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Ford invests in Argo AI for self-driving cars

An artist’s conception shows a Ford autonomous vehicle that has a heads-up display, but no steering wheel. (Ford via YouTube)
An artist’s conception shows a Ford autonomous vehicle that has a heads-up display, but no steering wheel. (Ford via YouTube)

Ford Motor Co. says it’s investing $1 billion over the next five years in a Pittsburgh startup called Argo AI to develop the virtual-driver system for Ford’s autonomous vehicles.

Argo AI was founded only a few weeks ago by CEO Bryan Salesky, who directed hardware development for Google’s self-driving cars; and chief operating officer Peter Rander, who led Uber’s program to develop self-driving cars.

Salesky and Rander, as well as other Argo AI executives, have worked on robotics and AI at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, which helps explain the placement of the startup’s headquarters.

The technology coming out of the collaboration could be licensed to other companies, Ford President and CEO Mark Fields said today in a statement announcing the deal.

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Audi and Nvidia team up on autonomous car

Audi Q7
In a self-driving car demo, CES attendees can ride in the back seat of an Audi Q7 piloted driving concept car that has no one behind the wheel. (Nvidia Photo)

Nvidia may be best-known for video games, but its deal with Audi to provide the smarts for an autonomous vehicle in 2020 demonstrates that it’s not just playing games in the artificial intelligence realm.

The expanded Audi partnership, announced this week at CES in Las Vegas, is just one of several hookups that the California-based chip company has forged with automakers.

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Ford shows off a sleeker self-driving car

Ford Fusion Hybrid
The latest version of Ford’s self-driving Fusion Hybrid prototype has lidar sensors mounted on the car’s front pillars. (Ford Photo)

The latest iteration of Ford’s self-driving Fusion Hybrid vehicle, unveiled today, repositions the laser-ranging sensors that used to poke up from the roof and adds a lot more smarts in the trunk.

Ford’s sneak preview came in the form of a blog post by Chris Brewer, chief program engineer for Ford autonomous vehicle development. The car is due to make its official debute next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

“It’s been three years since we hit the streets with our first Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicle, and this latest version takes everything we learned and builds on it,” Brewer wrote.

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V2V plan for connected cars gets into gear

V2V communication
This artist’s concept shows how vehicles could communitcate using V2V. (USDOT Illustration)

The U.S. Department of Transportation today laid out its proposal for enabling cars and light trucks to connect to each other wirelessly. The technology, known as vehicle-to-vehicle communications or V2V, is expected to speed up the push toward autonomous vehicles.

The department said the system could prevent hundreds of thousands of crashes every year.

“We are carrying the ball as far as we can to realize the potential of transportation technology to save lives,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a news release. “This long-promised V2V rule is the next step in that progression.  Once deployed, V2V will provide 360-degree situational awareness on the road and will help us enhance vehicle safety.”

The proposed rule would require automakers to include V2V technologies in all new light-duty vehicles, and require them to “speak the same language” through a standardized wireless messaging system developed in cooperation with the auto industry.

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How self-driving buses can ease traffic woes

WEpods shuttle
Self-driving electric buses known as “WEpods” ride the roads in the Netherlands. (Credit: WEpods)

BELLEVUE, Wash. – Self-driving cars are all well and good for cross-country trips, but what Madrona Venture Group’s Tom Alberg really wants to see is a self-driving bus that can take him on a winery tour.

“I’m very keen on the idea of navigating a wine van pool, going around between the different wineries,” the influential investment group’s managing director joked.

And there’s a chance Alberg may get his wish, or something close to it, sooner rather than later.

He and other stakeholders in the region’s transportation future gathered at Bellevue’s Meydenbauer Conference Center on Dec. 2 for the 2016 Advanced Transportation Technologies Conference, organized by the Center for Advanced Transportation and Energy Solutions.

Just after his talk, two Bellevue city council members and Bellevue Mayor John Stokes bent Alberg’s ear about their plans to make the Seattle region an incubator for autonomous transit.

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Elon Musk sets a course for full auto autonomy

Field of view for Tesla sensors
A graphic shows an overhead view of a Tesla vehicle with the field of view for sensors installed on the car. (Credit: Tesla Motors)

Billionaire Elon Musk doubled down on Tesla Motors’ autonomous driving features today, saying that every vehicle produced from now on will offer the option of full self-driving capability. But that capability won’t be turned on immediately.

“The foundation is on board to bring full autonomy,” the Tesla CEO told reporters during a teleconference.

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Why Tesla is relying on radar (and the cloud)

Image: Tesla Autopilot
Radar readings and camera views are fed into the Autopilot system on Tesla cars. (Credit: Tesla)

Tesla car owners are getting an upgrade to their Autopilot semi-autonomous driving software, but this won’t be your standard software upgrade: CEO Elon Musk says Autopilot 8.0 will put more emphasis on radar readings as well as crowdsourced, networked information about potential hazards on the roadway.

Musk said the upgrade might have prevented the kind of collision that led to the death of a Tesla Model S driver in May. “These things cannot be said with absolute certainty, but we believe it is very likely that, yes, it would have,” Musk told reporters during a teleconference on Sunday.

That accident involved a crash between the Model S and a freight truck that was making a left turn from the opposing direction. Preliminary data suggest that Autopilot’s camera system did not recognized the reflective signature of the truckagainst the background of a brightly lit sky. As a result, the car smashed with full force into the truck, killing Tesla driver Joshua Brown.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it’s investigating the accident.

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Ford plans fully autonomous cars by 2021

Image: Ford autonomous car
Ford plans to have fully autonomous vehicles available for mobility services by 2021. (Credit: Ford)

Ford Motor Co. says it’s aiming to mass-produce fully autonomous vehicles for ride-sharing and ride-hailing services within five years – and it’s investing tens of millions of dollars in ventures that could help the company hit that goal.

“We see autonomous vehicles as having as significant an impact on society as Ford’s moving assembly line did more than 100 years ago,” Ford President and CEO Mark Fields said today at the company’s Research and Innovation Center in Palo Alto, Calif. “And that’s why today we’re announcing Ford’s intent to have a high-volume, SAE Level 4, fully autonomous vehicle in commercial operation in 2021.”

To meet that timetable, Fields said the Silicon Valley center’s staff would be doubled to more than 300 – and that’s not all.

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Ford works on virtual drivers for future cars

Image: Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous car
Ford is testing Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicles at night. (Credit: Ford)

The car of the future may well be controlled by a certified virtual driver that relies on the cloud for guidance, ranging from directions to software security updates.

Those are some of the concepts laid out today by Jim Buczkowski, director of electrical and electronics systems at Ford Research and Innovation, during a Seattle Chamber of Commerce breakfast. And tech companies in the Seattle area are playing a role in turning those concepts into reality.

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Feds investigate Tesla Autopilot fatality

Tesla Autopilot
Tesla Motors stresses that its Autopilot feature is still in beta. (Credit: Tesla Motors)

Tesla Motors says it’s cooperating with federal authorities in the investigation of the first known traffic death involving a driver who was using the Autopilot self-driving feature on the company’s Model S electric car.

In a report posted online today, Tesla said it had just learned that the National Highway Transportation Safety Board was opening a preliminary evaluation into Autopilot’s performance during a fatal crash. In a statement, the NHTSA said the opening of an investigation shouldn’t be construed as a determination that “there is either a presence or absence of a defect in the subject vehicles.”

Tesla’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, expressed his condolences to the victim and his family today in a tweet.

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