2017-01-05

January 05, 2017Newsletter archive →

M. Sena, Jan. 5, "In This Issue:

Report from Dispatch Central 1 "...While the 12 million people in the EU who earn their livings directly from the automotive industry are delighted by the news that car sales figures for November were up significantly, and it looks like 2016 will be another banner year, there are people in governments doing everything in their power to make both building and owning motorized vehicles economically unviable..." Read more

Autonomous Driving News Apple's Letter to NHTSA 1 "...The Vehicle Safety Act requires companies to certify vehicles to the FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards) before first sale. But this law applies to new motor vehicles intended for sale to the public, and by implication, by companies that make and sell cars, not companies like Apple that may or may not intend to sell cars. Further, FAST Act specifically allows car makers, but not non-car makers, to test on public roads without requiring exemptions from FMVSS...Read more "

What Car Companies Are Doing 2 "...So Uber must have made Volvo a pretty sweet offer when it gets rid of all the drivers with their own cars and has its own fleet of driverless cars...Read more"

Reurbanization or Spreading the Sprawl 3 "...Where do you want to go? My chart below has two opposing scenarios. In the top scenario, we keep doing what we have been doing. In the bottom scenario, we try to match policies with desired results. You choose...Read more"

Automotive Navigation-The Future of Traffic Info 4 "...ROUTE GUIDANCE WITHOUT traffic information is useless...Read more"

Musings of a Dispatcher – Civilis cogitationes 6 "...I did not see a lot of people cycling to their jobs when I was in Västerås in the early autumn of this year. Like most places in Europe and the U.S., when cars became affordable for people with even modest incomes—starting in the 50s in the U.S. and in the 60s in Europe—it was a delight for workers to get out of the rain and snow and into their own car. It's the same today in emerging markets, especially China,.." Read more

F. Lambert, Jan 2, "Tesla didn't want to start the new year on a bad note by missing a deadline with its Autopilot update for new cars to work is its 'Tesla Vision' image processing system and while it didn't bring the system to parity with the last generation Autopilot, the company sort of kept its 'December 2016' goal for the release of 'Enhanced Autopilot', but it's only what the automaker is calling the "first phase" of the new features...As we reported yesterday, Tesla started pushing the update to the first 1,000 cars in its fleet. It includes the Autopilot's Traffic Aware Cruise Control feature, Forward Collision Warning, and Autosteer, but it will only be enabled at "low-speed" as a beta feature...What is particularly interesting is that it's the first time features inside the vehicles are powered by the new hardware suite and Tesla Vision. ..." Read more

J. Golson, Jan 2, "All 13,000 taxis in New York City could be replaced by a fleet of 3,000 ride-sharing cars if used exclusively for carpooling, according to research published today by MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Instead of hailing taxis, passengers that use ride-sharing services for carpooling may lead to reduced traffic congestion, pollution, and fuel use.

The CSAIL researchers used public data from NYC taxi rides published by the University of Illinois to develop the algorithm. They calculated that 3,000 four-person vehicles traveling to similar destinations could meet 98 percent of taxi demand in the city with an average wait time of 2.7 minutes. Perhaps the most important part of the system is a dynamic repositioning of vehicles based on real-time demand, which makes the system 20 percent faster. ...." Read more

M. Weinreich Jan. 4, "As someone who loves cars, it is difficult to look forward to a world without driving. I remember an old Volkswagen campaign that presented the act as a metaphor for life itself, proclaiming, "On the road of life, there are passengers and there are drivers." "There are passengers and there are more passengers" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

For now, humans are still in the driver's seat, but with each new car model, there comes a steady integration of autonomous features. And as ride sharing proliferates, individual ownership starts to feel unnecessary, especially in urban environments. A major cultural shift in how people think about cars is under way, which, in turn, puts an onus on automakers to embrace this new change....we examine all of these forces at play. In the stories that follow, we enter the expanding web of industry partnerships, investments, and acquisitions ("Hardwiring Mobility"); journey through the key trends ("All Roads Lead to Intelligence"); and sit down with Mark Aikman, General Manager of Marketing Services at Mercedes-Benz USA, to discuss the automaker's efforts at creating the next level of luxury ("Redefining Luxury").

