A solar-powered airplane finished crossing the United States on Saturday, landing in New York City after flying over the Statue of Liberty during its historic bid to circle the globe, the project team said. The spindly, single-seat experimental aircraft, dubbed Solar Impulse 2, arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport at about 4 a.m. local time after it took off about five hours beforehand at Lehigh Valley International Airport in Pennsylvania, the team reported on the airplane's website. Such a pleasure to land in New York! For the 14th time we celebrate sustainability," said the project's co-founder Andre Borschberg on Twitter after flying over the city and the Statue of Liberty during the 14th leg of the trip around the globe. The Swiss team flying the aircraft in a campaign to build support for clean energy technologies hopes eventually to complete its circumnavigation in Abu Dhabi, where the journey began in March 2015. The solar cr...
However, the cautious recommendations from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will, initially at least, insist on a fully licensed driver being behind the wheel, ready to take over in an emergency or if the technology fails. California has been the testing ground for most of the development, and so regulations in the state are considered to be precedent-setting. Prospective users of self-driving cars will need to undergo special training, and manufacturers would be required to monitor the cars' use. Answering a common query, regulators said any traffic violations or accidents would remain the responsibility of the human driver.Many firms are investing heavily in researching and creating self-driving vehicles, such as Ford, Uber and Tesla. Google, which leads the research field, has made a self-driving car without any controls such as steering wheels or pedals.But the DMV's proposals would mean such vehicles would not, for the foreseeable future at least, be ...