S. Rice, May 4, "A while
back, my colleague and I wrote an
article about how driverless cars will
disrupt the airline industry. We were
not the first ones to say this, but we
were the first to publish consumer
opinion data to back up our
claims. This is particularly true for
short haul flights, as the majority of
respondents said they preferred a
driverless car for road trips up to
eight hours over the hassles of flying
commercial—even when the flight might
take less time. Their reasons included
wanting to avoid long security lines,
delayed flights, lost baggage, small
seats, and crowded airplanes.
Dr.
Mattie Milner recently defended
her dissertation at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University, which focused
on what type of person would prefer a
driverless car over flying commercial.
Her findings showed people prefer
driverless cars over commercial flight
for short and midrange drives. ..." Read
more Hmmmm...
Many/most prefer driving their own
conventional cars rather than
flying commercial on short haul
routes (500 miles or less). This
has been true for years.
Driverless cars would simply offer
the same opportunity for those
that for whatever reason don't
have access to drive their own
car. Airlines have struggled
serving short-haul flights since
9-11 because of the time overhead
introduced by the additional
security. Physical distancing may
well be the nail in the coffin for
local airports and short-haul
flights. Cargo flights could
provide some respite. If Amtrak
ever went "engineerless" (how
trivial is that compared to
driverless cars!?!) it could run
frequent 1 (or 2) car "trains"
between most cities. That would
really be the nail in the
short-haul airline coffin.
Heavens... the freight railroads
could run frequent inter-modal
freight services. Whew!!! Alain
Video version... Watch Zoom-Cast 155 - Alex Roy2 ....
Alain
Alex Davis, May 5, "Meet Bryan Salesky and the team of resourceful engineers at Argo, the little company trying to crack a big problem: safe autonomous driving....
Given his early career trajectory,
you might be surprised that Bryan
Salesky now finds himself at the
forefront of the race to deliver the
self-driving car. Red-haired and
blue-eyed, he was born in the Detroit
suburb of Woodhaven, Michigan, where
his father did factory work in a steel
mill. As the steel industry cratered
in the 1990s, his mother remarried and
the family moved around, winding up in
Pittsburgh.
Salesky earned a Bachelor of Science
in Engineering at the University of
Pittsburgh in 2002 and, uninterested
in continuing the kind of education
that meant writing papers for
professors, decided against grad
school. Instead, he took a job at
Union Switch & Signal, the company
George Westinghouse founded in 1881.
There, Salesky worked on software that
kept trains from colliding while
traversing “dark territory,” the long
stretches of track ungoverned by
signal systems...
Salesky was slotted in as Urmson’s
lieutenant. The man who had kept real
trains on their tracks would now keep
the metaphorical ones on
schedule...." Read
more Hmmmm... Alex,
very nice article!! Both of you,
keep up the good work. Alain
S. Rangwalla, April 30, "...
Typically, the argument for not
needing LiDAR as an obstacle avoidance
and safety sensor goes as follows –
“humans do not have a LiDAR and they
drive reasonably well, so why should a
computer need LiDAR?” The answer seems
pretty obvious - computers today do
not replicate human intelligence –
they do not think like humans, from a
perception and decision-making
perspective. And they need other
crutches as stated eloquently by my
fellow Forbes author, Brad Templeton.
Additionally, LiDARs for AVs are also
used to develop 3D maps and provide
vehicle localization (which could be
achieved through other means like
cameras and GPS)...." Read
more Hmmmm.... Very
good presentation of the yeas
and nays. Localization (SLAM)
was the original motivator for
LiDAR; however, I argue that 3D
maps and precise localization
are neither necessary nor
justifiable. Maps (paper,
digital or HD) have no
information about objects moving
near the car being controlled.
