June 23rd, 2017 News of the Day: Tesla might have its music streaming, Geely could move Lotus to China

author: Claire   

Waymo hired ex-Tesla engineer to lead its self-driving team

Google Waymo has recently hired Satish Jeyachandran, Tesla's former director of hardware engineering, to help lead the autonomous team to commercialize its technology.

Jeyachadran will be in charge of Waymo's hardware team, overseeing the development and integration of cameras, radar, lidar and computer vision and working with Waymo's software team.

"I wanted to join Waymo because it has a talented, mission-driven team that has made impressive advancements in self-driving hardware," Jeyachandran said in a statement on LinkedIn. "This technology offers incredible potential to save millions of lives."

Tesla to launch its own music streaming service

According to Recode, an insider source revealed that Tesla is currently in talks with record labels about creating its own music-streaming service.

Currently, Tesla offers Spotify's streaming service in Europe, Hong Kong and Australia. Meanwhile it works with Slacker in the U.S. and Canada area.

"We believe it's important to have an exceptional in-car experience so our customers can listen to the music they want from whatever source they choose," Tesla said in a statement, without mentioning the potential cooperation with labels.

Level-4 Range Rover can drive itself on city streets

Jaguar Land Rover has recently completed tests of an autonomous Range Rover Sport at the Horiba Mira Proving Ground in the U.K. The prototype can drive itself through a city with level-4 autonomy, which the automaker hopes to offer in its car models within the next ten years.

The test vehicle can navigate through roundabouts, detect traffic lights and perform other essential driving duties. The program is part of UK Autodrive research project backed by the government and industry, with other organizations also involved, including Ford and Tata Motors European Technical Center.

The partners are also working technologies that allow cars to communicate with each other as well as road infrastructure.

Geely considers moving Lotus production back to China

Volvo's parent company, Chinese automaker Geely is considering moving Lotus production back to China, after purchasing stakes in Malaysian carmaker Proton Holdings and Lotus, Proton's UK unit.

In the signing event in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, Geely's Chairman Li Shufu told media that the company could think about Lotus' China move to make the brand profitable again, as well as introducing Proton and Lotus to the latest tech trends including electrification.

The company has signed a final deal to acquire 49.9% of Proton and 51% of Lotus Cars from Malaysia's DRB-Hicom and expects to finish the transaction within three months.

Nissan's ProPILOT driver assist features coming to the new LEAF

Japanese auto giant Nissan will bring its Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) to the new Nissan LEAF, the redesigned version of its leading EV, which will come soon and still remains secretive.

The ProPILOT features will provide semi-autonomous acceleration, braking and steering features while driving in single-lane settings on highways. The function first debuted in Japan, and will now be available in the LEAF outside of Japan for the first time. Although media reports the feature is more of Level-2 autonomy which will not compete with Tesla's autopilot, the new LEAF could be the first affordable non-Tesla vehicle to drive itself.

Claire

Claire Peng has over 6 years of professional experience in the media industry, covering TV, newspaper and online media. She was once a reporter and producer for Fairchild Television based in Toronto Canada, and worked as an English news reporter for the Global Times in Beijing. She writes mainly about self-driving, companies investment, and the enterprise lab.