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A new report from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) has found that among US drivers their preference is for vehicles with no self-driving capability.

The research follows a similar UMTRI study from July last year which argued only 15% of 505 respondents would be happy with completely self-driving cars. This time around, with responses from 618 US drivers, the numbers are similar; again, 15% say they would be happy with self-driving cars, compared to 38%...

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Google is hiring test drivers for its self-driving cars project in Arizona to monitor software systems and provide feedback to the firm’s engineering teams.

The job ad, which can be found here, promises work on “cutting edge technology” and requires successful candidates to “develop a unique set of operational skills using vehicles running proprietary software and hardware.” The drivers will work in teams with one of them in the passenger seat taking notes...

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Rumours claim South Korean giant Samsung has set up a dedicated team to make chips for self-driving cars.

According to recent speculation, technology giant Samsung has created an in-house, dedicated team to manufacture processor chips to power self-driving cars. The company has long been manufacturing their own processors and the devices that they power, but...

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Michigan law firms are carving teams out of their automotive practices, dedicated to autonomous and connected vehicles. The pioneering laws firms include Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone (Detroit) and Butzel Long (Ann Arbor), both of whom have been representing automotive clients for several years.

According to Jennifer Dukarski, a part of this team of attorneys at Butzel Long,...

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As automakers across the globe work on developing driverless car technology for use at the end of the decade, SMRT Services and 2getthere have formed a joint venture to commercialise 2getthere’s Automated Vehicle systems in the Asia-Pacific region.

The new Singapore-based JV, called 2getthere Asia, will market, install, operate and maintain the Automated Vehicle systems for customers in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific. The entity will put on display 2getthere’s third-generation...

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Toyota has announced it is partnering with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) to transform Ann Arbor's streets into a real-world connected car deployment.

The Ann Arbor Connected Vehicle Test Environment (AACVTE) will serve as a real-world test environment for implementing connected vehicle safety technology that allows wireless communication of vehicles with other similar vehicles and portions of infrastructure such as traffic lights. These...

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We have all seen humorous videos of what a world fully consisting of driverless cars will look like. It’s fascinating as well as somewhat hair-raising seeing cars manoeuvring through swarm intelligence systems and missing each other by inches at high speed.

The latest patent from Google aims to take this a step further, by aiming to help its fleet of driverless cars better understand other cars’ turning signals.

The patent, which can be seen in full

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Highways England, the arbiter for road network infrastructure in England, has unveiled a wide-ranging plan including opportunities for driverless cars and Internet of Things (IoT) technology.

Among the initial projects to be funded, according to the report, includes motorway to motorway traffic management schemes, as well as a ‘collaborative traffic management’ programme on the M25, as part of wider plans to make the road network and vehicles safer.

“We will pursue a...

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The race to bring driverless cars to our roads is in full swing. The automotive and technology industries are vying to be the first to market, while Google will tell you that it has driverless cars and that this technology is already possible. This may be the case on a smaller scale for cars that are connected on a Google metro, but this cannot yet be reflected on a mainstream level.

To make the driverless car a reality for the mass market, we need to understand how sensors, compute, and...

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Self-driving cars are the wave of the future - at least, that’s what every technology publication seems to be saying these days, and honestly, it’s tough to argue with the idea. Many experts believe self-driving cars could become a common sight on the roads in as little as five years. Some are pushing off their predictions to 10 or 15 years down the line, but they all seem to agree that self-driving cars will become a permanent fixture at some...

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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...