10.28 - Tesla Robo Taxi

February 09, 2022Newsletter archive →

2022

28th edition of the 10th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter

Tesla's 2022 Shareholder Meeting with Elon Musk

E. Musk, Aug. 4, ." Read more

Hmmmm... Watch the Q & A portion starting about an hour in from the start. Watch especially the comments about his vision of the Tesla RoboTaxi (aka driverless cars, what I prefer to call autonomousTaxis or aTaxis, the new "Modern Transit"). The key visions are:

@ t=6375 ... the issue of how he sees these driverless vehicles being operated (deployed).

While I don't agree with the option of owning your own and renting it out "AirB&B -style where B&B = Mobility". It is easier and more likely to begin by having a Professional entity managing a fleet of Tesla RoboTaxis that provide mobility to everyone in the community. This will be the "Modern Public Transit". An example being Trenton MOVES using a fleet of Tesla RoboTaxis.

For these RoboTaxis to be attractive to a fleet operator, they will need to be styled differently than consumer versions that are sold to individuals. The RoboTaxi will need to be easy to get in and out and interface well with wheelchairs. They'll need to accommodate ride-sharing (personTrips are the source of the revenue, not vehicle sales). They should have 4-wheel steering so they will never need to back up in stub-end operation. He has re imagined the pickup truck. Certainly, he can re-imagine a car focused on providing safe, equitable, affordable, sustainable high-quality mobility throughout a community.

At the end of addressing the future of Robotaxis he states ..." assuming we do all these things, I think, probably, Tesla will be the most valuable company in the world."

@ t=7057 Elon is asked "when will Tesla launch the first pilot city for the RoboTaxi business?

Elon dodged the question by stating that he is focused on doing driverless everywhere, even in every imaginable simulation of the real world. Consequently, once achieved, it could be released everywhere all at once.

While a great vision, this is simply not realistic. He started selling Teslas in California, not throughout the whole country. He fully understands that one must crawl before one walks, before one runs.

As you might suspect, I have the ideal "California" for him to first deploy his RoboTaxis and it's not California or Arizona. It is New Jersey: Trenton, NJ or Perth Amboy, NJ or Patterson, NJ or many other cities in New Jersey where the mobility offered by Tesla RoboTaxis would be life changing to many while becoming an interesting alternative to everyone else. DoJo can more readily regress the coefficients to deliver safe driverless operation within any one of these Operational Design Domains (ODD) rather than trying to do them all simultaneously. Coefficients can/should be tied to ODDs rather than having one "magical" set that works in all ODDs. It is trivial for the Operating system to load the coefficients that work best in the RoboTaxi's current ODD. This should allow RoboTaxis to demonstrate their technical, economic and societal virtues much sooner in these communities. Market success will fuel expansion and replication in the delivery of safe, equitable, affordable, sustainable, high-quality mobility so that it spreads beyond New Jersey to California and beyond just like the purchase of the first Teslas spread from California to New Jersey and beyond.

@ t=7417 Elon is asked about the Boring Company.

True, if one could bore tunnels inexpensively, it would be great for longer distance travel. Certainly, all of the freeways in and around cities would be placed underground. High Speed rail on the NorthEast Corridor can only go underground for long stretches. Bringing the Dinky to a Nassau Street terminus must be done underground. By the way Washington Road should be underground eradicating the cancer that it is as a surface street severing the Princeton Campus. Then there is Rt. 29 that devastated Trenton by barricading the western part of Trenton from the Delaware River and Rt. 129 that severed neighborhoods; a scenario that was repeated in essentially every city to accommodate through-moving surface travel. They should all go underground. There is much good that could be done. The challenge is the above if.

@ t=6665 "when disengaging autoPilot with the wheel, the accelerator stays on. Please fix it!"

Maybe... touching or not touching the steering wheel has little in common with acceleration (and braking) which is (are) controlled by the feet. The steering control should be readily overcome by input of a torque on the steering wheel; however, the steering control should revert to dominance if the driver ceases to exert a torque on the wheel. Moreover, torquing the steering wheel should not disengage the brake or the throttle.

With respect to the driver actions on the brake and throttle:

Driver input from the throttle should have precedence over "intelligent cruise control (ICC)" input to the throttle and brake and should NOT turn off the system simply because the driver touched the accelerator pedal.

For the brake, it is a little different. Tapping the brake should turn off the acceleration function of the ICC. Acceleration should remain off until the driver explicitly re-engages it. Moreover, driver input to the brake, if less than what the ICC calls for, should always be dominated by the ICC's desire to brake. Tapping of the brakes should not turn off the braking function of the ICC. That intelligent braking function should continue to keep me from getting too close to the vehicle in front of me. The acceleration function has been turned off so I won't accelerate into the back of the car ahead of me and the braking function should continue to do its best to keep a proper separation between me and the vehicle ahead. Turning the whole system off placing me completely in control should require an explicit action by me that indicates I'm knowingly usurping responsibility.

I believe ICC should be on all the time. Driver sets the speed and separation (or it is done automatically relative to the speed limit, weather conditions and road curvatures). Driver can choose to override the throttle and override the braking at any time; however, in the absence of overrides, the ICC is in charge. Alain

SmartDrivingCars

ZoomCast 278 / PodCast 2 Tesla 2022 shareholder's meeting

F. Fishkin, Aug. 7, "Elon Musk talked about his vision for Tesla robo-taxis and more during his Q&A following the 2022 shareholders' meeting. Weighing in on that and more is Princeton's Alain Kornhauser on episode 278 of Smart Driving Cars with co-host Fred Fishkin. Plus TuSimple, GM Cruise, Lucid, Argo and more."

