Ford Motor Co will develop 13 new hybrid and electric vehicles by 2020, announcing on Thursday plans to invest $4.5 billion in the programme that aims to make 40% of the company’s fleet electric or hybrid, up form 13% today.
Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields also said the company will attempt to compete in the ride hailing industry, with the likes of Uber.
Uber Technologies is looking to raise as much as $2.1 billion in a financing round that would value the car-booking company at $62.5 billion, said people familiar with the matter. Uber has filed paperwork in Delaware detailing the fundraising plans, said the people, who asked not to be named because the plans are private.
The new funding shows Uber is accelerating its race to expand globally and branch into services beyond picking up and dropping off riders. The company has tested food and package delivery in some cities, and is working on new technology, such as self-driving cars. Uber is spending aggressively to expand throughout Asia, particularly in China, where the company expects to spend $1 billion, according to a June letter to investors from Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick.
The rise of Uber has convinced many pundits, economists, and policymakers that freelancing via digital platforms is becoming increasingly important to Americans’ livelihood. It has also promoted the idea that new technology—particularly the explosion of platforms enabling the gig economy—will fundamentally alter the future of work.
Checking an aircraft for damage can be arduous and meticulous work, but last week’s issue of The Economist highlights an experimental commercial approach. In simple terms, the Remote Intelligent Survey Equipment for Radiation (RISER) drone is a quadcopter with LIDAR and forms the basis for a system to use lasers to automatically detect damage to airliners.
Google self-driving cars have hit the road in Austin, Tex., the first time the project’s testing program has expanded beyond the streets around its hometown in California.
Google said late Monday one of the company’s Lexus RX450h SUVs has been cruising around a few square miles north and northeast of downtown Austin for a few weeks. The car, outfitted with cameras and sensors, is creating a detailed map of the streets, lane markers, traffic signals, curb heights, “keep clear” zones, and other information that helps the driverless software understand where the car is in the world.
In recent days, the software and sensors have started doing the driving after being guided by drivers, Google said. Two safety drivers will be in the car to take over if needed and provide feedback to Google engineers about how the car is behaving, suggesting things like smoother cornering.
Since the self-driving car project began in 2009, Google has mostly tested the technology in Mountain View, Calif., near its headquarters. The company has taken cars to other places like Austin and Washington D.C. in the past to give demos for a day or two.
Tesla Motors is one of several automakers planning to put a self-driving car on sale sometime in the next few years, and it already seems to have at least one big fan.
This person isn't a celebrity owner or safety advocate, but rather the CEO of preeminent ride-sharing company Uber.
If Tesla can build a fully-autonomous car by 2020, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick says his company would it. In fact, he'd buy every one Tesla builds.
Uber faces an ever-growing cast of adversaries that includes dubious regulators, litigious drivers, hostile members of the press, and some well-funded rivals. But the most significant threat to the app-based transportation company may be much closer to home: one of its biggest investors, Google.
Google Ventures, the search giant's venture capital arm, invested $258 million in Uber in August 2013. It was Google Ventures' largest investment deal ever, and the company put more money into Uber's next funding round less than a year later. Back then, it was easy for observers to imagine Google teaming closely with Uber, or even one day acquiring it. David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, joined the Uber board of directors in 2013 and has served on it ever since.
Now there are signs that the companies are more likely to be ferocious competitors than allies. Google is preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, most likely in conjunction with its long-in-development driverless car project. Drummond has informed Uber's board of this possibility, according to a person close to the Uber board, and Uber executives have seen screenshots of what appears to be a Google ride-sharing app that is currently being used by Google employees. This person, who requested not to be named because the talks are private, said the Uber board is now weighing whether to ask Drummond to resign his position as an Uber board member.
Uber is also teaming up with Carnegie Mellon University for a research facility in Pittsburgh, Pa., to develop its own autonomous vehicle technology, the company announced on Monday.
As part of its second-quarter earnings announcement today, local transportation and delivery giant Uber announced its biggest bet on autonomous vehicles yet, saying it would purchase 2,500 driverless cars from Google. In addition, the two companies have agreed to a deal in which Uber will share data from its local transportation services with Google, which will use it to further improve its own autonomous car-routing algorithms.
Uber has committed to invest up to $375 million for a fleet of Google’s GX3200 vehicles, which are the company’s third generation of autonomous driving cars, but the first to be approved for commercial use in the U.S. The deal marks the largest single capital investment that Uber has made to date, and is also the first enterprise deal that Google has struck for its new line of driverless vehicles.
