After years of lobbying the state to increase regulations on autonomous vehicles, San Francisco officials are taking their case to the feds. San Francisco Examiner reports: The directors of The City’s two main transportation agencies outlined their concerns about Cruise’s driverless cars in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regarding Cruise’s application to deploy a custom-built autonomous vehicle. In it, San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Authority Director Jeffrey Tumlin and San Francisco County Transportation Authority Director Tilly Chang provide a comprehensive overview of disruptive and unsafe incidents that they say Cruise cars precipitated. The letter, sent on Sept. 21, comes as Cruise’s driverless cars continue to stop in the middle of San Francisco’s streets for extended periods of time, often in groups, blocking traffic until they can be remotely restarted or manually retrieved by Cruise staff. Over the past week, there were at least four such incidents, including one that delayed a couple of KRON4 reporters.

The City’s letter to NHTSA provides specific data on these incidents. Between May 29 and Sept. 5 of this year, 28 incidents of stopped Cruise cars blocking traffic were reported to 911. The City identified an additional 20 such incidents reported on social media over that time period, which does not include the events of the past week. The City estimates that these figures represent “a fraction of actual travel lane road failures,” since most of these events take place late at night, when Cruise offers its driverless ride-hailing service, and when few other people are on the streets. In light of these concerns, The City requests several new regulations on autonomous vehicles from NHTSA.

San Francisco’s letter is in response to a petition by General Motors, Cruise’s parent company, to manufacture and commercially deploy a custom-built autonomous vehicle called the Cruise Origin. It would be roughly the size of an SUV, but with no obvious front and back and no driver’s seat or steering wheel. In their letter on behalf of the entire city government, Tumlin and Chang stress that they “neither support nor oppose the Petition, but document safety hazards and street capacity issues raised by the operation of the Cruise AV on San Francisco streets.” They go on to call for several specific regulations they would like to see imposed on Cruise and Ford’s Argo AI, another company seeking to build and deploy a fully autonomous vehicle. Those recommendations include stringent data reporting requirements and incident reports, limiting the geographic area and the number of vehicles that can be deployed in San Francisco, and enabling first responders to manually turn off the vehicles. “Safety is the guiding principle of everything we do,” Cruise said in a statement regarding these incidents. “That means if our cars encounter a situation where they aren’t able to safely proceed they turn on their hazard lights and we either get them operating again or pick them up as quickly as possible. This could be because of a mechanical issue like a flat tire, a road condition, or a technical problem. We’re working to minimize how often this happens, and apologize to any other impacted drivers.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Descending up to 40 meters beneath the Baltic Sea, the world’s longest immersed tunnel will link Denmark and Germany, slashing journey times between the two countries when it opens in 2029. CNN Travel reports: After more than a decade of planning, construction started on the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel in 2020 and in the months since a temporary harbor has been completed on the Danish side. It will host the factory that will soon build the 89 massive concrete sections that will make up the tunnel. “The expectation is that the first production line will be ready around the end of the year, or beginning of next year,” said Henrik Vincentsen, CEO of Femern A/S, the state-owned Danish company in charge of the project. “By the beginning of 2024 we have to be ready to immerse the first tunnel element.”

The tunnel, which will be 18 kilometers (11.1 miles) long, is one of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects, with a construction budget of over 7 billion euros ($7.1 billion). […] It will be built across the Fehmarn Belt, a strait between the German island of Fehmarn and the Danish island of Lolland, and is designed as an alternative to the current ferry service from Rodby and Puttgarden, which carries millions of passengers every year. Where the crossing now takes 45 minutes by ferry, it will take just seven minutes by train and 10 minutes by car. The tunnel, whose official name is Fehmarnbelt Fixed Link, will also be the longest combined road and rail tunnel anywhere in the world. It will comprise two double-lane motorways — separated by a service passageway — and two electrified rail tracks. “Today, if you were to take a train trip from Copenhagen to Hamburg, it would take you around four and a half hours,” says Jens Ole Kaslund, technical director at Femern A/S, the state-owned Danish company in charge of the project. “When the tunnel will be completed, the same journey will take two and a half hours.”

“Today a lot of people fly between the two cities, but in the future it will be better to just take the train,” he adds. The same trip by car will be around an hour faster than today, taking into account time saved by not lining up for the ferry.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world’s freight-carrying trucks and ships use GPS-based satellite tracking and navigation systems, reports ZDNet. But “Criminals are turning to cheap GPS jamming devices to ransack the cargo on roads and at sea, a problem that’s getting worse….”
Jammers work by overpowering GPS signals by emitting a signal at the same frequency, just a bit more powerful than the original. The typical jammers used for cargo hijackings are able to jam frequencies from up to 5 miles away rendering GPS tracking and security apparatuses, such as those used by trucking syndicates, totally useless. In Mexico, jammers are used in some 85% of cargo truck thefts. Statistics are harder to come by in the United States, but there can be little doubt the devices are prevalent and widely used. Russia is currently availing itself of the technology to jam commercial planes in Ukraine.

