Autonomous cargo hauling won't be limited to a handful of trucks and aircraft. As CNNreports, Yara International now expects to sail the first autonomous, fully electric cargo ship in Norway by the end of 2021. The Yara Birkeland will travel from Herøya to Brevik with only three remote control centers keeping watch over the journey.

Yara first developed the concept in 2017 and had planned to set sail in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the trip. It's not the first crewless ship of any kind to venture forth (a Finnish ferry launched in 2018), but it is the first all-electric model.

It's a slow vessel with a 13-knot top speed from its two 900kW propulsion systems (container ships typically travel at 16 to 25 knots), and it's safe to say the giant 7MWh battery will take a while to charge. However, Yara believes it will be worthwhile for the environmental gains. The firm estimated the Yara Birkeland would replace about 40,000 truck trips per year, dramatically reducing CO2 and nitrous oxide emissions in a country that already relies heavily on hydroelectric power. The ship could also alleviate traffic congestion on land, not to mention keep humans out of danger (albeit at the possible expense of jobs).

It may still be a long while before you see autonomous cargo haulers making trips elsewhere. Even if range isn't an issue, docks are — it would be harder for a self-sailing ship to navigate a busy port like Durban or Shanghai. There are also legal issues. Different countries have their own rules for the sea. As with self-driving cars, there's also the matter of liability. Who's to blame if an autonomous ship runs aground? While it's easy to see a day when autonomous electric ships are commonplace, that day likely isn't close at hand.

Lucid is giving prospective owners of its $169,000 luxury electric sedan the choice between two variants. The Air Dream Edition will be available in a "Performance" or "Range" version that ultimately leaves you to decide between speed and real-world driving range. The former promises 1,111 horsepower, which rivals the Tesla Model S Plaid, and can hit 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds.

The Dream Edition Range, meanwhile, will deliver 933 horsepower and take 0.2 seconds longer to go from 0-60 mph. Both have a top speed of 168 mph, cost $169,000 (before factoring in federal tax credits or other incentives) and are expected to ship later this year. You'll be able to identify each variant with the "P" or "R" letter on their respective badges. The company previously revealed that it only planned to build about 500 units of the Dream Edition.

Notably, Lucid is still in the process of confirming the cars' official range with the US Environmental Protection Agency. In real-world tests, the company says a pair of Dream Edition Range models travelled 445 miles on a single charge. The journey saw the cars venture from LA to San Francisco at highway speeds via central California, and then back across the San Francisco Bay to Lucid’s global headquarters. Upon arrival, Lucid claims the the cars displayed 30 miles and 72 miles of charge remaining (for totals of 475 and 517 miles). 

The EV maker is currently reaching out to those who put down $7,500 to reserve the Air Dream Edition to confirm their chosen configuration. Lucid said in June that it had received over 10,000 reservations across all Air models, which — along with the top-of-the-range Dream Edition — includes the base edition, the Air Touring and Air Grand Touring.

Alphabet's fully autonomous driving unit Waymo is ready to offer rides to select passengers in San Francisco, the company announced on Tuesday. Starting later today, residents can sign up to become "Trusted Testers." With an invite to the program, you can use the Waymo One app to take rides in the fleet of Jaguar I-Pace vehicles Waymo will have stationed in the city. 

Waymo describes the Trusted Tester program as a "research-focused" effort designed to help it collect feedback on its ride experience, with an emphasis on gathering information related to accessibility.   

"We kicked off this program last week with a select few and are now expanding the program to all interested San Franciscans," the company said. "We’ll begin with an initial group and welcome more riders in the weeks to come." Much like it did in Arizona, Waymo won't let the cars drive without supervision right off the back. The company will have employees in the cars to ensure its fifth-generation Waymo Driver technology doesn't get lost on San Francisco's tricky one-way streets and hills. The company also told Bloomberg passengers will ride for free.  

The expansion comes after Waymo recently announced CEO John Krafcik was leaving the company to pursue other projects. Some saw Krafcik as being too slow to push the company toward commercialization. 

As parent company GM begins its rollout of EV’s based on the Ultium battery platform, automaker Cadillac is readying its very first electric Caddy, the Lyriq, for production. With a range of over 300 miles, a starting price of $60,000 and all the bells and whistles expected from the brand, the Lyriq could be a surprise hit when it starts landing in dealerships in the first half of 2022.

Cadillac gave us an opportunity to check out the vehicle at a studio in Los Angeles and while we can’t comment on how well it drives, it does look the part. It's a Caddy with some extra bits of flair afforded to an EV including vertical headlights and taillights that are an homage to the automaker’s classic fin era. Reservations for the 2023 Lyriq will open in September. Check the video above for the full story.

Back in November 2020, GM recalled over 68,000 Chevrolet Bolt EVs after five of the vehicles caught fire between 2017 and 2019. Now, the automaker has expanded the recall to cover all Bolt EVs and Bolt EUVs sold worldwide, starting from the first model up until the latest ones. This recall covers 73,000 additional vehicles, 60,000 of which are in the US, on top of the first batch of recalled Bolts. 

