Cruise Plans to Launch Driverless Ride-Hailing Service in Houston
Cruise, a California-based subsidiary of General Motors, announced Wednesday that it will begin making test drives in Houston next week with a human supervisor behind the wheel. The plan is to launch a fully autonomous commercial service in the city within the next few months, according to by Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt.
"This phase that you'll see kicking off here in Houston is our supervised driving, which allows us to finetune," Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo said. "Every city is different and they have nuances. It's just a matter of making sure our technology is ready for public roads and rides."
20 Tesla Vehicles Will Replace Entire Police Dept.’s Patrol Fleet
The South Pasadena Police Department in California has decided to convert its entire patrol fleet to all-electric vehicles using the Tesla Model Y and Model 3, becoming the first such agency in the nation to convert its entire police fleet to electric vehicles.
South Pasadena Councilmember Michael Cacciotti commented: “We will be putting our officers in the safest and most effective police vehicles on the market. In addition to that, we will be investing in technology that will help reduce harmful vehicle emissions to improve air quality for all our residents. This effort will provide a model for other jurisdictions; we can build a 21st century police force, save significant resources and clean the air at the same time.”
Here’s a Glimpse of the EV Future from Norway, Where the Future is Now
In a detailed report published in The Times, Jack Ewing, a veteran reporter, circled Norway — where 80 percent of new-car sales last year were electric cars — to assess the benefits and drawbacks of leading the EV charge.
Among the report’s more compelling and tangible findings involves the air. In Oslo, greenhouse gas emissions have dropped by 30 percent in the past four years. The city is even quieter. And activist groups have debunked the theory that climate change involves “grim” sacrifices. As one representative said, “With EVs, it’s not like that. It’s actually something that people embrace.”
How Nauto Uses Predictive AI To Transform Fleet Safety
By Fleet Management Weekly Staff
While there are many safety programs on the market designed to lower driver risk, one company is approaching it in a new way: Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Nauto CEO Stefan Heck believes that the company is well-positioned to extend the driver safety envelope with a real-time, AI-enabled driver and fleet safety platform. “By analyzing billions of data points from over three billion AI-analyzed miles, our machine learning algorithms continuously improve and can predict and improve driver behavior before events happen,” he says.
Companies Develop Lithium Extraction for Batteries in California
The major car companies have ambitious plans for fleets of electric vehicles. Those cars and trucks run on lithium batteries.
The U.S. has massive quantities of lithium but has been slow to invest in the mining and extraction of the metal. That's about to change. Lithium operations powered by clean energy are being developed in a long neglected, impoverished part of California by the Salton Sea, not far from the Mexican border. The region is being called Lithium Valley and just like the 1849 Gold Rush, companies are racing to strike it rich.
