Mobileye releases video of self-driving car on Munich roads
Video shows a Ford whose driver keeps his hands off the wheel; it navigates traffic, stops at lights, cruises at 80 mph
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter
Israel’s Mobileye, a maker of self-driving technologies, has released a video showing an autonomous vehicle maneuvering its way through the German city of Munich using only a camera-based system developed by the firm.
The company said that it was able to deploy the autonomous vehicle on the streets of Munich due to crowdsourced data it has collected from cars on the road, which send the information directly to the cloud. That information is then automatically processed into high-definition maps, essential for the functioning of autonomous or semi-autonomous cars, the Jerusalem-based firm owned by Intel Corp. said in a statement.
The video shows a driver in a Ford cruising the streets of the German city, hands off the wheel and on his knees, as a screen shows him the route and traffic ahead. The wheel turns autonomously and the car stops at lights, turns left in traffic waiting for approaching cars to pass. It drives at a variety of speeds, up to 130 kilometers an hour (80 mph) on a local highway.
The car maneuvers to avoid an open door, executes an unprotected left turn, maneuvers to avoid a bus pulled to the side of the road, changes lanes on a highway at high speeds, navigates a congested street, and goes around a vehicle that is parallel parking and stopped emergency vehicles.
The vehicle shown in the video uses camera-only system, developed by the firm, along with a sensing technology that uses radar and lidar, the statement said.
Mobileye was acquired by Intel in 2017 for $15.3 billion.
The Israeli company got a permit for autonomous vehicle testing in Germany in July 2020. The permit allows the company to test vehicles in real-world traffic on German roads at speeds up to 130 kph, the statement said.
