Tesla and Elon Musk face a shareholder lawsuit alleging fraud for hiding safety risks linked to Robotaxi and self-driving tech, following a flawed public test and a $68 bn drop in market value
Federal traffic safety regulators are looking into suspected problems with Elon Musk's test run of self-driving "robotaxis" in Texas after videos surfaced showing them braking suddenly or going straight through an intersection from a turning lane and driving down the wrong side of the road. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday that it has asked Tesla for information about the apparent errors. Though many other videos show robotaxis driving perfectly, if regulators find any major issues, that would likely raise questions about Musk's repeated statements that the robotaxis are safe and his claim that Tesla will dominate a future in which nearly all cars on road will have no one behind the wheel or even need a steering wheel at all. "NHTSA is aware of the referenced incidents and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information," the agency said in a statement. Passengers in Tesla robotaxis on the road in Austin, Texas, have generally bee
Minus Zero's vision-based autopilot system uses foundational AI models to navigate urban traffic in India, with production expected in 2 years through OEM partnerships
Tesla plans to launch its autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin in June and then in other cities by the end of the year
US regulators have opening an investigation into 2.6 million Tesla after reports of crashes involving the use of company technology that allows drivers to remotely command their vehicle to return to them, or move to another location, using a phone app. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also said Tuesday that Tesla has failed to report any of the accidents. Tesla is under order to report crashes on publicly accessible roads involving vehicles being operated through its autonomous driving technology. The new investigation follows another probe launched in October looking into the company's Full Self-Driving system after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. That investigation covers 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday. One driver filed a complaint after a crash while using Tesla's Actually Smart Summon .
If new rules enable cars without human controls, that would directly benefit Elon Musk
Two investors, including Chinese carmaker BAIC, have indicated on buying shares worth $74.9 million in the IPO
The lawsuit adds to growing scrutiny of Tesla's driver assistant systems Autopilot and Full Self-Driving
Tesla's efforts underscore the speed of the electric vehicle maker's pivot to bet on a breakthrough in AI at a time when EV demand has slowed and its competition has deepened
Musk declared in April that Tesla is going balls to the wall for autonomy while committing the car maker to a next-generation, self-driving vehicle concept called the robotaxi
The latest funding brings Wayve's total funds raised to just over $1.3 billion and marks the largest investment yet in a British startup focused on artificial-intelligence technology
The investigation will evaluate the system's performance on the dynamic driving task and driver monitoring, the NHTSA said
The U.S. electric vehicle maker rolled out Full Self-Driving, or FSD, the most autonomous version of its Autopilot software, four years ago but has yet to make it available in China
Minus Zero, founded in 2021, is backed by technology venture capital fund Chiratae Ventures among other investors
The IIHS, a safety research arm of the insurance industry, also said there is no evidence that Autopilot or other assisted-driving systems have real-world safety benefits, based on crash data.
Here is the best of Business Standard's opinion pieces for today
Autonomous vehicles are not just the future but a present reality
Self-driving cars could be on British roads as early as 2026, according to UK Transport Secretary Mark Harper. In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, the minister said he expected to see the owners of such vehicles being able to travel without having to watch where they're going by the end of that year. It came against the backdrop of the UK's Automated Vehicles Bill, which lays out a set of laws for using autonomous vehicles and was introduced in Parliament last month. The government hopes it will pass through both Houses by the end of 2024. "I think that's when companies are expecting in 2026, during that year that we'll start seeing this technology rolled out," Harper told the BBC. The transport minister said it was clear the self-driving technology works from a roll-out in California, where cars "without a safety driver, so in full, autonomous mode" are already on the roads. "This technology exists, it works and what we're doing is putting in place the proper legislation
Kyle Vogt has resigned as CEO of Cruise, General Motors' autonomous vehicle unit, as questions build about the safety of self-driving cars. Vogt's decision to step down, announced late on Sunday, follows a recent recall of all 950 Cruise vehicles to update software after one of them dragged a pedestrian to the side of a San Francisco street in early October. The California Department of Motor Vehicles revoked the license for Cruise. The company earlier announced it had paused operations for a review by independent experts. The results of our ongoing reviews will inform additional next steps as we work to build a better Cruise centred around safety, transparency and trust, the company said in a statement. We will continue to advance AV technology in service of our mission to make transportation safer, cleaner and more accessible. Cruise won approval to transport fare-paying passengers last year. Since then, the autonomous vehicles have drawn complaints for making unexpected, ...
"I hesitate to say this but I think we'll do it this year," said Tesla CEO Musk, speaking on a conference call