Free Republic

The House Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce hosted a hearing, headlined “Economic Danger Zone: How America Competes to Win the Future Versus China.” The problem? The witnesses consisted of a string of leftist-funded, Big Tech-backed organizations trying to push a dystopian artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicle (AV) scheme under the pretense of protecting American national security against China. The Feb. 1 subcommittee hearing, headed by subcommittee chairman Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) specifically placed emphasis on beating Communist China in the global race for AI and AV technology while also supposedly stifling the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) attempts to...

Car dealer Brad Sowers is spending money to prepare for the coming wave of new electric models from General Motors Co. He is installing charging stations, upgrading service bays and retraining staff at his St. Louis-area dealership to handle the technology-packed vehicles. But when he considers how many plug-in Chevy Bolts he sold last year—nine, out of the nearly 4,000 Chevrolets sold at his Missouri dealerships—it gives him pause. “The consumer in the middle of America just isn’t there yet,” when it comes to switching to electric vehicles, he said, citing the long distances many of his customers drive daily...

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Nevada's governor on Friday unveiled a proposal that would allow technology companies to establish jurisdictions with powers similar to those of county governments, arguing the state needed to be bold to diversify its economy and pushing back against those who have likened the idea to company towns. “This proposal is an exciting, unprecedented concept that has a potential to position Nevada as a global center of advanced technology and innovation, while helping to create immediate positive economic impact and shape the economy of the future,” Gov. Steve Sisolak said of his Innovation Zones idea. “As...

by Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Credit: CC0 Public Domain Using AI and computer automation, Technion researchers have developed a 'conjecture generator' that creates mathematical conjectures, which are considered to be the starting point for developing mathematical theorems. They have already used it to generate a number of previously unknown formulas. The study, which was published in the journal Nature, was carried out by undergraduates from different faculties under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Ido Kaminer of the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Technion. The project deals with one of the most fundamental elements...

Tesla's momentum and back-to-back record highs have divided some of the world's most famous investors. Billionaire venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya praised the stock's gains in a Thursday appearance on CNBC, telling investors the stock could be worth three times its already lofty valuation. "Don't sell a share," he added. Hedge fund manager Michael Burry - whose bet against the housing market was depicted in the novel and 2015 film "The Big Short" - aired his contrasting opinion Thursday night. The investor tweeted that, like his famous 2008 gambit, his short position in Tesla stands to print huge gains. "Well, my...

The National Transportation Safety Board says the U.S. is woefully unprepared to deal with EV fires, which require different strategies than gasoline vehicle fires. 31 percent of fire departments don't train for EV fires, and half say they don't have special protocols in place to deal with EVs after a crash, the agency's report found. Note the caveats, though. There are more than 29,000 fire departments in the U.S. This survey only asked for information from 32 of them. If you have been reading Car and Driver for a while, there's a decent chance you remember the news when a...

Hertz, which started with a fleet of a dozen Ford Model T’s a century ago and became one of the world’s largest car rental companies, filed for bankruptcy protection on Friday after falling victim to its mountain of debt. The coronavirus pandemic has devastated Hertz by grounding business travelers and tourists, making it impossible for the company to continue paying its lenders. A sharp drop in used car prices has also decreased the value of its fleet. “They were doing quite well, but when you turn off the revenues and you own all these cars and all of a sudden...

In the highly competitive race to get self-driving cars to the market, most companies hold their secrets close. But when it comes to helping those cars figure out where they are on the road, some experts are ready to open up. Argo AI, based in the Strip District, and Aptiv, based in O’Hara, publicly released some of their own data sets earlier this year in an effort to further advancement in the field. The companies shared parts of their own maps of cities where they are testing self-driving cars, including Pittsburgh. That may seem strange considering the abundance of applications...

Orange County has received a $20 million federal grant to expand its autonomous shuttle system at Lake Nona, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao said Tuesday, part of a combined $62 million in transportation awards to three Florida cities. Chao was at Lake Nona, a southeast Orlando neighborhood, along with Gov. Ron DeSantis and state transportation secretary Kevin Thibault to reveal a combined $883 million in Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grants nationwide. Orange County was among just a handful out of more than 600 applications across the U.S. to get funding. The grant to the Orange’s Local...

Volkswagen will invest $2.6 billion into a Pittsburgh autonomous vehicle company that’s mostly owned by Ford as the automakers who were once rivals deepen their partnership to develop driverless and electric vehicles in an ultra-competitive landscape. The two automakers will become equal owners of Argo AI, and they plan to put autonomous vehicles on the roads in the U.S. and Europe as early as 2021, the companies said Friday. The deal also includes a plan for Ford to use VW’s electric vehicle platform to build zero-emissions cars for the European market starting in 2023. Auto companies have been teaming up...