Collision avoidance is all about
locations and motions of nearby
object relative to the
car being controlled. That's
why I can drive pretty well,
actually really well if I'm
paying attention to driving the
car, with only a vague notion of
"where am I". All I need to
know is "just ahead turn right,
left or keep going straight. By
recognizing where I am relative
to the lane markings and signs
along the road, I end up usually
making good decisions and, so
far, not making any catastrophic
decision. I don't need LiDAR
nor HD maps
Alain
A. Hawkins, May 6, "In 2018, Volvo
made a “strategic investment” in a
little-known Florida-based LIDAR
company called Luminar to use the
startup’s high-resolution long-range
sensor to build self-driving cars.
Today, Volvo is announcing that new
LIDAR-equipped cars, which the Swedish
automaker says will be able to drive
themselves on highways with no human
intervention, will start rolling off
the production line in 2022.
It’s an ambitious plan that carries
its own risks and sets Volvo apart
from its competitors, many of which
are planning to launch self-driving
technology as part of fleets of
robotaxis rather than production cars
for personal ownership. They argue
this will help amortize the costs of
not just the LIDAR, but also the
high-powered computing power needed to
enable self-driving cars. But Volvo
believes that by limiting the
operational domain — or conditions
under which the car can drive
autonomously — to just highways, it is
creating vehicle technology that is
not only safer, but less costly as
well.
“We are saying that for a particular
stretch of highway, we are aiming for
an unsupervised experience,” Henrik
Green, Volvo’s chief technology
officer, told The Verge. “Our view
is that by isolating the domain to
particular sets of highways, which
we can control and verify, we
believe that’s the safe entry into
autonomous technology and autonomous
experience for users.” ...". Read
more Hmmmm.... Big
step here. If this enables
Volvo's Emergency Braking System
to reliably determine if a
stationary object ahead can be
safely passed under and, thus,
not be assumed to be a "false
positive" then this is great
news. (One silver lining in our
Covid-19 new normal is that
"false positives" and "false
negatives" are concepts whose
implications are much better
appreciated.) See also Timothy
Lee's reporting... Volvo
plans cars with lidar and “eyes off”
highway driving by 2022. Alain
In the first quarter, we registered one accident for every 4.68 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 1.99 million miles driven. For those driving without Autopilot and without our active safety features, we registered one accident for every 1.42 million miles driven. By comparison, NHTSA’s most recent data shows that in the United States there is an automobile crash every 479,000 miles.That’s a 50% improvement over the previous quarter and the most significant improvement yet.:... " Read more Hmmmm... There are, of course caveats, some reported by Fred. The fundamental problem here is that there is no "peer review" of these claims. Once again, I offer to do the peer review if Tesla releases the underlying data. Until an independent entity, such as myself, has access to those data and performs a similar analysis these safety claims are going to be heavily discounted by even the most loyal to Tesla. Alain
T. Lee, April 29, "Lyft is laying of
982 people, the company said in a
regulatory filing on Wednesday. That
represents 17 percent of the company's
official workforce (the company
considers its thousands of drivers to
be independent contractors).
An additional 288 employees will be
furloughed, Lyft said. Most of the
remaining salaried employees will take
10 percent pay cuts, while executives
will face pay cuts of 20 to 30
percent.
The cuts reflect the dire state of
Lyft's business during the coronavirus
lockdown. Demand for on-demand
passenger rides has plummeted. Lyft
didn't disclose booking figures in its
filing, but The Information's Amir
Efrati reported
last week that Uber's global
bookings for ride hailing were down 80
percent. Lyft has presumably suffered
similarly large losses...." Read
more Hmmmm.... Not
a pretty sight. In a sense,
since it can't scale without
Driverless, it might as well
scale back the overhead that is
commensurate with a dollar
stock. Note... The market
absolutely disagrees with me!
If you lose less, price goes up,
irrespective of the probability
of achieving a price/earnings
ratio that might justify such a
price. Lyft
stock, Uber
stock prices. Alain
A. Hawkins, May 6, "Lyft’s ride-hailing business is down 70 percent, year over year, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company’s chief executives said in an earnings call with investors Wednesday. The company’s ride volume hit a bottom in the second week of April, plummeting 75 percent year-over-year, and has since gradually risen in the final weeks of the month. ...
