Google Inc’s self-driven cars will soon be appearing on Nevada roads after the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) approved on Monday the nation’s first autonomous vehicle license.
The move came after officials rode along on drives on highways, in Carson City neighborhoods and along the Las Vegas Strip, the Nevada DMV said in a statement.
The Nevada legislature last year authorized self-driven cars for the state’s roads, the first such law in the US. That law went into effect on March 1.
Photo: Reuters
Google’s self-driven cars rely on video cameras, radar sensors, lasers and a database of information collected from manually driven cars to help navigate, according to the company.
The DMV licensed a Toyota Prius that Google modified with its experimental driverless technology, developed by Stanford professor and Google vice president Sebastian Thrun.
Google’s self-driving cars have crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and driven along the picturesque Pacific Coast Highway, according to the company.
Autonomous vehicles are the “car of the future,” Nevada DMV director Bruce Breslow said in a statement. The state also has plans to eventually license autonomous vehicles owned by the members of the public, the DMV said.
Legislation to regulate autonomous cars is being considered in other states, including Google’s home state of California.
“The vast majority of vehicle accidents are due to human error. Through the use of computers, sensors and other systems, an autonomous vehicle is capable of analyzing the driving environment more quickly and operating the vehicle more safely,” California state Senator Alex Padilla said in March when he introduced that state’s autonomous car legislation.
Other car companies are also seeking self-driven car licenses in Nevada, the DMV said.
Separately, Toyota Motor Corp unveiled on Monday what it says is the first all-electric sports utility vehicle (SUV) on the market, a version of its popular RAV4 with a top range of 161km and minimum six-hour charge time.
The car will be sold initially only in California with a base price of US$49,800 and the Japanese car company hopes to sell a relatively modest 2,600 units over the next three years.
Toyota Motor Sales USA executive Bob Carter said the company believes the car would “attract sophisticated early technology adopters, much like the first-generation Prius,” Toyota’s pioneering hybrid car launched 15 years ago.
“It’s all about blending the best of two worlds ... The all-new RAV4 EV marries the efficiency of an EV with the versatility of a small SUV — in fact, it is the only all-electric SUV on the market,” he added.
The car, which costs more than twice as much as the gas version of the RAV4 and would have difficulties with out-of-town driving for any distance, may struggle to find a mass appeal.
“It’s designed for consumers who prioritize the environment and appreciate performance,” Carter said, adding that the new car would go on sale later this summer in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego.
“We look forward to seeing how the market responds,” he added, unveiling the car at the 26th annual Electric Vehicle Symposium in Los Angeles.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS