Self-driving cars in the UK will be unmarked, so that drivers won’t bully them:

Volvo is bringing its self-driving car pilot project to the UK in 2018. The automaker believes that other road users would bully the vehicles if they were labeled as autonomous, safe in the knowledge that the cars are programmed to obey road rules and won’t retaliate.

And this:

One of the survey’s participants said: “I’ll be overtaking all the time because they’ll be sticking to the rules.”

I guess this is better than the reverse situation.

RIP Comma One.

I know George Hotz, although not well, and he’s always come across one-on-one as a nice person. His public performances can be a little more confrontational.

One thing that has always been clear about George is he places a lot of weight on shipping a product, so I can imagine how frustrating it is that the NHTSA situation looks like it will cause him to miss his 2016 launch deadline.

But it’s also the case that shipping an automotive product in the US involves working with the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, and that’s not going to change any time soon.

George’s next product will have to deal with that, and I hope it comes soon.

We had a running conversation at Udacity today about how we can improve diversity among the Self-Driving Car student base, and Udacity’s other programs, as well.

We have a number of action items to pursue — ranging from being smarter about seeking out a diverse group of instructors, to engaging diversity-focused online groups.

I’d love to hear from the readers of this blog. How can the Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree Program create a more inclusive community?

And, if you’re somebody who doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold of an autonomous vehicle engineer, for whatever reason, please apply!

Bold and italics. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever done that on this blog.

Ford and Jaguar are testing vehicle-to-vehicle communication in the UK:

Cars which are able to warn drivers when another connected vehicle brakes suddenly and those which can monitor traffic signals and regulate their speed to encounter fewer red lights were being showcased at a testing ground in central England.

Vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication is probably a little further out than straight self-driving cars. But it has the potential to massively improve traffic flow. Imagine a world with no more stoplights, because vehicles figure out on their own when it’s safe to cross an intersection.

One big hurdle is defining a shared standard that works between manufacturers. This seems like an area in which the winning protocol will be whichever protocol gets built first.

Kudos to Ford and Jaguar for getting out in front of this.

Our partner LeEco just debuted their LeSEE concept car in San Francisco yesterday.

There were apparently some difficulties with the demo, related to transporting the car from Europe, but these things happen.

If you’re into concept cars, this is a pretty futuristic one. You can read more here.

Big news for our little Nanodegree Program!

As of today, we have 14 awesome hiring partners signed up to review and hire (hopefully a lot) of our students.

The partners are Mercedes-Benz, NVIDIA, Otto, DiDi, BMW, HCL, AutonomouStuff, McLaren, NextEv, Elektrobit, HERE, Local Motors, PolySync, LeEco.

My favorite part of this announcement is how international these partners are. Many of these companies employ autonomous vehicle engineers worldwide, but even just going by headquarters, here’s the breakdown:

North America: AutonomouStuff, Local Motors, NVIDIA, Otto, PolySync

Europe: BMW, Elektrobit, HERE, McLaren, Mercedes-Benz

Asia: Didi, HCL, NextEv, LeEco

We’re still hard at work partnering with more great employers who are excited about our worldwide student base, but I’m excited. This is a great start.

TomTom in Asia: Tomaso Grossi, the head of automotive marketing at map-maker TomTom, talks with Tech Wire Asia about the potential for self-driving cars in Asia. He says the big drivers will be Asia’s urban cores, aging populations, and reductions in congestion and pollution.

nuTonomy Fender-Bender: The startup nuTonomy, which has been the first to launch self-driving taxis in Singapore, recently got into a fender-bender with a truck. It sounds like the fault may have been with the self-driving taxi, as it was changing lanes when it apparently merged into the truck.

mCity China: A Chinese investment firm just signed a $27MM deal with the University of Michigan to build what sounds like a version of mCity in Shenzen, along with associated research focusing on self-driving cars in Asia.

Atieva Atvus: Electric car-maker Atieva has been quietly working on autonomous vehicles for several years. Recode reports that they are on the cusp of manufacturing a sedan similar to the Tesla Model S. It’s called the Atvus.

Trolleyology @ Mercedes: I have become a little bit tired of the trolley problem, because I think it ignores the fundamental safety problem with cars, which is that human drivers kill a lot of people. But the trolley problem won’t die, and Mercedes’ CEO Christoph von Hugo squared up and answered that Mercedes is going to prioritize the saving the lives of its passengers. And kudos to them for that.

Roboracing is Hard: The autonomous vehicle race series, Roborace, just put out a documentary profiling the ups and downs of their first season. I haven’t watched it yet, but The Verge says it’s good and doesn’t sugarcoat the difficulty of pulling this off.

Uber Freight: Contrary to my belief, Uber is not sidelining the freight side of Otto’s business. Instead, they are planning to launch it next year(!).