Transportation Weekly: Polestar CEO speaks, Tesla terminology, and a tribute

(Cymbal clash!) This is where investigative reporting, enterprise pieces and analysis on transportation lives.This week, we’re featuring excerpts taken from a one-on-one interview with Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath.On February 27, Volvo’s standalone electric performance brand Polestar introduced its first all-electric vehicle, a five-door fastback called the Polestar 2. Later this year, the system will recognize and respond to traffic lights in more complex urban environments, Tesla says.All of these features require the driver to be engaged (or ready to take over), yet it’s called “full self-driving.” Now Tesla has two controversially named automation features. This level of automation is the most controversial because of the so-called “hand off” problem in which a human driver is expected to take control of the wheel in time.Speaking of partnerships, another deal that got our attention this week involved New York-based mapping and data analytics startup Carmera and Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development. TRI-AD’s mission is to take the research being done over at the Toyota Research Institute and turn its into a product.The two companies are going to test a concept that will use cameras in Toyota test vehicles to collect data from downtown Tokyo and use it to create high definition maps for urban and surface roads.TRI-AD considers this the first step towards its open software platform concept known as Automated Mapping Platform that will be used to support the scalability of highly automated driving, by combining data gathered from vehicles of participating companies to generate HD maps. And TRI-AD is full of A-listers, including CEO James Kuffner, who came from the Google self-driving project and Nikos Michalakis, who built Netflix’s cloud platform, and Mandali Khalesi, who was at HERE.Read more on Khalesi and the Toyota’s open source ambitions here.Other deals:Volvo Cars has acquired a stake in Zūm, an on-demand ride sharing service for childrenSnapshot this week is a bit untraditional. Even if we are able to successfully develop and implement our network of shared bikes and scooters, there may be heightened public skepticism of this nascent service offering.” And another about seasonality:“Our limited operating history makes it difficult for us to assess the exact nature or extent of the effects of seasonality on our network of shared bikes and scooters, however, we expect the demand for our bike and scooter rentals to decline over the winter season and increase during more temperate and dry seasons.” Lyft, which bought bike-share company Motivate back in July, also released some data about its electric pedal-assist bikes this week, showing that the pedal assist bikes are, unsurprisingly, more popular than the traditional bikes. And Lyft is trying to build its own autonomous vehicle system at its confusingly named “Level 5 Engineering Center.”Other quotable notables:Check out the Pedestrian Traffic Fatalities by State report, a newly released report from Volvo Car USA and The Harris Poll called  The State of Electric Vehicles in America.Again, deployments doesn’t always mean the latest autonomous vehicle pilot.On Saturday, Sidewalk Labs hosted its Open Sidewalk event in Toronto.