Timing Index:

@ t=55 Musk vision for autonomous taxis

@ t=728 When and where first robo-taxis will be deployed.

@ t=1177 What about the role of Musk's Boring Company?

@ t=1530 Musk responds to Autopilot suggestion

@ t=1941 Alain on automatic emergency braking

@ t=2230 California acts against Tesla for using terms Full Self Driving and AutoPilot

@ t=2357 TuSimple blames human error for crash

@ t=2456 Barron's reports When the Lawyers Come for Autonomous Vehicles

@ t=2552 GM President talks safety

@ t=2722 Losses at Lucid

@ t=3071 Alex Roy talks elevators!

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

California DMV accuses Tesla of falsely advertising Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features

R. Mitchell, Aug. 5, "The California Department of Motor Vehicles has accused Tesla of false advertising in its promotion of the company's signature Autopilot and Full Self-Driving technologies.

The agency alleges the electric-car maker misled customers with advertising language on its website describing Autopilot and Full Self-Driving technologies as more capable than they actually are.

The company "made or disseminated statements that are untrue or misleading, and not based on facts," the DMV said in a pair of complaints filed with the state Office of Administrative Hearings on July 28.

The DMV complaints point to the very names of the technologies, as well as other "misleading" language such as the following, which appears on the Tesla website's Autopilot page:..." Read more

Hmmmm... This is welcome news. We all agree that the names are really misleading and are totally confusing. We need truth in naming, advertising, politics, ... Alain

TuSimple reportedly tried to pass off a self-driving truck crash as 'human error

A. Hawkins, Aug. 4, "Last April, a semi-trailer truck operated by the San Diego-based company that was traveling down I-10 in Tucson, Arizona, suddenly lurched left, slamming into a concrete divider, according to dashcam footage leaked to YouTuber Asian Mai. TuSimple blamed "human error," but a report in The Wall Street Journal says that's a major oversimplification.

An internal report viewed by the Journal says that the crash occurred because "a person in the cab hadn't properly rebooted the autonomous driving system before engaging it, causing it to execute an outdated command." The left-turn command was 2.5 minutes old and should have been erased but wasn't, according to the internal report.

But autonomous vehicle researchers say that blaming the crash on human error is misleading, arguing that common safeguards would have prevented the autonomous driving system from executing the outdated command and likely would have prevented the crash. AV systems should not respond to commands that are even a couple hundredths of a second old, the researchers told the Journal. And sharp turns at 65mph should also never have been allowed...." Read more

Hmmmm... Agreed. Good thing there was a driver and attendant on board. Moreover, since humans write all the code, all crashes of code-driven vehicles could be called "human error". Thus, calling it "human error" doesn't earn a passing grade. Alain

When the Lawyers Come for Autonomous Vehicles

C. Winston, Aug 5."... AVs' social benefits derive from their much safer overall operations compared with nonautonomous vehicles. They would make highway travel much safer, eliminate the stress of driving, maintain economic activity and social distancing during a pandemic, and virtually eliminate traffic stops and violent police-motorist encounters.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Transportation and Congress have made little progress in fulfilling their responsibilities when it comes to AVs. To usher in this new technology, the government needs to establish a framework for testing and adopting AVs, modernize the highway infrastructure to facilitate safe AV operations, and reform highway policies to encourage efficient operations. Instead, they have conducted themselves in a lawyerly fashion by raising legal and procedural matters. The result is delay and inaction.

The future of autonomous vehicles now depends on a policy making environment where lawyers are the most represented and influential occupation in government and where the legal profession's strong influence on government policy puts it in a powerful position to affect policies that benefit its members at the expense of other members of society. Accordingly, as AVs are slowly adopted, law firms will exploit opportunities in areas like liability, intellectual property, and privacy to create new business, increase billable hours, and capture a share of the AV industry's capital. They will face little resistance from policy makers. .." Read more...

Hmmmm... Cliff's comments are even more poignant when one looks at the equity opportunity made available by driverless mobility systems that provide affordable auto-like demand responsive mobility to everyone... the new public transit... available to take anyone at any time 24/7 (less than a 5 minute wait) from any nearby location directly to anywhere within the system's Operational Design Domain. Mobility service that is comparable (and in some way better) than that available from one's personal automobile at a market price that is comparable, if not cheaper, than driving yourself (more productive use of the vehicle and propensity to share rides during peak hours.). Such a mobility service may well become the most powerful innovation that begins to level the opportunity field between the rich and the poor. Alain

Why a safe approach to self-driving deployment is critical to success

M. Reuss, Aug. 4, "Advanced driver assistance technology and fully autonomous vehicles are officially no longer the stuff of fiction. They're on our roads today. General Motors pioneered this space in 2017 by launching the world's first truly hands-free driver assistance technology, Super Cruise. Today, we have parallel paths to get hands-free driving to market for individuals with currently available Super Cruise and soon Ultra Cruise, while pursuing fully autonomous driving through our work with Cruise.

