[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> CONGRESS UNITES (GASP) TO SPREAD SELF-DRIVING CARS ACROSS AMERICA

A. Marshal, Sept 7, "ON WEDNESDAY, THE House of Representatives did something that’s woefully uncommon these days: It passed a bill with bipartisan support. The bill, called the SELF DRIVE (Safely Ensuring Lives, Future Deployment and Research In Vehicle Evolution) Act (H.R. 3388), lays out a basic federal framework for autonomous vehicle regulation, signaling that federal lawmakers are finally ready to think seriously about self-driving cars and what they mean for the future of the country.... Lawmakers, for their part, hope the legislation strikes a balance between allowing tech and car companies to test whatever, wherever, and giving them enough leeway to try stuff out, collect some data, and determine the best way to operate vehicles without a driver....
First, the legislation works out a way for the federal government’s rules to trump state laws and rules. It officially gives the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration power to regulate vehicle design, construction, and performance—the way it does with, well, normal cars. States still have authority over vehicle registration and licensing, but they’ll have a harder time making demands about what goes on inside the car....
Second, the legislation requires autonomous vehicle manufacturers be deliberate about the way they share their passengers’ data....
Finally, the legislation makes it a lot easier for self-driving cars to hit the road....
What’s Next?  Well, this is just the first half of this process. Now the Senate has to pass its own bill. Then both houses will work together to come up with compromise legislation that the president can sign...."  Read more Hmmmm... While not a high bar, this is likely to be the best thing Congress has done so far this year.  Putting the burden on NHTSA when it has so much to do with conventional cars may be just too much.  Since all of this, especially Driverless, is so radically new, it probably deserves a new 'Administration', a new entity, that has a clean sheet of paper with which to work this technology, much as trucks and airlines have with their own 'Administration'.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt=""> Self-Driving Cars Bill in Senate Veers Into Tricky Truck Debate

R. Beene, Sept 8, "...The staff draft bill from Senators John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, and Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, released on Friday included optional language that could extend it to all motor vehicles, a sign they are undecided about whether to include large commercial vehicles. Similar legislation passed by the House this week excluded vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds after facing pressure from labor unions....The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the largest union for U.S. truck drivers, and other unions successfully lobbied to exclude commercial trucks from the House legislation, saying supplanting drivers could be unsafe and cost jobs...." Read more Hmmmm... Labor is COMPLETELY missing the point here.  This, the house bill and essentially all of the 'industry' (except maybe Waymo) are all about Self-driving and NOT Driverless.  Self-driving REQUIRES that a human driver be in the vehicle ready to take over control and save the day.  So it CAN'T eliminate any job.  Moreover, it vastly improves driver 'occupational safety', 'workplace environment' and possibly even extends allowable hours-of-service so as to increase take-home pay.  These are organized labor's 'bread & butter' values.  How could labor not be 110% behind this legislation for TRUCKS & BUSES???  'Driverless Class 8s' are decades in the future simply because there is so very little economic benefit, if any, to removing the driver.   The cargo in a 53 foot, 102 inch trailer is so valuable that it deserves and can easily afford a human driver/caretaker. 

Truck driving is a very challenging job.  Drivers need and deserve technological help to make their jobs safer and tolerable.  I'm amazed that organized labor would not be 110% behind this technology.  Alain 

[log in to unmask]" alt=""> Speech at the Driving Future Platform in the European

Sept 5, "...So what are our next steps from here?    First, the platform of Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems will publish the final report of its second phase on 20 September. We expect to see C-ITS equipped vehicles on European roads by 2019. The Commission will also provide legal certainty for C-ITS deployment in 2018.

The GEAR 2030 conclusions (on 18 October) will result in a roadmap focusing on political, ethical and regulatory aspects to ensure an effective deployment of connected and automated vehicles in the years to come.

Soon after, we will publish the 2018-2019 Work Programme of Horizon 2020 where a whole chapter will be dedicated to automation...."  Read more Hmmmm... Some nice reports are coming it seems as if the Europe Commission hasn't gotten the memo  that 'Connected' is out and 'Autonmous' is in. 

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="39" width="51"> As Bike-Sharing Brings Out Bad Manners, China Asks, What’s Wrong With Us?

