R. Wile, Nov 22, "Sen. Jeff Brandes (R-St.
Petersburg) had just finished serving in the Army, and was
looking to make a name for himself in Tallahassee as a
junior representative. He came across a talk given by the
founder of Google’s driverless car project.
He quickly realized the potential of self-driving cars to
transform many aspects of daily life. Ever since, he has
made it his mission to turn Florida into what he calls “an
angel investor” in automation policy. “We want to have
policies in place for this technology to flourish,” Brandes
said in an interview at the 7th Annual Florida Automated
Vehicles conference in Miami, which concluded Friday.
Brandes has drawn headlines in the tech
community for filing legislation allowing virtually any
automated vehicle on Florida’s roads; this summer, he helped
make Florida one of the first states to make AVs without a
human back-up safety driver street legal.
Among the state’s advantages Brandes points to that he
believes makes it ideal for AV companies: no snow, which
makes lane markings more visible. That also means less road
construction in general...." Read
more Hmmmm...
Congratulations Jeff!!! It was a great AV Summit and
congratulations on creating such a Welcoming
environment and intelligently shaping the birth of
this technology. What you've done is enable Florida
to begin to enhance mobility and the quality of life
for all in Florida and especially those who can most
benefit from these mobility machines. It was most
impressive to witness the enthusiasm for nurturing the
many aspects of this technology from Florida's
Governor, Miami's Mayor, Fl DoT's Commissioner, the
heads of the toll road authorities, planning agencies
and educational institutions. Most impressive was
Ford's comment that their autonomousTaxi efforts are
focused on developing driverless technology and
intend to operate it to deliver Mobility-as-a-Service
in Florida, rather than sell the technology to
individual consumers. I applaud that approach and
hope that Ford will look to also bringing some of
those vehicles to New Jersey so that we can begin to
reap the benefits of this technology. What you've
accomplished in Florida is THE "best practice" for us
to emulate in New Jersey. Congratulations. Alain
Blog, Nov 15, "Driverless or self-driving — autonomous or
automated — automation or autonomy — these terms are often
used interchangeably. That's regrettable because they
don't all mean the same thing.
Automation, for example, describes the presence of
automatic equipment that's used as one part in an overall
process. Autonomy, on the other hand, confers the idea
that a system is governing itself and all actions.
Self-driving implies that a vehicle is being driven
without a human involved, while driverless might indicate
no one or nothing is in control at all.
Those terms are just the start. Add the likes of
semi-autonomous, partially self-driving and driver-assist
feature, and the language landscape becomes more
cluttered. Throw in industry jargon such as "Level 2 Plus"
and Elon Musk's special dictionary entries for
"Autopilot," "feature complete" and "fully self driving,"
and this confounding mix is complete.
It's time to clean up the mess...." Read
more Hmmmm... Amen!!! For:
Opinion: W. McGurn, Sept 9, "... A just-released Bankrate
study won’t make you feel any better. In a ranking of 162
college majors by median income and unemployment rate,
English majors landed among the bottom dwellers, at 132.
At $47,800 in median income, they did better than those in
drama ($35,500) or fine arts ($37,000), but they earned
less than half as much as someone who majored in, say,
electrical engineering ($99,000).... A 2017 MarketWatch story was
blunt: It called English “the most regretted college
major in America.”...
“The
English major was once a guarantor of effective, formal
writing skills and the ability to comprehend and analyze
the complex thoughts found within centuries of brilliant
and challenging poetry and prose,” he told Campus
Reform. “Its decline into the epiphenomena of popular
culture and identity politics is a self-inflicted wound
that has rocked its credibility.”
In other words, what’s on offer today isn’t your
father’s English degree. An ACTA study of English
programs reports that 48 of 52 top schools (as ranked by
U.S. News & World Report) allow English majors to
graduate without ever having taken a course on
Shakespeare. In the past ACTA has also highlighted
studies showing that the average grad, even those from
prestigious flagship universities, shows little or no
improvement in critical thinking for having gone to
college....
