Losing traction while driving at high speed is generally very bad news. Scientists from the Toyota Research Institute and Stanford University have developed a pair of self-driving cars that use artificial intelligence to do it in a controlled fashion—a trick better known as “drifting”—to push the limits of autonomous driving. …
Read More »Some Hydrogen Car Owners Are Still Waiting for the Future to Arrive
Debra Snell thought she did her research. Before she and her husband signed the paperwork on their new red Toyota Mirai last March, they went to a hydrogen fueling station near their home in Grass Valley, California, northeast of Sacramento. There, on two consecutive weekends, they interviewed members of a …
Read More »Toyota's Robots Are Learning to Do Housework—By Copying Humans
As someone who quite enjoys the Zen of tidying up, I was only too happy to grab a dustpan and brush and sweep up some beans spilled on a tabletop while visiting the Toyota Research Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts last year. The chore was more challenging than usual because I …
Read More »EV Mania Hasn't Killed Hunger for Hybrid Trucks
Last year, Ford sold more than 650,000 F-150 pickup trucks, making it the most popular vehicle in the US for the 46th year in a row. Couple that with Americans’ recent thirst for very big cars, and few things say “US of A” like a truck bed and a little …
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