California might be implementing regulations that put severe limitations on self-driving cars, but Nevada is doing just the opposite.
Several companies are applying for licenses to test self-driving cars in Nevada. Kia has already been approved, announcing that it will hold a press conference on Jan. 5, 2016 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino for the “global debut of its dedicated autonomous driving program.”
Kia and sister company Hyundai are investing $2 billion over the next two years to develop an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) and hire more engineers to work on self-driving cars. Kia says it will introduce a semi-autonomous car by 2020 and, hopefully, a fully autonomous vehicle by 2030.
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The plan is to use the 2016 Kia Optima to highlight the company’s future vision, which it says will be focused on three major areas: vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication.
Other early self-driving car headlines for CES include Delphi’s V2Everything System and Rinspeed’s Etos self-driving car. The V2Everything System uses advanced software and hardware to allow the vehicle to communicate with streets, signs, traffic lights, other cars and even pedestrians.
Rinspeed’s Etos self-driving car, meanwhile, appears to be a pretty standard self-driving car, until you notice the helipad on the back of the car. According to Rinspeed, a drone could take off from the Etos to “fetch a bouquet of flowers the driver ordered online and even deliver it directly to the lucky recipient.” Or the drone could tail the self-driving car and take aerial footage.
