Latest news with #autonomousDriving
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
'Super Focused' Musk Sparks Tesla (TSLA) Stock Rally
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) stands against other AI stocks on Wall Street's radar. One of the most notable analyst calls on Thursday, May 29, was for Tesla Inc. Wedbush reiterated the stock as 'Outperform.' Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is an automotive and clean energy company that leverages advanced artificial intelligence in its autonomous driving technology and robotics initiatives. The firm said it's standing by the stock after Elon Musk announced he was leaving DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency. 'In another clear positive step for Tesla bulls, Elon Musk officially left the Trump White House last night … which is music to the ears of Tesla shareholders with Musk now laser focused on Tesla and the autonomous vision ahead.' Copyright: wolandmaster / 123RF Stock Photo The company's stock was previously slumping because of Musk's increasing attention to politics and his work at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). After Musk announced that he plans to be 'super focused' on his businesses and return to 'spending 24/7 at work,' the stock surged in response. 'Back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms. I must be super focused on 𝕏/xAI and Tesla (plus Starship launch next week), as we have critical technologies rolling out.' Analysts on Wall Street currently have a consensus 'Buy' rating on the stock. The average price target of $306 implies a 15% upside, however, the Street-high target of $500 implies an upside of 39%. Overall, TSLA ranks 6th on our list of AI stocks on Wall Street's radar. While we acknowledge the potential of TSLA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than TSLA and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
12 hours ago
- Automotive
- Forbes
Volvo: Gaussian Splatting Is Our Secret Ingredient For Safer Cars
For decades, the Volvo brand has been synonymous with safety. But keeping passengers secure is no longer just about a strong cabin or cleverly designed crumple zones. Increasingly, safety is about semi-autonomous driving technology that can mitigate collisions or even avoid them entirely. Volvo intends to be ahead of the game in this era too. Its secret weapon? Something called 'Gaussian Splatting'. I asked Volvo's Head of Software Engineering Alwin Bakkenes and subsidiary Zenseact's VP Product Erik Coelingh exactly what this is and why it's so important. 'We have a long history of innovations based on data,' says Bakkenes. 'The accident research team from the 70s started with measuring tapes. Now in the digital world we're collecting millions of real-life events. That data has helped us over the years to develop a three-point safety belt and the whiplash protection system. Now, we can see from the data we collect from fleets that a very large portion of serious accidents happen in the dark on country roads where vulnerable road users are involved. That's why, with the ES90 that we just launched, we are also introducing a function called lighter AAS where we have enabled the car to steer away from pedestrians walking on the side of the road or cyclists, which in the dark you can't see even if you have your high beam on. This technology picks that up earlier than a human driver.' The Volvo EX90 SUV will also benefit from this technology. 'If you want to lead in collision avoidance and self-driving, you need to have the best possible data from the real world,' adds Bakkenes. 'But everyone is looking also at augmenting that with simulated data. The next step is fast automation, so we're using state-of-the-art end-to-end models to achieve speed in iterations. But sometimes these models hallucinate. To avoid that, we use our 98 years of safety experience and these millions of data points as guardrails to make sure that the car behaves well because we believe that when you start to automate it needs to be trusted. For us every kilometer driven with Pilot Assist or Pilot Assist Plus needs to be safer than when you've driven it yourself. In the world of AI data is king. We use Gaussian Splatting to enhance our data set.' 'Cars are driven all around the world in different weather and traffic conditions by different people,' says Coelingh. 'The variation is huge. We collect millions of data points, but it's still a limited amount compared to reality. Gaussian Splatting is a new technology that some of our PhD students have been developing the last few years into a system where you can take a single data point from the real world where you have all the sensor, camera, radar and LIDAR sequences and then blow it up into thousands or tens of thousands of different scenarios. In that way, you can get a much better representation of the real world because we can test our software against this huge variation. If you do it in software, you can test much faster, so then you can iterate your software much more quickly and improve our product.' 