K. Korosec, May 11,
"Self-driving vehicle startup Voyage
said Monday that it has inked a deal
with Fiat Chrysler to supply
purpose-built vehicles, a
partnership that will help
accelerate its plan to launch a
fully driverless ride-hailing
service.
Voyage, a three-year-old startup
that tests and operates a
self-driving vehicle service (with
human safety operators) in
retirement communities in California
and Florida, started by modifying
Ford Fusion vehicles. The company
then began modifying FCA’s Chrysler
Pacifica Hybrid minivans with its
autonomous vehicle technology.
This new deal, which was nearly two
years in the making, marks a
critical step in Voyage’s plan to
deploy fully driverless vehicles as
a ride-hailing service. It also
illustrates FCA’s increasingly large
role as a supplier to AV developers.
The automaker already has a deal
with autonomous vehicle company
Waymo to provide thousands of
purpose-built Chrysler Pacifica
minivans. FCA also has a partnership
with Aurora to develop self-driving
commercial vehicles...
Under this deal with
Voyage, Fiat Chrysler is supplying
Voyage with purpose-built Pacific
Hybrids that have been developed for
integration of automated technology.
These vehicles come with
customizations such as redundant
braking and steering that are
necessary to safely deploy
driverless vehicles, Voyage CEO
Oliver Cameron told TechCrunch.
FCA characterized the deal as more
than just a supply contract, noting
that it will provide support to
Voyage to understand the features,
operation and technology of the
vehicle." Read
more Hmmmm... This
is very good for both Voyage
and Fiat/Chrysler in that it
makes them into a serious
competitor with Waymo,
Ford/Argo and GM/Cruise.
Congratulations Oliver. Alain
Video version... Watch
Zoom-Cast 156
- Danny
Shapiro2
....
Alain
J. Lee, May 14, "Nvidia Corp, whose semiconductors power data centers, autonomous cars and robots, said on Thursday it plans to enter the market for technology that helps cars with automated lane-keeping, cruise control and other driver-assistance features.
The move, announced as part of
the chip company’s annual
conference, which was held online
this year, represents a change in
direction for Nvidia. Until now,
the Santa Clara, California-based
company has supplied key
technology aimed at making
autonomous vehicles that require
much more sophisticated computers.
But such vehicles, some of which
are known as “robo-taxis,” remain
years away from mass adoption.
Even before the coronavirus
pandemic hammered the world
economy, automakers such as
General Motors Co and Ford Motor
Co were dialing down their
expectations for self-driving
cars.
Many of the driver-assistance
features that the new Nvidia
system will enable, by contrast,
are already available on high-end
vehicles with technology from
providers such as Mobileye, the
Israeli firm owned by Nvidia data
center rival Intel Corp.
Danny Shapiro, senior director of
automotive at Nvidia, said the
shift in strategy is aimed at
meeting the existing needs of
automakers that struggle with
maintaining two systems - one for
the driver assistance available
today, and one for more advanced
self-driving technology for the
future. The new Nvidia system
means automakers will be able to
use one system for both, saving
engineering efforts and using some
of the self-driving technology to
improve the driver assistance
functions, Shapiro said...." Read
more Hmmmm... The near-term
opportunity has been in the
Safe- & Self-driving car
category. Aspiration to
achieve Driverless
capabilities have motivated
the development of Safe and
Self driving systems so that
they might actually work.
Before the industry became
focused on Driverless, only
driver warning systems were
available. The Driver was
king! A system
couldn't/shouldn't over-ride
what a driver wanted to do
seemed to be the
over-arching concept. It
was the vision of Driverless
that motivated OEMs to look
beyond passive warning
systems to active collision
avoidance systems whose
false positive/negative
performance requirements,
rare please, need the
computing power offered by
nVIDIA. Watch Jensen
Huang's GTC 2020 keynote,
especially Segment
8 Autonomous Vehicles.
Alain
M. Sena, June 2020, "Covered are three topics:
Read more Hmmmm...
