10.40 - Driverless Transit

February 09, 2022Newsletter archive →

Click or tap if you trust this link.">
Click or tap if you trust this link.">
Click or tap if you trust this link.">Sunday, November 6, 2022
Click or tap if you trust this link.">

or tap if you trust this link.">40th edition of the 10th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter

A Deployment Framework for MOVES-style Driverless Transit Networks

A. Kornhauser, Nov. 1, "So much has been happening lately on the AV scene. With all these recent changes in mind, it seems a good moment for me to reiterate the basic fundamentals of mobility and then to restate the context with which I see the potential value of AV technology. In the following presentation, I will identify some pertinent societal challenges where mobility might have an opportunity to substantially improve quality-of-life. Fundamental to this concept is the deployment of technology that disrupts consumer choice, thus allowing the marketplace to deliver both the economic return on the investment in the technology and to unleash the societal benefits of the improved quality-of-life." Read more Hmmmm... View slides, listen to PodCast and/or watch a repeat of the presentation that I made at the 2022 UBC International Road Safety Symposium. Alain

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 290 /PodCast 290 A New Deployment Framework for Autonomous Vehicles

"F. Fishkin, Nov. 6, "On episode 290 of Smart Driving Cars, Princeton's Alain Kornhauser shares a presentation just delivered in Vancouver titled...A New Deployment Framework for Autonomous Vehicles. Plus..he chats with co-host Fred Fishkin about Waymo, Lyft, Aurora, Tesla and more.

0:00 open
01:00 A New Deployment Framework for Autonomous Vehicles presentation
01:04:20 Waymo making passenger trips to Phoenix airport
01:06:30 Layoffs at Lyft
01:09:30 Aurora reaffirms enough cash until commercial deployment
01:10:30 New FSD Beta from Tesla
Techstination

fishkin@techstination.com

732-928-4691

Technical support provided by: CARTSmobility.com a 501c3 dedicated to Safe & High-Quality Mobility for All

Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes

T Victor, March 2021, "...But while we often hear that autonomous driving technology could make a dramatic difference, before today there has not been a published scenario-based study that we're aware of that looks into how autonomous technology performs in scenarios that led to fatal crashes by human drivers. Read more

Hmmmm... John Carlson from Waymo's safety team gave an excellent presentation at the 2022 UBC International Road Safety Symposium showing how the improved perception contained in Waymo Driver could have readily sensed (it is on all the time with a 360 degree view) and then simply avoided what otherwise was horrible crashes. The 107MPH red-light runner who T-boned a left turner is really sobering). The Waymo Driver would have seen it coming and simply braked a little to "let him pass". No crash! No deaths!

It is great that this system is on Waymo One Driverless cars, but it would be even greater if it was on the cars that we buy in showrooms and that we drive every day. While we can turn our heads and have mirrors, our field of view during any short span of time is extremely limited, even if we are paying attention (if we're texting, it is really small and often zero). I hope that Waymo (and others) will sell these perception systems to OEM so that they'll start appearing on the cars that we drive. If US DoT and NHTSA were really interested in Safety, they would insist (mandate) that such systems be standard in the cars that we buy and drive. Alain

Waymo's robotaxis are now making passenger trips to the Phoenix airport

A. Hawkins, Nov. 3, "Waymo is ready to tackle the chaos of airport drop-offs and pickups in Phoenix. The Alphabet company says it is the first autonomous vehicle company to include a busy metropolitan airport in its service area. The company had previously only offered airport trips to its employees with safety drivers behind the wheel.

Expanding its service area to include Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport represents a potential moneymaking opportunity for Waymo, with the company noting that airport trips account for an estimated 20 percent of manually driven ride-hail cars. ... " Read more

Hmmmm... "... potential moneymaking opportunity..." Wait, really? I must be missing something here.... Waymo is going after the market that is the proverbial "bread and butter" of Uber/Lyft/taxis? While the first trip may have the added benefit of a selfie, the 2nd and future trips will be at best "as good as" Uber/Lyft/taxi and nowhere near as good as Limo/BlackCar. Chances for repeat customers seem slim2none,. Most of those customers are traveling on expense accounts. They are all about high-quality service and are totally price insensitive. These characteristics are antithesis to "moneymaking" for a Driverless system whose biggest strength is affordability and has no chance in beating a chauffeur in delivering high-quality service.

All that great work and investment to be an "also ran." Someone please explain to me how this makes sense.

Technologically Waymo is way out in front. Sociologically and commercially, it has failed "Lemonade Stand 101". Alain

Volkswagen to work with Mobileye on automated driving after Argo exit - sources

J. Schcartz, Oct 27, "Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) plans to expand its cooperation with Intel's Mobileye (MBLY.O) to include its automated driving program after Wednesday's decision to no longer invest in self-driving startup Argo AI, two sources familiar with the plan told Reuters on Thursday.

