Backed by more than six years of practical machine learning research and development, Secondmind Active Learning for Powertrain offers state-of-the- …

Mazda Motor Corp. said Thursday that it plans to launch 13 electrified vehicle models globally by 2025, starting with new models next year. The new models include three electric vehicles, five gas-electric hybrids and five plug-in hybrids, the automaker said. The plan is part of Mazda's efforts to achieve its goal of electrifying all of its cars and making a quarter of them electric vehicles by 2030. Starting in 2025, Mazda will shift its focus to developing electric vehicles using a dedicated platform now under development. The company also said it will release its first autonomous car next year.

A few years ago I went to a 25th-anniversary celebration of Mazda's all-conquering MX-5. It's the dinky sports car that blends big driving thrills with everyday usability and it has doggedly stuck to one simple credo: "Keep it basic." There is nothing fussy or fancy about it. It's functional and, in these days of fake news, autonomous driving and hands-off digital feedback, there is something gloriously authentic about its analogue approach to the road. And it's exactly this pared-back, up-front honesty that's helped Mazda shift more than 1m of them over the past quarter-century.

From a Las Vegas stage today, Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda asked an audience to imagine how the future of mobility could transform Burning Man. Then he put forward his own vision: the e-Palette. Like the humble slab of wood for which it's named, this electric, self-driving vehicle is versatile by design. It could be a cargo van. Or a flexible complement to an established mass transit system.

Someday, maybe soon--depending on where you live, where you go, and the size of your credit card--you won't have to worry about paying attention on the road. You'll have a robot to do that for you. Until then, sorry to say, you'll have to keep your brain, eyes, hands, and feet in line and on the job. This is clearly a problem, because, according a recent study, approximately everybody looks at their phone when they should be looking at the road. We've seen all sorts of efforts to end distracted driving in recent years: cars that spy on their human occupants, anti-distraction apps, legislation, sliding into your DMs.

UK drivers are some of the most resistant to the emergence of the autonomous car, a survey conducted across 11 major European nations has found. Japanese car maker Mazda polled 11,008 motorists in the UK, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland to gauge opinions on the arrival of driverless vehicles. Less than a third of the 1,002 UK motorists surveyed said they welcomed the advent of self-driving cars - the lowest of all the countries questioned - and were most in favour of still being able to drive an autonomous vehicle even when they become mainstream. Which European countries are most unhappy about the arrival of self-driving cars? Just about every mainstream car maker is currently looking to ramp up driverless car development in preparation for the coming years, but they may find the British market the most difficult to crack when trying to tempt motorists to let go of the steering wheel for good.

More than a century after the dawn of the automobile age, cars are a young person's game again. Sure, the grey-haired bigwigs have started to catch on to the big trends--electricity, automation, connectedness--but if this week's news is any indication, it's the youth leading the charge. From the 22-year-old laser genius to the self-driving pioneer who fell from grace to the college kids rethinking America's favorite ride, the kids have had a wild seven days. Let's get you caught up. If you've followed the world of self-driving cars in the past decade chances are you've heard of Anthony Levandowski.

Under this Mazda3 is a next-gen platform/powertrain. But future models will still be DIY-drives, says the company. The talk of the motor industry at the moment is the inevitable march towards autonomous cars. How much can cars do, how fast can we get make them do it? Make that most of the motor industry.

Self-driving cars feel like they should provide a nice juicy target for hackers. After all, a normal car has a driver with their hands on the wheel and feet on the pedals. Common sense suggeststhis provides a modicum of protection against a car takeover which a self-driving car, or even one with just the sort of assisted driving features already found on the road today, lacks. But that's the wrong way round, says Craig Smith, a security researcher and car hacker. "One interesting thing about fully self-driving cars is they're unintentionally more secure, which is really not what you would expect at all." Alongside his day job as the head of transportation research at security firm Rapid7, Smith runs the Car Hacking Village at Defcon, the world's largest hacking convention, in Las Vegas.

NAGOYA – Toyota Motor Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. are set to form a capital alliance to boost joint development of electric vehicles, sources close to the matter said Friday. Japan's largest carmaker is mulling taking a roughly 5 percent stake in Mazda, while Mazda may also invest in Toyota, the sources said. The two automakers are expected to announce the plan later in the day. Toyota is scheduled to release its earnings results for the April-June period on Friday afternoon. Global carmakers are facing growing costs to comply with stricter emission and other environmental regulations.