Another excellent The
Dispatcher. Enjoy! Plus,
enjoy Michael's views as
expressed in the SmartdrivingCar
Zoom-inas. Alain
Press release, May 7, "Back in
March, we decided to suspend our
driving operations in response
to COVID-19 to ensure the safety
of everyone involved in our
services and local communities.
Starting this coming Monday, May
11, Arizonans will begin to see
some Waymo vehicles back on the
road. The first part of our
tiered approach to safely resume
our operations begins with our
test fleet and responsibly
progresses to serving Waymo One
riders again.
Even under the extraordinary
circumstances of COVID-19, we’ve
continued to advance our
technology and mission to make
it safe and easy for people and
things to get where they’re
going. Our continued focus on
hardware and software
development, driving in
simulated environments, and
ongoing investment in advanced
algorithms, machine learning,
and evaluation means we have not
taken our foot off the pedal
during these unprecedented
times.
We’re beginning to restart our
driving operations in the Metro
Phoenix area after careful
consideration and active
conversations with our teams,
partners, and local and state
authorities. The health and
safety of our riders, team, and
partners is our number one
priority as we begin driving
again.
How we’re moving forward
safely: ..." Read
more Hmmmm...
Happy to have them back
out on the road. It would
be really nice if they
released some basic
"disengagement reports" on
their testing in Phoenix.
They've captured enough
demand data (individual
trips) to rerun any set of
trips with an attendant
on-board but not need any
passenger on-board. That
is, operate as if those
individuals actually got
on the vehicles and went
to their destinations,
picking up and discharging
shared riders along the
way, if any. Doing that
with the current
software/hardware stack,
what is the time duration
between "disengagements"
for the fleet? How many
vehicle hours of operation
and how many person-trips
were served within this
ODD between the time-stamp
of each disengagement?
Once the vehicle hours
between attendant
intervention becomes north
of 2,500 hours and the
number of "virtual" trips
served becomes north of
5,000 personTrips, then
one may have a system that
is safe and reliable
enough in that ODD and can
be used to "convince"
everyone to perceive that
the system is
reliable/safe enough to
begin mobility services in
this ODD with no attendant
on-board. To me, these
kinds of numbers make
sense. A fleet of 10
vehicles operating in
Trenton for 12.5 hours a
day could demonstrate that
in 20 days. A fleet of
100 in 2 days. (No
disengagements in those
durations. I like "back
of the envelope" analyses
so that I can I have a
perspective.) I wonder
what metrics Waymo and
others have decided to use
internally to decide that
they are "good to go"?
Alain
C. Kilgannon, May 11, "Princeton
University has announced
its first black valedictorian in
its 274-year history.
Nicholas Johnson, who was named
valedictorian of Princeton’s Class
of 2020, called the achievement
especially significant, given the
school’s struggle in recent years
to confront its troubled history
with slavery....
Mr. Johnson, who is from Montreal, majored in operations research and financial engineering. He wrote his senior thesis on developing algorithms to design a community-based preventive health intervention to decrease obesity in Canada. The research also included applications to help impose strict social distancing to stop the spread of the coronavirus...." Read more Hmmmm...Personally, I am so proud of Nicholas as a person and what he has accomplished at Princeton. As Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Operations Research & Financial Engineering (ORFE), he is one of my students, even though he isn't singularly focused on SmartDrivingCars (yet !) Congratulations! You are indeed most deserving of this highest Princeton honor. He is ORFE's 1st valedictorian; however, Jamie Iannone, recently named eBay CEO, was Princeton's Pyne Prize Scholar. Alain
B. Templeton, May
13, "Waymo, the world’s leading
self-driving car company, has
resumed on-road testing and some
delivery services, after shutting
these down due to Covid-19. Baidu
BIDU,
Pony.AI and Aurora have also
resumed, and Zoox says it will
restart soon in Las Vegas. Uber UBER
resumed some testing in California
(a big step after they were shut
down for a very long time after
running over a pedestrian in
Arizona) on March 11, just a short
time before lockdowns ended that.
Some other companies have been
doing Covid-19 related operations
like delivering food or medicine,
such as Nuro and Cruise. (Nuro
vehicles never have a driver in
them.) Starship, which operates
delivery robots on sidewalks, has
increased its city operations due
to high demand for delivery in the
Covid era.