With fully driverless vehicles now available through ridehail services in the city of San Francisco and the continued expansion of advanced driver assistance systems, it's increasingly important that we continue to keep safety at the forefront in both ongoing developments in hands-free driving and the future availability of retail AVs. We want to help our customers expand their driving experience with exciting, safe technologies...." Read more

Hmmmm... No disagreement here. Safety is a necessary condition. It is a floor. It is a constraint irrespective of the extent of automation. It is great to have a "... vision of zero crashes... ", but the objective is to provide mobility. Alain

Miami's First Fleet of Driverless Cars Hits the Streets J. Swanson, May 18, "... According to Pittsburgh-based autonomous vehicle technology developer, Argo AI, no sentient beings are required to man its fleet of driverless vehicles, which debuted yesterday on public roads in Miami — and it's completely safe and legal.

"Elevators used to be a novelty, but today we take them for granted," Alex Roy, Argo AI's director of special operations, points out. "The two most common misconceptions about driverless vehicles are that they will never work, or that they will work everywhere overnight. The reality is, driverless vehicles are on the road in several cities right now, and that number will only grow."..." Read more

Hmmmm... Alex, we love the elevator analogy. Congratulations. A shame I can't get you to come to New Jersey. Alain

Lucid (LCID) crashes as it slashes 2022 production guidance and burns through $800M

F. Lambert, Aug. 4, "Electric automaker Lucid Group's stock (LCID) is crashing this morning after the company slashed its 2022 production guidance and confirmed that it burned through another $800 million during the last quarter.

Yesterday, Lucid reported its Q2 2022 earnings and confirmed small progress in delivering its Air electric sedan.

In Q2, the automaker delivered 679 vehicles for $97.3 million in revenue – up from the previous quarter, but with 1,405 vehicles produced in the first half of 2022, it is still far behind its goal to produce between 12,000 and 14,000 vehicles in 2022.

Therefore, the company announced that it is slashing that goal to just 6,000 to 7,000 vehicles...." Read more

Hmmmm... Yipes. That's almost $10M/day. And I thought Cruise was in trouble @ -$5M/day. Alain

Trenton & Perth Amboy MOVES: Commencing the Deployment of autonomousTaxis throughout New Jersey

GM offers Chevy Bolt EV owners $6,000 if they promise not to sue over battery fire recall fiasco

F. Lambert, Aug. 2, "General Motors has started offering Chevy Bolt EV owners a $6,000 refund as long as they promise not to sue over the battery fire recall fiasco of last year.

In June, GM announced that the 2023 Chevy Bolt EV and EUV are getting a significant $6,000 price cut – this was surprising at a time when most automakers are raising the prices of electric vehicles.

On the other hand, the Bolt EV and EUV were in a strange situation after the major setback of recalling virtually all vehicles ever produced due to a battery fire risk coming from a defect in the battery cells supplied by LG Energy Solutions....." Read more

Hmmmm... Yipes. Alain

Calendar of Upcoming Events

Previous SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast/PodCasts

These editions are sponsored by the SmartETFs Smart Transportation and Technology ETF, symbol MOTO. For more information head to www.motoetf.com

https://www.cartsmobility.com/ provided technical support

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 277/ PodCast 2 w/Michael Sena, Editor of The Dispatcher

F. Fishkin, July 30, "A look at cities & mobility, turmoil at VW, the cash problem at Cruise & more. "The Dispatcher" publisher Michael Sena joins Alain Kornhauser & Fred Fishkin for another spirited discussion on episode 277 of Smart Driving Cars."

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast Episode 276/ PodCast 2 w/R. Mudge, President, Compass Transportation

F. Fishkin, July 25, "Following the TRB gathering in California, what was accomplished? Compass Transportation & Technology President Dick Mudge joins us for a look. Plus the latest on Tesla, Cruise, Baidu, Zoox & more. Smart Driving Cars episode 276 with Alain Kornhauser & co-host Fred Fishkin."

Link to 275 previous SDC PodCasts & ZoomCasts

Recent Highlights of:

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GM's Cruise robotaxi unit drives deeper into the red Reuters, July 26, "General Motors Co (GM.N) has lost nearly $5 billion since 2018 trying to build a robotaxi business in San Francisco, and now as the automaker's Cruise unit starts charging for rides, the losses are accelerating.

GM said on Tuesday it lost $500 million on Cruise during the second quarter - more than $5 million a day - as it began charging for rides in a limited area of San Francisco. ... that may be the case for the last quarter, but the chart below from GM's 6/30/222 10-Q Shows ($800M) for the last 6 months or $4.38/day when divided by 182.625 Whew!😅...

Cruise's costly effort to transform autonomous driving technology from a long-term research project to a profit-spinning business comes as investors are backing away from riskier bets on technology, and reassessing how soon robot vehicles of any kind will be deployed in large scale on public roads.

Shares of autonomous vehicle technology company Aurora Innovation Inc (AUR.O), for example, are down 80% for the year to date. Shares of robo-trucking company TuSimple Holdings Inc (TSP.O) have lost more than 70% of their value. Some automakers, including Ford Motor Co (F.N), have scaled back investments in automated vehicle units, or taken on partners to share the costs....

Cruise's losses for the first six months of the year deepened to $900 million from $600 million during the same period in 2021 - when Cruise was not charging for rides. Higher compensation costs to keep staff on board after putting aside plans for an IPO were one factor in the results, GM executives said.