But Lyft’s earnings report for the first quarter of 2020 was slightly less grim than it’s ride-hailing business.". Read more Hmmmm.... Is it really less grim... Way towards better earnings is serving many fewer customers. Isn't that really bad for a business that promised big rewards for big scale? Alain
A. Hawkins, May 6, "Uber will lay off 3,700 full-time employees, or around 14 percent of its global workforce, the company said in filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will forgo his salary for the rest of the year as the company continues to struggle in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Uber’s ride-hailing business has dried up as a result of widespread shutdown orders due to the pandemic. In a call with investors in March, Khosrowshahi said its gross bookings in most major cities were down by as much as 70 percent. The Information recently reported that the company’s overall business was down 80 percent year over year. Recent gains in its food delivery Uber Eats division have failed to make up for big losses in its core ride-hailing product. The company will report its first quarter earnings on Thursday.". Read more Hmmmm.... Whew! Didn't Uber claim not long ago, that Uber Eats was going to save it and isn't it "the best of times" for food delivery??? Alain
R. Lanctot, April 2, "The negative impacts of the coronavirus, COVID-19, on the automotive industry continue to radiate out from the closure of factories and dealerships (for vehicle sales, while service operations continue) to employee furloughs and plunging stock prices. At the same time, the global pandemic has begun to undermine the investment rationale behind four core industry-wide initiatives collectively described as "CASE" or "ACES:" i.e. Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electrified driving. ..
The last horseman standing is connectivity. It may well be that connectivity is the sole surviving core automotive technology iniitiative that survives the COVID-19 scourge. The industry may abandon autonomous vehicles, shared vehicles, and electrification - but connectivity seems bound to endure....
Not even COVID-19 can stand in the way of the movement to connect cars. For the foreseeable future, the pandemic will continue to wreak havoc with autonomous, electrification, and sharing. Car connections will survive even this apocalypse.". Read more Hmmmm.... Unfortunately, Connectivity died before Covid-19 simply because it needs to achieve significant market adoption before it can begin to deliver any meaningful value to anyone beyond those peddling gizmos. And even then it is a stretch. The only way Covid-19 brings back the C is if the central politburo needs it to control the masses. Alain
I. Lunden, May 3, "Some big M&A
is afoot in Israel in the world of
smart transportation. According to
multiple reports and sources that have
contacted TechCrunch, chip giant Intel
is in the final stages of a deal to
acquire Moovit, a startup that applies
AI and big data analytics to track
traffic and provide transit
recommendations to some 800 million
people globally. The deal is expected
to close in the coming days at a price
believed to be in the region of $1
billion.
We have contacted Nir Erez, the
founder and CEO of Moovit, as well as
Intel spokespeople for a comment on
the reports and will update this story
as we learn more. For now, Moovit’s
spokesperson has not denied the
reports and what we have been told
directly....." Read
more Hmmmm... Given
that Intel Capital is already a
strategic investor, they must
know what they are doing.
But... are there "800M people"
who even use transit around the
world, let alone ask Moovit for
recommendations???? Are the many
Intel stock holders providing a
nice payday for the few Intel
Capital insiders??? Alain
J. Markoff, Oct 9, 2010 (essentially
10 years ago...) "Anyone driving the
twists of Highway 1 between San
Francisco and Los Angeles recently
may have glimpsed a Toyota Prius
with a curious funnel-like cylinder
on the roof. Harder to notice was
that the person at the wheel was not
actually driving.
The car is a project of Google,
which has been working in secret but
in plain view on vehicles that can
drive themselves, using
artificial-intelligence software
that can sense anything near the car
and mimic the decisions made by a
human driver.
With someone behind the wheel to
take control if something goes awry
and a technician in the passenger
seat to monitor the navigation
system, seven test cars have driven
1,000 miles without human
intervention and more than 140,000
miles with only occasional human
control. One even drove itself down
Lombard Street in San Francisco, one
of the steepest and curviest streets
in the nation. The only accident,
engineers said, was when one Google
car was rear-ended while stopped at
a traffic light.
