2025-02-26

2025-02-26

February 25, 2025

  • 2/25/25
    2nd edition of the 13th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter

THE MARCH 2025 ISSUE

M. L. Sena, Feb. 25, “This is the last (for now) issue of The Dispatcher. From parking and to the Pope in this March issue. It covers a pretty broad spectrum, as have all of the issues I have written for the past dozen years. And, as always, I hope you enjoy it. .….” Read more Hmmmm… As always, a lot to digest here. Enjoy! And hopefully Michael will be back to restart The Dispatcher. In the meantime, we are writing a book focused on the deployment of driverless mobility for those who really need a ride … “Walking-the walk”… as a follow-up to “Talking-the talk,” which we did in the book below. Alain

The Real Case for Driverless Mobility

Narrated by Fred Fishkin, Available now

Published in 2024 (but still relevant)!!! Go to Amazon.com…

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCast 387/ PodCast 387 – The Last(?) Dispatcher w Michael Sena

F. Fishkin, Feb. 25 “Keeping cars out of cities? The parking meter is turning 90 this year. We learn more about that and more from The Dispatcher publisher Michael Sena. Plus ..self driving cars, AI, the Black Hawk tragedy and more. Join Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for episode 387 of Smart Driving Cars.

  • 0:00 open
  • 1:10 Michael Sena on parking meters turning 90 and what they are being used for now
  • 8:15 The Pope and a cautionary approach to AI
  • 13:05 For now…at least…the last edition of The Dispatcher
  • 16:57 There’s another book on the way
  • 18:30 Henry Ford…and the road today to driverless mobility
  • 29:35 AI and Deep Research
  • 37:10 the Black Hawk – American Airlines tragedy. What we’re learning.

SmartDrivingCars ZoomCasts

  • 00:00 AI Academy Feb. 18, “- Introduction to Grok 300: 23- Benchmark Performance of Grok 301: 12- Grok 3 vs Other AI Models 02:12- Chatbot Arena Rankings 04:12- Continuous Improvements in Grok 305:07- Reasoning Model Capabilities…” Read more Hmmmm… As always, a lot to digest here. Enjoy! Alain
  • 0:00 Open 1:21 AI code editor, DeepSeek and more 6:22 HandyRides Inc. now exists 7:05 From NY Times: Women on motorcycle taxis giving rides in Kenya and a piece on driving in Vietnam 14:36 Timothy Lee piece…speculating DeepSeek not responsible for crashing NVIDIA stock 16:50 Waymo expanding to more cities including Las Vegas and San Diego 19:58 More DeepSeek discussion 25:16 new edition of The Dispatcher out from Michael Sena 26:17 The work that lies ahead to provide mobility to those who need it 29:15 Why are there still rear ending crashes 29:35 New Tesla Model Y will have front bumper camera
  • 0:00 open
  • 1:17 Nobel Prize for Physics awarded to Princeton’s John Hopfield. Alain’s tribute.
  • 1:54 GM shutters Cruise robotaxi venture
  • 13:26 Waymo has now delivered over 5 million driverless rides
  • 26:49 NHTSA proposes new rules for self driving cars
  • 34:55 The Dispatcher Musings…back to Scranton
  • 38:14 Closing out the year with long time friends and kudos to Alain’s students
  • 0:00 open
  • 0:55 From The Dispatcher - a look at the presidential election and the process
  • 10:01 Princeton’s Bob Vanderbei maps out the electorate one again
  • 14:30 The involvement of Elon Musk, pre-election and post-election and Michael’s look at the Robotaxi event.
  • 42:20 Tesla’s quarterly vehicle safety report 47:48 A tribute Alain’s PHD Advisor at Princeton, Paul Michel Lion III.
  • 48:28 Waymo is now valued at 45 billion dollars 49:59 Aurora’s Chris Urmson says we are on the brink of a new era in mobility and logistics 52:25 Michael comments further on Waymo and its role at Alphabet (Google)
  • 59:54 The Autopian report on Google/Waymo patent application for system to take over automatically if it detects a bad driver behind the wheel.
  • 0:00 open
  • 0:30 SpaceX wows with landing
  • 8:38 Tesla’s Cybercab event - Alain’s take on the ups and downs
  • 18:22 Elon uses the elevator analogy!
  • 21:12 Forbes piece - Can’t Get a Cybercab? Wave Down a Waymo.
  • 22:40 AutoEvolution: 5 Polarizing Facts from Tesla’s We Robot Cybercab Unveiling Event
  • 26:26 Presentation from Alain’s students on shared mobility at Next Generation Systems Conference
  • 27:45 More on Cybercabs and questions about insurance
  • 39:02 Princeton’s John Hopfield wins Nobel Physics Prize!
  • 0:00 open
  • 0:54 Vehicle telecommunications and data privacy battle
  • 22:40 What happened to Sweden’s Northvolt
  • 27:17 The efforts to stop the importing of inexpensive Chinese vehicles. Is the rest of the world toast?
  • 45:55 Tesla prepares for the robotaxi unveiling October 10
  • 54:35 Reuters reports Waymo discussions with Hyundai on vehicle platform and remarks from Waymo co-CEO at University of Michigan
  • 1:00:35 Two of Alain’s students deliver at the Next Generation Systems Conference
  • 0:00 open
  • 0:49 Congrats to Alain’s students who took part in the Henley Royal Regatta
  • 2:04 Launching of HandyRides continues for affordable mobility
  • 3:15 Demo of what GreenVilleMOVES would look like
  • 33:30 EU is mandating speed limiters
  • 34:15 Tesla update to give parents control over teen driver speed and more
  • 39:50 The Drive report on Mercedes engineer criticism of Tesla FSD and its impact on public attitudes toward autonomous driving tech.
  • 42:04 The Verge report on Distance Technologies windshield AR heads up display
  • 45:00 Ken Pyle’s Viodi piece on Smart Driving Car Summit
  • 0:00 July 1st marks the launch of a new mobility start-up! Join Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for details. Plus.. GM Cruise pays for crash report delays, Rimac robotaxis and automakers ask for reconsideration of automatic emergency braking rules. open 00:32 July 1 new mobility start-up launch 22:58 GM Cruise to pay California for delaying crash report 25:23 Rimac robotaxis? 26:20 auto industry wants automatic emergency braking rule reconsidered
  • 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
  • 0:00 Pre-earnings / Robotaxi discussion
  • 17:37 Earnings & shareholder letter
  • 45:48 Financial review
  • 1:03:11 Other thoughts and questions,”
  • 0:00 Call begins
  • 0:49 CEO Elon Musk opening comments
  • 21:53 CFO Vaibhav Taneja opening comments
  • 28:56 Investor questions
  • 54:35 Analyst questions
  • 1:05:28 Rob’s review and questions” Read more Hmmmm… Again, interesting and informative to watch Rob report it live. Alain