Chief Executive Mary Barra said on Tuesday she is still bullish on Cruise, and reaffirmed a forecast that the unit could generate $50 billion a year in revenue from automated vehicle services and technology by 2030. ." Read more

Hmmmm... Nice optimism. The source of the reality check above comes from GM's 6/30/222 10-Q. Start reading from page 41. then on page 43:

Whoa! The only nice thing that can be imagined is by assuming that they've had essentially zero revenue, the operating costs have "only" been $800M for the last 6 months. That is non-small.

I'd like to suggest that the strategy of trying to create a profitable driverless mobility service for folks that already have 2 or more cars in their garage, have excellent public transit service or travel on expense accounts when wanting to go to between the airport and "downtown" may not be the wisest way to launch such a mobility service. There is little opportunity to be substantially better or even equivalent to what those potential customers already have. Little opportunity to get loyal and repeat customers. The focus to date has been too heavily weighted on getting the technology to work for folks who already have more mobility options than they know what to do with. Great for click-bait; challenging for the 10-Q. What must Waymo's 10-Q Cash Flow chart look like?

Capturing loyal and repeat customers is really tough when the competition is excellent and entrenched. While pricing can be high, volume is almost non-existent even with nominal pricing. Except for the novelty, the marketplace in the Chandlers and SFs is essentially non-existent. To date those markets have been quiet, at best. What must Waymo's 10-Q Cash Flow chart look like?

It astonishes me that to date none of the leading driverless companies have spent any money trying to serve the needs of folks that don't own cars, aren't traveling using someone else's money, nor have access to a good public transit system focused on their mobility needs.

These folks definitely can't pay as much for a ride as those that are being chased by Cruise & Waymo, but there are more of them. Moreover, it's almost trivial to provide them with a mobility option that is substantially better than what they have today for many, if not most, of their daily personTrips.

This is the market that we've found in New Jersey; in Trenton & Mercer County, Perth Amboy & Middlesex County and Patterson & Passaic County. We haven't even begun looking in Newark, Camden, Atlantic City and the rest of New Jersey.

The excuse seems to have been that it would be too expensive to deal with NJ's bad weather, even though, we've made it clear that New Jersey is not interested in a 365.25 days/yr. mobility solution. We'd be more than pleased with a 350 days/yr. operation. New Jersey has more than 350 good days a year. We aren't so entitled that we can't wait for the hurricane to blow through, the snow to be shoveled or the fog to lift before we go about our normal business. We enjoy the "snow day" at home. We are convinced that it is actually easier and cheaper to capture recurring and loyal NJ customers.

The rule-of-thumb for a Trenton-MOVES style operation is: a vehicle needs to serve at least 100 personTrips/day. With slightly better ride-sharing and time-of-day pricing, one might be able to get to 150 personTrips/day. To cover a fleet of 100 vehicles, ridership needs to be about 10k to 15k personTrips/day. This kind of utilization leads to per personTrip capitalization costs of less than $1/personTrip for vehicles costing upwards of $150k @ interest rates upward of 7.5%. That is to say, $1/personTrip readily covers the vehicle capital costs even at moderate scales.

Given that trips on average are less than five miles, vehicle operating costs are less than $1/personTrip.

Management costs are largely fixed. With volume the per personTrip burden decreases enormously, and can't be more than $0.50/personTrip.

Break-even fare is thus roughly $2.50/personTrip.

An average market fare of $3.50/personTrip delivers a profit of >$1.00/personTrip, >$100/vehicle-day.

A fleet of 100 vehicles delivers a profit >$10k/day, >$3.0M/yr. in the Trenton ODD serving 10k personTrips/day.

From where do these 10k personTrips/day materialize?

Essentially all the riders of NJ Transit rail would love a simple reliable convenient way to get to & from the train. By on-demand service within the community around the train station, loyalty upwards of 80% could be achieved for anyone wanting to go to NYC or within walking distance to any other NJ train station. For Trenton that represents a marketplace of 8,000 personTrips/day that currently drive to & from the station every day and those that currently don't use the train that would if it was easy and reliable to them to get to AND from the station, when they wanted to get to and from there. Half of the 10k would easily come from serving the Trenton Train Station.

Trenton Central HS has 1,800 students. More than 1,500 live more than a 10 minute walk to the TCHS. Truancy is proportional to how far a student has to walk to school. Trenton MOVES could readily serve 1,250 of these students every day. That's 1/4 of the needed 10k.

We only need another 2.5k personTrips and we haven't even begun dealing with getting people to & from work in Trenton, doctors, shopping visiting friends, etc. needed by the 70% of Trenton households who have access to one or zero cars. 100 vehicles serving 10k personTrips/day making >3.0M/year @ an average fare of $3.50/personTrip is just the start of a profitable business. Employing 200 vehicles costing at most $100k at interest rates of less than 7.5% serving 150 personTrips/day at fares of $3.00/personTrip makes way more than $5M per year.

Expanding Trenton MOVES throughout Mercer County giving the opportunity to increase average fare (because of the longer personTrips) to maybe $5/personTrip keeping utilization @ 150 personTrips/vehicle-day of a fleet of 1,000 vehicles and doing a little better on interest rates and cap costs can lead to profits of >$10M/year for Trenton/Mercer MOVES. There are at least 10 replications of Trenton/Mercer MOVES that could be done in NJ by 2030 utilizing a fleet of at least 10,000 vehicles leading to a profit of >$100M/year.

This kind of success leads to having many more people leave their cars at home and frequenting NJ-MOVES as their mobility system. This could lead to a NJ-Moves fleet of >100,000 vehicles generating a profit of >$1B.