Mobileye, which develops autonomous driving technologies, already cooperates with VW's software unit Cariad.

"If you have obtained good results with one partner, it makes sense to work with them in other fields as well," said one of the sources.

..." Read more

Hmmmm... Interesting perspective. Alain

FSD Release Notes Leaked, Cybertruck Report, Twitter Crossover

R. Maure, Nov. 1, "
➤ Release notes for FSD Beta 10.69.3 leaked ahead of broader rollout

➤ Tesla China insured units for October
➤ Report on Cybertruck production timeline
➤ Tesla employees reportedly help out at Twitter
➤ Panasonic to begin battery factory construction
➤ Toyota reports earnings
➤ SpaceX launches Falcon Heavy
Read more

Hmmmm... Worth reading. Alain

Aurora reaffirms it has enough cash to run until commercial deployment of its self-driving trucking platform

N. Doughty, Nov. 2, "Strip District-based autonomous vehicle company Aurora Innovation Inc. is reaffirming that it has enough cash on-hand to keep it running until the commercial deployment of its self-driving technology for long-haul trucking in 2024. It's a message that's being signaled after last month's shuttering of Pittsburgh-based AV startup Argo AI, which likely ran out of money after its main backers — Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG — announced they would no longer fund the firm following its inability to attract new investors.

On Wednesday during the company's Q3 earnings call — its fourth since becoming a public company almost a year ago to the day — Aurora (NASDAQ: AUR) Chief Financial Officer Richard Tame said the company has over $1.2 billion in cash and short-term investment reserves, almost all of which came from its IPO. Its operating expenses in Q3 reached $203 million when including stock-based compensation awards of $37 million. Aurora spent the bulk of its operating expenses, about $139 million, on research and development-related costs, which Tame said is primarily a figure that is comprised of personnel costs...." Read more

Hmmmm... They also do movement of people with Toyota. They should seriously consider coming to Trenton, but, likely, can't absorb the up-front cash drain. Alain

Mobileye Files For An IPO (again!)- How Will Other Autonomy Companies React?

S. Rangwalla, Oct 2, "Mobileye started a computer vision revolution in 1999 when Amnon Shashua, a leading AI researcher at Hebrew University, founded the company to focus on camera-based perception for ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) and autonomous vehicles (AV). The company filed for an IPO in 2014 and was acquired by Intel in 2017 for $15B. Today, it is the leading player in the computer vision and Autonomous Vehicle (AV) domain and recently announced its intention to file for an IPO and become an independent entity.

How will other technology companies with minimal or no revenues compete in the AV space going forward? Cruise, Aurora, Waymo (part of the "other bets" investments of parent company Alphabet) and Argo (with investments from Ford and Volkswagen) recently made announcements about their AV capabilities - either coincidental with Mobileye's press release or in response to it. Zoox (acquired by Amazon in 2020 for $1B, likely a survival sale) recently announced significant progress in L5 autonomy (complete autonomy anywhere), which is confusing since they have only demonstrated operations in San Francisco. These companies have plans to expand their efforts - but the Mobileye competition is likely to be intense. AV adoption has been delayed significantly due to technology, regulatory and customer acceptance issues, and providing safe, profitable and autonomous L4 cars and services is an expensive endeavor. The stock market, unfortunately, is not a friend anymore. AV-related equities have suffered up to 90% reductions in market capitalization since 2019...." Read more

Hmmmm... Interesting perspective. Alain

Falcon Heavy USSF-44 Mission

Nov. 1, "On Tuesday, November 1 at 9:41 a.m. ET, Falcon Heavy launched the USSF-44 mission to a geosynchronous Earth orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

This was the first launch and landing of these Falcon Heavy side boosters, which will be prepared for re-flight on a future U.S. Space Force mission later this year." Read more

Hmmmm... Impressive! watch landing @ https://youtu.be/pY628jRd6gM?t=1312 Alain

Lyft to lay off 13 percent of its workforce as economic outlook darkens

A. Hawkins, Nov. 1, "Lyft is laying off 13 percent of its workforce in the second round of major cuts to hit the ride-hailing company this year. The layoffs, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal, are expected to affect hundreds of roles. Lyft has more than 4,000 employees, which does not include its drivers.

