BAE Systems awarded $423.35M Army contract action
BAE Systems (BAESY) was awarded an undefinitized, cost-no-fee contract action not-to-exceed $423.35M for Self-Propelled Howitzer Systems production. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work has an estimated completion date of July 31, 2028. Fiscal 2024 and 2025 weapons and tracked combat vehicle procurement, Army funds in the amount of $214.48M were obligated at the time of the award. Army Contracting Command is the contracting activity.
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Time Magazine
2 hours ago
- Time Magazine
Why Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Became a Target of Protesters in Los Angeles
As protesters and police clash across Los Angeles and beyond, a striking image from the mayhem has been that of graffiti-strewn white cars engulfed in flames. But these aren't ordinary cars. They've got sensors protruding from the top and sides—and, critically, they've got no drivers. Waymo, a robotaxi company, found itself at the center of the demonstrations against the Trump Administration's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids after a group of protesters over the weekend, according to the Los Angeles Times, approached a parked row of the autonomous vehicles and smashed their windows, slashed their tires, spray-painted them with anti-ICE slogans, and set them on fire. While eye-catching, the trend is also extremely dangerous. Electric vehicles, like those in Waymo's fleet, have lithium-ion batteries, and in a post on X, the L.A. Police Department warned: 'Burning lithium-ion batteries release toxic gases, including hydrogen fluoride, posing risks to responders and those nearby.' According to Scientific American, first responders exposed to the fumes of burnt lithium-ion batteries without protection historically 'have developed throat burns and breathing difficulties upon arriving,' and, depending on the hydrogen fluoride levels, individuals can start coughing up blood within minutes of exposure. At least six Waymo vehicles across the county have reportedly been the target of vandalism, resulting in the company temporarily suspending operations in the area 'out of an abundance of caution.' California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have condemned the violence and destruction, which Newsom attributed to 'insurgent groups' and 'anarchists' who have infiltrated otherwise peaceful protests. President Donald Trump, who mobilized the National Guard to respond to the situation, has called the demonstrators ' troublemakers ' and ' paid insurrectionists.' Here's what to know. What is Waymo? Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's parent company, and grew out of the Google Self-Driving Car project that began in 2009. It launched its robotaxi business in 2020 in limited markets, which grew to include Los Angeles in 2024. While the company says its mission 'is to be the world's most trusted driver,' a national survey earlier this year found that '6 in 10 U.S. drivers still report being afraid to ride in a self-driving vehicle' while the proportion of people enthusiastic about the development of the technology has actually decreased from 18% in 2022 to 13% in 2025. Waymo vehicles were involved in 696 accidents across the U.S. between 2021 and 2024, or about one accident every other day. MKP Law Group, a Los-Angeles based firm that represents clients involved in accidents, acknowledged in a blog post that this statistic 'is not necessarily indicative of Waymo causing those accidents, as some may have been the fault of the other involved drivers.' Studies show that self-driving technology is likely safer than most human drivers. Waymo has also reportedly annoyed some people, including those who find self-driving vehicles to be an eyesore as well as locals where the vehicles routinely get stuck. Neighbors near a Waymo charging station in Santa Monica have complained about noise pollution caused by the driverless vehicles honking at each other in the parking lot. Waymo vehicles as well as other self-driving cars have previously been the target of vandals, particularly in California, where Waymo is headquartered. In January, a Waymo car was torn apart in Los Angeles. In February 2024, another Waymo car was smashed and set ablaze in San Francisco. And in July 2024, a man was charged with slashing the tires of 17 Waymo cars in San Francisco. Why is Waymo being targeted in the L.A. protests? Several potential explanations have emerged for why Waymo vehicles were targeted during the protests in Los Angeles. The Wall Street Journal reported that part of the reason the cars were vandalized was to obstruct traffic—a traditional, albeit controversial, protest tactic. Some social media users have suggested that self-driving