UPDATES REQUIRED
A member of the Forbes Technology Council warns that modern roads may need to be reworked to suit the needs and capabilities of autonomous vehicles. CEO of machine learning company Blyncsy, Mark Pittman says autonomous vehicles could mistake fallen construction barrels or crooked paint lines as warning barriers or exceptionally narrow lanes—uncommon events easily understood by human drivers but absolutely confounding for the average autonomous system. This challenge comes from the current state of autonomous driving, where roads in autonomous-safe areas are manually programmed—meaning, people arrived on-site to scan and survey roads ahead of AV deployment. Going forward, Pittman suggests a future with roads autonomously communicating with autonomous vehicles, guided by increasingly advanced AI—manual surveying may soon be an obsolete approach.
FLAT PACK
A Toronto man alleges that his Tesla battery died under suspicious circumstances after he refused to pay $26,000 for an OEM replacement battery pack. Mario Zelayna said in a TikTok video he uploaded that he was locked out of the car after fluid leaked from the vehicle’s air conditioning system and into the battery, effectively stopping him from accessing the interior of the vehicle. A follow-up video posted the next day showed the vehicle turning online after a prospective buyer boosted the vehicle. Inside, the vehicle’s heads-up display indicated that the battery was flat and required servicing. According to Zelayna, this is one example proving that the vehicle was remotely disabled and claims that the vehicle previously held a charge of 300km. Transport Canada is aware of the incident, but has yet to comment on the ongoing investigation.
FIELD TESTING
Tesla has removed Full-Self Driving (FSD) beta restrictions from Toronto’s downtown core, following complaints among drivers that much of the city’s urban centre is geofenced off by the software. This was confirmed in a tweet by FSD tester Chansoo Byeon who posted a photo of his Tesla driving itself along Toronto’s famously clogged Yonge Street. When the FSD beta was first expanded to Canada in March, much of Toronto’s downtown area was restricted, with Elon Musk explaining that the autonomous system was not ready for one particular city’s iconic streetcars. He said at the time that the software just did not know how to respond to streetcars, given their tendency to perform frequent stops in the middle of the road for passengers to embark and disembark.
FAREWELL FLIGHT
A flying car startup backed by Google co-founder, Larry Page, will wind down operations after 12 years of work to develop an affordable electrical aircraft capable of vertical takeoff. Startup KittyHawk announced on LinkedIn that the company would be shutting its doors, but had yet to work out the details for what’s coming next. While the reasons for closure have not been released, it appears that KittyHawk’s people and technology may continue in a different capacity. Wisk, a joint venture between KittyHawk and Boeing will continue.