If Mary expects this to be achieved by 2030 and replicated in the 50 other states (on average) as the Universe she expects to exist in 2030, I'm hopeful but skeptical. My point is, that starting with Trenton MOVES as the big bang that achieved her vision seems to me to be a lot clearer than where Cruise/Waymo have chosen to try to create a Big Bang. Seems as if she and Kyle should be taking Trenton and New Jersey much more seriously. Please call me! Alain

Baidu unveils autonomous vehicle without steering wheel Reuters, July 16, "China's search engine giant Baidu Inc on Thursday unveiled its new autonomous vehicle (AV) with a detachable steering wheel, with plans to put it to use for its robotaxi service in China next year.

Cost per unit will drop to 250,000 yuan ($37,031.55) for the new model, compared with 480,000 yuan for the previous generation, Baidu said in a statement.

"This massive cost reduction will enable us to deploy tens of thousands of AVs across China," Baidu's chief executive Robin Li said at the Baidu World conference. "We are moving towards a future where taking a robotaxi will be half the cost of taking a taxi today." Read more

Hmmmm... Really?? See video. Where do I buy 10 for immediate delivery to New Jersey with option to buy 100 more by EoY'22 and 1st inline to buy 1,000 more by EoY'23. eMail me!!!

While the design is certainly not ideal for "Trenton MOVES" or "Perth Amboy MOVES" they would be good enough to get started with addressing the "Sociology Challenges" of MOVES-style deployments. And the price is right if this isn't total click-bait. But... that is a really big if. 🙁 Alain

MAY MOBILITY CLOSES $111 MILLION SERIES C FUNDING, BEGINS PRELIMINARY DEVELOPMENT ON TOYOTA'S NEXT GENERATION MOBILITY PLATFORM Press release, July 12,"May Mobility, a leader in the development and deployment of autonomous vehicle (AV) technology, today closed a $111 million Series C round of funding. Additionally, the company plans to continue to pursue its deployment programs using the Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS vehicle platform while beginning development on another vehicle design centered around mobility, Toyota's e-Palette, signaling the next potential milestone as it seeks new ways to bring equitable mobility solutions to the masses...." Read more

Hmmmm... Hopefully this will enable May Mobility to take seriously Trenton MOVES and other MOVES-style deployment initiatives in New Jersey and beyond. Alain

U.S. agency probing self-driving Cruise car crash in California D. Shepardson, July 7, "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened a special investigation into a recent crash of a Cruise self-driving vehicle in California that resulted in minor injuries, the agency said on Thursday.

The auto safety agency did not identify the specific crash, but a Cruise vehicle operating in driverless autonomous mode was involved in a crash involving minor injuries on June 3 in San Francisco, according to a report filed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. ..." Read more

Hmmmm... The police report indicates that the Cruise vehicle stopped while making a protected left turn, yielding to avoid being T-boned by a speeding Prius that might run its red. Instead the Prius changed to its left turn lane and broadsided the Cruise vehicle. I can't wait to see the Cruise 360 video of that crash. Hopefully the Prius' insurance company will reimburse the Federal Government for its expenses incurred in its special investigation of the crash that it caused. Alain

THE DISPATCHER

Princeton Fifth Annual SmartDrivingCars Summit June 24, M. Sena "THE DISPATCHER, July 2022

IN THIS ISSUE

Princeton Fifth Annual SmartDrivingCars Summit

Safe, Equitable, Affordable, Sustainable, High-quality Mobility for Everyone

Dispatch Central

Someone lit a fire under NHTSA

The Economist: Right analysis, wrong solution

Musings of a Dispatcher: Eyes on the Back Story

The evolution of digital maps and ADAS

Digital Maps for the Vehicle – 1970-2022

" Read more

Hmmmm... Another great edition and very well written summary of the 5th Summit. Alain

NHTSA Releases Initial Data on Safety Performance of Advanced Vehicle Technologies

June 15, Press release, "Today, as part of the U.S. Department of Transportation's efforts to increase roadway safety and encourage innovation, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published the initial round of data it has collected through its Standing General Order issued last year and initial accompanying reports summarizing this data.

The SAE Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems summary report is available here, while the SAE Levels 3-5 automated driving systems summary report is available here. Going forward, NHTSA will release data updates monthly...

Read more

Hmmmm... This is a good start; however, as NHTSA repeats many times, this is just a start and there are many "data limitations". The most severe may well be the possibility of substantial "sampling bias", the most severe of which is that each OEM sourced the reported data very differently. That makes the data between OEMs incomparable.

Also unreported is any measure that would enable a "crash rate" for an OEM to be determined. One only has a numerator value but no denominator value.

Finally, 392 crashes of "Level 2" cars were reported during the "10" month period of July 2021 and May 15, 2022. About 12 million vehicles are involved in traffic crashes every year among the 283 million vehicles that operate in the US. Assuming any one vehicle is unlikely to be involved in more than one crash per year, it means that each vehicle, on average is involved in 12M/283M = 0.0424 crashes per year. Thus, if these ADAS cars were involved in crashes at the average rate, and had their ADAS on all the time, the 500 vehicle crashes per year contained in these data would expect to be generated from a fleet of only about 11,800 vehicles (or 0.0042% of the vehicles ("everything being equal", ADAS on all the time.).

Consequently, either, ...

