autonomous vehicles

GM said in November it would cut costs at Cruise, which lost more than USD 700 million in the third quarter and more than USD 8 billion since 2016.General Motors' Cruise robotaxi unit offered on Friday to pay USD 75,000 to resolve an investigation by California regulators into its failure to disclose details of a pedestrian crash involving a self-driving car.In December, the California Public Utilities Commission ordered Cruise to appear at a Feb. 6 hearing, citing it…

Aurora and automotive supplier Continental have wrapped up the first phase of a more than $300 million project to mass produce autonomous vehicle hardware for commercial self-driving trucks. The two companies said Friday that the design and system architecture of an autonomous vehicle hardware kit is now complete. The blueprint for a secondary computer that can take over operation if a failure occurs — known as a fallback system — has also been finalized. The companies made the announcement…

Autonomous delivery startup Nuro has struck a deal with safety-focused software company Foretellix to help with virtual testing of its automated driving system, in a bid to cut R&D costs while still pushing the technology forward. The partnership, which the companies are set to announce later Thursday, comes in the wake of a tumultuous stretch for Nuro. The delivery startup, once a buzzy darling of the AV industry that raised more than $2 billion from high-profile investors such as Baillie…

A few years ago, robotaxis were the darlings of venture capitalists in China. A cadre of audacious startups, including Deeproute.ai, WeRide.ai, Pony.ai and Momenta reeled in hundreds of millions of dollars to fuel their costly ambitions. With pockets overflowing, they spent generously on building self-driving vehicle fleets. Their geeky executives, swapping T-shirts for sharp suits, cozied up to local officials and nudged policymaking in their favor. As these companies’ valuations continued to climb, however, a…

Xiaomi, a Chinese brand once synonymous with affordable smartphones, is now attempting to make an even bigger splash with its first-ever electric car. Unveiled at a Beijing event earlier today, the Xiaomi SU7 — pronounced "soo-chee" in Chinese — is a sedan based on the company's very own Modena Architecture with HyperEngine electric motors of up to 21,000rpm, as well as chassis stamped by its die casting machines with a clamping force of 9,100 tons — beating that of Tesla's apparently. The line will come in two flavors:…

Representative image.IM Motors, the electric car brand of state-owned Chinese automaker SAIC Motor, on Monday said it is applying to China's industry ministry for product entry of Level 3 autonomous driving cars.IM Motors, which is also backed by Alibaba Group investments, said its EVs could be among the first models approved as legitimate highly autonomous driving vehicles by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).Chinese regulators have issued new…

Autonomous vehicle company May Mobility has launched its first driverless on-demand microtransit service on public roads in Sun City, Arizona in partnership with transit tech company Via. The milestone is in line with May Mobility’s goal of launching rider-only operations by 2023. It also signals that the gentle onramp approach to commercializing autonomy could be working for the startup. Sun City is a planned community for “active, retired adults.” Launching a driverless microtransit service in such an environment…

Cruise, the embattled GM self-driving car subsidiary, is laying off 900 employees, or about 24% of its workforce, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The layoffs are part of a plan to slash costs and attempt to revamp the company following an October 2 incident that left a pedestrian stuck under and then dragged by one of its robotaxis. An email, penned by newly minted president and CTO Mo Elshenawy, was sent this morning to the entire 3,800-person workforce. The email, which TechCrunch has viewed, began with a…

BMW will launch products equipped with L3 self-driving functionality when they can do so in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations, it said in a statement. The new license would expand areas for BMW to carry out tests of advanced autonomous driving technologies in Shanghai. BMW obtained a license in 2018 that allowed it to run tests on 5.6 km (3.5 miles) of public roads in the city.…

After years of aggressive expansion at home, China’s autonomous vehicle upstarts are now setting their gaze on overseas markets. WeRide, in particular, has been on a licensing spree. On Monday, WeRide announced it has obtained two licenses from Singapore that will allow its robobuses to test on public roads on a “larger” scale. The two permits, called M1 and T1 respectively, are granted by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore and will enable WeRide’s self-driving buses to test in…