News Roundup: GM Opens Network to Infotainment App Developers, Lyft Announces Plans for Its Own Self-Driving Car Division in Palo Alto, and More

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Jennifer van der Kleut

A look at major headlines to come out of the driverless and connected car industries over the past week:

GM opens network, allows app developers to test infotainment apps in real vehicle environment

General Motors (GM) has announced a move to make it easier for app developers to test their infotainment apps in a real test vehicle environment. GM announced that it is offering up its next-generation infotainment software development kit-NGI SDK-to the general development community. This will give developers access to GM’s Dev Client, and allow them to test their creations in a real-life test vehicle early in the process, which GM claims is the first time an automaker has done so. Mashable explains, once a developer is ready to make something, “they can download the new SDK, which has been available since January, to build out their app and begin emulating the in-car environment to kick things off.” GM says the open developers network is ready and open for new applicants. Read more from Mashable.

 

Lyft forms autonomous vehicle division in Palo Alto, California

Ride-hailing app Lyft announced it is setting up its own division dedicated to self-driving cars in Palo Alto, California. Reports indicate Lyft will focus on developing its own software network, including a navigation system, with plans to open up the network to the general public, allowing other tech companies and automakers to use the network, and potentially even share data. Industry analysts believe Lyft will likely monetize the program by taking a cut of ride-sharing fees collected by companies using their network. A Lyft spokesperson said a big motivation for the move is to help bring the environmental and safety benefits of autonomous vehicles to the world sooner. Read more from SFGate.

 

Microsoft joins Baidu’s driverless-car alliance, ‘Project Apollo’

Chinese tech giant Baidu and Microsoft have announced that they will be working together on driverless cars. Microsoft has reportedly joined Baidu’s Project Apollo. “Our goal with Apollo is to provide an open and powerful platform to the automotive industry to further the goal of autonomous vehicles,” said the president of Baidu, Zhang Yaqin, in news reports. Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, will reportedly be “instrumental” in the Apollo initiative. As much as 50 other famous firms and automakers, including Ford, Daimler, 13 car manufacturers from China, and many ride-sharing operators, component providers and suppliers have also announced plans to join Project Apollo. Read more from Investor NewsWire.

Image by Lyft

Led by NVIDIA, D20 Leaps to Record High

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In a nearly across the board sweep, nineteen price gainers and one unchanged stock drove the D20 to new heights this week.  The D20 jumped 5.2 percent, closing at a record high of 223.51.  The D20 easily outpaced the Dow, which gained 1 percent and the S&P 500 which added 1.4 percent and closed at 2459.27.

As the D20’s leading price percentage gainer this week, NVIDIA (NVDA) continues to hit new records and stun the market with its meteoric price rise.  Its partnership with Baidu continues to enchant the market causing its price to rise 12.4 percent this week and closing at $164.95 per share.  Because of its staggering share price run, gaining 625 percent since August 2015, NVIDIA is now 24% of the total value of the D20.  This week’s 12.4 percent gain accounted for the more than half of the D20’s 5.2 percent increase.

The lone non-gainer of the week was Nissan (NSANY).  It remained unchanged at $20.23 per share.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

Up and Comers:

Cortica, founded in Israel, is building AI systems based on analysis of how human and animal cortical networks process natural stimuli.   Cortica is now applying those AI methods to “teach” autonomous vehicles with unsupervised learning.

News Roundup: Congress Wants to Bar States From Preempting Federal Driverless Laws, Dutch Startup Amber Generates Big Buzz with Self-Driving Cars, and More

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Here is our roundup of headlines to come out of the driverless vehicle industry this week.

Dutch startup Amber making waves with self-driving cars

Quite a buzz is forming around Dutch mobility startup Amber. The company has positioned itself as strong competition for larger firms like Tesla Motors, Uber, Google’s Waymo and others by announcing plans to add self-driving cars to its on-demand ride service in the Netherlands by mid-2018. Amber was originally the brainchild of students at the Eindhoven University of Technology, which is known for its advanced automotive curriculum. Amber is partnering with five different software companies and research institutes, including Nvidia and Microsoft, that have already developed self-driving software. Automotive consultancy firm Roland Berger recently ranked The Netherlands at the top of its Automotive Disruption Radar. Read more from VentureBeat.

