[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="48" width="48">PRELIMINARY REPORT: HIGHWAY: HWY18MH010 (Uber/Herzberg Crash)

KMay 24, "About 9:58 p.m., on Sunday, March 18, 2018, an Uber Technologies, Inc. test vehicle, based on a modified 2017 Volvo XC90 and operating with a self-driving system in computer control mode, struck a pedestrian on northbound Mill Avenue, in Tempe, Maricopa County, Arizona.

...The vehicle was factory equipped with several advanced driver assistance functions by Volvo Cars, the original manufacturer. The systems included a collision avoidance function with automatic emergency
braking, known as City Safety, as well as functions for detecting driver alertness and road sign information. All these Volvo functions are disabled when the test vehicle is operated in computer control..." Read more  Hmmmm.... Uber must believe that its systems are better at avoiding Collisions and Automated Emergency Braking than Volvo's.  At least this gets Volvo "off the hook". 

"...According to data obtained from the self-driving system, the system first registered radar and LIDAR observations of the pedestrian about 6 seconds before impact, when the vehicle was traveling at 43 mph..." (= 63 feet/second)  So the system started "seeing an obstacle when it was 63 x 6 = 378 feet away... more than a football field, including end zones!   

"...As the vehicle and pedestrian paths converged, the self-driving system software classified the pedestrian as an unknown object, as a vehicle, and then as a bicycle with varying expectations of future travel path..." (NTSB: Please tell us precisely when it classified this "object' as a vehicle and be explicit about the expected "future travel paths."  Forget the path, please just tell us the precise velocity vector that Uber's system attached to the "object", then the "vehicle".  Why didn't the the Uber system instruct the Volvo to begin to slow down (or speed up) to avoid a collision?  If these paths (or velocity vectors) were not accurate, then why weren't they accurate?  Why was the object classified as a   "Vehicle" ??  When did it finally classify the object as a "bicycle"?  Why did it change classifications?  How often was the classification of this object done.  Please divulge the time and the outcome of each classification of this object.  In the tests that Uber has done, how often has the system mis-classified an object as a "pedestrian"when the object was actually an overpass, or an overhead sign or overhead branches/leaves that the car could safely pass under, or was nothing at all?? (Basically, what are the false alarm characteristics of Uber's Self-driving sensor/software system as a function of vehicle speed and time-of-day?)  

"...At 1.3 seconds before impact, (impact speed was 39mph = 57.2 ft/sec) the self-driving system determined that an emergency braking maneuver was needed to mitigate a collision" (1.3 x 57.2 = 74.4 ft. which is about equal to the braking distance. So it still could have stopped short.

"...According to Uber, emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce (eradicate??) the potential for erratic vehicle behavior. ..." NTSB:  Please describe/define potential  and erratic vehicle behavior   Also please uncover and divulge the design & decision process that Uber went through to decide that this risk (disabling the AEB) was worth the reward of eradicating " "erratic vehicle behavior".  This is fundamentally BAD design.  If the Uber system's false alarm rate is so large that the best way to deal with false alarms is to turn off the AEB, then the system should never have been permitted on public roadways. 

"...The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action. " Wow!  If Uber's system fundamentally relies on a human to intervene, then Uber is nowhere near creating a Driverless vehicle.  Without its own Driverless vehicle Uber is past "Peak valuation".  

"...The system is not designed to alert the operator. " That may be the only good part of Uber's design.  In a Driverless vehicle, there is no one to warn, so don't waste your time.  If it is important enough to warn, then it is important enough for the automated system to start initiating things to do something about it.  Plus, the Driver may not know what to do anyway.  This is pretty much as I stated in PodCast 30 and the March 24 edition of SmartDrivingCar, See below.  Alain 

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="37" width="91" border="0"> Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 40

F. Fishkin, May 25, "With the NTSB preliminary report out on the fatal crash in Arizona ...where does Uber go from here? Princeton University's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin tackle those issues plus more on Mobileye, Apple and the report on the dangers of push button car ignitions. Listen and subscribe!"

Hmmmm.... Now you can just say "Alexa, play the Smart Driving Cars podcast!" .  Ditto with Siri, and GooglePlay.  Alain

Real information every week.  Lively discussions with the people who are shaping the future of SmartDrivingCars.  Want to become a sustaining sponsor and help us grow the SmartDrivingCars newsletter and podcast? Contact Alain Kornhauser at [log in to unmask]!  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="24" width="156">  Uber chose to disable emergency braking system before fatal Arizona robot car crash, safety officials say

Russ Mitchell, May 24, "...The failure to brake in the Arizona accident highlights the immaturity of driverless technology and tradeoffs made by programmers that could end in tragedy. While the basics of various companies' driverless systems are the same, in detail they differ greatly, from how software is written to which sensor systems are used. Tesla, for instance, bucks the industry in general by dismissing the need for lidar, an expensive technology that uses laser pulses to draw images of physical objects.