Upon investigating the initial incidents, GM found a manufacturing defect in the Bolt's batteries manufactured at an LG Chemical Solution plant in South Korea. That became the basis for the models the automaker included in the first recall. AP reports that GM started investigating the newer Bolts after a 2019 model that wasn't included in the recall last year caught fire in Chandler, Arizona a few weeks ago, bringing the total number of battery-related fire incidents to 10. The company found that batteries made in LG's other sites could also suffer from defects, hence the recall expansion.

GM will replace all five battery modules for models 2017 to 2019, while only defective modules will be replaced in newer vehicles. All fresh modules installed will come with a new eight year, 100,000 mile warranty. Until owners can get their cars in for module replacement, GM is advising them to limit charging to 90 percent of the battery capacity and to park outdoors. (The company previously determined that the vehicles that went up in flames were almost fully charged.) An email sent to owners contained a link to instructions on how to do just that by using the Target Charge Level mode. The automaker is also advising owners to charge their vehicle more frequently to avoid depleting their battery until there's less than 70 miles of remaining range.

This second batch of recalls will cost the company $1 billion in addition to the $800 million it's had to spend for the first one. Further, it remains to be seen how it would affect GM's EV push. In June, the automaker increased its combined EV and self-driving investment from 2020 through 2025 to $35 billion, in hopes that it can have 30 electric vehicles on the market by the end of 2025 and that it can exclusively sell EVs by 2035. For now, the company said it will stop producing and selling Bolts until it determines that there are no longer problems with LG's batteries.

Although other companies that are working on autonomous driving might get more attention, Waymo is still hard at work on the technology. The Alphabet subsidiary just provided an update on its Waymo Driver AI as well as more details about its self-driving tests.

An array of LiDAR, radar and cameras can track what's going on all around the vehicle in a variety of weather conditions, Waymo says. The system generates a 3D view of the vehicle's surroundings that humans would be able to understand. Along with other cars, the system can render pedestrians in addition to cyclists who narrowly pass by the vehicle.

The company says Waymo Driver can detect small objects and movements at a distance, such as a truck door in the middle of traffic and someone jumping out to deliver a package. It claims the AI can recognize steam emanating from utility holes and drive the vehicle through it, and understand the difference between a stop sign and its reflection.

Waymo has been testing its vehicles in San Francisco since 2009 and it ramped up its efforts in the city earlier this year. Its vehicles now clock north of 100,000 miles on SF's roads every week. Between narrow streets, drastic changes in elevation and intersections right at the top of hills, San Francisco isn't an easy city to drive in, which makes it an effective testing ground for AVs.

The company's vehicles have autonomously driven more than 20 million miles on public roads as well as 20 billion miles in simulations. That's a significant bank of data to draw from. Waymo says the AI can recognize and adapt to local driving behaviors, such as what lane to turn in at each intersection. According to the company, Waymo Driver can also mimic other vehicles' behavior, such as in SF, where people tend to drive a little slower while going up steep slopes.

Fully autonomous driving is likely several years away from going mainstream, but it seems Waymo is making significant strides toward that goal. Hopefully, Waymo Driver is getting more comfortable around safety cones.

Elsewhere, Waymo is beefing up its autonomous truck ambitions. On Wednesday, the company announced that it's building a trucking hub in Dallas-Fort Worth and partnering with Ryder to manage its fleet.

Meanwhile, Tesla's AI Day event takes place today. According to an invitation, the company will provide attendees with "an inside look at what’s next for AI at Tesla beyond our vehicle fleet." CEO Elon Musk said there'll be a live stream of the event.

General Motors and AT&T are expanding their partnership with plans to bring 5G to cars within the next few years. Some model year 2024 vehicles, which should start arriving in 2023, will be the first GM models equipped with 5G. Among GM's 2024 models is the electric Hummer SUV. GM vehicles from model year 2019 and later with 4G LTE capabilities will have faster connection speeds via the 5G network too.

The companies are building out a "high-performance 5G core network" with upgraded coverage centered on roadways. GM and AT&T claim the network will enable faster software updates and music and video downloads, as well as more responsive navigation and voice services.

Improved connectivity should benefit autonomous vehicles as well. GM says the 5G network will "provide a strong foundation" for its semi-autonomous Super Cruise tech along with its Vehicle Intelligence Platform. 

Bringing 5G connectivity to cars at a broad level was always on the cards. It'll be a while yet before there's widespread network coverage on highways and in rural areas, so adding 5G to vehicles starting in model year 2024 seems a reasonable timeline. AT&T says its 5G network is currently available in 14,000 cities and towns across the US.

Tesla could face further federal scrutiny over its Autopilot feature. Senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal have called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the company over "misleading advertising and marketing" of the Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems.

"Tesla and [CEO Elon] Musk’s repeated overstatements of their vehicle’s capabilities — despite clear and frequent warnings — demonstrate a deeply concerning disregard for the safety of those on the road and require real accountability," the senators wrote in their letter to FTC chair Lina Khan. "Their claims put Tesla drivers — and all of the travelling public — at risk of serious injury or death." It's not yet clear whether the FTC will heed the senators' call and investigate the company.

