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General Motors announced Oct. 9 that it is buying Strobe, a Pasadena startup that makes lidar, a laser-based sensor that most autonomous vehicles use to see the world around them.

While advancements in autonomous — or self-driving — cars get much of the attention, development of self-driving commercial vehicles is speeding forward.

Traffic fatalities in the U.S. rose for the second straight year in 2016 despite a dip in crash deaths linked to distracted driving, according to data released by federal highway safety regulators.

WASHINGTON – On a unanimous voice vote, a Senate committee approved legislation Oct. 4 that authorizes self-driving car makers to sell as many as 80,000 vehicles a year within three years that would be exempt from current safety standards as manufacturers develop technology for autonomous vehicles.

U.S. residents are “polarized” on whether to embrace driverless cars, according to a survey by insurer American International Group Inc.

Uber Technologies Inc. hired an engineer to lead its driverless car program last year even after its own research revealed red flags about how much proprietary information he took from his former employer, Waymo.

The idea of highways being filled with self-driving cars may be alluring, but it has highway safety experts raising numerous questions about common contemporary issues like drunk driving, seat belt use and how other motorists might react to a car without a driver behind the wheel.

“Trucks are going to be around for a very long time.”

An effort to attach trucking-centric provisions to Senate legislation on self-driving vehicles did not materialize during the bill’s consideration Oct. 4.

Rio Tinto Group, the world’s second-largest mining company, is focused as much on driver-less trucks and automated drills as conventional shovels and loaders these days. That means it needs a whole lot more high-tech workers.