Happy Self-Driving Vehicles News in H1/2021
Published in
10 min readApr 23, 2021
We still have to wait at least until 2030s before we see a substantial amount of Self-Driving Cars driving around. However, based on the (mostly) happy news in the first half of the 2021 looks like the solutions are progressing rapidly.
Technology Giants
- Google Waymo’s new leadership & the future of self-driving cars
- John Krafcik leaves Waymo after serving as the CEO for 5+ years
- Waymo CEO: Building safe driverless cars is harder than rocket science
- Waymo is disclosing more autonomous vehicle data for research purposes
- Waymo begins robo-taxi tests in San Francisco
- Waymo self-driving taxis are coming to more US cities
- Waymo is opening its fully driverless service to the general public in Phoenix (Oct 2020)
- Google opens up the Play Store to more Android Auto apps
- Ford says ‘millions’ of its vehicles will run on Google’s Android starting in 2023
- Google’s infotainment system with built in to more Volvo models
- What’s it like to ride in a self-driving truck? We went for a (virtual) ride in one of Waymo’s vehicles.
- Waymo and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) expand autonomous driving technology partnership (July 2020)
- Groupe Renault and Nissan to become the first automotive manufacturers to explore driverless mobility services with Waymo in France and Japan
- Anthony Levandowski, engineer who stole trade secrets from Google among those pardoned by Trump
- LG and Magna reportedly ‘very near’ to signing deal for Apple Car production
- Tim Cook drops some hints on Apple’s car plans, shares what he thinks of Elon Musk and Tesla
- How Apple’s self-driving car plans might transform the company itself
- Foxconn/electric vehicles: Apple car inspires supplier’s new business model
- Amazon’s Playbook on Autonomous Vehicles
- Amazon to buy self-driving technology company Zoox (June 2020)
- Amazon’s Zoox introduces fully autonomous electric vehicle
- Amazon’s Rivian to initially launch in-house insurance program in 40 states
Major Self-Driving Startups
- Amazon’s Aurora hints of IPO in 2021
- Amazon’s Aurora acquires Uber’s automated driving unit–and Uber’s cash
- Volvo and Aurora team up on fully autonomous trucks for North America
- Aurora teaming up with PACCAR to build and deploy self-driving trucks
- Walmart invests in GM’s Cruise autonomous vehicle subsidiary with $30bn valuation
- Microsoft’s Partnership with GM Cruise Shows the Apple-Windows Wars Are Back on Four Wheels
- Cruise acquires Voyage
- Dubai strikes deal with Cruise to roll out self-driving taxis
- Cruise to send first self-driving vehicles to Japan and start development for testing this year as part of Honda’s new mobility business
- GM Cruise to run robot cars in San Francisco without human backups (Oct 2020)
- GM rebrands its Detroit-Hamtramck plant as ‘Factory Zero’ for electric and autonomous vehicles (Oct 2020)
- The 2022 Chevrolet Bolt EUV lowers the cost of entry for some of GM’s most advanced tech. The optional Super Cruise puts it on course to compete with the Tesla Model Y.
- Argo AI, the self-driving startup backed by Ford and Volkswagen, is considering going public as soon as this year
- New Eyes, New Ears, New Brains: Inside the Next Generation Argo AI Self-Driving System
- Argo gives its self-driving vehicle hardware a big upgrade
- Ford and Argo releases its 4th gen self-driving platform with better sensors, cleaning tech, and improved batteries
- Volkswagen closes $2.6 billion investment in self-driving start-up Argo AI (June 2020)
- Intel’s Mobileye will launch a fully driverless delivery service in 2023
- Hyundai IONIQ 5 will be Motional and Lyft’s first robotaxi
- The Hyundai-Aptiv joint venture Motional is now testing fully autonomous vehicles in Las Vegas
- Comma.ai drops self-driving device after warning from U.S. regulators
Ride-hailing Companies
- Aptiv’s self-driving cars have given 100,000 paid rides on the Lyft app
- Apple-backed Chinese ride service Didi Chuxing files privately for IPO with ~$100B valuation
- Didi Chuxing aborted $1 billion acquisition of Aurora amid concerns of U.S. officials
- Volvo will provide cars for Didi’s autonomous vehicle division
- Uber is licensing its ride-hailing software to three more public transit agencies
- SoftBank-backed Grab agrees to deal to go public in world’s largest SPAC merger
- Uber and Lyft have a driver shortage problem, and it’s costing them a lot of money
- Ola’s fully autonomous flying car concept is a perfect April Fool’s prank
Chinese Players
- Self-Driving Cars Could Be Allowed on China’s Highways
- China’s Baidu is building an entire ‘Mobility as a Service’ Ecosystem around autonomous vehicles
- Baidu Launches Self-Driving Cars, Shuttles, Buses, Vending And Even Police Robots
- Baidu’s Apollo will come pre-installed on at least one mass-produced car model each month in the second half of 2021. In the next 3–5 years, they target to have Apollo’s solutions pre-installed on one million vehicles.