Finally, we look at the way automakers are embracing connectivity ("Designing Smarter Cars") and how that intelligence, along with autonomous driving, will shape urban areas ("Smarter Cars, Smarter Cities") :-) ....Read more

M. Wood, Jan 2, "...Hans Noordsij posted this video on twitter showing a Tesla vehicle using the Autopilot feature and how it reacted to a crash ahead.,," See the video

J. Kastrenakes, Jan 3, "Intel is buying a 15 percent stake in Here, the mapping service started by Nokia that was sold last year to Audi, BMW, and Mercedes for over $3 billion... That's a key area for Intel, as it recently announced plans to invest $250 million in building self-driving vehicle systems...." Not much to read here

T. Warren, Jan 3, "..Of course we've seen models of sharing, but I believe we're not as advanced as everyone thinks because it's not that easy. There are various definitions of autonomous driving. There's the Google way: slow speed, small mapped environment, easy to handle because you know all the parameters. You know where every little traffic light is. Slow speed is very easy to manage because it has to do with sensor power. We want to give the customer a choice. There's actually a hyper analog movement, with increasing digitization we'll also see some analog solutions, like chrono watches and vinyl records. In terms of luxury it's much more sustainable, but we will see robo cabs driving around, the Google car. We want to give the customer the choice that he can be on autopilot or drive himself..." Read more

Jan 4. No details to read.

K. Naughton, Jan 3, "Now, the supplier is shifting from stunts to selling. In Las Vegas this week at CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, Delphi will give test rides to hundreds of potential customers in driverless Audis over a course of rugged terrain and tunnels. The goal: to walk away from this critical conclave with a handful of hot prospects for its self-driving system...." Read more

C. Thompson. Jan 4, "BMW unveiled a concept for the interior of driverless cars on Wednesday at a press conference in Las Vegas at CES..." Read more

Press release, Jan 4, "A research team at the University of Waterloo played a key role in the development of a highly autonomous vehicle that Renesas Electronics America unveiled today at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Using sensors and powerful computers, the car is capable of detecting and responding to other vehicles, stop signs and traffic lights to provide a safer driving experience. For example, vehicle-to-infrastructure communications allow the vehicle to detect in advance when a traffic light will change.... "Read more

M. Gough Sept 8, "..."There's no more eye contact with the driver, there's no more gesturing, there's no one in the vehicle. So something has to be there instead to say, 'Yes, it is OK to cross'."... Read more

S. McCormick, Jan 4, "CVTA's Standards Integration Review Workshop was held on 5 October 2016... The workshop was intended to consider end-to-end security standards integration for the connected vehicle ecosystem:

•What standards are already available/in progress across the ecosystem?

•Where are the gaps and opportunities for collaboration in development, demonstration, testing of these standards?

•What should we be doing to ensure that our standards suite is sufficient to enable our ecosystem?... Read more

Jan 3, "Ford is canceling its plans to build a $1.6 billion plant in Mexico and is instead investing $700 million into its plant in Flat Rock, Michigan.

Ford President and CEO Mark Fields made the announcement at the plant Tuesday morning. He explained the transformation and expansion of the Flat Rock plant will create 700 new jobs and allow for production of electric and autonomous vehicles. Read more

http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/

Opinion, Jan 4, "...One topic the article highlighted was the safety aspect of driverless cars. Self-driving cars have the ability to prevent accidents, thus saving lives and money. ... Don't read more.

There's already not enough organs for everyone on the transplant list, and one of the major sources is people who die in car accidents. Don't read more

January 7, 2017

Las Vegas, NV

January 8-12, 2017

Washington, DC

Tuesday, 6:00pm Jan 10

December 24, 2016

J. Golson, Dec 19, "Chrysler has completed the 100 autonomous Pacifica minivans that will join the Waymo (née Google) fleet in early 2017. The vans, which are plug-in hybrid variants with Waymo's self-driving hardware and software built in, are part of a partnership between Fiat Chrysler (FCA) and Waymo that was announced earlier this year.

