Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022
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Friday, June 2, 2023
22nd edition of the 11th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter
NHTSA Proposes Automatic Emergency Braking Requirements for New Vehicles
Press release, May 31, “The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would require automatic emergency braking and pedestrian AEB systems on passenger cars and light trucks. The proposed rule is expected to dramatically reduce crashes associated with pedestrians and rear-end crashes.
NHTSA projects that this proposed rule, if finalized, would save at least 360 lives a year and reduce injuries by at least 24,000 annually. In addition, these AEB systems would result in significant reductions in property damage caused by rear-end crashes. Many crashes would be avoided altogether, while others would be less destructive.
“Today, we take an important step forward to save lives and make our roadways safer for all Americans,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said. “Just as lifesaving innovations from previous generations like seat belts and airbags have helped improve safety, requiring automatic emergency braking on cars and trucks would keep all of us safer on our roads.” Read more Hmmmm… This is substantial and you must read Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which contains the details, especially page 14 (interesting that it states:”… all speeds above 10 km/h (6.2 mph), even if these speeds are above the speeds tested by NHTSA…”. Does this mean that If I’m doing x over the speed limit, say 100mph, the system must remain functionable and very rarely suffer from false positives. Fantastic!
Also pay attention to the phase “imminent collision” that is supposed to trigger into action such a system. One must be very precise in the definition of “imminent” (is it really “1.6 seconds to collision” or ???). I might suggest that nothing is imminent. There is a physical process that evolves over time from a state in which everything in “hunk-dory” to a time when one is between the “rock & hard place”. Maybe the Advance Driver Assistance System (ADAS, intelligent cruise control, et al) should be communicating with the AEB so as to avoid, as much as possible, ever getting to that magical “imminent” point. The more that can be done to prepare and begin to do things as one passes through 2.0, 1.9, 1.8, 1.7, 1.65, 1.625, … so as to raise back up the time to collision to 1.65, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9. 2.0, .. infinity, the better!
If this is done well, the driver may not even be aware that it is happening. Then: No complaints! No taking the car back to the dealer and claiming it is a lemon! No or greatly reduced “false imminent train wrecks” (especially when traveling at high speeds!!!). Doing this well delivers enormous value to the driver and society!
Here is what Neal Boudette of the NY Times and Andrew Hawkins of Verge wrote about this. Alain
SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 320 / PodCast 320 w Roger Lanctot, Director, Automotive Connected Mobility, Global Automotive Practice @ TechInsights
F. Fishkin, June 2, “NHTSA begins the rule process to require automatic emergency braking that works even at highway speeds. That and more on episode 320 of Smart Driving Cars. Guest Roger Lanctot, director Automotive Connect Mobility, Global Automotive Practice at TechInsights joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin.
- 0:00 open
- 00:53 NHTSA proposing rule requiring automatic emergency braking for passenger cars and light trucks
- 39:20 NHTSA remains without a confirmed administrator
- 42:35 NHTSA criticized for moving too slowly in Inspector General report
- 50:29 NHTSA ends investigation of Tesla in vehicle gaming and value of over the air updates
- 1:00:40 Takeaways from conference in Israel
- 1:09:45 ARS Technica piece The Death of Self Driving Cars has Been Greatly Exaggerated -Alex Roy
- 1:13:26 Einride to deploy in UAE
- 1:17:19 The best market for autonomous technology
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Friday, January 27, 2023
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Tuesday, January 24, 2023
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Friday, January 13, 2023
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Sunday, January 8, 2023
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SafeDrivingCars: Those in which the automated function are explicitly designed to not only substantially reduce driver misbehavior by constraining the performance characteristic such as incorporating speed governors that only permit excessive speeds in geofenced locations such as Watkins Glen International and stretches of the German Autobahn, but also automatically intervene to prevent crashes; thus, extending what is done today with anti-lock brakes and electronic stability control.
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SelfDrivingCars: Those which allow the driver for some extended period of time to be “feet-off” the brake & throttle, delivering to the driver substantial comfort & convenience, but also “hands-off” the wheel for shorter periods of time providing a little more comfort & convenience. Absolutely required are “eyes & brain” focused the human task of driving, ready to intervene should the automated driver begin to fail.
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DriverlessCars: Those which serve only passengers and/or goods from trip start, through finish. Luckily, the notion that individuals might own such vehicles for personal use and/or be able to “AirB&B” them for others to get from A to B is now realized by essentially everyone as exceedingly naïve. The Mercedes booth at this year’s CES showed no sign of its [Mercedes Benz F 015 Luxury in Motion LIVE PREMIERE CES 2015](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eftN0lwNk88). Yea!
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Friday, December 30, 2022
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Sunday, December 25, 2022
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Saturday, December 17, 2022
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Sunday, December 11, 2022
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Friday, December 2, 2022
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Sunday, November 27, 2022
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Saturday, November 19, 2022
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Monday, November 14, 2022
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Sunday, November 6, 2022
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Sunday, October 30, 2022
- 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
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Sunday, October 23, 2022
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Friday, October 14, 2022
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Saturday, October 08, 2022
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Thursday, September 29, 2022
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Saturday, September 10, 2022
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Thursday September 1, 2022
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Sunday, August 28, 2022
- 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 deciding 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!
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Monday, August 22, 2022
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Saturday, August 6, 2022
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Saturday July 30, 2022
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Monday July 25, 2022
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Saturday July 16, 2022
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Saturday June 11, 2022
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Saturday May 28, 2022
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Sunday May 15, 2022
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Saturday May 7, 2022
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Friday, April 30, 2022
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Saturday, April 23, 2022
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Thursday, April 15, 2022
- 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.
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Thursday, March 31, 2022
PersonTripLength (90%tile): 10 miles
Cost:
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Friday, February 4, 2022
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