2014-11-14

November 14, 2014

Tesla’s Autonomous Car Claims More Hype Than Reality

Maryanna Saenko “…Given the bold claims, it is likely that in 2015 Tesla will be backpedaling from its CEO’s comments. Perhaps Tesla has a partnership in the works and its ADAS features are being developed by outside developers, but nonetheless, Tesla has notoriously been delayed in product deployments. Still, marketing and PR are a true strength of Tesla, and conversations in our automotive network indicate frustration that Tesla is viewed as so advanced while in reality numerous OEMS have technologies equal to or more advanced than what Tesla is claiming. Clients should expect Tesla to continue to drive the conversation, but expect the rapid innovation in ADAS and autonomous vehicles to progress quickly – and much of it outside of Tesla’s walls.” Read more Hmmmm.. Amen! Alain

Permits for testing self-driving cars are a hot commodity in California

Verne Kopytoff, Nov. 11 “…Big name automakers and a certain electric car upstart are among the companies to be issued permits for testing autonomous vehicles in the state. …The latest to get permits in the nearly two-month old program are Tesla, Nissan, Delphi Automotive, and Bosch, according to Bernard Soriano, a deputy director with California’s Department of Motor Vehicles. They join Google, Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz unit, and Volkswagen’s Audi unit, all of which received permits when the program first kicked off…Companies are not required to disclose in their applications where they plan to do their testing. Nor must they reveal any details about their technology. But they must report any accidents or instances when drivers had to unexpectedly turn off the autonomous technology within 10 days to the state’s DMV. Only one company has filed such a report.

Delphi told the agency that another car crashed into its Audi test vehicle on the evening of Oct. 14 in Palo Alto, Calif. The test car was stopped while waiting to merge with traffic when a Honda traveling in the opposite direction crossed an elevated center median and struck Delphi’s car. The accident left Delphi’s vehicle with a dented front end and right fender. No one was injured in the crash.

The crash doesn’t appear to have anything to do with Delphi’s autonomous technology. At the time of the crash, the car’s self-driving mode was turned off. Instead, a human driver was in control. Furthermore, in their report, the police laid blame on the Honda’s driver, who they said caused the crash by making an unsafe turn….Still, many car makers with permits are testing on private or federal land, where state regulations don’t necessarily apply. Mercedes, for instance, is using the sprawling Concord Naval Weapons Station, near San Francisco, to experiment. Installing traffic signals that communicate with cars—presumably to get them to differentiate between a red light from a green one—is among the experiments. The company is also subjecting cars to potentially dangerous situations, which would be unwise to do on city streets. Read more

Hmmm… Seems like California is well underway. Here in New Jersey we have Fort Monmouth siting and waiting to help this revolution. The silence is deafening. Alain

Telematics Industry Insights by Michael L. Sena

21 Nov. 2014; Vol 2, Issue 1 Individual Highlights: Telematics Update Munich 2014 p1; Standardization p1; Next Phase for Maps p3; Mobility Wishes p6; The Newsletter p6 Read more. Hmmm…Well worth reading. Alain

Re-Programming Mobility: The Digital Transformation of Transportation

Anthony Townsend, “..In a distinct shift from the last 50 years, when transportation innovation in the United States was shaped by big public infrastructure projects like the Interstate Highway System, this transformation is being driven by the private sector. These companies are investing in infrastructure for mobility on a similar scale, but using very different technology. For instance, by 2014 mobile carriers have spent over $500 billion building out the nation’s cellular communications grid – about the same cost of the Interstates. All but invisible to planners and citizens alike, this new communications network is the most important transportation infrastructure of our era, enabling us to re-invent the how our roads, transit systems, and freight and logistics networks function. We call this process re-programming mobility. In lieu of large civil infrastructure projects, transportation systems are increasingly being augmented with a range of information technologies that make them smarter, safer, more efficient, more integrated. Over the next twenty years, the hints of change that we see today will accumulate, challenging our assumptions about how Americans travel – where they go and why, how they get there, and how the answers to both change the way we use land, the way we plan our communities, and in so doing the very role of government itself in shaping infrastructure and land use. The hidden nature of these new mobility infrastructures – tiny devices in our pockets communicating over invisible radio waves with algorithms running on servers in the cloud – has conspired to conceal the important public policy and planning issues that their mass adoption raises. While we now recognize the critical importance of understanding how new information technologies will change transportation, there is great uncertainty about how this process will play out. Self-Driving Cars: The 800-Pound Gorilla of Transportation Futures. (p7)” Read more Very interesting Alain