J. Hernandez, Sept 2, "...There are now more than 16 million shared bicycles on the road in China’s traffic-clogged cities, thanks to a fierce battle for market share among 70-plus companies backed by a total of more than $1 billion in financing. These start-ups have reshaped the urban landscape, putting bikes equipped with GPS and digital locks on almost every street corner in a way that Silicon Valley can only dream of.

But their popularity has been accompanied by a wave of misbehavior. Because the start-ups do not use fixed docking stations, riders abandon bicycles haphazardly along streets and public squares, snarling traffic and cluttering sidewalks. Thieves have taken them by the tens of thousands, for personal use or selling them for parts. Angry and mischievous vandals hang them in trees, bury them in construction sites and throw them into lakes and rivers...."  Read more Hmmmm... Nothing is easy.  Without active 'empty vehicle management' all of the vehicles will eventually end up pilled up in locations where 'not enough' users want to fetch them.  Demand is never symmetric, nor is it cyclic with any kind or reasonable periodicity!  So the above shouldn't be surprising anyone.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="46" width="49"> Motor Vehicle Deaths Drop Slightly in First Half of 2017 But Remain 8% Higher Than Same Period Two Years Ago

Aug 15, " Preliminary estimates from the National Safety Council indicate motor vehicle deaths in the first six months of 2017 are 1% lower than they were during the same six-month period in 2016. However, the country is fresh off the steepest estimated two-year increase in motor vehicle deaths since 1964, and it is too early to conclude whether the upward trend is over. The estimated deaths during the first six months of 2017 still are 8% higher than the 2015 six-month estimates, and the final six months of the calendar year – July to December – tend to be deadlier than the first six...." Read more Hmmmm... Not good!   Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="19" width="131"> Denver hopes 300 new charging stations will accelerate switch to electric cars

B. Finley, Aug 16, "...City officials on Wednesday said 300 charging stations for electric vehicles will be set up around metro Denver over the next two years. They’re also looking at changes in the city building code to encourage installation of more charging stations near proliferating apartments and condos.

Lawsuit settlement money paid by Volkswagen after the diesel emissions test scandal will help fund Denver’s effort.  Great use of that money

Colorado residents have registered more than 10,000 plug-in vehicles, up from 1,200 four years ago. Nearly 2 percent of new vehicles sold in the state are plug-ins, We are still at the beginning...There are at least 35 types of electric vehicles listed for purchase this summer, up from three in 2012. ...they are advocating for charging at apartment buildings, grocery stores, office towers, gas stations, parks, shops, parking meters and along major transit corridors, Hmmmm... Why 'transit corridors', to help yet another competitor to transit??? ...  The best rapid-charging stations, which can fully revive a dead battery in 30 minutes, cost around $100,000..."  Read more  Hmmmm... This remains one of several Achilles' Heels of PEVs (batteries and road fees being the others). Takes 10x time to 'fill up' to get less than half the range.  If PEVs replace half of the fleet we wont need half of the existing gas pumps but for each gas pump we don't need we'll need 10x charging station.  Oh, but we'll all charge at home in our garages.  (What happens to all of the junk that's stored our garages while leaving our cars in the driveway.  Oh, but that's just me.  Sorry!) Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> GOOGLE'S NEW STREET VIEW CAMERAS WILL HELP ALGORITHMS INDEX THE REAL WORLD

T. Simonite, Sept 5, "... Higher quality images coming from the new hardware now atop Google’s Street View vehicles will allow those systems to extract information like that more reliably. “From a machine learning perspective, everything gets better,” says Andrew Lookingbill, an engineer working on the technology. It will also help his team’s efforts to build new software even better at understanding the world. They’re thinking about trying to automatically recognize different types of business from their appearance and reading finer-grained information like opening hours signs...." Read more Hmmmm... Enormous opportunity to automatically index and expand the affordances of locations.   Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt=""> Siemens buys self-driving software specialist Tass

Staff, Aug 30, "German industrial group Siemens has agreed to buy Dutch self-driving software specialist Tass International for an undisclosed sum to strengthen its automotive business, it said on Wednesday.

