[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Motional,
Via to start
robo-taxi
service in Las
Vegas
J. White,
Feb 24,
"Autonomous
vehicle
venture
Motional and
ride services
company Via
said they will
launch on
Thursday a
robo-taxi
service in Las
Vegas, the
latest step by
Motional
toward
commercial
deployment of
its autonomous
vehicle
systems.
Via will use
vehicles
outfitted with
Motional
autonomous
driving
systems to
offer free
rides between
several
locations in
downtown Las
Vegas.
Motional is a
joint venture
of Hyundai
Motor Co
(005380.KS)
and automotive
technology
supplier Aptiv
PLC
(APTV.N)...."
Read
more
Hmmmm... Reuters, please STOP with this
kind of
reporting! You
are being
unfair to
Motional, Via.
They are not
offering the
equivalent of
amusement park
rides in an
urban setting.
They are in
fact trying to
develop the
technology to
provide (eventually ) a
low-cost way
of providing a
safe and
high-quality
mobility
service.
Please use the correct terms. There is an
attendant
on-board these
vehicles!
Motional, Via
is therefore
NOT "starting
robo-taxi"
service in Las
Vegas, as your
headline
proclaims. Today,
this is a
high-cost,
heavily
subsidized (by
venture
capital)
service that's
not
significantly
different than
taxi services
that have been
available
around the
world for 100+
years.
[At least you didn't use the term autonomousTaxi, aTaxi for short, as the term encompassing Safe, Equitable, Affordable, Sustainable, High-quality Mobility.]
Motional, Via are taking a next step in the development
of the
technology
that has the
opportunity to
become a
low-cost way
of providing a
high-quality
service, but
for now what's
"to start" is
an enormously
expensive
demonstration
that should
NOT be called
"robo-taxi
service"
unless
Reuter's
objective is
to distract,
confuse, hype
or simply
participate in
fake news.
I'm sure
that Motional,
Via sincerely
aspire to
provide what
they've been
working on for
many years in
Las Vegas and
elsewhere: a
true aTaxi
service. But
there is one
enormous step
that needs to
be achieved as
standard, no
problem, of
course: a mobility
service that
readily
operates every
day without a
driver or
attendant.
What's
happening in
Las Vegas is a
great next
step towards
achieving that
goal, which
should be the
story, not a
carnival-esque
offer of free
rides with
technology
bells and
whistles.
The real goal is not an amusement park attraction but a
Safe,
Equitable,
Affordable,
Sustainable,
High-quality Mobility
service like
the one that
works
extremely well
everyday when
going up and
down...
elevators.
Elevators have had it somewhat easy... Competition is
the stairwell,
so being
perceived as
High-quality
doesn't need
many bells and
whistles.
They've
achieved a
track record
of being
Safe-enough (not
perfectly safe,
nothing is or
ever will
be). They are
largely
Equitable to
those who can
get inside the
building,
Sustainable
because they
are inviting
to readily
share rides
whenever
demand
warrants (door
stays open for
a little while
after I get
in), and
Affordable
because they
require only
minimal human
supervision
done
collectively
not
individually,
which
decreases with
increased
scale. The
accessibility
afforded is
absolutely
required for
the floors
above to
capture any
economic value
that motivates
and justifies
free pricing.
The key to
affordability
is minimal
human
supervision.
Until elevators were able to operate without attendants, and the public became comfortable that they were safe enough, tall buildings had no chance, and "the skyline of Manhattan would resemble that of Paris, if it was lucky!."
To my knowledge, only the Waymo
One
service in
Chandler, AZ
comes close to
offering
horizontal
mobility with
what is
becoming
minimal human
oversight that
some folks
perceive as
safe-enough. GM/Cruise in parts of SF is close,
others,
including
Motional ,Via
are still
making
enormous
progress
towards that
objective and
are in the
mix. Their
hard work and
actual
achievements
should be the
story. Reuters
would better
serve the
public by
reporting on
real
milestones
rather than
potentially
mis-represent
(at the worst)
or distract
(at the best).
Rebecca Bellan @ Tech
Crunch did
a much better
job by at
least stating
"...
The
autonomous
vehicles will
have human
safety
operators
behind the
wheel...."
![]()
[log in to unmask]" _mf_state="1" title="null" src="cid:[log in to unmask]" class="" width="41" height="42">
SmartDrivingCars
ZoomCast
Episode 257/ PodCast
257
w/ Ciff Winston,
Brookings
Institute
& Marc
Scribner,
Reason
Foundation
[log in to unmask]" _mf_state="1" title="null" src="cid:[log in to unmask]" class="" width="44" height="44" border="0">
The
SmartDrivingCars
eLetter,
Pod-Casts,
Zoom-Casts and
Zoom-inars are
made possible
in part by
support from
the Smart
Transportation
and Technology
ETF, symbol
MOTO. For
more
information: www.motoetf.com. Most funding is
supplied by
Princeton
University's
Department of
Operations
Research &
Financial
Engineering
and Princeton
Autonomous
Vehicle
Engineering
(PAVE)
research
laboratory as
part of its
research
dissemination
initiative
[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Companies
are racing to
make
self-driving
cars. But why?
