Tesla must face vehicle owners’ lawsuit over self-driving claims (Reuters, May 15, 2024)

A U.S. judge rejected Tesla’s request to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the company misled owners about their vehicles’ self-driving capabilities. The class action claims that since 2016, Tesla and Elon Musk falsely advertised Autopilot and self-driving technology as functional or imminent, prompting higher vehicle payments. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin allowed fraud-based claims related to hardware capabilities, stating Tesla’s representations could be considered false if implying readiness for high automation. Some claims were dismissed, and neither Tesla nor the plaintiffs’ lawyers commented. The lawsuit, led by Thomas LoSavio, seeks damages for buyers of Tesla vehicles with self-driving features since 2016. The case is In re Tesla Advanced Driver Assistance Systems Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 22-05240.

UK’s autonomous vehicle legislation becomes law, paving the way for first driverless cars by 2026 (Tech Crunch, May 20, 2024)

The Automated Vehicles (AV) Act has just passed, putting the U.K. at the forefront of self-driving technology regulations.  The U.K. has allowed driverless cars on roads for many years, with strict rules in place for companies to test new technologies.  With the advancement of the autonomous vehicle industry, the new legislation is expected to improve road safety by reducing human error.  The new legislation also addresses liability in the event of a crash, which will make the corporations responsible instead of humans, if the car is in self-driving mode.

Volvo teams up with Aurora to reveal an autonomous semi truck (The Verge, May 20, 2024)

Volvo has unveiled its first “production-ready” self-driving truck developed in collaboration with Aurora, an autonomous driving technology company. This truck, based on Volvo’s Class 8 VNL semi-truck, is equipped with sensors and cameras for Aurora’s Level 4 autonomous driving system, allowing driverless operation. Nils Jaeger, president of Volvo Autonomous Solutions, emphasizes the truck’s design for scalability to other models and regions. Production will occur at Volvo’s New River Valley plant in Virginia.

Volvo, producing 10% of global Class 8 trucks, began its partnership with Aurora in 2018, accruing 1.5 million miles in tests. Aurora aims to deploy 20 autonomous trucks in 2023, expanding to 100 by 2025 and scaling up by 2027 with German auto supplier Continental. Despite setbacks in the industry, including some companies folding and others delaying deployment, Volvo and Aurora remain committed to advancing autonomous truck technology.

Pete Buttigieg says ‘electric vehicle revolution’ is here as White House scrambles to build nationwide charging network with $623 million grant program (Fortune,  January 11, 2024)

Although Congress approved $7.5 billion in 2021 for the development and build-out of national EV charging infrastructure, progress thus far on this ambitious project has been, at best, less than optimal. Currently, only Ohio and New York have actually opened charging stations pursuant to the program.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, however, is committed to creating a national EV charging backbone consisting of a network of charging stations. To facilitate these lofty goals, a $623 million grant program was recently rolled out to boost charging and hydrogen fueling infrastructure in designated urban, suburban and low- and moderate-income communities, and along 11 highway “corridors” along roadways designated as Alternative Fuel Corridors.

“America led the arrival of the automotive era, and now we have a chance to lead the world in the EV revolution — securing jobs, savings and benefits for Americans in the process,” said Buttigieg. The new funding “will help ensure that EV chargers are accessible, reliable and convenient for American drivers, while creating jobs in charger manufacturing, installation and maintenance for American workers.”

It’s so cold, Teslas are struggling to charge in Chicago (NPR,  January 17, 2024)

As frigid temperatures grasp many parts of the United States this week, Supercharger stations in Chicago are seeing long lines as Tesla owners are realizing the freezing cold temps are affecting EVs’ charging capabilities. “A charge that should take 45 minutes is taking two hours,” says Tesla owner Brandon Welbourne.

As Chicago has spent over 30 hours in below 0 temperatures, EV owners are realizing that, not only is the cold affecting the vehicles’ ability to charge, but it also seems to be draining the batteries more rapidly than normal.

While the charging issues are not unique to Tesla, the carmaker has created a Cold Weather Best Practices guide to help Tesla owners beat the extreme cold.

