Elon Musk Can’t Solve Tesla’s China Crisis With His Desperate Asia Visit

[ Elon Musk will be pleased that his surprise jaunt to China on Sunday garnered many glowing headlines. The trip was undoubtedly equally a surprise to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who had been scheduled to offer Musk the red carpet on a long-arranged visit. The billionaire blew off India at the last minute, citing … Read more

Tesla Autopilot Was Uniquely Risky—and May Still Be

[ A federal report published today found that Tesla’s Autopilot system was involved in at least 13 fatal crashes in which drivers misused the system in ways the automaker should have foreseen—and done more to prevent. Not only that, but the report called out Tesla as an “industry outlier” because its driver assistance features lacked … Read more

China’s Best Self-Driving Car Platforms, Tested and Compared

[ I experienced the City NGP function under XNGP in a P7i in Shanghai, and later in a G6 in Guangzhou. With my second experience I soon realized it was a tale of two cities. In Shanghai it was quite smooth, and at least one of the interventions made was due to me being disoriented … Read more

‘Boycott Tesla’ Super Bowl ads target self-driving technology

[ A pair of Super Bowl ads went after Tesla’s self-driving technology on Sunday, asking viewers to boycott the company and claiming that its vehicles are unsafe. The Dawn Project’s ads follow a 2023 Super Bowl ad campaign, which featured an Autopilot-driven Tesla mowing down child-sized dummies in a parking lot.  “Here’s what Elon Musk … Read more

A First Look at Matic, the Reengineered Robot Vacuum

[ Within a few minutes of arriving at the WIRED offices in San Francisco, Matic cofounder Mehul Nariyawala brings up the classic Paul Graham piece on schlep blindness. The essay talks about how engineers will often shrink away from starting a company to tackle a very commonly understood problem simply because solving that problem would … Read more

Apple aims to produce first self-driving car by 2024, eyes ‘next level’ battery technology, sources say

[ Apple is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include its own breakthrough battery technology, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The iPhone maker’s automotive efforts, known as Project Titan, have proceeded unevenly since 2014 when it first started to design its own … Read more

Intel’s self-driving car unit Mobileye plans to step up use of its own radar tech by 2025

[ The head of Intel Corp’s self-driving car subsidiary said on Tuesday the company wants to shift toward using its own radar-based technology and use a single lidar sensor per vehicle by 2025 in a bid to lower the cost of autonomous driving. Mobileye has taken a different strategy from many of its self-driving car … Read more