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nuTonomy beats Uber to launch first self-driving taxi

In the cutthroat world of technology, if you're not first, you're last. With this in mind, it shouldn't come as a surprise to see tech companies and automakers clawing to be first in line to release self-driving cars. Uber recently partnered with Volvo in a $300-million project that should result in a self-driving fleet as early as next month. But amazingly, a 3-year-old company called nuTonomy has beat Uber to the punch by launching the world's first self-driving taxi in Singapore. Cambridge, MA,-based nuTonomy has been privately testing self-driving vehicles in Singapore since April and is now allowing select residents in the city's one-north business district to be driven around in its self-driving taxis for free. Customers will be able to summon one of nuTonomy's self-driving taxis through the company's app and will be picked up in a Renault Zoe or Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car modified for autonomous driving. While the taxi will drive itself, an engineer from nuTonomy will ride in the vehicle to ensure that the car is operating properly and will take over if needed. There's no word on how many self-driving taxis nuTonomy put on the road, but the trials take the company one step closer to launching its fully autonomous fleet by 2018. The Wall Street Journal's Jake Watts managed to get a ride in one of nuTonomy's self-driving taxis and, while it went well, he claims human cabdrivers may not go extinct any time soon. According to Watts, the self-driving Mitsubishi lacked Tesla's polish and was overly cautious. The car did a fine job of avoiding jaywalkers, parked cars, and pedestrians on the short drive, but hesitated often, which could gives riders motion sickness, Watts said. nuTonomy CEO Karl Iagnemma will be speaking at Autoblog's UPSHIFT 2016 conference on transportation technology on October 6 in Detroit. Related Video: News Source: The Wall Street Journal, nuTonomyImage Credit: nuTonomy Green Mitsubishi Renault Technology Emerging Technologies Autonomous Vehicles Electric Uber driverless singapore nutonomy

Mitsubishi and Renault-Nissan expand partnership, US will get new sedan

Mitsubishi and Renault-Nissan have just inked an alliance that might, hopefully, reverse the ailing fortunes of the Mitsubishi brand in the US market. The big chunk of news is that Mitsubishi will produce two Renualt-based models for sale in the US market, and that they'll be built at the Renault-Samsung factory in Busan, South Korea.
The plans call for a D-segment sedan to be followed by a C-segment offering. Based on the cars built at the Busan factory, that means Mitsubishi will be getting the SM5 and the SM3, a pair of handsome sedans that are based on Renault-Nissan's D and C platforms, respectively. These same platforms underpin a number of US market Nissans (not to mention a number of cars from Renault), namely the Pathfinder, Maxima, Quest and Murano for the D platform and the last-generation Rogue and Sentra for the C platform.
Besides the sedan production, Nissan and Mitsubishi will be expanding their joint-venture company, NMKV, which produces Kei cars for the Japanese market. A new, all-electric offering will be born from the partnership, likely based on a Kei car platform. The partnership between the three brands will also lead to increased sharing of technology, particularly relating to electric cars.

Junkyard Gem: 1987 Dodge Ram 50

Chrysler began selling Dodge-badged Mitsubishis way back in the 1971 model year, when the Mitsubishi Colt Galant became known here as the Dodge Colt. Later in the decade, a Plymouth Arrow-badged version of the Mitsubishi Triton small pickup appeared here, along with a Dodge version known as the D-50 and — a few years later — the Ram 50. Once Mitsubishi began selling the same trucks here as Mighty Maxes, starting in the 1983 model year, the Ram 50 didn't seem quite so specialÂ… and then the Dakota made its debut for the 1987 model year. Still, when the Triton went to its second generation that same year, Chrysler continued selling it as the Ram 50. Here's one of those second-generation trucks, found in a Denver-area self-service yard last month. At this point, GM had long since stopped selling Isuzu Fasters with Chevrolet LUV emblems, as had Ford with the Courier-badged Mazda Proceed (after developing the all-American S-10 and Ranger, respectively). The decision-makers at Chrysler, however, calculated that the Ram 50 could grab some sales from Dodge truck shoppers who felt that the Dakota was too big for their needs; as a result, the Ram 50 stayed on sale here through 1994. The last Mighty Maxes rolled out of American Mitsubishi showrooms in 1996. The 6G72 V6 engine became available in four-wheel-drive Ram 50s a few years after this truck was built, but in 1987 all Ram 50s came with either the 2.0-liter 4G63 Sirius or 2.6-liter Astron four-banger. This truck has the base Sirius, rated at 92 horsepower. Remember when new trucks came with double-digit horsepower ratings? Most American-market small pickups still had manual transmissions during the middle 1980s, though that would change in a hurry with the dawn of the 1990s and the drop in slushbox prices. This one has the base five-speed. Just barely 100,000 miles on the clock, very unusual for a junkyard pickup of this age (especially one with a thick coat of brush-applied white house paint on the tailgate). Maybe the speedometer cable broke 25 years ago. You don't see many rear-wheel-drive pickups with roll bars. You'll find one in every car. You'll see. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Dodge Ram 50 Commercial 1987 Those other Japanese imports hallucinated the Ram 50 in alarming ways. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.