Top 3 must read automotive articles from this week
- Andrew Chilcott
- Feb 26, 2017
- 2 min read
Here is the best of what’s been happening in automotive this week:
1. Mercedes-Benz X-Class concept ute spotted in Australia for the first time
The Mercedes-Benz X-Class concept ute was spotted in Australia for the first time this week but this model is only for promotional use with the real-deal Benz one-tonner coming in 2018.
The Concept unit has been flown from Germany so dealers can get a detailed briefing about the vehicle and continue their preparation for a successful launch of the X-Class in 2018.
2. Google’s self-driving car unit - Waymo, is suing a subsidiary of UBER for allegedly stealing highly confidential LiDAR technology.
Waymo, formerly Google’s self-driving car unit, is suing Otto — the self-driving trucking company co-founded by former Waymo employee Anthony Levandowski and quickly acquired by Uber — for allegedly stealing the company’s proprietary design for its laser-based radar system.
According to Waymo, before Levandowski left Google, he downloaded 14,000 “highly confidential” files to an external hard drive, including the design for the company’s LiDAR circuit board.
3. The race for control over autonomous cars is over. And Silicon Valley has lost.
There's a dawning realization about why the traditional car companies have been around for more than a century.
Last year Apple laid off most of the engineers it hired to design its own car. Google (now Waymo) stopped talking about making its own car. And Uber, is still a long, long way from ever making any money, much less making its own autonomous cars.
Even Tesla, the only successful automotive company to come out of Silicon Valley so far, made but 80,000 cars last year and it's been in business for nearly 15 years. To paraphrase Elon Musk, Silicon Valley is learning that "Making rockets is hard, but making cars is really hard."
