2014-11-23

November 23, 2014

November 22, 2014

A Road Test of Alternative Fuel Visions

Hydrogen Cars Join Electric Models in Showrooms

By KENNETH CHANG NOV. 18, 2014 “…

Hydrogen fuel cells readily scale up, even to trucks and buses.

A kilogram of hydrogen contains as much chemical energy as a gallon of gasoline, but fuel cells are more efficient than internal combustion engines, so fuel-cell cars like the Mirai have a 300-mile range, comparable to present-day gasoline cars. Filling up at a hydrogen pump takes about the same few minutes as filling a tank of gas, instead of hours plugged in to an outlet. Even Tesla’s high-powered superchargers need 20 minutes to give a Model S half a charge….

…Not surprisingly, the strategy has its critics, particularly from competing Tesla. Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla, mocks fuel cells as “fool cells” that will lose in the marketplace to battery electric cars like his. Battery electrics are more efficient than fuel cells and are cheaper to operate. And there are currently many more places to plug in than places to top off a tank of hydrogen….”

Read more Looked into this in the 70’s. Is the “Hydrogen Economy” emerging from its “40 year” gestation in the desert”. :-) Alain

Also:

Honda Preps New Fuel Cell Vehicle for World Market Debut

And:

Severe Issues with Fuel Cell Vehicle GHG Emissions Claims and Hydrogen Refueling Infrastructure Grants Presented is a very critical view of the environmental impacts of fuel cells. Alain

Automakers are rolling out features en route to self-driving cars

Charles Fleming 11/20/14 “…a host of autonomous or semiautonomous features are already offered on many of the vehicles featured at this month’s Los Angeles Auto Show… Many vehicles now come standard with features that will monitor blind spots, warn a driver against drifting out of a lane, or emit beeps or seat vibrations if an object is too close for safety. Others have adaptive cruise control, a technology that can read traffic conditions and automatically direct the car to slow down or speed up. More advanced systems, using combinations of radar, sonar and GPS, can detect an impending wreck and take emergency action, such as slamming on the brakes…. Volvo’s XC90, the company says, is the first car to feature automatic braking if a driver turns in front of oncoming traffic. Volvo boasts an “adaptive cruise control with Pilot Assist” combination that allows driverless acceleration, braking and steering in stop-and-go traffic….” Read more Hmmm… The race is heating up. Alain

In a self-driving future, we may not even want to own cars

Jerry Hirsch 11/21/14 “…For a century, cars have been symbols of freedom and status. Passengers of the future may well view vehicles as just another form of public transportation, to be purchased by the trip or in a subscription…Buying sexy, fast cars for garages could evolve into buying seat-miles in appliance-like pods, piloted by robots, parked in public stalls.

“There will come a time when driving the car is like riding the horse,” said futurist Peter Schwartz. “Some people will still like to do it, but most of us won’t.”…

James Lentz, chief executive of Toyota’s North American operations, also questions a future of autonomous transport pods. “You will still have people who have the passion for driving the cars and feeling the road,” Lentz said. “There may be times when they want the cars to drive them, but they won’t be buying autonomous-only cars.”…” Read more Hmmmm ….Joe Smith, head of Kodak. “You will still have people who have the passion for film, waiting for it to be developed, pasting the 3x5’s in an album and putting the album on a shelf.” Alain

Study Shows Technology Makes or Breaks Car Purchase Decisions

Nov 17, 2014 “… findings of the 2014 In-Vehicle Technology Shopper Influence Study - conducted online on its behalf by Harris Poll among 1,033 U.S. vehicle owners between October 15th and 20th, 2014, which provides insight into how vehicle technology impacts consumer vehicle purchase decisions. In its first year, this study sheds light on what vehicle owners are willing to sacrifice to get the features they want, the kinds of technologies they’re putting at the top of their shopping lists and what manufacturers can do to ensure that shoppers drive off the lot with their vehicle. ..

The vast majority of vehicle owners prioritize safety features over infotainment (84 percent), with things like blind spot detection and back-up cameras/sensors rising to the top of the list. And while vehicle owners remain leery of fully autonomous vehicles (65 percent of vehicle owners think self-driving cars are a dangerous idea), six in ten (61 percent) are likely to consider a model with autonomous safety features like park assist and collision avoidance on their next purchase….” Read more Hmmm…

Encouraging; however, the survey was by On-line which may imply substantial bias? Alain

Some other thoughts that deserve your time:

The Unknown Start-up That Built Google’s First Self-Driving Car

Mark Harris Posted 19 Nov 2014 “Two of Google’s signature innovations, Street View cameras and self-driving cars, were actually developed by 510 Systems, a small start-up that the tech giant quietly bought in 2011…” Read more This is a very interesting article. Enjoy :-) Alain