New York driverless truck ban proposed in senate (CCJ, January 11, 2024)

In response to widely publicized plans by self-driving trucking startups such as Kodiak Robotics and Aurora to expand self-driving pilot projects throughout the country, New York State Senator Pete Harckham has introduced legislation that would effectively prohibit these operation on New York roadways.

“The integral role of the trucking industry in our lives means we have to be proactive and vigilant about public safety and job security when it comes to technological innovations like autonomous operating vehicles. My bill requires autonomous vehicles weighing 10,000 pounds or more traveling on New York roads have a licensed driver behind the wheel,” said Sen. Harckham. “This common-sense measure will ensure greater protection for residents and property while providing job security for over 270,000 New Yorkers. I am thankful to Louis Picani and Teamsters everywhere for supporting this legislation.”

It remains to be seen whether Sen. Harckham’s bill will suffer the same fate as a similar bill passed last year in California that was ultimately vetoed by Governor Newsom. 

CES 2024: 5 car trends we’re expecting to see (Mashable, December 31, 2023)

As CES had evolved over the past few years into a key platform for automakers to showcase new technology, here are five trends that are expected to garner headlines at the upcoming annual event in Las Vegas January 9-12.

1.      A continued focus on new EV technology with a deemphasis on automation due to growing pessimism surrounding the near- term commercial viability of consumer AVs.

2.      Emphasis on real-world technologies that should be available on current or new vehicle models.

3.      The debut of Honda’s widely anticipated new “global EV series models and several key technologies that illustrate the significant transformation Honda is currently undergoing.”

4.      The unveiling of Hyundai’s e-Corner Driving System that enables all four wheels to turn up to 90 degrees, allowing the vehicle to drive in virtually any direction.

5.      Automakers are expected to downplay the significance of AI in safety critical applications, while showcasing the still unproven technology in lower-stakes applications such as vehicle personalization.

Tesla overtaken by China’s BYD as world’s biggest EV maker (Financial Times, January 2, 2024)

The Chinese automaker BYD has officially overtaken Tesla as the world’s best-selling EV maker, reporting record sales of 526,000 in the fourth quarter, with Tesla trailing behind with 484,000. While Musk has dismissed the Chinese automaker in the past, he now calls BYD “highly competitive.”

“For any doubters left in the west,” says Tu Le, founder of Sino Auto Insights, “ I hope this is the final data point that points to BYD’s strength and, as importantly, how ‘China EV Inc’ has bullied its way on to the global stage.”

Two Pittsburgh startups are in a race to build driverless trucks for the military (Pittsburgh Post Gazette, December 27, 2023)

Although autonomous technology startups have faced significant recent headwinds, two Pittsburgh-based companies are aggressively pursuing solutions to aid the U.S. military in automating combat vehicles. Neya Systems and Carnegie Robotics were recently granted a rather short window to design and deliver a driverless system that could be deployed in army convoys, which would allow the slow-moving vehicles to operate without exposing human soldiers to life-threatening attacks.

“It is a challenging timeline for the amount of work we need to get done. But we’re not starting from ground zero,” said Eric Soderberg, program manager for Carnegie Robotics. “The short timeline is especially challenging because the Army wants a fully deployable solution that could be built into multiple combat vehicles,” Mr. Soderberg added.

“It’s a big stepping stone for us,” Nya Systems division manager Kurt Bruck said of the contract. “It shows that we’re experts in this field, and we’re ready to take the next step into larger vehicles.” “We’re very excited to be part of programs that save lives,” Mr. Bruck added. “All of these trucks are currently driven by multiple soldiers. This removes the soldiers. It protects them.”

Tesla wins first US Autopilot trial involving fatal crash (Reuters, October 31, 2023)

Yesterday, a 12-member jury announced that Tesla won the first case in the U.S. over allegations that Autopilot caused a fatality, and that Tesla knowingly sold the vehicle with the defective feature. The 9-3 verdict announced that the vehicle did not have a manufacturing defect, and that the crash was caused by human error.

The crash occurred in 2019 when a Model 3 veered off a Los Angeles highway at 65 miles per hour, striking a tree and bursting into flames, resulting in the death of the driver, Micah Lee, and serious injuries to the two passengers, including an 8-year-old child. While the lawsuit alleged that Autopilot was defective when the vehicle was sold, Tesla “denied liability, saying Lee consumed alcohol before getting behind the wheel. The electric-vehicle maker also claims it was unclear whether Autopilot was engaged at the time of the crash.”

