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takyon writes:

Bloomberg News reported on Monday that Google is "preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, most likely in conjunction with its long-in-development driverless car project". Google is preparing to launch its own ride-hailing service and app despite the fact that its investment arm, Google Ventures, has already invested millions in Uber, including $258 million in its largest investment deal ever, back in August 2013.

David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, joined the Uber board of directors in 2013 and has served on it ever since... Drummond has informed Uber's board of this possibility, according to a person close to the Uber board, and Uber executives have seen screenshots of what appears to be a Google ride-sharing app that is currently being used by Google employees. This person, who requested not to be named because the talks are private, said the Uber board is now weighing whether to ask Drummond to resign his position as an Uber board member.

On the same day, Uber announced that it is building a robotics research lab in Pittsburgh, PA to "kickstart autonomous taxi fleet development," and partnering with Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute.

Sources tell us Uber is hiring more than fifty senior scientists from Carnegie Mellon as well as from the National Robotics Engineering Center, a CMU-affiliated research entity.

In the past, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has said he would replace human drivers with self-driving cars. The decision to run the facility in Pittsburgh makes perfect sense, given the proximity to CMU and the potential secrecy afforded by moving research out of Silicon Valley.

Commentators have long predicted that Uber would eventually replace its fleshy drivers with robotic cars. Now Uber is one step closer to eliminating human imperfection.

Phoenix666 writes:

Ford doesn't think everyone needs to own a Ford, but it still wants non-car-owners to drive them. The company said this week that it will be testing a car-sharing pilot program to learn about how willing Ford owners are to share their vehicles. As part of the program, people who buy their cars through the company's credit arm, Ford Credit, will be invited to offset their monthly payments by allowing drivers to rent their cars by the hour. The company also launched an in-house car-sharing program in London.

The pilot program in the US will take place through Getaround—an existing mobile platform that lets users list their cars and rent them out to pre-screened drivers. Getaround already operates in California in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, as well as Portland, Oregon; and Washington, DC. Ford's pilot program, called "Peer-2-Peer Car Sharing," will also take the program to Chicago, where Getaround has yet to launch, and to London through a car-sharing service called easyCar Club.

Ford will reach out to 14,000 US car owners who financed their Fords on credit, asking they if they'd like to participate in the program. It will do the same for 12,000 such customers in London.

Predictions on how private-car sharing will play out? However it does, Ford seems to have been ahead of other American car manufacturers with its integration of information technology.

Phoenix666 writes:

Ford announced that it would be investing some $4.5 billion over the next five years toward its goal of building better "electrified vehicle solutions" and bringing electrification to 40% of its vehicle lineup by 2020. Seeing as transportation is a key climate issue, it's only fitting to learn about Ford's sharpened focus on EVs as a solution. According to the company, it will be adding 13 new electrified vehicles to its portfolio by 2020, which could offer more options for the potential EV customers who aren't currently able to drive electric, either because of price or driving range or size.

The most significant news in the near future of Ford's electric vehicle lineup is the rollout of the new Focus Electric next year, which will feature a 100-mile range and a DC fast-charging system that is claimed to give the vehicle an 80% charge in 30 minutes, a full two hours faster than the current model. No announcement was made about the price of the new Focus Electric, but based on last year's model prices, it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000. That's not exactly an entry-level car purchase, but it's a lot more affordable than a Tesla at the moment, and if a pure EV fits your driving habits, it could slash your fuel bills for years and be a cleaner transport option than a fuel-efficient gas car.

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takyon writes:

Ford has secured a permit in California that will allow it to test driverless cars on public roads in 2016:

Ford is showing more signs of a serious commitment to autonomous driving and the future of transportation. The automaker announced Tuesday that it will begin testing a fully autonomous vehicle in California in 2016.

It recently received a permit from the state's DMV to test a Ford Fusion. Ford has already been testing on public roads in Michigan, as well as at MCity, the University of Michigan facility developed for testing autonomous vehicles. It conducts trials at its proving ground in Arizona, too.