- BlackBerry Expands Partnership with Baidu to Power Next Generation Autonomous Driving Technology
- Geely and Baidu Partner to Establish a New Electric Car Company
- Baidu Apollo Receives Driverless Vehicle Test Permit in California
- Baidu’s Apollo offering the first hands-on experience of the Weltmeister W6’s Apollo Automated Valet Parking in Auto Shanghai 2021
- Inside Baidu Apollo 6.0: A Road Towards Fully Driverless Technology (Oct 2020)
- Pony.ai raises $100 million more to advance its autonomous vehicle tech
- Toyota steers $400 million to self-driving startup Pony.ai (Feb 2020)
- Next-generation Volvo EVs will use lidar for hands-off highway driving by 2022 (May 2020)
- Foxconn & Geely team up to build electric, autonomous and shared vehicles for automakers
- NIO unveils impressive autonomous electric car with a massive battery pack
- Chinese driverless car start-up WeRide raises $310 million in funding as competition heats up
- AutoX partners with Arbe to bring ultra-high resolution radar to its autonomous vehicle fleet
- XPeng sets new records for autonomous driving
- Xpeng to debut lidar-equipped EV
- Xpeng Partners with Livox to Deploy Lidar Technology in the New 2021 Production Model
- Huawei to invest $1 billion on researching self-driving and electric-car technologies, accelerating plans to compete with Tesla and Xiaomi
- Xiaomi is investing $10 billion to join the electric car race
- AV startup Momenta raises $500M from Daimler, Toyota, Bosch, SAIC, Temasek, Yunfeng Capital and Tencent
- SAIC Motor Corp, China’s largest automaker, said Thursday it plans to begin offering self-driving vehicles in that market in 2022, in partnership with U.S. lidar maker Luminar
Car Manufacturers
- Tesla Admits Current ‘Full Self-Driving Beta’ Will Always Be a Level 2 System
- Tesla’s driverless dreams take hit as accidents pile up
- Tesla delays Full Self-Driving beta access
- Tesla’s Full Self-Driving ‘vaporware’ — Ford spokeperson calls
- Tesla is about to launch its in-house insurance program in more states
- Tesla Full Self-Driving subscription gets definitive release date from Elon Musk
- Volkswagen’s hopes of catching Tesla hinge on a $30bn tech reboot
- Volkswagen ID. Buzz getting an autonomous version, reveal timing confirmed: the plan is to have autonomous models out in 2025 and to be used in a ride-sharing program like VW’s MOIA program it operates in Hamburg and Hanover in Germany
- After lots of ballyhoo about Volkswagen’s AV plans, Audi reveals a delay of at least a year in its highly automated Project Artemis vehicle.
- Forget traffic jams! The Audi Neo-Bauhaus concept carries a bicycle
- Volkswagen unveils prototype autonomous charging robot for electric cars
- Volkswagen taps Microsoft’s cloud to develop self-driving software
- Daimler CEO expects ‘intense competition’ if Apple and Alibaba enter electric vehicle market
- Daimler to spin off truck unit, give clear investor focus on Mercedes-Benz
- All the tech crammed into the 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS
- BMW’s New MINI Concept Is An Autonomous Living Room On Wheels
- BMW’s new curved iDrive display is a ‘major step’ toward autonomous driving
- Toyota taps Apex.AI for its autonomous vehicle operating system
- Toyota’s new Mirai and Lexus LS models come with Advanced Drive assistance tech
- The first time Level 3 autonomous technology has been approved by Japanese authorities, but it will likely be a long time before the technology is added to Honda cars in the US.
- 6 key features of Honda’s first partially self-driving car
- Ford is more than doubling its investment in electric and autonomous vehicles to $29 billion
- Ford installing smart sensor nodes in Miami to give AVs X-Ray Vision
- South Korea to invest 1.1 trillion in Level 4 self-driving technology
- Carmakers strive to stay ahead of hackers
Self-Driving Trucks
- Waymo and Daimler are teaming up to build fully driverless semi trucks (Oct 2020)
- Self-driving truck startup TuSimple raises $1 billion in IPO valuing it at $8.5 billion
- SelfDrivingTruck Plus raises extra $220M after $200M and is rumored for SPAC IPO
- SF Express has selected Plus for China’s first commercial freight pilot to demonstrate how supervised autonomous trucks improve logistics operations.
- Plus Commits to Deploy Ouster’s Digital Lidar Sensors to Support Global Deployment of Automated Trucks
- Luminar intends to bring highly automated trucks to roads globally with Torc Robotics and Daimler Trucks
- What’s it like to ride in a self-driving truck? We went for a (virtual) ride in one of Waymo’s vehicles.