This decision is a major victory for Tesla while the company has been under regulatory and legal scrutiny. This case also marks the second time this year that the company has won in trial, having won a case in April in which the jurors “believed Tesla warned drivers about its system and driver distraction was to blame.”

Ford will postpone about $12 billion in EV investment as buyers become more cautious (CNBC, October 24, 2023)

Like GM, Ford has announced that it is retreating from some of its more ambitious EV development plans, citing a lack of interest among American consumers in “paying a premium” for an EV over a traditional gas-powered or hybrid model. Ford specifically is “postponing about $12 billion it planned spending on new EV manufacturing capacity.”

Yet, despite these apparent retractions, as noted in recent news articles, the EV market is growing—just not as quickly as some OEMs anticipated or would have liked. Again like GM, Ford is clear that it is not abandoning its EV plans altogether, just slowing the pace. As CFO John Lawler explained, “[w]e’re not moving away from our second generation [EV] products. … We are, though, looking at the pace of capacity that we’re putting in place. We are going to push out some of that investment.”

Kodiak expands Maersk autonomous freight lane from Houston to Oklahoma (FleetOwner, October 24, 2023)

As Kodiak Robotics, one of the leaders in developing driverless trucking technology, continues to refine its technology to remove drivers from hard to fill and physically demanding long-haul routs, it is expanding its autonomous trucking lane between Houston and Oklahoma City for global logistics company A.P. Moller-Maersk.

“Hauling commercial freight gives us the opportunity to work together to integrate Kodiak’s autonomous trucking solution into Maersk’s operations,” Don Burnette, Kodiak founder and CEO, said. “As the first autonomous trucking company to establish this new commercial lane between Houston and Oklahoma City, we are demonstrating our team’s ability to introduce new lanes and bring new efficiencies to the entire logistics industry.” 

Michael Wiesinger, Kodiak’s VP of commercialization added that every mile a Kodiak truck travels helps its engineers improve the self-driving system known as the Kodiak Driver. “Over the last four years, we have delivered over 4,000 loads for our partners using our autonomous technology between Dallas and Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, and Atlanta,”, Wiesinger stated. “We have made tremendous technical and operational progress over that time and learn a ton from the real-world operational challenges we see on a daily basis. It’s not enough to build a perfect technology in a lab—we need a solution that works for our partners in real-world operations.”

S&P predicts AVs need at least 10 more years to hit widespread adoption (Repairer Driven News, September 26, 2023)

“A new S&P Global Mobility forecast predicts autonomous vehicles won’t hit the mainstream market for widespread adoption until at least a decade from now.”

In a report released just this past Monday, S&P predicts that autonomous technology will be limited in the near term to geofenced robotaxis and hands-off systems that still require driver engagement. True Level 5 technology likely will not be widely available until at least 2035, given the extreme difficulty developers face in combining “ADAS and sensors with the necessary predictive software and engineering in unsupervised vehicles to operate safely.” Widespread deployment of automated systems (i.e., Level 2+ and 3) is likely to occur more quickly, with S&P predicting that such systems will be available in 31% of new cars sold globally by 2035.

California governor vetoes bill banning robotrucks without safety drivers (Reuters, September 23, 2023)

Not surprisingly based on prior leaks from his office, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed labor-backed Assembly Bill 316, which requires a human driver in all autonomous vehicles weighing over 10,001 pounds on California roadways.

“Considering … the existing regulatory framework that presently and sufficiently governs this particular technology, this bill is not needed at this time,” Newsom said in a veto message last week.

The veto of the bill, which passed easily in both houses of the state legislature, appears to be a huge win in the ongoing battle between autonomous technology stakeholders and labor groups seeking to protect human trucking jobs. Although the veto can be overturned by a two-thirds majority vote in each house, such a legislative override has not happened in California since 1979.

This latest development appears to pave the way for the department of motor vehicles to independently develop a regulatory framework for autonomous trucks, which industry insiders anticipate will encourage rather than hinder future development. Governor Newsom added in his veto message that these planned regulations are the best way to transparently address safety and job issues, with input from stakeholders and experts.