Tass makes software that can simulate complex traffic scenarios, validate autonomous driving and advanced driver assistance systems and replicate the impact of a car crash on a human body... "  Read more Hmmmm... Interesting.  Is Siemens getting back into the Auto Supplier business?
Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Something to Call My Own

B. Rush & B. Schlecter, Aug '17, "... the challenges of ride-sharing in an autonomous future. ..Frequent assertions that car owners will easily abandon ownership and become robo-vehicle ride buyers are largely wishful thinking... How much travelers tend toward increased vehicle ownership and how much toward car-and ride- sharing depends at least as much on human behavioral preferences and habit as on pure economic considerations....

Two great myths surround vehicle automation.  The first is that technology will drive traffic congestion out of our transport system,  This cannot happen soon for four reasons...

The second great driverless-vehicle myth is that "no one will own a car"... Read more Hmmmm... Well written 'other' views.  It won't be easy, and of course, it won't be everywhere (Amazon hasn't eliminated every brick&mortar store, but is certainly has changed things.)  We had reached a point where essentially everyone in the family needed their own car because we had located our families in places in which one needed one's own car to get anywhere and everybody was going different places at different times and there were no alternatives.  Alternatives seem to be appearing and are becoming known (car-sharing, Uber/Lyft, Apps....).   It used to be that many students brought cars to campus every year.  Not so much anymore.  Car-sharing, Uber/Lyft, Apps... have changed that.  Households have begun to not need multi-cars.  So at least the 2nd derivative of CarOwnership(t) has changed sign and maybe even the 1st.  Unfortunately the RideSharing needle hasn't begun to move.  It needs Driverless is a Necessary Condition which has yet to even begin to emerge. 

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="30" width="91"> Autonomous Vehicles

EDGE, 2017, "For investors, the rise of autonomous vehicles has the potential to impact industries as far afield as health care, insurance, internet and infrastructure. ... The biggest challenge facing the adoption of autonomous vehicles today is achieving the requisite level of accuracy required to drive safely on public roads in mixed traffic. The decision-making and driving capability of autonomous vehicles need to be practically flawless. Ensuring this high standard is met requires training the autonomous
vehicle with massive amounts of data that takes into account any possible situation it may encounter and extensive safety testing to validate that the autonomous vehicle performs as expected at all times. Once the safety of the systems is established, another large hurdle to adoption will be the regulatory environment. Governments and regulatory bodies need to develop frameworks to permit the operation of autonomous vehicles on public streets and highways...." Read more Hmmmm... Pretty fundamental.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="20" width="120">Pod Traveling at 201 MPH Wins Elon Musk's Hyperloop Competition

S. Pappas, Aug 28, "A team of students from Germany sent a carbon-plastic pod whizzing through a tube at 201 mph (324 km/h) last weekend, securing the top spot in Elon Musk's second Hyperloop competition.  Musk,... envisions as a series of underground vacuum tubes through which transportation pods levitated by air would zoom at nearly the speed of sound.

In January, SpaceX held its first Hyperloop Competition for students to test prototypes of pods. The winning team, WARR Hyperloop from the Technical University of Munich, again took top prize in the second Hyperloop Pod Competition, which was held between Aug. 25 and 27. The team's pod was one of only three that met the technical criteria for testing inside the 0.8-mile (1.28 km) tube at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California....Read more Hmmmm... And see the video.  Still hard to see how this beats conventional airplanes in anything but a niche market, if even such a market even exists.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Video: Watch a Self-Driving Car be Tested for Highway Driving

P. Brown, Sept 6, "AImotive and Groupe PSA are partnering to test a new highway pilot program to deliver level 4 autonomous driving capabilities on highways at speeds of more than 80 miles per hour. The project will deploy artificial intelligence functionalities such as adaptive cruise control, fully automated lane change, autonomous take-over and collision avoidance. The goal is to demonstrate how AI can be used for future autonomous highway driving at level 4.... Read more Hmmmm... See video in text.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Via raises $250M led by Daimler to bring its carpooling technology to Europe

I. Lunden, Sept 4, "...Via — which has developed a shuttle-based carpooling service that it offers directly in the U.S. for a flat-rate starting at $5, as well as through platform partnerships with other transportation providers — has raised what it is describing as a “strategic investment” led by German automaker Daimler to expand into Europe as well as to work more closely on other business opportunities together. Alongside this, Daimler’s Mercedes Benz division is investing $50 million into a joint venture with the startup. The full amount of funding has not been disclosed, but we understand from a source very close to the deal that it is $250 million.

