Tim Higgins reported earlier this month at The Wall Street Journal Online that, “In the race to develop driverless cars, Volkswagen AG and Hyundai Motor Co. are placing bets on a Silicon Valley startup founded a year ago by the former leaders of autonomous vehicles at Google and Tesla.
“Aurora Innovation Inc. on Thursday announced separate partnerships with the two auto makers, signaling the emergence of a potential rival to Waymo, the Google self-driving experiment that has morphed into a business unit of corporate parent Alphabet Inc.
“The young Palo Alto, Calif., startup has a pedigree of driverless-car experts but is no surefire bet, with only about a year under its belt. The support of two of the largest car companies could help propel Aurora in a nascent industry that is working to upend the future of personal transportation.”
The Journal article noted that, “Executives from both VW and Hyundai said in interviews that they aim to put Aurora’s self-driving software in production vehicles by 2021.
“Aurora is using a mixture of robotics and machine learning to create vision systems and driving policy programs that allow computers to pilot a car without people behind the wheel, as well as developing how those systems would work with lasers, radar and cameras to see and navigate the world.”
