R. Duffy,
Aug 23,
"Chandler,
Arizona, is a
city of just
over 250,000
that’s located
southeast of
Phoenix. Like
most of
Arizona, it's
hot, dry, and
lined with
cacti and palm
trees.
But unlike
most of
Arizona—or
virtually
anywhere else
in the
world—Chandler
residents
share the road
with fully
driverless
robotaxis,
courtesy of
Waymo. As
Stacy, a
Chandler
resident, told
us, “Waymos
are like
rabbits in my
neighborhood.”
Since October
2020, the
Alphabet
subsidiary has
been running
its driverless
ride-hail
service, Waymo
One, in a
50-square-mile
service area
that
encompasses
parts of
Chandler,
Tempe, Mesa,
and Gilbert.
Anyone with a
smartphone,
credit card,
and GPS
coordinates in
the service
area can hail
a completely
driverless
ride of their
own.
In December
2018, Waymo
opened Waymo
One (with
safety
drivers) to
the general
public,
expanding
beyond an
early rider
program
available to
pre-approved,
NDA-bound
Phoenix
residents. The
company’s
current
testing zone,
for driverless
and safety
operator-supervised
vehicles,
stretches
across roughly
100 square
miles.
And although
residents
living in or
near the
service area
may be used to
seeing Waymo’s
glossy-white,
sensor-laden
Chrysler
Pacificas
roving around,
the chances
they’ve ridden
in one are
much, much
lower. .." Read
more As I've been writing, Chandler is a great place to
test
Driverless
mobility to
make sure it
at least
begins to
work; however,
the value in
the technology
is not as
amusement or
thrill ride or
as circus
sideshow. The
value is its
ability to
affordably
deliver high
quality
on-demand
mobility. It
will be a long
time before it
can provide a
higher quality
of service
that a
chauffeured
"Black car" or
limousine, so
it can't
compete for
those
traveling on
an expense
account or the
well to do.
It also can't
really compete
to serve the
Drive-it-Yourself
(DiY) folks
that can
afford to buy
their own cars
and park them
for free when
not in use.
Conventional
mobility
serves all of
these folks
very well.
Where
this form of
mobility has a
real advantage
is to serve
folks who are
required to
conform to
mobility whose
very limited
service is
provided on a
"take-it-or-leave-it" operational philosophy. Services that operate
between few
fixed
locations at
strictly
stipulated
times
specified by
the service
provider. The
disparity in
service is
incredible
between
mobility
options that
respond
directly to
customer needs
in terms of
from/to/when
(walking, DiY
personal car,
Uber/Lyft/taxi/limousine/WaymoOne)
and public
transit's "take-it-or-leave-it"
customer
service
approach.
Consequently, Waymo's market
opportunity is
in places
where customer
demand is by
folks who
can't DiY and
aren't on an
expense
account and
can't afford
Uber/Lyft/taxi/limousine. Places like
Trenton, New
Jersey where
70% of the
households
have at most
one car as
opposed to
Chandler where
70% of
households
have two or
more cars. In
Chandler,
Waymo has to
go far and
wide ("50 sq.
mi.) to find
customers for
which the
Waymo One
service is
indeed better
than what they
already
enjoy. In
cities like
Trenton, those
folks exist in
a compact 8
sq. mi. area.
Seems like a
no-brainer
that Waymo Two
should be in
Trentons.
Alain
[log in to unmask]" _mf_state="1" title="null" src="cid:[log in to unmask]" class="" width="44" height="44" border="0"> The SmartDrivingCars eLetter, Pod-Casts, Zoom-Casts and Zoom-inars are made possible in part by support from the Smart Transportation and Technology ETF, symbol MOTO. For more information: www.motoetf.com. Most funding is supplied by Princeton University's Department of Operations Research & Financial Engineering and Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) research laboratory as part of its research dissemination initiative
I. Duncan,
Sep 2, "The
first quarter
of 2021 was
the deadliest
start of a
year on the
nation’s roads
in over a
decade, with
car crashes
killing an
estimated
8,730 people
from January
to March,
according to a
new estimate
from the
National
Highway
Traffic Safety
Administration.
