Tag: autonomous car

Autonomous car: BlackBerry also joins the race

Lately, the electronics and mobile industries seem to be very interested in the automotive sector. Indeed, after Google and Apple, it’s now BlackBerry’ s turn to express its intention to start designing autonomous cars. A decision that is surprising at first sight, since nothing indicated before that the Canadian company was going to get involved in such a delicate field, that even the two Internet giants (Google and Apple) have abandoned recently.

An investment of 70 million euros

BlackBerry is really willing to pay a huge amount of money for the development of its driverless autonomous car project. The company intends to invest 70 million euros in this project. The sum is certainly not as large as that committed by Google and Apple for their project. However, it is already significant for a company that has just gone through rather dark periods in terms of sales of its mobile devices. The money in question will be allocated to the construction of a research center for the development of autonomous vehicles and the technologies that go with them. Basically, the product that will come out of it will certainly remain the same as the one already developed by the precursors. In other words, we will have a car equipped with sensors that will be able to drive itself.

Ford and Lincoln vehicles for testing

In order to carry out its project, BlackBerry intends to use modified Lincoln and Ford vehicles. Here, the idea is not to radically change these test cars. Rather, it will be a matter of integrating certain hardware and software that will allow them to be autonomous. Work should already be in its early stages at this time and testing should take place soon. As for the latter, BlackBerry has already obtained authorization from the Ontario government to test these future products on public roads. It is therefore clear that the course will be easy for the Canadian group. However, like all those who had passed before him, there will also be difficulties along the way. At least, let’s hope that it will be able to surpass them and that we will soon see a BlackBerry autonomous car on the market.

Google would have abandoned its autonomous car project

Many players have been involved in autonomous car manufacturing projects for a few years now. Among those who have been the most talked about, we will mention first Google and its Google Car and also Apple and its Titan project. If the latter has recently abandoned his project, it seems that the firm of Mountain View has also followed its path. Indeed, if we are to believe the information shared by the newspaper The Information, Google would have the intention to put an end to its autonomous car project in order to launch another project.

A new business of autonomous cabs?

Google has been focusing on its autonomous car project for several years and has spent a lot of money on it. However, the results do not seem to be up to his expectations. This would have led the Mountain View giant to turn to other projects that would be less expensive and more lucrative. More precisely, we are talking about an autonomous cab business. Indeed, The Information reported that Larry Page, the CEO of Google, would now intend to create a fleet of self-driving cabs for the year 2017. These would be developed in collaboration with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and, as their name clearly indicates, they will be able to drive themselves, without the help of a driver.

An arrival on the roads for 2018

Although the Google Car project has been abandoned, the years the firm spent on its design and development will not be lost. On the contrary, all the technologies that have been developed on this occasion will be assembled in a database for a shared project. As mentioned above, they will be used in the autonomous cab project that the Silicon Valley giant is currently designing and preparing. At the moment, there is not enough information available regarding the evolution of this project. However, these autonomous cabs would be in the process of being manufactured in the Google factory located in Detroit. In particular, their arrival is planned for the year 2018, but nothing is certain yet.

!

Ads

Bloqueur de pub détecté !

Hélas, la survie de ce site dépends des publicités affichées dessus. Veuillez désactiver temporairement votre bloqueur de publicité pour accéder au site.
Merci infiniment de votre compréhension 😇