 

Spokesperson: U.S. Congress may introduce bills this week that will bar states from preempting federal driverless laws

A spokesperson for the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Subcommittee said members expect driverless vehicle legislation to be introduced as soon as this week. The legislation could then begin debate on the House floor by next week. Rumors suggest one of the biggest provisions of the legislation would bar individual states from setting their own regulations for driverless vehicles that would preempt federal regulations, and would prevent the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from pre-approving self-driving car technologies. It is also believed the legislation will allow for up to 100,000 vehicles per year per manufacturer to be exempt from from federal motor vehicle safety rules that prevent the sale of self-driving vehicles without human controls. Several auto manufacturers that are working on driverless technology, such as Tesla, Google and General Motors, have long been lobbying Congress to preempt state regulations that they feel limit the progress of the technology, particularly in California. Read more from NewsMax.

 

International survey names Tesla, Waymo, Bosch among ‘most investible’ companies in driverless race

International law firm Gowling WLG and economic research agency Explain the Market conducted a year-long survey of investors, asking them which companies they felt the most confidence investing in when it comes to autonomous vehicle technology. Auto manufacturers Tesla Motors (26%) and BMW (22%) earned the most investors’ votes in their category. Google’s Waymo won the IT firm category by a landslide with 36% of votes. The next closest company in the IT category was Apple with 11%. Among tech brands, Bosch left many others in the dust, earning 54% of investors’ votes. Read more from Information Age.

Image: Amber self-driving car, courtesy of Amber

Tesla Takes a Big Drop Despite Model 3 News, While TomTom Shoots Up

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A 13-percent drop in stock price this past week by Tesla (TSLA) couldn’t hold the Driverless Transportation Weekly Stock Index (D20) back as the D20 gained 1.13 points and closed at 212.39.

Tesla’s $48.39 stock price drop was caused by a variety of factors.  Telsa’s sales growth for its Model S and Model X is beginning to plateau. Its second-quarter production numbers (Model S and Model X only) declined compared to the first quarter and was blamed on a shortfall of battery packs.  The long-awaited Model 3’s planned availability date is still late in July.  All these factors have combined to take a chunk out of Tesla’s valuation.

The rest of the D20 stocks had a fine week with 14 gainers and only six losers including Tesla, pushing the Index up 0.5 percent. It beat the Dow, which gained 0.3 percent, and the S&P 500, which gained 0.1 percent to close at 2,425.18.

On news that it had joined Baidu and at least 50 others in Baidu’s Apollo Driverless project, TomTom’s (TOM2) stock price jumped 4.5 percent to close at €8.78 per share. It was the D20’s largest price-percentage gainer for the week.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

Up-and-Comers:

Baidu, the Chinese search engine giant, has formed a partnership with over 50 auto and computing industry companies to create its Apollo autonomous driving platform.  The platform’s goal is to be to the driverless vehicle market what android is to the smart device industry: an open developer’s platform.  Some of the D20 participants include: Ford (F), Delphi (DLPH), Continental (CTTAY), Daimler (DDAIF), NVDIA (NVDA), and TomTom (TOM2).

Waymo Taps Rental-Car Giant Avis as a New Self-Driving Car Partner, Russia Enters the Driverless Game, and More

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Our roundup of recent news to come out of the driverless, connected-vehicle industries:

U.S. Congress appears to enjoy bipartisan support for driverless vehicle legislation

News outlets are reporting that discussion of driverless vehicle legislation that would propel forward adoption of the technology was received positively in Congress last week, and that there is a chance some bills could be voted on before the end of the month. Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle appear eager to progress the advent of self-driving vehicles, and make it easier for car manufacturers and tech firms like Ford, Tesla Motors, Google’s Waymo and NVIDIA to bring their products into the market through loosening restrictive laws. They also seek to create a level of consistency from state to state, many of which have widely varying laws for self-driving vehicles. Read more from The Motley Fool.

 

Russia moves full speed ahead toward driverless vehicles, will soon debut bus

Russia will not see itself fall behind the west, and has announced it will be debuting a fully autonomous shuttle bus at the upcoming third Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September. The debut ride will be jointly hosted by the companies behind the project — Bakulin Motors Group (BMG) and the Skolkovo innovation center. The bus is called Matryoshka, and can carry 8 to 12 passengers, carry cargo, or be used as a public utility vehicle. The bus is electric and its battery will allow it to travel a distance of up to 80 miles at speeds of up to 18 miles per hour. Passengers can even call the operator via video call from their seats. Russia does not yet have laws allowing for driverless vehicles on public roads, so all testing thus far has been done on closed courses. Read more from RBTH.