The numbers
indicate that
a surge in
road deaths
that began
with the
coronavirus
pandemic has
continued into
this year,
although they
offer some
early glimmer
of hope that
unusually high
fatality rates
might be
beginning to
come down.
NHTSA said the
ongoing high
death rate
appears to
have been
caused by
drivers
continuing to
take risks by
speeding,
getting behind
the wheel
after drinking
or using
drugs, and not
wearing seat
belts. To
coincide with
the new
estimates,
NHTSA on
Thursday
released an
updated
version of a
guide to
improving
highway
safety,
largely
focusing on
encouraging
more-conscientious
behavior on
the roads and
deterring
risk-taking..."
Read
more See
NHTSA Early
Estimate of
Motor Vehicle
Traffic
Fatalities for
the First
Quarter of
2021
announcement.
Roughly a 25%
increase in
death rate for
Q1s (from
~1.0/100MxVMT
to 1.26/100MxVMT. Seems
as if NHTSA is
going to have
to do more
than "... release(d) an updated version of a guide ...".
There are now
so many
speeders and
texters out
there and
there aren't
enough traffic
cops to do
anything about
it. If
driving is
really a
privilege,
then NHTSA
will need to
insist that
technology be
used to
enforce the
common good
associated
with that
privilege.
Alain
G. Mango,
Aug. 31, "This
letter is to
inform you
that the
Office of
Defects
Investigation
(ODI) of the
National
Highway
Traffic Safety
Administration
(NHTSA) has
opened a
Preliminary
Evaluation
(PE21-020) to
investigate
crashes
involving
first
responder
scenes and
vehicles
manufactured
by Tesla, Inc.
(Tesla) that
were operating
in either
Autopilot or
Traffic Aware
Cruise Control
leading up to
the incident,
and to request
certain
information.
This office is aware of twelve incidents where a Tesla vehicle operating in either Autopilot orTraffic Aware Cruise Control struck first responder vehicles / scenes, leading to injuries and vehicle damage. In each case, NHTSA has reviewed the incidents with Tesla. A list of the twelve incidents has been included for reference.
Please repeat the applicable request verbatim above each response. After Tesla’s response to each request, identify the source of the information and indicate the last date the information was gathered....
Tesla’s
response to
this letter,
in duplicate,
together with
a copy of any
confidentiality request, must be submitted to this office by Friday,
October 22,
2021."
Read more Whew! Unfortunately it doesn't seem to ask anything
about the
Automated
Emergency
Braking System
and doesn't
explicitly ask
how Tesla
treats
stationary
objects that
are detected
ahead. Can't
wait to see
their
response. I
sure hope
NHTSA makes it
available to
all ASAP
without us
needing to
file Freedom
of Information
requests.
Alain
R. Mitchell, Aug 31, "Recent moves by the top U.S. automotive safety watchdog could change the way Tesla markets its cars’ advanced driver-assist capabilities -- or force the company to recall the software altogether." Read more Elon's "ace in the hole" here is his "over-the-air-updating" capability whereby he can readily and inexpensively satisfy NHTSA demands. He can also afford to give owners a choice of a refund or a software upgrade/fix. The "80/20 rule" would suggest that 80% will happily take the upgrade/fix, even if it includes a rename to "StupidSummon/PayAttention/EmptySelfDriving/..." 😉 Alain
Sep. 4, "BY
THE AGE of
seven months,
most children
have learned
that objects
still exist
even when they
are out of
sight. Put a
toy under a
blanket and a
child that old
will know it
is still
there, and
that he can
reach
underneath the
blanket to get
it back. This
understanding,
of “object
permanence”,
is a normal
developmental
milestone, as
well as a
basic tenet of
reality.
It is also
something that
self-driving
cars do not
have. And that
is a problem.
