’t just for cars; Mercedes-Benz has created a self-driving city bus, too. Mercedes-Benz revealed its latest creation on Monday morning. Called the Future Bus, it’s the first city bus that can drive autonomously. Mercedes did more than just unveil the futuristic vehicle. It also sent it on a 12-mile route through the streets of […]
As the co-founder and chief executive of Tesla Motors, the technology billionaire Elon Musk has consistently portrayed his company’s electric cars as cleaner, safer and more innovative than models made by other automakers. His confidence in Tesla’s technology has seemed boundless, particularly when the company announced last year that it would equip its flagship Model […]
A fatal accident in which the driver of a Tesla Motors Inc Model S car operating in Autopilot mode was killed in a collision with a truck has prompted an investigation by federal highway safety regulators, the U.S. government and Tesla disclosed on Thursday. The investigation of the first known fatality in involve a Model […]
Yesterday, six platoons of self-driving trucks converged in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, part of the 2016 European Truck Platooning Challenge and marking the first time that trucks equipped with the technology had crossed international borders. Platooning is when a group of automated or semi-automated trucks (a.k.a. a road train) is connected via wi-fi on the road. The […]
How do you reduce the number of highway accidents? Just tell all the cars to look out for each other. As far out as that may sound, that’s exactly what the National Transportation Safety Board recommended this week, following a fatal bus crash, and it’s part of a fundamental shift in the automotive world. Cars are […]
In philosophy, there’s an ethical question called the trolley problem. If you had to push one large person in front of a moving trolley to save a group of people on the tracks, would you? This abstract idea has taken hold in programming self-driving cars: what happens if it’s impossible to avoid everyone? Researchers from […]
The American Trucking Association (ATA) is pushing for federal regulators to require the installation of automatic emergency braking systems on U.S. cars and trucks. The group, which lobbies for truck companies, said the automated braking systems would reduce the potential for accidents on the nation’s roads and highways. “In our role as a safety leader, […]
Even as its top official acknowledges cars have become a prime target for hackers, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is struggling to address automotive cyber threats. Mark Rosekind, administrator of the agency, wrote in a recent letter sent to select members of Congress that NHTSA intends to, “get out ahead of potential cyber-security issues on vehicles.” That goal […]
The complaints that flooded into Texas Auto Center that maddening, mystifying week were all pretty much the same: Customers’ cars had gone haywire. Horns started honking in the middle of the night, angering neighbors, waking babies. Then when morning finally came, the cars refused to start. The staff suspected malfunctions in a new Internet device, […]