These experts were stunned by OpenAI Deep Research

T. Lee, Feb. 21, “Earlier this month, OpenAI released a new product called Deep Research. Based on a variant of the (still unreleased) o3 reasoning model, Deep Research can think for even longer than conventional reasoning models—up to 30 minutes for the hardest questions. And crucially, it can search the web, allowing it to gather information about topics that are too new or obscure to be well covered in its training data.

I wanted to thoroughly test Deep Research out, so I solicited difficult questions from a random sample of Understanding AI readers. One of them was Rick Wolnitzek, a retired architect who runs the website Architekwiki. Wolnitzek asked for a detailed building code checklist for a 100,000-square-foot educational building…..” Read more Hmmmm… This is really interesting; however, I continue to wonder as to the extent of its value to whom? Spending 30 minutes on even just an ordinary laptop is executing about 1,800 times E11 Flops or 1.8E14 flops. That’s a lot of computation. Didn’t Google/Chrome tell us that it had found (and sorted) a gazillion sites/links in the fraction of a second of its search for our query; albeit those on top/many/most/? are ads or sponsored results, but still… a gazillion in less than a second! Wow. What is Deep Research doing during those 30 minutes????? And how is it sorting the noise from the signal biased one way and the signal biased the other way. Do its results earn a “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval”??? Alain

Has Progress on Travel Safety Run Off the Road?

S. Polzin Feb. 21, “…As is the case with airline accidents, many factors contribute to roadway vehicle crashes. The roadway infrastructure, the vehicle, the weather and climatic conditions, the driver, and emergency response all play a role. … “the driver” is far down on the list, instead of FIRST??? I thought …” >90% of crashes involved driver misbehavior”…

…Shaping driver behavior

Safety initiatives that attempt to shape drivers’ behaviors that contribute to accidents have been less aggressive. A colleague protests that these should be labeled as misbehaviors and not accidents, as the data suggest huge numbers of fatalities are associated with driver misbehaviors. Perhaps that is why safety professionals use the terminology crashes and not accidents.

There are certainly rules influencing behaviors — for example, cell phone and seat belt use — but compliance and enforcement aren’t sufficient to keep these factors from being significant contributors to crash fatalities. Americans have shown reluctance to be more aggressive in initiatives to influence driver behavior.…..” Read more Hmmmm… This is a thoughtful and important article on roadway safety.

My take is… Very nice!!!!

As you know… if one really wants to address road safety one must address driver misbehavior. Thinking infrastructure and/or gizmos are/is going to make a dent is naive/doomed/…

It would be nice if education could do it, but education isn’t that good.

Either we put up with it (which is what we’ve grown accustomed to) or we bring down the enforcement hammer and don’t allow it… speed governors, ignition interlocks, jail time, claw-back of trust funds. And warning labels that resemble those on cigarette packs for vehicles that operate on any public street even if they are red with a yellow emblem These kill!!!

Plus no more advertising that they climb great walls and travel down river beds and appeal to our most unmentionable desires.

