Oxbotica, the British-based autonomous vehicle software developer, today announced a new strategic collaboration with Google Cloud that will help accelerate the deployment of its autonomous software platform to customers around the world. The partnership will combine Google Cloud's expertise in cloud infrastructure with Oxbotica's market-leading autonomous vehicle software to create scalable, safe, and reliable autonomous driving solutions for any business with transportation in its value chain. These businesses include last-mile logistics, light industry, and public transport. Oxbotica plans to use Google Cloud products--compute, storage, networking, and leading data and analytics products like Vertex AI--to help develop, test, validate, and verify its self-driving technology. It will also leverage Google Cloud's proven cyber-security technologies to help ensure secure use of autonomous mobility technology.

China has become the largest Tesla market in the world as the carmaker's shipments to China in 2021 reached 40% of its total worldwide shipments, higher than shipments to the US. Amidst this EV frenzy, technology enterprises and carmakers are hot on developing self-driving technologies, notably Chinese ones. In addition to Baidu's smart cockpit and other solutions, the chip is expected to help Jidu beat competitors in terms of AI performance. Some local semiconductor startups are also competing in this race. Horizon Robotics, once backed by Intel Capital, is collaborating with Holomatic to use Journey 3 and 5 chips and visual perception algorithms in an all-speed integrated self-driving software/hardware solution with a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

SHENZHEN, China & LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--RoboSense, the leading supplier of LiDAR perception system solutions, and Aidrivers, the UK's leading provider of autonomous mobility solutions for industrial applications announced today a partnership in system integration. Aidrivers will integrate RoboSense Smart LiDAR Sensor System into their own Autonomous Driving Systems. Aidrivers is delivering a fully autonomous natural navigation system that meets industrial safety standards to seaports, particularly for horizontal transportation, aimed for improving operation efficiency and leading the way in industrial autonomous mobility automation. Their solution can work under all harsh weather conditions by achieving true 3D mapping and localization for precision positioning and situation cognisance and they are using RoboSense 3D LiDAR sensor technology, which collects stable and reliable environment information at near and far distance and under different weather conditions. "The performance of RoboSense 3D LiDAR products in harsh weather condition is impressive. We have been testing trailer vehicles under heavy rain and harsh weather conditions and our precision positioning system based on true 3D mapping and localization systems provides accurate localization result. The point cloud data quality in rainy days is excellent and outperforming state of the art."

Karl Benz and Henry Ford revolutionized transportation with the initial development and mass production of the automobile. Now, more than a century later, the automotive industry is poised to transform transportation again, with a push to develop connected, personalized and autonomous driving experiences, electric vehicles and new mobility business models from ride-sharing to ride-hailing and multimodal, smart transportation concepts. This industry is expected to see significant growth, becoming a $6.6T industry by 2030, with disruptive business models accounting for 25 percent of all revenues, according to consulting firm, McKinsey & Company. From shared vehicle services to fully electric transportation, manufacturers are developing new products and services to enable large fleets offering mobility-as-a-service, which will increasingly replace individual car ownership. This involves modernizing the in-vehicle experience with productivity, entertainment, and personal assistants that are safe and secure, following users across different transport modes, adding value for businesses and consumers alike.

According to driving statistics published by California, Uber is the worst of six major self-driving car companies testing its vehicles in the state. The minicab firm experienced a "disengagement" – when the automated system forces the human driver/passenger to take over control of the vehicle – once every mile driven, with a total of 20,354 miles clocked up before it was banned from testing in the state. By contrast, at the top of the table was Waymo, Google's sibling company, with one disengagement every 5,128 miles driven, and more than half a million miles driven in the last 12 months. The figures shed new light on the ongoing lawsuit between Waymo and Uber. The latter company is accused of stealing intellectual property after it acquired a self-driving truck company, Otto, which had been founded by Anthony Levandowski, a former Waymo employee. The technology in question is the design of the lidar array, the light-based imaging system that sits on the top of self-driving cars to help them see the world around them.