 

Waymo enters agreement with Avis Budget Group to manage its fleet of driverless cars in Phoenix

Avis Budget Group, which owns the rental-car brands Avis and Budget, as well as car-sharing company Zipcar, has been tapped by Google’s Waymo to manage its fleet of self-driving cars in Phoenix. The fleet recently started allowing members of the public to test its vehicles in April of this year through its “early rider program.” The program aims to discover where people most want to be able to use self-driving cars, and has been picking up and dropping off passengers for the past few months. As per the deal, Avis will clean the cars and perform regular maintenance and minor repairs as needed. Read more from the Washington Post.

 

Image by Waymo & Avis Budget Group

Lexus: Enjoy Driving While We Still Can?

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The latest commercial from Lexus for its new 2017 Lexus IS luxury sedan has raised some interesting questions among car enthusiasts: Could the thrill of driving be on its way out? Should we take advantage and enjoy it while we still can?

Obviously, that’s the premise of the commercial — that driving the new 2017 Lexus IS is so thrilling, you should savor every moment, while drivers still have the ability or choice to drive. In the last few seconds of the commercial, the car morphs into a self-driving car, and the driver is left to ponder those times when he could enjoy the power of the car’s controls in his hands.

However, one interesting note — the driver’s hair goes from youthful and dark to gray during the morph, suggesting that, while Lexus is all but promising to deliver a self-driving car in the future, it’s not just around the corner — it’s long enough away to age a man considerably.

Image and video by Lexus

Renesas Helps Push D20 to Eighth Straight Gain, New All-Time High

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Though 14 of its stocks fell, a stellar week from big names like Renesas Electronics, NVIDIA, Tesla Motors, Mobileye and Volvo led the D20 Stock Index to a gain for the eighth straight week in a row.

The D20 gained 0.2 percent overall to close the week at a new record high of 215.15.

The D20 outgained the S&P 500, which lost 0.3 percent, but couldn’t quite match the Dow, which rose 0.3 percent and closed at 21271.97.

The D20 is up 22 percent since January 1, while the Dow is up only 7 percent and the S&P 500 has risen 8 percent.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

 

Up-and-Comers:

Lyft not only received $25 million in recent funding from Jaguar Land Rover as a part of a very large $600-million investment round, but it also received a fleet of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles as part of the deal. Lyft is seemingly capitalizing on competitor Uber’s very public missteps.

Tesla Leads the D20 to Seventh Consecutive Weekly Gain

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Nineteen price gainers, led largely by Tesla Motors, and only one loser helped the Driverless Transportation Weekly Stock Index (D20) to a seventh consecutive weekly gain.

The D20 topped the Dow and the S&P again this week by gaining 2.2 percent and closing at 214.80.  The Dow inched up 0.6 percent while the S&P 500 index rose by 1 percent to close at 2439.07.

In the last seven weeks, the D20 has added 14.6 percent to its value while the Dow has gained only 2.7 percent and the S&P 500 only 3.5 percent.

Although Tesla (TSLA) was the leading D20 percentage price gainer at 4.5 percent, the gains were well distributed as six other stocks were also up by more than 3 percent for the week. Tesla’s Elon Musk made headlines this week by quitting Trump’s Economic Council after the U.S. president made the decision to leave the Paris Climate Agreement.

The sole D20 price loser this week was Mobileye (MBLY). It announced first quarter 2017 earnings on June 1 that seemed to spawn some profit-taking. Mobileye lost only $0.02 a share to close the week down 0.03 percent at $61.78.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

 

Up-and-Comers:

Embattled Uber has fired its head of autonomous driving, Anthony Levandowski.  Levandowski helped embroil Uber and Waymo, Google’s driverless unit, in a lawsuit as he was accused of taking thousands of documents as he left Waymo to form Otto, which was later purchased by Uber for more than $700 million.