Nancy Pelosi Wants Cruise and Waymo To Turn Over Safety Data (The San Francisco Standard, September 19, 2023)

Representative Nancy Pelosi believes “serious safety concerns” warrant an investigation into the operation of Cruise and Waymo robotaxis in San Francisco, and is calling for NHTSA to collect more detailed data from the AV pioneers. Pelosi’s request, joined by fellow California Representative Kevin Mullin, appears motivated by recent reports of robotaxis interfering with emergency responses in the city. In their letter to NHTSA, the two legislators “urged the federal agency to collect data that could be used to draw conclusions on the ‘broader safety’ of autonomous vehicles, such as information on vehicle retrieval events, emergency response interference and lane blockages.”

Waymo and Cruise both responded to the letter with statements underscoring their reporting compliance and safety statistics. NHTSA also issued a statement acknowledging receipt of the letter and its intent to review it.

In the meantime, local debate over robotaxis continues in San Francisco as the City Attorney has requested a rehearing at the California Public Utilities Commission to reconsider the commission’s approval in August to allow Cruise and Waymo to operate 24/7 and charge passenger fares throughout the city.

Musk wanted to use Tesla cameras to spy on drivers and win autopilot lawsuits (Electrek, September 15, 2023)

The new Elon Musk biography by Walter Isaacson includes “several revelations about Tesla’s past, present, and future,” including allegations that Musk “pushed internally to use [driver monitoring cameras] to record clips of Tesla drivers … with the goal of using this footage to defend the company in the event of investigations into the behavior of its Autopilot system.” Tesla has been incorporating internal cameras in its vehicles since 2017, although they were only activated as of 2021, ostensibly as a tool to monitor driver attentiveness.

According to the book, Musk’s idea was quickly shot down, with an unidentified colleague saying “we cannot associate the selfie streams to a specific vehicle, even when there’s a crash, or at least that’s the guidance from our lawyers.” Musk reportedly suggested a warning to inform users that the vehicle would be collecting data in the event of a crash, which was approved. In fact, Tesla discloses through an in-car pop up that “cabin camera data will be shared with Tesla if the vehicle experiences a safety critical event like a collision” [see article inset].

These revelations are particularly interesting as Tesla faces investigations and litigation following reports that employees were sharing footage from vehicle cameras—in some cases, compromising footage—without users’ permission.

Lawmakers show skepticism for autonomous trucks (Land Line, September 14, 2023)

Last week, the House Highway and Transit Subcommittee held a hearing titled “The Future of Automated Commercial Motor Vehicles.” Despite receiving some criticism for failing to elicit testimony from an actual truck driver, several lawmakers pleased traditional trucking proponents by commenting on the challenges faced by the trucking industry as autonomous technology threatens to replace human operators.

Although three of the four witnesses were advocates of autonomous technology, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle posited poignant questions about whether full deployment of 80,000-pound trucks on public roadways without human drivers would ever be safe.

“I think we absolutely need prudence when discussing autonomous vehicles of any level,” said witness Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. “The biggest example we have so far is San Francisco, and it’s not going so well to say the least. It’s a problem. We can’t just stick our head in the sand and pretend these problems don’t exist.”

With respect to job displacement, OOIDA representatives said the “mythical claims” of a driver shortage is a specious basis for allowing the still unproven technology on open roadways. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., expressed similar skepticism of the claim that driverless technology will not eventually encroach upon human jobs.

TEAMSTERS RELEASE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE POLICY FRAMEWORK (PR Newswire, September 12, 2023)

While the UAW strikes and legislators consider the value of autonomous trucks (see above), the country’s largest labor union, and “the only union substantially representing commercial truck drivers,” is weighing in on autonomous vehicles. Last week, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters released a policy statement titled “Autonomous Vehicle Federal Policy Principles,” urging federal lawmakers to take five key principles into account in considering AV legislation: regulating the vehicle, regulating the operator, regulating operations, interaction with other laws, and workforce impacts. According to the Teamster’s General President, Sean M. O’Brien, “[h]undreds of thousands of Teamsters turn a key for a living, so we are fiercely committed to working with Congress and federal regulators to get AV policy right. … Strong federal AV policies must prioritize both workers and safety. Any legislation that puts workers and the general public at risk will be met with aggressive opposition by the Teamsters and our allies.” Read the Teamsters’ complete statement here.

