Important Innovations

GM Investing in Ride Sharing Source:  GM GM's Cruise Origin Cars are expensive to buy, insure, park, fuel and maintain.  They pour tremendous amounts of pollution into the air, globally on a daily basis.  Personal vehicles have low utilization  rates.  For all of those reasons and more, GM is moving to capitalize on a significant, alternative driving trend for the near future: ride sharing. California Cruising GM's self driving subsidiary Cruise just unveiled its new vehicle Origin in San Francisco.  Origin is a new, ride sharing shuttle that can carry up to six passengers.  It's all-electric, totally autonomous and specifically designed for ride sharing.  For GM, this is a mass production vehicle as they believe the market potential for it is big.  The vehicle has no steering wheel and no pedals.  The vehicle is a new and additional business model for GM.  The company has petitioned US transportation officials for approval to deploy it on US roads. 

Optimus Ride Source:  Optimus Ride Big Trial Deployment at Brooklyn Navy Yar d Boston startup Optimus Ride will run autonomous shuttle vehicles at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to help workers get around the huge facility.  The self-driving shuttle vehicles will be operating by summer and the company hopes to expand beyond that.  Its an autonomous shuttle vehicle debut in NYC. Global Testing of Self-Driving Vehicles Autonomous vehicles are being tested in trial runs globally.  Some regulators, including in the US, have halted some trial projects because of crashes.  US regulators recently halted a driverless school bus trial. Optimum Trial Optimus Ride vehicles will operate up to 25 mph.  And the company intends to increase the number of vehicles at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during the deployment.  Globally there are a number of high profile projects underway.  Examples include Google's Waymo self-driving vehicles for supermarket shoppers in Phoenix.  And in Singapore, there