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site.btaBetween AI and Regulation: Will Autonomous Vehicles Soon Appear On Bulgarian Streets? In early March, Associated Press reported that London’s streets are expected to welcome robotaxis soon, while in mid-February dpa said that German carmaker Volkswagen is preparing to launch self-driving minivans in a third European city and its first outside Germany. At the end of 2025, Toyota opened an experimental “Woven City” in Japan featuring autonomous cars and robots. But where does Bulgaria stand in this process and will autonomous vehicles soon appear on Bulgarian streets? In response to a BTA inquiry about the development of intelligent transport systems (ITS) in Bulgaria, the Ministry of Transport and Communications said the country is at a key stage in deploying these technologies. The requirements of Directive 2010/40/EU, which establishes a framework for the development of ITS in Europe, have been implemented, along with its amendment – Directive (EU) 2023/2661, which prepares Member States for connected and automated mobility, including autonomous vehicles. According to the directive, cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) need to be developed, enabling vehicles to “communicate” with each other and with road infrastructure. This will allow drivers and autonomous vehicles to receive information and warnings about road hazards, handle more complex traffic situations, and facilitate safe autonomous driving. The Ministry noted that amendments adopted in 2025 to the Ordinance on the conditions and procedure for the deployment of intelligent transport systems, along with the Public Transport Act, have created the necessary conditions to accelerate the introduction of ITS in the country. Additional primary and secondary legislation is planned to fully regulate cooperative and automated mobility, including autonomous driving. Timeline for the introduction of autonomous vehicles in Bulgaria The deployment will take place once economic conditions make the technology viable, Assen Nachkov, a PhD student at the Institute for Computer
Self-driving cars risk blind spot for vulnerable road users as tech unprepared for fast-moving runners The report highlighted concerns with current automated vehicle systems Don't Miss Most Read Latest Self-driving cars may not be fully prepared to deal with runners on the road, according to a new study, which warned of massive safety risks. Researchers found that runners were far more likely than walkers to take risks when crossing roads, something current automated vehicle systems may not properly account for. The study, carried out by teams at the University of Glasgow and KAIST, used augmented reality technology to explore how runners behaved differently from pedestrians. Their findings showed runners were less likely to slow down or stop at crossings and may even run in front of approaching vehicles to maintain their pace, leading to runners being struck by virtual cars in simulated scenarios. TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say Professor Stephen Brewster, of the University of Glasgow's School of Computing Science, said: "We realised that there's been very little research into how runners might expect to interact with driverless cars. That's surprising on a couple of levels." He warned that it will be increasingly important to ensure that runners and automated vehicles "can share the roads safely in the years to come". To carry out the research, 24 participants were asked to walk or run towards a junction while wearing augmented reality headsets, which displayed a life-sized virtual car approaching them. The survey revealed key safety concerns over how the vehicles reacted to runners on the road |PA/GETTY The simulated vehicles were programmed to sometimes stop and sometimes continue through the junction. In some cases, they were fitted with special external displays designed to communicate their intentions to pedestrians. These displays, known as "external human-machine interfaces", used lights to signal to
Top Stories White House revises metals tariffs, shifts calculation method. Read More Stellantis explores EV production in Canada with China’s Leapmotor. Read More NHTSA weighs U.S. ban on defective Chinese airbag components. Read More Toyota bets on EV rebound with seven-model U.S. lineup. Read More Featured Interviews Affordability takes center stage at the 2026 NY Auto Show The 2026 New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) highlighted a growing divide between industry innovation and consumer priorities, with affordability emerging as the dominant factor influencing vehicle purchases, according to automotive expert Lauren Fix. Watch the full segment here. Legal battles reshape car sales This week on The Future of Automotive, the debate over how cars are sold in America is once again heating up—and this time, there are real signs of momentum. During the COVID era, a number of automakers openly explored selling vehicles directly to consumers, bypassing the traditional franchise dealership model. That conversation largely quieted down in recent years—but now, it’s resurfacing in a meaningful way. Watch the full segment here.