In an email posted on the company's website, Lyft CEO Logan Green and president John Zimmer cited "a probable recession sometime in the next year" and rising ride-share insurance costs as among the reasons for the layoffs....." Read more

Hmmmm... The challenge for the ride-hailing companies is, without being able to jump to driverless, the marginal cost of providing a ride gets more expensive because the marginal driver seeks to earn more than its predecessor. The driver is the dominant cost, and it doesn't have any scale economy. Other than those who are stuck and those traveling on someone else's "nickel" (price insensitive), the market for ride-hailing is capped not far above where the taxi & limo market has been capped for 100 years or more. Ride sharing would allow it to become affordable to many more customers; however, the whole ride-hailing/taxi/limo industry hasn't figured out how to embrace ride-sharing in any meaningful way. They should hire me! Alain

Tesla releases new Full Self-Driving Beta update with high-level changes

F. Lambert, Nov. 1, "Tesla is starting to release a new Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software update that includes many high-level changes that should positively impact performance.

FSD Beta enables Tesla vehicles to drive autonomously to a destination entered in the car's navigation system, but the driver needs to remain vigilant and ready to take control at all times.

Since the responsibility lies with the driver and not Tesla's system, it is still considered a level two driver-assist system despite its name. It has been sort of a "two steps forward, one step back" type of program, as some updates have seen regressions in terms of driving capabilities....." Read more

Hmmmm... Please just call it NfSD, where nF stands for "NOT full". Alain

The Hummer EV e-bike is just as over the top and ridiculous as the electric truck it's based on

A. Hawkins, Oct. 31, " GMC joined forces with the world's largest supplier of e-bikes for law enforcement to produce an over-the-top, dual-motor, fat tire electric bike to complement its equally over-the-top, dual-motor, fat tire Hummer EV truck. It's the latest sign that automakers are trying to seize on the popularity of e-bikes to help promote the shift to electric vehicles.

The Hummer EV all-wheel drive e-bike (as it's referred to in its press release) features twin 750W hub motors with a peak output of 2,400W, a 48-volt / 17 amp-hour LG-made battery (with an option to upgrade to a 21Ah version) and will be available to purchase either online at gmcebike.com or at GMC dealerships for the price of $3,999. (A little expensive for an e-bike, but significantly cheaper than the $112,595 Hummer EV Edition 1.)...." Read more

Hmmmm... And I thought that one of the really good things that GM did was kill the original Hummer. Given that today, every EV uses electricity that would have resulted in the burning of less coal had the electricity not been needed for that EV. Today, EVs cause more coal to be burned to satisfy their needs for electricity. See Laurence Livermore's Energy Flow Charts. So not only is GM's new hummer the return of GM's "Sherman tank" on the road, but this one has the added detriment of running on coal. Does GM have zero social conscience? Alain

Elon Musk's first Hyperloop tunnel in California is gone

A. Hawkins, Nov. 3, "Elon Musk's first prototype Hyperloop tunnel is no more. Bloomberg reports that the roughly one-mile-long white steel tunnel running along Jack Northrop Avenue near SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, has been removed and will be replaced with parking spaces for employees...." Read more

Hmmmm...These things were a challenge in NYC in 1870 (Beach pneumatic transit) and remain a challenge with the pluses being substantially dominated by the minuses. Alain

Previous

SmartDrivingCarsZoomCast/PodCasts

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

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 289 /PodCast 289Argo Shuts Down w/Michael Sena, Editor, The Dispatcher

F. Fishkin, Oct. 27, "The demise of #Argo AI, the joint Ford-Volkswagen venture..is a step forward for autonomous vehicles, not a step back. So says Princeton's Alain Kornhauser on episode 289 of Smart Driving Cars. Alain and co-host Fred Fishkin are joined by The Dispatcher publisher Michael Sena for that plus #Tesla, Elon Musk and more." SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 288 /PodCast 288 So Disappointing!

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 288 /PodCast 288 So Disappointing!

F. Fishkin, Oct. 23, "Waymo is bringing Robotaxi service to L.A.. But Princeton's faculty chair of autonomous vehicle engineering is concerned the focus may not be in the right places. Alan Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin zero in on Waymo, Lyft, Tesla and a test drive in the Ford F-150 Lightning on episode 288 of Smart Driving Cars."

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 287 /PodCast 287 Special Edition: The ABCs of Autonomous Vehicles: Technology, Economics and Policy

F. Fishkin, Oct. 12, "A special webinar edition of Smart Driving Cars: From the Reason Foundation, The Brookings Institution and Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering, welcome to the ABCs of Autonomous Vehicles: Technology, Economics and Policy. Join Princeton's Alain Kornhauser, Cliff Winston of Brookings and Marc Scribner of Reason and moderator Fred Fishkin.

"SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 286 /PodCast 286 Tesla AI Day

F. Fishkin, Oct. 9, "The biggest take-away from Tesla's 2022 AI Day? Princeton's Alain Kornhauser says it's the massive compute power. Why? Join Alain and co-host Fred Fishkin for episode 286 of Smart Driving Cars. Plus Kodiak Robotics, Mobileye, Uber, Motional and an upcoming webinar on The Present and Future of Autonomous Vehicle Technology."