vehicles in particular have become a new target because they are seen by protesters as ' part of the police surveillance state.' Waymo's cars are equipped with cameras that provide a 360-degree view of their surroundings, a tool that has been tapped by law enforcement, according to reports. Independent tech news site 404 Media reported in April that the Los Angeles Police Department obtained footage from a Waymo driverless car to use as part of an investigation into an unrelated hit-and-run. And Bloomberg reported in 2023 that police have increasingly relied on self-driving cars and their cameras for video evidence. Chris Gilliard, a fellow at the Social Science Research Council, told Bloomberg that self-driving vehicles are 'essentially surveillance cameras on wheels,' adding: 'We're supposed to be able to go about our business in our day-to-day lives without being surveilled unless we are suspected of a crime, and each little bit of this technology strips away that ability.' Waymo told Bloomberg at the time that it 'carefully' reviews every request from police 'to make sure it satisfies applicable laws and has a valid legal process.' Some activists have also suggested that the burning of Waymo vehicles should garner less sympathy from onlookers. 'There are people on here saying it's violent and domestic terrorism to set a Waymo car on fire,' racial justice organizer Samuel Sinyangwe posted on X. 'A robot car? Are you going to demand justice for the robot dogs next? But not the human beings repeatedly shot with rubber bullets in the street? What kind of politics is this?' 'There is no human element to Waymo,' climate and labor organizer Elise Joshi similarly posted on X. 'It's expensive and bought-out politicians are using it as an excuse to defund public transit. I pray on Waymo's downfall.'
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tesla Is Launching Robotaxis in Austin. Safety Advocates Are Concerned
Elon Musk's ugly public spat with former bestie Donald Trump is sure to cause more headaches for the Silicon Valley mogul down the line. Not only has he sacrificed any influence he might have with the White House by blasting the president for his association with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, but some in the administration have floated the idea of reviving regulatory investigations into Musk's corporate empire. The timing of such a threat could hardly be worse. That's because Tesla, Musk's electric vehicle manufacturer, is about to face a make-or-break test of self-driving technology that the CEO believes is key to its future value — yet has been the subject of a years-long probe by the Justice Department into potential securities and wire fraud. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is meanwhile conducting multiple investigations into the possible risks posed by the same tech. More from Rolling Stone The Biggest Boondoggles in Trump's Big Beautiful Bill 'Dejected' Trump Says Relationship With Musk Is Over; Calls Him a 'Big-Time Drug Addict': Report Vance Says 'Trump Didn't Do Anything Wrong With Jeffrey Epstein' Last fall, at a carefully staged event on the Warner Bros. Discovery studio lot in Burbank, California, Musk unveiled what he called a 'Cybercab,' a sleek, two-seat vehicle with no steering wheel. This was the long-awaited prototype of Tesla's robotaxi, or a fully autonomous, driverless passenger vehicle. Back in 2019, Musk had predicted that existing Tesla models would become capable of driving themselves without human oversight once their 'Full Self-Driving' (FSD) driver-assistance software had been adequately updated. Now he was demoing a different, built-to-purpose model, seeming to signal that Teslas already on the road would not be upgraded to robotaxi capability. Then, in a January earnings call, Musk offered one of his typically optimistic predictions about a timetable for a paid robotaxi service, similar Amazon's Zoox, or Waymo, a subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet. 'Teslas will be in the wild, with no one in them, in June, in Austin,' Musk said, referring to the Texas city that has been a base of operations for his businesses in recent years. Investors were skeptical. After all, Musk has a history of overpromising, and the Cybercab unveiled barely three months earlier was essentially a glorified movie prop. By late May, however, Musk was declaring significant progress on a robotaxi launch. 'For the past several days, Tesla has been testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver's seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents,' he posted on X on May 28. 