AUTOMOTIVE FIRMS AND THEIR AUTONOMOUS TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS
Pony . ai and Toyota Pony . ai was founded in 2016 by alumni from the Chinese tech company Baidu , and has been testing on public roads in the US and China since 2017 . In February of last year the company announced a $ 400mn investment from Toyota , building on an existing agreement to pilot autonomous cars using Pony . ai ’ s technology and Toyota ’ s vehicles .
General Motors and Cruise Although formed as a startup , Cruise was acquired by American automotive giant General Motors ( GM ) in 2016 . Aside from GM , the majority owner , Cruise ’ s backers include Honda and SoftBank of Japan . In January last year , the company debuted a driverless , allelectric vehicle known as Cruise Origin . In a blog post , the company ’ s CEO Dan Ammann detailed the vision behind the vehicle , saying : “ We wanted to reimagine transportation as if the car had never existed . So , we removed the engine . We removed the driver — who , more often than not , is tired , distracted , frustrated , and rushed . We removed the equipment that ’ s there to support the driver , including the steering wheel , pedals , rearview mirrors , windshield wipers , and cramped seats .”
Mercedes and Nvidia German automotive manufacturer Mercedes-Benz and technology firm NVIDIA are partnering on in-vehicle AI computing infrastructure . The collaboration will involve the use of NVIDIA ’ s DRIVE platform , capable of automated driving from address to address . The companies said that , starting in 2024 , the architecture will be rolled out across next-generation Mercedes-Benz vehicles , allowing them to become upgradeable with new features in the future , and the purchasing of additional features in the present .
41 aimagazine . com