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Kevin Schlosser has made it his mission to make driving safer by advocating for autonomous vehicles.

Schlosser's first experience with the dangers of the roadways came when his mother was involved in a car crash when he was 12 years old. Schlosser's mother survived the accident, though another person involved was killed. Then, in 2017, Schlosser lost his girlfriend in a vehicle crash.

"I needed to do something," Schlosser, now 30, told Automotive News. "I needed to help find a safer means of transportation."

In a lecture Schlosser attended a few months later, Richard Bishop — longtime automotive consultant and former program manager for vehicle-highway automation at the Federal Highway Administration — spoke on autonomous vehicles. It was Schlosser's introduction to the possibilities of new modes of transportation.

The two connected a few months later and began working together on researching autonomous vehicles.

Billions of dollars have been spent in a global race to develop artificial intelligence in recent years and position AI as a powerful technology capable of redefining multiple industries.

Might some of those efforts be unraveled by a small piece of black tape?

A recent experiment underscored the fragility of nascent artificial intelligence systems. Researchers at McAfee tricked a Tesla equipped with Traffic-Aware Cruise Control into misreading a speed-limit sign and then accelerating to match the erroneous reading.

They altered a 35 mph speed-limit sign by elongating the middle part of the "3" with a patch of black tape. The tweak baited Tesla's computer-vision algorithms into misclassifying the "3' as an "8."

For now, this may be of mild concern. The spoofed system is part of a driver-assist feature. Humans still oversee — and retain all responsibility for — vehicle operations. But it's not a far leap to a future wh…

Lyft Inc. has bought U.S.-based startup Halo Cars, which allows drivers to make money through digital advertisements displayed on top of their vehicles.

The deal, first reported by Axios, was confirmed by the ride-hailing company on Friday. Lyft did not comment on the financing of the deal.

Halo Cars was founded in 2018 and has operations in U.S. markets such as New York and Chicago.

Lyft and larger rival Uber Technologies Inc., both based in San Francisco, are pursuing different roads in search of profitability, with Uber pouring money into side businesses which have so far lost money and Lyft focusing solely on moving people around.

With operations only in the United States and some Canadian cities, Lyft said earlier this month its active rider customer base in the fourth quarter grew to 22.9 million from 22.3 million the previous quarter.

That compares with Uber's global 111 million active platform users in the same period.

Wells Fargo & Co. will pay $3 billion to settle U.S. investigations into more than a decade of widespread consumer abuses under a deal that lets the scandal-ridden bank avoid criminal charges.

The deferred-prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice spares the company a potential conviction that can create serious complications for banks, if it cooperates with continuing probes and abides by other conditions for three years. The accord also resolves a complaint by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Investigators found Wells Fargo’s overly aggressive sales targets led thousands of employees to open millions of bogus accounts for customers and foist other products on them from 2002 to 2016, often by creating false records or misappropriating their identities, the Justice Department said Friday. That generated millions of dollars in fees and interest and in some cases damaged customers’ credit ratings.

“Our settlement with Wells Fargo, an…

TORONTO — Canadian parts giant Magna International Inc. on Friday said fourth-quarter net income in 2019 dipped 3.5 percent to $440 million due in large part to last year’s 40-day strike at General Motors’ U.S. plants and higher costs related to advanced driver-assist systems.

Revenue for the quarter ending Dec. 31 fell 7.3 percent to $9.4 billion as the company reported revenue declines across all four of its major divisions. Magna is the world’s third-largest auto supplier by annual sales to automakers.

The company pinned some of its earnings decline to higher engineering costs in its advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) business, driven by the launch of three programs that utilize "new technologies." The company anticipates costs on those programs declining in the coming years, Magna CEO Don Walker said.

“What we thought we had to do with the scope of the projects was more than we anticipated,” Walker said Friday on a call with analysts and investors…

BEIJING -- Geely is launching a service for customers to buy cars online and get them delivered directly to their homes, in a bid to drum up sales as the coronavirus outbreak prompts buyers to stay away from showrooms.

Other carmakers such as Tesla, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have also started to promote products heavily online in recent weeks as the health crisis escalated and authorities warned people to stay away from public places.

Consumers can order and customize their cars on Geely's website, it said in a statement. It will also offer test drives where potential consumers will be able to arrange a drive starting from their home address in coordination with local dealerships.

The coronavirus has killed 2,236 people and stricken more than 75,400 in mainland China, and strict public health measures to contain its spread have severely disrupted business and consumer activity.

Sales of passenger cars in China, the world's largest auto market, plunged…

SAN FRANCISCO -- U.S. car owners suing Volkswagen Group over its 2015 diesel-emissions scandal want the federal judge overseeing the case to step aside.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's "words and actions display a deep-seated favoritism that would make fair judgment impossible," Lauren Ungs, an attorney for the plaintiffs said in a court filing Wednesday.

The plaintiffs opted out of a $10 billion settlement between 600,000 car owners and the German automaker and are pursuing their own lawsuit for compensatory and punitive damages. Breyer has scheduled a jury trial for Feb. 24.

Breyer's recent rulings included one that disqualified Louis Freeh, a former FBI director and the plaintiffs' expert witness. They show he's "predisposed" toward the prior settlement, Ungs said.

VW objected to the removal of the judge in a separate filing Thursday, calling the request a "frivolous tactic" to try to delay the trial.

"The opt-out plaintiffs and the…

TOKYO -- Nissan and Honda delayed on Friday the restart of plants in China near the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak, complying with authorities' directives, but raising the risk of further supply disruptions that could hit global car production.

Nissan Motor Co. said it would keep its plants in Xianyang in the central province of Hubei, and Zhengzhou in the neighboring province of Henan, shuttered after Monday, when it had planned to resume operations, but did not set a new date.

Honda Motor Co. said operations at its plants in Wuhan, Hubei's provincial capital in which the outbreak began, would remain suspended until March 11.

Toyota said it would resume production on Monday at its plant in Chengdu in the southwestern province of Sichuan, returning all four of its China assembly plants to operation from next week, but output would be limited at some.

In an email, Nissan said its delay was due to a directive by government authorities in Hubei …