The sizeable funding underscores ongoing momentum in the transportation industry to build more tech-based solutions, updating outmoded legacy infrastructure with more efficient services that can meet the new demand for on-demand...."  Read more Hmmmm... Wow!  Dynamic ridesharing has come a long way.  The more scale the more effective, so it is nice to see this enthusiasm at trying to achieve cross-over scale.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Tesla battery predicted to have 80% capacity after 840,000 km (521,000 mi)

M. D'angelo, Sept 4, "An updated battery study based on crowdsourced data from Model S and Model X owners suggests that Tesla’s battery pack will still have 80% capacity after reaching 840,000 kilometers (521,952 miles), or nearly 1 million kilometers driven.  An online spreadsheet created by Matteo and maintained by Merijn Coumans via the Dutch-Belgium Tesla Forum tracks battery degradation being experienced by roughly 900 Tesla drivers from around the world..." Read more Hmmmm... This is  actually very good because these batteries are very expensive.  Alain

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Some other thoughts that deserve your attention

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> 2017 Solar Eclipse Images

R. Vanderbei, Sept 2, Solar eclipse images taken by my colleague Bob Vanderbei in Salem OR, Sept 21, 2017 See Images  Hmmmm... Very nice!!! I could not see flares with my naked eyes, but the corona was really impressive.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> FOR SUPERPOWERS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FUELS NEW GLOBAL ARMS RACE

T. Simonite, Sept. 8, "FOR MANY RUSSIAN students, the academic year started last Friday with tips on planetary domination from President Vladimir Putin:  “Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia but for all humankind,” he said, via live video beamed to 16,000 selected schools. “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.” Putin’s advice is the latest sign of an intensifying race among Russia, China, and the US to accumulate military power based on artificial intelligence...

Algorithms good at searching holiday photos can be repurposed to scour spy satellite imagery, for example, while the control software needed for an autonomous minivan is much like that required for a driverless tank. ..."    Read more Hmmmm... Yup! Alain

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[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Papers submitted under review for presentation at the 97th Annual Meeting of the TRB and for publication in Transportation Research Record (2018) co-authored by K. Kockelman:

Americans Plans for Acquiring & Using Electric, Shared & Self-Driving Vehicles- Neil Quarles & Kara Kockelman

Fleet Performance & Cost Evaluation of a Shared Autonomous Electric Vehicle (SAEV) Fleet: A Case Study for Austin, Texas - Ben Loeb & Kara Kockelman.

What Will Autonomous Trucking Do to U.S. Trade Flows? Application of the Random-Utility-Based Multi-Regional Input-Output Model - Yantao Huang & Kara Kockelman.

Analyzing the Dynamic Ride-Sharing Potential for Shared Autonomous Vehicle Fleets using Cellphone Data from Orlando, Florida - Krishna Murthy Gurumurthy & Kara Kockelman.

Deeper Understanding of Americans Autonomous Vehicle Preferences: Questions on Long-Distance Travel, Ride-Sharing, Privacy, & Crash Ethics - Krishna Murthy Gurumurthy, Kara Kockelman, & Jeffrey (Hyungseung) Hahm. 

Anticipating Long-Distance Travel Shifts due to Self-Driving Vehicles - Ken Perrine, Kara Kockelman & Yantao Huang.

