November 19, 2020
Flemish public transport company, De Lijn, will not continue with an urban autonomous transport project. The Board of Directors of De Lijn ratified a decision on Wednesday. According to De Lijn, it appears that the market for autonomous transport has not reached the technological development previously announced in recent years. De Lijn’s decision not to […]
November 18, 2020
The Mini brand is presenting the Vision Urbanaut, an all-new interpretation of a vision of space. This digital vision vehicle offers a lot of interior space and versatility but still on a minimal footprint. “The Mini brand has always stood for ‘Clever Use of Space’. In the Mini Vision Urbanaut, we extend private space far […]
November 12, 2020
Today, Honda cars can legally drive autonomous (Level 3) on Japanese roads. Honda is planning to launch a Honda Legend for sale with the newly approved automatic driving equipment (called ‘Traffic Jam Pilot’) in the coming months. Honda Motor Cy. Ltd. has received the required type designation for Level 3 automated driving from the Japanese […]
November 12, 2020
A farming tractor performing – all alone – tasks like collecting boxes with harvested fruit or hay bales, plowing a field, and sowing. Faster than we’ll see fully autonomous cars on the roads, it’s the future of farming starting today, as shown by Flanders Make with its autonomous tractor. The standard tractor, retrofitted with the […]
October 30, 2020
German car and truck builder Daimler is putting Google’s Waymo in the driver(less) seat of its American Freightliner Cascadia truck to send it on the road autonomously. Both companies announced this week a “broad, global strategic partnership” to deploy Level 4 autonomous driving for heavy trucks, meaning no driver is needed under certain conditions. “The […]
October 20, 2020
In the third quarter of this year, Tesla has delivered a record number of 139 300 cars, more than the most optimistic analysts had forecasted. On the other hand, unsatisfied Dutch Tesla owners have started a foundation called Stichting Tesla Claim to start a class action against Tesla. They claim that the car’s quality is […]
October 15, 2020
From 2023 onward, the Flemish transport company De Lijn wanted to transport passengers with an autonomous shuttle on a few fixed routes in Antwerp, Leuven, Mechelen, and Genk. But De Lijn is about to call off the ambitious project because it is too complex and expensive. On Wednesday, De Lijn did not want to confirm […]
October 09, 2020
Google/Alphabet daugther Waymo is starting in Phoenix to expand its ride-hailing service to the general public without a human driver behind the wheel. So far, there was always a driver to intervene when needed, except for a small group of early riders under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). From Thursday on, more regular Waymo One clients […]
September 03, 2020
Olli, the self-driving shuttle of American ‘ground mobility company’ Local Motors, made its Belgian debut at the Maria Middelares hospital in Ghent on Wednesday. It’s going to transport visitors between the bus and tram stop and the hospital over a distance of 600 m, with an accompanying driver ‘just in case’, for the time being. […]
August 12, 2020
Car manufacturer Hyundai and Aptiv, the autonomous driving offshoot of automotive supplier Delphi (ex-GM) have baptized their self-driving joint venture ‘Motional’. They promise on-road tests with Level 4 ‘fully driverless systems’ starting this year, and ‘available for robotaxi providers and fleet operators in 2022’. The 50/50 joint venture itself was announced in March of this […]
August 07, 2020
Dutch security researchers have succeeded in manipulating several smart traffic lights. By mimicking the signal of users of a special app, the hackers create a virtual cyclist who pushes the wait button remotely, thus allowing them to get the green light without being near the traffic lights. The hackers announced their findings on Thursday, at […]
August 06, 2020
Anthony Levandowski is sentenced to 18 months in jail for stealing business-sensitive documents when he moved from Waymo to competitor Uber in 2016. Levandowski was the brain and driving force behind Waymo, the Google company that develops autonomous cars. Levandowski took thousands of ‘top secret’ computer files with him from Waymo to Uber. “This is […]
July 28, 2020
The use of robot trucks on a new automated ‘container highway’ is turning the Port of Rotterdam labor relations upside down. The Rotterdam port manager considers them a new milestone to a ‘smart port’, while the unions see them as a threat to future employment. Container highway The port manager is investing 175 million euros […]
July 27, 2020
The Flemish Waterway wants to create the possibility to have unmanned ships on the Flemish waterways by 2030. The agency is to invest 150 million euros in the project. Challenges The Flemish Waterway manages the more than 1 000 kilometers of navigable waterways in Flanders. Two years ago, the agency was founded as a fusion […]
July 24, 2020
Alphabet’s (Google) autonomous driving branch, Waymo, has tightened the four-year-old bonds with Italo-American carmaker Fiat-Chrysler to implement the self-driving technology to the full product portfolio in the future, starting with ‘robot delivery vans’. And that theoretically includes all French-German PSA car brands too, after the intended merger into ‘Stellantis‘. Waymo is using an extensive fleet […]
July 22, 2020
With the Covid-19 health crisis and the economic crisis that will follow, experts not only foresee a 20% fall for the automotive sector in 2020, they also anticipate a reduction in fully autonomous driving technology development. According to them, priorities are revised and investments are directed to the electric car. “There is an obvious process […]
