#autonomous-vehicles

#autonomous-vehicles

It's hard to argue that Toyota isn't operating from a position of strength right now. As global electric vehicle sales remain uneven, the Japanese automaker continues to generate robust profits from its broad hybrid lineup and has managed the U.S. tariff challenges more effectively than many of its competitors.

Don't expect to see autonomous self-driving cars in widespread use anytime soon, according to Lyft CEO David Risher. The technology doesn't work yet, government regulators aren't ready, and consumers don't like them, he says. That's a surprising opinion, given that he aired it in a conversation at Web Summit in Lisbon last week, where 71,000 attendees seemed to be mostly convinced that AI will be able to solve almost any future problem.

The Forecasting Research Institute (FRI) has published a report [PDF] titled "The Longitudinal Expert AI Panel" that attempts to distill the forecasts of knowledgeable folk - mainly men - in industry, academia, and policy about the capabilities, adoption, and impact of AI in the years ahead. The research project, led by Ezra Karger, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, suggests that few AI experts believe "superintelligence" as outlined by the likes of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei will arrive anytime soon.

And the stakes were high; if he didn't get that control, he threatened to leave. Shareholders simply could not, did not want to imagine Tesla without Elon. All of that money, power, and control increases for Musk if Tesla reaches milestones based on operations, adjusted profit, and market capitalization. Every tranche, if the goal is reached, will deliver 35.3 million shares to Musk. For instance, the first tranche milestone is a market capitalization of $2 trillion.

Holon, the autonomous mobility subsidiary of Benteler Group and Tasaru Mobility Investments (Saudi investor) rebranded in 2022, presented its driverless shuttle for the first time at CES 2023 in Las Vegas. and is now preparing for series production and market rollout of its first fully electric autonomous shuttle, the Holon Urban, showcased at UITP Summit in Hamburg in June. It features design by Pininfarina and sees Beep and Mobileye as development partners.

Lucid says it will eventually sell "privately owned" autonomous vehicles with the help of Nvidia's artificial intelligence technology. Lucid's autonomous vehicles - which do not exist at the moment - will be powered by Nvidia's Drive AV platform, which the chipmaker has described as a "modular, flexible approach" that "empowers" automakers to take as much as they need. Nvidia's system collects and consolidates data from multiple sensors, and improves continuously through over-the-air software updates.

First, Lucid will roll out a more advanced version of its partially automated driving assist for the Gravity SUV, which it says has been "turbocharged by Nvidia Drive AV." But after that, the plan is for a so-called "level 4" autonomous system, capable of driving itself from point to point without human intervention, at least within a geofence or other limited operational design domain.

"This measure would hinder the city's comeback by making rides more expensive and hurting drivers," said CJ Macklin, director of communications at Lyft. "This would be particularly devastating for low-income communities who struggle to even access the Muni system and depend on ride-share to get around. It's the wrong move for San Francisco."