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Ford has revealed details on how its self-driving vehicle – the Ford Fusion Hybrid – will manoeuvre itself on snow-covered roads in winter.

The company's winter weather road testing is undertaken in Michigan, including at Mcity – a 32-acre, real-world driving environment at the University of Michigan.

To operate in snowy conditions, Ford Fusion Hybrid autonomous vehicles first have to scan the environment and formulate high-resolution 3D digital maps. This is done...

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Picturing your loved ones travelling in a vehicle being controlled or tracked by an unauthorised third-party should terrify you, but new research from Kelley Blue Book points towards consumers being less concerned by vehicle hacks now than just six months ago. 

"More vehicle hacking entry points exist...

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A report commissioned by Veracode and undertaken by the International Data Corporation (IDC) has found that almost half of UK drivers (49%) are apprehensive about the security of driver-aid applications, such as adaptive cruise control, self-parking, and collision avoidance systems.

The survey results reveal an even level of concern as regards the safety of the entire vehicle, while auto manufacturers have also revealed that their security offerings may be three years behind and will...

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A letter from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to Google has opened the door for the tech giant’s self-driving car system to be legally viable on US roads.

The letter, from NHTSA chief counsel Paul Hemmersbaugh to Google self-driving car chief Chris Urmson, grants “several” of Google’s requests for...

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Engineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a pedestrian detection system for smart vehicles which can detect pedestrians in near real-time to help ensure the streets remain safe in the era of semi-autonomous and driverless cars.

Results we’re obtaining with this new algorithm are substantially better for...

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nuTonomy, a software developer for autonomous vehicles, has secured $3.6 million (£2.5m) in seed funding from Signal Ventures, Samsung Ventures, Fontinalis Partners, and Dr. Steven LaValle.

The funding will boost the company’s work in the US as well as in Singapore, collaborating on the testing of autonomous vehicle technology. At present, nuTonomy’s software is being integrated and piloted with auto OEMs in the US and Europe, with the target of implementing...

Jaguar Land Rover has announced the launch of a 41-mile "living lab" on public roads to support the development of Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) technology. 

The so-called "UK Connected Intelligent Transport Environment", or UK-CITE, is located around Coventry and Solihull and will be used for testing new connected car technologies in real-world driving conditions for a more thorough idea of how they will fare outside the controlled lab. 

UK-CITE is the first test route capable of testing...

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The figures are in: Google’s self-driving cars have been involved in 13 accidents and 272 failures in the 14 months ending December 2015, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles (CDMV) – but the search giant is again swerving responsibility for the prangs.

The most failures, or ‘disengages’ as the report describes them, per month arrived in January 2015, with 48 over 18,000 miles. April saw 47 disengages, while December 2014 had 40 errors. The...

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There are still a few years remaining before fully driverless cars will hit the road in significant numbers. Speed of adoption of this technology will depend on how fast the industry and governments can break down the barriers to adoption.

The financial barrier

One of the main barriers to adoption is cost. In 2010, Google’s self-driving technology cost around

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As manufacturers such as Ford seek ways to get ahead in the race towards self-driving cars, Toyota has boosted its own capabilities through acquiring a stake in Tokyo-based machine-learning specialists Preferred Networks. 

Preferred Networks was separated from...