Waymo

Turning heads as they cruise past office buildings and malls, driverless taxis are slowly spreading through Chinese cities, prompting both wariness and wonder.

China's tech companies and automakers have poured billions of dollars into self-driving technology in recent years in an effort to catch industry leaders in the United States.

GM subsidiary Cruise on has said it plans to get its self-driving cars back on the road without human drivers after suspending robotaxi service late last year due to safety concerns.

Vehicles driven by humans are out gathering mapping data in the Arizona city of Phoenix, which has been amenable to testing of autonomous cars deployed by Cruise and Google's Waymo.

Apple has abandoned its ambitions to produce an electric car, U.S. media reported Tuesday, ending a struggling decade-long project.

The iPhone maker had dedicated nearly 2,000 employees to its secretive car development program, Bloomberg reported, but faced an increasingly competitive electric vehicle (EV) sector.

California authorities have taken a major step forward in expanding driverless taxi services in San Francisco, giving the green light for operators Waymo and Cruise to compete with ride-share services and cabs.

Uber and Google's autonomous vehicle unit Waymo said they are joining forces to get driverless trucks hauling cargo on roads across the United States.    

Due to the vast distances between American cities and with truck transport key to the economy, companies see self-driving as a way to cut costs and reduce risk.    

California regulators on Thursday gave a robotic taxi service the green light to begin charging passengers for driverless rides in San Francisco, a first in a state where dozens of companies have been trying to train vehicles to steer themselves on increasingly congested roads.

A former Google engineer has been accused of stealing trade secrets from the company, which he then sold to Uber, the Associated Press reported.

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.

Uber suspended all of its self-driving testing on March 19 after what is believed to be the first fatal pedestrian crash involving the vehicles.