Competitors Eyeing for On-road Test Permissions

Meet FFZERO1

A few days ago, we had reported about world’s first self-driven mini-bus, Olli, by Local Motors. Now another US-based automotive startup, Faraday Future, is here with their new self-driven prototype cars. The company has already secured permission to test their prototypes on road in California.

Faraday Future, which rolled into action in 2014 with Chinese funding, is the major competitor of Tesla, which has its own plans to bring out such cars in near future. Interestingly, Faraday team comprises of star players, all ex-employees of Tesla. This intensifies the competition to roll out the first next-level car between them even more. Faraday plans to start manufacture and sales by next year.

The self-driven electric cars will be using an undisclosed driver-assistance platform. It is expected to be something similar to what Olli is using- Watson, an IBM AI cloud service. Named as FFZERO1, Faraday Future had first unveiled it at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas.

The War Intensifies

California has recently approved 13 other self-driven concept cars to be tested on road. Zoox and Drive.ai are some of the players here. Other high-flying competitors include Volkswagen AG, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan Motor and BMW AG.

Elon Musk-led Tesla is quietly working towards developing and integrating such an AI into their cars. The engineers are using the present Model S Tesla cars to update and test its self-driving capabilities. They recently installed twelve ultrasonic sensors, a radar system and GPS into the car to for further tests.

With so many players ready to capture the market, it seems our existing car models will soon be lost in the dust of oblivion.

Takeaways:-

• Faraday Future’s FFZERO1 is the new self-driving concept car.
• It has secured on-road test permission in California.
• Faraday is planning to start selling their self-driven cars by next year.