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 285 /PodCast 285 w/Michael Sena, Editor of the Dispatcher

F. Fishkin, Sept 27, "Will the world be facing a Mad Max scenario for battery components as electric vehicles fill the roadways? The Dispatcher publisher Michael Sena has some advice for decision makers on episode 285 of Smart Driving Cars with Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. And more on the EV tax credits, tire pollution, a tech solution to railroad crossing dangers and some hood ornament nostalgia. Or listen.. "

0:00 Intro

1:18 Battle over batteries

15:53 Electricity generation and electric vehicles

22:28 Tech to solve ungated railroad crossing dangers

26:11 Pollution from tires

32:23 Sean Connery's Aston Martin

34:08 Some hood ornament history

40:00 South Korean wants half of all cars autonomous by 2035

43:22 Why don't you have a self driving car yet? Brad Templeton writes in Forbes

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 284 /PodCast 284 w/Danny Shapiro, VP Automotive, nVIDIA

F. Fishkin, Sept 22, "What will NVIDIA's DRIVE Thor mean for companies looking to deliver autonomous mobility? VP of Automotive Danny Shapiro joins us for episode 284 of Smart Driving Cars. Plus the Biden administration is funding Smart Transportation Technology, GM Cruise aims to develop chips for self driving and the NTSB pushes tech to combat impaired and reckless driving."

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 283 /PodCast 283

F. Fishkin, Sept 11, "The strategy for survival at Aurora, new Detroit testing for Mobileye, NVIDIA's coming virtual developer conference and another AI upcoming for Tesla. Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin share the latest on those stories and more on episode 283 of Smart Driving Cars."

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI Open

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI?t=80 Aurora

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI?t=762 Mobileye

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI?t=872 NVIDIA

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI?t=948 MIT Mobility Forum

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI?t=1031 GM BrightDrop

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI?t=1072 GM Cruise

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI?t=1446 Uber Nuro

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI?t=1589 Lucid Nikola

https://youtu.be/nBl1pD2BFcI?t=1648 Tesla AI Day

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 282 /PodCast 282 w/Michael Sena, Editor of The Dispatcher

F. Fishkin, Aug. 31, "Is there really a battle over building and maintaining roads? "The Dispatcher" publisher Michael Sena on the history and outlook on episode 282 of Smart Driving Cars with Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. Plus... the Saudi linear city plan, GM, #Tesla, Baidu, Waymo and more."

https://youtu.be/F1qDhRqAA5c?t=106 Michael Sena ..battle over roads

https://youtu.be/F1qDhRqAA5c?t=2004 Michael Sena Saudi linear city plans

https://youtu.be/F1qDhRqAA5c?t=2456 Aluminum makes cars…China makes aluminum

https://youtu.be/F1qDhRqAA5c?t=2759 Teslas banned from Chinese Communist Party retreat

https://youtu.be/F1qDhRqAA5c?t=2951 GM's mandatory OnStar option

https://youtu.be/F1qDhRqAA5c?t=3333 Gatik partners with Pitney Bowes

https://youtu.be/F1qDhRqAA5c?t=3416 Waymo reported seeks to withhold trip level data in SF

https://youtu.be/F1qDhRqAA5c?t=3538 GM president on autonomous vehicle strategy

https://youtu.be/F1qDhRqAA5c?t=3619 Baidu says autonomous EV rides in China have surpassed one million

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 281 /PodCast 281

F. Fishkin, Aug. 28, "A new step for Tesla FSD with Beta 10 69 release and the company's "Occupancy Network". Princeton's faculty chair of autonomous vehicle engineering, Alain Kornhauser, weighs in on that plus oversized EVs, Toyota's view of autonomous mobility, Pittsburgh's Guaranteed Basic Mobility Program and some excitement surround SpaceX and NASA and more."

00:42 new Tesla FSD Beta 15:37 Tesla AI Day coming 19:07 Space X Launch 21:06 NY Times Essay on oversized EVs 24:18 California to ban gasoline cars by 2035 25:43 Toyota Research Institute says AVs not imminent 31:35 Tesla acts against Dawn Project and O'Dowd 32:19 Pittsburgh Guaranteed Basic Mobility 38:24 Waze shutting carpooling service 41:09 NASA readies Artemis

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 280 /PodCast 280 w/Cade Metz, NY Times

F. Fishkin, Aug. 22, "How can Tesla data help with the understanding of car crashes? NY Times reporter & author Cade Metz joins Alain and Fred to explore the latest Tesla news, including the new higher price for FSD. Plus NHTSA reports a continuing rise in traffic deaths, Lyft in Vegas, Cruise and Waymo. And Princeton and NBA great Brian Taylor joins us to remember legendary basketball coach Pete Carril."

