Autonomous

A new North Carolina law allows the operators of publicly available electric car charging stations to make drivers pay for how much electricity they get when they charge their car batteries.

Manual transmissions in Class 8 trucks once reigned among fleets and seasoned drivers, but they now represent a minority that is rapidly shrinking.

Loadsmart and Starsky Robotics said the companies have automatically dispatched an autonomous truck to haul freight.

Amazon said Aug. 6 that its six-wheeled self-driving robots, about the size of a smaller cooler, will begin delivering packages to customers in Irvine, Calif., after testing them in a suburb of Seattle earlier this year.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are extending the public comment period meant to gather input on automated driving systems.

The U.S. Department of Transportation under the Trump administration has devoted significant resources to the transformative arena of autonomous vehicle technology, a former DOT official said at the Brookings Institution on July 25.

General Motors Co.’s self-driving unit is backing off plans to deploy robotaxis by the end of this year, the latest indication of how auto and tech companies are struggling with the challenges of taking humans out from behind the wheel.

Lyft is making research data on self-driving technology available to the public in a bid to accelerate the development of robotic cars, which is seen as critical to the ride-hailing giant’s future viability.

Apple Inc. has hired Steve MacManus, at least the third Tesla Inc. engineering executive to join the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology giant in the past year.