Autonomous
vehicles are
getting
better, but
they still
don’t
understand the
world in the
way that a
human being
does. For a
selfdriving
car, a bicycle
that is
momentarily
hidden by a
passing van is
a bicycle that
has ceased to
exist.
This
failing is
basic to the
now-widespread
computing
discipline
that has
arrogated to
itself the
slightly
misleading
moniker of
artificial
intelligence
(AI). Current
AI works by
building up
complex
statistical
models of the
world, but it
lacks a deeper
understanding
of reality.
How to give AI
at least some
semblance of
that
understanding—the
reasoning
ability of a
seven
month-old
child,
perhaps—is now
a matter of
active
research..."
Read more Hmmmm...
Interesting and well worth reading
article;
however, it is
not quite the
case that the
automated
driving
perception
systems don't
have an
understanding
of "object
permanence".
I must admit that back in the 2005 DARPA Grand
Challenge, we
took "object
permanence" to
an extreme
that actually
killed us. We
went through
great care to
place a
position
vector as well
as a velocity
vector on
every object
we
encountered.
Unfortunately,
we failed to
include the
one line of
code to forget
the objects
after a
sufficiently
long period of
time. So, you
guessed it...
after 9.8
miles and the
accumulation
of the
description,
position and
velocity
labels on
about 250,000
objects, we
blew out
memory and
were
disqualified.
We went back
to our
vehicle,
Prospect
Eleven (that
we had
abandoned
under a large
solar panel,
UNLV), during
Fall Break
three weeks
later. We
discovered our
memory leak,
fixed one line
of code, and
basically ran
the entire
2005 course,
the 2004
course and
Beer Bottle
pass 3 more
times, once at
night in the
dark (We
basically had
only GPS and
vision
sensors, no
LiDAR
(couldn't
afford it)).
What we learned was that "forgetting/moving-on" is also
important.
Talk with any
hockey goal
tender. 😉
Alain
M. Kane,
Sep. 2, "3
million new
plug-ins were
sold so far
this year.
Global
passenger
plug-in
electric car
sales
increased in
July by 94%
year-over-year
to about
480,000, which
is one of the
best monthly
results ever.
The market
share amounted
to 7.1%, and
two-third of
the plug-ins
happen to be
all-electric.
Plug-in market
share improved
to 7.1%,
including:
BEVs: about
318,000 and
4.7% share
PHEVs: about
162,500 and
2.4% share
Total: 480,506
(up 94%
year-over-year)
and 7.1% share
"
The top-selling models for the month were: Wuling Hong Guang MINI EV (30,706), Tesla Model 3 (18,811) and Tesla Model Y (14,660), Volkswagen ID.4 (14,660) and BYD Qin Plus (PHEV) (9,127). Read more Hmmmm... Not bad! Alain
R.
Mitchell, Aug
31, "If you’ve
driven around
the Bay Area
lately,
there’s a good
chance you’ve
spotted a
driverless
test car
sharing the
highway, a
whirling lidar
array atop its
roof. Not so
much in the
Southland.
Little robot
car testing
has been
conducted in
Southern
California to
date.
That will
change soon.
Driverless car
technology
company
Motional
announced
Tuesday that
it will deploy
“in the near
term” a test
fleet of new
Hyundai Ioniq
5 electric
cars in and
around Los
Angeles,
fitted with
its robotaxi
technology...
Asked what
special
challenges Los
Angeles will
present to
robot car
development,
Iagnemma’s
answer was
unsurprising:
“congestion.”
He added that
because Los
Angeles boasts
such a
colorful car
culture, “it’s
gotta be a
place where
you can watch
a robotaxi
cruise by.”"
Read
more Amazing... I guess that these companies do believe
that they are
Circus
Sideshow
Attractions.
Not about
their mobility
opportunities,
but their
freakishness.
The reason for
congestion in
LA is because
essentially
everyone is a
DiY. Good
luck at being
an early
disrupter in
that market.
