Press release, Mar. 30, "Via, the company
that provides digital infrastructure to power public
mobility in cities around the world, announces today that
it has raised a Series E financing led by EXOR. The
financing values the company at $2.25B and will enable Via
to advance its vision of efficient, accessible, and
equitable public mobility.
Via’s technology powers the next generation of public transportation, helping cities move beyond a system of rigid routes and schedules to a fully dynamic network. Via’s algorithm efficiently combines, in real time, multiple passengers or packages headed in the same direction, significantly reducing urban congestion and emissions while providing a high quality and lower cost mobility service. Available in more than 70 cities in 20 countries, and growing rapidly..." Read more Hmmmm... Ride-sharing may not be dead. Listen to PodCast 150, watch VideoCast 150 Alain
Video version... Watch episode 150 with Andrei Greenawalt.... Alain
L. Kolodny, April 2, "Tesla reported on Thursday that
it delivered approximately 88,400 vehicles in the first
quarter of 2020, beating expectations. Analysts had
expected about 79,900 as of Wednesday, according to a
survey by FactSet.
Tesla stock rose more than 17% after hours on the news.
Breaking it down by model, Tesla reported combined
deliveries of 76,200 Model 3 sedans and Model Y
cross-over SUVs, and combined deliveries of 12,200 of
the older and more expensive Model S and X vehicles.
..." Read
more
Hmmmm... Wow!!! I guess the Shanghai plant is
really humming!
Congratulations! It is a
shame that more of these cars aren't being built
in the US of A. Alain
J. Rosenblatt, April 1, "A star Silicon Valley engineer
who defected from Google to Uber Technologies Inc. --
only to be fired, tagged as the villain in a
trade-secret theft dispute and driven into bankruptcy --
says the ride-sharing company owes him more than $180
million for travails and lost time.
Anthony Levandowski, hailed by both companies as a
prodigy of driverless car technology, contends Uber
didn’t keep its promise to cover his legal bills when it
aggressively recruited him in 2016. Google later accused
Levandowski of poaching its engineers in violation of
his contract and clawed back a $120 million bonus it had
paid him, plus about $60 million in interest and
attorneys fees.
In his arbitration demand against Uber, Levandowski says
he was warned by none other than Larry Page that he’d
face “negative consequences” if he left to compete with
Google. But he was reassured by Uber’s agreement to
indemnify him against Google’s anticipated retribution,
and Uber paid for his defense for almost three years.
Until, that is, Google won. Levandowski says that in
April 2018, days before the final hearing in Google’s
arbitration, Uber told him it wanted to be repaid..." Read
more
Hmmmm...Is this a April Fool's joke; although,
Uber likely does owe him. Details do matter in
contracts; although, Anthony better collect
quickly. :-)
Alain
F. Shilling, April 1, "... We estimate that since the
order went into effect, collisions and especially injury
and fatality collisions have been reduced by half, from
~1,000 collisions and ~400 injury/fatal accidents per
day to 500 and 200 per day, respectively. We also found
that animal-related incidents did not experience the
same reduction. We found that traffic volumes were up to
60% lower on certain highways after the order compared
to a similar period prior to the order, which may
account for the reduced number of collisions...." Read
more
Hmmmm...Must be even greater reduction in NJ
because there seems to be no one on the roads.
Small silver lining along with substantial
reduction in CO2 from reduced consumption of
gasoline. Glad that the trucks are still moving
because store shelves need to be filled; else, it
gets really UGLY!!! Alain
B. Gilbert, April 1, "Tesla is offering to pay for and
ship a crucial medical component being used in the fight
against the coronavirus pandemic.
CEO Elon Musk announced as much on Tuesday: "We have
extra FDA-approved ventilators. Will ship to hospitals
worldwide within Tesla delivery regions. Device &
shipping cost are free. Only requirement is that the
vents are needed immediately for patients, not stored in
a warehouse," he said .... " Read
more
Hmmmm... In December, I was sedated and strapped
down with a ventilator down my throat for 11
days. It saved my life. Thank you, Elon. These
are going to save lives. Alain
A. Marshall, Mar. 30, "...To protect its workers and conserve supplies, Metro has closed 19 of its 91 stations until further notice, without providing shuttle buses to fill in the gaps....