So why have the sciences kept their integrity while the humanities haven’t? Mr. Pidluzny suggests it’s because the costs of a dumbed-down STEM degree can be both more obvious and more consequential....
“The university can’t get away with not teaching engineering students differential equations because we’d then have collapsing bridges all over the place,” he says. “But for an English major who studies Harry Potter instead of Chaucer, or spends his time on gender theory instead of reading great literature, the costs aren’t as obvious—except to the graduate who only later realizes he never developed the keen analytical mind and precise style of writing college was supposed to cultivate.”" Read more Hmmmm... From the previous post we are learning/realizing that the easy parts of this "mobility revolution" are essentially solved, the technology parts. Now comes the hard part... the social, behavioural, and environmental implications...". To address those aspects and actually deliver value to society we are going to need the critical thinking and effective writing of "the English major". Alain
F. Diddiqui, Nov 20, "Uber plans to record
audio during rides in the United States as part of a new
security feature, in its latest push to protect riders and
drivers amid rising safety concerns.
The feature, which is first to be piloted in some Latin
American cities next month, allows users to opt in to
activate an audio recording on any trip or all trips,
according to internal communications viewed by The
Washington Post and confirmed by Uber. In markets where
it’s available, users would probably be given a blanket
warning that trips are subject to recording — and that the
feature will be active in their market. Riders and drivers
will not be able to listen back.
“When the trip ends, the user will be asked if everything
is okay and be able to report a safety incident and submit
the audio recording to Uber with a few taps,” according to
an email written by an Uber executive and obtained by The
Post. “The encrypted audio file is sent to Uber’s customer
support agents who will use it to better understand an
incident and take the appropriate action.”...
“We have taken a position that whenever you are in an Uber, the feeling that we want both parties to have is ‘the lights are on.’ " he added. “That leads to safer interaction on the platform.”... " Read more Hmmmm... This is very tricky. Privacy issues come into play and well as other legal issues, but dealing with the sociology of the ride is very challenging. Transit companies have installed cameras in buses to address this issue. Lots of data suggesting that it works well. Cameras are in many/most? elevators. Dealing with misbehavior is simply not easy, but must be addressed. Copuld use some good "English Majors" here. Alain
P. Berger, Nov 18, "Transportation officials
are looking to self-driving technologies to help New Jersey
commuters reach New York City in one of the nation’s busiest
bus lanes. ...
It is the busiest bus-lane in the world...
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans to test
the technologies over the next year with a view to easing
traffic in its exclusive bus lane, which runs for 2.5 miles
between the New Jersey Turnpike and the Lincoln Tunnel.
The eastbound bus lane occupies one westbound lane of New
Jersey Route 495 each weekday between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. for
buses heading to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in
Manhattan. It currently runs at capacity, carrying about
1,850 buses each morning.
The autonomous technology push isn’t aimed at replacing
drivers, Port Authority officials say. Instead, it will help
drivers merge into the bus lane, better space out vehicles
and reduce or avoid collisions...." Read
more Hmmmm... Since there have
been essentially zero collisions in the XBL
since its inception by NJ DoT Commissioner John
C. Kohl in 1971, it is unlikely that this
technology "will reduce or avoid
collisions"
. Human drivers have done a really good job over the
years.
The
real reason to do this is to substantially increase
the capacity of the XBL, which today is limited to
about 700 buses per hour. That capacity limit is due
to the relatively large variation in the spacing of
buses as they traverse the XBL due to variations in
human driver behavior. Implementing adaptive cruise
control driver assistance to
each bus would substantially reduce the variability in
the headway (separation) between buses. This would
yield a substantial increase in the nominal throughput
of the XBL. Increases of 50% to 1,050 buses per hour,
and possibly more are realistically achievable. Such
throughput increases would enable serving an
additional 17,500 commuters during the peak hour.
This is essentially the same amount that would be
served if two new rail tunnels were to be built at a
now estimated
cost of $12.7B as part of a $30B Gateway project.
