cars

A pedestrian has died after being hit by a self-driving vehicle in Tempa, Arizona. It's the first time an autonomous car has collided with a person on foot, resulting in a fatality. The car was part of a test program offered by taxi-alternative ... company Uber. It's now suspended its testing which was taking place on public streets in several states. The Washington Post says the crash took place at a busy intersection of public streets. Police said the vehicle was driving northbound and hit 49-year-old pedestrian Elaine Herzberg, who was crossing the street. They added that she was not within ... (view more)

The British government says insurers should have to pay out if a customer's self-driving car crashes, whether or not the human was in control. It's the latest in a series of legal questions raised by the technology. The government has published the ... Vehicle Technology and Aviation Bill and will now try to make it law through the country's parliamentary system. If adopted, the rules would mean the government would legally classify cars as self-driving on a model-by-model basis. With any car that fits into this category, the legally-required insurance policy would have to be set up ... (view more)

Taxicab-rival Uber says it will ignore orders to stop using self-driving cars to pick up passengers. It disputes a Department of Motor Vehicle statement that it requires a test permit to use such vehicles. Uber has long caused controversy with its ... attitude to regulations. Its service uses an app to let customers book a vehicle driven by a private individual, with Uber handling the payment, providing navigation directions and taking a commission. That set-up often means it doesn't face the same level of regulation as licensed taxi cabs, which can pick up customers on the street without a ... (view more)

Elon Musk, the man behind the Tesla electric cars, says that the "Autopilot" and other self-driving systems will never be perfectly safe. Instead, he insists that safety for such features is improving, and the latest changes would have prevented a ... recent death. In the case of Tesla models, the autopilot cars are not fully autonomous in the same way as self-driving cars, such as Google's test vehicles . Instead, the technology is pitched somewhere between such cars and the far more common 'cruise control' feature. The Autopilot feature on the Tesla Model S combines a windshield camera, a radar ... (view more)

Google's self-driving cars now have the ability to recognize hand signals from cyclists. They have also been programmed to err on the side of caution when considering passing a rider. The cars, which are now being tested on public roads in four ... states, use a wide range of technologies to safely maneuver the roads. These include cameras, proximity sensors, radar and lasers to detect and recognize objects around the car. The vehicles also use Google's own map database to get information on upcoming intersections and the likely traffic they'll encounter. One of the big challenges is ... (view more)

Would you buy an electric car if it could drive nearly 1,200 miles before requiring a recharge? Two companies working on a revolutionary battery think they have the key to completely changing how drivers look at electric vehicles (EVs). Electric ... cars are by no means new, but they've never been quite as popular as their gas-powered counterparts. Part of the problem with electronic cars is longevity; most require a recharge after only one hundred miles, which makes them less attractive to most North Americans. One of the most popular electric cars on the market, the Nissan Leaf, can only ... (view more)

Google is set to build its own fleet of self-driving cars from scratch. The new autonomous cars will have no steering wheel, which will present significant legal hurdles in order to get them on the streets. To date, Google has been working with ... traditional auto-makers to make what are effectively modified versions of existing vehicles, retrofitted with autonomous technology. The cars, which have been tested on public roads, have the usual steering wheel and pedals; pressing an emergency button allows the driver to take over the controls from the computer instantly. How the Self-driving Cars ... (view more)

Politicians in California are to consider a proposed law that would give drivers more control over what happens to data gathered in their high-tech cars. It's prompted a heated debate between driver clubs and automobile manufacturers. According to ... senator Bill Monning, around one in five new cars are designed to automatically send data to manufacturers. That proportion is expected to grow rapidly in the next 10 years as more cars integrate mobile technology and rely heavily on electronic control systems. (Source: latimes.com ) The type of data collected varies widely. In some cases it ... (view more)