The federal government has lifted some reporting requirements for autonomous vehicles used in robotaxi service.
Category: transportation
The first test of Tesla’s long-promised robotaxi service in Austin, Texas next month will initially be limited to specific areas the company deems “the safest,” CEO Elon Musk told CNBC in an interview Tuesday.
Tesla’s cars are “not going to take intersections unless we are highly confident [they’re] going to do well with that intersection, or it’ll just take a route around that intersection,” Musk said. “We’re going to be extremely paranoid about the deployment, as we should be. It would be foolish not to be.”
Using a geofence represents a major strategy shift for Musk, who spent years claiming his company would be able to create a general-purpose self-driving solution that could be dropped in to any location and work without human supervision. (Geofence is a jargon term used in the autonomous vehicle industry that means a vehicle is restricted to a certain area.) Musk has claimed Tesla will attempt to launch similar trials for its robotaxi service in California and possibly other states later this year.
A critical privilege escalation vulnerability has been discovered in the premium WordPress theme Motors, which allows unauthenticated attackers to hijack administrator accounts and take complete control of websites.
Developed by StylemixThemes, Motors is one of the top-selling automotive themes for the WordPress platform. It is very popular among automotive businesses such as car dealerships, rental services, and used vehicle listing platforms.
It has over 22,300 sales on the Envato market, with hundreds of user reviews and thousands of comments, indicating a highly active community around it.
Musk said a Tesla robotaxi service will start with about 10 vehicles in Austin and rapidly expand to thousands of vehicles should the launch go well with no incidents.
The Aurora vehicle will still be responsible for all driving operations, but a driver will be present in the vehicle as a backup.
Earlier this month, Aurora Innovation kicked off driverless truck operations in Texas, starting off with a freight route between Dallas and Houston for commercial customers. The SAE Level 4 trucks, operating without a safety driver in the cab, have been making the 250-mile route that has been the focus of quite a bit of testing by several autonomous truck developers, many of which have been getting driverless truck infrastructure ready.
Getting to this point took years of research and plenty of on-road testing, in environments open and closed to regular traffic, with Aurora Innovation achieving a successful round of validation testing. In fact, years of supervised testing by Aurora has already seen 10,000 customer loads delivered by its prototypes, spanning some 3 million miles.
Hyundai Motor Group is investing $21 billion in the U.S., with $6 billion dedicated to innovation and partnerships, significantly increasing Boston Dynamics’ robotics production.
Millions of years of evolution have enabled some marine animals to grow complex protective shells composed of multiple layers that work together to dissipate physical stress. In a new study, engineers have found a way to mimic the behavior of this type of layered material, such as seashell nacre, by programming individual layers of synthetic material to work collaboratively under stress. The new material design is poised to enhance energy-absorbing systems such as wearable bandages and car bumpers with multistage responses that adapt to collision severity.
Many past studies have focused on reverse engineering to replicate the behavior of natural materials like bone, feathers and wood to reproduce their nonlinear responses to mechanical stress. A new study, led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign civil and environmental engineering professor Shelly Zhang and professor Ole Sigmund of the Technical University of Denmark, looked beyond reverse engineering to develop a framework for programmable multilayered materials capable of responding to local disturbances through microscale interconnections.
The study findings are published in the journal Science Advances.
Researchers have developed a real-time imaging system that can capture images of fast-spinning objects over long durations. Real-time monitoring of rotating parts such as the turbine blades used in power plants or the fan blades of jet engines is critical for detecting early signs of damage—such as wear or cracks—helping prevent serious failures and reducing maintenance needs.
“Capturing clear images of fast-spinning objects is challenging because they tend to blur or look grainy,” said research team member Zibang Zhang from Jinan University in China. “Although high-speed cameras can help, they’re expensive and can’t be used for long periods. Our method overcomes this challenge by virtually freezing time by exploiting the repetitiveness of the object’s motion.”
In the journal Optics Letters, the researchers describe their new imaging system, which is based on a single-pixel detector. They show that it can capture images of an object spinning at around 14,700 rounds per minute (rpm).
Ava Community Energy just rolled out a new program in California that pays EV and plug-in hybrid drivers for charging their cars when electricity on the grid is cleaner and cheaper.
The new Ava SmartHome Charging program, launched in partnership with home energy analytics platform Optiwatt, offers up to $100 in incentives in the first year. And because the program helps shift home charging to lower-cost hours, Ava says drivers could save around $140 a year on their energy bills.
EV and PHEV owners who are Ava customers can download the Optiwatt app for free, connect their vehicle, and let the app handle the rest. The app uses an algorithm to automatically schedule charging when demand is low and more renewable energy is available, typically overnight or during off-peak hours.