- How Einride has beaten Tesla with the world’s first autonomous electric truck
- SKF and Einride trial autonomous truck for cross-facility shipments
- Drone truck startup Einride unveils new driverless vehicles for autonomous freight hauling (Oct 2020)
- Embark Announces First OEM-Agnostic Self-Driving Interface
- Embark Expands Senior Leadership Team to Commercialize Self-Driving Trucks
- Kodiak honored at CES
- Putting the standalone self-driving truck startup fund raising in perspective: TuSimple leads with $648M, Plus.AI at $400M, Embark $117M, Einride $42M, Kodiak $40M. (Ike was at $52M pre-acquisition).
- BBC: What will self-driving trucks mean for truck drivers?
- Financial Times: How trucks became the next battleground for self-driving technology
- USDOT report shows autonomous trucks will only lead to minimal layoffs in the sector
- 18 companies and startups that are leading the race for the autonomous trucks
Automated Shuttles & delivery vehicles
- Intel’s Mobileye teams with Udelv to launch 35,000 driverless delivery vehicles by 2028
- Mobileye partners with Lohr and Transdev to develop self-driving shuttles
- Nuro Raises $500 Million In Funding Round Backed By Toyota’s Woven Capital And Chipotle
- Domino’s and Nuro are serving up a hot new way to get your pie 🍕. Introducing autonomous delivery in Houston, TX! Select customers can choose to have their pizza delivered by Nuro’s R2 robot.
- Navya launches the first autonomous shuttle service in Israel
- Oxbotica SelfDrivingCars raises £10M from Ocado Online Grocery
- Palo Alto self-driving tech startup Gatik partners with Isuzu on delivery trucks
- Optimus Ride partners with Polaris to commercialize electric autonomous vehicles
- May Mobility partners with umbrella group for trucking associations
- City of Arlington starts RAPID AV service by May Mobility in partnership with Ride with Via
- Sensible 4 to launch the second self-driving pilot in Norway
- Chinese autonomous driving startup WeRide launches Mini Robobus in Guangzhou
Delivery bots & services
- Starship Technologies raises $17M to roll out more delivery bots
- Yandex Rovers are now delivering groceries from stores
- Spotted in Miami: Reef Technology delivery bot
- Albertsons taps Tortoise for remote-controlled grocery delivery robots
- Uber planning to spin out Postmates’ delivery robot arm
- Spain’s Glovo picks up $528M as Europe’s food delivery market continues to heat up
- Deliveroo, the U.K. startup backed by Amazon, set a price range for its planned London listing with an upward valuation of $12 billion
- Deliveroo IPO closes 44% down
- Gorillas, the on-demand grocery delivery startup, raises $290M and ‘surpasses’ $1B valuation
Lidar manufacturers
- 4 lidar stocks driving autonomous tech
- A look at the lidar field
- There are too many lidar companies — they can’t all survive
- Lidar stocks soar after report that Apple is working on a car for 2024 (Dec 2020)
- Aurora acquires a second lidar company in push to bring self-driving trucks to the road
- Lidar company Aeva makes stock debut
- Luminar Technologies becomes public company as lidar race builds (Dec 2020)
- Ouster, maker of self-driving tech, agrees $1.9 billion deal to go public (Dec 2020)
- Innoviz Technologies to be Listed on Nasdaq (Dec 2020)
- Velodyne releases $100 lidar sensor (Jan 2020)
- Valeo’s LiDAR, driving the autonomous vehicles (Sep 2019)
General AV news
- Nvidia CEO says software will soon define cars
- SoftBank’s Son expects mass production of driverless cars in two years
- The Autonomous-Car Chaos of the 2004 Darpa Grand Challenge
- The Canadian Council of Insurance Regulators (CCIR) has published a paper that explores the opportunities and issues surrounding Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAV), as well as their impact on the auto insurance market.
- California bill would require all self-driving vehicles to be zero emission by 2025
- Draft amendment would grant the NHTSA the power to initially exempt 15,000 self-driving vehicles per manufacturer from safety standards written with human drivers in mind, a figure that would rise to 80,000 within three years
- Your self-driving car still isn’t ready. Smarter roads might change that.
Other remotely related news pieces
- Automakers, suppliers and startups see growing market for in-vehicle AR/VR applications. ‘There’s a whole new paradigm of what the car is’
- Robotics firms garnered $6.3 billion in venture funding during the pandemic year
- Autonomous aviation startup Xwing hits $400M valuation after latest funding round
- Flying taxi startup Lilium goes public via SPAC, unveils its new electric aircraft
- Palo Alto flying taxi startup Archer plans to go public via SPAC, lands $1.1B deal with United
- Israeli connected cars company Autotalks nears $2b valuation SPAC merger
- AI, robot fruit pickers and the future of arable farming
- Here come the farm robots: startup raises $20 million for autonomous electric tractors
- Hitachi to buy San Jose-based GlobalLogic for $9.6Bn
For more insights on driverless technology and AV
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