10.25-MayMobility-071622

Saturday July 16, 2022

SmartDrivingCar.com/10.25-MayMobility-071622

25th edition of the 10th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter

  MAY MOBILITY CLOSES $111 MILLION SERIES C FUNDING, BEGINS PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENT ON TOYOTA’S NEXT GENERATION MOBILITY PLATFORM

Technical support provided by: https://www.cartsmobility.com/

   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

Hubble v Webb

J, Christensen, July 13, ” Webb & Hubble overlapped with slider”, See more Hmmmm…  Very interesting. Alain

  Robotic Research Accelerates Commercial Autonomy Applications

K. Jost, July 6, “Technology developer Robotic Research has been working on autonomous and robotics solutions for the industry’s harshest, unstructured environments around the world since 2002. CEO Alberto Lacaze founded the Clarksburg, Maryland, company mainly to serve the U.S. DOD, with many of its military contracts geared to creating autonomy stacks for a variety of vehicles.

Originally from Uruguay, Lacaze describes himself as a “technical guy,” holding close to 150 patents in the field of robotics. He developed some of the very early neural networks in the 1990s, and has worked with pretty much every aspect of autonomy stack over the years. Lacaze was part of the research faculty at the University of Maryland from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, and he worked at the National Institute of Standards of Technology as part of the government’s efforts to develop autonomy systems for military vehicles.

About a decade later, the company began working on the commercial side. “We’re more of an established company on the DOD side, and more of a startup on the commercial side,” Lacaze said. The company’s vehicle- and sensor-agnostic full-stack autonomy kit, called AutoDrive™, has been integrated in a variety of vehicles, including North America’s first automated heavy-duty transit bus, Class 8 trucks and yard trucks

. …

“My understanding is that they’re mainly concentrated on highway driving, which is very appealing,” Lacaze said. “But we think that there is another story of autonomy, which is everything else. Not everything is on the road driving, and not everything is robotaxis.”

…

Read more Hmmmm…  Very interesting. Alain

  Nuro lays off employees in Texas, California and Arizona 

B. Wessling, July 13, “Nuro has laid off seven employees in Houston and Mountain View, California and three more at its Phoenix offices. The company has raised $2.1 billion in funding since its founding in 2016.

A Nuro spokesperson told The Robot Report, “As part of our ongoing business strategy development, we closed four positions in Houston and three positions in Mountain View, and offered severance packages to the seven people affected by the change….

Nuro’s reported layoffs follow a string of other industry layoffs within the last few weeks. Argo AI, another company developing autonomous vehicles, announced it’s laying off 150 employees and shutting down its operation in Washington, DC.

Starship Technologies, a sidewalk delivery robot company, also recently laid off 11% of its workforce. The outdoor robot delivery market has become quite crowded for companies like Starship and Nuro. Other sidewalk delivery companies, like Coco, Kiwibot, Serve Robotics and Synkar, have cropped up in recent years. As well as heavier payload companies, like White Rhino.

Starship said it had been negatively impacted by the “dramatic downward shifts” in the global economy and investment market.

Downward shifts in the global investment market, particularly in China, were also cited for the reported layoffs at Pudu Robotics, a Chinese developer of commercial service robots.

Additionally, DoorDash announced it was closing Chowbotics just 18 months after acquiring the business. Chowbotics was apart of DoorDash’s robotics division, DoorDash Labs, which is still in operation.”   Read more Hmmmm…  Earning revenue to pay salaries is proving to be a challenge for the AV industry. Alain

Cruise robotaxi service under review following anonymous letter

R. Bellan, July 14, “Someone claiming to be a Cruise employee sent an anonymous letter to a California regulatory agency raising concerns that the company is launching its robotaxi service too early. The employee cited the regularity of instances that Cruise robotaxis malfunction in some way and are left stranded on streets, often blocking traffic or emergency vehicles, as one of his main concerns, according to the letter that has been reviewed by TechCrunch.

The letter also claims that employees “generally do not believe we are ready to launch to the public, but there is fear of admitting this because of expectations from leadership and investors.” Cruise has responded to this with results from an April 2022 survey from over 2,000 employees, in which 94% of respondents agreed with the statement: “Safety is a top priority here.”…”  Read more Hmmmm…  Nothing is easy.  Since TechCrunch has “reviewed” the letter, why didn’t is link it so that we can be better informed.  Is it a “secret”??? Hopefully the CPUC will release it or will we need to file a Freedom of Information request? Alain

Update on US Automated Transit Projects

R, Mudge, July 20 “Automated bus deployments in the US… Two dimensions: autonomousBus & ADAS Apllications…” Read more Hmmmm…  Update to mid 2022 of progress in traditional urban rubber-tire transit.  Alain

Automated Bus Rapid Transit  A New Mode for High- Quality, High-Capacity Transit Corridors