For Google’s self-driving cars, learning to deal with the bizarre is essential

By Steve Johnson, 11/12/2014 “…One of the most surprising lessons: While hoping to make cars that are safer than those driven by people, Google has discovered its smart machines need to act a little human, especially when dealing with pushy motorists.

“We found that we actually need to be – not aggressive – but assertive” with the vehicles, said Nathaniel Fairfield, technical leader of a team that writes software fixes for problems uncovered during the driving tests. “If you’re always yielding and conservative, basically everybody will just stomp on you all day.”… Read more

The Massive Economic Benefits Of Self-Driving Cars

Adam Ozimek 11/08/14 “…So in total we have $317 billion from fatal crashes, $226 billion for non-fatal crashes, and $99 billion in time savings. That’s a total of $642 billion a year in welfare that self-driving cars can generate. These are extremely conservative back of the envelope calculations, and it misses a lot of important benefits like senior citizens who currently can’t drive at all right now, and the cost savings to households who gain much cheaper access to cars by renting them by the hour. But even leaving all those benefits out, $642 billion is a really, really big deal… Read more

Hmmm… A better assessment of the cost of accidents was done by NHTSA. (“…The value of societal harm from motor vehicle crashes … $870 B in 2010…” ) Big question is… how many of these could really be averted with SmartDrivingCars? (My back of the envelope stands at 50%.) And how many new ones would be caused by SDCs? (My expectation is very few, else they won’t see the light of day.) Alain

MINES ParisTech Announces the Creation of an International Research Chair on Automated Driving,

vendredi 31 octobre 2014 “ MINES ParisTech, France’s leading academic institution by volume of contractual research, today announces the creation of an international automotive research chair in partnership with manufacturers Valeo, PSA Peugeot Citroën and Safran. Baptized “Automated Vehicles- Drive for You”, the chair will unite researchers from MINES ParisTech’s Robotics Centre with teams from international partner institutions — Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, the University of California, Berkeley in the United States and Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Supported by the MINES ParisTech Foundation, with the manufacturers contributing €3.7 million in funds, the chair will work for five years on the topic of automated driving to:

Expand knowledge of self-driving vehicles

Develop intelligent onboard systems.

Get self-driving vehicles on the road in Asia, Europe and the United States.

“The automated driving chair is a logical extension of the work we have been doing for more than 20 years in collaboration with key industry players on such topics as smart cars, control, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, mobile robotics and logistics,” said Arnaud de la Fortelle, Director of MINES ParisTech’s Robotics Centre and holder of the new chair. …” Read more

I n Self-Driving Cars, a Potential Lifeline for the Disabled By PAUL STENQUIST, NOV. 7 “… In a statement provided to The Times, Google said that the potential of a self-driver to help those with disabilities could be realized only if the human operator were taken out of the equation. The company maintains that denying the driver an active role in vehicle control will also eliminate human error and improve driving safety…” Read more Hmmm …. maybe. Very much a rehash but I include it for the new reader. Alain

Getting streets ahead with Volvo’s driverless car

Craig Thomas, November 13, 2014 “…I come away from that brief insight into the future more convinced than ever that self-driving cars are inevitable. Not only will they improve our lives, but also we’ll quickly learn to rely on them. Like our smartphones, cars with autonomous capabilities will give us the ability to perform tasks in new ways and new environments, which will very quickly become second nature. We’ll soon be behind the wheel of a car and, after switching it to self-driving mode, we’ll be able to use that time on the road to read, communicate with others, watch a film, surf the web, work and even sleep – anything other than getting stressed and frustrated by traffic jams. Indeed, some early research has suggested that if something else is doing the driving, we’re more willing to accept our car going at a slower speed…” Read more

Korean Competition Shows Weather Still a Challenge for Autonomous Cars

By Evan Ackerman, 11 Nov 2014 “Last month, Hyundai quietly held its 2014 Future Automobile Technology Competition in South Korea. Out of 12 participating teams, four made it to the final round, which required the cars to navigate a test circuit. The autonomous cars were required to avoid obstacles, stop for pedestrians, obey traffic laws, and do all of the stuff that self-driving cars will have to be able to do if we’re ever going to be able to hop in, plug in a destination, and turn our attention elsewhere. The competition wasn’t anything that we haven’t seen before—except that during the second day of the competition, it rained….” Read more

Some other thoughts that deserve your time:

From Charles McManus:Important New Thoughts on Autonomous Vehicles

11/14/14

HI continue to read extensively about autonomous vehicles (AVs), and while I see significant potential, the more serious literature I review, the more skeptical I become about the popular media hype of cars without any function for a driver, going anywhere on demand. Two of the most thoughtful discussions of the limitations posed by current systems are “Who Is in Charge: the Promises and Pitfalls of Driverless Cars,” by M. L. Cummings and Jason Ryan, in the May-June 2014 TR News from TRB and “A Driverless Future?” by Paul Hutton, drawing on the views of five industry experts, in Vol. 9, No. 3 of Thinking Highways, North American edition.

Let me summarize the main points raised by this collection of experts, as follows:

Automation is inherently brittle and subject to failures;

Hence, for at least a long time, a driver must be able to take over on short notice;

We don’t really know how to provide such transitions, and the aviation experience is troubling; and,

There are ambiguous situations where we may not want the automation to make the decisions. …”

C’mon Man! (These folks didn’t get/read the memo)

Drive makes phone-using drivers keep their hands on the wheel

Ben Coxworth, Nov. 10, “When it comes to safe driving tips, taking your hands off the steering wheel to make or receive calls doesn’t rate way up there. Many people instead use hands-free voice prompt systems, although these can also be distracting, as they require users to think of the correct prompts and then speak them very clearly. Drive offers an alternative – it’s a device that’s controlled using finger movements, and it won’t work unless the user’s hands are on the wheel.

Created by former Apple engineer Ronald Isaac, the Drive device mounts magnetically on the steering column, and pairs via Bluetooth with a variety of messaging apps on the user’s iOS or Android smartphone. It emits two pulsing infrared light beams, to the 10 and 2 o’clock positions on the steering wheel. By moving their fingers – but keeping their hands on the wheel – users interrupt those beams…” Read Less

Hmmm This must be an Onion article. they can’t be serious. Why would anyone buy something that makes them do something that they don’t want to do. Are they that masochistic? If you don’t want to do it, then don’t do it! Please!!! C’mon Man!! Alain

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

Webinar hosted by Timmons Group

Transportation Engineering in the Age of Self-Driving Cars

Wednesday, November 19, 2014 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

2014 FLORIDA AUTOMATED VEHICLES SUMMIT

Walt Disney World; Coronado Springs Resort

December 15 -16, 2014

Call for Papers

Recent Versions of:

Fujitsu Laboratories develops lower-cost millimeter-wave radar for automobiles

Oct 08, Technology/Engineering “Fujitsu Laboratories today announced that it has produced a transceiver chip for millimeter-wave radar in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) implementation, which is a semiconductor process that enables costs to be reduced, while at the same time successfully boosting the short-range detection performance of the transceiver….To make the driving experience safer and more pleasant, cars are increasingly being equipped with technologies that can detect obstacles nearby and even control the brakes or accelerator in response. Technologies used for obstacle-detection include millimeter-wave radar, LiDAR, and stereoscopic cameras. Compared to LiDAR and stereoscopic cameras, which both use the visible wavelengths of light, millimeter-wave radar is relatively unaffected by rain, fog, and reflections, giving it an important role to play as an onboard sensor. The value that sensors such as these bring to cars creates an impetus to develop technologies for implementing these sensors at lower costs. …”. Read more Hmmm… Very interesting. Do read the whole article. Very promising, but not really available until 2018. October 31, 2014

N.J. Senate panel paves way for self-driving cars

Matt Friedman Oct 27 “…The bill (S734), which was approved by the state Senate Transportation Committee 5-0, would require the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission to establish a program to allow people to obtain endorsements on their driver’s licenses to operate and test “autonomous vehicles,” which aren’t on the consumer market yet but have been under research and development by tech companies and institutions for years.

