AV fever has cooled off, but driverless cars aren’t going away

Case in point: Toyota and tech giant Nvidia are two investors putting $43 million into Foretellix, an Israeli company developing autonomy and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Foretellix’s Series C fundraising was announced this week, and company officials say it has already raised $93 million so far.

That, and the fact that the funding comes partly from Nvidia — a graphics chip and software giant now making huge moves in the automotive space — and Woven Captial, Toyota’s $800 million global investment fund for mobility projects — says a lot about where autonomy is going.

Granted, and as TechCrunch pointed out, it’s not quite on the level of the nine-figure acquisition and funding race we saw just a few years ago. Those moves saw things like Ford and Volkswagen’s investments into Argo, General Motors’ acquisition of Cruise Automation, and Uber’s ill-fated foray into self-driving taxis.

But Toyota’s new CEO has placed “city-integrated autonomous mobility” among his top priorities for the future.