Cost of retrofitting the 3,000 buses that regularly
use the XBL at what couldn't be more than $10k/bus is
$30M,. Even if it was 10x @$300M it would be dirt
cheap. (Of course, the mid-town bus terminal needs to
be able to "eat" 1050 buses per hour and not just the
700 that it currently struggles to serve.But a new bus
terminal is being designed. Will the Port Authority
design it to serve 1,050+ buses per hour or do what is
done today? Unfortunately, that may well be an open
question?
By
the way, Lou
Pignataro and I proposed such an operational
test in 1995. Needless to say, we were a little
early. Better late than never? :-( Alain
H. Fairman, Nov 22, "Many have heard of the
promise, potential, and peril of self-driving cars, and
trucks and buses. They can free us from the tedium of
commuting, and of deliveries, and bus routes. They can
reduce the use of fossil fuels and reduce traffic.
Occasionally some technological error or inadequacy has led
to crashes, but solutions are within reach. What then is the
real outlook for autonomous vehicles? Are they a dream
intriguing mostly engineers or might they offer real life
improvements to the rest of us?
Someone, who has investigated, imagined, and tested the
advances that autonomous vehicles may offer, spoke to the
recent local Sierra Club gathering at Mercer County
Community College...." Read more Hmmmm...
:-) While we are at it Ken Pyle taped
my presentation at the PodCarCity Conference in
San Jose earlier this month. Also, Ken
Pyle has been active trying to improve mobility in the Bay
Area. Alain
T. Shields, Nov 20, "U.S. Federal
Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai proposed
reallocating to mobile devices airwaves long assigned to
vehicle safety while preserving some of the spectrum for
carmakers planning to deploy new technology.
“We want to move on from something we’ve tried for a long
time that wasn’t working, and open the door to new and
exciting opportunities,” Pai said in a speech at a
Washington event. “After 20 years of seeing these prime
airwaves go largely unused, the time has come for the FCC to
take a fresh look.”...
Pai set a Dec. 12 vote on his proposal, which would commence a months-long comment period on giving Wi-Fi gadgets access to 60% of the airwaves reserved for auto safety in 1999. Automakers would retain use of the remainder...." Read more Hmmmm... This may finally get resolved. Alain
A. Poliak, Nov 22, "Ever since cars first
hit the road, the basic interior layout has remained the
same, with everything built around the driver: a driver's
seat, driver's steering wheel and driver-controlled power
and brake mechanisms. But that's only until autonomous
vehicle technology completely eliminates the need for a
driver. Cars can now be designed for a new generation of
driverless vehicle transportation. ...OK...
It's true that safety concerns about autonomous cars are
an issue in the industry right now. But the presumption is
that, thanks to an array of emerging and advanced
technologies, an autonomous vehicle will eventually prove
to be safer than a vehicle with a human driver. ...OK...
The overall idea is that an autonomous
vehicle cabin can become a mobile living room...." Read
more Hmmmm... Now wait a minute.
Apparently you didn't hear what John Rich, CEO, Ford
Autonomous Vehicles, said at the Florida AV Summit a
couple of days ago.... Ford will operate the
driverless vehicles that it makes. It will be a
very long time before Ford sells driverless cars to
individuals...
What is being realized is that it is
one thing to make a car that safely drive itself.
It is another thing altogether to ensure that a high
enough percentage of individuals who purchase these
vehicles operate them in exclusively safe enough
"Operational Domains" that they remain safe enough
to not ruin it for everyone else. Just look at how
individuals abuse the use of what is a fundamentally
safe entity... the conventional car. 94% of the
crashes are caused by human misbehavior, or so it is
said. These fundamentally safe devices become
incredibly safe devices if you take human
misbehavior out of the loop. Look above at what one
Congressman wants to do to AutoPilot. It is not
AutoPilot that is unsafe; it is AutoPilot that is
put into the hands of misbehaving individuals. Just
wait to see what happens with StupidSummon. It only
takes just a very very few to ruin it for everyone
else.
I suspect that all Driverless car developers have begun to understand that it is the removal of individual ownership of this technology that has led us to this Gartner Trough of Disillusionment. What remains is the opportunity for this technology to be operated at scale by entities that will ensure, if only for their own survival, that these vehicles will be operated without misbehavior essentially all the time.
