There's a new partnership in the autonomous vehicle game as Ford has announced it will be teaming up with Chinese internet company Baidu to work on autonomous vehicles, with testing set to begin in Beijing by the end of the year. The initiative hopes to achieve SAE L4 (a classification that measures level of human involvement) autonomous standards, meaning that vehicles can run autonomously within specific areas and under the correct weather conditions, within the next two years. And on the roads of Beijing, Ford will be joined by Mercedes-Benz, which too got approval to test cars in the capital city earlier this summer. Because of the immense cost of creating this new technology, many companies have partnered up to split costs. These partnerships include GM and Honda with Cruise; Toyota, Aisin Seiki and Denso and Volkswagen and Mobileye.

Didi joins a list of established and young technology and automotive companies that are allowed to test drive autonomous vehicles on California roads with a safety driver present. Didi opened its main U.S. research facility in Mountain View, Calif., last year to focus on developing artificial intelligence, including for autonomous driving. The approval from the California state regulator is the company's first license for testing on public roads in the U.S. "We have been testing our vehicles in closed internal environment for a while," Didi Senior Communications Director Liang Sun said in an email. The company is still finalizing its plans to begin U.S. road trials but said it would be done in a "prudent and safety-first" manner. Uber Technologies Inc. let its own permit lapse in California at the end of March after one of its self-driving vehicles struck and killed a pedestrian crossing a street in Arizona.

The California DMV has just updated the list of companies that can test self-driving technologies in the state, and there's one notable addition: Samsung Electronics. In a statement, a company spokesperson confirmed that it's participating in California's Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program. However, he clarified that the Korean conglomerate still has "no plans to enter the car-manufacturing business." Samsung will instead continue to develop sensors that use its AI and deep learning software, as well as other components for autonomous vehicles. Samsung first got a permit to test self-driving technologies in its home country earlier this year.

LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics have been long-time rivals when it comes to manufacturing appliances, smartphones and other devices, and now it looks like the two will once again butt heads in the self-driving car market. Apparently, LG has just been granted permission to test its autonomous cars on public roads, suggesting that it will soon be ready to compete against what Samsung has been developing. This Wednesday, LG exclusively disclosed to English language South Korean news site Korea Herald that it received permission to use its self-driving cars on public roads in its home country early this month. "We received the approval to test self-driving from the government on July 7 after applying for permission in May," an LG official said. LG's venture into the self-driving car market is seen as a move that would help it grow despite the slowing sales of its smartphones.

There's a lot of reasons for the folks at Lyft to be happy, and not all of them involve schadenfreude about what's going down across the street. The ride-sharing company recently scored a further $600 million in investment, $25 million of which came from Jaguar Land Rover. But it wasn't just cash that the automaker is supplying: it's also handing over a fleet of vehicles to help the pair test autonomous vehicles. The money's actually coming from InMotion, Jaguar's "mobility services business," which will help the pair partner on autonomous research. As a sweetener, Lyft drivers will get some sweet rides, although it's not clear what sort of Jaguars and Land Rover vehicles will be available. The fact that JLR is a premium car maker and Lyft has just launched its own alternative to Uber Black might be useful information, too.

California will soon have yet another company's self-driving vehicles navigating its roadways. The Department of Motor Vehicles granted Apple an autonomous vehicle testing permit on Friday, enabling the company to use public roadways in its autonomous systems experiments. Apple isn't the first company to employ California's transportation infrastructure as a giant R&D lab. Alphabet, Tesla and Uber (after some cajoling) have already applied for, and been granted, similar permits. This news comes as California is warming to the idea of being a high-tech testbed.

It's no secret, Apple has been working hard on a self-driving car. Today, the California DMV has released an updated list of companies allowed to test autonomous vehicles on the roads of California. The last name of the long list is Apple. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to see an Apple car on the road tomorrow. But it means that the company can start real-world tests at some point in the future. In particular, it's going to be interesting to see if Apple is going to use third-party cars with its own technology and sensors.

Uber Technologies' autonomous cars could be returning to California soon after state authorities permitted the company to test the vehicles. The ride-hailing company is now listed by the California Department of Motor Vehicles as one of over 20 companies, including Waymo, Tesla and Baidu, that have been issued autonomous vehicle testing permits as of Wednesday. The resumption of the tests that were stopped abruptly in December over Uber's refusal to take a permit from the DMV reflects a significant change of stand by the company, which had argued that its vehicles did not need the permit as the rules apply to cars that can drive without someone controlling or monitoring them. "For us, it's still early days and our cars are not yet ready to drive without a person monitoring them," Uber said in a post at the time. Having started testing its self-driving cars with ride-hailing customers in Pittsburgh in September, Uber decided by December to test the vehicles in San Francisco.

Ford is showing more signs of a serious commitment to autonomous driving and the future of transportation. The automaker announced Tuesday that it will begin testing a fully autonomous vehicle in California in 2016. It recently received a permit from the state's DMV to test a Ford Fusion. Ford has already been testing on public roads in Michigan, as well as at MCity, the University of Michigan facility developed for testing autonomous vehicles. It conducts trials at its proving ground in Arizona, too.