#autonomous-vehicles

#autonomous-vehicles

As we contemplate a future of self-driving cars, Cameron Clarke finds out that there's still some way to go in convincing the public to cede control to machines. John Reynolds explores the almost unimaginable opportunities a driver-free society presents for advertisers. Design will play a large role in gaining public acceptance and mass adoption of driverless technology, so The Drum takes a look at some of the weird and wonderful concepts seen so far, and asks designers what challenges remain.

The company's couriers, known internally as " dashers," are a common sight as they zip around the US delivering food, groceries, and other goods to customers. Now, DoorDash is investing in new tech, including autonomous vehicles, as it looks to the future. CEO Tony Xu said on an earnings call in November that DoorDash would invest hundreds of millions of dollars this year in key initiatives, including a global tech platform for all its brands and autonomous tech.

"It always felt like it was three years out," he said of autonomous driving. "And then every year it shifted by a year. So we wanted to have self-driving cars everywhere in 2020 at Zoox. And then it was 2021 and so forth." Von der Ohe left Zoox in 2018. Instead of fixating on robotaxis, von der Ohe wanted to stay in mobility but work on something that could be faster to bring to market

At those jobs, Puchalski developed deep connections in the automotive industry, and we crossed paths all week. There he was at an industry networking party one night. On another night, in my hotel lobby at 10 p.m., he was debating how to balance quality and manufacturing yield with Sanjay Dastoor - founder of mobility startups Skip and Boosted, both of which also got off the ground at YC.

The new law, if passed, would loosen the state's restrictions on self-driving car companies by forming a pilot program that would allow for "the limited deployment of commercial for-hire autonomous passenger vehicles outside New York City." Applicants to the pilot program would need to demonstrate that they have "local support for [autonomous vehicle] deployment" and prove their "adherence to the highest possible safety standards" to be considered.

Lucid Motors closed out 2025 with some very encouraging news. The automaker had avoided the slump in sales that affected other electric vehicle manufacturers while also reaching a manufacturing goal that some observers had viewed with skepticism. The company had another big announcement to make to start off the new year, and this one had to do with a different aspect of their business - and one that doesn't factor in human drivers at all.

Once a customer bought a car, that software could stay locked in a box and never need to be updated unless something was wrong (and then it was a trip to a dealership). That strategy worked great right up until cars became rolling data centers on wheels. Now automakers are starting to stare down the reality of what complex hardware and connected software really meanboth the advantages and disadvantages. And the consensus? Maybe platform sharing and open-source software was the right idea all along.

Alpamayo brings reasoning to autonomous vehicles, allowing them to think through rare scenarios, drive safely in complex environments, and explain their driving decisions,

For many workers, driving for Uber and Lyft or delivering restaurant orders for DoorDash is a side hustle - or, in some cases, a lifestyle. But faced with falling earnings and the rise of self-driving vehicles, some are having second thoughts about the job. Some gig workers have told Business Insider for years that a combination of base pay cuts and increased competition for gigs has made the work more challenging.

"As of 4:31 Tuesday morning, power has been fully restored to all customers impacted by Saturday's substation outage in San Francisco," the utility wrote. "Crews completed the necessary electrical connections to safely restore service to the remaining 3,800 customers who were without power. The root cause of the outage remains under investigation." Only 231 customers had no electricity as of Tuesday at 9:32 a.m., and the utility's outage map was free of red.