“Essential” workers who are still toiling at grocery
stores, drug stores, and health care facilities face the
same dilemma. Los Angeles has cut bus service by 15 to
20 percent and is running fewer trains. The Bay Area’s
BART system has seen ridership plunge by 90 percent
compared with this time last year, and has cut three
hours of night service amidst a projected $25 million
monthly loss. New York City’s MTA has modified its
schedule. The agency that runs Seattle’s buses is
cutting service and has stopped collecting fares to
reduce interactions between workers and riders.
Smaller systems, like the ones in Great Falls, Montana, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, have canceled service altogether ..." Read more Hmmmm... As if conventional public transit wasn't a complete mess before this pandemic. If this doesn't motivate conventional transit to embrace driverless on-demand shared ride mobility then Transit should use this opportunity to simply disappear gracefully. Big, bulky, inflexible and labor intensive are not good attributes to have for any business. Alain
F. Lambert, April 1, "There have been Tesla vehicles in
Iceland for years, but the automaker officially launched
in the market in September of last year and now Tesla
has already become the best-selling car brand in the
country. Iceland is perfect for massive adoption of
electric vehicles. The island’s electricity generation
is already almost 100% renewable, which makes EVs super
clean, and being a remote island, petrol is expensive."
Read
more
Hmmmm... Also, there is no range anxiety in
Iceland... Not far to go... Can this also be an
April Fool's joke? :-)
Alain
M. Sivak, April 2, "This brief note analyzes the changes in the price of gasoline during the first 13 weeks of 2020 and compares them with the changes during the first 13 weeks of 2019. The raw data (the average retail price of regular gasoline) came from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The results are shown in the table below....
During the first 13 weeks of 2020, the price of
gasoline decreased by 22.2% (from $2.578 to $2.005).
Furthermore, during this time of the year, gasoline
prices typically (but not always) tend to go up because
of the usual increase in driving in the spring compared
with driving in the winter. As an example, the above
table also includes the analogous data for the first 13
weeks of 2019. Indeed, during the same time period in
2019, gasoline prices increased by 20.3%. Thus, in
comparison with the trend in 2019, gasoline prices
during the first 13 weeks of 2020 decreased by 35% (77.8
is 65% of 120.3)...." Read more Hmmmm... A
very tiny silver lining, but a silver lining all
the same. Alain
S. Lekach, April 1, "Suddenly, a future full of
self-driving cars isn't just a sci-fi pipe dream. What
used to be considered a scary, uncertain technology for
many Americans looks more like an effective tool to
protect ourselves from a fast-spreading, infectious
disease.
With COVID-19 — the name for the disease caused by the
new coronavirus — keeping most of us housebound, it's
harder to get around or bring in supplies safely. Forget
about socializing, just stocking up on groceries,
toiletries, and basic medicines and products is a risky
challenge. Suddenly having robots and computers help us
out doesn't seem so far-fetched. All that money that's
been funneled into testing self-driving cars — $27.5
billion in 2018, according to data company Statista
— is starting to look more and more worthwhile...." Read
more
Hmmmm... Probably deserves being in ClickBait or
is this another April Fool's joke? Alain
Press release, April 1, "ANSI/UL
4600 Standard for Safety for the Evaluation of
Autonomous Products encompasses fully autonomous
systems that move such as self-driving cars, along with
applications in mining, agriculture, maintenance, and
other vehicles including lightweight unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs). It seeks to specifically address the
ability of autonomous products to perform safely and as
intended- without human intervention- based on their
current state and sensing of the operating environment.
Reliability of hardware and software necessary for
machine learning, sensing of operating environment and
other safety aspects of autonomy is also addressed. It
is envisioned that future end-product standards will
tailor UL 4600 to address specialized applications...."
