Autonomous

Drone-delivery technology company Flytrex announced it has raised $7.5 million in Series B funding, according to a Jan. 8 press release. This round brings the company’s total to $11 million.

To deliver an electric vehicle that’s cheaper, safer and capable of traveling 500 miles on a single charge, the auto industry needs a breakthrough in battery technology. Easier said than done.

Four years ago, Daimler AG dazzled with a self-driving luxury lounge in Las Vegas. This year the Mercedes-Benz maker is back at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, though with a more utilitarian slant: a bubble-like autonomous shuttle designed to reliably ferry people and goods around town at limited speeds.

Infrastructure and trade loom large for trucking in the year ahead as freight carriers adjust to a slower, but still positive, rate of economic growth in 2019, according to industry experts interviewed by Transport Topics.

The rise of automation has so far had a negligible impact on jobs at a global scale, the World Bank chief economist said, despite common gloomy predictions that humans are set to be replaced by machines.

Tesla Inc. plunged in early trading Jan. 2 after delivering fewer Model 3 sedans than analysts expected in the fourth quarter and cutting prices to partially make up for the federal tax credit that’s been halved in the U.S.

Without a doubt, 2018 was a banner year for trucking and almost every other form of freight transportation. Business investment took off, hiring picked up and freight volume soared with both domestic and international shipments sharing in the bounty.

The nation’s largest grocery chain stepped into the driverless delivery market Dec. 18, bringing milk, eggs and other items to a customer’s home in a vehicle with nobody at the wheel.

Driverless car startup Zoox Inc. became the first company to win approval to transport members of the public in its driverless test vehicles in California, according to a statement from the California Public Utilities Commission.

Uber Technologies Inc., which halted its self-driving car program after the death of a pedestrian in March, resumed testing of self-driving cars on public roads in Pittsburgh on Dec. 20, the company said.