Alain
N. Spector,
Aug 23, "In
mid-June, I
embarked on my
first air
travel since
before the
pandemic. I
planned to
just take an
Uber to the
airport,
figuring it
was worth it
to spare my
husband the
stress of
taking time
off work to
drive me. Then
I saw the
estimated cost
for the ride:
$89 — to drive
10 miles. I’m
used to
rolling my
eyes at
inflated fares
during rush
hour and late
nights, but
this was more
than double
the pre-tip
amount I’d
paid before
the
pandemic...."
Read
more At some point the investors are going to stop
subsidizing
your ride-hail
and economic
realities will
prevail.
Alain
J.
Kronenberg,
Sep. 3, "Cyngn
(NYSE:CYN), an
autonomous-driving software firm backed by Andreessen Horowitz and other
A-list
venture-capital
firms, filed
paperwork
Friday for an
IPO at an
unspecified
valuation.
The company
wrote in an S-1
filing
with the U.S.
Securities and
Exchange
Commission
that it aims
to raise some
$36M from the
initial public
offering,
although
that’s likely
just a
placeholder
number.
Cyngn (CYN)
has reportedly
raised at
least $185M
over its
lifespan, last
staging a
Series C round
in 2015 at an
undisclosed
valuation....
" Read more Be
sure to look
at in
the S-1,
and its pivot.
Alain
F. Fishkin,
Sep 3,
"Techstination,
your
destination
for gadgets
and gear.
I’m Fred
Fishkin.
Tesla’s AI Day
this year was
designed to
help recruit
more of the
best people
working in the
field to come
work for the
company. In
the view of
Princeton’s
University’s
faculty chair
of autonomous
vehicle
engineering,
Alain
Kornhauser,
Musk succeeded
in delivering
the message.
On Episode 230
of the Smart
Driving Cars
podcast, he
was joined by
Tim Higgins of
the Wall
Street
Journal,
author of
POWER
PLAY…Tesla,
Elon Musk and
the Bet of the
Century..
“The fight for
AI talent in
Silicon Valley
is brutal.
There’s just
not enough of
these really
smart people
who can do
these kinds of
things.”
And Tesla’s AI
Day gave Musk
and his team a
chance to show
why the
company is the
place to be to
help create
the future of
mobility. And
while at it…he
promised to
deliver a
humanoid robot
prototype…in
2022. You can
find us at
Techstination.com.
I’m Fred
Fishkin." Read
more Hmmmm...
. Listen...
Alain
Reuters,
Sep. 3, "One
of the two
victims of a
fatal crash
involving a
Tesla car in
Texas had a
blood-alcohol
level that
exceeded the
legal driving
limit,
according to
an autopsy
report.
No one was
found in the
driver's seat
in the April
accident where
a Model S
caught fire
after hitting
a tree,
killing the
two people in
the car,
according to
the police at
the time.
William
Varner, who
was found in
the back left
passenger
seat, had
0.151 g/100mL
of ethanol -
grain alcohol
- detected in
his blood
after his
death,
according to
the report by
Harris County
Institute of
Forensic
Sciences...."
Read more Hmmmm... Certainly not an excuse
for jumping in
the back seat;
however, given
all of the
driving assist
technology,
Teslas should
not be running
into trees
with or
without
someone in the
driver's
seat! Before
Elon is
allowed to
release
anything
called "Full
Self Driving"
until he has
to
over-the-air-update
a "Won't Cash
Into
Stationary
Objects Ahead"
(like trees,
boulders.
emergency
vehicles with
flashing
lights, ...)
Alain
J. Fingas,
Sep. 2,"If
Audi's
Skysphere
concept is a
driver's car
with an
autonomous
option, the
company's
follow-up is
the polar
opposite. The
automaker has
introduced a
Grandsphere
concept
electric sedan
that uses
Level 4
self-driving
(full autonomy
in limited
conditions) to
help you avoid
driving
"whenever
possible" —
this is a
luxurious
living room
that just
happens to let
you take the
wheel...." Read
more Hmmmm...
