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Waymo opens its self-driving taxis to 'Trusted Testers' in San Francisco

Alphabet's fully autonomous driving unit Waymo is ready to offer rides to select passengers in San Francisco, the company announced on Tuesday. Starting later today, residents can sign up to become "Trusted Testers." With an invite to the program, you can use the Waymo One app to take rides in the fleet of Jaguar I-Pace vehicles Waymo will have stationed in the city.  Waymo describes the Trusted Tester program as a "research-focused" effort designed to help it collect feedback on its ride experience, with an emphasis on gathering information related to accessibility.    "We kicked off this program last week with a select few and are now expanding the program to all interested San Franciscans," the company said. "We’ll begin with an initial group and welcome more riders in the weeks to come." Much like it did in Arizona, Waymo won't let the cars drive without supervision right off the back. The company will have employees in the cars to ensure its fifth-generation Waymo Driver technology doesn't get lost on San Francisco's tricky one-way streets and hills. The company also told Bloomberg passengers will ride for free.   The expansion comes after Waymo recently announced CEO John Krafcik was leaving the company to pursue other projects. Some saw Krafcik as being too slow to push the company toward commercialization.  This article by I. Bonifacic originally appeared on Engadget. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

An E-Type in the garden: rotting '63 Jaguar heads for auction

There's something about formerly gorgeous cars in dilapidated states from which the eye cannot turn away. The devastatingly cruel fate of this Jaguar E-Type is an illustration. Next week, it likely begins a new life. Still voluptuous after decades rotting in a garden, this 1963 Series 1 fixed head coupe will be offered for sale at the Coys auction Tuesday in London. The car has 44,870 miles on the odometer and has passed through several owners, including one with a tangential connection to the Beatles and another man who used the Jag to pull his MG to Brands Hatch. He would race them both, according to Coys' listing, wringing the most out of the E-Type's 265-horsepower inline six. Ivor Arbiter was owner No. 1. His link to history is that he designed the Beatles drop-T logo in the early '60s and was reportedly paid five British pounds for it. He bought the E-Type new in 1963, used it, and then sold it to in 1965. The E-Type passed through a couple of owners until motorsports enthusiast Frank Riches bought it in '67. He tracked the Jag at some of Britain's iconic circuits and drove it until he fried the clutch. Coys cites a story from Riches' brother recounting when the E-Type hit 150 miles per hour on a public road, its listed top speed. It was in storage until the 1980s, and then Riches relocated it to his garden, where it has sat for years. Considering its long dormancy, the Jag appears to be in reasonable shape. It's never been restored, obviously, and Riches still has many of the original parts he replaced, including the center console and radiator bar. Coys notes that the seats have a "lovely patina" and are worth saving, too. The buyer also gets a brown logbook, the sales invoice to Riches, two service books (it is a '63 Jag) and a spare parts catalogue. A Coys auctioneer told ITV.com that the car could net about $140,000. Related Video: Jaguar Auctions Coupe Luxury Performance jaguar e-type

2014 Jaguar XFR-S Sportbrake is one hot hauler

Oh look, another super-hot wagon that won't be making its way to the US. Awesome.
Actually, in all honesty, it really is awesome. Meet the Jaguar XFR-S Sportbrake, a red-hot (or blue-hot?) version of the rakish XF wagon that originally bowed at the Geneva Motor Show back in 2012. The formula here is pretty much plug-and-play: take the 5.0-liter supercharged V8 from the XFR-S and shove it in the wagon body, and add all of the necessary visual flair fitting of a properly powerful Jag. The end result is an estate that packs 542 horsepower, 502 pound-feet of torque, and the ability to sprint to 60 miles per hour in a scant 4.6 seconds. Meow.
This Jaguar joins a growing segment of ultra-hot wagons in Europe, rounded out by offerings like the Audi RS6 Avant and the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG longroof - the latter of which you can actually buy in North America. Sounds like the sort of comparison test we'd love to facilitate. Guess we'll have to leave that to our friends at Autocar, though.