'A month ahead of schedule. Next month, first self-delivery from factory to customer.' It would appear, in this case, that Tesla had defaulted to the original idea of modifying its commercially available models to make them autonomous rather than holding off until it had a fleet of Cybercabs. Aside from stray comments like these, little is known about what Tesla's initial robotaxi program will look like. The company is reportedly targeting a launch date of June 12, with just 10-20 vehicles to start. A Morgan Stanley analyst — not Tesla itself — has claimed that rides will be available by invite only, not to the general public, and that the cars will be remotely supervised by operators prepared to take manual control if needed. That the automaker is keeping most details under wraps has left plenty of room for questions, doubts, and concerns — particularly as Waymo and other competitors tend to collect data and conduct local testing for far longer periods before welcoming passengers aboard. Dan O'Dowd, a software entrepreneur and founder of the tech safety group the Dawn Project, which has routinely showcased the shortcomings of Tesla's FSD tech, predicts that the robotaxi rollout will amount to lackluster stunt. 'Musk's upcoming robotaxi launch will still be nothing more than a bigger version of the 1950s Disneyland ride that Tesla demonstrated at [the Cybercab] event last year, if it even takes place at all,' he says. 'Despite Elon Musk claiming that Tesla was less than a year away from solving autonomy for nearly a decade and decrying the real robotaxi companies for geo-fencing and remote supervision, Tesla plans for its so-called robotaxis to only be able to drive around certain parts of Austin, avoiding intersections that are difficult,' while being remotely supervised,' O'Dowd notes. (Musk admitted in a recent interview that the robotaxis would be 'geo-fenced,' or restricted from certain parts of the city.) 'Tesla has also shown itself incapable of developing a working Cybercab, instead leaning on its Model Y in another backtrack on Elon's many false promises about solving autonomy,' O'Dowd adds. 'The golden Model 3 mules that Tesla is using to develop the Cybercab's software clearly demonstrate that Tesla has put the cart before the horse with the Cybercab.' On June 2, an X user posted a video of a Model 3 in a Tesla lot in San Diego that had seemingly been modified to resemble the Cybercab design, with its side mirrors removed and the rear windshield painted gold along with the body panels. The clip was taken by many Tesla observers as evidence that it was also using Model 3s to run autonomous driving experiments ahead of the robotaxi pilot program. Brett Schreiber, a partner at the San Diego law firm Singleton Schreiber who is currently pursuing multiple injury and wrongful death suits against Tesla over accidents involving its driver-assistance features, agrees that the company is backing down from the Cybercab concept Musk presented last year. 'It is a retreat on the idea that they are going to build out a new vehicle that is capable of autonomy,' he says, though 'a repeat of the continued lies and misrepresentations' from the CEO — namely, that existing Teslas can be turned into robotaxis. 'There is nothing about the vehicle today, whether you slap some lipstick on the pig of a Model Y, or any other vehicle in their production fleet, that [makes it] capable of level four or level five autonomy without driver intervention. They simply haven't gotten there, and just because they keep saying so doesn't make it true.' Levels four and five of driving automation refer to systems in which 'a human driver is not needed,' per NHTSA guidelines. Tesla's FSD is currently classified as level two, meaning that a human driver 'is fully responsible' for operating the vehicle even while assistance features are engaged. Schreiber believes that Tesla brought the robotaxi project to Texas for 'a more lax environment with respect to enforcement,' saying that 'in many states, California being one of them, they would not be allowed to do this in the way that they are doing it. They fled California for a lot of reasons, the least of which was the fact that they felt more constrained by their ability to roll out and continue to use the public roadways as their own personal test track, and use the members of the public as the guinea pigs in the grand experiment.' Indeed, the Texas Department of Transportation does not require any special permits for operating autonomous vehicles — only that these meet the same safety and insurance requirements as other vehicles. In California, by contrast, the Department of Motor Vehicles 'issues permits to manufacturers that test and deploy autonomous vehicles on California public roads.' Tesla, which does not have a press department, did not reply to a request for comment on details of the robotaxi launch or why Austin was chosen as the site. As for regulatory enforcement by NHTSA, it would largely come after the fact, since autonomous vehicle permitting is a state matter, not a federal one. 