Don't
hold your
breath. It's
a concept car
(aka Circus 'Level
4' Freak
show). Alain
Tempe
Arizona, "The
post-car real
estate
development
company known
as Culdesac
approached
Opticos Design
to apply their
expertise in
walkable
communities
and Missing
Middle Housing
to the first
car-free
neighborhood
designed for
shared
mobility and
built from
scratch in the
United
States... "
..." Read
more Hmmmm...
. OK Tell me
more... In
Arizona none
the less.
However, the
image does
show a bunch
of cars. 😎
Alain
K. Pyle,
June 17, "As
with so many
of the
developments
in telecom and
broadband,
rural areas
may provide
the proving
ground for the
next
generation of
air travel.
This is one of
the important
implications
of NASA’s
recently
issued report,
Regional
Air Mobility
(RAM).
Investors,
community
leaders,
policymakers,
industry, and
the general
public are the
target
audience for
this aptly
named report.
Although
published by
NASA, the
authors hail
from academia,
the aviation
industry,
capital
markets, and,
of course,
NASA. In
short, the
report shows
how the
nation’s
existing 5,000
airfields
provide a
launching
point for
low-cost
electric
aviation..."
Read more Hmmmm...
. We can't be
left behind
here. Why
not??? Alain
H. Poser'77, Sept 13, 2020. "Creating Value for Light Density Urban Rail Lines" . See slides, See video Hmmmm... Simply Brilliant. Alain
These
editions re
sponsored by
the SmartETFs
Smart
Transportation
and Technology
ETF, symbol
MOTO. For more
information
head to www.motoetf.com
M. Sena,
Issue (08-10)
, Aug. 25,"
Some of you
are fans of Douglas Adams and
will enjoy
this month's
Musings.
Sometimes a
little humor
helps to get a
serious point
across better
than trying to
be seriously
persuasive.
The lead
article in
this issue is
the first part
of a two-part
series. This
month I
discuss why
there is still
a chance for
the Western
automotive
OEMs to stay
in the game of
manufacturing
cars, rather
than being
relegated to
assemblers of
battery
electric
vehicle
components.
Next month I
examine why
the position
they have held
for the past
century, King
of the Hill,
is about to be
challenged.
In the second
article is
focused on the
need for
cooperation
between robot
and driver in
highly
automated
driving. If
Tesla had done
a better job
on this score
it could have
avoided being
called on the
carpet by the
National
Highway
Traffic Safety
Administration. We'll see where that leads.
Dispatch
Central, as
usual,
attempts to
have something
for everyone.
I've called
the European
Commission out
for a major
miss in its
intelligent
speed
assistance
regulation,
not for
passing it but
for not making
it as robust
as it should
be.
Yes, I did use
these summer
months to
start work on
a follow-up to
the Princeton
SmartDrivingCars Summit, and I did enjoy a very pleasant summer here in
Sweden. I hope
you enjoyed
your summer as
well wherever
and however
you spent it.
M. Sena"
Read more Hmmmm... Enjoy & Learn this month's Dispatcher ( especially how to "... turn... pig’s ear into a silk purse...; no-brainers (P. 17); Some interesting Statistics on World energy & BEVs (P.18, thank you Fred Dryer), a possible upside for coal mines (P. 19), why 'Level 3' is even less probable than 'Level 5' which is reached only 'in the limit as time goes to infinity' and Evolutionary Domesticity (P. 29) and the answer is '42' ! Listen/watch to the Pod/Zoom-Cast 231 with Michael, Fred and me centered on this issue. Alain
M
Henninger, Aug
11, "A bright
orange,
battery-powered
train breaks
the lush green
stillness of
Rockhill
Furnace,
Pennsylvania,
as it
traverses
track
originally
laid in 1876.