New Driverless Shuttle Developed from Vision Guidance Tech

11/14/2014 “… The technology, which is based on the use of simple video cameras, was developed by researchers at Institut Pascal (CNRS/Université Blaise Pascal de Clermont Ferrand/IFMA). It lies at the heart of the EZ-10 autonomous shuttle vehicle developed by Ligier Group, which was unveiled at the Michelin Challenge Bibendum in Chengdu (China) from November 11 to 14

EZ10

The EZ-10 is an autonomous electric vehicle (without any driver). It is designed to cover short and predefined routes like pedestrian city centres, airports, amusement parks, parking spaces or even industrial sites. Read more See video

A System That Any Automaker Can Use to Build Self-Driving Cars

By Alex Davies 11.18.14 “…Delphi … built a self-driving car, but it won’t be sold to the public. This robo-car, based on an Audi, is a shopping catalog for automakers. The car contains every element needed to build a truly autonomous system, elements Delphi will happily sell. In other words, it’s an off-the-shelf autonomous system that could help automakers catch up with Google.” Read more

Correction!

Not From Charles McManus; but from 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. …”

Half-baked stuff that probably doesn’t deserve your time:

Google Gets It Wrong Again

November 16, 2014 11:24 rlanctot “… There are some things about the automotive industry that Google just doesn’t get and one of those is the fact that some of us, in fact most of us, are perfectly happy driving our cars. Some of us even thrive on the driving experience – love it. For Google? Driving is a distraction – a distraction from Google….” Hmmm…

Really, of the last 100 hours that you spent driving your car, how many of those hours did you a) enjoy driving __?; b) tolerate driving __?; c) would have preferred to have someone else drive__? and d) could imagine that you might have welcomed the car to drive itself ___?

Alain “… The first part is pervasive skepticism that a pedal-less, steering wheel-less car is practical, possible or attractive to anyone or for any application…The second part is the fact that the driving experience is in the midst of a major revolution and the steering wheel is very much a part of that…. enabling a wider range of gesture recognition applications….” Hmmm but if the gesture recognition is so great, isn’t the steering wheel redundant and in the way? Alain Read more

IDEO Imagines the Wild Future of Self-Driving Cars

By Liz Stinson 11.18.14 “…The road to fully-autonomous cars might be paved, but there are plenty of lingering questions to answer before we ease our white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. For instance: How will we communicate with our cars now that they’re smart? What happens if our cars make a mistake? Will they really look like a Pixar character? “There are some really challenging human-machine interactions that haven’t been totally thought through yet,” says Danny Stillion, a partner at IDEO….This is a long-term vision, and it’s a provocation more than anything. But with a little imagination—and some technological optimism—we may be seeing some form of these concepts on the road sooner than we think. Let’s get to it….” Read more, another version: This Is What Mobility Will Look Like In 15 Years

and Something really goofy (glassHoles would make it less goofy) from Mercedes: This is the car interior of the future, according to Mercedes Hmmm…All of this needs a lot more thought and creativity. There is little to build on. Consider today’s vehicles that we don’t drive ourselves: taxis, shuttles, limos, buses, trains, planes, and the passenger area of our cars… precious little has been done to these vehicles to accommodate passengers. We need a clean sheet of paper here. Alain

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

By Steve Johnson 11/12/2014 Good background article, but mostly rehash. Alain

Driverless cars compete in China

17 November 2014 “China has been holding its sixth driverless car competition, with the unmanned vehicles having to navigate their way through various obstacles…” Read more

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

Carnegie Mellon College of Engineering Marks the 30th Birthday of Self-Driving Car Technology

Nov. 19, 2014 PITTSBURGH–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) will celebrate 30 years of self-driving car technology on November 20. Carnegie Mellon is the birthplace of self-driving or autonomous vehicle (AV) technology. In the next decade, self-driving cars will revolutionize transportation worldwide…” Read more Hmmm… Really… There was Bob Fenton at The Ohio State University in the late 70s and guys at RCA Sarnoff labs in Princeton in the early 70s let alone the GM concepts dating back to 1939. C’mon CMU! Alain

What’s your take on autonomous truck platooning? ATRI wants to know

November 17, 201 “The American Transportation Research Institute wants to hear from carriers and drivers about the use of truck platooning systems, also dubbed Driver Assistive Truck Platooning, ATRI says. The survey will be open through Dec. 8. Click here to take it. Read more Hmmm…

Unless Platooned drivers accrue hour-of-service credits the benefits of platooning are infinitesimal; however, since the Platooning’s Automated Collision Avoidance Technology has an attractive ROI because of its substantial reduction of accident liability expenses, it is available at essentially zero incremental cost. Alain The C’mon Man is for the push for Platooning instead of Automated Collision Avoidance Technology

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

Novel Modes Workshop

December 2 & 3, 2014

2014 FLORIDA AUTOMATED VEHICLES SUMMIT

Walt Disney World; Coronado Springs Resort

December 15 -16, 2014

Call for Papers

Recent Versions of:

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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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