Companies are being
diligent. Some, like Waymo, are
operating with only one safety
driver — more on that later. They
are all cleaning vehicles
frequently and having safety
drivers follow sanitary protocols,
and telling them not to work if
they have symptoms. Unless drivers
are alone in vehicles all the
time, they will wear masks at most
companies.
When providing passenger or
delivery service, the companies
qualify as “essential services.”
Slightly more complex is whether
vehicle testing qualifies. It
certainly should, since as I have
repeatedly pointed out, any
delay in the development of
self-driving vehicles which save
lives costs a huge number of
lives down the road...." Read
more Hmmmm... I
certainly agree that delay
results in lives lost;
however, that is not the
foremost reason to continue
forward. Safety is a floor,
not an objective. These
systems must be perceived as
safe by manufacturers,
regulators, operators and,
most importantly, the
customers and the residents
along the streets on which
these vehicles operate.
Required is unanimous
perception by all of these
entities throughout
the Operational Design
Domain (ODD) that
these systems are SAFE!
Once deemed SAFE by all,
then these systems can begin
to maximize mobility,
affordability, and
improvement in the
quality-of-life of the
mobility disadvantaged...
those that for whatever
reason can't or choose not
to drive a car. That's the
fundamental motivation here
(as far as I'm concerned).
Alain
Aurora Team, Mat 12, "At Aurora,
we’ve adopted a “smarter, not
farther” approach to on-road
testing. That is, instead of
blindly pushing to drive more and
more miles, we’ve continued to
focus on collecting quality
real-world data and on getting the
most value out of every data
point. For example, we amplify the
impact of real-world experience by
flagging interesting or novel
events and incorporating them into
our Virtual Testing Suite.
While they aren’t valuable as a
measure of progress, on-road
events can be incredibly valuable
as learning opportunities. Our
triage team reviews flagged events
and then works with our
engineering teams to identify
which ones offer opportunities to
improve the Aurora Driver...." Read
more Hmmmm... A
very valuable capability.
Certainly the data
surrounding disengagements
is really important.
Additionally, folks like
Tesla must have tons of data
about many/most/all their
crashes. How valuable are
those image sequences! How
about the
crazy Russian crash videos.
Seriously! The world has no
shortage interesting and
novel events. Each event is
a novel event. We really
need good ways to extract to
set of representative events
that span and define the
system's Operational Design
Domain. That set can easily
become NP complete so we
need some elegance here.
Alain
N. Shirouzu, May 14,"Electric car maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) plans to introduce a new low-cost, long-life battery in its Model 3 sedan in China later this year or early next that it expects will bring the cost of electric vehicles in line with gasoline models, and allow EV batteries to have second and third lives in the electric power grid...
New, low-cost batteries designed to last for a million miles of use and enable electric Teslas to sell profitably for the same price or less than a gasoline vehicle are just part of Musk’s agenda, people familiar with the plans told Reuters....
Tesla’s new batteries will rely
on innovations such as low-cobalt
and cobalt-free battery
chemistries, and the use of
chemical additives, materials and
coatings that will reduce internal
stress and enable batteries to
store more energy for longer
periods, sources said.
Tesla also plans to implement new
high-speed, heavily automated
battery manufacturing processes
designed to reduce labor costs and
increase production in massive
“terafactories” about 30 times the
size of the company’s sprawling
Nevada “gigafactory” — a strategy
telegraphed in late April to
analysts by Musk....
The cost of CATL’s cobalt-free
lithium iron phosphate battery
packs has fallen below $80 per
kilowatt-hour, with the cost of
the battery cells dropping below
$60/kWh, the sources said. CATL’s
low-cobalt NMC battery packs are
close to $100/kWh.
