Autonomous Vehicles

A partnership between the ride-sharing and autonomous car companies will bring self-driving cars to the state capitals in Georgia and Texas sometime in 2025. Waymo already offers rides in self-driving cars in California and Arizona.

A cross-sector partnership has helped pave the way for electric AV shuttles to start rolling off the assembly line in Florida by the middle of 2026, meeting Buy America requirements.

A report assessed two North Carolina projects piloting low-speed autonomous shuttles, stood up by partners including the state Department of Transportation. It found the vehicles still have significant limitations.

The companies are expected to launch the service next year with Chevrolet Bolt autonomous vehicles, they said Thursday. Their partnership follows several months of focus by GM on relaunching Cruise and rethinking its safety strategy.

East Lansing-based ADASTEC will bring the vehicle to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore within the week, then program and test it with a safety driver. Lakeshore tours on the bus will be available starting in mid-August.

Tulsa Innovation Labs has received a U.S. Economic Development Administration grant to develop an innovation hub that will look at ramping up advanced manufacturing for autonomous systems, from agriculture to transportation.

Effective this month, new legislation will allow for self-driving cars to hit Kentucky roads and be regulated by state government, but some say it will be a while before people see the vehicles in public.

SouthWest Transit, which serves three of the city’s suburbs, will debut the area’s first autonomous vehicles this fall in Eden Prairie. For now, the service will operate with human drivers on board.

The autonomous driving unit has hired Marc Whitten, a former Amazon executive and founding engineer at Xbox, as its next CEO as it tries to get back on track after halting services amid scrutiny over safety practices.

The California Public Utilities Commission has upheld its March decision to approve Waymo's expansion from San Francisco to San Mateo County and Los Angeles over protests from local officials.

A business group backed by robot-taxi companies is celebrating the demise of a proposed California law that would have let cities regulate the autonomous vehicles and fine them for breaking traffic laws.

The Autonomous Robotic Pickup Platform, a project launching next week in Detroit’s Transportation Innovation Zone, will start by testing small sidewalk delivery bots to collect food waste for compost.

After previously resuming operations in Dallas, the company’s autonomous cars will resume operations in Houston this week. Plans are to shift to autonomous driving with a driver present sometime in coming weeks.

MSU is polling the Internet to name its new autonomous electric bus that will start driving a set route this fall. It comes with six light detection and ranging sensors, six radars and eight RGB cameras.

Fast, low-latency communication is essential for supporting connected vehicles and other next-gen transportation technologies. But the intelligent roadways that will carry it are developing more slowly.

Waymo's automated driving system is under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after 22 reported incidents, including 17 crashes, involving the driverless technology.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating Amazon's driverless taxis after two test cars stopped suddenly and were rear-ended in separate injury crashes, including one in San Francisco.

Combined, the cities received nearly $1.5 million in grants through a U.S. Department of Transportation program. They will use it to maintain and plan the expansion of zero-emissions vehicles, and to enhance pedestrian safety.