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Deborah Hersman, Chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, wants Google’s autonomous vehicles to be equipped with mandatory data recorders.

According to recent reports, Continental AG is in the final stages of an agreement with Google and IBM to develop a self-driving system for vehicles.

Tech giant Google, which has been investing heavily into self-driving vehicles, could potentially seek opportunities in the electric vehicle market in the future.

Now that Tesla has fully repaid its government loan nine years early and has just reported its first quarterly profit, could the American automaker be sold to the highest bidder?

It’s no secret that Google has been working on autonomous vehicles for quite some time, and now  Tesla CEO Elon Musk is considering adding that technology to Tesla’s vehicles.

Cars have shaped the world we live in by giving mobility to the masses. Over the past century and beyond there have been plenty of revolutionary vehicles, not to mention quite a few clunkers.

Experts at IEEE believe that 75 percent of the cars on the road in 2040 will be autonomous, and now the state of California is well on its way to getting there.

Google is adding the Lexus RX450h to its self-driving car lineup as it looks toward testing in different environments and terrains, pushing ahead with developing its technology.

Google’s self-driving car is pretty ugly with its roof-mounted unit that allows for  autonomous driving, but that isn’t stopping it from getting attention from a second state senate.

Just a day after Google was awarded a driver’s license for its self-driving car, the tech giant brought one of its autonomous Toyota Prius out to Washington D.C. in hopes to make driverless cars legal in the United States.

The state of Nevada has just become the first to issue a driver’s license to a car.

Nevada is the first state to pass laws regulating driverless vehicles. To qualify for a special state license, engineers at Continental have built and driven a heavily modified Volkswagen Passat with its brake and steering controls removed and replaced with sensors to digitally read and interpret surroundings. According to engineer Ibro Muharemovic, the Passat has logged almost 10,000 miles of autonomous driving and during a more recent trip from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Brimley, Michigan, home of Continental’s development and testing center, more than 90 percent of the journey did not involve the use of hands and feet.

Unlike Google’s ambitions to create a sophisticated fully autonomous vehicle, Continental went along to develop an interim semi-autonomous option that could take over duties during stop-and-go traffic or extended stretches of highway, the least satisfying of driving conditions. However, Continental and Google’s endpoint is identical: to create a solution that will reduce accidents, congestion, and fuel consumption. Continental director of engineering systems and technology Christian Schumacher said, “We still have a long way to go, but the technology is amazing.”

According to Ravi Pandit, CEO of India’s global IT and engineering company KPIT Cummins, “There is a strong business case for an autonomous car that can drop you off or a cab without the expense of a driver.”

Despite the optimism, mass production semiautonomous cars are still a couple years away. The technology exists but the idea raises questions of liability, regulation, and public acceptance. NHTSA will begin a study of autonomous driving in August with a one-year pilot project in Ann Arbor, testing 3,000 cars with the ability to communicate with one another to avoid an accident. What’s more, in an event of a crash, the law has yet to resolve who is reliable or whether the occupants of an autonomous car are legally exempt from bans on mobile devices.

As for passenger anxiety, Ravi Pandit is confident that, “A car can see better than a human can, and the car responds faster.”

Engineer Ibro Muharemovic commented, “I was surprised by how well it worked.” Continental’s Volkswagen Passat is fitted with a stereo camera that can monitor speed-bumps or potholes as far as 220 yards away and adjust steering, braking, and acceleration accordingly. Muharemovic adds, “The driver is always in control and can override the system any time.”

If testing is successful and Continental is qualified for Nevada registration, a special red license plate will be provided to distinguish the driverless car. In the future, production driverless cars would receive a green license plate.

Check out video footage of Continental’s autonomous Volkswagen Passat driving itself below. 

Any car from 1996 and newer can have a real-time gas consumption meter thanks to an Android app, but you might not want to pay for it.

Driving a Chevrolet Volt could get even more guilt-free in the future as the company plays with ways to coax consumers into charging with renewable energy.

Mark Zuckerberg, the introverted king of social media, has his fingers in so many pies that it’s starting to look like he grew a few thousand extra hands.