There may be a day when we are all being ferried around by fully autonomous cars like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. But according to recent reporting from Wired, Tesla’s Robotaxis still heavily rely on remote human drivers. This is giving passengers the mere illusion of autonomy. However, in reality, it’s more of an elaborate drone or puppet. It’s not just Tesla, but it is mostly Tesla. Videos by VICE Across the autonomous vehicle industry, companies like Waymo, Zoox, and Nuro all admit they rely on “remote assistance” teams, AKA people who step in when a car gets confused, stuck, or encounters something its software can’t compute. But most of these companies seem to be making a genuine attempt to keep these vehicles as autonomous as possible, using humans only to advise the car rather than drive it. Tesla is having cars straight up driven by remote drivers. Just being RC cars with actual humans inside. Your Tesla Robotaxi Might Not Be Driving Itself After All In a now-disclosed letter to US Senator Ed Markey, Tesla confirmed that its remote assistance operators can, in rare cases, take direct control of a robotaxi. These operators are based in Austin and Palo Alto, and can remotely drive vehicles at low speeds, up to about 10 miles per hour, effectively stepping in when the system doesn’t know what else to do. While Tesla frames it as a last resort safety measure, it’s a glaring admission that autonomous cars, or at the very least Tesla’s autonomous cars, can’t handle the obstacles and nuances of real-world driving. In the world of autonomous vehicles, where the largest breakthrough to mass acceptance hinges on public trust built through a safety record, that distinction matters quite a bit. Other companies go out of their way to ensure that
NTSB Blames Ford BlueCruise In Fatal Crashes, Asks For Federal Oversight The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending standardized performance requirements for automated vehicle technologies after determining that an "overreliance" of these systems contributed to two fatal crashes. We recently covered the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) making some broad claims about how added driver assistance features meant improved safety. The NTSB seems to be indicating the opposite, citing two fatal crashes that involved Ford’s BlueCruise system. For those unfamiliar, BlueCruise is a driver assistance feature equipped to certain models that allows hands-free driving on select highways. The system has gotten a fair bit of praise in the past. However, like Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD), it has become the subject of criticism from the National Transportation Safety Board. The federal safety agency recently published a paper ( h/t AutoGuide) calling for “standardized performance requirements and greater oversight to improve the safety of automated vehicle technology” in response to a pair of fatal incidents that took place in 2024. From the NTSB: In a Feb. 24, 2024, crash in San Antonio, a Ford traveling east in the center lane of Interstate 10 struck a stationary 1999 Honda CR-V. The Honda driver was killed, and the Ford driver sustained minor injuries. In a March 3, 2024, crash in Philadelphia, a Ford traveling north in the left lane of Interstate 95 struck two stationary vehicles — a 2012 Hyundai Elantra and a 2006 Toyota Prius — causing them to collide with a passing Toyota Corolla. The drivers of the Prius and Elantra were killed. The Ford driver sustained minor injuries, and the Corolla driver was uninjured. In both crashes, no driver-applied or system-initiated braking or steering was recorded in the moments before impact. Despite assurances from automakers and insurance companies that these
Rivian Automotive (NasdaqGS:RIVN) agreed a $5.8b software licensing and joint venture deal with Volkswagen focused on vehicle software and electronics. The company also announced a $1.25b robotaxi partnership with Uber to supply autonomous vehicles for ride hailing. These agreements shift part of Rivian's focus toward software, autonomy, and external collaborations alongside its own EV sales. Rivian Automotive now sits at a $15.4 share price, with the stock up 4.3% over the past week and 37.4% over the past year, while being down 20.7% year to date. The new Volkswagen and Uber deals add fresh context for investors who have mainly viewed Rivian through the lens of vehicle production and deliveries. For readers, the key question is how a broader role in software and robotaxis might change the mix of future revenue and risks for NasdaqGS:RIVN. These agreements introduce additional business lines that sit alongside manufacturing, which could matter for how you think about the company over the long run. Stay updated on the most important news stories for Rivian Automotive by adding it to your watchlist or portfolio. Alternatively, explore our Community to discover new perspectives on Rivian Automotive. 📊 The Volkswagen software JV and Uber robotaxi deal broaden Rivian's business beyond selling EVs, which may change how you think about revenue mix and capital needs. 📊 Keep an eye on JV milestones, software deployment progress and any disclosure on economics from licensing or robotaxi volumes, relative to the current US$15.40 share price and analyst range of US$9 to US$25. ⚠️ Rivian is currently loss making and is not forecast to be profitable over the next 3 years, so execution missteps on these new projects could add to already meaningful earnings risk. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and
The IQ Aqua marks the company’s entry into underwater robotics, extending Zena Drone’s IQ autonomous product family, which currently spans air, land, and water surface drone operations, to underwater operations. The IQ Aqua prototype has demonstrated baseline autonomous navigation and underwater mobility in controlled environments. The Company is now manufacturing several more prototypes to conduct outdoor underwater field testing in the US and in other international locations to commence over the coming months. “ZenaDrone IQ Aqua is positioned to address one of the most urgent gaps in modern maritime defense: autonomous mine detection. Mines represent an asymmetric threat that is inexpensive to deploy and extraordinarily expensive to counter using traditional manned methods, and we are building a technology specifically designed to detect them,” said Shaun Passley, Ph.D., ZenaTech CEO. “We intend to change that calculus, enabling defense forces to detect and respond to underwater mine threats without putting divers or manned vessels at risk. Combined with our IQ Glider launch station and interceptor drones, the IQ Aqua