The Car Passing You On A Jerusalem Road May Be Self-Driving

This article was first published by The Times of Israel and is re-posted with permission.

Israel-based Mobileye has started testing its self-driving cars on highways around Jerusalem in recent months and plans to expand the tests to California in the next month and later to Arizona, the co-founder and CEO of the company that was acquired by Intel Corp. last year said on Tuesday.

In a briefing with journalists at the sidelines of Intel Capital’s Global Summit in Palm Desert, California, Prof. Amnon Shashua said the cars of his company’s test fleet were driving “every day” in and around Jerusalem “completely autonomously.” The company does not advertise in any way that the car is autonomous, he said, to avoid having pedestrians and other cars jump in front of the vehicle to challenge it, he said.

The cars are part of a fleet of 35 self-driving vehicles being built by Intel and Mobileye, with that number planned to rise to 100, he said.

Mobileye founders Amnon Shashua and Ziv Aviram. Courtesy

Mobileye is a developer of chips for car cameras and driver-assistance features. In January, Intel and Mobileye unveiled their first autonomous car, equipped with 12 cameras and sensors that enable the cars to navigate the traffic by providing the vehicle with different fields of view.

In a keynote address at the summit, Shashua showed videos of the car navigating heavy traffic on an Israeli highway, changing lanes in heavy traffic, and balancing safety considerations with being “aggressive enough” to get ahead on the road.

“In Israel, if you are not assertive on the roads you may as well stay at home,” he said, amid laughter.

Striking a balance between safety and aggressiveness is key to the success of the autonomous cars venture, he said.

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