Auto industry executives have said
$100/kWh for battery packs is the
level at which electric vehicles
reach rough parity with internal
combustion competitors...." Read
more
Hmmmm...Ever since Thomas
Davenport in 1837,
through the Apollo Program
("Houston,
we have a problem"),
through to the iPhone
today, batteries have
been a nothing but
difficult, expensive and
limiting. No Moore's Law
here, but maybe Elon is
moving the needle. Very
interesting. Alain
C. Metz, March 12, "Tech
companies once promised that fully
functional, self-driving cars
would be on the road by 2020 and
on the path to remaking
transportation and transforming
the economy.
But a decade after Google unveiled
an autonomous car prototype with
global fanfare, the
technology is still far from
ready, and many investors are wary
of dumping more money into it —
just when the world could benefit
from cars that ferry people and
deliver packages without a human
driver.
The companies that made these
promises are now in a jam: To
perfect their technology, they
need to test it on roads. But they
need at least two people in the
cars to avoid accidents. Because
of social distancing rules meant
to keep people safe during the
coronavirus pandemic, that is
often not possible. So many cars
are sitting in lots.
“This is a difficult time for
everyone,” said Bryan Salesky, the
chief executive of the start-up
Argo AI, which is backed by $1
billion from Ford and another $1
billion in promised funding from
Volkswagen. “We want to get back
on the road as soon as it is safe
to do so. There is no substitute
for on-road testing.”....
Many self-driving car companies
have no revenue, " ... None
have any significant revenue
from this segment of their
business. It is all
investment ($$$ out) up to
this point. "None" are
supported by
government/public-sector
contracts because government
didn't have enough money
before Covid-19, and most
certainly has better places
to spend what little money
it may have/print post
Covid-19.... "and
the operating costs are unusually
high. Autonomous vehicle start-ups
spend $1.6 million a month on
average — four times the rate at
financial tech or health care
companies, according to PitchBook,
which tracks financial activity
across the industry."
Read more Hmmmm...
The rest of the article
summarizes some of the
articles that appear herein
(Zoox, Voyage, Waymo);
however, I believe that
Covid-19 is being used as a
"My dog ate my homework"
excuse (delays in the global
supply chain and suspension
of on-the-road testing).
This has been and continues
to be an excellent
opportunity for these
companies to cleanup and
optimize their algorithms
and software. Plus, the
real challenge facing these
companies is not
technological, but
sociological... can one
define an Operational Design
Domain in which these
systems
are perceived to drive
safely and deliver a service
that is desired by "all" in
similar Operational Design
Domains around the country.
That's what is needed to get
the process started in the
first place.
In order to expand and scale, similar Operational Design Domains need to be numerous and expandable without degradation of perceived SAFETY and continued improvement of affordability, mobility and quality-of-life. Alain
B. Templeton, May 4, "Zoox has released a video showing an hour long drive through Las Vegas, a follow-up to their video of an hour-long drive in San Francisco. The video is sped up 2x to make it a little more interesting. The car does an hour long drive, including driving through the pickup areas of two hotels, along various Las Vegas streets and through the airport. It needs no interventions and handles a number of complex road situations.
What this video tells us is that Zoox has a high quality project, ahead of many other teams, but at the same time, it doesn’t tell us that it’s anywhere close to being ready for release, and in fact shows ways that suggest this could be some time in the future.
Demo rides and videos for robocars are tricky. It is hard to do an hour of complex driving with no interventions. Many less mature teams can’t pull that off at all. But it’s still very far from doing 2,500 hours (around 100,000 mixed miles at an average of 40mph) with only a minor intervention needed, or 6,000 hours without a major one, which is what it takes to be around the same as an average human. To be better than human, even more hours are required. (This number is a rough one, and varies based on the driving circumstances. It’s longer on the highway and less hours on city streets.)...." Read more Hmmmm... This is very true. Before one has the confidence to remove the attendant, one has had to have the attendants not intervene something like a combined 2,500 hours. Such an achievement can only be done in a finite amount of time in any Operational Design Domain with a fleet of vehicles. 10 vehicles could do it (would need to do it) over a 20 day span in a Trenton, NJ ODD encompassing about 25% of the city's streets. Such an ODD would serve essentially all intra-Trenton trip, plus, of course, "last mile" access to NJ Transit. Until one can successfully complete and repeat such a demonstration in a comparable ODD, all of this isn't ready for prime-time. Alain
A. Hawkins, May 13, "Public transportation is on life support, as the pandemic makes people less inclined to want to cram themselves into underground metal tubes with poor air circulation and nonexistent social distancing. The weather is getting nicer and some states are taking tentative steps toward reopening, even shutting down certain streets to car traffic to make more room for walking, biking, and scootering. So why isn’t the micromobility industry — shared electric bikes and scooters — thriving right now?
