Toyota’s latest third space concept car wants to be your friend
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Cars are evolving, they’re no longer modes of transportation, they’re lounges and homes on wheels, and Toyota’s Yui wants to be your friend. Toyota recently revealed a new concept vehicle with a virtual companion named Yui built in and while, in the past a...
Hyperloop One announces first test run of its propulsion system in Las Vegas desert
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The Hyperloop is a train capable of Mach speed and this is the first time its propulsion system will be put through its paces Hyperloop One, the company behind trying to bring Elon Musk’s fabled Mach 1.0, or 760mph “train in a tube” Hyperloop,...
The hyperloop could be coming to India
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF High speed infrastructure has long been shown to boost economic development and growth, and there’s no faster way to connect cities than by using a Hyperloop India is a country that’s on the ascent but for all its promise much of the country is...
Airbus unveils PopUp, the sky taxi of the future
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future of mobility is still going to be multi-modal but nothing says we have to stay on the ground. None of us like sitting in a traffic jam and watching the taxi meter rise, or the world pass us by, but now an...
Hyperloop One have built the world’s first Hyperloop test track
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Four years after Elon Musk first gave the Hyperloop concept to the world Hyperloop One have just finished building the world’s first test track The Hyperloop concept, a futuristic transportation system that speeds passengers seated inside pods through low pressure tubes at blistering speeds of...
China vows to replace 67,000 taxis with electric vehicles
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many cities around the world, including London, are struggling with high pollution levels which affect the health of their citizens, Beijing’s new mandate will help alleviate it. Many people think that taxis are a bane, and depending on where you live many of them...
Uber’s self-driving cars, not their drivers, ran red lights in San Francisco
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The race to stay ahead can sometimes lead companies to do strange things but technology still has its limits Last December, a self-driving Uber was caught on camera running a red light in San Francisco, shortly after the vehicles began testing on the roads –...
Dubai buys 200 self-driving Teslas to complete the world’s first autonomous transportation network
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Dubai’s government have now got everything they need to create the world’s first, full end to end autonomous transportation network A little over a year ago Dubai Future’s Foundation and Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) announced they were committed to seeing at least...
World’s first flying taxi service will start operations in Dubai this summer
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Dubai wants to be the most futuristic city on Earth so it’s no surprise it’s going to be the first with a flying taxi service. On Monday the emirate’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), who’ve already announced that they’re going to be the first...
Musk: Telsa’s first fully autonomous car to appear within six months
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many analysts used to believe that driverless cars were a decade away, but company after company, including Tesla, wants to prove them wrong The majority of people, well, when I say the majority of people what I actually mean, looking at the surveys, is...
An American first as self-driving buses hit the streets of Vegas
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Every time a new self-driving vehicle hits public roads it brings the technology one step closer to being rolled out en masse, and Vegas is leading the charge. Last week residents in Las Vegas became the first in the US to be able to catch...
Nissan’s self-driving cars are coming to London
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The UK and Europe lag behind the US and other countries in trialling autonomous vehicles, but now the UK Government looks like it’s starting to thaw and let manufacturers loose in the cities In the first test of its kind in Europe, next month...
Airbus will test its new “Sky taxi” later this year
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With more people moving into the cities gridlock is becoming the bane of most people’s lives, Airbus and others, including Uber propose taking to the skies but people with vertigo should watch out. Airbus has been eyeing the increasingly interesting, and viable, flying taxi...
Singapore is developing a drone airspace management system
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With our skies due to fill up over the coming decades with more and more drones authorities are in a race to try to find new ways to manage and secure their airspace before disasters happen Over the next decade our skies will be...
China’s Ehang gets serious about autonomous sky taxis, begins tests
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Flying cars and flying taxis’s have been tried before, they’ve been scoffed at, but the investment, regulatory and technology environment is now coming together in their favour, one day you’ll be able to take a ride in one. At Las Vegas’ glitzy Consumer Electronics...
China to spend $500 Billion by 2020 to build new high speed rail links
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many countries believe that having strong infrastructure helps their economies grow and thrive, and China is out investing everyone. The Chinese government plans to expand the country’s high-speed rail network to 18,600 miles by 2020, part of public infrastructure spending aimed at shoring up...
The US Army tests convoys of autonomous trucks in Michigan
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF US military convoys are often seen as soft targets in war zones around the world and that puts US service men and women at risk, autonomous trucks take more soldiers out of the firing line. Late last month the US Army tested its latest driverless...
It begins, Uber unveils its autonomous trucking business
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF New technologies are hitting the roads faster than expected, self-driving trucks which many analysts said were years, if not decades away, now need to re-write those reports and tens of millions of people who rely on the industry need to re-evaluate their futures. A...
Ubers self-driving car fleet quits California and heads to Arizona
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Regulators often get in the way – sometimes rightly – of the testing and adoption of new technologies but companies often find a way round them Silicon Valley is known as the home of tech innovation so it’s no surprise Uber chose San Francisco...
Two self driving Ubers ran red lights in San Francisco
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF While this incident has been put down to human error, allegedly, cyber attacks on fleets of driverless cars could make these sorts of scenes common place unless companies come together to develop new security standards. Ubers self-driving fleet has already run into trouble after...
