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Autonomous vehicles are the wave of a rapidly approaching future that is already bringing increasing amounts of “smart” technology to cars and trucks, and could eventually make passengers of everyone in a vehicle.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Uber Freight’s push to automate trucking transactions hinges on a fixed pricing model designed to eliminate bidding and phone calls and enable on-demand truck capacity for shippers.

Top automakers and tech companies are warning state officials the current regulations for testing self-driving cars may be too burdensome and could make it too hard or even impossible to test in Massachusetts, a move experts say would delay the economic and safety benefits expected from autonomous vehicles.

Uber grounded its fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh for a few hours the morning of Sept. 18 as the company investigated a crash involving one of its vehicles.

Federal transportation agencies hosted a truck platooning demonstration on Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia last week to showcase the advancements of autonomous technology ready for commercial use next year.

Frank Marino sat in a repurposed U.S. Coast Guard boat bobbing in Boston Harbor one morning late last month. He pointed the boat straight at a buoy several hundred yards away, while his colleague Mohamed Saad Ibn Seddik used a laptop to set the vehicle on a course that would run right into it.

Navistar’s president and CEO told a Senate panel last week that autonomous vehicle technology likely won’t eliminate the need for truck drivers, but drivers may need to gain new skills as they’re asked to manage several trucks at once.

Uber’s fleet of self-driving cars has logged more than 1 million autonomous miles since the company started offering rides a year ago in Pittsburgh.

In a musical fantasy for Daimler AG’s Smart brand, performers at the Frankfurt motor show this week literally sang out the virtues of an autonomous two-seater, with the spectacle suggesting there’s more fiction than fact in robo-cars.