Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety urged FCC action on revised rules for radars in the 60 GHz band, the subject of an NPRM last summer (see 2110180062), in a call with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Advocates reiterated its support for expanding operational flexibility to enable the introduction of technology into motor vehicles to address the issue of hyperthermia deaths..., in particular children who have unknowingly been left in or entered vehicles without adult supervision,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 21-264. They “noted that radar-based occupant presence detection systems may be necessary for the safety of occupants when autonomous vehicles (AVs) are introduced to the fleet. Advocates foresees the need for AVs to be able to identify seat occupancy and restraint use so that all occupants are safely restrained before initiating any movements.”

Tesla lost about a month of “build volume” in its Shanghai factory due to COVID-19 shutdowns, said Chief Financial Officer Zachary Kirkhorn on a Q1 earnings call Wednesday: “Production is resuming at limited levels, and we’re working to get back to full production as quickly as possible.” CEO Elon Musk said that of all the technology development he has ever been involved in, he has never seen more “false dawns” than in the effort to commercialize “full self-driving,” where it seems “like we’re going to break through, but we don’t.” For anyone to “solve” full self-driving, “you actually have to solve real-world artificial intelligence, which nobody has solved,” he said. “We have to solve neural nets and cameras to a degree of capability that is on par with or really exceeds humans, and I think we will achieve that this year.” Musk offered few new details about the “dedicated robotaxi” it’s developing in Texas, except to say it will be “highly optimized for autonomy, meaning it would not have a steering wheel or pedals.” Tesla doesn’t want to “jump the gun on an exciting product announcement,” he said. “We’ll aim to do a product event for robotaxi next year and get into more detail, but we are aiming for volume production in 2024.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology plans a virtual workshop March 8-9 on the development of standards and performance metrics for on-road autonomous vehicles, said Thursday's Federal Register. The event starts at 9 a.m. EST. "On-road autonomous vehicles are projected to influence key aspects of everyday life including transportation, goods delivery, manufacturing, public safety, and security," said the notice. "However, autonomous vehicles can pose a risk in the event of unexpected system performance."

Intel hasn't decided on the conditions, pricing and timing of a mid-2022 initial public offering to take Mobileye public through newly issued stock, said the chip maker Monday. Intel will remain Mobileye’s majority owner after the IPO is complete, it said. Intel expects Mobileye to deliver 40% or more of revenue growth this year on 41 new “program wins” with 30 global automotive OEMs, it said. “We see a lot of value creation over the next four or five years for Mobileye from being part of the Intel asset,” CEO Pat Gelsinger told a Credit Suisse investor conference last week. Intel bought Mobileye in 2017 for $15.3 billion in an all-cash transaction under then-CEO Brian Krzanich (see 1708010051).

Public education is not keeping pace with technological advances in the auto industry, leaving consumers woefully ignorant about fully automated self-driving vehicles, reported J.D. Power Tuesday. It canvassed 4,000 U.S. vehicle owners in June and July, finding “a significant gap” between “actual and perceived” knowledge about autonomous vehicles, it said. Nearly a fifth of respondents incorrectly believe fully automated self-driving vehicles currently are available for purchase or lease, said the company.

Paris-based Valeo announced its third-generation scanning lidar technology for market debut in 2024, saying it will deliver new levels of road safety due to improved range, resolution and frame rate. The lidar reconstructs a 3D real-time image of the vehicle's surroundings at a rate of 4.5 million pixels and 25 frames per second, Valeo said. Resolution is 12 times that of the previous generation with range three times improved and viewing angle more than doubled, it said. The new lidar can see things that humans, cameras and radars can’t, the company said, enabling driving to be “delegated to the vehicle in many situations” including on the highway at speeds of up to more than 80 mph. The scanning lidar adapts to all light conditions and measures the density of raindrops to calculate the proper braking distance, said the company. It tracks nearby vehicles outside the driver's line of sight and uses algorithms to anticipate their trajectories and trigger necessary safety maneuvers, it said.

Calling it a “revolutionary breakthrough” for the autonomous trucking industry, Gatik CEO Gautam Narang said Monday a demonstration of deliveries for Walmart via a driverless truck route in Arkansas is “not a one-time demonstration.” Walmart orders in the retailer’s Bentonville, Arkansas, home base are being moved between a Walmart dark store and a Neighborhood Market via an autonomous truck, the first time Walmart has removed the safety driver from a commercial delivery route “on the middle mile,” said the companies Monday. Narang said the “frequent, revenue-generating, daily runs” are being completed in a range of operating conditions on public roads, “demonstrating the commercial and technical advantages of fully driverless operations on the middle mile.” Gatik’s fully driverless operations, which began in August, include repeated delivery runs multiple times a day, seven days a week on public roads, resulting in “increased speed and responsiveness when fulfilling e-commerce orders, increased asset utilization and enhanced safety for all road users,” said the companies. The autonomous box trucks are an “efficient, safe and sustainable” solution for transporting goods “on repeatable routes” between stores, said Tom Ward, Walmart’s senior vice president-last mile.

Walmart’s first U.S. “multi-city autonomous delivery collaboration” will offer “last mile” service using Ford self-driving test vehicles equipped with the Argo AI self-driving system to deliver Walmart orders to consumers in Austin, Miami and Washington, said the companies Wednesday. The service will be available to Walmart customers “within defined service areas” of the three markets and will expand over time, they said. “Initial integration testing” will begin later this year, they said: “As consumer expectations continue to shift to next-day or same-day delivery -- especially in the urban core where there is a higher concentration of deliveries -- this collaboration will drive key learnings in how autonomous technology can enhance customer experiences, while also optimizing logistics and operations.”

The FTC should investigate Tesla’s “misleading advertising and marketing” of its self-driving features, Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., wrote Chair Lina Khan Wednesday. “Tesla’s marketing has repeatedly overstated the capabilities of its vehicles, and these statements increasingly pose a threat to motorists and other users of the road,” they wrote. No fully self-driving vehicles are on the market, but the company titled a 2019 YouTube video “Full Self-Driving,” they wrote, citing other examples. The company didn’t comment. The FTC confirmed receiving the letter.

AEye is working with Nvidia to bring adaptive sensing to Nvidia’s Drive autonomous vehicle platform, it said Friday. AEye’s iDAR keeps transmit and receive channels separate, enabling parallel processing and deterministic AI to be introduced into the sensing process at the point of object acquisition and detection, it said. The company's software developer kit and visualizer will allow developers to configure the sensor and view data sets on the platform, it said.