2024-06-16

2024-06-16

Click or tap if you trust this link.

Saturday, June 15, 2024

23rd edition of the 12th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter

Elon Musk’s PREDICTIONS Just Left Audience SPEECHLESS!!

Farzad, June 13, “…”.

Watch Video Hmmmm… Very interesting, especially now with a modified “AirB&B” extension. 😊 Alain

Just Published!!! Go to Amazon.com… You can still be first on your block to have one J.

SmartDrivingCars
ZoomCast 375 /
PodCast 375 Elon Musk talks Tesla robotaxis and more. Maybe for Brownsville?

F. Fishkin, June 15, “ With Elon Musk divulging more about how Tesla robotaxis may operate, Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser demonstrates how they could be used to serve Brownsville, Texas. And the plan could be replicated anywhere. Plus the latest on Waymo and Cruise. Join Alain and co-host Fred Fishkin for episode 375 of Smart Driving Cars.

  • 0:00 open
  • 0:30 Musk talks robotaxi business, Tesla Semis and more new vehicles
  • 15:27 Alain shows how a Brownsville MOVES mobility service could work.
  • 36:19 Waymo issues software and mapping recall following telephone pole crash in Phoenix
  • 43:10 GM investing 850 million dollars in Cruise and resuming operations in Houston

BrownsvilleMOVES: a Vision to 2030

Alain Kornhauser, June 12, “…”

Watch PowerPoint Hmmmm… With all of the assistance given to Brownsville by SpaceX, Elon may wish to try out his RoboTaxi in Brownsville. Alain

#

Automated Driving Industry Trends: Automated Trucks

R. Bishop, May 2024, “Scope and Purpose

This Automated Driving Industry Trends report provides a high-level understanding of the state-of-deployment of driverless vehicles transporting freight, i.e., automated trucks and other wheeled work machines. This report aims to provide a reference point regarding the current status of development and deployment of these services globally, to support system developers, industry analysts, and government agencies.

#

For deeper insight and perspective into this material, contact Bishop Consulting. Our consultancy offers bespoke seminars,

targeted analyses, and a broad range of related services.

#

Executive Summary

Overview

• Truck automation is poised to make a turning point in 2024, moving from development and testing to full commercial operations of driverless vehicles.

• Competitive discriminators focus on the ability to handle a wide range of weather, the ability to take a load to its final destination by running on both highways and streets, and the geographic footprint.

• Truck platooning continues to arise in niche applications. At least one company in China is targeting platooning for long haul operations.

• For most use cases, it is essential to have a partnership with a truck manufacturer which can provide redundancy and other engineering measures to support L4 operations. However, given the huge numbers of existing equipment in the off-road world, retrofit solutions are being pursued.…”

Read more Hmmmm… This is a really good reference. Alain

‘Robotaxi’ hitting the streets of Houston for second time. Why were the brakes pumped?

H. Posey, June 12, “The autonomous taxis are making their way around town after being put on hold back in October 2023.

Cruise, the self-driving car company, launched their testing program for the second time on Tuesday.

This time around, the cars will have drivers manually operating the vehicle. However, in a few weeks the company plans to move to supervised self-driving, which is when a driver is in the car but only intervening if necessary.…”

Read more Hmmmm… Very nice. Welcome back. Alain

Waymo issues software and mapping recall after robotaxi crashes into a telephone pole

Andrew Hawkins, June 12, “…The update corrects an error in the software that “assigned a low damage score” to the telephone pole, and updates its map to account for the hard road edge in the alleyway that was not previously included….

#

The incident that prompted the latest recall took place on May 21st in Phoenix. According to local reports, an unoccupied Waymo vehicle was driving to a passenger pickup location through an alley that was lined on both sides by wooden telephone poles. The poles were not up on a curb but level with the road and surrounded with longitudinal yellow striping to define the viable path for vehicles. As it was pulling over, the Waymo vehicle struck one of the poles at a speed of 8mph, sustaining some damage, the company said….

“We have already deployed mapping and software updates across our entire fleet,..” …

Farzad, June 13, “…”.
Read More Hmmmm… Must be a really slow news cycle for Andrew to report on this.

When human driven, these incidents aren’t mentioned to anyone since it is well-known that the insurance implications would vastly outweigh eating the cost to fix. Human drivers aren’t stupid! 😊

Since they are making a big deal out of it, their explanation and “fix” seems to be perplexing and raises questions about Waymo’s service concept:

  • What was it about “Giving this rider a ride” had Waymo’s routing algorithm telling this vehicle to go down this alley?
  • Why is this alley even in the feasible set of their network? Who was it going to pick up where, that was so darn important that it chose to use this alley?
  • What aspect of their “Trolley Problem” conundrum resolution algorithm chose “hit that pole” rather than “hit this other thing”?
  • Don’t Waymos have Automated Emergency Braking that is better than what NHTSA has recently mandated? It hit a stationary object at 8mph! That should simply NOT happen unless the alternative was really bad… in which case the system worked well and should NOT be changed.
  • Do all stationary objects need to be in Waymo’s HD map database, else they can be hit? If that is the case, then label all objects as non-stationary. Waymo has an excellent history of avoiding moving objects (none of which are in their HD map data base.) Use that!

Very strange! Alain