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 279 / PodCast 279 w/Scott Painter, CEO Autonomy

F. Fishkin, Aug. 11, "After announcing it will spend 1.2 billion dollars on EVs and rapidly expand its vehicle subscription service, what does the future hold for Autonomy. Serial entrepreneur & CEO Scott Painter joins us for episode 279 of Smart Driving Cars. Plus Tesla, Argo AI and more ..."

Timing Index:

@t=47 Autonomy CEO Scott Painter

@t=2485 Tesla, Ralph Nader

@t=2635 Anti-Tesla ad campaign

@t=2657 Pittsburgh Post Gazette

@t=2892 Argo AI

@t=2967 Congressional push for AV legislation

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 278 / PodCast 278 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!

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 277/ PodCast 277 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 276 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:

URL:

Click or tap if you trust this link.">Sunday, October 30, 2022

Ford, VW-backed Argo AI is shutting down

K. Korosec, Oct 26, "Argo AI, an autonomous vehicle startup that burst on the scene in 2017 stacked with a $1 billion investment, is shutting down — its parts being absorbed into its two main backers: Ford and VW, according to people familiar with the matter.

During an all-hands meeting Wednesday, Argo AI employees were told that some people would receive offers from the two automakers, according to multiple sources who asked to not be named. It was unclear how many would be hired into Ford or VW and which companies will get Argo's technology.

Employees were told they would receive a severance package that includes insurance and two separate bonuses — an annual award plus a transaction bonus upon the deal close with Ford and VW. All Argo employees will receive these. For those who are not retained by Ford or VW, they will additionally receive termination and severance pay, including health insurance. Several people told TechCrunch that it was a generous package and that the founders of the company spoke directly to its more than 2,000 employees..." ... Certainly a "class act" way to shut down.

"...said Farley. "It's mission-critical for Ford to develop great and differentiated L2+ and L3 applications that at the same time make transportation even safer." Farley also insinuated that Ford would be able to buy AV tech down the line, instead of developing it in house. "We're optimistic about a future for L4 ADAS, but profitable, fully autonomous vehicles at scale are a long way off and we won't necessarily have to create that technology ourselves," ... Read more

Hmmmm... What??? What is "L4 ADAS"??? You are really going to do L3 which many believe is harder than L4. L3 is going to require that Ford accept the safety liability and the "obey all the legal operation" liability for the life of the vehicle whenever the driver is able to engage that functionality. There is NO WAY Ford or really any OEM is ever going to take on that substantive amount of liability unless there is such an abundance of fine print that it makes Elon's proclamations about FSD seem like junior varsity.

We all understand that "L2+" is today's "50s-style chrome & fins" propelling the selling cars in showrooms as OEMs have always done. Absolutely no need to get to driverless (L4 in some societly or commercially viable ODD).

If someone does develop (as I quoted last week) Schumpeter's Disruptive Technology Threshold …: "... [I]n capitalist reality…, it is not [price] competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology…- competition which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives." Joseph A Shumpeter (1883-1950)", it is going to simply make it available to allow Ford to continue to serve its customers or will use it to crush Ford? Alain

Argo AI shuts down as Ford, VW pull backing from autonomous-vehicle startup that raised more than $3 billion

L. Sumagaysay, Oct. 27, "...", Read more

Hmmmm... Another view. Alain

Argo AI, driverless startup backed by Ford and VW, is shutting down

A. Hawkins, Oct. 26, "...." Read more

Hmmmm... Andrew's view. Alain

Ford thinks driver assist is a safer bet than driverless cars, but it's fooling itself

A. Hawkins, Oct. 27, "When Ford announced yesterday that it was pulling its support for Argo AI, the autonomous driving startup it had financed since 2017, it cited as one of its reasons a belief that driver-assist technology will have more near-term payoffs....." Read more

Hmmmm... I agree with Andrew, as I stated above. Alain

URL:

Click or tap if you trust this link.">Sunday, October 23, 2022

Waymo says it's bringing robotaxis to L.A.

Russ Mitchell, Oct 19, 2022 "The company, owned by Google parent Alphabet, said Wednesday that it plans to make L.A. its next market. "L.A. is in the top three ride-hailing markets in the United States and globally," said Saswat Panigrahi, the company's chief product officer. "The commercial opportunity is huge."

