Autonomous cars
2025-12-24
In the nearly 10 years of living in the Bay Area, I’ve taken many photos of autonomous vehicles, as well as human-driven vehicles and prototypes used for autonomous vehicle research! So here’s a list of some of my original photos.
1 Apple
FIGURE 1 Apple Lexus vehicle with a Velodyne HDL-64E and a bunch of cameras.
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FIGURE 2 A 2018 prototype. This has to win some sort of award for the most crazy sensor arrangement.
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FIGURE 3 A 2020 prototype.
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FIGURE 4 Rear of the 2020 prototype.
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2 Argo
Argo was a self driving car startup that got acquired by Ford but it was shut down in 2022.
FIGURE 5 Dual-Velodyne turret on top of an Argo Ford Fusion at CVPR 2019 in Long Beach.
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FIGURE 6 Argo vehicle at CVPR 2022 in New Orleans.
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3 Cruise
Cruise was the self driving car subsidiary of GM. In December 2024, they announced that they were halting the effort, but recently Cruise cars can still be seen undergoing testing, so maybe they are continuing their development in secret.
FIGURE 7 Early Cruise prototype in 2017 with the Velodyne HDL-32 instead of the VLP-32.
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FIGURE 8 Another Cruise with the HDL-32. Sorry for the bad framing, but at least this photo is relatively sharp and detailed.
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FIGURE 9 Two Cruise vehicles in 2017. Notice their shock-mounted Velodyne VLP-32 pucks.
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FIGURE 10 Unmarked Cruise Chevy Bolt.
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FIGURE 11 By 2019 they had switched to Hesai lidars on top.
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FIGURE 12 During the pandemic, they tried delivering food with Cruise cars.
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FIGURE 13 Cruise Origin vehicle at CVPR 2022 in New Orleans.
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4 Luminar
Luminar was a lidar company but they recently announced their bankruptcy.
FIGURE 14 Luminar Chrysler Pacifica demo vehicle at Stanford University in 2019.
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FIGURE 15 Luminar booth at CES 2020.
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FIGURE 16 Luminar Toyota Highlander at CES 2020.
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5 Ouster
Ouster is a manufacturer of lidars for autonomous vehicles and other markets.
FIGURE 17 Subaru Crosstrek XV with three Velodyne VLP-16 lidars for testing.
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FIGURE 18 Subaru with three Ouster OS1 prototypes.
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FIGURE 19 Subaru with only one Ouster OS1.
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FIGURE 20 Subaru with Ouster OS1.
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FIGURE 21 Chrysler Pacifica demo vehicle.
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FIGURE 22 Ouster booth at CES 2020.
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6 Tesla
I had the pleasure to see a Cybercab prototype at Santana Row in 2024.
FIGURE 23 Cybercab at Santana Row.
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FIGURE 24 Cybercab at Santana Row.
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FIGURE 25 Cybercab at Santana Row.
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7 Uber
I worked somewhat near the Uber garage at 737 Harrison St, before they shut down in 2019. They started out as the Advanced Technology Center (ATC) in 2016 with the acquisition of Otto, before they rebranded to teh Advanced Technology Group (ATG) sometime in 2017. Following a fatal accident in 2018, their efforts were soon shut down.
7.1 Ford Fusion
FIGURE 26 Uber ATC Ford Fusion in 2016.
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FIGURE 27 Detail of the sensor pod on top of a Ford Fusion. There’s a Velodyne HDL-64 and an array of really nice, large aperture cameras.
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7.2 Volvo XC90
FIGURE 28 Uber ATC Volvo XC90 in 2016.
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FIGURE 29 Uber ATG Volvo XC90 in 2017.
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FIGURE 30 Uber ATG Volvo XC90 in 2017.
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FIGURE 31 Uber ATG Volvo XC90 in 2017.
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FIGURE 32 The safety driver cheekily made a hand gesture, not knowing the imminent demise of the Uber self driving car effort.
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7.3 Otto trucks
Following the acquisition of Otto, they had several kinds of trucks: Volvo and Peterbilt.
FIGURE 33 Volvo trucks at their 737 Harrison depot in 2017.
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FIGURE 34 Volvo trucks at their 737 Harrison depot in 2017.
