Technology

Bloomberg A self-driving shuttle bus ferrying workers in Detroit from a parking garage to their office has become the first autonomous vehicle to ply the roads of America’s automotive capital. May Mobility, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based startup backed by Toyota and BMW, is deploying a small fleet of six-seat, electric-powered shuttles in downtown Detroit to transport the employees of Bedrock, ...

Bloomberg Artificial intelligence is coming for the service economy, according to Allstate Corp. CEO Tom Wilson. “It’s going to rip through this economy like a tsunami,” Wilson said in an interview on Bloomberg TV from Aspen, Colorado. Automation will affect a wide swath of workers, from traders to taxi drivers. McKinsey & Co. estimates that more than 400 million people ...

Bloomberg When Apple Inc. introduced AirPods earbuds in 2016, chief designer Jony Ive hailed the beginning of a new “wireless future”. The company’s devices would connect and charge without fiddly white cords and unsightly plugs and sockets. The next step was wireless charging for the iPhone, the ability to drop Apple’s flagship product on a charging mat and juice it ...

Bloomberg Tesla Inc.’s CEO Elon Musk has called it “ mind-bogglingly stupid” and carmakers have gravitated away from it in recent years. Yet fuel-cell technology — the science behind hydrogen cars that emit only water vapour — is getting fresh impetus. Hyundai Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit plan to team up on vehicle development and share patent licenses ...

Bloomberg Porsche bought a 10 percent stake in Rimac Automobili, a Croatian maker of electric supercars and components, as the German sports car brand looks to accelerate its shift into battery-powered vehicles. “Rimac has impressively demonstrated its credentials in the field of electromobility,” Lutz Meschke, finance chief for the unit of Volkswagen AG, said in a statement. “We feel that ...

Bloomberg Japan is famous as a land of robots, but most of those machines haven’t made their way off of factory floors. That presents an opportunity in a country with a serious labour shortage and a relatively unproductive services sector. Automation is seen as a key to better productivity and higher wages, which would in turn support consumption and help ...

Bloomberg After struggling for years to address complaints with its audio and connectivity systems, Ford Motor Co. achieved its highest-ever ranking this year in a closely watched annual study of new-car quality. Ford’s namesake brand ranked fifth in J.D. Power’s Initial Quality Study, which measures problems per 100 vehicles in first 90 days of ownership. Ford was one of the ...

Bloomberg Home to some of the busiest flight routes in Europe, whisking passengers across a rugged and mountainous landscape, Norway’s aviation industry now readies to go electric. Norway is one of Tesla’s biggest markets, with about 8,500 cars sold last year. Now, the country whose tourism sales pitch is “Powered by Nature” wants to be a pioneer in the market ...

Bloomberg World Cup soccer spectators got a chance to ride driverless buses to see France’s clash with Australia in Russia’s eastern city of Kazan, part of a state-backed push into autonomous vehicles. Local truck maker Kamaz PJSC is laying on the electric vehicles to show off its technological skills while the world’s eyes are on the remote city on the ...

Bloomberg It turns out robots need insurance too. As driverless vehicles reduce car ownership in coming years, insurers may not face the Armageddon that had been predicted, new research shows. “We do not expect revenues for auto insurance companies to experience a sudden decline as a result of autonomous vehicles,” Alejandro Zamorano, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said. ...