At the helm in
a bright
green/yellow
safety vest,
Meg Richards
tweaks the
throttle and
brakes as the
two-car train
passes by
baseball
fields,
crosses
streets and
completes the
day's test
run.
Along for the
ride, Henry
Posner III,
the chairman
of Railroad
Development
Corporation
(RDC) and an
adjunct
instructor at
Carnegie
Mellon
University,
sits eager to
demonstrate
his vision for
a rail-based
mass transit
system in the
United States.
The original
concept for
Pop-Up Metro —
a
battery-powered,
modular train
that can be
inserted onto
existing
infrastructure
— evolved in
parallel with
his Department
of History
class, The
American
Railroad-Decline
and
Renaissance in
the Era of
Deregulation.
CPUC, Nov
23, '20, "This
decision
creates two
new autonomous
vehicle
programs that
authorize fare
collection
(deployment
programs), one
for drivered
autonomous
vehicles and
the other for
driverless
autonomous
vehicles.
Among other
requirements,
applicants to
the existing
driverless
pilot program
and the new
driverless
deployment
program must
submit
Passenger
Safety Plans
that outline
their plans to
protect
passenger
safety for
driverless
operations.
In addition,
the decision
establishes
four goals
that apply to
both the
existing pilot
programs and
the new
deployment
programs; 1.)
Protect
passenger
safety; 2.)
Expand the
benefits of AV
technologies
to all of
Californians,
including
people with
disabilities;
3.) Improve
transportation
options for
all,
particularly
for
disadvantaged
communities
and low-income
communities;
and 4.) Reduce
greenhouse gas
emissions,
criteria air
pollutants,
and toxic air
contaminants,
particularly
in
disadvantaged
communities.
The Commission
will collect
data to
monitor permit
holders’
progress
toward each of
the goals...."
Read
more Hmmmm...
Sorry for not
reporting this
sooner, and
thank you Doug
Coventry for
bringing it to
my attention.
It is must
reading
for any
jurisdiction
making
regulations
regarding the
provision of
autonomousTaxi
mobility.
Its four goals are laudable, especially the 3rd, even if
it may end up
violating part
of the 4th.
Moreover, the
clauses of the
3rd should be
re-ordered to
be: ...
Improve
transportation
options for
disadvantaged
communities,
low income
communities
and those with
disabilities,
and, if
possible, for
all... This
also reduces
the goals to 3
important
ones, ...
safety, the
environment
and improved
mobility for
those that
have been left
behind by the
personal
automobile
Of course, one wants to improve mobility for those that
drive their
own personal
car; however,
that is a entrenched
well-served
set of
customers that
are not
readily going
to flip from
driving their
car to
something that
isn't really
better and may
largely be
perceived as
no cigar.
Certainly, the
public sector
should in no
way use public
resources to
give car
drivers yet
another good
but inferior
choice as was
done with many
public transportation investments
that actually
provide
inferior
mobility to
those that
were to be
attract as
customers.
These systems
are rebuffed
by many that
they were
intended to be
taken off the
road for the
trips they
already make,
let alone
deliver
quality-of-life
benefits by
providing
mobility to
new places
that they
couldn't
previously
access.
A properly designed Operational Design Domain focused on from and where low income communities want to go is, to my mind, where the best opportunity exits for these safe, environmentally responsible systems . In such ODDs these driverless aTaxis can actually improve quality-of-life; and thus, deserve accommodation and promotion by public agencies such as CPUC. Alain
July 12
-> 15,
"..." Read
more Hmmmm...I haven't been able to
find a public
source for any
of the content
from the
symposium but
there were at
least three
sessions (of
the few that I
was able to
attend) that
were really
good. One
was B-101-
An inside Look
at
Policy-Making
for Automated
Vehicles,
moderated by
Baruch
Feigenbaum of
the Reason
Foundation.
Pay particular
attention to
the insights
offered by
Kevin Biesty
of Arizona
DoT. So far,
no one in the
world has done
it better.
A second one was