Driverless Cars

In addition to supplying lidar for Polestar 3 and its sister model Volvo EX90, the Polestar partnership extends to future cars including the upcoming Polestar 5, and at CES the lidar maker unveiled its new software-based mapping product developed after secretive acquisition of Civil Maps.

Founded in 2017 by two Korean-born technologists who met in Tesla’s cafeteria a year earlier, the company is looking to unlock the potential they saw in early ADAS technology with a full-stack solution to enable a Level 2 ADAS feature set with three core products for vision, sensor fusion, and AI driving.

The company’s lidar design win with SAIC’s Rising Auto adds to many other applications for its long-range AT128 and combined with the short-range FT120 unveiled at CES 2023 forms a complete automotive grade lidar perception solution.

The Drive Pilot system was self-certified in Nevada for conditionally automated driving and will be available in the U.S. on the 2024 S-Class and EQS, with the system adding lidar, a rear-window camera, microphones for detecting emergency vehicles, and road wetness sensor.

The software startup’s top execs talked to Inside Autonomous Vehicles about how their new Hammerhead devkit shown at CES enables its customers to rapidly integrate the company’s game-changing stereo-vision technology for autonomous vehicles and other machines.

The computing efficiency of autonomous vehicles must rise to prevent a major rise in their carbon footprint.

Its ray-tracing capability transforms the realism of simulation, accelerating the development of autonomous vehicles and advanced driving assistance systems by accurately simulating the effects of blurring and rolling shutters.

From its first client, a bakery, Faction aims to expand into other metro areas this year.

The launch of the Polestar 3 and Volvo EX90 electric vehicles represents a significant move by Google up the auto value chain into safety and greater driver assistance, and the map info combined with sensor data, Nvidia core computer system, and Zenseact software will enhance ADAS and AD.

At the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the team made up of autonomy-focused students and faculty from Politecnico di Milano in Italy and the University of Alabama, reached 180 mph—a new speed world record for the IAC on a racetrack, following its November victory at IAC competition in Texas.