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8 Waymo
8.1 Chrysler Pacifica
FIGURE 35 Waymo Chrysler Pacifica in 2017. Compared to the Velodyne-equipped other self driving car efforts, the Pacifica with Waymo’s in-house lidar was already really polished and well-integrated even in 2017.
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8.2 Jaguar I-Pace
FIGURE 36 Jaguar I-Pace in 2021.
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FIGURE 37 Jaguar I-Pace in 2023.
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FIGURE 38 Jaguar I-Pace in 2021.
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FIGURE 39 Interior of Jaguar I-Pace in 2024.
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8.3 Zeekr RT
These started showing up on public streets in 2025. I took a few photos at their Bayshore depot on Toland St.
FIGURE 40 Front view of several Zeekr RTs.
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FIGURE 41 Oblique view of a Zeekr RT.
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FIGURE 42 With reflections from a puddle!
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9 Woven Planet
The successor to Toyota Research Institute, they have a lot of different types of vehicles. I saw a TRI car at the CVPR 2019 conference before they rebranded to Woven Planet.
FIGURE 43 TRI at CVPR 2019.
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The most commonly seen one are the data collection pods on top of Lyft cars (typically Hyundais or Toyota Priuses).
FIGURE 44 Woven Planet pod on top of a Prius.
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10 Zoox
10.1 Toyota Highlander
FIGURE 45 Early Zoox prototype in 2018.
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FIGURE 46 Highlander making its way down the twisty Lombard Street in 2019.
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FIGURE 47 Another Highlander doing the same thing.
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The following photos were taken in December 2025 at their Mission depot on Division and Bryant.
FIGURE 48 A row of Highlanders in 2025.
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FIGURE 49 A Toyota Highlander.
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10.2 VH
VH stands for “Vaporware Horseshit”. Apparently, Jalopnik writer Jason Torchinsky dissed Zoox in 2013 by calling them that, and then they embraced the moniker and called their self driving cars VH-1, VH-2, etc.
FIGURE 50 The VH chassis on display at CVPR 2019 in Long Beach.
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FIGURE 51 VH rig at CVPR 2019 in Long Beach.
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FIGURE 52 VH at CVPR 2022 in New Orleans.
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FIGURE 53 VH at CVPR 2022 in New Orleans.
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FIGURE 54 VH on the streets of San Francisco in 2025.
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11 Other autonomous vehicles
These are AV companies whose vehicles I’ve only seen a handful of times.
11.1 AEye
AEye is a lidar company making pulsed 1550 nm lidar. A year ago, the same car destroyed a camera so I was very worried.
FIGURE 55 AEye at CVPR 2020.
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FIGURE 56 Another AEye vehicle at CVPR 2020.
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11.2 AutonomouStuff
AutonomouStuff is a supplier of sensors and stuff for robotics and self driving cars.
FIGURE 57 Demonstration vehicle at CES 2020. In the background you can see another demo vehicle from the Israeli lidar company Innoviz.
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11.3 AutoX
AutoX was a startup founded by professor Jianxiong Xiao. I remember using his SFMedu MATLAB code during grad school to learn about bundle adjustment! The company renamed to Tensor and pivoted to making bespoke self driving cars.
FIGURE 58 AutoX Chrysler Pacifica at CES 2020.
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11.4 DiDi
I saw their car at the CVPR 2019 conference in Long Beach.
FIGURE 59 DiDi Lincoln MKZ at CVPR 2019. To be honest this seems like a kit from AutonomouStuff.
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12 Mapper.ai
Mapper.ai was founded around 2015-2016 and then got acquired by Velodyne in 2019. They often drove around in a Honda Civic to collect HD mapping data.
FIGURE 60 Mapper.ai Honda Civic.
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FIGURE 61 Mapper.ai Honda Civic.
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12.1 Quanergy
Quanergy was a lidar company that went all-in on their solid state Quanergy S3 sensor, but went bankrupt in 2023.
FIGURE 62 Quanergy car at CES 2020.
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12.2 Motional
Motional is an autonomous driving company majority owned by Hyundai.
FIGURE 63 Motional at CVPR 2022.
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12.3 TuSimple
TuSimple is a self driving truck company but they wound down their US operations and left the US in 2023. Then in 2024, they pivoted away from self-driving trucks towards AI for video games, animation, and content creation. Pretty wild pivot to be honest.
FIGURE 64 TuSimple at CVPR 2019.