Nuro already has a third driverless delivery vehicle on the way, and this model is focused as much on protecting others as it is hauling goods. The newly introduced version, simply called Nuro, includes a host of 360-degree sensors including cameras, LiDAR, radar and thermals, but also includes a giant external airbag to protect pedestrians. We still wouldn't risk stepping in front of this machine (you'll still hit the ground, after all), but this should reduce the chances of a serious injury.

The new vehicle also carries twice the cargo, and offers both temperature-controlled compartments and modular inserts to help shuttle a wider variety of goods. Nuro didn't say when this latest self-driving vehicle would be ready, but the North American branch of China's BYD will help produce units at a Nuro factory due to go online later in 2022. Kroger (an investor in Nuro) has already committed to using this latest hardware.

Nuro

The upgrade might be necessary. Nuro already has deals and tests with major brands like 7-Eleven, CVS, FedEx and Kroger, but it's facing stiffer competition from Walmart, Uber and automakers like Ford. The firm risks losing business if would-be customers either need larger payloads or are worried about liability in the event of a collision.

GM has reversed course on its emissions policy, saying it now recognizes California's authority to set its own vehicle pollution standards, TechCrunch as reported. Previously, the automaker backed efforts by the former Trump administration to force the state to abandon its own standards in favor of federal emissions policies. However, it began to reverse course shortly after Biden was elected president, pulling out of the Trump administration's lawsuit against the state. 

As the most populous state with the strictest rules, California generally sets the emissions agenda for automakers and other states. Back in 2018, however, the Trump administration challenged California's ability to set its own rules independently from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Volkswagen, BMW, Ford and Honda agreed to work with California on voluntary targets, but GM, along with Fiat Chrysler and Toyota, sided with the Trump administration. 

"[GM] is committed to emissions reductions that are aligned with the California Air Resources Board's targets and... complying with California's regulations," GM VP Omar Vargas wrote in a letter to California governor Gavin Newsom. 

Because of its past decision to side with the Trump administration, GM was banned by California in 2019 for government fleet purchases. "Carmakers that have chosen to be on the wrong side of history will be on the losing end of California’s buying power," Newsom said at the time. Now, the state will allow GM to become a supplier, with Newsom welcoming the company to its "clean vehicle revolution." 

After defeating Trump, President Joe Biden announced a plan to accelerate a transition to EVs in order to combat global warming. GM followed those political winds, renouncing the earlier lawsuit and accelerating its own EV plans. The company now says it will stop selling ICE vehicles by 2040 and will spend $35 billion to develop EVs and self-driving cars by 2025. The company recently unveiled an electric version of its Silverado pickup designed to fight Ford's F-150 Lightning that's proved to be a hit with buyers.

Ford is swamped with F-150 Lightning orders, and it's taking special steps to make sure the electric pickup truck reaches honest-to-goodness buyers. Roadshowreports Ford is now giving dealerships the option to ban customers from reselling the Lightning for up to a year after purchase. As the (since-pulled) document on the F-150 Gen 14 forums revealed, the dealer could "seek injunctive relief" to block the ownership transfer or even demand payment for "all value" generated from the sale.

The automaker is also cracking down on a "limited number" of dealers that allegedly violated sales and service terms by forcing customers to make additional payments beyond those Ford requires. It's not clear just what those payments were, although this suggests they were more than the markups you frequently see when cars are scarce or in high demand.

This no-resale clause isn't new to the automotive world. Ford used it to ensure its GT supercar reached real owners. However, it's still rare for EVs — particularly for relatively mainstream vehicles like the F-150 Lighting. This reflects the popularity of the Lightning, of course, but it might also be vital to Ford. Scalping has hurt access to many other tech products, such as game consoles and video cards — Ford likely doesn't want those opportunists to sour the launch of such an important vehicle, particularly with Chevy, Rivian and Tesla chasing after many of the same customers.

Radar might soon find its way into more personal technology than Google's phones and smart speakers. 9to5Googlenotes Google, Ford and four other partners have published specs for a Ripple standard that could bring small radar to more devices in a "privacy-respecting" fashion. The framework, hosted by the Consumer Technology Association, theoretically lets any device maker use small-scale radar for tasks ranging from existing uses like touch-free gesture control and health monitoring through to exercise tracking and even occupancy detection in buildings.