 

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

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

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="39" width="50"> Lilium, a Flying Car St art-up, Raises $90 Million

M. Merced, Sept 5, "As interest in flying cars continues to swell, one of the most prominent start-ups working on the technology has gained a big new backer.  Lilium Aviation, a German company that held a successful test flight of the Eagle, its two-seat electric jet at their Munich base this year, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $90 million in a new round of financing...."  Read more Hmmmm... I guess there is some opportunity as replacements to some helicopters.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt=""> I'm Not Sold on Self-Driving Cars

M. Buchanan, Sept 8, "They could actually be less safe and more troublesome..."  Read more Hmmmm... If true, then no one will be selling anything, so you won't need to worry about being 'Sold' on anything.  If they are more safe and less troublesome, then what's your positions???  Now that would make this article worth while reading.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Jaguar's Future-Type concept plots autonomous course to 2040 and beyond

C. Weiss, Sept 8, " very different kind of Jaguar "F" Type, the all-new Future-Type concept leaps ahead a few decades, exploring what personal luxury transportation might look like in and beyond 2040. The new concept molds a sleek, self-guiding electric pod around the intelligent Sayer steering wheel previewed earlier this week. In Jaguar's greater vision, artificial intelligence coordinates your everyday transportation needs and takes care of many other daily tasks at the sound of your voice...The narrow body is optimized for tight urban streets and parking decks."  Read more Hmmmm... Very half baked.  See video.  Tight urban streets yet depicted on wide-open x-urban freeway.  'parking deck'  Not a chance, Sorry! Alain

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

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Calendar of Upcoming Events:

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Recent Highlights of:

[log in to unmask]" class="" height="76" width="129" border="0">

Friday, September 1, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="21" width="133"> Automated Vehicles: Are We Moving Too Fast or Too Slow?

M. Sena, Sept, '17, "ARE WE MOVING too fast to get ‘No Humans Needed’ automated vehicles onto our roads, or are we dragging our feet? The Move Faster lobby says every day that passes without robots driving all our cars, close to a million people die needlessly in traffic accidents.  Here are the numbers, and they are grim:...

The Move Slower camp says that we don’t really know for sure that robots are better drivers than humans, we are not yet certain what changes will be required to the transport infrastructure to accommodate a mix of human and robot-driven vehicles and, perhaps most importantly, turning over our cars, trucks and buses to robots may be just another nail in the human race’s coffin....

... I am arguing in favor of caution...." Read more Hmmmm... First, as I have pointed out many times, the safety objective can be fully obtained with Safe-driving (automated collision avoidance and lane keeping) and doesn't need Self-driving (automated with a ready and able driver just waiting to "save the day" and take control and drive conventionally)  or Driverless (no one is there to take control and/or there are no controls available to drive conventionally).  The mobility objective (leveling the mobility 'playing field' (affordable on-demand ubiquitous mobility) for everyone (including goods) requires Driverless (is not addressed by Safe- or Self-driving vehicles).  With respect to safety, there can be no support for anything more than politically-correct caution because there is no evidence to date that any of the automated collision avoidance systems and automated lane centering systems cause any crashes.  So it should be ' full steam ahead'!

With respect to our desire to address the mobility objective, which requires Driverless, extreme caution is where we are (we are still at 'absolute zero') and the enormity of the undertaking is so large that extreme caution is all that is possible.   To my knowledge, we have had only one ride (by Waymo) that was 'Driverless in mixed traffic on an unaltered/unprepared public street'. (and that ride was likely (and appropriately) monitored remotely by an army of Waymo engineers ready to take over if anything bad or challenging was about to happen. So while we have logged 'the first VMT (vehicle mile traveled)',  we aren't yet to even two decimal places of VMT (100th VMT).  Caution is what we have been doing and is the only thing that we can do.  But we must get on with it else we make zero dent in the mobility objective.  (Self-driving is all about enhancing the comfort and convenience of the conventional private automobile and enhancing the existing legacy auto industry.  While it claims, it doesn't deserve, the safety kudos and it exacerbates rather than soothe the mobility gap between the haves and have-nots.).   See also the other articles in this issue of The Dispatcher.   Alain

Friday, August 25, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

A. Madrigal, aUG 23, " a corner of Alphabet’s campus, there is a team working on a piece of software that may be the key to self-driving cars. No journalist has ever seen it in action until now. They call it Carcraft, after the popular game World of Warcraft....Hmmmm...  Waymo's naming should have been a play of GTA V such as "Maximus Furtum IV". Oh, but that's our version of this.   :-) Alain
 