will give defense forces an integrated above- and below-surface maritime defense architecture, while also addressing significant commercial demand for autonomous underwater inspection and surveillance across the offshore energy and port security sectors.” Intended future IQ Aqua defense applications include mine detection and countermeasure support, covert underwater intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and port and harbor threat detection. The current prototype operates with a tethered, battery-powered configuration. The company is currently developing the next generation, intended to be tether-free and GPS-independent, enabling fully autonomous operation in contested and GPS-denied underwater environments. In terms of commercial use, the ZenaDrone IQ Aqua’s design is suited for autonomous inspection of offshore energy pipelines, subsea cables, and maritime infrastructure, reducing reliance on costly diver deployments and manned vessel operations. Gulf Cooperation Council nations—including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and
With driverless taxi services poised to expand across European cities this year, a new study is urging operators to equip vehicles with IoT enabled on-board traffic lights to signal to runners and pedestrians when it is safe to cross. Researchers from the University of Glasgow and KAIST in South Korea warn that runners, in particular, take more risks at crossings than walkers, potentially creating new hazards for autonomous vehicles unless safety systems are adapted. The study used augmented reality (AR) to simulate urban streets and investigate how runners and walkers interact differently with self-driving cars (AVs). While much AV research assumes that pedestrians behave cautiously, the team found that runners are a distinct—and riskier—group of road users. “In our research group, we’ve focused on developing systems to help autonomous vehicles communicate safely with cyclists and pedestrians,” said Stephen Brewster, Professor of Human Computer Interaction at the University of Glasgow. “But runners have largely been overlooked, even though running is the most popular physical activity worldwide, with over 600 million recreational runners. And with millions of AV trips now happening monthly, it’s clear that runners and self-driving cars will increasingly share the road.” What are eHMIs? To study this, 24 participants wore AR headsets outdoors, overlaying virtual AVs on real streets. They were instructed to either walk or run toward a junction while a simulated vehicle approached. The cars either displayed no signals or used one of two “external Human-Machine Interfaces,” or eHMIs—a term for vehicle-mounted lights that communicate the car’s intentions, essentially acting as on-board traffic lights. The first eHMI, LightRing, used a simple red-and-green light ring around the car. Green indicated it was safe to cross, red signalled the vehicle would not yield. The second, CyanBand, displayed animated cyan lights that swept inward to indicate braking and outward for
To understand the magnitude of the MindVLA announcement, one must first understand the powerhouse behind it. Li Auto is not just another EV startup; it is a dominant force in the Chinese premium electric vehicle market. Founded in 2015 by entrepreneur Xiang Li, the company has carved out a massive niche by focusing on Extended-Range Electric Vehicles (EREVs) and high-end battery electric vehicles (BEVs) designed for families. Unlike many competitors who struggled with scaling, Li Auto has seen meteoric growth. According to their March 2026 delivery update, the company continues to break records, delivering tens of thousands of vehicles monthly. However, their hardware is only half the story. The real "moat" Li Auto is building lies in its software stack, specifically its push toward an End-to-End (E2E) autonomous driving philosophy that mimics human intuition rather than rigid, hand-coded logic. Understanding MindVLA: Perception Without a Script At the most recent NVIDIA GTC, Li Auto pulled back the curtain on MindVLA. To the uninitiated, it sounds like another acronym in the alphabet soup of automotive tech, but for the industry, it represents a generational leap in Embodied AI. MindVLA stands for Vision-Language-Action. Traditionally, Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) relied on modular stacks: one part of the code detected lines, another detected cars, and a third—the "planner"—decided how to steer based on a pre-loaded High-Definition (HD) Map. If the map was outdated or the road layout had changed, the system would fail or "disengage." MindVLA discards the crutch of HD mapping. It utilizes a 3D Vision Transformer (ViT) Encoder to perceive the world in true spatial depth. Instead of just seeing a flat image and guessing distance, the model understands the volume, velocity, and intent of everything in its field of view. By integrating a Large Language Model (LLM) framework, the car doesn’t
A massive system failure on Tuesday left over a hundred robotaxis stranded in the streets of Wuhan, China, Wired reports, with dozens of the cars stopping dead in the middle of traffic and even highways. The robotaxis are operated by Baidu, a Chinese tech conglomerate which has deployed hundreds of the self-driving cars in the central China city. Footage uploaded to social media paints a partial picture of the chaos. One dashcam video — it appears to be this one — shows a driver passing at least 16 of Baidu’s Apollo Go robotaxis that stopped in the road in the span of 90 minutes, according to the magazine’s reporting, congesting traffic. Others showed them halted in highways, sometimes in the fast lane. The outage appears to have resulted in at least three crashes. On the Chinese social media site RedNote, a user who uploaded dashcam footage says he rear-ended a stranded Baidu robotaxi after the car in front of him suddenly changed lanes to avoid hitting it, leaving him little time to react, per Wired. The magazine also found videos of two other collisions, with one RedNote user confirming she drove past a van that slammed into the rear of a Baidu cab. For passengers, the experience was no less chaotic. One told Wired she was stuck in a Baidu robotaxi with two friends for 90 minutes on the night of the outage, and described their frustrating attempts to reach customer support. The car, according to the passenger, stopped four to five times before finally parking in front of an intersection that, fortunately, wasn’t busy. A screen in the car told them to stay put because a company rep would come by in “five minutes,” but when no one came, they spent another half hour trying to reach customer support.