The first Tesla ‘range inflation’ lawsuit has been filed (Tech Crunch, August 3, 2023)

At the end of July, Reuters released a “special report” claiming that Tesla has long engaged in efforts to suppress and avoid complaints about its vehicles’ underperforming batteries. Within a matter of days, several Tesla owners took those same claims to federal court in California, where they filed a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that Tesla’s exaggerated range estimates violated state consumer protection laws. According to the complaint, “[u]nderstanding that this would be an important feature (if not the most important feature) to many consumers, and preying on this fact, Tesla marketed its electric vehicles as having a grossly overvalued range in an effort to increase sales to consumers.”

Read the full complaint here.

How Dallas became the proving ground for autonomous trucks (Axios, August 6, 2023)

The Dallas-Fort Worth area has seen a rapid expansion of autonomous truck testing and development, given its proximity to vital freight corridors, business-friendly policies, and generally favorable weather conditions. Key players that have moved into the area include Aurora, Kodiak Robotics, and Gatik, all of which are testing their systems through a combination of real-world experience and computer simulations of extremely rare scenarios, with plans to go fully driverless within the next couple years. 

Aurora, for example, announced last week that it recently simulated 32 actual fatal collisions that involved tractor-trailers traveling between Dallas and Houston to see how its technology, dubbed the “Aurora Driver,” would have performed in the same scenarios. These simulations demonstrated that all of the cases that were relevant to Aurora’s commercial operations (29) would have been avoided had Aurora Driver been engaged. 

Companies like Aurora ultimately hope to deploy and scale much more efficient and safe transportation fleets through “hub-to-hub” operations—i.e., operations where automated trucks travel primarily on highways until they exit and navigate a short distance on surface streets to designated hubs where their trailers are transitioned to conventional trucks for final destination delivery, companies like Aurora hope to. The ultimate goal is to provide an alternative solution to logistics companies that are currently struggling to find long-haul drivers while simultaneously lowering costs, increasing safety and reducing fossil fuel consumption. 

Robotaxis Are Coming to Los Angeles. Everywhere Could Be Next. (Slate, August 4, 2023)

After years of hype that autonomous driving technology was just “six months away” from mass availability and adoption, Cruise and Waymo, the two leading self-driving car companies, appear poised to finally turn promises into reality.

Cruise, a GM subsidiary, recently announced that it is expanding its self-driving taxi operation to Los Angeles in a year that has already seen it increase overall autonomous rides by 49 percent per month to a current tally of more than 10,000 rides per week. LA will mark the company’s expansion into its seventh major additional city this year alone with many more on the horizon. “Last year, we were operating tens of autonomous vehicles. We’re currently operating hundreds—almost 400 concurrently at peak. Next year, there’ll be thousands. And then it’ll continue at least 10 times growth every year for the foreseeable future,” Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt stated.

Not to be outdone, Waymo announced last week that it would begin limited operations in Austin, Texas sometime this the fall with an anticipated rollout of its ride-hailing service to the public shortly thereafter. Waymo is also dipping its toes into the next frontier of autonomous transportation with testing underway on freeways outside San Francisco. Currently, neither Waymo nor Cruise offers ride-hailing services on freeways, but this may change in the very near future.

As the article points out, there is a lot to like about the current state of autonomous ride hailing services, including convenience, affordability, comfort, and safety. 

Backup driver of an autonomous Uber pleads guilty to endangerment in pedestrian death (NPR, July 28, 2023)

In March 2018, Rafaela Vasquez tragically made the news as the backup driver in the first fatal collision involving an autonomous vehicle. The collision happened when the self-driving Uber (a Volvo SUV) in which Vasquez was riding as the backup driver collided with a pedestrian in a cross walk in Phoenix. Reports from the scene were that Vasquez was watching an episode of “The Voice” on her phone rather than watching the road; Vasquez claimed she didn’t see the pedestrian in the dark. Through her attorneys, she also clarified that she was looking at an Uber messaging program on her work phone, while the show was streaming on her personal phone on the passenger seat.

