A bit out of the blue, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) announced that Zoox has received the first permit to transport passengers in self-driving cars in California.

This was a surprise because, until the announcement, CPUC hadn’t even come up in any discussion of self-driving cars, at least as far as I can remember.

CPUC did announce a twin pair of self-driving car pilot programs — one program for vehicles with safety operators (“back up drivers”) and one program for fully driverless vehicles. Zoox’s permit requires safety operators. That said, CPUC pilot program applies to “companies using autonomous vehicles that…are under the CPUC’s jurisdiction…”

http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M212/K893/212893443.PDF

Which companies are under CPUC jurisdiction is not obvious. The CPUC website states:

“The essential services regulated include electric, natural gas, telecommunications, water, railroad, rail transit, and passenger transportation companies.”

I imagine “passenger transportation companies” as something akin to a limited entry, licensed, monopoly-like services. Bascially, taxi companies. There appears to be an ongoing back-and-forth between Uber and CPUC over jurisdiction for regulating human-driven ridesharing services.

Mainly this seems like a reminder of how new self-driving cars are everywhere. Presumably, the self-driving ride-sharing services will be regulated by some government entity. Whether that entity is local or state or federal, and whether it is the Department of Transportation or the Public Utilities Commission or something else, most of that is yet to be determined.

The answers may come down to who steps forward and claims authority.

In the last few weeks, Ford’s self-driving car program has made a number of exciting announcements. First, they announced a pilot self-driving car program throughout the entire city of Washington, D.C., to launch in 2019.

Shortly thereafter, Ford announced its purchase of electric scooter startup Spin. This appears to be another step in the direction of Ford as a mobility solutions provider, following its acquisition of the Chariot shuttle service and the launch of Ford GoBike bicycle rentals.

Next came an impressive series of self-driving car demos for journalists in Miami, Florida. Ford is currently testing self-driving cars in a six square-mile section of the city.

Most recently, Ford announced a partnership with Walmart and other retailers to deliver merchandise using self-driving cars.

In addition to its strategic moves, Ford seems to be improving its ability to communicate its vision for autonomous vehicles. Ford posts on Medium.com appear from Sherif Markaby, CEO of Ford Autonomous Vehicles, LLC, but also from team members in business development, marketing, and engineering.

Markaby recently posted a helpful infographic outlining the different components of the Ford autonomous vehicle ecosystem.

As former Ford engineer Sam Abuelsamid wrote for Forbes.com:

“Ford will not be first to the party. We all know that. But in cooperation with Argo, it is well on its way to creating what seems to be as good an AV system as any out there with smoother operation than much of what I’ve felt from several of its top competitors.”

This Thursday I’ll be moderating a panel on self-driving cars at EB Tech Day San Jose. The event is hosted by Elektrobit, a Udacity partner and a leading supplier of automotive software, particularly safety-critical software.

On the panel will be a number of self-driving car engineers and experts from Elektrobit and their partner company, iSystem:

• Chris Schlink, Sr. Application Support Engineer, iSystem
• Hurley Davis, Director of Engineering, U.S., EB
• Volker Springer, Sr. Project Manager, EB
• Chris Thibeault, Head of U.S. Product Expert Group, EB

My panel goes on-stage at 1pm, but the event goes all day, from breakfast to happy hour. A full day of autonomous vehicle technology 🚗

Register to attend and say hello!

The early days of the Google Self-Driving Car Project were not that long ago — only 7 years ago, at the beginning of the decade. But that was before the self-driving car goldrush, back when Uber was only operating a limousine service, and before Lyft even existed. A lot can change in 7 years.

The New Yorker goes back to the early days to investigate, in particular, Anthony Levandowski’s days at Google. Levandowski earned $120 million from his time at Uber, but The New Yorker reports that his time was replete with controversy.

“Hiring could take months,” Levandowski told me. “There was a program called WorkforceLogic, and just getting people into the system was super-complicated. And so, one day, I put ads on Craigslist looking for drivers, and basically hired anyone who seemed competent, and then paid them out of my own pocket. It became known as AnthonyforceLogic.” Around this time, Levandowski went to an auto dealership and bought more than a hundred cars. One of his managers from that period told me, “When we got his expense report, it was equal to something like all the travel expenses of every other Google employee in his division combined. The accountants were, like, ‘What the hell?’ But Larry said, ‘Pay it,’ and so we did. Larry wanted people who could ignore obstacles and could show everyone that you could do something that seemed impossible if you looked for work-arounds.”

Worth a read.

Uber has requested permission to resume testing self-driving cars on public roads in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As I write on Forbes.com:

“In conjunction with Uber’s request to resume testing autonomous vehicles on public roads, Uber also published a safety report, a letter on safety from CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and a summary of internal and external safety reviews. Uber also linked to the full 56-page external safety review completed by the law firm LeClairRyan.

Read the post to learn about the many improvements Uber has made and is making to its safety procedures.