Uber’s fortunes need a lift, as its troubles continue.  It announced a $708 million loss for the first quarter of 2017 and the resignation of its head of finance, Gautam Gupta, to join another Silicon Valley start-up.

News Roundup: Driverless EZ10 Shuttle Scheduled to Debut in Taiwan This Summer, Industry Predictions From Australia, and More

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Jennifer van der Kleut

The latest driverless transportation headlines from the past week, summed up for you:

Driverless shuttle will launch in Taiwan this summer

A new EZ10 autonomous shuttle is scheduled to launch in Taiwan on various campuses of National Taiwan University (NTU) this summer. The vehicle itself was manufactured by French lightweight automobile manufacturer Ligier, and the self-driving technology is the product of another French company, EasyMile-original developer of the EZ10-together with Taiwanese firm 7Starlake. The shuttle has no back or front and can easily change direction at any point on its route. The shuttle can cruise at up to 20 miles per hour, and can carry up to 12 passengers, six sitting and six standing. It is also equipped to carry handicapped passengers. The shuttle is expected to debut first with a single route at the NTU Shuiyuan Campus in July, and will expand to additional routes later. Read more from Euro Transport Magazine.

 

Australia association insists all cars will be driverless, all highways will have dedicated lanes, within 10 years

One major association in Australia is getting mightly confident about the nation’s progress toward driverless cars. A new report from Roads Australia, one of the biggest associations for the nation’s roads, predicts that all new manufactured cars will be driverless within 10 years, and that all Australian roads will feature dedicated lanes for driverless cars within 5 to 10 years. The report also refers to American ridesharing company Lyft in stating that by the year 2025, it will be cheaper to pay to ride in a driverless car than to own and maintain one’s own vehicle, and that vehicle ownership will be all but nonexistent. While many say they are encouraged by Roads Australia’s report, however, plenty of others are calling it “ambitious” and “unrealistic,” including David McCarthy, an executive from Mercedes Benz in Australia. McCarthy said he is more inclined to believe that increasing levels of driving autonomy will happen over the next many years, but that reaching full autonomy across the board within 10 years is unlikely, in his opinion, not only due to the technology’s progress, but also lags in legislation. Read more from Drive.

 

Uber fires head of its self-driving car division

Presumably yielding to mounting pressure during their court battle with Google’s Waymo, Uber has fired Anthony Levandowski, the head of its self-driving car development division. Levandowski was previously the head of Google’s self-driving division, and Waymo alleges that when he left the company to accept the job with Uber, that he downloaded as many as 14,000 files, many relating to Waymo’s Lidar system, which is the key component to its self-driving car technology. Previously, a judge ordered that Levandowski halt working on any driverless car technology until the lawsuit was settled, but this week, Uber opted instead to fire Levandowski, who is still required to cooperate in the court battle and investigation. Uber has replaced Levandowski with self-driving car engineer Eric Meyhofer. Read more from Bloomberg.

Blackberry Royalty Settlement Helps Stock Rise Again, Bringing D20 to a New High

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With 10 price gainers and 10 price losers this week, one would expect the Driverless Transportation Weekly Stock Index (D20) to take a week off and end its consecutive gain streak, but the D20 defied convention and rose for the sixth straight week. Led by Blackberry once again, the D20 added 2.83 points, or 1.4 percent, to end the week at 210.16, which is a new high.

The Dow and S&P 500 kept pace with the D20 this week as the S&P 500 rose 1.4 percent and the Dow gained 1.3 percent to close over 21,000 at 21,080.28.

For the second week in a row, Blackberry (BBRY) was the leading percentage price gainer, jumping 7 percent to close at $11.11 a share on news that its settlement from a royalty dispute with Qualcomm was significantly higher than originally expected.

This week, Ford Motor Co. (F) shook up the industry by replacing its CEO with the head of its new mobility division.  By losing more than 20 percent of its value, Ford’s stock has had the worst record of any D20 stock since August of 2015, and may finally be getting serious about changes to the 114-year-old enterprise.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

Up-and-Comers:

Innoviz, an Israeli start-up, has announced a solid state after-market LiDAR unit aimed at the prototyping and testing market for automakers and Tier-1 auto parts suppliers. The unit, called InnovizPro, is squarely aimed at the market where driverless car companies are spending near $70,000 a unit for Velodyne LiDAR systems for their prototypes and testing units.