But Waymo offered scant information about its plans, including when the commercial service will begin and how extensive the service's coverage will be…." Read more

Hmmmm... or what the service will be? Ride-hailing??? Compete with Uber/Lyft… good luck! After leading the "testing phase" for the last 13 years, this is their plan for the "deployment phase". So disappointing! Doesn't come close to meeting Schumpeter's Disruptive Technology Threshold …: "... [I]n capitalist reality…, it is not [price] competition which counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new technology…- competition which commands a decisive cost or quality advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits and the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and their very lives." Joseph A Shumpeter (1883-1950)". Alain

URL:

Click or tap if you trust this link.">Friday, October 14, 2022

The Long Run to Autonomous Vehicles

K. Pyle, Oct. 13, "Autonomous vehicles (AV) provide the opportunity to correct government transportation failures is how the Brookings Institution's Clifford Winston characterized the potential opportunity provided by autonomous vehicles. Winston spoke to the possible economic impact of autonomous vehicles in an online media briefing (YouTube video) that also included speakers from Princeton and the Reason Foundation who touched on the technology and the role of public policy and regulation. A lively question and answer period followed the briefing...." Read more

Hmmmm... Ken, thank you. Excellent. Alain

URL:

Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday, October 08, 2022

Tesla AI Day 2022

Tesla Staff,
Sept. 30,
"Streamed live..." Read more

Hmmmm... I'm not much of a fan of humanoids so you may skip the first hour; however, starting @ 0:58:00 - FSD Intro, the next hour and a half is substantive and a must watch. My takeaway remains driverless "everywhere" is so enormously challenging that the near-term opportunity (next 10 years) to sell such a vehicle to a consumer is simply unthinkable. The terms & conditions would need to be so onerous making the total addressable market essentially null.

That said, I suspect that there exist some, possibly many, societally beneficial Operational Design Domains (ODD), where "FSD 69.2.2" or near term releases can deliver safe driverless mobility. This deployment strategy is what I with the technical support of CARTS, Inc. have decided to focus on.
Alain

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Thursday, September 29, 2022
Batteries: Theme of the Next Mad Max Dystoposeries

Sept 28, M. Sena, "IN THE PAST, when a country believed it was not receiving enough of a resource that it felt it needed and deserved, it went to war to take it. Gold, silver, tea, spices, cotton, cod, coal, grain, oil and many other commodities have been the causes of nations attempting to steal land and seas from other nations. There are countless numbers of movies that show us the horrors of war, but the postapocalyptical MAD MAX film series gives us a glimpse of what it could look like after all the big wars have been fought and lost. Warlords and their gangs prey on survivors of the wars that caused societies everywhere to collapse. They battle each other over gasoline, water and food. Are we trading wars over oil for wars over lithium, cobalt, nickel and rare earth metals, jumping from one frying pan into another? As governments continue with their policies to dramatically increase demand for these commodities, the chances for expanded conflicts increase. In many areas, they have already begun. ..." Read more Another excellent issue. Enjoy! Also watch or listen: ZoomCast 28 5 / PodCast 28 5 Alain

Thursday, September 22, 2022
Thor for Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, Medical Instruments and More
J. Huang, Sept 20, "...In today's vehicles, active safety, parking, driver monitoring, camera mirrors, cluster and infotainment are driven by different computers. In the future, they'll be delivered by software that improves over time, running on a centralized computer, Huang said.

To power this, Huang introduced DRIVE Thor, which combines the transformer engine of Hopper, the GPU of Ada, and the amazing CPU of Grace.

The new Thor superchip delivers 2,000 teraflops of performance, replacing Atlan on the DRIVE roadmap, and providing a seamless transition from DRIVE Orin, which has 254 TOPS of performance and is currently in production vehicles..." Read more

Hmmmm... Watch Jenmsen's keynote @ 2022 GTC. Watch: Nvidia Explains Self-Driving Car Vision at GTC 2022. See how the XPeng G9 utilized nVIDIA. Watch the G9's version of "FSD" called X Alain
URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday September 10, 2022

Self-Driving Tech Company Floats Possible Sale to Apple or Microsoft

D. Welch, Aug. 30, "Aurora Innovation Inc.'s chief executive officer recently laid out a range of options for the self-driving company to respond to worsening market conditions and partners pushing out timelines, including a possible sale to Apple Inc. or Microsoft Corp., according to a document seen by Bloomberg.

Chris Urmson, who co-founded Aurora after running Google's self-driving car project, also outlined cost cuts and floated measures including taking the company private, spinning off or selling assets and pursuing a small capital raise in a memo labeled "board discussion pre-read" and dated Aug. 3. Urmson inadvertently sent this to staff and asked them on Aug. 9 not to open it, the document shows. ..." Read more

Hmmmm... Realistic but not good news. With revenue at zero all of these companies are struggling. The annual addressable market of new class 8 trucks in the US is about 275,000 units. Given the large number of competitors addressing a limited market that has yet to yield any revenue for any of them suggests that this is a really tough business, especially if first revenue remains a year or more in the future.

What may be even more daunting is competition from a TeslaSemi with "FSD.Class8", not to mention the Waymo Via initiative. They both can cross subsidize their driverless Class 8 initiatives with their driverless people movement investment.

