Volkswagen showcases ID Roomzz concept at Shanghai Auto Show

We saw the teaser earlier this month but now we get a closer look at Volkswagen’s new electric car concept. The ID Roomzz expands the automaker’s electric car lineup into the full-size SUV territory. This concept is a three-row SUV that will be heading into production in 2021. VW has only committed to bringing this to China so far. Style-wise it looks similar to the smaller Crozz. It has 301hp dual motors and it has a range of 280 miles and goes from 0-62mph in 6.6 seconds.

The ID Roomzz is designed with autonomous driving in mind and includes Level 4 autonomy (which is full self-driving in most conditions). The seats can recline and turn 25 degrees inward to create a “lounge-like” atmosphere when you let it take the will. The traditional dash is replaced by an all-glass panel with a giant infotainment display in the center. There are “interactive light zones” that show the info to everyone inside. We doubt this will make the initial production model, but it at least shows us where VW wants to take this tech.

Source: Engadget

Toyota now has a self-driving car company to focus on software systems

Toyota fully committing to its autonomous driving initiatives and is now making sure the research it has been working on in the field gets the focus it needs. The company just established the Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development or TRI-AD, for short. It’s a sub-company underneath the Toyota Research Institute, which is already working on the company’s self-driving car programs. Toyota is partnering with auto-parts manufacturer Aisin Seiki and Denso and will be investing US$2.8 billion into the company and hire around 1,000 employees for the company.

The focus of TRI-AD will be on developing software systems for self-driving vehicles. “Building production-quality software is a critical success factor for Toyota’s automated driving program,” said Dr. James Kuffner, the former CTO of TRI and the new CEO of TRI-AD. “This company’s mission is to accelerate software development in a more effective and disruptive way, by augmenting the Toyota Group’s capability through the hiring of world-class software engineers. We will recruit globally, and I am thrilled to lead this effort.”

Source: BGR

Daimler and Bosch to start testing self-driving taxis soon

Mercedes-Benz’s parent company Daimler and Bosch first promised to bring fully autonomous vehicles to the market in the next decade. But with their competition working faster to bring their self-driving cars into the market, it looks like they acknowledged that they needed to work faster. Bosch chief Volkmar Denner told German weekly publication Automobilwoche that they will be testing their self-driving taxis within a few months. No additional details about when exactly but it is at least a more definitive timetable for the project.

The advantage Daimler believes they have over their competition is the purpose-built nature of their taxis. These taxis apparently won’t just be a “technology-kit mounted on a serial vehicle,” or so Daimler VP Wilko Stark says but they’re designed to be autonomous vehicles “from the beginning.”

Source: Engadget

Chinese search giant Baidu wants to build the ‘Android’ of autonomous vehicles

You may or may not be familiar with Chinese search giant Baidu but you might be hearing more from them in the future as they partnered with 50 companies to help develop their self-driving car platform. Some of the big names in the auto and tech industries have joined them, including Ford, NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Intel. Baidu wants its Apollo platform to turn into a global program that can compete against the likes of Alphabet’s Waymo and Uber’s own autonomous vehicle. This even puts them up against the likes of its partner Ford’s own self-driving initiative.

Baidu wants to position Apollo as an open source software platform, though. Thus, drawing the comparison with Android. So that hardware and car makers can quickly deploy and customize the system. “It is in essence the ‘Android’ of the autonomous driving industry but more open and more powerful,” said Qi Lu, Baidu’s chief operating officer, at Baidu Create, the company’s inaugural artificial intelligence conference. “Apollo is not solely Baidu’s. It belongs to everyone in the ecosystem. And as we and our partners contribute to the platform in our areas of specialty, we all gain more, with the results far greater than just our own.”

Source: The Verge