News Roundup: Promising AI for Driverless Cars, Fleet of Driverless Taxis to Hit Singapore, and More

Jennifer van der Kleut

A roundup of headlines from the driverless and connected-car worlds so far this week:

FiveAI’s artificial intelligence system looks promising for autonomous cars

A Britain-based startup working on artificial intelligence (AI) for autonomous cars could prove to be quite the competitor for companies like Tesla and Google. FiveAI has secured millions in venture capital for its system that is “data light” (unlike Google) and requires no human supervision (unlike Tesla). FiveAI’s project will outfit a car with sensors run by a central computer system that is capable of “machine learning,” or applying what it learns from encounters to constantly improve its operations. Read more about FiveAI on Economic Times.

First fleet of driverless cars set to debut in Singapore

A fleet of driverless taxis is set to debut in Singapore next year. The venture is a joint project between Delphi Automotive and the Singapore Land Transit Authority (SLTA). Delphi will reportedly use a fleet of Audi vehicles equipped with automated driving and mapping systems and develop a cloud-based mobility software suite for managing the fleet. Passengers will be be able to hail the driverless taxis, which will reduce transportation costs in the city to less than 90 cents per mile, versus the current cost of around $3-4 per mile. Read more about Singapore’s driverless taxi fleet on E&T Magazine.

Robot shuttle debuts at Japanese shopping mall

The joint project between France’s EasyMile and Japan’s DeNA has finally come to fruition. The “robot” shuttle debuted on Monday. It is planned to go into full operation, shuttling passengers around Japan’s busy Aeon Shopping Mall in Chiba’s Makuhari district, next month. Read more about the shuttle on DriverlessTransportation.com and read about the shuttle’s debut this week on Japan’s Press-TV.