Autonomous

Ford expects 40% of its global sales to be battery-electric vehicles by 2030 as it adds billions to what it’s spending to develop them.

Autonomous vehicle technology developer Aurora Innovation Inc. said it plans to expand testing throughout Texas as it works toward commercializing self-driving trucks.

Rivian Automotive Inc., the electric-vehicle startup backed by Amazon .com Inc., has hired a former finance chief from Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving arm Waymo.

Tesla Inc. updated its website May 25 to announce that Model 3 and Model Y cars built for North America and shipping this month no longer will be equipped with radar.

Self-driving truck technology company Kodiak Robotics Inc. announced a deal with one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates to bring Kodiak Driver to the Asia-Pacific markets.

Automotive historians may look back on May 2021 as a tipping point in the evolution of electric vehicles.

Tesla Inc., whose boss Elon Musk says he can develop a fully self-driving car without using laser-sensor technology, has a contract to use such lidar sensors from Luminar Technologies Inc. for testing and development, according to people familiar with the matter.

Although autonomous trucks are still in their infancy, the continued development and eventual deployment of these vehicles represents a new frontier for the freight transportation business. As this technology advances in the coming years and decades, fleet operators that adopt self-driving trucks will encounter a new management challenge: finding the best ways to combine automation with human labor.

The road to autonomous trucking is long and littered with obstacles, but developers of self-driving systems for commercial vehicles are making clear and tangible progress in their mission to bring this technology to market.

While most developers of Level 4 autonomous truck technology are targeting driverless operation, some see near-term business cases for highly automated, self-driving trucks with a driver still in the vehicle.