"What is not being stressed is that the performance of these systems varies greatly," said Alain Kornhauser, director of Princeton University's autonomous vehicle engineering program. "The technology is not all the same."..."   Read more  Hmmmm....Uber was testing a system that fundamentally requires a human operator to be alert and monitoring in ALL situations when emergency brakes need to be applied because its "automatic driving system" design "turns off the Emergency Braking System when the "automatic driving system" is turned on.  Yipes!!! Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="29" width="52"> Feds: Uber self-driving SUV saw pedestrian, did not brake

T. Krisher, May 24,  "The autonomous Uber SUV that struck and killed an Arizona pedestrian in March spotted the woman about six seconds before hitting her, but did not stop because the system used to automatically apply brakes in potentially dangerous situations had been disabled, according to federal investigators....Uber, he said, likely determined in testing that its system braked in situations it shouldn’t have, possibly for overpasses, signs and trees. “It got spoofed too often,” Kornhauser said. “Instead of fixing the spoofing, they fixed the spoofing by turning it off.”..."  Read more  Hmmmm....Yup Tesla & MobilEye likely also turn off (or fail to activate) the AEB in similar situations (when closing speed = vehicle speed) which the NTSB failed to point out as a root cause in the Joshua Brown crash and is a likely factor in the Tesla Firetruck and the "405/butt-end NJ Barrier" Tesla crashes. Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="22" width="149">  Fatal crash prompts Uber to shut down Arizona self-driving car trial

A. Ganz, May 23, "Two months after one of its vehicles was involved in a fatal crash with a pedestrian, Uber said Wednesday that it will formally cease self-driving car testing and development in Arizona..."  Read more  Hmmmm.... Uber must have been anticipating the NTSB's preliminary report (above). Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> Internal Uber email announces shutdown of Arizona driverless car testing

T. Lee, May 23, "Uber is shutting down testing of self-driving cars in Arizona after one of its cars killed a pedestrian in a March crash. In an internal email, Uber executive Eric Meyhofer wrote that Uber would be shifting its focus to Pittsburgh, ...Uber hopes to resume testing in Pittsburgh this summer.

Meyhofer also indicated that Uber would be changing how it tested its driverless cars. "When we get back on the road, we intend to drive in a much more limited way to test specific use cases," Meyhofer wrote. "Taking this approach will allow us to continually hone the safety aspects of our software and operating procedures. We have also used the past two months to strengthen our simulation capability, which will allow us to be more efficient with our use of road miles." Read more  Hmmmm.... Uber really needs to understand and appropriately justify what its code is doing and not doing.  If "false alarming:  we are on a collision course with a pedestrian" occurs so frequently that it justifies the insertion of code that treats such determinations by its "AI": "we are on a collision course with a pedestrian" is a "false alarms"  and consequently go on with "business as usual"  is totally unethical, if it isn't criminal.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">  Intel’s Mobileye wants to dominate driverless cars—but there’s a problem

T. Lee, May 21, "Mobileye, the Israeli self-driving technology company Intel acquired last year, announced on Thursday that it would begin testing up to 100 cars on the roads of Jerusalem. But in a demonstration with Israeli television journalists, the company's demonstration car blew through a red light. (near end of video)....While most companies working on full self-driving technology have made heavy use of lidar sensors, Mobileye is testing cars that rely exclusively on cameras for navigation. Mobileye isn't necessarily planning to ship self-driving technology that works that way. Instead, testing a camera-only system is part of the company's unorthodox approach for verifying the safety of its technology stack. That strategy was first outlined in an October white paper, and Mobileye CTO Amnon Shashua elaborated on that strategy in a Thursday blog post.

"We target a vehicle that gets from point A to point B faster, smoother, and less-expensively than a human-driven vehicle; can operate in any geography; and achieves a verifiable, transparent 1,000-times safety improvement over a human-driven vehicle without the need for billions of miles of validation testing on public roads," Shashua wrote on Thursday.

It's a bold claim. We're skeptical it's actually true.

The company argues that validating the sensing system is made even easier by capitalizing on sensor redundancies....But this argument relies on two big assumptions, and it's far from clear that either of them is true.