Read more Hmmmm... https://ul.org/UL4600,
not another "SAE" standards organization charging
for the documentation for their standards
developed by ???? Where is Washington when you
need it? Or is this April fools!! Alain
[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.5&filename=lmjdiniodjkflpia.png" src="cid:[log in to unmask]" class="" width="46" height="52" border="0">
Video version... Watch episode 149 with Matt Daus.... Alain
Video version... Watch our first attempt.... 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"
R. Bishop, Mar 24,
"I met Stefan
Seltz-Axmacher for
the first time in
November 2015 at the
Florida Automated
Vehicles Summit. Not
long after, we met
at the Blue Danube
coffee shop in
Alameda, CA so he
could tell me about
his vision for
Starsky Robotics.
When he
energetically
described his
remote-driving-for-trucks
approach, I was
skeptical. “Remote
driving is hard,” I
said. “The military
has struggled with
this for years. Its
harder than it
looks.” On the
technical side,
latency for secure
communications is
challenging. On the
operational side,
re-creating enough
on-road reality
(situational
awareness) for a
remote driver is
difficult when going
for the high levels
of safety needed.
Seltz-Axmacher
remained bullish on
the approach and at
that time went on to
found Starsky
Robotics as one of
the earliest truck
AV startups, later
closing a $16.5M
Series A funding
round in March 2018,
and then hauling
freight while
developing both
remote and automated
driving ability.
Initially, Starsky’s
concept was all
about remote driving
for first/last mile.
They later expanded
their offering to
include fully
automated highway
driving on limited
freight corridors.
Now, Starsky has
become the first
casualty within a
crowded truck
automation space,
and Seltz-Axmacher
has provided us with
an intriguing
post-mortem in a
recent Medium post.
Most of the media
coverage I’ve seen
has acted as echo
chambers for
Seltz-Axmacher’s
perspective. Here I
offer a counterpoint
based on my longtime
involvement in truck
automation plus
discussions with
many others in the
truck Automated
Driving Systems
(ADS) startup space,
many of them irate
at what they see as
unfounded assertions
made in the original
post. My sources
tell me that because
Seltz-Axmacher
hasn't experienced
their technology nor
been briefed on
their
technical/safety
approach, he has no
basis to make
sweeping claims
about the entire
industry...." Read
more Hmmmm... Listen
to PodCast 148.
or/and Watch
us on YouTube.
Alain
K. Korosec, Mar. 17,
"Waymo said Tuesday it
is pausing operations of
Waymo One, a service in
the Phoenix area that
allows the public to
hail rides in
self-driving vehicles
with trained human
safety operators behind
the wheel, in response
to the COVID-19
pandemic. Waymo is also
halting testing on
public roads in
California.
However, Waymo will keep
some operations up and
running, notably its
truly driverless
vehicles, which don’t
require a human safety
driver, according to an
announcement on its
website Tuesday. These
driverless vehicles are
used in the Phoenix area
as part of Waymo’s early
rider program that lets
vetted members of the
public hail a ride..."
Read
more
Yippie!!!
Unfortunately, the
latest is not so
good... Waymo
has suspended
all services, including
the driverless.
Poopie!!! Alain
Kyle Vogt, Jan 17, "In a
few weeks the California DMV will
release disengagements data from Cruise
and other companies who test AVs on
public roads. This data is really great
for giving the public a sense of what’s
happening on the roads. Unfortunately,
it has also been used by the media and
others to compare technology from
different AV companies or as a proxy for
commercial readiness. Since it’s the
only publicly available metric, I don’t
really blame them for using it. But it’s
woefully inadequate for most uses beyond
those of the DMV. The idea that
disengagements give a meaningful signal
about whether an AV is ready for
commercial deployment is a myth. ..." Read
more Hmmmm... Amen!
This is a MUST read. As with
everything, details
matter. It is true that figures
don't lie, but but it is easy to
game systems such that figures,
without the underlying details, do
lie. As Kyle points out, there
are important details associated
with disengagements. These need
to be well understood for
disengagements to be a proxy for
safety and market readiness. The
when, where and associated details
of each disengagement is
critically important if the
objective is safety and market
readiness.
What is also most
important here is the underlying
objective of the companies doing
the tests and reporting the data.
As has happened in our secondary
education where students are
taught what is in and how to take
the SATs rather than just learn.
