Time to book travel to Tokyo - oh wait, I mean the Tokyo suburbs, where there's a cute driverless transit shuttle currently in operation. DeNA is operating the service, working with EasyMile on this project.
Comma points - not a grammar thing
Comma.ai, the George Hotz company, is giving out comma points in exchange for collecting data from consenting drivers. Comma.ai put out an app called Chffr, which grants comma points to drivers who agree to allow Comma.ai to "record users' views as they drive." For now, Hotz is keeping information about what those points will be currency for close to his vest, but the speculation is that they will be redeemable at some point to get a good place in line or a discount for the upcoming Comma.ai self-driving kit due out later in 2016.
Hotz isn't the only one with an AI approach. There's Cruise Automation, for which GM paid approximately $1 billion - with a "b" - and now a new entrant, a small British start-up named Five AI, which just received $2.7 million in venture capital, not that much really. The company plans to be much less map-based than Google and other driverless producers. It is confident that British universities can supply the talent for its growth.
China investing big and spreading the wealth
China is working on driverless transit, but it seems more interested in the luxury automobile market of the future. "Future Mobility Corp, the Chinese electric car startup backed by internet giant Tencent Holdings, plans to have its first driverless vehicles on the road by 2020." Production will be in China and it will be geared towards a Chinese audience (at least at first). Future Mobility, like Chinese company Faraday Future, has offices in Silicon Valley. Future Mobility has also played the game of poaching talent from its competitors, in this case German-based BMW and Mercedes-Benz, as well as Tesla and Google. More on this particular poaching in a second article.
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