Along with several examples of Tesla and Musk seemingly overselling Autopilot and FSD functions, Markey and Blumenthal cited an investigation that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened this week. The agency is looking into a string of collisions between Tesla vehicles and parked emergency vehicles, one of which resulted in someone's death. The NHTSA said the Tesla vehicles in question all had Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control switched on when the crashes occurred.

Despite the name, FSD (for which Tesla charges $10,000 when a car is purchased) doesn't yet make vehicles fully autonomous. FSD, which is in beta, is currently an advanced driver assistance feature that handles maneuvers such as automatic parking, lane changing and summoning the vehicle to a nearby location. It's a Level 2 autonomous driving system, whereas full self-driving capability with no human supervision required is Level 5. Tesla notes on its website that "Autopilot does not turn a Tesla into a self-driving car nor does it make a car autonomous."

Musk has made many claims over the years about Tesla being close to offering fully autonomous capabilities. In a January earnings call, Musk said he was "highly confident the car will be able to drive itself with reliability in excess of human this year." However, a Tesla engineer later suggested the company was a long way off from rolling out Level 5 functionality.

The National Transportation Safety Board previously accused Tesla of overselling Autopilot's capabilities. In May, reports suggested the California Department of Motor Vehicles was looking into Musk's FSD claims. The names of the Autopilot and FSD features have been criticized for potentially leading drivers to overestimate their capabilities. Markey is among those who called on Tesla to change the name of Autopilot.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has initiated an investigation of Tesla's Autopilot system. The probe follows 11 crashes with parked first responder vehicles since 2018, which resulted in 17 injuries and one death.

“Most incidents took place after dark and the crash scenes encountered included scene control measures such as first responder vehicle lights, flares, an illuminated arrow board, and road cones,” the NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) wrote in a document detailing the investigation. “The involved subject vehicles were all confirmed to have been engaged in either Autopilot or Traffic Aware Cruise Control during the approach to the crashes.”

The ODI's preliminary evaluation centers on Autopilot in Models Y, X, S and 3 from model years 2014 to 2021. That covers around 765,000 Tesla electric vehicles, as Bloomberg notes. The incidents in question took place between January 2018 and July of this year, including in Massachusetts, Michigan and Arizona. The ODI also cited three crashes in California.

The Autopilot system keeps the vehicle centered in the lane and maintains speed when it's active in its Operational Design Domain (ODD). It's not yet a full self-driving system, however. Drivers still have principal responsibility for Object and Event Detection and Response (OEDR) — identifying and responding to obstacles, vehicles and "adverse maneuvers" by other drivers.

"The investigation will additionally assess the OEDR by vehicles when engaged in Autopilot mode, and ODD in which the Autopilot mode is functional. The investigation will also include examination of the contributing circumstances for the confirmed crashes" mentioned in the document as well as similar crashes, the ODI wrote.

The NHTSA investigated and cleared Tesla over the first Autopilot-related death in 2016. Since then, the agency has opened dozens of other probes into incidents in which it believes Autopilot was involved. In June, the NHTSA ordered automakers to report incidents involving semi- and fully autonomous driving systems within 24 hours of learning about them.

Earlier this year, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) urged the NHTSA to issue stricter regulations for autonomous driving, citing Tesla in its letter. "Tesla recently released a beta version of its Level 2 Autopilot system, described as having full self-driving capability," NTSB chair Robert Sumwalt wrote. "By releasing the system, Tesla is testing on public roads a highly automated AV technology but with limited oversight or reporting requirements.”

After all the leaks and teases, Lamborghini has finally announced its new hybrid-engine Countach. Thankfully, almost everything you need to know about the car is in its model designation: LPI 800-4. The first part is short for Longitudinale Posteriore Ibrido, referencing how the powertrain is mounted lengthwise toward the back of the supercar and the fact that it's a hybrid. Meanwhile, the two numbers point to the approximately 802 horsepower the Countach's V12 6.5-liter engine and 48-volt electric motor can output together, as well as the fact that it has four-wheel drive.        

Lamborghini

All of that makes for one powerful car. The Countach can accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than three seconds and zero to 124 miles per hour in just under nine seconds. As for a top speed, you can push it to 221 miles per hour, and it has a maximum torque of 531 lb-ft.  

Lamborghini

Powering the Countach's electric motor is a supercapacitor Lamborghini claims delivers three times more power compared to a lithium-ion battery of the same weight. The automaker says it mounted the electric motor directly to the gearbox to preserve the feeling of power transfer you get from a V12 engine.   

Carbon fiber makes up most of the chassis and exterior of the Countach LPI 800-4. "It imagines how the iconic Countach of the 70s and 80s might have evolved into an elite super sports model of this decade," Lamborghini says of the design, which is more reminiscent of the Aventador than its original namesake. Inside, you'll find an 8.4-inch touchscreen display that includes CarPlay integration and a button labeled "Stile." Pressing it "explains the Countach design philosophy to its privileged audience."  

Lamborghini

Speaking of a privileged audience, Lamborghini will only make 112 units of the Countach LPI 800-4. The press release the automaker sent over doesn't even mention a price tag. It seems Lamborghini is keen on looking forward, but the Countach was too important not to acknowledge with a limited run.