Vasquez was charged with negligent homicide, but pleaded guilty to “an undesignated felony, meaning it could be reclassified as a misdemeanor if she completes probation.” In presenting the plea, her attorneys argued that she should be sentenced to six months of probation, arguing that Uber shares the blame. The Court ultimately sentenced her to three years of supervised probation.

“Prosecutors previously declined to file criminal charges against Uber, as a corporation. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded Vasquez’s failure to monitor the road was the main cause of the crash.”  However, the NTSB also cited Uber’s “inadequate safety procedures” and its deactivation of the vehicle’s AEB system as contributing factors in the collision. “[T]he Uber system detected [the pedestrian] 5.6 seconds before the crash. But it failed to determine whether she was a bicyclist, pedestrian or unknown object, or that she was headed into the vehicle’s path, the board said.”

California privacy regulator’s first case: Probing internet-connected cars (The Washington Post, August 1, 2023)

A newly-formed California state agency charged with monitoring compliance with the state’s consumer data privacy laws is launching its first probe—and it is targeted at the data collection practices of connected vehicles.

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) is authorized to conduct such investigations to enforce state residents’ rights to know if and how their data is being collected and used. According to the CPPA’s executive director, Ashkan Soltani, “[m]odern vehicles are effectively connected computers on wheels. They’re able to collect a wealth of information via built-in apps, sensors, and cameras, which can monitor people both inside and near the vehicle. … Our Enforcement Division is making inquiries into the connected vehicle space to understand how these companies are complying with California law when they collect and use consumers’ data.”

As noted in this article, similar investigations in Europe already have forced vehicle manufacturers to limit data collection and/or make additional disclosures at the point of collection.

Waymo Ditches Autonomous Trucking to Focus on Ride-Hailing (Ford Authority, July 28, 2023)

Waymo, a pioneer in the autonomous driving technology space, announced plans last week to move away from autonomous truck development to focus more prominently on its autonomous ride-hailing business.

“Given the tremendous momentum and substantial commercial opportunity we’re seeing on the ride-hailing front, we’ve made the decision to focus our efforts and investment on ride-hailing,” the company said in a statement. “We’re iterating more quickly than ever on our technology by pushing forward state of the art AI/ML, and seeing significant business growth and rider demand in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.”

Like Ford and others, Waymo appears to believe that robotaxis are a more commercially viable product, given the strict regulatory hurdles autonomous trucks must overcome, as well as the lack of optimal technology currently needed to safely and profitably deploy autonomous trucks on a widescale basis.

Tesla urges EPA to finalize tougher US heavy-duty emissions cuts (Reuters, June 21, 2023)

In April, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed new Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles, which would impose stricter emissions limits on commercial vehicles such as delivery and garbage trucks, buses, and tractor-trailer cabs starting in model year 2027. The proposed rule anticipates significant electrification in the sector, estimating that “50% of new vocational vehicles like buses and garbage trucks could be EVs by 2032, along with 35% of new short-haul freight tractors and 25% of new long-haul freight tractors.”

In a comment submitted earlier this month, however, Tesla urged the administration to go even farther with the limits based on its belief that electrification is occurring faster than the EPA has estimated. “Tesla cited its Tesla Semi production in making the case for tougher emissions rules, noting it anticipates production levels of a Class 8 Day Cab tractor at 50,000 per year with significant production volumes beginning in late 2024.” [You can see the Semi in action here and here.]

On the other side of the debate, industry group the American Trucking Associations (ATA) opposes the proposed standards as too aggressive, claiming electric trucking technology is too new and untested.

3 Things About Mobileye That Smart Investors Know (The Motley Fool, June 24, 2023)

Mobileye Global continues to be a favorite among investors due to its market leading ADAS features, which are currently installed in roughly 70% of all new vehicles. Mobileye powers its platform with its own EyeQ chips that it designed from the ground up to eventually power fully autonomous driving stacks.  

Earlier this year, Mobileye rolled out its latest ADAS stack, SuperVision, which is being touted as a superior alternative to Tesla’s Autopilot. The updated platform is intended to allow hands-free driving with driver oversight and will “function largely like an autonomous vehicle.” SuperVision is the planned predecessor to Mobileye’s Chauffeur system, which will allow fully autonomous driving with both hands-off and eyes-off features, as discussed in the article below regarding Bentley’s upcoming EV. 

