Autonomous cars

Jaguar Land Rover is to supply up to 20,000 of its new electric I-Pace cars to Waymo, a subsidiary of Google owner Alphabet,to be converted into self-driving vehicles for its ride-hailing service.

Arizona officials saw opportunity when Uber and other companies began testing driverless cars a few years ago. Promising to keep oversight light, they invited the companies to test their robotic vehicles on the state's roads.

A Turkish engineer has designed a driverless electric car that has broken a speed record in the United States, making him one of the leading individuals in the technology sector.

Four years ago, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn set an aggressive goal by saying the company would produce self-driving cars by 2020. In retrospect, Ghosn might have been underselling Nissan's technological chops, as it just announced public trials of robo-taxis to commence next year.

The self-driving taxi service is called Easy Ride, and the trials will be conducted in Yokohama, Japan.

Nissan said on Dec. 5 that it would begin field tests for driverless “robot taxis” early next year as its rivals around the world step up self-driving technologies.

General Motors aims to launch a public ride-sharing service across several cities that uses fully self-driving cars by 2019, potentially becoming the first traditional carmaker to deploy autonomous technology at scale in the real world.

Alphabet Inc's Google said on Feb. 29 it bears "some responsibility" after one of its self-driving cars struck a municipal bus in a minor crash earlier this month.