Plus, while we’re at it, let’s not burden driverless cars with solving the driver mis-behavior problem, because mis-behaving drivers will never use them. They love to drive

Let’s be happy and welcoming that driverless cars (and nearly driverless cars) today solve the driver mis-behavior problem for folks who really need a ride. Let’s welcome (allow them on our streets and don’t play stupid games with them) and be supportive of them because they don’t misbehave. Why are they (Waymo’s & GM/cruises & ???) illegal anyway? They today are substantially way safer than the misbehaving drivers that are being tolerated and coddled.

No texting (phones know you are driving. Make the phone maker liable. They’ll stop asking if you are driving (if their “AI” is any good)).

No excessive speeding… Make the manufacturer liable. The car knows how fast it is going and knows where it is and knows the weather. The speed limit is not a secret.

It is a safety defect if the car is allowed to speed excessively. Make all car manufacturers recall all their cars and fix it. Make them liable if excessive speeding is the cause of the crash.

Make speed limits sensible instead of at some who knows what limit that is fundamentally ridiculous and begs to be disregarded and disrespected.

Sorry for the rant. Alain

Tesla to Not Allow Cybercabs on Uber, According to Uber CEO

K. Singh, Feb 24, “Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently spoke at the Future Investment Initiative Institute Priority conference, where he discussed Tesla’s robotaxi network and its integration with Cybercabs. While Tesla has said that it would sell Cybercabs directly to customers in addition to adding them to the Robotaxi network itself, Khosrowshahi said that Musk is not open to adding Cybercabs to Uber’s platform….” Read more Hmmmm… Ouch!! Uber is so yesterday! Alain

Black Box DECODED - What the helicopter pilots said

B. Murray, Feb. 14, “The NTSB released their notes about the in cockpit communication inside the Blackhawk helicopter. They also released what data they had, and didn’t have. There were clearly many issues going on that night, all leading to tragedy over Washington DC….” Read more Hmmmm… Chilling!! Are we in 2025 or 1965??? Chilling. So many things need to be fixed! No. 1, how about having the two altimeters talk to each other if there is a discrepancy? What other instruments are giving different readings to our pilots?? Alain

Chinese Automaker Unveils $9,500 Self-Driving Car

J. Lanz, Feb. 11, “Chinese automaker BYD announced that self-driving capabilities would come standard on its entire lineup—including its cheapest car.

The company made its “God’s Eye” driver-assistance system standard equipment on 21 upgraded models, from the ultra-luxury “Yangwang U8” down to the ultra-cheap “Seagull”—a tiny hatchback that costs just 69,800 yuan ($9,500). ….” Read more Hmmmm… “God’s Eye” Driver-ASSISTANCE… Why in the title it claims “Self-driving” yet in the text it is “Driver-assistance”. Why didn’t it claim to be “God-driving” ???? So much smoke & mirrors. Alain

The AIGRID Elon Musk’s Grok3 Just STUNNED The Entire AI Industry (Beats Everything)

$14,000 on Waymos?! Meet SF’s biggest robotaxi addicts

E. Wallach, Feb 25, “Since the first Waymo hit San Francisco’s streets in the summer of 2021, the robotaxis have been quick to attract fans, the occasional act of vandalism, or arson notwithstanding. The driverless car service opened in June to anyone with a smartphone, and just six months later it had gobbled up 22% of the city’s ride-hailing market.

But some fans are more fanatical than others. A growing tribe has become so enamored of Waymo that they use it nearly every day to grab groceries, meet friends, commute — or even skip a hill they don’t want to climb on foot.

The Standard set out to find some of the most addicted Waymo riders…. Read more Hmmmm… This is fine, but isn’t this a little embarrassing to Waymo? They’ve worked feverishly and astutely since 2009 and this is the value/accolade that the SF Standard and Ezra wish to tout to its readers. You’ve “gobbled up 22%” of trips that were already well served by ride-hailing and extracted more money from those that were already well served “… Sometimes, if it’s $20 versus $13, I’ll just take the $20…,” What??? So price doesn’t matter in SF? Waymo should start charging $40! I guess I’ve been barking up the wrong tree. Affordability is not important. But when the sunk investment is >$10B then this is music to one’s ear. I hate being wrong. . It is time for me to also throw in the towel! ☹ Alain

Starship’s Eighth Flight Test

Staff, Feb. 26, “The eighth flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Friday, February 28, pending regulatory approval….” Read more Hmmmm… Since I’m throwing in the towel, I’m going to try to be there. If not this one, I’ll definitely go to the 9th since that will likely try to catch both the booster and the ship. 😊 Alain

Draft… Orf467F24: Investigation of MOVES-Style Mobility Deployments… Draft

Alain Kornhauser, Dec. 19, “An updated note to the readers of the SDC eLetter: Read more Hmmmm… We had an excellent class this Fall. This is a compilation of their investigations of MOVES-style mobility opportunities in their “hometowns”. This is a compilation of drafts submitted in lieu of a final exam. The class will make the document more suitable for publication during the January intersession. Alain