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If the robot revolution is to happen — and many appear convinced it will — the automotive industry is likely to be front and center in the movement. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, many in and around the sphere of robotics paint a picture in which automated and even human-like machines take over many routine jobs in the future, relieving people of mundane or physically challenging work while helping consumers handle everyday tasks around the house. Driving the market’s interest in robotics, said Alex Panas, senior partner and global leader of industry sectors for consultants McKinsey & Co., is a shrinking workforce and a Chinese industrial complex that is setting the pace when it comes to factory automation. He pointed to forecasts that the U.S. will suffer a shortage of 1.9 million factory workers by 2033 and current data indicating a 40% turnover rate for warehouse employees as the impetus for accelerated robotics adoption. Factories in China are out-automating their U.S. counterparts by a factor of 10, he said, suggesting America’s ability to compete globally could be at risk if it doesn’t step up the pace. “Automation is back on the CEO agenda,” Panas said in kicking off a panel discussion in January at CES 2026 in Las Vegas on “Physical AI” — the migration of artificial intelligence from the digital space into the physical world. Companies are no longer treating automation simply as a capital purchase within an operations context, he said, but as something that could trigger transformational capabilities for their organizations. “The imperative is there; the excitement is there,” Panas said. “And we’re seeing a significant number of enterprises move in that direction. The amount of mentions about [industrial] robotics and automations in public filings has more than doubled in the last 18 months.” ABI Research
NTSB adds latest Waymo school bus incident to growing investigation AUSTIN, Texas — Federal investigators say a Waymo autonomous vehicle passed a stopped Austin ISD school bus on March 25 as it was loading and unloading students, the latest in a string of incidents that has drawn scrutiny from officials and the community. The National Transportation Safety Board announced it would fold the latest incident into an ongoing safety investigation that began last year, when Austin ISD announced over 20 school bus safety violations involving Waymo's self-driving cars. PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Waymo faces scrutiny over school bus safety violations in Austin The violations continued even after Waymo filed a software recall in December with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with additional infractions recorded in December and January. At the time, Austin ISD asked Waymo to suspend operations during student pickup and dropoff times. The company declined. "They did not agree with our risk assessment and respectfully declined to stop operating," Austin ISD Police Chief Wayne Sneed said in December. PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Video captures Waymo driving in wrong lane near MLK and I-35 The school bus violations are part of a broader pattern of incidents in Austin. In early March, Waymo vehicles stopped past lowered railroad crossing gates on two separate occasions, and a vehicle was filmed briefly traveling in the wrong lane near the University of Texas campus. A Waymo spokesperson said, "We care deeply about safety on our roads, and we’ll continue to work with AISD and the NTSB on our shared safety mission." The NTSB said the investigation remains ongoing, with safety recommendations expected. CBS Austin has reached out to Austin ISD for more information.
