Nuro Becomes First Company To Receive Commercial Autonomous Vehicle Permit From California DMV

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Hours after announcing that it acquired self-driving truck startup Ike, Nuro revealed it’s the first company to receive permission from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to charge a fee and receive compensation for its driverless delivery service. Unlike the autonomous testing licenses the California DMV previously granted to Nuro and others,…

Volvo’s Polestar Plans an Electric Ride-Hailing Robotaxi with Waymo

Slashdot reader Way Smarter Than You shares this article from Car and Driver:
Polestar, the Volvo premium electric brand, will come out with a new electric vehicle platform just for ride-hailing vehicles. The automated driving technology is called Waymo Driver, and Waymo has been testing it in vehicles from a number of automakers, including Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, and Renault. You’ll be…

This Was Supposed to Be the Year Driverless Cars Went Mainstream

Tech companies once promised that fully functional, self-driving cars would be on the road by 2020 and on the path to remaking transportation and transforming the economy. From a report: But a decade after Google unveiled an autonomous car prototype with global fanfare, the technology is still far from ready, and many investors are wary of dumping more money into it…

Volvo Will Sell LIDAR-Equipped Self-Driving Cars To Customers By 2022

Volve says it’ll start selling LIDAR-equipped cars in 2022, which the Swedish automaker says will be able to drive themselves on highways with no human intervention. The Verge reports: [M]ost LIDAR are ridiculously expensive, with the leading suppliers pricing theirs at around $75,000. But now, Volvo says it has found a LIDAR maker that can produce the sensors cheap enough to…

Uber Self-Driving Cars Allowed Back On California Roads

Nearly two years after one of Uber’s self-driving cars was involved in a fatal crash in Arizona, the ride-hailing firm has been allowed to test its autonomous vehicles on public roads in California. “Receiving a permit in California — which has granted permits to 65 other transport firms — is the latest step in Uber’s revival of the program,” reports the…