July 10, 2020
According to Elon Musk, fully autonomous driving in any circumstances without a driver required – so-called SAE Level 5 driving – is “very close”. He’s confident Tesla will have the basics ready “before the end of the year” and with the current hardware of the Teslas. It’s merely a matter of software and addressing a […]
July 08, 2020
The smartphone in your pocket warning connected cars ‘Watch out, I’m here’ even when still out of sight. It’s the basic idea for the app ‘!Important’, Canadian Bastien Beauchamp developed. It sends the car your GPS location and eventually could tell it to slow down or to brake automatically. Beauchamp, CEO of the Berkeley-based (CA) […]
June 26, 2020
This week, some sixty nations have consented with binding United Nations Regulations on autonomous driving (at low speeds). In specific conditions, the driver no longer needs to keep his eyes on the road (Level 3). It’s seen as a ‘milestone’ in creating uniform legislation on further autonomous driving. The new UN Regulation, which will enter […]
June 23, 2020
Good, reliable software is paramount. That’s now also very clear for the largest car manufacturer in the world, the VW Group. And that’s why a new entity within the group will create a VW OS, a home-developed operating system for all VW products. Not only governments are scrutinizing the GAFA companies. Many companies are worried […]
June 22, 2020
BMW Group has announced that it will cut 6 000 jobs from the 126 000 it employs worldwide. It hopes to do this with several measures but avoiding direct dismissals. Until now, BMW was suffering less from the corona crisis than other car manufacturers. During the first quarter of this year, turnover went even higher […]
June 15, 2020
How is the car business waking up after the corona confinement? Belgian newspaper L’Echo asked Stéphane Sertang, CEO of the car dealer group Ginion, how he sees things. Ginion Group covers a certain amount of (usually premium or high-end luxury) brands. There is Mini, BMW, and Volvo, but also Ferrari, Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, McLaren, Pininfarina, or […]
June 03, 2020
Volkswagen invests $2,6 billion in the start-up Argo AI, which could already count on investments from Ford. The company specializes in the development of autonomous technology for vehicles. VW and Ford now jointly control Argo AI. VW’s investment is part of a broader alliance between the German brand and Ford. The two manufacturers will jointly […]
May 18, 2020
American carmaker General Motors is cutting 160 of the 2 000 jobs at its self-driving division Cruise. “It’s a measure of extreme precaution,” GM’s CEO, Mary Barra, said last week at an online conference. The job cuts nevertheless come as a surprise, as according to Reuters, Barra declared just a week before that “the automaker’s […]
May 07, 2020
Swedish carmaker Volvo is aiming to offer in the XC90 from 2022 on Level 4 fully autonomous driving on highways without the need for the driver’s attention. Key is affordable LiDAR technology from Florida-based tech start-up Luminar, in which Volvo did ‘a strategic investment’ back in 2018. LiDAR, an acronym for ‘light detection and ranging‘ […]
March 12, 2020
Flemish Minister of Economy and Innovation, Hilde Crevits (Cd&V), has decided to attribute 7,3 million euros from the European Fund for Regional Development (Europees Fonds voor Regionale Ontwikkeling, EFRO), to three Flemish projects. Manufacturing economy The major part of the budget – 5,2 million euros – goes to a campus for the manufacturing economy in […]
March 09, 2020
At the canceled Geneva show, Renault was ready to show the Morphoz concept car. As the name suggests, the vehicle can change according to the needs of its passengers. It’s Renault’s vision on personal and shared mobility for 2025 and beyond. Morphoz sits on Renault’s future, a modular electric platform CMF-EV that will be used […]
February 21, 2020
Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors Corporation announced the development of a Connected Shift System based on Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Both are the most important members of the South Korean-based Hyundai Motors group. The Connected Shift System can predict the oncoming road and traffic conditions and act on the shifting pattern of the […]
February 20, 2020
As a part of its ‘Destination Zero’ mission, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) showed Project Vector, a concept car that wants to integrate into smart city infrastructures of the future. Project Vector wants to be an advanced, flexible, multifunctional electric vehicle platform, ready to drive autonomously when needed. The idea is to be of service for […]
February 19, 2020
The Leuven start-up, IVEX, raises €1,2 million in capital. It will use this to invest in its safety control software for autonomous cars. The company’s technology validates the chosen path of autonomous cars. The investors are PMV, Noshaq, Marc Jacobs, The Faktory, and SPDG. The latter is the holding company of the Périer-D’Ieteren family. It […]
February 18, 2020
It is still not clear when and if autonomous cars will come on the market. Last year alone, thirty companies invested $16 billion in the technology, with no prospect of a launch date. Consumers are also critical. Executives at General Motors, Google subsidiary Waymo, Toyota, and Honda predicted a few years ago that their company […]
February 10, 2020
For ten years now, Dutchman Adrian van Hooydonk leads the design department of the German premium car manufacturer BMW. He thinks the whole car sector is now ‘in a perfect storm’. “In our industry, everything is turned upside down.” “We have electrification, we have autonomous cars coming, and everything has to be done at the […]
January 24, 2020
