Ford join Waymo in the race for autonomous cars, but it's back to manual mode for Uber

Ford have announced this week that they will be creating a separate division to focus on it's self-driving range as they look to compete with the likes of Waymo and Uber in the race for fully autonomous vehicles. The set up will see the new division, Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLP, operate as an independent self-driving unit which will open it up to outside investment. According to Business Insider, Ford confirmed that the new company will be structured to take on third party investment as a way to keep up with its competitors. Arguably the leaders in the autonomous car world is Alphabet's Waymo unit, who's valuation has been estimated to be north of £37 billion. Waymo are looking to launch a commercial ride-hailing service in the very near future. It's been confirmed via a tweet by Waymo CEO John Krafcik that Their vehicles are now covering 25,000 autonomous miles per day, making their total miles driven, a whopping 8 million.

In addition to road miles being covered, Krafcik confirmed that Waymo has covered 5 billion miles in simulation. In a Daily Mail report, it was also announced this week that Uber will begin the first road tests for it's autonomous range since the fatal collision that saw a female pedestrian killed after one of its self-driving vehicles failed to stop as she crossed the road. Uber will relaunch testing in "manual mode" which means a human operator will be behind the wheel navigating at all times. The manual mode will allow Uber to gather data and to develop more accurate mapping for the vehicles.