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Over the next few years, more vehicles will start being aware of others around them to help prevent accidents. The US government wants to accelerate the deployment of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication to improve safety.
V2V is relatively new, and the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) has already committed to delivering proposed rules for its...
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There’s an old joke about the elderly driver who’s never had an accident in their 60 years on the road – but they’ve seen hundreds of them. Is that ancient gag to be re-applied for self driving cars? Google has admitted that its autonomous cars had been in 11 minor traffic accidents over a six year period, yet was adamant their cars had not been the cause of the accident.
Chris Urmson, principal engineer and software lead for Google’s self-driving car...
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A survey conducted by the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University has found a strong interest in the introduction of parental controls in driverless cars.
The poll, of 1000 people aged between 18 and 70, found 84% wanting to control the speed limit for teenage drivers, adhere to a curfew time, and limit the number of passengers in the car. 61% of respondents said they would like a control feature to limit the geographic range the car will travel, while a similar number...
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A patent from Google for a technology which enables self-driving cars to detect hand signals from cyclists has been released.
The patent, U.S. Patent 9,014,905, credits Henrik Kretzschmar and Jiajun Zhu as the inventors, and defines as its abstract: “Methods and systems for detecting hand signals of a cyclist by an autonomous vehicle are described.
“An example method may involve a computing device receiving a plurality of data points corresponding to an environment of an...
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If, like me, you remember the original release of Back to the Future II in 1989, 2015 holds a particular place in the automotive imagination. Come this year, it promised us, there would be flying cars, roads in the sky and the small matter of on-board nuclear fusion generators.
But while some of the predictions encountered by Marty McFly et al have come to pass (wearable technology, video calling, 3D cinemas), and others been outstripped by reality...
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I sense a revolution on the horizon. A revolution that will slow the advance of technology, but one not stopping the advance. This revolution will redefine who and how the users, consumers, customers will use the next stage of integrated (wearable) convergence technology.
There is, as you can imagine, a broad and somewhat vague definition available of wearable technology. One definition includes the term...
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When will self-driving cars be available? Which manufacturer will be first to market with a fully autonomous vehicle (AV)? Who should be looking to the connected car market?
These questions among others were put to a series of experts by Part Catalog, with some fascinating responses.
Opinion was divided over the first car manufacturer being the first to market a complete AV, with Daimler and Tesla the most popular responses. Gerry Malloy, of Autofile, argued Tesla would be first...
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The advent of self-driving cars should theoretically give its passengers plenty of time to do other tasks. But a new study suggests that, for a small proportion, most of that time will be spent being sick.
The study from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), entitled ‘Motion Sickness in Self-Driving Vehicles’, asserts between 6% and 10% of American adults riding in fully self-driving vehicles would be expected to ‘often’,...
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The future of transport is intelligent, connected and increasingly autonomous. But while connectivity looks set to make exciting improvements to the way we travel, experts are warning of risks that need to be addressed to keep the vehicles on our roads safe from cyber threats.
For many years Hollywood has presented us with images of future cities buzzing with autonomous transport. In San Francisco, Google’s driverless cars already navigate the world-famous twists and turns of Lombard...
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Two conflicting pieces of research have hit Connected CarTech’s inbox this morning. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) claim the development of connected and autonomous vehicles will help generate 320000 jobs in the UK and deliver a £51bn injection to the economy. But what does that mean on a human scale?
Research released by fleet telematics provider Masternaut reveals more than half (55%) of business drivers aged 25-34 are concerned they will be replaced by driverless...
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Google has made a series of announcements related to connected car tech, but at two different levels. On the one hand, the search giant has announced hopes its self-driving cars will gain official release within five years, while elsewhere the Android Auto app has been announced, which lets users interact with their smartphones more safely when on the road.
You’ll need a little bit more than just the app to get started with Android Auto, however; users will need an Android 5.0 or...
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Driving can be one of the most unpredictable things, which makes the job of self-driving cars difficult. At CES in January, Nvidia announced their work on a computer that will "learn" the right and wrong decisions to make under various scenarios rather than attempting to rely on just pre-programmed situations.
We could've guessed such a complex system would come with a hefty price tag, and on...
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A class action lawsuit filed in California has alleged Toyota, Ford and General Motors has failed customers in its duty to ensure its connected vehicles function properly and safely.
The suit, which can be found here, argues the defendants ‘failed to ensure the basic electronic security of their vehicles’. “Anyone can hack into them, take control of the basic functions of the vehicle, and thereby endanger the safety of the...
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A research note from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) has poured cold water on the concept that autonomous cars would lead to a reduction in fuel consumption.
The study, from UMTRI researchers Brandon Schoettle and Michael Sivak, weighs up the energy-saving pros and cons of self-driving vehicles. In theory, if cars were driverless then there would be fewer of them on the road, and would conserve fuel through more eco-friendly driving standards; increasing...
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A report from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) argues the need for greater industry collaboration in developing connected and driverless cars.
The report outlines a variety of potential issues and threats covered in this publication before, from personal data theft to fraud and deception, freight and goods theft and automotive...
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Driverless cars raise a diverse array of legal issues, one of which will almost certainly be the intellectual property (IP) rights that industry players create and assert to assist them in establishing their market position, and differentiating their products. The auto industry has always been a hotbed of IP disputes. The advent of driverless technologies could well lead to a spike in scuffles caused by jockeying for dominance in this new area, as well as the convergence of...
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Before driverless cars can be released into our complex environment, they need to achieve exceptional levels of safety. How close are we to making this happen?
Automation is old hat. Almost every new car built features some form of non-human control: ABS; cruise control; lane-changing warning systems; even semi-automatic control. In the latter case, the car is capable of following traffic, accelerating and braking, as well as keeping to the same lane, within a defined maximum...
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Connected cars are on the rise, this much is certain, but how fast the market will grow in the future is an area that is still up for discussion and one company has its own take on where the industry is headed.
By the year 2020, Business Insider Intelligence estimates that the market’s value will be $2.2 trillion thanks to the 220 million connected cars due to be be on the road by then, although connected services will only be used by consumers in 88 million of...
The development of driverless technology has gathered momentum along with claims that automation should bring with it improved road safety, fuel efficiency and ecological benefits. Leading automotive brands including Mercedes-Benz and Nissan are working on high profile driverless vehicles while Google’s much-discussed autonomous car project will see the search giant join the race to meet the demands of a potentially significant new market.
All the emerging driverless vehicles, including the Google car...
After less than two years of development Volvo has already announced plans to bring its self-driving project to the roads of Sweden’s second-largest city, Gothenburg.
Volvo’s autonomous vehicle project DriveMe aims to put 100 self-driving cars in the hands of customers by 2017, a step that is being heralded as a landmark by Dr Peter Mertens, the company’s senior vice president of research and development.
“We are entering uncharted territory in the field of autonomous driving,”...