Industry experts, however, caution that Mobileye is still heavily dependent on a limited supply chain to manufacture its EyeQ chips, which may continue to cause inventory shortages until the end of the year. Additionally, Intel, who retained a 94% stake in Mobileye after its IPO last year, recently liquidated $1.5 billion of those shares to free up cash for expansion of its own foundries. This selloff caused Mobileye’s stock to decline, although it is still trading at almost 62 times forward earning due to its growth potential in the driverless market. 

So what does this all mean for the future of Mobileye? On the one hand, Mobileye’s dominance in the ADAS space and its frontier SuperVision and Chauffeur autonomous tech bode well for significant first-to-market returns in the driverless vehicle space. On the other hand, Mobileye still faces significant headwinds with supply chain constraints and possible overvaluation.  Time will tell if the bears or bulls prevail on these points.

Bentley’s First EV To Come With Hands-Off Self-Driving Tech (InsideEVs, June 25, 2023)

Luxury automaker Bentley recently announced that its highly anticipated first fully electrified model will initially offer partial hands-off self-driving technology followed shortly by fully autonomous driving through over-the-air software updates. Bentley CEO Adrian Hallmark further confirmed that Bentley’s new autonomous stack will utilize Mobileye’s SuperVision system, which features 11 camera sensors.

The new two-door sports coupe EV will reportedly boast an eye-popping 1,400 horsepower (1,044 kilowatts) and will be capable of accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.5 seconds. Bentley plans to launch a new EV every year until the end of the decade.

Competitor Rolls-Royce also will throw its hat into the electrification ring when it launches its first EV, the Spectre, this fall. This luxury coupe will purportedly feature a dual-motor layout powered by a 120-kilowatt-hour battery pack with a claimed range of 310 miles. Coming in with a top speed of 155 mph and reaching 0-60 in 4.4 seconds, this EV will also pack quite an electric punch.

NHTSA planning to require automatic emergency braking on new vehicles (The Hill, May 31, 2023)

A notice of proposed rulemaking published last week by NHTSA contemplates a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard requiring automatic emergency braking (AEB) on all new passenger vehicles (as of a date three years after the final rule is published). The proposed rule responds to mandates in the Department of Transportation’s National Roadway Safety Strategy, launched in January 2022, and the administration’s 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

“NHTSA chief counsel Ann Carlson said 90 percent of new vehicles already include the emergency braking through a voluntary program. But she said the agency wants to have the brakes become more effective at higher speeds and better at avoiding pedestrians.” Requiring AEB on all new vehicles is expected to “save 360 lives and reduce injuries by 24,000 every year.”

Comments to the proposal can be submitted and/or accessed here.

California lawmakers and AV industry battle for future of self-driving trucks (TechCrunch, May 31, 2023)

The California bill we have been following that would require a trained human safety operator to be present any time a heavy-duty autonomous vehicle operates on public roadways is continuing to gain momentum. AB 316, first introduced in January, passed the state’s Assembly last week and will now face a committee review and vote in the Senate.

“If enacted, AB 316 will make California an outlier by prohibiting autonomous trucks from operating on their own unless approved by the [California Legislature] through a convoluted process,” said Safer Roads for All, a coalition of AV advocates. “Let’s hope other states are more sensible and let road safety experts do their jobs.”

Proponents of the legislation, however, argue that safety should not be compromised to facilitate frontier technology. “California highways are an unpredictable place, but as a Teamster truck driver of 13 years, I’m trained to expect the unexpected. I know to look out for people texting while driving, potholes in the middle of the road, and folks on the side of the highway with a flat tire. We can’t trust new technology to pick up on those things,” said Fernando Reyes, Commercial Driver and Teamsters Local 350 member, in a statement. “My truck weighs well over 10,000 pounds. The thought of it barreling down the highway with no driver behind the wheel is a terrifying thought, and it isn’t safe. AB 316 is the only way forward for California.”

We will continue to monitor the status of this legislation as it inches closer to Governor Newsom’s desk.

Cruise Robotaxi Gets Stuck In The Middle Of An Intersection, Elon Musk Replies (InsideEVs, June 6, 2023)