As we’ve covered, the proliferating commercial drone sector is also prey to attack…. During a light show in Hong Kong in 2018, a jamming device caused 46 drones to fall out of the sky, raising public awareness of the issue.
While the problem is getting worse, the article also notes that companies are developing anti-jamming solutions for drone receivers, “providing protection and increasing the resiliency of GPS devices against jamming attacks.

“By identifying and preventing instances of jamming, fleet operators are able to prevent cargo theft.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Autonomous tech developer Nuro is teaming up with Uber Eats in a long-awaited partnership that will see the company’s latest robot take over the delivery of food to app users. Autoweek reports: The two companies signed a 10-year contract just a few days ago, paving the way for a wider rollout of Nuro’s driverless delivery robots, which have been operating on a limited scale in several cities. The partnership will kick off slowly, with Nuro deploying its robots to Houston and Mountain View, California, as a start, before the service makes a wider debut in the Bay Area.

Perhaps more importantly, Nuro’s delivery robots will allow Uber Eats to not have to pay a human driver, which is something that company has been working toward for years as part of its primary business as well. However, the lagging development of Level 4 and Level 5 autonomy, once widely expected to arrive around 2020, had stalled ambitions for Uber, which has struggled with profitability through normal operations with independent contractor drivers. Nuro delivery robots enjoyed renewed interest from business partners in the early months of the pandemic, but the company’s technology is now being viewed as a cost saver for operators rather than a method of more sanitary delivery.

Of course, a limited rollout in two cities plus plans to launch in the Bay Area won’t transform Uber Eats’ business model overnight. This could take years even with an unlimited supply of Nuro delivery robots — with regulatory approval still being the major impediment. That’s because commercial driverless permits are granted on a state-by-state basis, in addition to city and county approvals, which were hard enough for Nuro to obtain in the Bay Area, where Level 4 robotaxis are being tested. Nuro will need to focus its efforts in those areas where traffic is suitable for its robots.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rolls-Royce has ended its involvement in a project by Boom Supersonic to develop a faster-than-sound passenger airliner, leaving unclear the powerplant options available to Boom. FlightGlobal reports: “We are appreciative of Rolls-Royce’s work over the last few years, but it became clear that Rolls’ proposed engine design and legacy business model is not the best option for Overture’s future airline operators or passengers,” Boom said on 7 September. “Later this year, we will announce our selected engine partner and our transformational approach for reliable, cost-effective and sustainable supersonic flight.”

Earlier in the day, news broke that R-R had backed out of the Boom project. “We’ve completed our contract with Boom and delivered various engineering studies for their Overture supersonic program,” the UK engine manufacturer says. “After careful consideration, Rolls-Royce has determined that the commercial aviation supersonic market is not currently a priority for us and, therefore, will not pursue further work on the program at this time. It has been a pleasure to work with the Boom team and we wish them every success in the future.”

Boom, with offices in Denver, has been developing a supersonic aircraft called Overture that it says will carry up to 80 passengers and cruise at Mach 1.7. It initially intended for Overture to have two engines, but recently changed to a four-engined design. The company has been targeting first flight of Overture in 2026 and first delivery in 2029. “Overture remains on track to carry passengers in 2029, and we are looking forward to making our engine announcement later this year,” Boom says.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

sdinfoserv writes: Yet another setback for automated driverless vehicle grail, Cruise recalls its robotaxis after a passenger was injured in a crash. The robotaxi was turning left at an intersection, assumed an oncoming vehicle would turn in front of it and stopped, resulting in the oncoming vehicle striking the robotaxi. A Cruise spokeswoman declined to say what the robotaxi could have done differently, and declined to release video of the crash. Nevertheless, Cruise said in a statement that it made the recall “in the interest of transparency to the public.”

The company also said it’s issued a software update to improve the ability to predict what other vehicles will do, including in conditions similar to the crash.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In June a YouTube channel called “Tesla Owners Silicon Valley” ran an hour-long interview with Elon Musk. (Musk begins by sharing an example of the “comedically long” list of things that can disrupt a supply chain, remembering an incident where a drug gang shoot out led to the mistaken impounding of a nearby truck that was delivering parts for a Tesla Model S factory — ultimately shutting down Model S production for three days.)