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It’s been looming for weeks, but now the end is near: Just a few hundred Tesla Model S and Model X vehicles remain unsold. Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed this week in a post on X that custom orders of the Model S sedan and Model X SUV are over. “All that’s left are some in inventory,” he wrote. Musk first announced Tesla’s plan to end Model S and Model X production back in January. And the data helps explain why. Sales of the Tesla Model X and Model S have fallen steadily over the years as the company’s high volume and cheaper entries — the Model 3 and Model Y — took over. Tesla doesn’t separate S and X sales, instead combining them under “other models,” a category that now includes the Cybertruck. And those combined figures show S and X sales peaking in 2017 at 101,312 vehicles before declining to 50,850 vehicles (including Cybertruck) in 2025 — a fraction of the 1.63 million vehicles it delivered globally last year. In other words, their deaths were inevitable. What comes next is a bit more complicated. Musk isn’t filling the void left by the Model X and Model S with a traditional EV; he ditched plans to produce a lower-cost EV that was expected to be priced around $25,000. Instead, Musk is placing his bets on the Optimus robot, which has yet to go into production, and the Cybercab, an all-electric two-seater autonomous vehicle that was first shown as a concept in 2024. Tesla plans to build Optimus robots at its Fremont, California, factory once production of the Model S and Model X end, which could be any day now that final orders have been taken. Musk has said Tesla will begin producing the Cybercab this month at its factory
Recent reports from publications like Wiredand Engadgethave highlighted that Tesla's Robotaxis have the capability to be driven by humans remotely. While some critics have pointed to this as a flaw in the autonomy narrative, a closer look at the actual policy reveals that this teleoperation feature is a highly practical and essential safeguard for real-world driving. Solving Autonomy in a Flawed World The transition to fully autonomous vehicles is bound to encounter unpredictable edge cases. We have already seen this play out with competitors like Waymo. In several widely publicized incidents, multiple autonomous vehicles have become completely confused in intersections, resulting in traffic jams consisting entirely of driverless cars. In some of these situations, remote operators have had to manually guide vehicles out of their gridlock situation, and early on during the inception of the now-defunct Cruise network, the company even required manual physical intervention from employees to fix stuck vehicles. The consequences of these gridlocks become exponentially worse when emergency vehicles are involved. An autonomous car blocking an ambulance or a firetruck because it cannot interpret a complex traffic diversion is a massive public safety hazard. Tesla's remote control capabilities are designed specifically to prevent this exact nightmare scenario. Final Escalation The details of Tesla's strategy were recently outlined in correspondence between Karen Steakley, Tesla's director of public policy and business development, and Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. Steakley explained that Tesla employs highly trained Remote Assistance Operators at its facilities in Austin and Palo Alto to monitor the Robotaxi fleet. According to Steakley, these operators act as a strict redundancy measure in rare cases. They are only authorized to temporarily assume direct vehicle control as the final escalation maneuver after all other available intervention actions have been exhausted. This means the human operators are not ferrying passengers to
Embedded World 2026: A Field Report on the Latest in Embedded Electronics For those who couldn't be among the 36,000 attendees in Nuremberg, we've picked our highlights from the show floor. Embedded World, one of the biggest events in the calendar for the embedded electronics industry, has come to a close for another year — having hosted a record 36,000 visitors to nearly 1,300 exhibitors showcasing everything from the latest in Bluetooth technologies to self-driving vehicles and robotics. "This year once again impressively demonstrated the importance of Embedded World in the global embedded community," boasts Benedikt Weyerer, executive director of the annual show, of Embedded World 2026. "The energy in the halls — packed aisles, lots of good discussions and an impressive variety of ideas — really inspired us. This strong feedback motivates us enormously and encourages us to continue on the successful path of the event. For companies in the embedded space, Embedded World is a chance to showcase everything they've been working on over the past year. For visitors, an opportunity to see not only what's new but what's around the corner — with exhibitors showing off technologies that are shipping now alongside those that are still in the pipeline, including fully-autonomous vehicles and humanoid robotics. "An exceptionally broad spectrum of innovative technical presentations characterized this year's Embedded World conference," says event chair Axel Sikora, celebrating a 13 percent growth in visitors compared with last year. "The depth of the technical discussions and the quality of the scientific input show how actively and future-oriented our developer community is working. Rarely has it been so clear how intensively research and practice are working together on new solutions." For those who couldn't be among the 36,000 lucky attendees, we've picked our highlights from the show floor below. Nordic Semiconductor While
The Jacksonville Transportation Authority has begun seeking proposals for a pilot program that could include retrofitting buses and passenger vehicles with autonomous technology, an early indication of interest in expanding self-driving public transit beyond Downtown. In the request for proposals, filed as P-26-014, JTA says it “is soliciting innovative technology solutions through a structured Test & Learn Research & Development (R&D) program.” RELATED: Autonomous NAVI shuttles could extend to the Beaches “This includes but (is) not limited to the following Areas: Advanced Autonomous Vehicle Operations, Smart Connected Infrastructure, and related Safety Technologies that will be appropriate for the Pilot deployment of the AVs and technology surrounding it in support of the Ultimate Urban Circulator (U²C) Project in the Jacksonville urban core,” the RFP reads. Read the rest of this story at the Jacksonville Daily Record, a Jacksonville Today news partner.