• These system outrageously reduce crash probabilities, and/or
• maybe some, but we're probably not much luckier.
• very few of the cars in use during that "10" month period had Level 2 capabilities, and/or
• unfortunately, the VIN number doesn't identify these cars and only Tesla announces how many sold (I may have missed the reportings)
• very few of the drivers of those cars rarely engaged the Level 2 features, and/or
• likely. Only Tesla releases data on the utilization of its level 2 features but does so only in aggregate terms that don't allow for correction of sampling bias associated with engagement in "easy" driving conditions versus "challenging" driving conditions.
• enormous undercounting
• likely, only Tesla has the opportunity to either "know all" or sample effectively because of their OtA monitoring of its vehicles. Everyone else has conveniently kept their heads in the sand. Mercedes didn't report any; however, during that period I think my Intelligent Cruise Control and Lane Centering were engaged when I hit a deer. Mercedes must not have been watching me, I didn't report it and I didn't get the memo that informed me to do anything.

Anyway. It is a start and at least to me the numbers are not startling.

What needs improvement is sourcing of the incidents. Maybe OtA should be mandated. At minimum, the VIN should specify the existence of these capabilities. Then normal police reportings can begin to "automatically" access the "black box event recorders" (see also Accident data recorder and NHTSA that are in most cars today. Unfortunately, privacy concerns makes this not-easy. So here we are. It won't be easy to do much better, but we should continue to try.

What the data do point out is that a substantial number of the crashes involved the rear ending of a stationary object. I have pointed out repeatedly that the source code of these systems explicitly disregard stationary objects in the lane ahead. Justifying this explicit process is that current sensors incur unacceptable false positives when trying to determine if sufficient headroom exists under detected stationary object in the lane ahead. Thus, to avoid braking in response to these rare false positives, stationary objects in the lane ahead are all assumed to be "pass under-able".

As one drives, one encounters many stationary objects in the lane ahead. These are readily sensed and precisely located ahead. Readily sensed are overpasses, signs, tree canopies, traffic lights, ... all of which can usually be readily passed under. (As can vehicles ahead that come to rest in vehicle-follower mode. These are not disregarded because one is in vehicle-follower mode.)

But when one is in vehicle-leader mode and one encounters a stationary object ahead, I believe, most, if not all "Level 2" systems disregard that object and assume the car can pass underneath. So if you are in vehicle leader mode and come over the crest of a hill to be confronted with a stopped object ahead, your system will disregard that object. Similarly, if the vehicle that you are following changes lanes forcing you to become a leader, any stationary object ahead will be disregarded. Alain

3 minute Promo: https://youtu.be/q5Ov_dPuRV4

The 5th Summit: https://www.cartsmobility.com/summit

Summit Preview Tour

Dr. Steve Still's Tribute to Heywood Patterson

S. Still, June 3, "... Heywood Patterson, 67, He often drove members of his church to Tops, helping them load their groceries into his car and then taking them home. "That's what he did all the time," Deborah Patterson said. "That's what he loved to do". ..." Watch Video

Hmmmm... A principal reason for "Trenton MOVES"-like deployments is to do what Heywood Patterson "loved to do" for the many. Alain

The Evolving Business of Powering Our Vehicles

M. Sena, May 24, "New Car Assessment Programs (NCAPs) all around the world have created a separate and unequal set of standards for vehicle safety operating in parallel with the Type Approval processes in most countries and the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and their equivalents in other countries. One standard is enough. In this month's the lead article, I look at why this has happened, why it is not a good idea, and what should be done to correct the situation.

There is no Musings in this month's issue. Instead, I have put my musings energies to work in Dispatch Central. You can see the topics below. The section ends with a notable quote from the CEO of Stellantis on the topic of battery electric vehicles.

Enjoy your June issue of The Dispatcher. All comments are welcome, whether you want to take exception to something I have written or you just want to let me know that you got something out of reading it. ..." Read more

Hmmmm... Every month, great reading. Enjoy! Alain

From pricing carbon to fighting opioid abuse, ORFE showcased top senior projects A. Nathans, May 11, "When Serena Ren presented her senior thesis on using machine learning for art appraisals last month, she hoped to see her friend, Joyce Luo, present her thesis on fighting opioid addiction. But since all students in the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering present their theses in parallel sessions, this was impossible.

But on May 4, Ren and Luo finally got to see each other's presentations in a classroom in Sherrerd Hall, thanks to the department's first-ever event in which selected students present their thesis work to the whole department...." Read more

Hmmmm... I'm so proud! Hopefully we'll be able to release the video so you can enjoy. Keep trying the link:

Princeton ORFE Class of 2022 Senior Thesis Symposium "Best 8"

• Isabelle Grosgogeat "Impact of women and minority ownership on private equity"
• Joyce Luo "Equitable data-driven resource allocation to fight the opioid pandemic"
• Caroline Noonan "The impact of carbon price on power plant dispatch, production costs, and total emissions"
• Hari Ramakrishnan "Lighting up dark pools"
• Serena Ren "Automatic art appraisals"
• Mitchell Stroebell "A comparison of advanced player statistics for the NBA"
• Jack Woll "Pairs trading and volatility"
• Andre Yin "Equity trading strategies based on macroeconomic event analysis"

PAVE VIRTUAL PANEL "AVS AND PUBLIC GOOD: TRENTON MOVES" PAVE, May 4, "Autonomous vehicle technologies offer incredible potential: they could make our highways safer, they could offer new mobility options for people who can't drive, and they could help create a more equitable transportation system for those who are not well-served by our current system.

