Singapore Starts First Autonomous Bus Trial
In early 2019, Singapore put a full-sized driverless electric bus onto public roads for the first time. The Volvo 7900 Electric, a 12-meter single-decker with room for 80 passengers, shuttled...
Autonomous Vehicles
Amazon Scout program end, Heathrow luggage trials, California incidents, LiDAR innovation, SoftBank losses, and Singapore bus trial.
FiveAI ends London driverless trial
In April 2022, British autonomous-driving startup FiveAI ceased operations. Bosch acquired the business for an undisclosed sum, framing the transaction as an acqui-hire for talent rather than a continuation of...
Toyota's Woven City: A Living Lab for Autonomous Mobility
Toyota is building a prototype city called Woven City at the base of Mount Fuji in Susono City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. The effort occupies about 175 acres (70.8 hectares) on...
SoftBank lost billions on self-driving bets
SoftBank Group placed roughly $5.5 billion into autonomous vehicle businesses between 2018 and 2019. By April 2024, the bulk of that money had been written down, returned at a loss,...
LiDAR sees around corners via reflections
Seeing around a corner without moving is a trick of physics and computation. For an autonomous vehicle, detecting a person or cyclist hidden behind a parked truck could mean the...
California: 38 AV incidents, 16 states regulate testing
Public-road testing of self-driving technology began in earnest in the mid 2010s, but the landscape shifted decisively on March 18, 2018. That night in Tempe, Arizona, a test car from...
Heathrow Airport Trials Autonomous Luggage Carriers
Heathrow Airport trialled autonomous luggage carriers designed to move passenger baggage without a human driver. The trial tested whether self-driving carts could cut transfer times and reduce airfield traffic. This...
Amazon Ends Scout Delivery Robot Program: What Happened
In October 2022, Amazon permanently ended field tests of its Scout autonomous sidewalk delivery robot. The six-wheeled, cooler-sized vehicle was supposed to handle last-mile deliveries by rolling along pedestrian paths....