That means that the business case
for Driverless is as Mobility Machines, or, I
hesitate to say, Transit (defined as the provision
of "done-for-you-mobility" to anyone. This
business case has as its objective to get as many
people as possible from A to B safely and
comfortably between as many As and Bs as possible.
Given that objective, then some of these vehicles
may be designed to attract patronage by the 1%ers,
as is discussed in this article. However, most of
the others will be designed to appeal to and be
affordable by the 99%ers. They are the customers
that bring scale. Serving the 99%ers and especially
the 80 to 20%ers requires a substantially different
mind-set than is presented here. Alain
A. Yang, Nov. 11, "My vision calls for new top-line measurements that take into account indicators like: health and life expectancy, mental health, substance abuse, childhood success rates, average income, environmental quality, retirement savings, labor force participation and engagement, infrastructure and homelessness...." Read more Hmmm... I agree. But machines have all the jobs that we don't want. They do the dirty, boring, monotonous parts. When it comes to self-driving trucks the automation does the simple tedious parts but still needs adult/professional-driver supervision. That partial automation substantially enhances the safety, while reducing stress and anxiety associated with truck driving. It may also enable an increase in hours-of-service regulations. Thus truckers will be healthier, happier and better able to feed their families. Driverless trucks, at best, will slowly gain traction in niche markets primarily to address driver shortages. Alain
F. Fishkin, May 18,, "From the 3rd Annual Princeton Smart Driving Car Summit, join Professor Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. In this special edition, the summit's focus on mobility for all with guests Anil Lewis, Executive Director of Blindness Initiatives at the National Federation of the Blind and ITN America Founder Katherine Freund."
April 5, F. Fishkin, "The success of on demand transit company Via is proving that ride sharing systems can work. Public Policy head Andrei Greenawalt joins Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for a wide ranging discussion. Also: Uber, Tesla, Audi, Apple and Nuro are making headlines"
April 5, F. Fishkin, "Here comes congestion pricing in New York City...but what will it mean? Former city Taxi and Limousine Commission head and transportation expert Matthew Daus joins Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. Also...Tesla, VW and even Brexit! All on Episode 98 of Smart Driving Cars."
March 28, F. Fishkin, "The Future Networked Car? From Sweden, The Dispatcher publisher, Michael Sena, joins Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for the latest edition of Smart Driving Cars. Plus ...the Boeing story has much to do with autonomous vehicles and more. Tune in and subscribe."
F. Fishkin, Sept 6, "The coming new world of driverless cars! In Episode 55 of the Smart Driving Cars podcast former GM VP and adviser to Waymo Larry Burns chats with Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and Fred Fishkin about his new book "Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car and How it Will Reshape Our World"
A. Karpathy, Nov. 6, "Hear from Andrej Karpathy on how Tesla is using PyTorch to develop full self-driving capabilities for its vehicles, including AutoPilot and Smart Summon. ..." Read more Hmmmm... Worth watching the video, (except for the StupidSummon part) Alain
Elon, you sell cars to individuals at which point you relinquish control and responsibility, and thankfully, liability, for that car. Please do everything that you can to be certain that your cars are used responsibly at all times and that those individuals are alert and in control at all times; else, you'll re-acquire the responsibility and the liability. The burden of liability is not good for any business. Liability without control is TrainWreck. The regulators won't save you. Alain
- If you get matched with a fully driverless car, you'll see a notification in your Waymo app that confirms the car won't have a trained driver up front....
- you can enjoy having the car all to yourself....
R. Mitchell, Oct. 4, " Smart Summon is for
parking lot use. But drivers have other ideas.
Tesla unleashed the latest twist in driverless car technology last week, raising more questions about whether autonomous vehicles are outracing public officials and safety regulators.
...Using a smartphone, a person can now
command a Tesla to turn itself on, back out of a parking
space and drive to the smartphone holder's location - say
at a curb in front of a Costco store.." Read
more Hmmmm.... Russ, great article. A
must read!
Elon, please stop.