Four out of ten Belgians see no benefit at all in fully autonomous cars, according to a survey conducted by Vias among 1.000 people. This is a slight increase compared to 2017, which, according to the traffic institute, is due to the over-mediatization of accidents in the United States involving autonomous cars. Believers and non-believers […]
January 24, 2020
Brussels Minister for Employment and Digital Transition, Bernard Clerfayt (DéFi), pleads in favor of the development of a 5G test zone in the Belgian capital city. In addition to preparing Brussels for the future, including self-driving mobility, this test aims at studying the impact of 5G waves exposure. The development of the fifth generation of […]
January 23, 2020
At the Las Vegas CES, German carmaker group BMW presented its vision of the self-driving car of tomorrow. The concept EASE helps the driver to get around by monitoring his eyes and analyzing its surroundings. BMW also declared that the future iNext generation cars to be launched in 2021 will be equipped with 5G to […]
January 21, 2020
Autonomous shuttles and robot taxis are supposed to replace the car and other transport with a safer and more intelligent form of mobility. However, while their development has been going on for a few years, questions about usage, economic models, public acceptability, and real-world safety remain. For years, humans have been dreaming of tomorrow’s mobility. […]
January 21, 2020
Klaus Kaldemorgen from the DWS investment fund thinks that there is a bright future for the automobile, but not really for the current car industry. According to him, the digital data and logistics companies will be the first to benefit from the changes. “The car is not dead, it’s just rejuvenating,” says Kaldemorgen. “The car […]
January 14, 2020
The MR’s president, Georges-Louis Bouchez, surprised more than one citizen when he declared that Belgium should become the leader in autonomous vehicle technologies and the first country to fully allow self-driving cars on the road. The young new head of the party wishes to broaden the political debate to new topics. On Sunday, during the […]
January 10, 2020
Besides the excitement of the past few years about autonomous driving, experts and industrial companies have now realized that the revolution will happen in stages. Robotaxis and shared self-driving vans should lead the way and clear the path for future driverless vehicles. This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas was not short of […]
January 06, 2020
For the Belgian company XenomatiX, participating in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas will be a significant start of an extraordinary year. As a Louvain spin-off of Imec, the company produces the so-called lidar sensors. Multi-beam approach Thanks to XenomatiX’ multi-beam approach – using several laser pulses at the same time – they […]
January 02, 2020
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can break through if it consumes fewer data and can make connections like humans. That’s what Mieke De Ketelaere says in the weekly magazine Trends. De Ketelaere has been working with artificial intelligence for more than twenty years. Since May, she has been drawing up the strategy for artificial intelligence at IMEC. […]
December 27, 2017
The Netherlands will start tests with autonomous trains as from the beginning of 2018. The Dutch railroad company ProRail collaborates with several transporters and manufacturers. There will be several test routes: the Betuwe, a rail route for the transport of goods, the port of Rotterdam, the railroad in Groningen (Arriva), the Schiphol tunnel and maybe […]
December 27, 2017
Flemish Minister of Innovation Philippe Muyters (N-VA) is investing 3 million euro in sensors along the Anwerp Ring and the E313 highway for the self-driving car testing project starting in 2019. “Complete bullshit, outdated and unnecessary today”, says Mark Pecqueur, professor at the Thomas More technical school and expert in the matter. EU Concorda project […]
December 26, 2017
It never snows in Silicon Valley and this worries the engineers of Waymo and Uber among others, pioneers of autonomous vehicles: they do not have enough experience of how a self-driving car responds to whirling snowflakes. It sees it as hard objects you have to brake for. Light detection and ranging The sensors of those […]
November 21, 2017
Uber, worldwide operating transportation technology company, has ordered 24.000 Volvo XC90s with the Swedish-Chinese car manufacturer for its future autonomous driving fleet. The cars will be build on the Volvo’s SPA platform (Scalable Product Architecture) for bigger cars like the XC90 SUV and will be delivered between 2019 and 2021. Volvo didn’t say how many […]
November 20, 2017
London is preparing for the first level 4 autonomous cars – where human driver attention is no longer needed – on British roads by 2021. This is one of the elements of the financial budget that will be presented on Wednesday by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Minister of Finance) Philip Hammond. The budget foresees […]
October 30, 2017
According to American real estate experts Justin Thompson and Garth Bostic the autonomous car can tempt people in the future to flee the city and move back to the green countryside, while traffic jams around the city will still remain and parking spaces in the city will become obsolete. The Los Angeles based experts asked […]
October 25, 2017
Ex-GM daughter and one of the worlds major automotive suppliers Delphi buys the nuTonomy start-up created by MIT researchers for 400 million dollars. nuTonomy will reinforce Delphi as the most important provider of autonomous technologies. On Tuesday, Delphi announced that it would acquire the American start-up nuTonomy. The company’s 100 employees, of which 70 are […]