During the month of May, we are highlighting places where AVs are in use — today — being deployed, tested, and used for public good. We want to look at examples of the technology being used to serve food deserts, to expand access to rural communities, to offer new accessibility options, and more.

We are starting with the Trenton MOVES initiative, which is the first large-scale urban transit system in America based entirely on self-driving shuttles. The shuttles, which carry four to eight passengers, serve traditionally underserved Trenton neighborhoods, where 70% of households have limited access to a single automobile, or no access at all. Our panelists will detail the program, describing how it works, the results it has achieved, and their vision for the future......" Read more

Hmmmm... Very nice. Be sure to watch video 😁 and see ZoomCast 267 Alain

NJDOT Commissioner Gutierrez-Scaccetti and the Trenton NJ MOVES Program P. Keller, April 29, "New Jersey recently announced a $5 million grant for the Trenton Mobility & Opportunity: Vehicles Equity System or MOVES Project. The grant to the City of Trenton will support the planned start up and eventual deployment of 100 Autonomous Vehicles that will provide an on-demand automated transit system to serve the 90,000 residents of Trenton....." Read more

Hmmmm... Very nice. 😁

Knight Foundation April 21, "CARTS Executive Director Jerry He explains to the audience at #CoMotionMiami that:

Hmmmm... Yup! See ZoomCast265 Alain

Musk promises 'dedicated robotaxi' with futuristic look from Tesla H. Jin, April 6, "Electric carmaker Tesla (TSLA.O) will make a "dedicated" self-driving taxi that will "look futuristic," Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Thursday, without giving a timeframe.

The 50-year-old billionaire, wearing a black cowboy hat and sunglasses, made the comments at the opening of Tesla's $1.1 billion factory in Texas, which is home to its new headquarters.

"Massive scale. Full self-driving. There's going to be a dedicated robotaxi," Musk told a large crowd at the factory...." Read more

Hmmmm... Wow! It was brilliant for Elon to begin focusing his EVs on rich Californians who already have a stable full of cars to go all the way to grandma's house and back and were really looking for a neat toy.

Elon followed the graceful rollout of his Supercharger infrastructure which enabled the upper-middle class that doesn't have a backup fleet and needs to have a toy and reliably go back and forth to grandma's house. Viola!!! No longer just a toy. Seamless evolution to "Massive Scale" scale and Massive Profitability.

RoboTaxis' evolution to "Massive Scale" is turning out to be different. Starting with rich WesternStaters doesn't seem to be working sociologically for Waymo. The rides offered seem to be taken for entertainment and side-show purposes rather than valued enablers of enhanced quality of life. Nice for selfies, but not much more.

Recall fundamental value is to provide a safe, high-quality ride from A to B. "Safe" is "safe", but "high-quality" is relative to what one now has readily available. For the rich, that's where they've already put a lot of money to create for themselves something really nice. The chances someone is going to offer something better to an individual that has crafted something perfect for themselves is slim-to-none. Consequently, the service is used primarily for taking selfies.

For those that don't have their own car for whatever reason (can't drive, don't want to, too young, too old, and/or too poor) their mobility options are simply dreadful. Absolutely trivial for a taxi service to be viewed as the quality winner and used to provide customer accessibility, improved quality of life, endearment, respect, love, appreciation, loyalty, and use.

Consequently, if Elon is really serious about achieving "Massive Scale" then he should basically flip his Tesla strategy and start by focusing on serving the mobility needs of those that will fully appreciate and gain the most personal value from his market offering;

• those that don't already have a stable full of their own personal mobility options.
• those for which his taxi can substantially change their lives for the better.

These are the customers of Trenton MOVES; only about 50,000 of Trenton's 90,000 population; but 50,000 that will really appreciate you. Start by only serving Trenton's 8 square mile area with about 100 vehicles and only during the best 350 days out of the year's 365.25.

They'll be so appreciative and you will have provided the spark that will allow your taxis to go viral! You'll quickly serve Mercer county, Newark, Camden, Atlantic City, New Brunswick, Toms River, Perth Amboy, all of New Jersey, Eastern Pennsylvania, New York City (except Manhattan), Long Island, .....

That's the natural road to "Massive Scale" for Mobility for all. Start with those in most need and evolve to convert those that will leave their own cars parked in their driveway.

"Massive Scale" starts with Trenton MOVES. Alain

Taking our next step in the City by the Bay The Waymo Team, March 30, "This morning in San Francisco, a fully autonomous all-electric Jaguar I-PACE, with no human driver behind the wheel, picked up a Waymo engineer to get their morning coffee and go to work. Since sharing that we were ready to take the next step and begin testing fully autonomous operations in the city, we've begun fully autonomous rides with our San Francisco employees. They now join the thousands of Waymo One riders we've been serving in Arizona, making fully autonomous driving technology part of their daily lives...." Read more

Hmmmm... Congratulations! Enormous accomplishment and fundamental expression of confidence in your technology. Please come to New Jersey where we are certain that you can actually deliver "Safe, Equitable, Affordable, Sustainable, High-quality Mobility" that will substantially improve the quality-of-life of many by transforming affordable housing into affordable living and more.

Let's look at the back-of-the-envelope numbers...

