A test site on the campus of the University of Michigan might hold a glimpse into what our robot-filled future will look like. Set to open today, M City is a 32-acre playground for automakers that will test how a city filled with self-driving cars might function in real life. The $6.5 million landscape will pit the cars against suburban streets, highways, and rural roads, as well as unforeseen obstacles like traffic jams or pedestrians prancing across across medians (the test dummy, whose job it is to plunge in front of cars, is named Sebastian).
"We're replacing humans with machines and those machines need to be able to operate in a full, rich environment," the head of the Transportation Research Institute, Peter Sweatman, told Bloomberg.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The knives come out for Pam BondiIN THE SPOTLIGHT She wasn't Trump's first pick to lead the Justice Department. After months of scandals and setbacks, is the attorney general's MAGA shelf life winding down?
-
What to expect for student loan repayment under Trump's budget billThe Explainer Millions of borrowers may soon be forced to alter their plans
-
The world's 10 richest familiesIn Depth From Middle Eastern monarchs to M&M magnates, these are the most fabulously wealthy clans on Earth
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
-
Economists fear US inflation data less reliablespeed read The Labor Department is collecting less data for its consumer price index due to staffing shortages
-
Crypto firm Coinbase hacked, faces SEC scrutinySpeed Read The Securities and Exchange Commission has also been investigating whether Coinbase misstated its user numbers in past disclosures
-
Starbucks baristas strike over dress codespeed read The new uniform 'puts the burden on baristas' to buy new clothes, said a Starbucks Workers United union delegate
-
Warren Buffet announces surprise retirementspeed read At the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, the billionaire investor named Vice Chairman Greg Abel his replacement