Waymo CEO John Krafcik said last week that his company is not interested in "making better cars." Instead, it wants to make "better drivers."..." Read more

December 18, 2016

J. Bhuiyah, Dec 14, "...In a letter addressed to Anthony Levandowski, the co-founder of Otto and now head of Uber's self-driving unit, the California DMV demanded that the ride-hail company stop operating its fleet of self-driving cars..." Read more

December 14, 2016

A. Hawkins, Dec 13, "Today, Google announced that it would be spinning off its six-year-old self-driving project into a standalone business called Waymo, which stands for "a new way forward in mobility," according to John Krafcik, the CEO of the new company.

It was previously reported that Google would be dropping its plan to build its own vehicle without steering wheels and pedals, instead focusing on creating the self-driving technology that can be installed in third-party vehicles. Krafcik didn't provide much clarity there, but did state definitively that the new company was still fully committed to fully autonomous vehicle technology.

"We are all in, 100 percent, on Level Four and Level Five fully driverless solutions," he said.

Krafcik didn't comment on a report in Bloomberg that Google would be starting its own ride-sharing service in partnership with Fiat Chrysler using the Italian car maker's Pacifica minivans as its fleet of self-driving taxis. Google and FCA announced their collaboration earlier this year. Krafcik did confirm that the self-driving Pacificas were still in the build phase, but would hopefully be on the road for testing very soon.

It may be too soon to say that Google is abandoning its plans to build its own fleet of driverless cars, without steering wheels and pedals. That said, Krafcik made it clear that Waymo "is not a car company, there's been some confusion on that point. We're not in the business of making better cars, we're in the business of making better drivers."...Read more

October 27, 2016

B. Grush, Oct. 2016, "Two contradictory stories about our transportation infrastructure are currently in circulation. One is that Ontario's aging, inadequate and congested infrastructure is perennially unable to catch up with a growing and sprawling GTHA. The other is that vehicle automation will soon dramatically multiply current road capacity by enabling narrower lanes, shorter headways and coordinated streams of connected vehicles to pass through intersections without traffic signals to impede flow.

Since the premature forecast of peak car in 2008 and now the hype surrounding the automated vehicle, we are often told that we have enough road capacity; that shared robotic taxis will optimize our trips, reduce congestion, and largely eliminate the need for parking. This advice implies we need wait only a few short years to experience relief from our current infrastructure problems given by decades of under-investment in transportation infrastructure.

This is wishful thinking. Vehicle automation will give rise to two different emerging markets: semi-automated vehicles for household consumption and fully automated vehicles for public service such as robo-taxi and robo-transit. These two vehicle types will develop in parallel to serve different social markets. They will compete for both riders and infrastructure. The purpose of this report is to look at why and how government agencies and public interest groups can and should influence the preferred types and deployment of automated vehicles and the implication of related factors for planning..." Read more

August 28, 2016

August 19, 2016

N. Boudette, Aug 16, "In the race to develop driverless cars, several automakers and technology companies are already testing vehicles that pilot themselves on public roads. And others have outlined plans to expand their development fleets over the next few years. At a news conference on Tuesday at the company's research center in Palo Alto, Calif., Mark Fields, Ford's chief executive, said the company planned to mass produce driverless cars and have them in commercial operation in a ride-hailing service by 2021....

"That means there's going to be no steering wheel. There's going to be no gas pedal. There's going to be no brake pedal,'' he said. ...." Read more

August 8, 2016

August 1, 2016

July 21, 2016

Chenyi Chen PhD Dissertation , "...the key part of the thesis, a direct perception approach is proposed to drive a car in a highway environment. In this approach, an input image is mapped to a small number of key perception indicators that directly relate to the affordance of a road/traffic state for driving....." Read more

March 23

2017-01-05

Volume 4, Issue 3

Some other thoughts that deserve your attention

Half-baked stuff that probably doesn't deserve your time

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

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