'Under U.S. law, NHTSA does not pre-approve new technologies or vehicle systems — rather, manufacturers certify that each vehicle meets NHTSA's rigorous safety standards, and the agency investigates incidents involving potential safety defects,' a sposkesperson for the agency tells Rolling Stone. 'Following an assessment of those reports and other relevant information, NHTSA will take any necessary actions to protect road safety.' NHTSA, as it happens, was one of a handful of regulators scrutinizing Musk's businesses to face cuts imposed by his so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with at least four percent of staff dismissed. In Schreiber's estimation, the agency's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) 'has been completely gutted,' hampering its ability to go after Tesla. Even so, the ODI did send a letter to Tesla's director of field quality in May, requesting extensive information about the proposed automated driving system for its robotaxis in order 'to understand Tesla's technologies and operational use cases further, including to assess the ability of Tesla's system to react appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions.' NHTSA's probe into Tesla's FSD involves several accidents in which the system faced conditions such as fog or sun glare, including a 2023 collision in Arizona in which a Model Y struck and killed a pedestrian while driving into direct sunlight. That investigation 'remains open,' the agency spokesperson says. Meanwhile, if Tesla doesn't answer NHTSA's questions about how its robotaxis work and what steps it is taking to ensure their safe operation by a deadline of June 19, or secure a filing extension, it could be subject to civil penalties. By that time, of course, people may already be hailing driverless Teslas in Texas, with passengers, other motorists, and bystanders all at the mercy of a supposed breakthrough in vehicle autonomy. That's what has safety advocates like O'Dowd so alarmed. 'The people of Austin did not sign up to be crash-test dummies for Musk's reckless deployment of Tesla's defective and dangerous Full Self-Driving software,' he says. If the thought has ever bothered Musk, he hasn't said so. Upon stepping down from DOGE, he wrote on X that he would return to a '24/7' focus on his companies, Tesla in particular, as 'we have critical technologies rolling out.' Best of Rolling Stone Every Super Bowl Halftime Show, Ranked From Worst to Best The United States of Weed Gaming Levels Up
Yahoo
15 hours ago
- Yahoo
BAE Systems, Inc. Names Tara Olivet Senior Vice President of Finance
FALLS CHURCH, Va., June 09, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BAE Systems, Inc. has named Tara Olivet as its senior vice president of Finance, effective June 7. Olivet will lead financial operations for the company's U.S.-based businesses, which generated 2024 sales of $16.85 billion and employs more than 40,000 employees across the United States, United Kingdom, and Sweden. She will also serve as a member of the BAE Systems, Inc. senior leadership team, reporting to President and CEO Tom Arseneault. "During her 20-year tenure at BAE Systems, Tara has distinguished herself as a highly accomplished and widely respected executive," said Arseneault. "Her experience, leadership, and dedication to the company's mission will continue to be foundational to our future growth and success." Olivet joined BAE Systems in 2005 and has held numerous roles across the global enterprise, most recently serving as BAE Systems, Inc.'s deputy senior vice president of Finance, and prior to that, as vice president of Finance for the Platforms & Services sector. Before that, she spent six years with BAE Systems, Inc.'s headquarters team as the vice president of Internal Audit and Controller. Olivet also served as the finance and controls director for the U.K. Aircraft Carrier Alliance, which built and delivered the Queen Elizabeth Class Carriers to the Royal Navy, among other roles. Olivet succeeds Dan Sallet, who will support special projects until his retirement in January. "I want to thank Dan for the tremendous contributions he's made to our company throughout his more than 35-year career," said Arseneault. "His exceptional work has helped BAE Systems and its employees, customers, and shareholders to thrive." Olivet holds a Master of Business Administration from Georgetown University; a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance and marketing from Ithaca College; and a Certificate in Accounting from the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). View source version on Contacts For more information, please contact: Veronica Bonilla, BAE SystemsMobile: @BAESystemsInc
