All posts tagged: selfdriving

Nvidia’s ‘ChatGPT moment’ for self-driving cars, and other key AI announcements at GTC 2026

Nvidia’s ‘ChatGPT moment’ for self-driving cars, and other key AI announcements at GTC 2026

Screenshot by Radhika Rajkumar/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways Nvidia released new models for autonomous robots, cars, and more.  Uber will add Nvidia-powered robotaxis to cities as early as 2027.  More lifelike robotics could mean robotic characters at Disney World. To close out his Nvidia GTC keynote on Monday, CEO Jensen Huang brought out an unexpected guest: a walking, talking robot version of Olaf, the animated snowman from Disney’s Frozen movie. Huang explained to robo-Olaf that he’s run on Nvidia’s Jetson platform and learned to walk inside the company’s Omniverse simulator Olaf’s responses didn’t always make sense — the conversation was awkward, but the idea was clear: in the future, robotic characters could be wandering around Disneyland using Nvidia’s tech.  Also: Nvidia wants to own your AI data center from end to end Physical AI — AI systems embedded in machines like robots or cars that navigate real-world environments, as opposed to models stuck in the cloud or on your phone — has been gaining steam over the last …

Self-Driving Taxis Poised for Vicious Backlash

Self-Driving Taxis Poised for Vicious Backlash

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech When the city of San Francisco held a hearing last week on an incident that caused hundreds of Waymo robotaxis to stop dead in their tracks, it became a rallying point for labor activists, rideshare drivers, and concerned citizens to vent their grief with autonomous vehicles. According to one new study, that’s no coincidence — but instead an early sign of explosive backlash as self-driving taxis rapidly expand throughout the United States. The study, a survey of more than 4,600 responses to questions on self-driving cars collected by the Pew Research Center, found widespread distrust with the vehicles. According to reporting by the San Diego Union-Tribune, about 85 percent of those surveyed believe the rollout of driverless cars will lead to job losses. A further 70 percent said self-driving cars are a “bad idea for society,” or that they were unsure about how to regard the technology — meaning there’s only a pitiful slice of the population who …

Travis Kalanick reportedly starting a new self-driving company backed by Uber

Travis Kalanick reportedly starting a new self-driving company backed by Uber

Travis Kalanick is reportedly starting up a new self-driving vehicle company with “major backing” from Uber, according to The Information. He has reportedly told people he “wants to be more aggressive in rolling out self-driving technology than Waymo,” per the report. The Uber founder is also considering acquiring Pronto, the autonomous vehicle startup focused on industrial and mining sites that was created by his former colleague at the ride-hailing company, Anthony Levandowski. Last year, Kalanick was said to be interested in buying the U.S. arm of Chinese self-driving vehicle company Pony AI with backing from Uber, though The Information said Friday that those talks ended. Uber didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Kalanick resigned from Uber in 2017 after a confluence of crises at the ride-hail company. At the time, the company was plagued by complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination, which sparked an external investigation that resulted in more than 20 employees being fired. Before that, Kalanick had created a self-driving division at Uber in 2015. Levandowski played a big role in …

Waymo Says It Has Nothing to Say After Its Self-Driving Taxi Blocked an Ambulance Responding to a Mass Shooting

Waymo Says It Has Nothing to Say After Its Self-Driving Taxi Blocked an Ambulance Responding to a Mass Shooting

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech A Waymo robotaxi blocked an ambulance from responding to the scene of a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, EMS and Waymo officials confirmed. “A driverless vehicle was stopped in the area while our crews were responding to this morning’s shooting, and it did briefly interfere with access for one ambulance,” Austin-Travis County EMS spokesperson Christa Stedman told Axios. “The officer in the video followed established protocol to address the situation and was able to quickly move the vehicle so ATCEMS units could proceed.” The Google-owned Waymo told outlets that it would not be providing a statement. In footage of the incident circulating online, a Waymo cab is seen straddling the width of a street, preventing an EMS vehicle with its lights flashing from passing. Instead of clearing a path, the cab fidgets in place, before the ambulance driver decides to reverse out and take a different route. After several minutes of indecisiveness — perhaps as it …

The House Opinion Article | Who’s Behind The Wheel Of Self-Driving Taxis?

The House Opinion Article | Who’s Behind The Wheel Of Self-Driving Taxis?

7 min read1 hr A security check on a fleet of new electric buses in Oslo late last year uncovered features that caused international alarm. The 300 Yutong buses were sending data back to its manufacturers in China. The company insisted this flow was necessary to “optimise” their performance. But Norway’s transport authorities moved to prevent access to data being sent to China. They also said they had mitigated any possibility of a ‘kill switch’ that could be activated by the manufacturer crippling the fleet from afar. The incident brought into sharp relief the challenges the Chinese-dominated market in electric vehicles are posing western policymakers – made all the more acute with the advent of self-driving cars. China dominates the global EV market, with its home-grown company BYD overtaking Tesla as the world’s largest electric carmaker last year. Amid reports that Chinese self-driving taxis could be trialled in the UK as soon as this year, MPs and peers from across the political spectrum are urging caution. The BBC reported in December that Uber …