D. Zapper, Feb 4, "... What exactly is the point of self-driving cars? The answer, despite more than $100 billion in investment over the last decade, according to McKinsey, remains surprisingly nebulous. And that should trouble us — a lot...." Read more Hmmmm... Wow! I previously Hmmmed... about the embarrassing cluelessness of McKinsey on this topic, and now the Washington Post cluelessly extends McKinsey's cluelessness. Cliff Winston and Marc Scribner join Fred Fishkin and me to bring some sanity to this topic in episode 257 of SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast & PodCast above. Alain
[log in to unmask]" alt=""> It’s
Finally Here:
Real
Driverless
Cruise Cars
Spotted
Picking Up
Passengers
Around the
City
A. Tong,
Feb 25, "The
driverless car
revolution’s
birthplace is
the Bay Area,
and for years
San Francisco
residents have
borne witness
to all its
iterations of
oddly
festooned
vehicles
roaming the
streets with a
watchful human
babysitter at
the wheel.
The training
wheels are
finally coming
off. In the
past few
weeks, San
Francisco has
become the
first major
U.S. city
where
autonomous
vehicles have
provided fully
driverless
rides to
members of the
public,
according to
Cruise, the
company
providing the
rides...." Read
more
Hmmmm... Simply fantastic.
Hopefully
GM/Cruise will
come to
Trenton
MOVES.
Should be easy
to scale after
the Frisco
start. Alain
[log in to unmask]" alt="">
AT
LAST, A
SELF-DRIVING
CAR THAT CAN
EXPLAIN ITSELF
C. Hori, Feb 23, "For all the recent improvements in artificial intelligence, the technology still cannot take the place of human beings in situations where it must frame its perceptions of the world in words that people can understand.
You might have thought that the many apparent advances in speech recognition would have solved the problem already. After all, Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home are all very impressive, but these systems function solely on voice input: They can’t understand or react to the environment around them.
To bridge this communications gap, our team at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories has developed and built an AI system that does just that. We call the system scene-aware interaction, and we plan to include it in cars.... " Read more Hmmmm... Very nice. Alain
[log in to unmask]" alt=""> Tesla,
Ford and
General Motors
Get Some Very
Sobering News
The Utah Senate, following the local House of Representatives, has passed a law penalizing drivers who are arrested for driving under the influence even with the systems activated. ..." Read more Hmmmm... Are all journalist completely clueless? This is a great law. It should exist at the national level, if existing laws aren't sufficient to incarcerate those whose capability to take over the driving function, should it become necessary to avert a crash, has been diminished by the ingestion of alcohol or other substances.
[log in to unmask]" alt="" width="132" height="21">
GM
asks to deploy
self-driving
car with no
steering wheel
K. Houser,
Feb 25, "...
General Motors
(GM) and
self-driving
car company
Cruise have
asked
regulators for
permission to
deploy the
Cruise Origin
— an
autonomous
vehicle (AV)
with no
steering
wheel,
rearview
mirrors, or
pedals.
If approved,
it could be on
the assembly
line within a
year.
“The Cruise
Origin is
among the most
innovative
vehicles in
history: a
zero-emission,
shared,
electric
vehicle that
has been
purposefully
designed from
the ground up
to operate
without a
human driver,”
Rob Grant, a
senior VP at
Cruise, wrote
in a blog post....
" Read
more
Hmmmm... Why is this not a
complete
no-brainer for
US DoT? Is GM
also going to
need ask
permission to
remove the gas
pedal and the
brake pedal??
Why is this
taking so
long. Maybe
this is
another one of
these cases
that one
should just do
it and ask for
forgiveness if
anyone
complains.
Would anyone
really
complain? Who
would serve
the
complaint.
Speed limits
are no longer
enforced.
Would a cop
really pull
you over if
your car
didn't have a
steering wheel
and it worked
better and was
safer than one
with a wheel?
Are they going
to come after
Elon with his
yoke???
With all the
hard work
ahead, we're
stuck with a
steering
wheel C'mon
NHTSA!
Alain
[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="110" height="23"> Arcimoto
unveils
radical
three-wheel-drive
electric
leaning trike
that it thinks
can beat
e-bikes
M. Toll,
Feb. 25,
"Oregon-based
Arcimoto
unveiled today
a radical new
full-suspension, three-wheeled electric bike known as the Mean Lean
Machine (MLM).
The new e-bike
employs
tilting
technology to
help it corner
more like a
two-wheeler
while
maintaining
the stability
of a
three-wheeler.
Yeah, yeah I
know. There’s
a word for a
three-wheeled
bicycle. It’s
“tricycle.”
But this ain’t
your niece’s
tricycle,
folks.
Leave it to
the maker of
75 mph (120
km/h)
three-wheeled
electric
vehicles to
develop one of
the most
highly
engineered
electric bikes
we’ve seen in
just about…
ever...." Read more Hmmmm... Very interesting, but
pricing not
announced. Alain
[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="110" height="23">
Elon
Musk: Tesla is
working to
make Steam
video games
work in its
vehicles
F. Lambert, Feb. 25, "Elon Musk said that Tesla is working to make Steam’s library of video games work on its onboard vehicle computer...." Read more Hmmmm... This is such a bad idea for so many reasons, unless Elon is simply trying to sell more computers that don't go in cars but rather go in the basement of parent's homes. Alain