Autonomous cars are years from mass
production, but technologists who
have long dreamed of them believe
that they can transform society as
profoundly as the Internet has...."
Read
more Hmmmm...We
knew the first 80% was going
to be easy. The next 19% are
really hard, the next 0.9% is
really really hard, .... But
I remain confident that we'll
soon become substantially
better than good enough.
Alain
> Fulton, May 4, "From where we sit, it looks
much less like an economy that could
benefit from autonomous, self-driving
cars that wheel their
snoozing occupants safely from place
to place, than just three months ago.
For that matter, we can probably
scratch our heads now about whether that
moon shot by 2024 is a great idea.
Our priorities have been shifted for
us...." Read
more Hmmmm...Mostly
1950s Sunday Supplement with a
dash of current click-Bait.
This vision died shortly after
Daimler's introduction of their
F
015 Luxury in Motion at
the CES
in January 2015 (5 years
ago!!). Way too
difficult/expensive to bring to
reality as just another toy for
the super entitled, super rich.
Much more attractive as mobility
machines for the masses. A
concept that has zero traction
in Sunday Supplements. But
that's OK... that's a real
market that can also deliver
substantial value to society.
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">
Postponed, until Evening Oct. 20 -> Oct 22.Video version... Watch episode 150 with Andrei Greenawalt.... Alain
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"
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"
Lance
Eliot, April
28, "Several
self-driving
car luminaries
assembled
online via a
Zoom-casted
battleground
this week to
undertake a
Lincoln-Douglas
style debate
about the
future of the
Autonomous
Vehicle (AV)
self-driving
car industry
and the advent
of AI-driven
mobility.
Originally
scheduled for
one hour, the
dialogue and
fielding of
audience
questions
prompted the
superstars to
keep going,
tackling many
of the most
vexing and
unsolved
matters that
underlie the
potential
success of
self-driving
vehicles,
encompassing
both
autonomous
cars and
autonomous
trucks.
The lively
discussion was
civil and
polite,
fortunately so
in these times
of seemingly
stark
polarization
and guttural
attacks during
our
contemporary
public
discourse.
Yet, even in
the realm of
eloquent
argumentation,
at times the
gloves came
off and there
were some
fierce zingers
and moments of
rather
piercing
cut-the-air-with-a-knife
verbal
sparring..."
Read
more Hmmmm... Lance, Thank you for
the kind and
thorough
synopsis of
our 1st
Zoom-inar. We
were all
pleased by the
turnout,
interaction
and substance.
Alain
V.
Bajaj, April
22,"A main
benchmark for
the price of
oil fell
negative for
the first time
ever this
week. The
decline —
more than 300
percent in
daily trading
— raised fresh
questions
about the
damage the
coronavirus is
having on the
global
economy.
What does it
mean for oil
prices to be
negative?
A benchmark
price for a
barrel of oil
to be
delivered next
month fell to
-$37.63 on
Monday, which
means that
sellers would
have to pay
someone that
much to take
it off their
hands.
But that
historic
plunge was
exacerbated by
a quirk in how
the oil
markets work.
The negative
price
concerned only
contracts for
delivery of
barrels in May
that are
traded on
so-called
futures
markets. At
the same time
trading
happens for
May
deliveries,
people trade
on contracts
ending in
June, in July
and so on." Read
more Hmmmm... What??? I realize that
I'm often "out
of it",
but... In all
my life I have
NEVER...
thought of,
let alone
mentioned, nor
have heard
anyone else
mention the
concept of negative
oil!
Often, talked
about $150/B
oil, $250/B,
S20/B even
$7/B oil.
NEVER $0/B
oil,
negative
Oil...
NEVER,NEVER,
NEVER!!!! and
look where we
are. UNBELIEVABLE!!!
Implications:...
no one's
models
extrapolate to
that regime.
(it requires
extrapolation
because no
data exists in
this
unimaginable
region.
Listen to Pod-Cast;
Watch Zoom-Cast
Alain
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
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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