All posts tagged: steering

For the First Time, Zoox Can Charge People for Rides in Its Steering Wheel-Free Robotaxis

For the First Time, Zoox Can Charge People for Rides in Its Steering Wheel-Free Robotaxis

Published by skeptic

Vehicles purpose-built to drive without human help received the first-ever approval in the US to pick up paid customers, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Thursday. The company, Amazon subsidiary Zoox, says it will soon begin to charge for rides in Las Vegas, where it’s been carrying passengers for free since last year. The company is also currently picking up a limited set of passengers in Austin, Miami, and San Francisco, all for free. The approval is a milestone for the autonomous vehicle industry. Waymo, the nation’s leading robotaxi provider, uses vehicles that still meet government design standards—with steering wheels, pedals, and mirrors, and conventional seating arrangements. (Even the company’s new, purpose-built robotaxi has those legally mandated features.) But some industry players argue that driverless tech can only reach its potential with vehicles built to be driven by computers—ones that don’t meet federal vehicle safety standards written for older technology. That has proven a difficult path. Zoox has worked for more than a decade to design, manufacture, and receive government approvals for …

Apple Says UK App Store Steering Rules Would Be ‘Highly Intrusive’

Apple Says UK App Store Steering Rules Would Be ‘Highly Intrusive’

Published by skeptic

Apple said new UK App Store rules would give regulators a “highly intrusive” role dictating how it runs its business, reports Reuters. Apple submitted feedback to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority as it considers forcing Apple to change its ‌App Store‌ rules around steering. The CMA wants Apple to let developers link to payment options outside of the ‌App Store‌, which the CMA says will cut fees and boost competition. Developers in the UK are not currently able to direct customers outside of the ‌App Store‌, even though that’s allowed with the current U.S. ‌App Store‌ rules and the EU ‌App Store‌ rules. UK regulators said Apple can charge developers a fee, but it must be fair and reasonable, and below existing ‌App Store‌ commissions, so developers can pass savings to customers or reinvest them in innovation. According to Apple, the CMA’s proposed rules would undermine innovation and investment, and would amount to price regulation because of the restriction on fees. Apple claims there is no evidence that allowing developers to direct users to …

US Weighs Removing Steering Wheel Requirement for Driverless Cars

US Weighs Removing Steering Wheel Requirement for Driverless Cars

Published by skeptic

If the head of the nation’s auto safety oversight has his way, self-driving cars won’t need brake pedals or steering wheels in the near future. In an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday, Jonathan Morrison, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said he supports innovation in autonomous vehicles, including doing away with some features that are currently mandated. “If you’re developing a vehicle that is designed never to be driven by a human operator, does it make any sense to require manual control for the vehicle?” Morrison said. “I think the answer is pretty clear there.” Some self-driving cars, such as models intended for ridesharing fleets from companies like Uber and Tesla, are already steering in that direction, since they aren’t designed for human driving. Some, such as the cars used by Waymo, can be taken over by remote human drivers. Removing brake pedals and steering wheels, however, would mean that a human could not take over if an autonomous car stalls or a dangerous situation arises that requires intervention. Makers of …

How Audi’s electromechanical progressive steering works

How Audi’s electromechanical progressive steering works

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Audi is having a big moment: two years ago, the German brand announced it would launch 20 brand-new or significantly new models. Twelve of those have already rolled out, with more coming soon. The automaker also unveiled the Concept C, an all-electric two-seat sports car that looks like a cross between a TT and an R8. Audi says the Concept C “previews a future production model” but with the EV market currently in flux it’s impossible to say what happens next.  Meanwhile, Audi took the wraps off the newest version of its compact luxury sedan, the A6. Now in its 9th generation, the A6 is powered by a 6-cylinder gas engine making 362 hp and 406 lb-ft of torque. It zooms from 0 to 60 mph in a brisk 4.5 seconds and includes more safety features, including an additional airbag up front.  The tech is updated too, with a new 14.5-inch OLED as standard instead of the 10.1-inch LCD …

52 years of kong bak bao: How Westlake’s third-gen owner is steering a heritage brand into the future

52 years of kong bak bao: How Westlake’s third-gen owner is steering a heritage brand into the future

Published by Sam Flores

Popular dishes at Westlake include an award-winning Hot and Sour Soup, Butter King Prawn and Roast Chicken. But, it was their braised pork buns that first put Westlake on the map, and the restaurant continues to be synonymous with the dish today: melt-in-the-mouth slabs of pork belly in a dark, savoury-sweet sauce, sandwiched into fluffy, steamed Chinese buns. “When people think about braised pork buns, they think of us. It’s something that has carried on over the years,” Matthew said. The recipe, developed by his grandfather and uncle, originally required chefs to get up at 4am to braise the pork so that it would be ready for lunch hour. “Customers say our braised pork is fatty without being cloying. You don’t feel the oiliness when you eat it. The texture is extremely important,” Robert said. The secret to the perfect texture is in the thickness of the cut, Matthew divulged. Meat is sourced from Germany and the Netherlands. The dish also uses a premium-grade soya sauce specially calibrated for the restaurant by their longtime local …

