It might seem that the autonomous driving trend is moving at full speed and on its own accord, especially if you live in California.
Wayve, a UK startup that has received over $1 billion in funding, is now joining the crowded party by launching on-road testing of its AI learning system on the streets of San Francisco and the Bay Area.
The announcement comes just weeks after Tesla unveiled its Robotaxi at the Warner Bros Studios in Burbank, California. It was also in San Francisco that an accident last year forced General Motors’ robotaxi service Cruise to stop its operations. And it’s mostly in California that Waymo, the only functioning robotaxi service in the U.S., first deployed its fleet of self-driving cars.
As part of its move, Wayve opened a new office in Silicon Valley to support its U.S. expansion and AI development. Similarly to Tesla’s Full-Self Driving (FSD) software, the company says it’s using AI to provide automakers with a full range of driver assistance and automation features.
“We are now testing our AI software in real-world environments across two continents,” said Alex Kendall, Wayve co-founder and CEO.
The company has already conducted tests on UK roads since 2018. It received a huge boost earlier this year when it raised over $1 billion in a move led by Softbank and joined by Microsoft and Nvidia. In August, Uber also said it would invest to help the development of Wayve’s technology.
Just like Tesla’s FSD, Wayve’s software provides an advanced driver assistance system that still requires driver supervision.
Before driverless vehicles can legally hit the road, they must first pass strict safety tests.
So far, Waymo’s technology, which relies on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), is the only of its kind to have received the nod from U.S. regulators.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.