The first assumption is that the failure modes of the two sensing systems are independent...

And it's that last point that should really worry us: that Mobileye's model likely makes assumptions that don't actually describe the real world.

For example, Mobileye is implicitly assuming that fusing the two sensor systems together won't introduce any new sources of error. But as Navigant Research analyst Sam Abuelsamid pointed out to us, that's not likely to be true....

So the company's leadership has convinced itself that it can rely heavily on formal mathematical proofs as a substitute for millions of miles of real-world testing, because its business model doesn't leave it with many good alternatives. But wishing this were true doesn't make it so."  Read more  Hmmmm.... This is an excellent article!  Read all of it.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.10&filename=kienajpoinkongdk.png" class="" height="39" width="50" border="0"> Deadly Convenience: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll

 D. Jeans, May 13, "It seems like a common convenience in a digital age: a car that can be powered on and off with the push of a button, rather than the mechanical turning of a key. But it is a convenience that can have a deadly effect.

On a summer morning last year, Fred Schaub drove his Toyota RAV4 into the garage attached to his Florida home and went into the house with the wireless key fob, evidently believing the car was shut off. Twenty-nine hours later, he was found dead, overcome with carbon monoxide that flooded his home while he slept...." Read more  Hmmmm....This is an example of why real-world testing is necessary.  No simulation or "Math model" did, nor would have, predicted this outcome.  Only implementation in the real world allows one to identify this new risk.  A similar thing happened with airbags... they can kill little kids.

One simply doesn't know what one doesn't know and Mother Nature throws a lot of curve balls and change ups and one only finds out about these by going up to bat. 

The remedy for the airbags was/is, yellow stickers on all sun visors alerting parents to have their children sit in the back seats.  In the case of he push start, the remedy is to allow push starts only in cars that automatically shut off the engine after a brief idle (in order to improve fuel economy).. So that if you drive into your garage and get out, the car will idled for a few seconds and then automatically shut itself off, if you've forgotten to.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="34" width="41"> Fiat Chrysler recalls 4.8 million U.S. vehicles for cruise control defect

D. Shepardson, May 25, "Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said on Friday it is recalling 4.8 million U.S. vehicles over a defect that could prevent drivers from deactivating cruise control and warned owners not to use the function until they get software upgrades.  The Italian-American automaker said no injuries or crashes are related to the large recall campaign but said it had one report of a driver of a 2017 Dodge Journey rental car unable to deactivate the cruise control....NHTSA said drivers could overpower the system by forcefully applying the brakes until the vehicle stopped. Fiat Chrysler also said the vehicle could be stopped by shifting into neutral and braking....

Fiat Chrysler noted that at times cruise control systems automatically initiate acceleration to help vehicles maintain driver-selected speeds, including when going up an incline. If an acceleration occurs simultaneously with a short-circuit in a specific electrical network, a driver could be unable to deactivate the function..." Read more  Hmmmm.... Kudos to Fiat-Chrysler for fixing the problem.  Again, another one of these massive curve balls thrown by Mother Nature.  Simulation can crunch through a lot of combinatorials, but "accelerating at the time of a short circuit that wipes some memory registers that it can be fixed by software"  is a really rare one.  How did they reproduce it?    Whew!  

I bet Fiat wishes that it had Over-the-Air software update capability (but who knows what that would break and of course there's Cyber vulnerability).  Details matter and details aren't simple. Again, Kudos to F-C for JFing It (Just Fixing It).  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="36" width="118"> An Autonomous Vehicle Ecosystem Crash Course at Princeton

K. Pyle, May 22, "A kind of college experience compressed into 2+ days is how the SmartDrivingCars Summit could be described. Led by the affable, gracious and entertaining host Professor Alain Kornhauser on the historic and beautiful grounds of Princeton University, this two-day event was a deep dive into all things dealing with autonomous transportation, as well as adjacent topics, such as land-use in a world where the need and the role for parking will change.