There’s some candid discussions about the technology of electric cars – but also some surprisingly personal insights. Musk also reveals he’s been thinking about electric cars since high school, as “the way cars should be, if you could just solve range… People will look back on the internal combustion car era as a strange time. Quaint.” And then he remembers the moment in 1995 when he put his graduate studies at Stanford “on hold” to pursue a business career, reassuring Stanford professor William Nix that “I will probably fail” and predicting an eventual return to Stanford. Nix had responded that he did not think Musk would fail.

It turns out that 27 years later, now-emeritus professor William Nix heard the interview, and typed up a fond letter to Elon Musk at SpaceX’s headquarters in Texas. Nix complimented Musk on the interview, noting Musk’s remarks on the challenges in using silicon for the anodes of electric batteries. “About 10 years ago we at Stanford did research on the very issues you described. Indeed, it almost seemed like you had read all the papers.”

Musk’s hour-long interview with the group was followed by two more hour-long interviews, and since then the group has been sharing short excerpts that give candid glimpses of Musk’s thinking. (The overwhelming focus is solving full self-driving,” Musk says in one clip. “That’s essential. That’s really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money and being worth basically zero.”)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China’s first fully autonomous, commercial robotaxi rides — with no safety drivers — are about to open for public passengers in Wuhan and Chongqing, marking an inflection point for one of the key technological revolutions of the 21st century. New Atlas reports: The two newly-issued permits allow Baidu to charge for driverless rides within a 13-sq-km (5-sq-mi) area in Wuhan, between 9 am and 5 pm, and within a larger 30-sq-km (11.6-sq-mi) zone in Chonqing’s Yongchuan district between 9.30 am and 5.30 pm — so while they’re currently set to avoid peak hours, they’ll be mixing it up with plenty of daytime traffic. Each zone will run five 5th-generation Apollo cars, with remote drivers ready to assume control if the vehicles get themselves into any sticky situations. Home base will be watching closely through the cars’ camera systems, particularly in these early days.

Baidu’s Apollo Go is already the world’s biggest robotaxi company, with operations already live in all tier-one Chinese cities using the same 5th-gen car, with backup drivers on board. The company recently revealed its 6th-gen design, its first ground-up fully autonomous car for mass production. The Apollo RT6 will cost just RMB 250,000 (US$37,000) to manufacture, says Baidu, and its optional, removable steering wheel and generous, configurable cabin space will make it one of the first proper mobility pod-type services when it hits the streets commercially in 2023.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The ongoing worldwide semiconductor shortage will cause more than 100,000 vehicles to be cut from North American production schedules this week, Automotive News reported Sunday. Over 180,000 vehicles are expected to be dropped globally. CNET reports: The data, which comes from AutoForecast Solutions, says North American factories have been forced to cut nearly 1.06 million vehicles from production schedules this year due to the chip shortage. This puts North America as the most heavily impacted region so far. AFS’ data shows nearly 3 million vehicles have been cut so far in 2022, and the agency expects that number to grow to more than 3.8 million by the end of the year. […] The auto industry may not recover from the chip shortage until 2023 or beyond. Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AFS, affirmed this reasoning earlier this year: “This is not a quickly solvable issue.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With Apple’s new CarPlay software announced in June, the company is “is diving deeper into its automotive ambitions, opening up the possibility to enter into a multibillion segment of the auto industry that’s growing quickly: The ability to sell additional services and features to car owners,” reports CNBC. From the report: The auto industry faces an unappealing choice: Offer CarPlay and give up potential revenue and the chance to ride a major industry shift, or spend heavily to develop their own infotainment software and cater to an potentially shrinking audience of car buyers who will purchase a new vehicle without CarPlay. […] Industry observers believe carmakers need to embrace software services — and look at Apple’s offering with skepticism — or risk getting left behind. “It’s a really difficult time in the industry, where the car companies think they’re still building cars. They’re not. They’re building software on wheels, and they don’t know it, and they’re trading it away,” said Conrad Layson, senior analyst at AutoForecast Solutions.

The new version of CarPlay could be a huge emerging revenue engine for Apple. First, if a user loves the iPhone’s CarPlay interface, then they’re less likely to switch to an Android phone. That’s a strategic priority for Apple, which generates the majority of its revenue through hardware sales. Second, while the company doesn’t yet charge a fee to automakers or suppliers, it could sell services for vehicles the same way it distributes iPhone software. In June, Apple revealed that it has explored features that integrate commerce into the car’s cockpit. One new feature announced this summer would allow CarPlay users to navigate to a gas pump and pay for the fuel from the dashboard of the car, according to Reuters. Apple already generates tens of billions from the App Store, and stands to boost that if it ever decides to charge for services in cars…

Read more of this story at Slashdot.