'Gaussian Splatting is used in different areas of AI,' continues Coelingh. 'It comes from the neural radiance fields from nerves.' The original version worked with static images. 'The first academic paper was about a drum kit where somebody took still pictures from different angles and then the neural net was trained on those pictures to create a 3D model. It looked perfect from any angle even though there was only a limited set of pictures available. Later that technology was expanded from 3D to 4D space-time, so you could also do it on the video set. We now do this not just with video data, but also with LiDAR and radar data.' A real-world event can be recreated from every angle. 'We can start to manipulate other road users in this scenario. We can manipulate real world scenarios and do different simulations around this to make sure that our system is robust to variations.' Volvo uses this system particularly to explore how small adjustments could prevent accidents. 'Most of the work that we do is not about the crash itself,' says Coelingh. 'It's much more about what's happening 4-5 seconds before the crash or potential crash. The data we probe is from crashes, but it's also from events where our systems already did an intervention and in many cases those interventions come in time to prevent an accident and in some cases they come late and we only mitigated it. But all these scenarios are relevant because they happen in the real world, and they are types of edge case. These are rare, but through this technology of Gaussian Splatting, we can go from a few edge cases to suddenly many different edge cases and thereby test our system against those in a way that we previously could not.' This is increasingly important for addressing the huge variation in global driving habits and conditions a safety system will be expected to encounter. 'Neural Nets are good at learning these types of patterns,' says Coelingh. 'Humans can see that because of the behavior of a car the driver is talking into their phone, either slowing down or wiggling in the lane. If you have an end-to-end neural network using representations from camera images, LiDAR and radar, it will anticipate those kinds of things. We are probing data from cars all around the world where Volvo Cars are being driven.' The system acts preemptively, so it can perform a safety maneuver for example when a pedestrian appears suddenly in the path of the vehicle. 'You have no time to react,' says Coelingh. Volvo's safety system will be ready, however. 'Even before that, the car already detects free space. It can do an auto steer and it's a very small correction. It doesn't steer you out of lane. It doesn't jerk you around. It slows down a little bit and it does the correction. It's undramatic, but the impact is massive. Oncoming collisions are incredibly severe. Small adjustments can have big benefits.' Volvo has developed one software platform to cover both safety and autonomy. 'The software stack that we develop is being used in different ways,' says Coelingh. 'We want the driver to drive manually undisturbed unless there's a critical situation. Then we try to assist in the best possible way to avoid collision, either by warning, steering, auto braking or a combination of those. Then we also do cruising or L2 automation.' Volvo demonstrated how it has been using Gaussian Splatting at NVIDIA's GTC in April. 'We went deeply into the safe automation concept,' says Bakkenes. 'Neural nets are good at picking up things that you can't do in a rule-based system. We're developing one stack based on good fleet data which has end-to-end algorithms to achieve massive performance, and it has guard rails to make sure we manage hallucinations. It's not like we have a collision avoidance stack and then we have self-driving stack.' 'There was a conscious decision that if we improve performance, then we want the benefits of that to be both for collision avoidance in manual driving and for self-driving,' says Coelingh. 'We build everything from the same stack, but the stack itself is scalable. It's one big neural network that we can train. But then there are parts that we can deploy separately to go from our core premium ADAS system all the way to a system that can do unsupervised automation. Volvo's purpose is to get to zero collisions, saving lives. We use AI and all our energy to get there.'