The early details are currently available through GitHub, with a focus on interoperability between radar types. Developers will initially have to add special use cases through extensions, but the Ripple team hopes to build those add-ons into later versions of the standard.

The involvement of Google and Ford is logical. Both have already used radar in shipping products like the Nest Hub or Ford's Co-Pilot 360 driver assists. The more industry-wide support there is for radar, the more customers are likely to seek it out in the companies' products. Still, it might be genuinely useful if radar becomes more than a rare-but-inessential bonus feature.

Many ride hailing drivers won't have to mount their phones in the near future. Google is partnering with Lyft and Kakao Mobility to bring their driver apps to Android Auto sometime this summer. If you work for either service, you'll accept and navigate rides directly from your car's touchscreen. This won't help you much if you're a passenger, of course, but it will give drivers a much clearer view of the route ahead.

It should be much easier to use wireless Android Auto if you are driving. Motorola is releasing a $90 MA1 adapter on January 30th that enables wire-free use on cars where Android Auto is already available.

The additions come alongside other car-related integrations unveiled at CES, such as starting and unlocking BMW cars, UWB car door access from your pocket and key sharing. Google Assistant car control and YouTube are also coming to compatible cars from Volvo and others. While it will take months for all of Google's plans to unfold, it's evident Android is about to play a more important role in vehicles — whether or not you're at the wheel.

Follow all of the latest news from CES 2022 right here!

Volvo will debut “Ride Pilot,” its take on a Tesla-like autonomous driving feature, in California, the automaker announced on Wednesday during CES 2022. Once it’s approved for use on highways, Volvo says it will offer Ride Pilot as a paid subscription add-on for a new electric SUV it plans to reveal later this year. It will later bring the feature to other markets globally.

The company worked with Zenseact and LiDAR developer Luminar to create Ride Pilot, and it’s currently testing the feature in Sweden. As you might guess from Luminar’s involvement, Ride Pilot will utilize LiDAR technology, an approach that puts Volvo at odds with Tesla. CEO Elon Musk famously called a “crutch” during a 2018 earnings call. According to Volvo, Ride Pilot will utilize a Luminar LiDAR sensor complemented by eight cameras, 16 ultrasonic sensors and five radars to enable the software to judge depth. In combination

“When we say self-driving, we mean self-driving. So this will be a feature or function where the car is actually responsible for the driving so you will not need to keep your hands on the steering wheel and you will not need to keep your eyes off the road,” said Martin Kristensson, head of AD and mobility at Volvo.

Developing...

Follow all of the latest news from CES 2022 right here!

Volvo says it will be the first automaker to offer direct integration with Google Home in its cars. You'll be able to control certain functions remotely via Google Assistant. You might tell your phone to lock the doors or ask a smart speaker to start warming up your car as you're getting ready to leave home.

Two-factor authentication is needed for "more sensitive commands," like unlocking the doors. You can also learn info related to your car through Google Assistant.

More features will be added later, such as the option to schedule charging. Volvo will roll out Google Home integration in the coming months. To use it, you'll need an Android-powered infotainment system that's connected to the Volvo Cars app and a Google Assistant-enabled device.

It's not the first time we've seen integration with connected home platforms in cars. GM and BMW owners can control smart home devices from vehicles with built-in Alexa, while Samsung and Google brought a SmartThings dashboard to some models with Android Auto. Still, Google Home is one of the more prominent connected home platforms around. If you have a smart speaker with Google Assistant enabled, these features might come in useful.

In addition, YouTube will be the first video streaming service on Volvo's infotainment system. You'll be able to download the app from the Play Store. The automaker offers unlimited data in certain markets, so you might be able to watch as many videos as you like without worrying about busting your data allowance.

For safety reasons, you'll only be able to watch YouTube videos on the screen when the car's stationary. That will ensure Volvo avoids the kind of controversy Tesla was embroiled in recently, when it emerged that games were playable on the infotainment system while a car was moving. The company said it would disable that option after the NHTSA said it was looking into the matter.

Other apps that Volvo owners will soon be able to download to their infotainment system include navigation apps Sygic and Flitsmeister; charging apps ChargePoint and Plugshare; and parking services SpotHero and ParkWhiz.

