Saturday, May 23, 2026
14.10-SevalOz-5.23.26
10th edition of the 14th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, May 18, “ It’s historic. Congratulate Seval Oz on her confirmation as Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation?…”. Read moreHmmmm… Congratulations Seval!!!! 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 413/ Podcasts 413 - SpaceX, Waymo, NVIDIA, May Mobility & more
What is it like at the SpaceX files for an IPO, Waymo pauses for flooding, Seval Oz to keynote an AV Conference plus NVIDIA, Uber, May Mobility and more. Join Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for episode 413 of Smart Driving Cars!
- 0:00 open
- 0:45 Harvard moves to cap A’s
- 4:26 while Princeton begins exam monitoring files form S1 pre-IPO
- 16:23 Flooding causes Waymo to pause service
- 25:06 Seval Oz to keynote AV Conference in Boca Raton
- 28:14 NVIDIA powering Uberself drivingpush into cities
- 30:47 Latest Musing on Mobility from Michael Sena
- 31:10 May Mobility deal withEcarXfor robotaxis
- 32:05 Driverless car legislation fails in Minnesota
- 34:54 Congress works on surface transportation reauthorization
- 43:28 Alain book recommendation- The Laws of Thought by Tom Griffiths
2026 Automated transportation Symposium (ATS)
July 27-30, 2026, San Diego, CA
8thBridging Transportation Researchers (BTR#8)
Online Conference! August 12 & 13, 2026
Staff, May 18, “A BILL To authorize funding for Federal-aid highways, bridge construction and rehabilitation, highway safety programs, transit programs, and rail programs, and for other purposes. …” Read more Hmmmm… Here we go. The house version. Interesting elements include:
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the inclusion of “Level 3” for Commercial Autonomous Commercial Vehicles, which, if there are appropriate updates in the hours of service regulations then a doubling of the productivity of long-haul trucking can be unlocked.
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Subtitle E—Safe Integration of Autonomous Commercial Motor Vehicles
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Modifications to Title VI- Innovation, especially Section 6002 Technology deployment and much much more.. Alain
Staff, May 23 “ Guident and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) today announced that Seval Oz, nominee for Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Research and Technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation, will deliver the main keynote at the 5th Annual Autonomous Vehicle Conference held on May 29th, 2026, at the Boca Raton Innovation Campus (BRiC).
A recognized leader in transportation innovation and autonomous mobility, Oz will address one of the industry’s most pressing challenges – how to transition autonomous mobility from limited pilot programs to scalable, real-world deployments across the U.S.
Her keynote, “From Pilot Programs to Scalable, Real-World Deployment: Building the Affordable Autonomy Economy,” will examine the economic, policy, and infrastructure conditions required to make autonomous transportation achievable at scale. Oz is expected to outline a national roadmap for deployment, including the role of public-private collaboration, the need for reshoring technology manufacturing and retooling for the future of mobility, and the importance of building systems that are innovative, operationally sustainable, and safe. …” Read moreHmmmm… Looking to be a good session focused on deployment. See you there. A recognized leader in transportation innovation and autonomous mobility, Oz will address one of the industry’s most pressing challenges – how to transition autonomous mobility from limited pilot programs to scalable, real-world deployments across the U.S. For more information, visit www.autonomousvehicleconference.com. Alain
Harvard Faculty Votes To Cap How Many A’s Professors Hand Out
M. Nietzel, May 20, “ Harvard University faculty has approved a plan to cap the number of A grades instructors can assign to undergraduates in any given course.
Following months of campus debate and several revisions to an initial cap proposal, the faculty voted 458 to 201 in favor of what’s being championed as a coordinated attempt to fight grade inflation, according to The Harvard Crimson….
- A 20% cap on A grades, emphasizing that A’s should be reserved for work of “extraordinary distinction”
- Ranking students by their percentile standing in each course, a numeric summary that would then be used in place of a grade point average to calculate internal university honors
Because small courses are more likely to “attract advanced and highly motivated students,” the committee also recommended giving faculty the flexibility to assign an additional four A grades above the 20% limit for each class. For example, in a class with 20 students, 8 A’s would be permitted, while in a course of 100, the instructor could allocate 24 A’s — 20% of the total number of students plus four additional. …” Read moreHmmmm… Bob Vanderbei and I have been suggesting that instead of A, B, C, D, F scale, the letter scale should be A+, A, A-, D, F. Still 5 categories that allow the faculty to properly differentiate achievement and befuddle clueless GPA-centric gatekeepers … looking at you Med Schools and Gold Mine. Alain
Skip navigation Search Sign in AI Didn’t Break Education. It Exposed The Lie
House of El, May 20, “ Princeton will now require instructors in exam rooms for the first time since 1893. The stated trigger is artificial intelligence, but the deeper issue is trust, assessment, and what education is actually testing. Nearly a third of Princeton seniors admitted to cheating, while almost nobody reported peer violations. AI did not invent academic dishonesty — it made old enforcement systems impossible to pretend still worked. Traditional exams were built for a world where knowledge was scarce and recall was the core skill. In the age of infinite information, the real skill is judgment: knowing what exists, what to ask, and how to evaluate what comes back. The deeper question is whether universities will redesign education around AI as a tool — or simply add more surveillance to preserve a broken format. Read moreHmmmm… I am deeply saddened that our honor code has been abolished. El stated that there was only one vote against. It wasn’t me unfortunately, I didn’t even know that it was on the agenda. What wasn’t reported was the count of votes in favor; I doubt it was many more.
