Mercedes-Benz maker Daimler is embracing Silicon Valley management techniques in a drive to speed up decision-making, empower staff and fend off new rivals.
The Michigan-based automaker announced plans to accelerate its development of self-driving cars, as it races to keep up with its traditional competitors and technology companies alike.
Non-automakers and start-ups have rushed to begin making electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles as China's central government liberalizes the industry to promote a switch to electricity as an ultimate replacement for petrol to fuel cars.
Tesla said on Wednesday that one of its cars had crashed in Beijing while in 'autopilot' mode, with the driver contending sales staff sold the function as 'self-driving,' overplaying its actual capabilities.
With a tentative agreement to be purchased by its sister company, Tesla Motors, SolarCity is going all in on a strategy that some analysts say is ahead of its time: pairing solar systems with the automaker's energy-storage batteries.
The National Transportation Safety Board also found evidence the driver was using Tesla's Traffic-Aware Cruise Control and Autosteer, and the car was equipped with automatic emergency braking.
Daimler, the world's largest truck manufacturer, will use three-dimensional printing to produce spare parts, the latest example of how digital technologies are radically reshaping automotive manufacturing and its supply chain.
Although the venture sought to produce premium cars like Tesla, it would attempt a different strategy from the US company that began with relatively limited production and focuses on a single model at a time.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in March it was collecting information after a Google self-driving car struck a municipal bus in California in a minor crash. But it did not open a formal probe.
Tesla learned about the crash of the Model S sedan in Florida 'shortly' after the May 7 crash, and on May 16 it disclosed the incident to the government.
The dreaded act of parallel parking could soon become a thing of the past with Chinese inventors backing their new parking robot to take away the stress for anxious drivers.
Some of the automaker's gasoline-electric hybrid Prius models contain both of the potential defects, taking the total number of vehicles affected by the recalls to 3.37 million.
The Japanese company said using ethanol, produced from crops including sugar cane and corn, to generate hydrogen-based electricity inside vehicles would be cheaper than fuel cell technology.
The companies suspended services in the city on May 9, two days after residents voted to keep the city's law requiring Uber and Lyft, just like taxi companies, to conduct fingerprint-based background checks of their drivers.