This summer, a Vancouver car mechanic named Max got a perplexing ping on his phone: Betty White was in Ukraine and needed his help. This was surprising because she had died on a Canadian highway back in January. When Max last saw Betty White, his nickname for his Tesla Model …
Read More »Sweden’s Tesla Blockade Is Spreading
Swedish workers are uniting against Tesla. From tomorrow, cleaners will stop cleaning Tesla showrooms, electricians won’t fix the company’s charging points, and dockworkers will refuse to unload Tesla cargo at all Swedish ports. What started as a strike by Tesla mechanics is spreading, in something Swedish unions describe as an …
Read More »The I-10 Freeway Fire May Have Been Fueled by Exploding Hand Sanitizer
Shortly after a massive fire under the Interstate 10 freeway in downtown Los Angeles last weekend closed a 1-mile stretch normally traversed by 300,000 vehicles daily, California’s fire marshal announced that it was being investigated as possible arson. Some locals have been eager to blame the homeless encampments that are …
Read More »GM’s Cruise Rethinks Its Robotaxi Strategy After Admitting a Software Fault in Gruesome Crash
In August 2016, WIRED visited the San Francisco offices of a young startup recently snapped up by a surprising buyer. General Motors acquired three-year-old Cruise for a reported $1 billion in hopes the straitlaced Detroit automaker could coopt the self-driving technology tipped to disrupt the auto industry. Cruise CEO Kyle …
Read More »Swedish Ports Threaten to Block Teslas From Entering the Country
Dock workers in Sweden are threatening to block deliveries of new Teslas entering the country, in the most serious labor dispute the company has faced in Europe to date. Teslas arrive into Sweden via four ports, Malmö, Gothenburg, Trelleborg, and Södertälje, according to the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union, which represents …
Read More »GM’s Cruise Halts All US Robotaxi Service After Suspension for Pedestrian Who Was Dragged
Cruise, the self-driving arm of General Motors, said late today it had halted its robotaxi service across the US and would no longer operate its vehicles without safety drivers behind the wheel. That decision to hit the brakes comes two days after California regulators suspended the driverless-car company’s permit in …
Read More »GM’s Cruise Loses Its Self-Driving License in San Francisco After a Robotaxi Dragged a Person
California has suspended driverless vehicles operated by the General Motors subsidiary Cruise in the city of San Francisco—just two months after the state began allowing the robotaxis to pick up paying passengers around the clock. The suspension stems from a gruesome incident on October 2 in which a human-driven vehicle …
Read More »Amazon’s AI-Powered Van Inspections Give It a Powerful New Data Feed
Amazon is splashing out on new vehicle inspectors to watch for damage or wear to its vast fleet of delivery vans—and they’re not human. The retailer is installing camera-studded inspection stations equipped with artificial intelligence-powered technology called AVI, or automated vehicle inspection, at hundreds of its distribution centers worldwide. When …
Read More »Remote Driving Is a Sneaky Shortcut to the Robotaxi
On the busy streets of suburban Berlin, just south of Tempelhofer Feld, a white Kia is skillfully navigating double-parked cars, roadworks, cyclists, and pedestrians. Dan, the driver, strikes up a conversation with his passengers, remarking on the changing traffic lights and the sound of an ambulance screaming past in the …
Read More »Inside the Race to Crush Paris’ Bedbug Crisis
A cute little beagle with big smiley eyes … how could you not fall in love with Watson? But the residents of my Parisian building were terrified when they saw him enter. Watson is not like any other dog. He’s trained to detect the tiny insects that have been all …
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