Trenton:

Population: 90,000. PersonTrips/Day (non-walking): 300,000 IntraTrenton: 150,000 PersonTripLength (90%tile): 10 miles intraTrenton (100%tile) 5 miles

Operational Productivity: VehicleTrips/Day: 50 Average Vehicle Occupancy (AVO): 2 PersonTrips/VehicleDay: 100 PersonTrips/VehicleYear: 35,000

100 vehicle fleet productivity: 10,000 PersonTrips/day (1/15th market penetration)

50% market penetration Fleet requirements: 500 vehicles (AVO =2.5) for 60 PersonTrips/VehicleDay).

Cost: Depreciation/PersonTrip @ $200k/vehicle, 4 year life = $200,000/(4*35,000) = $10/7 = $1.43/PersonTrip Electricity + maintenance + management + ... = $0.57/PersonTrip Cost = $2.00/PersonTrip

New Jersey:

Population: 9+ Million

PersonTrips/Day (non-walking): >30 Million

IntraNJ + NJT/Septa to/from NYC & PHL: 30 Million PersonTripLength (90%tile): 10 miles Operational Productivity VehicleTrips/Day: 60 Average Vehicle Occupancy (AVO): 2.5 PersonTrips/VehicleDay: 150 PersonTrips/VehicleYear: 50,000

10% market penetration (3 Million PersonTrips/Day: Fleet requirements: 20,000 vehicles (AVO =2.5) for 60 PersonTrips/VehicleDay).

Cost: Depreciation/PersonTrip @ $200k/vehicle, 4 year life = 200,000/(4*35,000)= $10/7 = $1.43 Electricity + maintenance + management ... = $0.57 Cost per PersonTrip = $2.00 Revenue: (10% market penetration: 3M personTrips/Day)

10% @ cost + 90% market pricing:

10% @ $2.00/PersonTrip (300,000$2.00 = $600,000/day; $200M/year 90% @ $3.70/personTrip (2.7M3.70 = $10M/day; 3.5B/year (value proposition could have the average market price even higher than $3.70/personTrip (+$1.70 over cost)

Profit: $1.70 *2.7M = $4.6M/day = $1.5B/year

Seems to me that Waymo should have responded to the NJ DoT RfEI and shouldn't be completely ignoring me. I guess I'm missing something. Maybe someone else will call me? 😎 Alain

Moving Forward with Trenton MOVES K. Pyle, Feb. 9, "Dr. Alain Kornhauser's vision of bringing equitable, sustainable, and affordable mobility to the people of Trenton took another step forward with the February 9th, 2022 announcement (Facebook) of a $5 million NJDOT Local Transportation Planning Fund Grant for the Trenton Mobility & Opportunity: Vehicles Equity System (MOVES) Project (PDF). The significance of this event goes beyond the grant announcement..." Read more

Hmmmm... Ken, thank you for the kind words. Alain

Smart Driving Cars Extra: Trenton MOVES gets moving Feb. 11, "The New Jersey DOT is providing 5 million dollars to get Trenton MOVES moving. The goal..autonomous, affordable, safe mobility for all. This is a video of the event held on February 9th." Read more

Hmmmm... Fantastic even with challenging audio. Turn on Closed Caption. The substance is in the quality of the words from the Mayor, Commissioner and Superintendent. All from the heart. Very worth absorbing. Alain.

Trenton MOVES W. Skaggs, Feb. 3,"We are excited to invite you to join Mayor Gusciora, N.J. Department of Transportation (NJDOT) Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, and Trenton Public Schools Superintendent James Earle to celebrate a $5 million award from the NJDOT Local Transportation Projects Fund for an unprecedented public transportation project right here in the Capital City. The project is called the Trenton Mobility & Opportunity: Vehicular Equity System (MOVES) initiative.

Originally announced by Governor Murphy and Commissioner Gutierrez-Scaccetti in December, TrentonMOVES seeks to provide a safe, equitable, and affordable high-quality on-demand mobility service to Trenton residents. The effort is a collaboration between the Governor's Office, NJDOT, the City of Trenton, and Princeton University.

The $5 million award is a huge milestone for the project. This will be the first large-scale urban transit system in America to be based entirely on self-driving shuttles. Each vehicle will carry four to eight passengers at a time. The AVs will be low-cost to users in underserved neighborhoods. The high school will be one of the central destinations on the first routes.

The event will take place at 11:00 a.m. in the Trenton Central High School auditorium. Members of the press will be invited to attend. ...." Read more

Hmmmm... Another real milestone.!

The Trenton MOVES RfEI closed February 25, with 20 submittals. Next comes the 5th Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit June 2 -> 4, 2022 in Princeton & Trenton, NJ. The Summit will be focused on enabling Trentonians to get a first glimpse at technology and mobility systems that can deliver Trenton MOVES' mobility objectives (Safety, Equity, Affordability, Sustainability,..) and, very importantly, enabling technology and mobility companies to learn the market opportunities available to be captured in Trenton, the rest of Mercer County, and throughout New Jersey.

Trenton MOVES is a win-win opportunity for the citizens of New Jersey (The Public) and the shareholders of mobility provider(s) (The Private), who can come together in a Trenton MOVES Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) that will be created through a Request for Proposal (RfP) process commencing shortly after the close of the Summit. 😁 Alain

Alain L. Kornhauser, PhD

Professor, Operations Research & Financial Engineering

Director of Undergraduate Studies, ORFE

Director, Transportation Program

Faculty Chair, Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering

229 Sherrerd Hall

Princeton University

alaink@princeton.edu

609-980-1427 (c)