BMW, Mercedes end self-driving car collaboration

Image courtesy of BMW and Mercedes

It looks like we won't be seeing what self-driving vehicle BMW and Mercedes could've developed together. The two automakers have called quits on their ongoing partnership to develop automated driving technology. BMW and Mercedes say the split is "mutual and amicable." They are open to renewing the partnership in the future.

According to a joint statement, the decision was reached after considering several factors. One is that developing a shared autonomous vehicle platform became a more complex and expensive undertaking than they expected. Another is the agreement delayed how quickly they can have joint discussions between their in-house experts as well as communicate with suppliers regarding product roadmaps.

Click to read more ...

Self-driving Uber vehicle kills pedestrian in Arizona

A self-driving Uber vehicle has reportedly hit and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. The vhicle, which was allegedly in autonomous mode had a driver, who was not driving, behind the wheel. Local news reports

 

say a woman was walking outside of a crosswalk when she was hit. She was taken to a hospital where she died.

Arizona has been a destination for autonomous driving pilot projects and has a rather relaxed mandate to allow testing. Uber has reportedly ceased all autonomous driving tests in the area while investigations are going on. Uber has also halted similar initiatives in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Toronto and Phoenix. This is the first pedestrian casualty resulting from autonomous vehicles failing to sense a person and killing them.

An incident involving a Tesla and its autopilot feature (not autonomous driving) resulted in a crash that killed the driver last year.

Source: Mashable

Uber and Waymo abruptly settles lawsuit

In a surprising turn of events, Uber and Waymo have agreed to settle a self-driving trade secrets lawsuit on the fifth day of the case going to trial. Uber agreed to pay out 0.3 percent of its equity, which with the company’s US$72 billion valuation, puts that at over $245 million in stock. The company has also promised to work with Waymo’s parent company Alphabet to make sure none of Google’s confidential data will be used for Uber’s self-driving program (both in the hardware and software side).

The case began over a year ago when Waymo filed a suit against Uber accusing one of its former engineers, Anthony Levandowski, of downloading around 9.7GB of data or around 14,000 files before abruptly resigning from the company and later creating his own company called Ottomotto, which was acquired by Uber a few months later.

Source: Ars Technica

Ford and Domino's test pizza delivery via self-driving cars

Some lucky pizza lovers in Michigan are getting Domino's Pizza delivered by Ford self-driving cars.

Over the next several weeks of testing, randomly-selected Domino’s customers in Ann Arbor, Michigan will have the opportunity to receive their pizza delivery from a Ford Fusion Hybrid Autonomous Research Vehicle (which will be manually-driven by a Ford safety engineer and staffed with researchers).

With a plan to begin production of autonomous vehicles in 2021, Ford is taking steps to increase their understanding of how self-driving vehicles can support the movement of people and goods. Researchers from both companies will investigate customer reactions to interacting with a self-driving vehicle during the delivery process, especially those last 50 feet of the delivery experience. Hey Ford, Canadians love Pizza, too! How about it?