I still contend that there is a substantial near-term revenue opportunity Advanced Professional Driver Assistance focused on improving Professional Driver workplace. OSHA should be mandating such technology. Aurora could be generating revenue from it today. CEOs of trucking companies could be paying for it today and pocketing extremely attractive RoIs. Professional Drivers would be happier campers. So much so that the driver shortage might disappear.
Alain
URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Thursday September 1, 2022
Funding Roads: Pay for the Effect or Pay for the Cause

M. Sena, Aug. 30, "The September 2022 Issue in Brief

Funding Roads: There was a time when the main problem with roads in the U.S. and Europe was that there were not enough of them to keep drivers from getting stuck in traffic. Then, environmentalism, NIMBYism, anti-feceralism and anybody-with-a-beefism put the breaks on all infrastructure. They shifted the debate to how to pay, rather than what do we need to stay competitive with the countries where the rulers decide what gets built where and how. Is there a way forward for democracies to have a functioning infrastructure, or must we look on with envy at countries where totalitarian governments build infrastructure like it's the 1950s in the West?

Dispatch Central: A new city in the desert is an old idea - The de facto head of the Saudia Arabia government has designed a city with one stroke of the pencil. One very long stroke.

Aluminum: Another brick in the Wall of China – Governments required higher fuel efficiency. OEMs lowered car weights to comply. China cornered the market on the material that was needed to make it happen: aluminum. Sound familiar?

Some countries actually do something about Tesla – China (again) seems to be the only country that can tell Tesla to "Heel?", and Tesla heels. We don't wonder why this is so.

GM looking for money in all the wrong places – Making something like OnStar a 'standard option' is like telling parishoners they need to put money in the collection basket in order to get into mass. ..." Read more

Hmmmm... Another fantastic issue. See ZoomCast 282 / PodCast 282 for a discussion of the content.
Alain
URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Sunday August 28, 2022
Tesla Releases FSD Beta 10 69 With New Occupancy Network

Tesla Daily, Aug. 22, "Looking at first impressions from Tesla's release of FSD Beta 10.69..." Read more Be sure to watch Ashok Elluswamy's"Occupancy Networks" keynote presentation at CVPR on June 20, 2022. Very impressive, especially the use of training videos and it realization in FSD 10.69

Also pertinent are video demonstrations of:

• Tesla FSD Beta V 10.69 Dominates Downtown Driving

• FSD Beta 10.69 (2022.16.3.10) Release Notes

• FSDBeta v10.69 - HEAVY TRAFFIC - Unprotected Left Turns... Amazing that such turns are legal let alone FSD's routing algorithm deicing that this is on the best way to go. Safety must not be part of its objective function C'mon Elon.

• FSD Beta V 10.69 Initial Impressions. My impression is that 10.69 drove better than this tester who seemed intent on driving aggressively and not wanting to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. Hopefully no one at Tesla pays attention to this guy.

• Bullish News From Giga Berlin Tours, Production Rumors, Terrible Toyota

• The Tesla Semi Is Officially Here!

My takeaway from the above is that FSD 10.69 is impressive but not near "Full" anything, especially if put in the hands of some individual who themselves may well be a menace on the road.

While not being near "Full" anything, FSD may be nearing the point in which it is FSD within some useful Operational Design Domain.

It is one thing to be able to safely negotiate a trips segment: safely drive straight down a well marked lane in clear weather, safely make an unprotected left, safely stop behind a stop line at a stop sign, ... Each is an important achievement.

It is a whole other challenge to be able to safely go from some origin to some destination thus delivering useful mobility to some person or some thing safely without any disengagements. The ensemble of these origin-destination pairs would define the ODD for FSD. To date that ODD has been essentially null. The challenge for subsequent releases of FSD may well be to begin to explicitly identify FSD's ODD sand assess the extent to which these ODDs have emerged from the null state to begin to safely provide some useful mobility to the general public.
Alain

Asking FSD to be "Full" everything, everywhere to everyone is simply a naive unachievable objective. To me a better question may well be in which Operational Design Domain is FSD indeed Full Self-Driving?

Once that ODD is determined, restrict FSD to operate ONLY in that ODD.

Tesla must accept the responsibility allowing FSD to be engaged ONLY when the car is operating in Operational Design Domain where Tesla has certified that FSD drives safely. Else, FSD safely pull over, stop disengage and turn the responsibility of continuing on to the human driver. It should be Tesla's responsibility to allow FSD to be turned on and the determination of when and where it ceases to move because Tesla must be held responsible and liable if it something bad happens when it is driving. If I'm driving I'm responsible and liable. Not my passenger who may or may not be paying attention to what is going on. If FSD is driving it must accept that responsibility and not expect the passenger to help out. The word "Self" implies "Full"; else the product should be called Partnership-driving or Team-driving or ???
Alain
URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Monday August 22, 2022
Can Tesla Data Help Us Understand Car Crashes?

