This is the Monarch electric tractor and the company thinks it will help farmers solve a handful of problems all in one neat little package. The company revealed the tractor on Tuesday, with a zero-emissions powertrain, partially automated capabilities and even some wild "deep learning" technology to report back on plant and crop health. In its launch video, embedded above, Monarch underscored that today's farmers face a growing set of problems, from climate change, worker shortages and safety concerns. The company's electric tractor is able to ease at least some of these burdens. Otherwise, the tractor puts out 40 hp.

Yandex is basically the Google of Russia. Russian technology company Yandex has been working on self-driving vehicles since 2017. Similarly, it partnered with American firm Uber to form a ridesharing and food-delivery joint-venture. On Friday, the two companies announced they're spinning the autonomous-vehicle portion of the business off as a separate entity. Once the financial dust settles, the unimaginatively named Yandex Self Driving Group, or SDG, will be directly owned by both businesses, with Yandex holding about 73% of SDG and Uber around 19%.

That's certainly one way to make a logo. Amazon has agreed to acquire autonomy startup Zoox for a sum in excess of $1 billion, according to sources cited by The Information. The news comes hot on the heels of a Wall Street Journal report last month indicating that such talks were taking place. The deal, confirmed in an Amazon blog post, would value Zoox at significantly lower than the $3.2 billion valuation it received during a funding round in 2018. But given the current state of the economy, a seven-digit payout is nothing to sniff at.

More funding for Argo AI, shared costs between Ford and VW. Ford, Volkswagen and Argo AI made it official on Tuesday. VW has made an investment in the self-driving technology company, which charts a course for shared development costs for any autonomous vehicle technologies to come. It's unclear how deep VW reached into its wallet, but a previous report pegged a coming investment at $1.7 billion. At the time, Argo AI was reportedly valued at $4 billion, which would put VW's investment at nearly 50% of its value.

Look at all of that beautiful data. Waymo is calling all intrigued minds to partake in an Open Dataset challenge, and it could result in some cold, hard cash. On Thursday, Alphabet's self-driving car subsidiary added more to its Open Dataset and invited anyone to tackle one of five challenges related to the data. The Open Dataset is a treasure trove of data that Waymo's self-driving car prototypes collect as they log millions of miles on the road. Last year, the company shared the data and let anyone access it for the greater good of scientific progress.

Here's what the satellite created, and it's everything a self-driving car needs from a quick photo. Before anyone believes self-driving cars will be able to storm streets around the world, automakers and companies with interests in automated vehicles need to complete a major task: mapping the world's infrastructure of roads. Until then, it's why we see companies like Waymo and Cruise Automation only carry out tests within certain areas with geo-fenced portions of a city. These roads are what the self-driving car knows exclusively, thanks to HD mapping. But Toyota may be on the verge of a breakthrough when it comes to the daunting task.

Neolix showing its little vans are pretty helpful. When cities are on lockdown and quarantines keep people from going out to do absolutely anything, it quickly makes for a tough situation. Yet, despite the awful consequences of the coronavirus, one Chinese company is showing how technology can make a difference. Neolix, a self-driving delivery vehicle startup in China, has been working overtime to usher more of its autonomous delivery vans onto empty Chinese roads amid quarantines. According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, Chinese companies have booked orders for 200 of the tiny robotic vehicles, including online megaretailers Alibaba and JD.com.

Apple has its eye on self-driving car tech. Interacting with a future self-driving car could be a lot like working with some future interpretation of Apple iOS with voice, gesture and touch-enabled commands at your disposal. It's the overarching view gathered after reading through an Apple patent application filed last August and published last week for a self-driving car voice and gesture guidance system. CEO Tim Cook said in 2017 that Apple was working on an autonomous car system, rather than a car itself, as had been previously rumored. At its core, the system described in the patent application gives passengers three ways to give the autonomous car directions and input, and much of the described system is incredibly similar to commands we're used to today.

The vehicles still drive with a safety driver and a software operator. Optimus Ride, an MIT spinoff, has started operating its autonomous vehicles at Paradise Valley Estates in Fairfield, California. The shuttles, which have been carrying passengers for a couple of months now, follow deployments at the Seaport District in Boston, the Halley Rise mixed-use district in Reston, Virginia, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York, a 300-acre industrial park. At the moment, the vehicles still drive with two people from the company on board, a safety driver and a software operator, but the goal of the company is to be fully driverless later this year. We caught up with the company recently -- check out the video below.

VW expects commercial vehicles will be the first to gain self-driving capabilities. A production ID Buzz Cargo would be a good place to start. On Wednesday at CES, Volkswagen detailed an important new step in the company's march towards self-driving cars: the establishment not just of a new nerve center in Silicon Valley to research and develop the technology, but also the creation of Volkswagen Autonomy, Inc., a subsidiary division to support it. Based out of Belmont, California (about 25 miles south of San Francisco) at VW's preexisting Innovation and Engineering Center California, the new engineering center is expected to result in the hiring of 50 to 100 systems engineering and architecture experts this year. As the new operations grow, Volkswagen Autonomy, Inc. may eventually relocate to a nearby facility or expand the existing space, a company spokesperson tells Roadshow.