Your router’s band steering might be the reason your TV keeps buffering

Your router’s band steering might be the reason your TV keeps buffering

Published by skeptic

Technology should be simple. It is rarely easy and that isn’t a surprise. But when you hand the controls over to the technology, you’d assume it would make the smartest decisions, right? I could be talking about using a chatbot or LLM to answer questions. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it wrong. I could also be talking about needing to connect multiple hubs just to connect one smart home device to another. There are easier ways around this, but certain devices make it more difficult than others. But what I’m really referring to is ensuring your smart TV is streaming as optimally as it possibly can. Sometimes, your router is actually working against you to prevent that. Related The Wi-Fi channel your router chose is probably the worst one Just because your router can pick a channel, doesn’t mean it should. Band-steering and what it means for your traffic Your settings could be incorrect You may not realize it, but your Wi-Fi has multiple bands that devices can join. If you …

Mercedes confirms steer-by-wire for 2026 EQS with questionable steering wheel

Mercedes confirms steer-by-wire for 2026 EQS with questionable steering wheel

Published by skeptic

Mercedes-Benz has confirmed it will introduce steer-by-wire technology in 2026, becoming the first German automaker to bring the system to production. The facelifted EQS electric sedan will be the first model to get it. Along with the new steering system, Mercedes is ditching the traditional round steering wheel for a flat-bottomed yoke design — and it’s a look that will divide opinion. Steer-by-wire comes to Mercedes The announcement comes from Mercedes CTO Markus Schäfer, who described the technology as “another big step towards the mobility of tomorrow” that “enables a unique customer experience that goes far beyond steering alone.” Mercedes-Benz EQS steer-by-wire test mule. Image: Mercedes-Benz Steer-by-wire eliminates the mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the front wheels entirely. Instead of a steering column, the system uses electronic signals to translate driver inputs into wheel movement. This allows for an adaptive steering ratio that adjusts responsiveness based on driving conditions — quicker at low speeds for easier parking, and more stable at highway speeds. Advertisement – scroll for more content Mercedes says the system …

The Deceptively Tricky Art of Designing a Steering Wheel

The Deceptively Tricky Art of Designing a Steering Wheel

Published by skeptic

Cars didn’t always have steering wheels. The very first car—the 1885 Benz Patent-Motorwagen, invented by Karl Benz—used a tiller system: a horizontal bar with a handle mounted to a vertical bar. The lever-like handle was similar in many respects to a boat’s rudder. Amazingly, it would be another nine years before French engineer Alfred Vacheron saw sense and fitted the first known steering wheel to his 4-horsepower Panhard for the Paris-Rouen race. Just four years later, in 1898, Panhard made the infinitely preferable and safer steering wheel standard on all its cars. And we’ve been using them ever since. “A car is the aggregation of multiple products, and, in many ways, we’re designing furniture.” Jony Ive, designer Hans-Peter Wunderlich is Mercedes’ creative director of interior design. He has been designing steering wheels for 35 years. “I started in 1991 on my first,” he tells me. “A steering wheel is really the most challenging and difficult element to sculpture, to design, to develop in the car.” It is so difficult that Wunderlich has used the wheel …

Tesla rolls first steering wheel-less Cybercab unit off the line before solving autonomy

Tesla rolls first steering wheel-less Cybercab unit off the line before solving autonomy

Published by skeptic

Tesla shared today that the first Cybercab production unit has rolled off the assembly line at Gigafactory Texas. The vehicle has no steering wheel and no pedals. It is entirely dependent on autonomous driving software that, based on every available data point, Tesla has not solved — and is nowhere close to solving. Even the name “Cybercab” is not set in stone. The announcement comes on a day after we published our latest robotaxi status check showing that Tesla’s “Robotaxi” program in Austin is crashing at nearly four times the rate of human drivers, operates at just 19% availability, and has roughly 40 vehicles on the road eight months after launch. Tesla announced today that it produced its first Cybercab off its production line at Gigafactory Texas: Advertisement – scroll for more content While this is the first production unit, continuous production is not expected to start until April. The data doesn’t support the product Tesla’s robotaxi pilot in Austin, which uses Model Y vehicles equipped with the same “autonomous driving” technology as Cybercab, has …

Tesla Accused of Killing Family, Plus Their Dog, by Steering Vehicle Head-on Into Oncoming Semi-Truck

Tesla Accused of Killing Family, Plus Their Dog, by Steering Vehicle Head-on Into Oncoming Semi-Truck

Published by José Betancourt

A man is suing Tesla after half his family was killed when their Model X, which was running one of the automaker’s driving assistance features, veered across the road line and into a tractor-trailer — crushing his wife, two daughters, son-in-law, and family dog, according to a grim new lawsuit reported by The Independent. The man, Nathan Blaine, is accusing Tesla and CEO Elon Musk of having “intentionally misrepresented the safety of their vehicles” and the driver assistance features, the outlet noted, and says that the misleading claims lulled him and his wife into a “false sense of security.” “Based on representations the Blaines heard made by Musk and Tesla,” the complaint states, per The Independent, “[they] believed [it] was a safer driver than a human driver of convention[al] vehicles.” The suit targets Tesla’s “Autosteer” feature, a punched-up version of cruise control that “detects lane markings, road edges, and the presence of vehicles and objects to intelligently keep your vehicle in its driving lane,” per Tesla. Though it’s in beta, the feature is available to …