… while I agree with many of El’s opinions expressed in this video, I don’t agree with the characterization of Princeton’s honor code as an engagement of the student body as enforcement agents against cheating. In my view, the honor code was a self policing concept where the shaming is predominantly, if not exclusively by the self, instead of by one’s peers or “the internet”. The key is for the system to ensure that the self is the enforcer, not others. One knows when one cheats to achieve an advantage. The purpose of the honor code is/was to seek to compete on level playing fields and not cheat to gain an advantage. In fact, Princeton admissions should not even consider admitting any student whose fundamental character is to resort to cheating. Consequently, Princeton’s cheating problem is rooted in its admission process that doesn’t eliminate at the very beginning applicants that have the propensity to cheat. I suspect that most students who admitted to cheating @ Princeton cheated before they came to Princeton. In fact, the competition for admission is so great that they cheated to get in and the Admission department’s “AI” isn’t smart enough to detect that cheating.
Since that solves the cheating problem, what El focuses on is what should we be teaching and how should we rank order what have been learned. I agree with many of the opinions that she expresses… especially “asking good questions is really important. Also, oral exams are much less prone to cheating. Also, my current opinion of AI is that it is just a tool, much like a calculator or the books in the library. If it contributed to what comes next, then cite it and move on. Alain
AI at the Wheel: The Effectiveness of Advanced Driver-Assistance System
C. Winston, April 15, “ Has automakers’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) in advanced driver-assistance systems (ADASs) improved automobile safety? We address this question with a first- of- its- kind trim- level dataset of the universe of registered automobiles and accidents in Texas over a 9-year period. We find that ADASs reduce the risk of a motorist getting in any type of accident by 11 to 14 percent and reduce the risk of a motorist getting in a single-vehicle fatal accident by roughly one- third. Our finding that ADASs have improved automobile safety is especially important be- cause it provides early evidence of the benefits of vehicle automation in actual travel environments. Hopefully, it will spur greater interest in the development and widespread adoption of fully autonomous vehicles and in the potential benefits of other transportation technologies using AI. …” Read more Hmmmm… A must read. Alain
Living in a City That Is Truly Not Built for Cars
M. Sena, May 1, “ The hurly-burly of twentieth century life has not yet reached Gubbio, and that is why it presents itself to the visitor within its walls in such agreeable fashion.” – Francis Miltoun1 TALK ABOUT A CITY that was definitely not built for cars. Gubbio, in the Province of Perugia in the Italian Region of Umbria, wasn’t really built for people, either. Mountain goats, perhaps. Its principal public transportation system is a series of four elevators (lifts) that take riders up from one level to the next. To get from the bottom plain of the city (where the green grass grows) to the top level. …” Read moreHmmmm… Obviously, what we need is national legislation and not a patchwork of local laws. Alain
FORM S-1 Space Exploration Technologies Corp.
Staff, May 20, “
Our Mission
Our mission is to build the systems and technologies necessary to make life multiplanetary, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars. To do this, we have formed the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth with unmatched capabilities to rapidly manufacture and launch space-based communications that connect the world, to harness the Sun to power a truth-seeking artificial intelligence that advances scientific discovery, and ultimately to build a base on the Moon and cities on other planets.
Overview
Founded in 2002, SpaceX is the only company building the integrated hardware and software infrastructure of the future across space, connectivity, and AI. At our core, we are builders. We design, manufacture, launch, and operate products and services built on cutting-edge technologies, including the world’s most advanced rockets and spacecraft. We safely and reliably transport astronauts, satellites, and other payloads on missions that benefit life on Earth. Since 2023, we have launched more than 80% of mass to orbit for the world each year with an over 99% mission success rate with Falcon rockets. We also operate a high-speed, low-latency global broadband data and communications network powered by approximately 9,600 Starlink broadband and mobile satellites in Low-Earth
Orbit, delivering connectivity to millions of consumer, enterprise, and government customers across 164 countries, territories, and other markets, as of March 31, 2026. Using our dedicated satellite-to-mobile constellation, we offer connectivity services, supplementing terrestrial networks and substantially reducing mobile “dead zones” across approximately 30 countries. “ Read more Hmmmm… Really impressive. Alain
Massive Surprises From Starship Flight 12! 🤯
M. House, May 23 “ SpaceX has officially launched the first full Version 3 Starship in Flight 12, and this was the wildest test flight we have ever seen. From the first-ever launch from Pad 2 at Starbase Texas, integrated hot staging, chaotic Super Heavy boost back issues, deployment footage external to the Starship (YES!), plasma-filled re-entry, and that unbelievable final splashdown camera angle… this mission delivered some absolutely insane footage. Read moreHmmmm… What a enormous accomplishment from a private company. Maybe they shouldn’t go public? Alain
Tesla’s Semi Truck could Jolt the Trucking Industry
Staff, May 20, “Tesla hasn’t had a blockbuster new product since the Model Y sport utility vehicle went on sale in 2020.