StupidSummon was a bad Valley-entitled idea
before you released it. Now that it is out
there it will ruin all that is good about
Tesla, AutoPilot and Driverless cars. The
shorters are going to have a field day.
While you are at it also
remove all of the DistractTainment add ons or
limit their use when AutoPilot is NOT on and
drivers are engaged in driving. Just go back
to V09! Along the way also get the Automated
Emergency Braking (AEB) system to work
properly (See NTSB
below). To do that, maybe you should take
a serious look at Velodyne's
new
Tesla LiDAR. It may be able to tell you
if the stationary object in the lane ahead is
high enough above the road surface before
your AEB system decides to disregard it. Then
Tesla's may stop decapitating
drivers.
If you don't remove StupidSummon
then at least be sure to limit its use to the Tesla
owner's own private property by responsible users.
(You know the GPS coordinates of where each owner
lives, so you can geofence it. You also know each
irresponsible use (You get the videos).
Irresponsible use (use in the violation of the
conditions spelled out in the user's manual) should
void its future availability in that car unless
proper amend are made. If not, then insurance
companies should clearly state that insuring the use
of this feature requires a substantial additional
premium; else, you're not covered. Courts should
view that use of this feature implies premeditated
harm and demonstrates an extreme indifference to
human life. Parking Lot owners should install signs
forbidding the use of this feature on their property
to protect themselves from being dragged into the
claims process.
K. Korosec, Sept 16, "Waymo transported 6,299 passengers
in self-driving ...drivered,
not driverless...Chrysler
Pacifica minivans in its first month participating in a
robotaxi pilot program in California, according to a
quarterly report the company filed with the California
Public Utilities Commission.
In all, the company completed 4,678 passenger trips in July
— plus another 12 trips for educational purposes. It’s a
noteworthy figure for an inaugural effort that pencils out
to an average of 156 trips every day that month. And it
demonstrates that Waymo has the resources, staff and
vehicles to operate a self-driving vehicle pilot while
continuing to test its technology in multiple cities and
ramp up its Waymo One ride-hailing service in Arizona...
The CPUC authorized in May 2018 two pilot programs for
transporting passengers in autonomous vehicles. The first
one, called the Drivered Autonomous Vehicle
Passenger Service Pilot program, allows companies to operate
a ride-hailing service using autonomous vehicles as long as
they follow specific rules. Companies are not allowed to
charge for rides, a human safety driver must be behind the
wheel and certain data must be reported quarterly.
The second CPUC pilot would allow driverless passenger
service — although no company has yet to obtain that
permit...."Read
more Hmmmm....
Be sure to look at the Waymo
Quarterly Report and that of the other 3
companies: Zoox,
AutoX
and Pony.ai.
Those 4 companies reported respectively [ 4,678; 103; 9; 0]
vehicleTrips; [ 6,299; 134;
13; 0]
personTrips; [59,917;
352; ?; 0] vehicleMiles,
and [ 55;
10; 1; 0]
number of unique
vehicles used throughout the quarter. Note
Waymo only began operating on July 2, the
last month of the quarter [May, June,
July].
Note: the CPUC does not permit casual
shared-ride services (serving individuals
or groups of individuals who weren't
predisposed to travel together). Go
figure??? Alain
Also
note: This is Drivered Service,
meaning there is an attendant/driver
inside each vehicle for each trip; so this
is actually conventional ride-hailing, a
la Lyft/Uber with fancy schmancy
vehicles. The CPUC did NOT require
"disengagement reporting" so one has no
idea as to the extent of driver/attendant
involvement is the provision of the
Drivered service. It will be interesting
to learn if Waymo considers this activity
to be part of its AV testing program and
includes the disengagement performance of
these vehicles in its disengagement report
to the CA DMV at the end of the year. We'll
be able to infer if that the disengagement
performance is exemplary when Waymo
decides to begin Driverless service
(w/o an attendant, as opposed to Drivered
service).