“This legislation sends a strong message to innovators and job creators that New Jersey is not afraid of being the home to new thinking and the way of the future,” Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr. (R-Union), said in a statement. “…this legislation is essential to attract and retain new jobs, innovation and entrepreneurship in New Jersey, as driverless vehicle efforts here continue to progress.”..” Read more…and my lead testimony, that of Michael Scrudato of Munich Re ,Newsworks and CBS.com video interview.

Progress! (only negative testimony came from Honda which was so bad it ended up helping. C’mon Honda!) Alain October 22, 2014

Request for Comment on Automotive Electronic Control Systems Safety and Security

Volume 79, Number 194 (Tuesday, October 7, 2014); FR Doc No: 2014-23805: ACTION: Request for comments:

SUMMARY: This notice presents the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s research program on vehicle electronics and our progress on examining the need for safety standards with regard to electronic systems in passenger motor vehicles. The agency undertook this examination pursuant to the requirements of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) Division C, Title I, Subtitle D, Section 31402, Subsection (a). In addition, and in accordance with MAP-21, we are seeking comment (through this document) on various components of our examination of the need for safety standards in this area. As MAP-21 also requires this agency to report to Congress on our findings pursuant to this examination, we intend to submit a report to Congress based in part on our findings from this examination and public comments received in response to this document.

DATES: You should submit your comments early enough to ensure that Docket Management receives them no later than December 8, 2014. Read more October 10, 2014

Inaugural Automated Vehicle Summit @ Fort Monmouth

Press release. Oct 9, 2014 Princeton, NJ “New Jersey’s first summit meeting on creation of a center for research, certification, and commercialization of automated vehicle technology took place on October 3 at former Army base Fort Monmouth in Oceanport. The purpose of the meeting was to bring together stakeholders with a vested interest and the wherewithal to place New Jersey at the forefront of research into potentially life-saving technology.

More than 60 invited participants to the summit included representatives of: the insurance industry, automakers, wireless communications industry, motor vehicle regulators, public transit industry, and universities. State Senators Jennifer Beck, Thomas H. Kean, Jr., Joseph M. Kyrillos, Jr., and Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, Jr. represented New Jersey’s legislative bodies…” Read more Hmmm..Progress! Alain October 1, 2014

Mercedes-Benz sends autonomous automobiles onto the USA’s most extensive testing ground

Sunnyvale, Calif., Oct. 1, 2014 /PRNewswire/ – “ As one of the first automobile manufacturers permitted to do so, Mercedes-Benz has been testing autonomously driving automobiles on public roads in the US state of California since September. In addition, the company will from now on also use Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS), the largest test bed site in the US, for further testing of its future technology.

“We can use the test site in Concord, California, to run simulation tests with self-driving vehicles in a secure way, including specific hazardous situations”, explained Dr Axel Gern, head of autonomous driving at Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America, Inc. (MBRDNA). “Taken in conjunction with the results of our test drives on public roads, these tests will help us with the ongoing development of our autonomous cars.” The focus of research nevertheless continues to lie on the tests undertaken in a real-life environment, he emphasized….” Read more Hmmm I’m learning that the concept of using “Fort Monmouth” to test automated vehicles is a common concept. Alain October 1, 2014

Self-driving cars: California regulators probe insurance questions

Patrick Hoge Sep 15, 2014 “Self-driving cars are bearing down on California’s future, and state Department of Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones wants insurers and regulators to prepare now for their eventual arrival.

To that end, Jones hosted a public hearing at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose Monday morning to gather data about what automated vehicle technology will look like. A variety of legal and insurance experts testified, as well as a consumer rights advocate. Alain Kornhauser, a Princeton University professor of operations research and financial engineering, was enthusiastic about the potential for automated driving technologies to improve safety, unburden drivers and lower insurance costs.

Varying levels of the technology will be applied in different settings, he said. Commercial fleets, for example, could be more amenable for fully automated uses, while average drivers might use some sort of hybrid, that allows drivers to assume control when needed, he said.