AUBURNDALE — Florida has one of the world’s most famous asphalt ovals in the Daytona International Speedway. A slightly smaller track recently completed in Auburndale won’t draw massive crowds for races, but it’s part of a project that could hasten the day when self-driving vehicles take over the roads. Crews finished laying asphalt for the 2¼-mile oval — phase one of SunTrax — in early May, and construction will begin in the coming months on infield elements designed for the development and testing of connected and autonomous vehicles. The second phase of SunTrax, a project overseen by Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise...

It seemed to be more "Do as I say, not as I do" leadership from U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. On Wednesday, the New York Democrat enthusiastically threw in her support for Uber and Lyft drivers ahead of a worldwide strike, but campaign finance records indicate her team has spent nearly $2,000 on ride-hailing services this year alone. The boycott was organized in response to Uber’s anticipated initial public offering this Friday for more than $90 billion – a figure drivers say comes at the cost of reduced wages and job security.THE BIGGEST WINNERS FROM UBER'S IMPENDING IPOIn a Wednesday afternoon tweet,...

They’ll never admit it in public, but many of your bosses want machines to replace you as soon as possible. I know this because, for the past week, I’ve been mingling with corporate executives at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos. And I’ve noticed that their answers to questions about automation depend very much on who is listening. In public, many executives wring their hands over the negative consequences that artificial intelligence and automation could have for workers. They take part in panel discussions about building “human-centered A.I.” for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” — Davos-speak for the corporate...

If Elon Musk’s Boring Company succeeds, the fantasy of slipping into a pod and being whisked from Washington, D.C. to New York City in less than 30 minutes may become a reality. As startling as that might be, such transformational projects are nothing new. Think of how Americans of a half-century ago felt once the national interstate highway system was complete and a cross-country road trip shortened from two weeks to five days. Infrastructure improvements in the U.S. – such as the interstate system, built in the 1950s and 1960s, the first transcontinental railway in the 1860s, and the Erie...

The Michigan Department of Transportation has begun work on a vehicle-to-infrastructure communications project, in which 3M will provide lane markings, smart sign technology and dedicated short-range communication devices for a three-mile stretch of I-75, according to a report from ITS International. Once these items are installed, the Oakland County stretch of highway will allow the testing of advanced vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications. The construction project is expected to take about four months to finish.Michigan is emerging as one of the leaders in V2I and vehicle-to-vehicle communications research and adoption. V2I communications involve the wireless exchange of critical safety and operational data between vehicles...

New research suggests that children born today will never drive a car. The auto industry's embrace of self-driving technology has been accelerating fast and those technological advances mean that by the time today's toddlers come of age, they'll likely never even have to get behind the wheel of a car, according to Henrik Christensen, the director of the University of San Diego’s Contextual Robotics Institute. “My own prediction is that kids born today will never get to drive a car,” Christensen told the San Diego Union-Tribune in mid-December. “Autonomous, driverless cars are not 10, 15 years out. All the automotive...

A new collection of transportation agencies and universities is taking one small step toward transforming the Rust Belt into a place associated with the future instead of the past. Eleven agencies and institutions located in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have formed the Smart Belt Coalition, which will spur joint efforts on the testing and deployment of autonomous and connected cars. The collaboration comes on the heels of a legislative overhaul of Michigan regulations last month, which have been relaxed to spur the testing of self-driving technology on the state’s public roads. Ohio and Pennsylvania do not have laws on the...

Autonomous vehicles will save thousands of lives. But what about the ones they take? Robot cars will save lots of lives, but they'll also open up some tricky liability issues. You are a terrible driver. By human standards, you might be pretty good, but you'll never be able to match the reaction time, 360-degree monitoring, and prescient awareness autonomous vehicles will soon provide. By almost any estimate, taking the wheel out of the hands of human drivers—when the technology is ready—will save thousands of lives. "Human beings just aren't that great as drivers," said Rand's James Anderson. Driverless cars "could...

<p>Over the Next Two Decades, the Machines Themselves Will Take Over the Driving.</p> <p>Caterpillar will have 45 self-directed trucks at a mine in Australia.</p> <p>And then one day, man went the way of the mule.</p> <p>Some 5.7 million Americans are licensed as professional drivers, steering the country's vast fleets of delivery vans, UPS trucks and tractor-trailers.</p>

This is a new one on us: there’s something called “autonomous vehicles” inching off the drawing board and onto the freeways. These self-driving cars apparently are spawned by techies at Google, Caltech and other places. According to the L.A. Times, the cars “use radar, video cameras and lasers to navigate roads and stay safe in traffic without human assistance.” Seems interesting. It couldn’t but help that mad rush on the 57 we navigate every morning and evening. But wait...