Ford says California's favorable weather will allow it to expand tests. (Snow and heavy rainfall are serious challenges for fully autonomous vehicles.) A new environment provides fresh opportunities for the vehicles to experience new challenges. One unique situation will be dealing with motorcycles that are legally allowed to split lanes in the state.

Planting another flag in Silicon Valley also makes it easier to develop partnerships with the wealth of tech expertise in the area. In January, Ford opened a research and innovation center in Palo Alto, Calif., and hired mostly for the tech sector. Ford says it's also built relationships with the University of California-Berkeley, San Jose State, Santa Clara and Carnegie Mellon.

Also at Reuters, Los Angeles Times. Here is the California DMV's page for its Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program.

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HughPickens.com writes:

Megan McArdle writes at Bloomberg that the California Department of Motor Vehicles has proposed new rules for driverless cars that would prohibit cars without a steering wheel or a brake pedal -- or a human driver ready to take the wheel, an enormous setback for Google's program, which is evolving toward smaller, lower-speed vehicles with none of these things. There are basically two ways to innovate toward a "Level Four" truly autonomous car. The first way is to innovate system by system, starting with a car that can handle some tasks on its own (like cruise control), and eventually arriving at a car that can handle all of them. In between, the car will be doing a lot of the driving, but a human will be standing by, ready to take over if needed. This is the approach most automakers have chosen. But there's a big problem with this approach.: the lag between when the car realizes it can't handle a problem, and when the human can grab the wheel. Unfortunately, when the car has gotten into trouble is probably the exact moment when a lag in reaction time is most problematic.

Google is moving toward the other approach: Take the driver out of the loop entirely. You start at Level Four automation, but slow and safe and in a limited range. According to McArdle Google's driverless cars are now essentially well-padded golf carts. "That has some drawbacks, since you can't go very far very fast. But it does let you completely route around the safety issues that are created by mostly autonomous systems," says McArdle. " As the company works out the bugs on driverless cars, it can gradually scale them up in speed and size, and expand their range." Unfortunately California's new rules force Google to put wheels and brakes back into its cars reintroducing the very problems of human error and folly that Google is trying to engineer away. "Google can try to find a state with a more progress-friendly DMV, of course. But the company has already done an immense amount of work mapping the area around Mountain View. Letting that work go to waste because the government of California just can't get past the old way of doing things would be a shame."

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takyon writes:

Ford Motor Co. is betting big on driverless cars by funneling money to a startup founded by former Google and Uber employees:

Ford Motor is betting $1 billion on the world's self-driving car future. The Detroit automaker announced Friday that it would allocate that sum over five years to a new autonomous car startup called Argo AI, which is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., and will have offices in Michigan and California. Ford's financial outlay is part of a continuing investment strategy anchored to transforming the car and truck seller into a mobility company with a hand in ride-hailing, ride-sharing and even bicycle rentals.

Argo AI was cofounded a few months ago by Google car project veteran Bryan Salesky and Uber engineer Peter Rander, who met while working at Carnegie Mellon University's vaunted robotics and engineering school. "The reason for the investment is not only to drive the delivery of our own autonomous vehicle by 2021, but also to deliver value to our shareholders by creating a software platform that can be licensed to others," Ford CEO Mark Fields told USA TODAY. "This move gets us the agility and speed of a startup combined with Ford's global scale." Salesky, a self-driving car hardware specialist who left Google's renamed Waymo car program last fall, said that he decided to start his own company with Rander because of "the incredible advancements in machine learning, artificial intelligence and computer vision, but we just needed a partner to get these cars into the hands of millions of people."

Also at Ford and The Detroit News.

Having a look at the previously published stories as well as this one, it appears that there is no more need for collaboration:

Google and Ford to Collaborate on Autonomous Vehicles
Google, Ford, Uber Launch Coalition to Further Self-Driving Cars
Ford Pumps Cash Into Company Creating Maps for Self-Driving Cars
Ford Will Pursue Fleet of Autonomous Cars by 2021

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