1. Figure 4, The speed of the Tesla in the last 221 seconds before the crash showing that the Tesla was traveling rather slowly in the 100 seconds before the crash (under 20 mph), but then accelerated (as discussed above) in the 3 seconds just prior to the crash, beginning as soon as the lead SUV changed lanes,
2. Figure 5, the distance between the Tesla and its lead vehicle, showing that the TACC worked really well until the lead vehicle "disappeared" (changed lanes), and"... Data show that at about 490 msec before the crash, the system detected a stationary object in path of the Tesla. At that time, the forward collision warning was activated; the system presented a visual and auditory warning. Data also shows that the AEB did not engage and that there was no driver-applied braking of steering prior to the crash. According to Tesla, the AEB was active at the time of the crash, and considering that the stopped fire truck was detected about half a second before impact, there likely was not sufficient time to activate the AEB." ...This implies that the AEB and its functioning in collaboration with the TACC needs to be substantially re-evaluated/re-designed. Alain
3. Figure 6 which clearly depicts the movement of the Tesla relative to the lead vehicle and the Firetruck in the 15 seconds before the crash. The Tesla's radar and front facing camera mush have "seen' the firetruck 4 seconds before the crash and every sensing loop (1/10th of a second) during the last 4 seconds yet...
M. Isaac, Aug 27, "Anthony Levandowski was once one of
Silicon Valley’s most sought after technologists. As a
pioneer of self-driving car technology, he became a
confidant of Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, and helped
develop the search giant’s autonomous vehicles. Uber wooed
him to gain an edge in self-driving techniques. Venture
capitalists threw their money at him.
But on Tuesday, Mr. Levandowski, 39, fell far from that
favored stature. Federal prosecutors charged him with 33
counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from
Google. ...
The criminal
indictment against Mr. Levandowski from the United
States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of
California opens a new chapter in a legal battle that has
embroiled Google, its self-driving car spinoff Waymo and its
rival Uber in the high-stakes contest over autonomous
vehicles. The case also highlights Silicon Valley’s
no-holds-barred culture, where gaining an edge in new
technologies versus competitors can be paramount....
According to the indictment, Mr. Levandowski downloaded more than 14,000 files containing critical information about Google’s autonomous-vehicle research before leaving the company in 2016. He then made an unauthorized transfer of the files to his personal laptop, the indictment said. Mr. Levandowski joined Uber later that year when the ride-hailing firm bought his new self-driving trucking start-up, which was called Otto....
“The Bay Area has the best and brightest engineers, and
they take big risks,” John Bennett, the F.B.I. special agent
in charge of the San Francisco Division, said at a news
conference on Tuesday. “But Silicon Valley is not the Wild
West. The fast-paced and competitive environment does not
mean federal laws do not apply.”Mr. Levandowski’s next court
date is Sept. 4. If he is convicted, he could face a maximum
of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine for every count and
additional restitution.
“All of us are free to move from job to job,” said David L.
Anderson, United States attorney in the Northern District of
California. “What we cannot do is stuff our pockets on the
way out the door.”..." Read
more Hmmm...
Central to this technology is the perception of
personal safety and trust. Lying, cheating &
stealing can't be part of this industry, else it will
never emerge from the venture stage. If DeiselGate
and the Uber
crash weren't enough, let this be the next
wake-up call to this industry to clean up its ethical
behavior. Hopefully the FBI will also aggressively
pursue all cyber attackers. It isn't cute, nor a
virtual reality game. It is hard serious work and
creativity focused on improving the quality of
everyday life. Alain
J. Browne, Aug 16, "Autonomous vehicles are
the future. Self-driving cars could change our lives,
heralding an era of greater convenience, improved
productivity and safer roads...." Read
more Hmmmm.... Actually
much of this opening sentence is a myth... It doesn't
take Self-driving or Driverless to have automation
technology yield safer roads. It takes safe-driving
technology that works, like Automated Emergency Braking
(front and rear)... And ... are we really going to do
our "manufacturing or service job " (increase
"productivity") if we don't have to do the work of
driving anymore??? Of the few "riding shotgun to work"
what percentage are doing work while riding shotgun?
Certainly less than 10%. Less than 1%? So much for
productivity improvements
If we get to
Driverless, then the myths aren't myths. There will be
fewer private cars, downtown congestion will be reduced,
the environment will be saved, the insurance industry's
gross revenues will go down substantially
(but their profits will go up) and AVs are
already safer than humans that text and/or are "under
the influence" while driving.
