The backup Uber driver for a self-driving vehicle that killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018 pleaded guilty Friday to endangerment in the first deadly crash involving a fully autonomous car. Arizona state judge David Garbarino, who accepted the plea agreement, sentenced Rafaela Vasquez to three years of supervised probation for the crash that killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. Vasquez, 49, told police that Herzberg "came out of nowhere" and that she didn't see Herzberg before hitting her on a darkened Tempe street on 18 March 2018. Vasquez had been charged with felony negligent homicide. The charge to which she pleaded could be reclassified as a misdemeanor if she completes probation. Authorities say Vasquez was streaming the television show The Voice on a phone and looking down in the moments before Uber's Volvo XC-90 SUV struck Herzberg, who was crossing with her bicycle.

With the unveiling of its latest autonomous test vehicle, Ford believes it's one step closer to offering a commercial self-driving car service (via NBC News). In a new Medium post, the automaker detailed its fourth-generation autonomous test vehicle, claiming in the process that it includes all the technologies the company needs for commercialization. "With our fourth-generation test vehicle, we have everything we need from a vehicle to stand up our self-driving service," the company said. And, we look forward to telling you more about how this service will ultimately help make people's lives better." As for the vehicle itself, it builds on the company's Escape SUV, instead of the Fusion sedan Ford had used for its previous generation testbeds.

Humans are good at a lot of things, but when it comes to assessing risk in the modern world we have some serious limitations. It's not uncommon to be plagued with fear and anxiety while flying, for example, but the same people who quake at the thought of trusting their life to an airliner will often treat the far more dangerous task of driving with baffling nonchalance. It should be no surprise then, that people are also wildly off the mark when it comes to assessing the risks presented by public road testing of autonomous vehicles. This misperception of risk is dramatically illustrated in a recent story by Washington Post reporter Faiz Siddiqui, which uncovers a kind of NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) backlash against AVs in the heart of Silicon Valley. Siddiqui spoke with a number of Valley residents, most of whom work in the tech sector and believe in the long term potential of self-driving cars, who object to being what one terms "the guinea pig" for this new technology.

Nearly eight months after one of its autonomous test vehicles hit and killed an Arizona pedestrian, Uber wants to resume testing on public roads. The company has filed an application with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to test in Pittsburgh, and it has issued a lengthy safety report pledging to put two human backup drivers in each vehicle and take a raft of other precautions to make the vehicles safe. Company officials acknowledge they have a long way to go to regain public trust after the March 18 crash in Tempe, Arizona, that killed Elaine Herzberg, 49, as she crossed a darkened road outside the lines of a crosswalk. Nearly eight months after one of its autonomous test vehicles hit and killed an Arizona pedestrian, Uber wants to resume testing on public roads. Police said Uber's backup driver in the autonomous Volvo SUV was streaming the television show'The Voice' on her phone and looking downward before crash. The National Transportation Safety Board said the autonomous driving system on the Volvo spotted Herzberg about six seconds before hitting her, but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled.

Uber has undergone its second rebrand in three years in an attempt to dispel its'hyper masculine' reputation. As well as a specially commissioned font - dubbed Uber Move - the redesign includes new logos for the ride sharing app and its food delivery service. The changes will begin to roll out this week, with the app logos already updated for many users. Uber has undergone its second rebrand in three years in an attempt to dispel its'hyper masculine' reputation. Uber began life as a black car service for 100 friends in San Francisco.

Almost half of Americans say they would never buy a fully self driving car, a new survey has found. The huge blow to the industry comes after rocky trials that have seen multiple accidents, including a self-driving Uber vehicle that killed a pedestrian in the first death involving a fully autonomous test vehicle in March. The Cox Automotive Evolution of Mobility Study found that consumer awareness of driverless vehicles has skyrocketed - but that people still want to be able to drive themselves. The research found 84 per cent want to have the option to drive themselves even in a self-driving vehicle, compared to 16 per cent who would feel comfortable letting an autonomous vehicle drive them without the option of being able to take control. It also found 84 per cent want to have the option to drive themselves even in a self-driving vehicle, compared to 16 per cent who would feel comfortable letting an autonomous vehicle drive them without the option of being able to take control.

Project Titan, Apple's secretive autonomous car program, is expanding. The Cupertino company has added 11 new test vehicles to its fleet in California, according to MacReports, boosting the total to 66. That's up from 55 in May. The program is rumored to be related to a self-driving platform Apple intends to provide to automobile manufacturers, though the company has yet to apply for an autonomous driving permit. It kicked off semiautonomous trial runs with three 2015 Lexus RX 450h SUVs roughly a year ago, in April 2017, after receiving licenses from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. "We're focusing on autonomous systems," Apple CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg Television last year, in one of the few public descriptions of Project Titan.

Apple seems to speeding ahead with its self-driving car program. The iPhone maker has nearly doubled its fleet of autonomous test vehicles in California over the last few months, according to the Financial Times. In January, Apple was operating 27 self-driving cars on the roads, but that number has since grown to 45 vehicles, data from California's Department of Motor Vehicles shows. The new report comes as some firms have suspended their autonomous driving tests following a fatal accident involving an Uber self-driving car this weekend. If Apple's fleet has increased this much, it has surged ahead of its rivals in terms of the size of its test fleet.

Uber's automated car which struck and killed a woman at 40mph did not show significant signs of slowing down, a spokesman for police has now confirmed. The firm has suspended all its self-driving tests after what is believed to be the first fatal pedestrian crash involving its vehicles. Automated driving had been taking place in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. Police in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe say one of Uber's self-driving vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian on Sunday night. Investigators said the Volvo SUV was in autonomous mode when the woman, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg, was hit.

The all- new test vehicle will be used to explore a full range of autonomous driving capabilities. Toyota's work on autonomous vehicles in the United States began in 2005 at its technical center in Ann Arbor, Mich.-- The company secured its first U.S. patents in the field in 2006.-- According to a report last year by the Intellectual Property and Science division of Thomson Reuters, Toyota holds more patents in the field than any other company. "This new advanced safety research vehicle is the first autonomous testing platform developed entirely by TRI, and reflects the rapid progress of our autonomous driving program," said TRI CEO Gill Pratt.