Earlier this week, Volvo announced it will use Qualcomm's car chipsets to power the infotainment systems in Polestar 3 and its upcoming electric EV. The automaker claims Snapdragon Cockpit Platforms will make the systems more responsive and more than twice as fast.

Volvo will use Qualcomm's Snapdragon Cockpit Platforms to beef up the infotainment systems in some of its upcoming models. Both the Polestar 3 and an electric SUV will harness the chipsets.

According to the automaker, Qualcomm partnership will bolster its Android Automotive-based infotainment system by making it more responsive and more than twice as fast. The chipset is said to be able to handle the graphics, audio and AI needs of an infotainment system with very low power consumption. Volvo notes that it'll be able to roll out over-the-air updates that should bring more improvements to the system in the future.

Ford is making new efforts to double production capacity of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup to 150,000 vehicles per year, the company announced. That follows news from December that it capped pre-orders at 200,000 units, with CEO Jim Farley saying "we are completely oversubscribed with our battery electric vehicles." In addition, the company will start inviting the first group of reservation holders to place orders for the F-150 Lightning starting on Thursday, January 6th. 

To boost production, Ford said it created a small task force of employees from "manufacturing, purchasing, strategy, product development, and capacity planning" to find ways to accelerate production. It's also working with key suppliers "to find ways to increase capacity of electric vehicle parts, including battery cells, battery trays and electric drive systems," the company said in a press release.

The company noted that the F-150 Lightning is now in the the final pre-build phase before moving into mass production for retail and commercial customers, with deliveries starting this spring. The aim is to test production vehicles over a million miles or so in real-world customer conditions. 

Ford

On the order side, Ford said it's using a wave-by-wave reservation process, asking pre-order holders to watch for an invitation via email or check their Ford.com account. The automaker indicated that later pre-order holders might have to wait for vehicles from the following model year. (Ford also noted that over 75 percent of reservation holders were new to the brand.) 

Deliveries of the 2022 F-150 Lightning pickup will begin in spring of 2022 with a starting MSRP of $39,974 before any available tax incentives. However, some reports indicate that some dealers may be dinging customers up to $30,000 extra to be among the first to receive their vehicles. 

Ford recently announced that it would triple production of the Mustang Mach-E to reach 200,000 units per year by 2023, with plans to have the "global capacity to produce 600,000 BEVs annually." To do that, it's building what it calls its "most advanced, most efficient auto production facility in its 118-year history in Tennessee," along with three battery plants built in collaboration with SK Innovation. All of that represents a total $11.4 billion investment with 11,000 new jobs created.

The F-150 Lightning is eligible for a full $7,500 US BEV tax credit as of today (along with any state subsidies), but Ford is expected to hit its 200,000 vehicle eligibility limit later this year. At that point, the credit will gradually be phased out unless new legislation is passed that would change the rules. 

Tesla's sales success in 2021 continued right to the very end of the year. The company has revealed that it delivered 936,172 electric cars in 2021, about 308,600 of them in the fourth quarter. While that isn't the magic 1 million figure the company might have hoped for, it's close — and nearly double the 499,550 Tesla handed to customers in 2020.

The year gone by wasn't stellar for the Model S and Model X. Deliveries of those higher-end vehicles dropped by more than half in 2021, from 57,039 cars to 24,964. That wasn't a complete shock, though, as many customers wanted to (or had to) wait for S and X revamps that weren't slated to ship until spring, including the high-performance Plaid variants.

The delivery numbers are significant given chip shortages that have plagued the automotive industry and even led Tesla to ship some cars without USB ports. The company is also poised to keep growing between the planned Cybertruck launch in 2022 and new factories in the Austin and the Berlin areas.

This trajectory isn't guaranteed, however. Tesla had a mixed 2021 that included product delays (including the Cybertruck and Semi), gradual price hikes and a string of recalls, including one in December that targeted half a million vehicles with camera and trunk flaws. There are concerns Tesla's growing reputation for build quality issues could weigh the company down. That's also excluding competitive threats — Tesla will have to fend off Ford's F-150 Lightning, the Cadillac Lyriq, the Mercedes EQA and other EVs from big-name rivals. Elon Musk's outfit is in a good position given its existing performance, but the market could change quickly.