As Uber pushes ahead with plans for self-driving cars, there are differing views on the roles of drivers in that future.
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Category: transportation – Page 540
In Brief:
- Fedeli says that their electric Maserati could be released before 2020, maybe even 2019.
- The EV is expected to be a sleek, low-volume coupe, with a target market differing from the four-door Tesla Fighter
Cruising in a Maserati screams luxury, comfort, elegance. Now Maserati will be associated with energy-efficiency, too.
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Today ladies and gentlemen we are able to travel beyond our solar system — May i present you The Alba Clockwork — A successful approach in dealing with previously unstable Alcubierre Drive and its effect on separating space. Previous designs would be obliterated immediately after the generator is powered and would crush upon itself. This new technology creates an energy bubble that can fend off the negative mass generated by the warp field. — Ikarus Shipyards tl;dr — Personal view on a functional Alcubierre driven vehicle with shield to fend off negative mass.
Alcubierre drive : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
Added shield functionality animation & 3D model preview.
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As part of our regular “One Big Question” series, we put a very similar question to Steven Shladover at the University of California, Berkeley. Shladover is a research engineer who was instrumental in creating California’s PATH program (Partners for Advanced Transportation Technologies), whose mission is to “develop solutions that address the challenges of California’s surface transportation systems through advanced ideas and technologies and with a focus on greater deployment of those solutions throughout California.”
The exact question we put to Shladover and his response follows.
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Through the past few decades of summer blockbuster movies and Silicon Valley products, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly familiar and sexy, and imbued with a perversely dystopian allure.
What’s talked about less, and has also been dwarfed in attention and resources, is human intelligence (HI).
In its varied forms — from the mysterious brains of octopuses and the swarm-minds of ants to Go-playing deep learning machines and driverless-car autopilots — intelligence is the most powerful and precious resource in existence. Our own minds are the most familiar examples of a phenomenon characterized by a great deal of diversity.
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The European Commission is getting ready to propose new legislation to protect machines from cybersecurity breaches, signalling the executive’s growing interest in encouraging traditional European manufacturers to build more devices that are connected to the internet.
A new plan to overhaul EU telecoms law, which digital policy chiefs Günther Oettinger and Andrus Ansip presented three weeks ago, aims to speed up internet connections to meet the needs of big industries like car manufacturing and agriculture as they gradually use more internet functions.
But that transition to more and faster internet connections has caused many companies to worry that new products and industrial tools that rely on the internet will be more vulnerable to attacks from hackers.
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Posted in robotics/AI, transportation
California’s department of motor vehicles said late on Friday the most advanced self-driving cars will no longer be required to have a licensed driver, if federal officials deem them safe enough.
The regulator released a revision of draft regulations that opened a pathway for the public to access self-driving cars, prototypes of which automakers and tech companies are testing.
The redrafted regulations will be the subject of a public hearing on 19 October, in Sacramento.
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Germany isn’t content with relying on financial incentives to usher in an era of pollution-free cars. The country’s Bundesrat (federal council) has passed a resolution calling for a ban on new internal combustion engine cars by 2030. From then on, you’d have to buy a zero-emissions vehicle, whether it’s electric or running on a hydrogen fuel cell. This isn’t legally binding, but the Bundesrat is asking the European Commission to implement the ban across the European Union… and when German regulations tend to shape EU policy, there’s a chance that might happen.
The council also wants the European Commission to review its taxation policies and their effect on the “stimulation of emission-free mobility.” Just what that means isn’t clear. It could involve stronger tax incentives for buying zero-emissions cars, but it could also involve eliminating tax breaks for diesel cars in EU states. Automakers are already worried that tougher emission standards could kill diesels — remove the low cost of ownership and it’d only hasten their demise.
Not that the public would necessarily be worried. Forbes notes that registrations of diesels, still mainstays of the European car market, dropped sharply in numerous EU countries in August. There’s a real possibility that Volkswagen’s emission cheating scandal is having a delayed effect on diesel sales. Combine that with larger zero-emissions incentives and the proposed combustion engine ban, and it might not take much for Europeans to go with electric or hydrogen the next time they go car shopping.
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Wondering why this can’t happen here
German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt in a Tesla S at the 2014 AMI Auto Show (Photo: Jens Schlueter/Getty Images)
Diesel and gasoline-powered vehicles officially are an endangered species in Germany, and possibly all of the EU. This after Germany’s Bunderat has passed a resolution to ban the internal combustion engine starting in 2030, Germany’s Spiegel Magazin writes. Higher taxes may hasten the ICE’s departure.
An across-the-aisle Bunderat resolution calls on the EU Commission in Brussels to pass directives assuring that “latest in 2030, only zero-emission passenger vehicles will be approved” for use on EU roads. Germany’s Bundesrat is a legislative body representing the sixteen states of Germany. On its own, the resolution has no legislative effect. EU type approval is regulated on the EU level. However, German regulations traditionally have shaped EU and UNECE regulations.