R. Mudge, Oct 2020, “Elected officials and transit executives today face operating crises due to the unprecedented COVID19 pandemic, uncertain future demand, funding shortfalls, and competition from new services and technology.  This paper describes a new technology that may help transit leaders address some of these problems as they look toward the future.     This paper describes a new approach to high-capacity transit, Automated Bus Rapid Transit (ABRT). ABRT uses state-of-the-art technology to enhance conventional Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).   This document provides information for elected officials, transit executives, transit planners, and engineers who seek options to improve transit service while taking advantage of new technology.   Automated BRT enhances conventional BRT by leveraging various technologies of automated driving systems (ADS).  ADS cover a wide range of capabilities, including:  automated collision avoidance and emergency braking to increase safety,  automated lane-keeping to allow running on narrow rights of way and sharp turns,   automated precision docking, which allows level boarding at platforms to maintain an ADAcompliant gap and reduce damage to buses and platforms,   automated smooth acceleration, deceleration, and speed control, and   “platooning” which can create an electronically linked train of buses controlled by a single driver in the lead bus.   …”  Read more Hmmmm…  Progress in traditional urban rubber-tire transit though mid-2020.  Alain

Musk said not one self-driving Tesla had ever crashed. By then, regulators already knew of 8

R. Mitchel, July 14, “Elon Musk has long used his mighty Twitter megaphone to amplify the idea that Tesla’s automated driving software isn’t just safe — it’s safer than anything a human driver can achieve.

That campaign kicked into overdrive last fall when the electric-car maker expanded its Full Self-Driving “beta” program from a few thousand people to a fleet that now numbers more than 100,000. The $12,000 feature purportedly lets a Tesla drive itself on highways and neighborhood streets, changing lanes, making turns and obeying traffic signs and signals.

As critics scolded Musk for testing experimental technology on public roads without trained safety drivers as backups, Santa Monica investment manager and vocal Tesla booster Ross Gerber was among the allies who sprang to his defense.

“There has not been one accident or injury since FSD beta launch,” he tweeted in January. “Not one. Not a single one.”

To which Musk responded with a single word: “Correct.”

In fact, by that time dozens of drivers had already filed safety complaints with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over incidents involving Full Self-Driving — and at least eight of them involved crashes. The complaints are in the public domain, in a database on the NHTSA website…. ”  Read more Hmmmm…  FSD is a really bad name!  As is AutoPilot.  Elon, please change the name.  You like to say that for products (cars, rocket engines, …),  fewer parts are better.  For names/labels, implying less is better.  Appreciation tends to be relative to expectation.  By using the names FSD and autoPilot, you’ve set the expectation so high you ruined your chance of creating happy campers.  Just change the names.  You’ll exceed expectations and we’ll stop giving you grief.   Alain

  Pennsylvania Senate panel forwards autonomous vehicle bill

K. Goble, July 15, “Work continues at the Pennsylvania statehouse to advance a bill that is touted to modernize the state’s vehicle code to allow for the driverless testing and deployment of autonomous cars and trucks.

Currently, the Keystone State prohibits vehicle operation on state roadways without a human driver behind the wheel inside the vehicle.

The Senate Transportation Committee voted 11-3 to advance a bill, SB965, to legalize and regulate driverless vehicles in the state. The vote follows action in the House to approve a bill to accomplish the same goals. …”Read more Hmmmm…  The title is misleading. This is about platooning with the requirement that a driver be in the lead vehicle.  It addresses a very small segment of the “autonomous vehicle sector” of the economy.  Note, the “vehicle-following problem” is much simpler than the “vehicle-leading problem”.

Hopefully New Jersey will address legislatively the permitting of driverless/attendantless lead vehicles that can operate safely following or leading and enable the delivery of “safe, equitable, affordable, sustainable, high-quality mobility for all.  Now that’s worth enabling legislatively.  Alain

Hyundai, Kia to launch Level 3 self-driving Genesis G90, EV9 in 2023

H. Kim, Jul 15, July 15, “South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group will launch its most-advanced Level 3 autonomous cars next year, starting with Hyundai Motor Co.’s flagship luxury Genesis G90 sedan and Kia Corp.’s large-size electric sport utility vehicle, the EV9.

The group’s commercial launch of the self-driving vehicles equipped with its advanced technology is designed to help Hyundai and Kia better compete with electric car giant Tesla Inc., which is also the global frontrunner in autonomous driving…”  Read more Hmmmm…  Lots of gonnas, stated explicitly to “better compete with … Tesla”.  I guess that says it all by Hyundai/Kia and likely says it for the rest of the traditional car industry.  Alain

  Tesla tries to help Texas grid amid heat wave with its cars until it can with Powerwalls

F. Lambert, July 12, “Tesla is trying to help Texas’s electric grid again amid another heat wave with its electric cars until it can with Powerwalls as it lobbies for some rule changes.

Texas has a notoriously fragile grid that is having issues supporting increasing peak electricity demand.

The issues have mostly come in the winter amid cold fronts, but the state’s electric grid has had issues this year with early heat waves.

The first one hit as soon as May, and it tripped six power plants in the state.

At the time, Tesla introduced a new way to try to help out with a new in-car alert to Tesla owners in the state encouraging them not to charge between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. if they can avoid it:

A heat wave is expected to impact the grid in Texas over the next few days. The grid operator recommends to avoid charging during peak hours between 3pm and 8pm, if possible, to help statewide efforts to manage demand….”  Read more Hmmmm…  OK. Alain