The objective is not learning ,
but getting 800s on the SATs so
that they can get into
'Princeton'. This is perpetuated
by the 'Princetons' of this world
that don't look into the details
of the student's academic
qualities and capabilities. In the
academic world, we know these
students as 'box checkers', gamers
of the college admission process.
The gaming is continued by the
'banks and med schools' that use
simplistic GPA (Grade Point
Average, aka 'disengagements')
cutoffs. The 'box checkers' then
take 'underwater basket weaving'
courses and become grade grubbers.
It is lazy and irresponsible to
use simplistic measures as proxies
to very complex concepts such as
intelligence, creativity,
compatibility, and all the other
details that make a good student,
a good employee, a good citizen, a
good mobility system.
In our case, testing is assumed to be about safety and market readiness; however, for some, it may be about trying to "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" or "putting lipstick on the pig". It is easy to game the metric 'Disengagements' by simply testing in easy places, under easy conditions, instead of really trying to find the corner/edge cases that you don't know in places and conditions of the Operational Design Domain that you are actually going to serve and make a business out of all of this technology; rather than just trying to get good press, or flipping it to someone else or putting it on an academic self. The details would readily divulge the real objective of the company doing the testing.
I hope that Kyle, in his next post, will divulge what he, GM's lawyers and GM's board are requiring of his system for each of them to sign off and begin to operate an economically viable mobility service to the general public in some ODD. Each will demand that it be safe. The board will also demand that it be profitable. What details are they requesting that will make each comfortable signing on the bottom line? AlainA. Kornhauser, Jan 12, Hmmmm... Self-driving cars are hot and the OEMs are responding. I'm about to buy a new Subaru Outback and EyeSight is standard. It is no longer just AutoPilot or expensive options that car salesmen don't sell. Car companies, as reflected in what is in showrooms and what was promoted at CES, have realized the comfort and convenience of Self-driving technology (cars that have a lot of the Safe-driving car features but also enable you to take your feet off the pedals and hands off the wheel at least for short periods of time. These technologies are really becoming the 'chrome and fins' that sell cars to individuals in the 2020s. The momentum is all behind that happening and there is little Washington or Trenton or Princeton Council can do about it. Hopefully part of that momentum will be to make these systems actually work well, especially the Automated Emergency Braking Systems (MUST quit assuming that all stationary objects in the lane ahead can be passed under and consequently each is disregarded. As Tesla is finding out, sometimes those objects are parked firetrucks.) and begin to put hard limits on over-speeding, tailgating and use while driver is impaired. Self-driving cars are unfortunately going to lead to substantial urban sprawl, increased VMT, increased congestion and do nothing to help the energy and pollution challenges of our addiction to the personal automobile. Only 'Waymo-style Driverless' (autonomousTaxis, (aTaxis)) tuned to entice ride-sharing can potentially stem the tide of ever more personal car ownership and ever expanding urban sprawl. Alain
A. Kornhauser, Jan. 6, Hmmmm... I'm in rehab and hope to go home on Wednesday morning. Thank you to so many of you for all the good wishes and prayers. They each helped. I'm looking to making a full recovery. Remember, if you don't feel well, get evaluated by a doctor. I was totally clueless about what hit me from out of nowhere. Alain
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autonomousTaxi (aTaxi) stop facilitating true ride-sharing to any destination within the autonomous transit system's Operational Design Domain. The first of what may well become a half million or so others. Each strategically located to be less that a 5 minute walk from essentially any of the billion or so person trip ends that are made on any typical day in the USA (outside of Manhattan (whose subway stations provide the comparable accessibility). Twenty million or so aTaxi vehicles could readily provide on-demand, share-ride mobility from these ~0.5M aTaxi stops. Provided would be essentially the same 24/7 on-demand level-of-service as we do for ourselves with our own conventional automobiles; however, this mobility would be affordably achieved using half the energy, creating half the pollution, eliminating essentially all the congestion, doubling conventional transit ridership and making such improved mobility available to those who today can't or wish not to drive a conventional automobile. This is a MAJOR 1st. Alain
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.
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.
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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