If we don't get to Driverless, then we'll remain with "Do-it-yourself private mobility" that will include Self-driving assistance. Armed with that form of personal mobility, then all the myths are myths: More private cars ... and the policy implications are clear. See: J. M. Greenwald, A. L. Kornhauser "It’s up to us: Policies to improve climate outcomes from automated vehicles". Also, to have a proper perspective of the role of transportation and car/"FordF150s" in greenhouse gas emissions see... M. Sivak, Aug 22, "Increased relative contribution of medium and heavy trucks to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions" Alain
K. conger, Aug 7, "Uber set two dubious
quarterly records on Thursday as it reported its results: its
largest-ever loss, exceeding $5 billion, and its slowest-ever
revenue growth. The double whammy immediately renewed
questions about the prospects for the company, the world’s
biggest ride-hailing business. Uber has been dogged by
concerns about sluggish sales and whether it can make money,
worries that were compounded by a disappointing initial public
offering in May.
For the second quarter, Uber said it lost $5.2 billion, the
largest loss since it began disclosing limited financial data
in 2017. A majority of that — about $3.9 billion — was caused
by stock-based compensation that Uber paid its employees after
its I.P.O. Excluding that one-time expense, Uber lost $1.3
billion, or nearly twice the $878 million that it lost a year
earlier. On that sariesme basis and excluding other costs, the
company said it expected to lose $3 billion to $3.2 billion
this year...Lyft has also reported a series of deep losses.
This week, it said it lost $644.2 million in the second
quarter, though it added that it expected that amount to
abate. Several months earlier, Lyft had also posted a
particularly steep loss related to stock-based compensation
payouts to its employees..." Read
more Hmmmm.... No wonder
Uber looked so good prior to its IPO, it hadn't "paid" its
employees. So is this really a "one time" expense??
Anyway, Driverless is their only potential savior as a $40
stock. They can't afford to pay their employee, their gig
workers can't feed families, new customers can't afford
their prices and food delivery generates only chump
change. Uber
Stock price, See also...Uber and Lyft keep losing money while
driving up the number of cars on our overcrowded streets.
Alain
Tesla, July 16, "At Tesla, we believe that
technology can help improve safety. That’s why Tesla vehicles
are engineered to be the safest cars in the world. We believe
the unique combination of passive safety, active safety, and
automated driver assistance is crucial for keeping not just
Tesla drivers and passengers safe, but all drivers on the
road. It’s this notion that grounds every decision we make –
from the design of our cars, to the software we introduce, to
the features we offer every Tesla owner.
Model S, X and 3 have achieved the lowest probability of
injury of any vehicle ever tested by the U.S. government’s New
Car Assessment Program.
... In the 2nd quarter, we registered one accident for every 3.27 million miles driven in which drivers had Autopilot engaged. For those driving without Autopilot but with our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 2.19 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 1.41 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 498,000 miles.... " Read more Hmmmm.... This summary uses "accident" for Teslas and "crash" for NHTSA. This may suggest that the Tesla and NHTSA are not comp[arable... Tesla is reporting about apples and NHTSA is referring to "oranges". That notes; however, it does seem that for Teslas with and without AutoPilot and the other active safety features, there is consistency in the measure. A more detailed question arises about the equivalence of the driving domain for each category as well as who is at fault in each of these situations. Even in light of these issues and details, the large variation in the rates: 3.27 v 2.18 v 1.41 is very significant among Teslas. Seems as if AutoPilot and Tesla's other active collision avoidance safety features are improving safety of Teslas. The spread from the 0.5 value for NHTSA is really astonishing making Teslas much safer than the average of all other cars. Unfortunately these numbers only scratch the surface and beg for more details. In the past I have called for an independent evaluation of the Tesla crash statistics and I do that again there today. I'll offer to do it. Tesla should encourage someone to do it. As it stands today, not enough people believe or trust Tesla (see below) Tesla. That's unfortunate because improved safety is THE major objective of SmartDrivingCar technology. Alain
Oct 16, Establishes
fully autonomous vehicle pilot program A4573 Sponsors:
Zwicker (D16); Benson (D14)
Oct 16, Establishes
New
Jersey Advanced Autonomous Vehicle Task Force AJR164
Sponsors: Benson (D14); Zwicker (D16); Lampitt (D6)
May 24, "About 9:58 p.m., on Sunday, March
18, 2018, an Uber Technologies, Inc. test vehicle, based on
a modified 2017 Volvo XC90 and operating with a self-driving
system in computer control mode, struck a pedestrian on
northbound Mill Avenue, in Tempe, Maricopa County, Arizona.