Globe and Mail
2 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Why Shares of Uber Are Sinking Today (Hint: It Has to do With Tesla)
Shares of the ride-hailing giant Uber (NYSE: UBER) traded roughly 4.5% lower in the final half-hour of trading today after a Wall Street analyst cited a potential threat to Uber's business model and long-term strategy. Competition from Tesla could be an issue In a research note, Wedbush analyst Scott Devitt maintained a "neutral" rating on Uber and an $85 price target but noted that Tesla's soon-to-launch robotaxis present a threat to the company's long-term vision. The news comes after Bloomberg reported that Tesla plans to launch robotaxis in Austin on June 12. In the note, Devitt said that a fully autonomous ride-hailing fleet could significantly disrupt Uber's human-powered fleet. Tesla's CEO Elon Musk has also indicated that Tesla may try and set up its own ride-hailing network rather than partnering with an existing player. Meanwhile, Uber has positioned itself as the strategic partner for autonomous vehicle companies, having already formed partnerships with Waymo and Pony AI, among others. Uber believes that its massive fleet, operational platform, and regulatory expertise make it an ideal partner for self-driving companies looking to scale. It's still early for autonomous driving While the market seems to be taking Wedbush's concerns seriously, I think it's still too early to say that Uber is in trouble. It will take Tesla time to scale, and it could still take awhile for autonomous ride-sharing to gain widespread traction. Plus, Musk and Tesla have never run a ride-hailing fleet before. They may still end up partnering with Uber. Uber has transformed itself financially, becoming profitable and generating significant free cash flow. I also think there will likely be more than one winner in the autonomous space. Interested investors can buy the dip here. Should you invest $1,000 in Uber Technologies right now? Before you buy stock in Uber Technologies, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Uber Technologies wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $651,761!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $826,263!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor 's total average return is978% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to170%for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025
Zawya
3 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
Chinese robotaxi makers head to a welcoming Gulf as overseas ambitions grow
ABU DHABI - If you're a Chinese robotaxi company, the Gulf has become the place to be, attractive for a regulatory environment that is embracing the technology and robust demand for ride-hailing services. Their enthusiasm has been evident in a flurry of recently announced expansion plans. This week, became the third Chinese robotaxi company after rivals Baidu and WeRide to unveil an agreement with Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority in the United Arab Emirates. It plans to start trialling its vehicles in the city this year with full driverless operations slated to start in 2026. WeRide also said this week it would be expanding into Saudi Arabia, where it has been testing its vehicles in cities like Riyadh, adding that it expects commercial services to start in late 2025. That follows its launch of fully driverless robotaxi trials in the UAE's Abu Dhabi this month with commercial rides due to be rolled out from the end of June. It also soon plans to launch in Dubai. Baidu outlined plans in March to deploy "dozens" of robotaxis in partnership with UAE-based Autogo in Abu Dhabi with a goal to start commercial operations by 2026. It also aims to start trials in Dubai this year. The UAE "is relatively open but they are also careful and pragmatic on details," said Zhang Liang, a general manager in Baidu's autonomous driving unit Apollo, who oversees European and the Middle East markets. "We are actually happy to see positive and active competition and we won't be afraid of such competition," he said at the World New Energy Vehicle Congress in Abu Dhabi last week. Worried about worsening traffic congestion and a shortage of taxi and ride-hailing services that largely rely on migrant workers for their drivers, Dubai has set a goal of having 25% of its daily transportation be smart and driverless by 2030. Abu Dhabi's target is 25% of total trips by 2040 while Saudi Arabia is aiming for 15% by 2030. "Middle East and this kind of market, they already have the infrastructure, they have the capital, they have the ambition, which is very important. So that's why everybody is queuing up here," said Thaha Muhammed Abdul Kareem, a Qatar-based independent consultant. Both and WeRide have partnered with Uber in the region so their vehicles can be ordered through the Uber app. FUTURE US-CHINA BATTLEGROUND? The Gulf may become the region where Chinese and U.S. robotaxis go head to head for the first time. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said during a Gulf tour with U.S. President Donald Trump this month that he would take Cybercab robotaxis to Saudi Arabia, although he didn't mention a timeframe. At present, however, Waymo is the only U.S. firm to run uncrewed robotaxi services carrying paying passengers. Tesla plans to launch a trial in Austin, Texas by the end of June, aiming to scale up to about a thousand vehicles within a few months. Its Chinese rivals have more experience. Baidu's Zhang said the company was confident it could do well abroad, citing how its vehicles had completed 10 million trips in China as of March without a serious traffic accident. The search engine giant has been running its Apollo Go robotaxi services commercially in several Chinese cities since 2022. The vehicles have so-called 4 autonomy - which means they are driverless but can