The Innovation Report
Upshift Offers Fractional Car Subscriptions
There are many new models of car use and ownership being explored. Upshift is a San Francisco startup offering what it calls fractional car subscription — a type of car-share, though they don’t call it that. Customers pay a fee to have a car for 8 days per month, for...
Observing Group-Living Animals With Drones And Computer Vision
A drone is flying over a herd of plains zebras in central Kenya. It is flying quite high so that the animals are not bothered by it. These zebras are really interesting for collective and spatial behavior studies, according to the researchers Ben Koger and Blair...
Apple AV Drivers Grow To Over 200 With One ‘Collision’ Since January
Apple is continuing its autonomous vehicle testing in California with the latest data showing it has added more drivers. The new report shows more than 200 people authorized to support the operation of its 67-vehicle test fleet with one very minor collision happening...
WGA Would Allow Artificial Intelligence in Scriptwriting
The Writers Guild of America has proposed allowing artificial intelligence to write scripts, as long as it does not affect writers’ credits or residuals. The guild had previously indicated that it would propose regulating the use of AI in the writing...
Ohio Autonomous Vehicle Project Deploys Vans, Trucks On Rural Roads
In the race to implement autonomous vehicles, Ohio’s rural roadways have become the latest testing ground. In March, the state’s smart mobility initiative, DriveOhio, deployed autonomous vehicles on active roadways in southeastern Ohio for the first time....
MIT Researchers Closer To Perfecting Self-Repairing Robot Bees
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are one step closer to perfecting the artificial aerial critters. In a paper published March 15, a group of researchers at MIT showed that using resilient muscle-like actuators and self-repairing...
Falling Lithium Prices Making Electric Cars More Affordable
Lithium, the common ingredient in almost all electric-car batteries, has become so precious that it is often called white gold. But something surprising has happened recently: The metal’s price has fallen, helping to make electric vehicles more affordable. Since...
Surrey To Install Thousands Of EV Chargers
Thousands of charging points are to be rolled out across Surrey in a bid to encourage the use of electric vehicles. A total of 10,000 devices will be installed at 1,500 locations across the county by 2030. The government has set a target of 300,000 public chargers...
New Electric Airplane Takes Off Like Conventional Planes
The days of the internal combustion engine may be numbered as electric vehicles continue to proliferate, but airplanes and their polluting engines are going to be harder to replace. A startup called Beta Technologies is one of several making progress toward fully...
Biden Commits Additional $2.5 B EV Charging Infrastructure
The Biden administration is committing $2.5 billion over five years to increase the number of EV charging stations. The new Charging and Fueling Infrastructure (CFI) Discretionary Grant Program introduced through the U.S. Department of Transportation will...
