Back in January it was reported that Waymo was partnering with Magna, the contract vehicle builder, to start assembling full autonomous vehicles in Michigan. Magna, based in Canada now owns Magna Steyr, an Austrian company that used to build their own cars however in the last few decades has been building cars for others including Jaguar. At the time, the Michigan Economic … [Read more...]
Waymo Cars Under Attack
There has been a lot written about robotaxis - most about the safety aspect of the vehicles and especially during the current testing period. A lot of commentators agree that humans are at the heart of most accidents, so if you can get the vehicle’s systems to do all the work there is a theory that the road toll will reduce. That of course depends on humans developing bug-free … [Read more...]
Waymo Launches Commercial Robotaxi Service
Here at Motoring Weekly, we have been following the progress of several autonomous vehicle service providers of which Waymo is one. The reason is that for several years now, Waymo has been quietly getting on with the job and not concentrating on self promotion as Uber, Otto and others have done. Last month (December 2018), Waymo launched a service called "Waymo One" and is … [Read more...]
Autonomous Trucks
Since the advent of the concept of autonomous vehicles, there has always been an undercurrent of concern about the social impact if they became a reality. A few years ago Uber bought Otto, a startup that specialised in autonomous trucks. Unfortunately that all unwound when it was found that the creator of Otto had “borrowed” some data from his previous employer, Waymo, who sued … [Read more...]
Toyota Invests $500M in Uber for Autonomous Cars
There is a significant change in the industry taking place at the moment which harks back to the beginning of the market when companies were investing in each other to try and get a lead in their desired sub-market. Recently Motoring Weekly discussed the investment made by Honda in GM’s Cruise Automation division that followed a similar investment by SoftBank - who have a … [Read more...]