Tesla sues Calif. DMV after agency said the ‘self-driving’ cars don’t actually drive themselves

Tesla sues Calif. DMV after agency said the ‘self-driving’ cars don’t actually drive themselves

Elon Musk’s Tesla is taking the California Department of Motor Vehicles to court, an attempt to win back the right to use the term “autopilot” when advertising its line of cars. In a case filed Feb. 13, the electric vehicle giant claims that the department “wrongfully and baselessly” labeled Tesla a “false advertiser,” and argues that the department did not effectively prove that customers had been led to believe the vehicles could be operated without human oversight. SEE ALSO: Anthropic changes safety policy amid intense AI competition Last year, a judge for California’s Office of Administrative Hearings ruled that the company had engaged in deceptive marketing by describing its fleet’s driver assistance systems as “Autopilot” modes. The court argued that Tesla’s Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving Capability” (FSD) did not meet the necessary autonomous driving criteria under NHTSA’s Levels of Automation system — the features are rated by the NHTSA as Level 2 automation, where Level 5 is a fully autonomous vehicle. The decision claims features need to be at least Level 3 to be described …

Self-driving tech startup Wayve raises .2B from Nvidia, Uber, and three automakers

Self-driving tech startup Wayve raises $1.2B from Nvidia, Uber, and three automakers

Wayve’s self-driving tech has attracted a diverse set of investors in the company’s latest $1.2 billion funding round, including three automakers, top venture and institutional firms, and returning backers Microsoft, Nvidia, and Uber. The total raise could reach $1.5 billion thanks to another $300 million from Uber contingent on deploying robotaxis, beginning in London. Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of the U.K. startup, which is now valued at $8.6 billion. The funding round illustrates the eagerness among Big Tech, legacy automakers, and the investor community to profit from the burgeoning automated driving industry.  Wayve provides what founder and CEO Alex Kendall calls the “contrarian” option in automated driving — contrarian both in its approach to tech and its business model, he told TechCrunch in an interview Tuesday. “I think the technology chessboard is set around where different companies have invested on the technology strategy, and now the commercial chessboard is being arranged,” Kendall said. “We took a very contrarian view on the technology side. We were the first to build end-to-end deep learning for autonomous …

Here’s How Many Remote Operators Waymo Has Per Self-Driving Taxi

Here’s How Many Remote Operators Waymo Has Per Self-Driving Taxi

Autonomous ride-hailing services companies have built their image on the concept that their vehicles fully drive themselves. The reality, however, is that the vehicles still require human intervention from remote operators, who are tasked with making critical decisions that the cars’ AI can’t safely navigate, like whether to abandon a blocked lane or what to do in an unexpected construction zone. We’ve known for years that Waymo still has to fall back on these agents on occasion — but details have remained extremely sparse, allowing conspiracy theories about the company’s fleet not being autonomous at all to flourish online, as Wired reports. Lawmakers at a Congressional hearing earlier this month weren’t impressed when Waymo’s chief safety officer, Mauricio Peña, declined to elaborate on how many “fleet response team” or “remote assistance” members the company employs, or even where exactly in the world they’re located. Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) pointed out the liability and cybersecurity implications of “having people overseas influencing American vehicles.” In a blog post last week, Waymo’s VP and global head of operations …

Tesla Avoids California Suspension By Dropping ‘Self-Driving’ Claims

Tesla Avoids California Suspension By Dropping ‘Self-Driving’ Claims

Authored by Rob Sabo via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Tesla Motors avoided a 30-day suspension of its dealer and manufacturer licenses from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) by removing the term “autopilot” from its vehicle marketing efforts in California. The Tesla booth at the AI+Expo Special Competitive Studies Project in Washington on June 2, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times According to a statement issued by the California DMV on Feb. 17, Tesla had marketed its full self-driving feature as essentially an autonomous driving feature. Although full self-driving is a hands-free feature, Tesla owners still need to actively supervise the operation of their vehicles. The DMV said Tesla had been marketing its advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) as a full driver-free autopilot feature since 2021 by including terms such as “autopilot” and “full self-driving capability” in marketing collateral and on its website. “The system is designed to be able to conduct short and long-distance trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat,” Tesla’s website formerly said. The California DMV …

Self-driving cars are poorly prepared for high-risk road situations – here’s how AI can improve them

Self-driving cars are poorly prepared for high-risk road situations – here’s how AI can improve them

Self-driving cars have made impressive progress. They can follow lanes, keep their distance, and navigate familiar routes with ease. However, despite years of development, they still struggle with one critical problem: the rare and dangerous situations that cause the most serious accidents. These “edge cases” include sharp bends on wet roads, sudden changes in slope, or situations where a vehicle approaches its physical limits of grip and stability. In real-world deployments, which often involve some level of shared control between driver and automation, such moments can arise from human misjudgment or from automated systems failing to anticipate rapidly changing conditions. They happen infrequently, but when they occur, the consequences can be severe. A car might handle a thousand gentle curves perfectly, but fail on the one sharp bend taken a little too fast. Current autonomous systems are not trained well enough to handle these moments reliably. From a data perspective, these events form what scientists call a “long tail”: they are statistically rare, but disproportionately important. Collecting more real world data does not fully solve …