...The vehicle was factory equipped with
several advanced driver assistance functions by Volvo Cars,
the original manufacturer. The systems included a collision
avoidance function with automatic emergency
braking, known as City Safety, as well as functions for
detecting driver alertness and road sign information. All
these Volvo functions are disabled when the test vehicle is
operated in computer control..."
Read more Hmmmm.... Uber must
believe that its systems are better at avoiding
Collisions and Automated Emergency Braking than
Volvo's. At least this gets
Volvo "off the hook".
"...According to data obtained
from the self-driving system, the system first
registered radar and LIDAR observations of the
pedestrian about 6 seconds before impact, when the
vehicle was traveling at 43 mph..." (= 63 feet/second)
So the system started "seeing an obstacle when
it was 63 x 6 = 378 feet away... more than a
football field, including end zones!
"...As the vehicle and pedestrian
paths converged, the self-driving system software
classified the pedestrian as an unknown object, as a
vehicle, and then as a bicycle with varying expectations
of future travel path..." (NTSB: Please
tell us precisely when it classified this
"object' as a vehicle and be
explicit about the expected "future
travel paths." Forget the
path, please just tell us the precise velocity
vector that Uber's system attached to the "object",
then the "vehicle". Why didn't the the Uber system
instruct the Volvo to begin to slow down (or speed
up) to avoid a collision? If these paths (or
velocity vectors) were not accurate, then why
weren't they accurate? Why was the object
classified as a "Vehicle" ?? When did it finally classify
the object as a "bicycle"? Why did it change
classifications? How often was the classification
of this object done. Please divulge the time and
the outcome of each classification of this object.
In the tests that Uber has done, how often has
the system mis-classified an object as a "pedestrian"when
the object was actually an overpass, or an
overhead sign or overhead branches/leaves
that the car could safely pass under, or was
nothing at all?? (Basically, what are the
false alarm characteristics of Uber's
Self-driving sensor/software system as a
function of vehicle speed and time-of-day?)
"...At 1.3 seconds before impact, (impact speed was 39mph = 57.2 ft/sec) the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision" (1.3 x 57.2 = 74.4 ft. which is about equal to the braking distance. So it still could have stopped short.
"...According to Uber,
emergency braking maneuvers are not
enabled while the vehicle is under
computer control, to reduce (eradicate??)
the potential for erratic
vehicle behavior. ..." NTSB:
Please describe/define potential and erratic
vehicle behavior Also
please uncover and
divulge the design
& decision
process that Uber
went through to
decide that this
risk (disabling
the AEB) was worth
the reward of
eradicating " "erratic vehicle behavior". This
is
fundamentally
BAD design.
If the Uber
system's false
alarm rate is
so large that
the best way
to deal with
false alarms
is to turn off
the AEB, then
the system
should never
have been
permitted on
public
roadways.
"...The
vehicle operator is
relied on to intervene
and take action. " Wow! If Uber's
system
fundamentally
relies on a
human to
intervene,
then Uber is
nowhere near
creating a
Driverless
vehicle.
Without its
own Driverless
vehicle Uber
is past "Peak
valuation".
Video similar to part of Adam's Luncheon talk @ 2015 Florida Automated Vehicle Symposium on Dec 1. Hmmm ... Watch Video especially at the 13:12 mark. Compelling; especially after the 60 Minutes segment above! Also see his TipRanks. Alain
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