...Scenarios like this form the base for the company’s powerful simulation apparatus. “The vast majority of work done—new feature work—is motivated by stuff seen in simulation,” Stout tells me. This is the tool that’s accelerated the development of autonomous vehicles at Waymo...
...Collectively, they now drive 8 million miles per day in the virtual world. In 2016, they logged 2.5 billion virtual miles...
...In that virtual space, they can unhitch from the limits of real life and create thousands of variations of any single scenario, and then run a digital car through all of them....
...Not surprisingly, the hardest thing to simulate is the behavior of the other people. It’s like the old parental saw: “I’m not worried about you driving. I’m worried about the other people on the road.”...
...They call it “fuzzing,” and in this case, there are 800 scenarios generated by this four-way stop. It creates a beautiful, lacy chart—and engineers can go in and see how different combinations of variables change the path that the car would decide to take....
...“That iteration cycle is tremendously important to us and all the work we’ve done on simulation allows us to shrink it dramatically,” Dolgov told me. “The cycle that would take us weeks in the early days of the program now is on the order of minutes.”...
...The power is that they mirror the real world in the ways that are significant to the self-driving car and allow it to get billions more miles than physical testing would allow. For the driving software running the simulation, it is not like making decisions out there in the real world. It is the same as making decisions out there in the real world..."  Read more Hmmmm... Excellent!! However, the description focuses on the 'testing' side.  What about the 'training' side?  Not much divulged here.   Alain

Monday, August 21, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="39" width="50"> Driverless-Car Outlook Shifts as Intel Takes Over Mobileye

E. Boudette, Aug 8, "...Mobileye will remain based in Israel, and its co-founder Amnon Shashua will head all of Intel’s autonomous-vehicle efforts. The other founder, Ziv Aviram, is retiring from Mobileye to focus on another company he started, OrCam, which makes artificial-vision devices that allow the visually impaired to understand text and identify objects..." Read more Hmmmm...  Will Intel really not screw this up?   Alain

Monday, August 7, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">Cadillac’s Super Cruise ‘autopilot’ is ready for the expressway

M Burns, Aug 3, "Cadillac is about to start selling vehicles with an autonomous driving mode ...Once the light bar on top of the steering wheel turns green, the driver can let go...

“Wait for the green light and let go,” the Cadillac engineer instructed. That’s it. The car was driving itself. I, the person behind the steering wheel, was no longer the driver. Cadillac’s Super Cruise system was driving.  The 2018 Cadillac CT6 sped along US-23 under the direction of Super Cruise. Traffic was light and the weather was perfect. The system held the Cadillac sedan in lane and responded appropriately to traffic. I spent an hour on the expressway and touched the steering wheel and pedals only a few times.  Super Cruise made the drive boring. I think that’s the point....

When active, Super Cruise controls the steering and speed, but again, only on an expressway. This is done through on board sensors and using GPS and mapping data. GM employed GeoDigital, a startup in GM Venture’s portfolio, to map 160,000 miles of expressways in the U.S. and Canada. The car company then used Super Cruise-equipped vehicles to test each mile.

Cadillac’s system also lacks several autonomous features found on Autopilot including the ability to pull the car out of a garage and change lanes by using the turn signals. Hmmmm...  fluff features with little value.

Super Cruise’s IR sensors tracks eye location and head movements. As long as the driver looks at the road every seven to 20 seconds, the system works as expected.  Hmmmm... Fantastic!

General Motors will have to rely on independently owned dealerships to correctly position this product and train buyers on its capabilities. Hmmmm... Yup!

For better or worse, Super Cruise is built into the CT6 like a standard system and not something a driver must use every time they’re on an expressway. This should help timid buyers.  Super Cruise feels like a feature ready for the masses. The system is deeply integrated into the vehicle and using it is akin to using cruise control or turning on the lights. There’s a button for Super Cruise on the steering wheel. Press the button when the system is available and it works. It’s that easy to turn a driver into a passenger. Read more Hmmmm...  Over the air updates?  See also Motor Trend's view: "... a stand-alone option (as yet unpriced) on CT6 models with the premium luxury trim package and as standard equipment on top Platinum models (the price of which went up $500 for 2018, if that’s any indication)...."  Finally, I guess that I'll have to go test drive one.  Alain