The novel coronavirus has brought the shared scooter and bike business to the brink of financial collapse. Demand has evaporated — an analysis of credit card data by The New York Times found that spending on scooter rentals had fallen the most of all transportation modes, by nearly 100 percent — companies are laying off employees en masse, and their previously sky-high valuations have been almost wiped out. Rather than basking in the sun and delighting in the reduced car traffic, the scooter industry is looking at end times.
There are some early signs that shared mobility could survive the crisis, even come out looking better than before; one of those “it’s always darkest before dawn” kind of things. But before that happens, the scooter industry as a whole will need to shrink, as it already was doing before COVID-19. And a lot of people will probably lose their jobs.,,,
Even so, many cities probably won’t be in the position to waive fees or offer public funding of scooter operations in the near future. ...". Read more Hmmmm.... What??? Public funding for those that should be walking and can readily walk??? Is anybody awake here??? If there is any "mode" that needs to make it on their own bottom, its scooters. The fundamental problem with scooters is the "empty scooter repositioning challenge" and the "entitlement attitude" of its clientele. The Segway looked good but was a bust. Scooters, while cheaper, has caught the "scooter-hole" syndrome. "Coolness", if it ever existed outside of the mind of the user, has worn off very quickly. Alain
A. Hawkins, May 12, "Waymo’s
first external fundraising round,
initially expected to bring in
$2.25 billion for the self-driving
company, just grew to $3 billion,
thanks to the addition of some new
investors.
On March 2nd, Waymo announced its
first outside investment round,
with investors including Silver
Lake, Canada Pension Plan
Investment Board, Mubadala
Investment Company, Magna
International, Andreessen
Horowitz, AutoNation, and Waymo’s
parent company Alphabet.
That round was extended to include
a new crop of investors: funds
managed by T. Rowe Price
Associates, Perry Creek Capital,
and Fidelity Management and
Research Company.
To date, Waymo has been an outlier
in the world of self-driving cars,
relying almost exclusively on the
largesse of its corporate parent.
With these new funds, the company
says it will speed up its plans to
commercialize its revolutionary
self-driving technology, which it
believes will be even more crucial
in a world changed by the
coronavirus pandemic.,,,
One of Waymo’s new investors is no stranger to the world of electric and autonomous vehicles. T. Rowe Price Associates is a major investor in Waymo’s main rival, Cruise, as well as EV startup Rivian.". Read more Hmmmm.... Waymo is a no-brainer for anyone interested in participating in this sector, especially if you believe that there is a fundamental advantage in being first-in. They are by far the leader. If they can be first to demonstrate safe operation in a relevant ODD, (see above comment Brad's article about Zoox), then why trust someone else? If they don't stumble, then they may be un-leap-frogable. Alain
K. Wilson, May 7, "rivers aren’t
just speeding up on our empty
roads — they’re also braking
harder, scrolling cell phones
longer, and crashing more, new
data show.
In the five weeks after many
states announced lockdown orders
on March 16, the data company
Zendrive said drivers’ use of cell
phones behind the wheel is up 38
percent over pre-lockdown numbers.
The number of drivers who exceeded
speed limits was also up 27
percent, as was hard braking (25
percent) and collisions per
million miles (20 percent.)
“As a result, every minute spent
on the road is riskier; every mile
driven is riskier,” a rep for the
company said. (Full
report here.), ..." Read
more Hmmmm... We
really need to get to
Driverless because people
simply misbehave too
frequently to maintain their
"privilege to drive".
Remember, it is supposed to
be a privilege, not a right.
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">
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"
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
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
[log in to unmask]" class="" width="84" height="148">
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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Kornhauser and hosted by the Princeton
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