Olli is the 3D-printed, totally autonomous electric shuttle bus we’ve all been waiting for

By Luke Dormehl June 20, 2016

A 3D-printed, autonomous, electric, recyclable shuttle bus sounds like the kind of idea that would emerge during a tech startup brainstorming session if you wrote down every single buzzword anyone called out.

In fact, it’s a genuine product — dubbed “Olli” — created by Arizona-based automaker Local Motors and powered by IBM Watson’s cognitive learning car technology, IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) for Automotive. Packed with more than 30 sensors and capable of carrying up to 12 people, Olli is currently running on local public roads in Washington DC, and will expand to Miami-Dade County and Las Vegas later this year.

“Olli offers a smart, safe and sustainable transportation solution that is long overdue,” says Local Motors CEO and co-founder John B. Rogers. “Olli with Watson acts as our entry into the world of self-driving vehicles, something we’ve been quietly working on with our co-creative community for the past year. We are now ready to accelerate the adoption of this technology and apply it to nearly every vehicle in our current portfolio and those in the very near future.”

1 of 5

local motors olli driverless bus nh — Image used with permission by copyright holder

local motors olli driverless bus at phoenix lm 2 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

local motors olli driverless bus rc8003 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

local motors olli driverless bus at phoenix lm 3 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

local motors olli driverless bus interior — Image used with permission by copyright holder

As exciting as the present is for Olli, it’s the future that holds the most promise for Local Motors. “We sincerely believe that Local Motors needs to be on the cutting-edge of any and every vehicle technology that’s out there,” Jacqueline Keidel, a spokeswoman for Local Motors tells Digital Trends. “By making vehicles in small batches and having micro factories around the world, we’re not only able to be an agile company that can introduce the latest technologies available, but also cater [our technologies] to specific regions and what those regions need.”

Because of Olli’s micro factories, Jacqueline says, the vehicles Local Motors produces can literally be tweaked and improved every time a new unit is put together. Even more impressively, it means that an Olli created for a sunny part of the U.S. could be made to rely on solar power, while an Olli built for a less sunny area could be powered by other electric vehicle technologies.

Suddenly public transport commutes to work just got a whole lot more exciting!

Topics

Contributor

I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…

News

Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards

Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Entertainment

AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying

Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

Mobile

4 simple pieces of tech that helped me run my first marathon

Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar displaying pace information.

The fitness world is littered with opportunities to buy tech aimed at enhancing your physical performance. No matter your sport of choice or personal goals, there's a deep rabbit hole you can go down. It'll cost plenty of money, but the gains can be marginal -- and can honestly just be a distraction from what you should actually be focused on. Running is certainly susceptible to this.

A few months ago, I ran my first-ever marathon. It was an incredible accomplishment I had no idea I'd ever be able to reach, and it's now going to be the first of many I run in my lifetime. And despite my deep-rooted history in tech, and the endless opportunities for being baited into gearing myself up with every last product to help me get through the marathon, I went with a rather simple approach.