C. Metz, Aug. 18, "Shortly before 2 p.m. on a clear July day in 2020, as Tracy Forth was driving near Tampa, Fla., her white Tesla Model S was hit from behind by another car in the left lane of Interstate 275.

It was the kind of accident that occurs thousands of times a day on American highways. When the vehicles collided, Ms. Forth's car slid into the median as the other one, a blue Acura sport utility vehicle, spun across the highway and onto the far shoulder.

After the collision, Ms. Forth told police officers that Autopilot — a Tesla driver-assistance system that can steer, brake and accelerate cars — had suddenly activated her brakes for no apparent reason. She was unable to regain control, according to the police report, before the Acura crashed into the back of her car.

But her description is not the only record of the accident. Tesla logged nearly every particular, down to the angle of the steering wheel in the milliseconds before impact. Captured by cameras and other sensors installed on the car, this data provides a startlingly detailed account of what occurred, including video from the front and the rear of Ms. Forth's car.

It shows that 10 seconds before the accident, Autopilot was in control as the Tesla traveled down the highway at 77 miles per hour. Then she prompted Autopilot to change lanes..." Read more We've been calling for an independent analysis of the Tesla data for some time. Privacy is easy to protect. There is no need to know who owns or was operating each Tesla. Also see ZoomCast 280 Alain
URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday August 13, 2022
Tesla, GM Score Biggest Share of $1.2 Billion EV Order From Startup Autonomy

D. Hall, Aug. 9, "Tesla, GM, Volkswagen and Ford are among the automakers set to get big orders from Autonomy, a startup offering drivers the option of subscribing to an electric vehicle instead of buying one outright.

Autonomy plans to announce Tuesday that it's ordering nearly 23,000 EVs from 17 different automakers for a total outlay of $1.2 billion. With chip shortages limiting production capacity at most automakers, it's unclear how soon such a fleet could be amassed. The order represents 1.2% of the projected US electric vehicle production through the end of next year... ." Read more

Hmmmm... While this is a very interesting play for an individual to acquire a subscription to have a "Drive-it-Yourself" (DiY) electric car that gives the individual anywhere & anytime mobility. The subscription is acquired using a simple anywhere & anytime mobile phone app (the "autonomy" of the concept) that bundles, insurance, maintenance, taxes, the vehicle,... Essentially everything except the electricity. Just DiY it and get from where you are to where you want to go when you want to "Just do It" (JdI). All at an attractive monthly subscription charge when you consider all that is bundled. This is DiY/MaaSS (Mobility as a Subscription Service) for those that can DiY.

See the Bloomberg Video and well as SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 279 / PodCast 279 w/ Scott Painter, CEO Autonomy

I can readily envision the extension of Autonomy's DiY/MaaSS to MOVES/MaaS where "MOVES Mobility, Inc." places a $n.m Billion RoboTaxi order with Tesla, (and/or GM, Toyota, VW, Benteler, Zoox, Baidu, Alibaba, AutoX, ...) to deploy safe, equitable, affordable, sustainable, high-quality mobility for all 24/7/350+ throughout Trenton, Perth Amboy, Patterson, Newark, Camden, Atlantic City, Edison, New Brunswick, Scranton, Greenville, Newburg, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, .. and their environs' Operational Design Domains (ODD). 😁
Alain
URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday August 6, 2022

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 autonomous Taxis or a Taxis, 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 (person Trips 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 Robotasis 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 its 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 is 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 exhort 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

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday July 30, 2022

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 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 that $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 decrease 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 is 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 that 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

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Monday July 25, 2022

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

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday July 16, 2022

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

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday July 9, 2022

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

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday June 11, 2022

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 .......................................................2

Dispatch Central................................................................9

Someone lit a fire under NHTSA .......................................9

The Economist: Right analysis, wrong solution ..............12

Musings of a Dispatcher: Eyes on the Back Story...........15

The evolution of digital maps and ADAS ........................15

Digital Maps for the Vehicle – 1970-2022 ......................24 ...

"Read more

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

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday June 18, 2022

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 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 theses 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 wont 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

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday June 11, 2022

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 eh did all the time," Deborah Patterson said. "That's what the 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 URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday May 28, 2022

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 URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Sunday May 15, 2022

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"

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday May 7, 2022

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

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Friday, April 30, 2022

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. 😁 URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Saturday, April 23, 2022

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

Hmmmm... Yup! See ZoomCast265 Alain URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Thursday, April 15, 2022

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 an aTaxi 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 aTaxi 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 aTaxis 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

URL: Click or tap if you trust this link.">Thursday, March 31, 2022

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 PersontTrips/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 PersontTrips/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. on 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