Kornhauser pointed out that some automated technologies are already in widespread use, notably anti-locking brakes and stability controls that prevent drivers from turning too rapidly.

“What’s important is that these systems take over automatically and counter what I am doing wrong,” Kornhauser said. “They don’t warn. They don’t ask for permission. I can’t turn them off. They just do it.” Read more

Hmmm…

It was a really good session: Video of hearing; hearing’s agenda; background paper; my 5-minute prepared remarks; extended remarks by Prof. Robert Peterson. Alain September 8, 2014

The New Commute Mark

Svenvold “…Tomorrow’s transportation solutions will be about learning to share…

“Cars arrived and waited for riders,” Minett wrote of the Oakland commuters he observed. “Riders came and got into their cars, usually two per car on a first-come first-served basis. I saw partners arrive with partners, kiss, and part. Some waited to make sure that their partners got off safely; others left without a backward glance.” He noted that more than half of the people commuting that morning were female. Two women were walking their dogs. “One got a ride, the other carried on with the dogs.” The scene he was describing, in other words, was completely quotidian: “I saw an original VW Beetle, and a lady who got into it with a huge suitcase, and they still took a second passenger.” Later on, in a coffee shop, Minett was able to conjure his quarry in greater relief. “I’d witnessed,” he says in a YouTube video about that moment, “a community of unconnected people who share a solution to their real need and are not afraid to share their trip with a different driver or rider each day.” It was, he says memorably, “a silent transit system that is based on trust.” Read more

Hmmm…

Our studies at Princeton suggest that autonomous taxis will empower high-quality demand-responsive service at a very low price to exist everywhere by facilitating the sharing of rides when and to where there exists a natural concentration of demand; else, lonesome, solitary service will be available to places, at times, when there simply isn’t anyone else around that wants to make that trip. Much like elevator service today, except horizontally from many places to essentially anywhere else. In our studies of spatial and temporal distributions of trip demand as exists today in New Jersey, such systems can double the productivity of today’s cars, yet offer essentially the same (or in the view of some, a better) level of service. This means that energy consumption is halved, as is pollution. Congestion is essentially eliminated. Alain August 25, 2014

C’Mon Man! (These folks didn’t get/read the memo):

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards: Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) Communications

“This document initiates rulemaking that would propose to create a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS), FMVSS No. 150, to require vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication capability for light vehicles (passenger cars and light truck vehicles (LTVs)) and to create minimum performance requirements for V2V devices and messages.. “

Hmmm…

Fundamental problem is for V2V to have any chance of working of avoiding a crash between two vehicles is for both to have the communications. The probability that both vehicles have V2V doesn’t become greater than chance (0.5) until the technology is installed and working in greater than 70% of all vehicles. That level of market penetration will take at least 10 years after this is mandated for every new car that rolls off the assembly line. Moreover, even if both cars are equipped, the regulations require only that there be a warning given to the drivers. As if the drivers will know what to do if the warning is given soon enough. To give the warning soon enough, will invariably increase the false alarm rate, which in itself is likely to cause some accidents that would not have occurred and irritate some drivers to clip the wires as some have done with installed theft alarms. Furthermore, NHTSA recognizes that these systems will not be effective if drivers are impaired (page 266).

Given that 32% of driving fatalities involve alcohol-impaired driving, none of these will be saved.

So after more than 10 years of the mandate we will be at <68% non-impaired of the <50% of market penetration of the <??% that haven’t clipped their wires of the <???% that are properly working of the ????% drivers that perform the correct collision avoidance maneuver minus the number of additional accidents that have been caused by false alarms. This number may not even yet be above zero! I agree… NHTSA believes that V2V capability will not develop absent regulation, because there would not be any immediate safety benefits for consumers who are early adopters of V2V”.

Yet, if NHTSA instead “mandated” or encouraged/focused-on automated collision avoidance and automated lane keeping systems, then each of these systems would deliver some immediate safety benefits to each consumer, irrespective of any other vehicle having the system. Some benefit would also be delivered if the driver became impaired. Moreover, insurance may be willing and able to pay for much of this technology. Seems that this is the low hanging fruit. What am I missing here? Why is the sunk investment in V2V seemingly all that is steering the NHTSA ship? Alain

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