Cohda Wireless has demonstrated the ability of its driverless car technology to see around corners and locate other vehicles in an'urban canyon' as part of a world-first trial in South Australia. The trial, conducted in a two-block section in the centre of the Adelaide CBD, revealed how smart connected vehicles can detect and respond to risky situations more effectively than a human in a scenario thought to be commonplace in built-up city areas. During the trial, two vehicles approached a four-way intersection at right angles to each other. Tall buildings on each corner of the intersection obstructed the view of the other approaching car. Car 2, driven by a human, fails to adhere to the red-light signal and approaches the intersection at speed, intending to'run' the red light.

A Tesla Model S that was cruising at highway speeds rammed into the back of a parked fire truck on a freeway in Culver City, CA in late January. The man behind the wheel claimed his car was running on Tesla's TSLA, 1.70% enhanced autopilot system. But shouldn't he still have seen, and stopped for, the red engine up ahead? The crash highlights a tension in the race toward self-driving car technology. When cars start doing the work, drivers overestimate the capabilities of their cars and disengage entirely.

TORONTO – Having built an impressive lead in artificial intelligence, Canada is keen to do the same in driverless cars -- specifically the lidar (laser radar) technology that lets these vehicles see where they're going. The Quebec City-based company makes solid-state technology it says is better and cheaper than earlier versions of lidar and sells it to parts makers, which in turn bake it into their hardware. LeddarTech has attracted big-name industry backers including Delphi Automotive, Germany's Osram Licht and Fiat Chrysler's parts division, which last month participated in a $101 million fundraising round. There's a race on to get self-driving cars on the road over the next four years and lidar is a key component in making that possible. The market for the technology will grow tenfold to $2.5 billion by 2027, according to Akhilesh Kona, a senior analyst at IHS Markit, and become much bigger as cars become increasingly autonomous.

At least $80 billion has been funneled into driverless car technology over the past three years, according to a new report, underscoring how the pace of development has accelerated in recent years. The Brookings Institution published research on Monday that tallied all the investments and transactions associated with self-driving cars and technologies from August 2014 to June 2017. The researchers acknowledged that there were several limitations to their data collection, however, so "it is reasonable to presume that total global investment in autonomous vehicles is significantly more than this." While it's debatable when driverless cars will be available to the masses, Congress is already taking steps to create the first federal laws governing their testing and deployment. The House passed autonomous vehicle legislation earlier this month, while a similar bill is making its way through the Senate.

The debate over whether technology is changing the world for good or bad is unlikely to ever be definitively won by either camp. However, few would argue that technological advances that promise traffic-related deaths dropping from 1.3 million a year to zero could be considered as anything but a positive development. That's exactly what Gill Pratt, chief executive of the Toyota Research Institute, believes will be the result of the impending transition to driverless cars. Using the analogy of two iconic photographs of New York's Fifth Avenue, one taken in 1905 and one in 1913, Pratt believes that this technology-based traffic utopia could happen much more quickly than any of us imagine. Talking at an open doors presentation at Toyota's Brussels R&D centre, Pratt demonstrated how quickly the age of the automobile manifested itself in central New York.

"Toronto and Canada for the past two decades has been at the forefront of AI, and that's the expertise we're bringing to Uber,"says Raquel Urtasun, who will lead Uber's Advanced Technologies Group in Toronto. Uber is launching a research group devoted to driverless car technology in Toronto, creating a third hub -- its first outside the U.S. -- for the company's ambitions in a frenzied field that Uber and its competitors believe will upend transportation, generating billions of dollars in the process. The Advanced Technologies Group will be led by Raquel Urtasun, a University of Toronto computer science professor who holds a Canada Research Chair in machine learning and computer vision. Urtasun uses artificial intelligence, particularly deep learning, to make vehicles and other machines perceive the world around them more accurately and efficiently. The group will hire "dozens" of researchers and engineers in the next few years, the company says.

On the surface, a Google subsidiary's blistering accusation last week that Uber has stolen its driverless car technology looks like any of the thousands of patent lawsuits piling up in Silicon Valley court dockets. This one is different, however. And it's different in ways that could spell bad news for Uber. The lawsuit was filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court by Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. devoted to developing self-driving technology. Waymo is responsible for those bug-shaped cars and other vehicles testing the technology around Northern California.

Nevada claims to be the first state in the nation to approve rules for testing driverless vehicles on the state roadways. The Legislative Commission of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) approved regulations in February that will pave the way for companies to test "autonomous vehicles" and set the stage for Nevada motorists to operate driverless cars and trucks. DMV Director Bruce Breslow said Nevada is the first in the U.S. to adopt such legislation, and that an application package for companies that want to test their autonomous vehicles is available. The announcement was made just months after Nevada passed a law requiring the DMV to adopt regulations that would authorize the use of autonomous vehicles on the state's highways. The law, passed in July 2011, defines an autonomous vehicle as "a motor vehicle that uses artificial intelligence, sensors and global positioning system coordinates to drive itself without the active intervention of a human operator."

Last year, Chinese tech firm Alibaba paired with the country's largest automaker to connect their cars to the internet. Now, in an attempt to keep up with emerging technology, the companies will soon be implementing self-driving features into their vehicles. The car company's CEO Wang Jian told Reuters on Wednesday the new internet technology will allow the joint venture to quickly adapt its cars to become self-driving. Chinese auto maker SAIC Motor Corp Ltd joined forces with e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd to invest 1 billion yuan ($160 million/£123 million) in a fund to develop internet-connected cars. Chinese auto maker SAIC Motor joined forces with e-commerce giant Alibaba last year.

According to Elon Musk, driverless car technology is a problem that's pretty much solved -- the regulators just need to catch up. And they might want to start moving faster, because Musk isn't slowing down. The chief executive of electric car maker Tesla said Wednesday that all the cars the company produces going forward will be equipped with the hardware needed to transform them into self-driving cars, as soon as the software and road rules are ready. On Thursday, the company posted a video with a Rolling Stones soundtrack that shows a Tesla Model S driving itself around highways and streets in Silicon Valley, pulling into a Tesla parking lot, searching for a spot and parking itself. It even spins its front wheels to the left so the passenger-side tire properly kisses the curb.