But early reviews of the Tesla Semi, an electric heavy truck, suggest that it could be a much-needed hit for the company. And it could shake up the staid business of truck manufacturing in the same way that Tesla’s cars upended the auto industry.
After years of delays, Tesla has begun taking orders for the Semi, which is expected to cost around $290,000 for the version that can travel up to 500 miles on a charge, much less expensive than heavy-duty electric trucks sold by Daimler, Volvo and other companies, which usually sell for at least $400,000, according to estimates by the International Council on Clean Transportation. Tesla has said the Semi will also have a more affordable model that can travel 350 miles between charges. Both options would travel farther than trucks from other suppliers. …“ Read more Hmmmm… And, once they put FSD on these and they become “Level 3”. With compatible “hours-of-service’ regulations the productivity opportunity of these semis will revolutionize logistics, schumpeter-style. Alain
Ecarx, Backed by Geely’s Li, to Sell Robotaxis to US Startup
Staff, May 20, “A no-go for Waymo? A bill that would of cleared the way for the driverless cars didn’t pass as the 2026 session wrapped. So, what does that mean for the future? ….” Read more Hmmmm… Congratulations Kurtis!!! Alain
What does the future of Waymo look like in the Twin Cities?
Bloomberg, April 29, “China has suspended issuing new licenses for autonomous vehicles, according to people familiar with the matter, after dozens of Baidu Inc.’s Apollo Go robotaxis suddenly stopped in Wuhan last month, stranding passengers and disrupting traffic.
The incident alarmed authorities, and three agencies including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology convened a meeting earlier this month with officials from cities that have robotaxis or autonomous-driving pilots, the people said. Regulators called for local governments to conduct a full self-review and enhance safety monitoring to prevent similar incidents, said the people, who declined to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.…” Read moreHmmmm… All of this is not easy. Hopefully they’ll share with us what happened so that we can try to not let it happen to us. Alain
The Laws of Thought: The Quest for a Mathematical Theory of the Mind
T. Griffiths, Feb. 10, “Everyone has a basic understanding of how the physical world works. We learn about physics and chemistry in school, letting us explain the world around us in terms of concepts like force, acceleration, and gravity―the Laws of Nature. But we don’t have the same fluency with concepts needed to understand the world inside us―the Laws of Thought. While the story of how mathematics has been used to reveal the mysteries of the universe is familiar, the story of how it has been used to study the mind is not. …“Read moreHmmmm… Excellent book. Congratulations Tom. Also watch Brian Keating & Tom in “They Built AI. Why Can’t They Explain It? Tom Griffiths” Alain
Waymo expands pause to four cities as robotaxis keep driving into floods
S. O’Kane, May 21, “Waymo has now paused service in four cities because its robotaxis are struggling to deal with heavy rain and flooded roads, a problem that already prompted the company to issue a recall last week.
One of Waymo’s robotaxis was spotted driving through a flooded street in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday before it ultimately got stuck for about an hour, according to local news reports. The vehicle was recovered and removed from the scene, Waymo told TechCrunch. Waymo says it paused service in the city, just like it has in San Antonio, Texas, while it figures out a solution. …” Read more Hmmmm… This is not good. Wasn’t the control center in the Philippines awake at the time??? Sorry, that’s not completely fair of me, but what are we all trying to do here in the very beginning of all of this? Trying to cross the finish line before we’ve barely even crossed the start line? Why are we trying to do hard things when we haven’t even done easy things yet? Why are we trying to give rides on the curviest roads?, in the middle of crowds, in heavy rain, in heavy snow, on roads that are likely to flood. Are the selfies and the thrill rides that important? Heavy rains were forecasted, the HD map data should identify roads likely to flood…. and the operation and oversight of these vehicles is doable using today’s “AI”. Alain
Princeton Professor Alain Kornhauser, Always on the Move, Advances Mobility for All
P. Hersh, March 21, “Alain Kornhauser, professor of Operations Research & Financial Engineering at Princeton University, realized early on in his academic career that his dream of going to Mars was unrealistic in his lifetime.
“So, I had to pivot,” says Alain, who has been on Princeton University’s faculty since 1972.
He moved on to far more down-to-earth dreams. He has achieved an academic and business career revolving around the movement of people and cargo from point a to point b on this earth. Alain obsesses about mobility, just not the kind you might expect for an 81, almost 82-year-old. …“ Read moreHmmmm… Thank you Pam! Alain
HandyRides Update
Alain Kornhauser, May 23, Continue follow-up to “My Cousin Vinny” in Atlanta (and NC) and an Old Guy giving ride to an Old Guy who needed a ride.” Hmmmm… . Also adding dignity to our mission:
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