travel only in certain areas. Those areas can, however, be quite large with the city of Wuhan, for example, making more than 3,000 km of public roads available for robotaxi use. "This year marks the first year for Apollo to go abroad officially," Zhang said. The company plans to make forays into Europe and Southeast Asia, he added without providing a timeframe. which has a fleet of 300 robotaxis in China, said long term it hopes to integrate its robotaxis with Dubai's metro and tram routes. Backed by Japan's Toyota, sees this year as its inaugural year for large-scale commercial deployment and aims to ramp up its fleet globally to thousands of vehicles in the next two years. It also has test permits in the United States, South Korea and Luxembourg. WeRide said it has begun "public operation" of its robotaxi GXR minivan in several Chinese cities as well as Zurich and Abu Dhabi. It partnered with Uber in May to expand into 15 cities in the next five years and says that in addition to the Middle East, Singapore, Japan and Europe face driver shortages in the transportation sector, making them key target markets. (Reporting by Zhang Yan; Editing by Brenda Goh and Edwina Gibbs)
Reuters
3 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Chinese robotaxi makers head to a welcoming Gulf as overseas ambitions grow
ABU DHABI, May 29 (Reuters) - If you're a Chinese robotaxi company, the Gulf has become the place to be, attractive for a regulatory environment that is embracing the technology and robust demand for ride-hailing services. Their enthusiasm has been evident in a flurry of recently announced expansion plans. This week, (PONY.O), opens new tab became the third Chinese robotaxi company after rivals Baidu ( opens new tab and WeRide (WRD.O), opens new tab to unveil an agreement with Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority in the United Arab Emirates. It plans to start trialling its vehicles in the city this year with full driverless operations slated to start in 2026. WeRide also said this week it would be expanding into Saudi Arabia, where it has been testing its vehicles in cities like Riyadh, adding that it expects commercial services to start in late 2025. That follows its launch of fully driverless robotaxi trials in the UAE's Abu Dhabi this month with commercial rides due to be rolled out from the end of June. It also soon plans to launch in Dubai. Baidu outlined plans in March to deploy "dozens" of robotaxis in partnership with UAE-based Autogo in Abu Dhabi with a goal to start commercial operations by 2026. It also aims to start trials in Dubai this year. The UAE "is relatively open but they are also careful and pragmatic on details," said Zhang Liang, a general manager in Baidu's autonomous driving unit Apollo, who oversees European and the Middle East markets. "We are actually happy to see positive and active competition and we won't be afraid of such competition," he said at the World New Energy Vehicle Congress in Abu Dhabi last week. Worried about worsening traffic congestion and a shortage of taxi and ride-hailing services that largely rely on migrant workers for their drivers, Dubai has set a goal of having 25% of its daily transportation be smart and driverless by 2030. Abu Dhabi's target is 25% of total trips by 2040 while Saudi Arabia is aiming for 15% by 2030. "Middle East and this kind of market, they already have the infrastructure, they have the capital, they have the ambition, which is very important. So that's why everybody is queuing up here," said Thaha Muhammed Abdul Kareem, a Qatar-based independent consultant. Both and WeRide have partnered with Uber (UBER.N), opens new tab in the region so their vehicles can be ordered through the Uber app. The Gulf may become the region where Chinese and U.S. robotaxis go head to head for the first time. Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab CEO Elon Musk said during a Gulf tour with U.S. President Donald Trump this month that he would take Cybercab robotaxis to Saudi Arabia, although he didn't mention a timeframe. At present, however, Waymo is the only U.S. firm to run uncrewed robotaxi services carrying paying passengers. Tesla plans to launch a trial in Austin, Texas by the end of June, aiming to scale up to about a thousand vehicles within a few months. Its Chinese rivals have more experience. Baidu's Zhang said the company was confident it could do well abroad, citing how its vehicles had completed 10 million trips in China as of March without a serious traffic accident. The search engine giant has been running its Apollo Go robotaxi services commercially in several Chinese cities since 2022. The vehicles have so-called 4 autonomy - which means they are driverless but can travel only in certain areas. Those areas can, however, be quite large with the city of Wuhan, for example, making more than 3,000 km of public roads available for robotaxi use. "This year marks the first year for Apollo to go abroad officially," Zhang said. The company plans to make forays into Europe and Southeast Asia, he added without providing a timeframe. which has a fleet of 300 robotaxis in China, said long term it hopes to integrate its robotaxis with Dubai's metro and tram routes. Backed by Japan's Toyota (7203.T), opens new tab, sees this year as its inaugural year for large-scale commercial deployment and aims to ramp up its fleet globally to thousands of vehicles in the next two years. It also has test permits in the United States, South Korea and Luxembourg. WeRide said it has begun "public operation" of its robotaxi GXR minivan in several Chinese cities as well as Zurich and Abu Dhabi. It partnered with Uber in May to expand into 15 cities in the next five years and says that in addition to the Middle East, Singapore, Japan and Europe face driver shortages in the transportation sector, making them key target markets.