The SmartDrivingCars Summit drew a diverse group from academia, industry and government to discuss the challenges of transitioning to autonomous vehicles.  Highlights Include: ..."  Read more  Hmmmm....Ken, thank you for the kind words  Plus the two tweets of the Kornhauser Law: one, two. And a couple of videos:  Kornhauser - Images & Perspectives,   Kornhauser - Elevator Analogy

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="36" width="118"> The Open Source Solution to Autonomous Safety #smartdrivingcar

K. Pyle, May 9 (updated) "Safety and, as importantly, the perception of safety could be the pin that pricks the expectations surrounding the autonomous vehicle future. Recognizing the importance of safety to the success of this still nascent industry, autonomous taxi start-up, Voyage, recently placed their testing and reporting procedures in an open source framework. Voyage Co-Founder, Eric Gonzalez explains in the above interview that, at launch, there are four functional blocks to OAS (Open Autonomous Safety) that are now part of a GitHub repository:..." Read more  Hmmmm.... and see video.  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> 2nd Annual Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit

A. Kornhauser, May 17, " Outstanding Summit.  Click on URL read presentations " Read more  Hmmmm.... Enjoy!  Alain

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">  2nd Annual Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit:  Interviews with Key Participants

F. Fishkin, May 16 & 17: 

Interview with Velodyne's John Eggert...
Interview with Sam Schwartz...
Interview with NVIDIA's Danny Shapiro...
Interview with Adriano Alessandrini & Michel Parent...
Interview with Kurtis Hodge of Local Motors ...
Interview with the Alliance for Transportation Innovation's Paul Brubaker..
Interview with Voyage CEO Oliver Cameron & Eric Gonzalez

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.10&filename=kienajpoinkongdk.png" class="" height="39" width="50" border="0">   Apple, Spurned by Others, Signs Deal With Volkswagen for Driverless Cars

J. Nicas, May 23, "...In recent years, Apple sought partnerships with the luxury carmakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz to develop an all-electric self-driving vehicle, according to five people familiar with the negotiations who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. But on-again, off-again talks with those companies have ended after each rebuffed Apple’s requirements to hand over control of the data and design, some of the people said.."  Read more  Hmmmm.... Is that really the best that Apple could do?  Alain 

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

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

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.15&filename=ndbfegdelfddpnfl.png" class="" height="18" width="101" border="0"> Uber to open Advanced Technologies Center in Paris focused on flying taxis

A. Hawkins, May 24 "Uber’s plan to fill the skies above cities with swarms of electric-powered flying taxis is getting its own dedicated laboratory. ..." Read more  Hmmmm....  Does Uber really believe that this will turn around its plunging valuation???? C'mon Man!! Alain

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.5&filename=lmjdiniodjkflpia.png" class="" height="52" width="46" border="0">

3rd Annual Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit
evening May 14 through May 16, 2019
Save the Date; Reserve your Sponsorship
Photos from 2nd Annual Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit
Program & Links to slides from 2nd Annual Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit

Recent PodCasts

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="24" width="60" border="0"> Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 39

F. Fishkin, May 17, "How close is California to giving the green light to driverless testing on public roads? Deputy DMV Director Bernard Soriano joins Alain Kornhauser, Fred Fishkin and guest Michael Sena on Episode 39 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast. And we review some highlights of the just concluded 2nd annual Princeton Smart Driving Car Summit. Listen and subscribe!"

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="23" width="57" border="0"> Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 38

F. Fishkin, May 10, "The continuing Uber crash investigation, Waymo and Ohio rolls out the welcome mat for the testing of self driving cars. All that and more in Episode 38 of the Smart Driving Cars podcast. This week Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin are joined by Bryant Walker Smith of the University of South Carolina and Stanford. Tune in and subscribe!"

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="29" width="72" border="0">Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 36

F. Fishkin, Apr 26, "Getting SmartDrivingCar companies to share their data on safety. It's a move that could benefit all says Princeton University Professor Alain Kornhauser in the latest Smart Driving Cars Podcast. He joins co-host Fred Fishkin...to chat about the move by Voyage. Also...Tesla, Waymo and more..

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="29" width="79" border="0">Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 34

F. Fishkin, Apr 13, "Should a brand new regulatory agency be formed to oversee self driving and driverless vehicles? Princeton University's Alain Kornhauser says yes in Episode 34 of the Smart Driving Cars podcast with co-host Fred Fishkin. Also...Uber's CEO calls self driving vehicles are in the student driver phase....and Tesla feuds with the NTSB."

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="32" width="79" border="0">Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 33

F. Fishkin, Apr 4, " Waymo is making it real! In Episode 33 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast, hosts Fred Fishkin and Princeton's Alain Kornhauser are joined by Michael Sena, publisher of The Dispatcher newsletter. Take a deep dive into Waymo's deals with Jaguar and talks with Honda.. Tesla, Volvo, Uber and Ambarella. And the Princeton Smart Driving Car Summit is coming up!         "

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="32" width="79" border="0">Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 32

F. Fishkin, Apr 2, "Waymo's big partnership with Jaguar, a deadly Tesla autopilot crash and the plans for congestion pricing for vehicles in parts of Manhattan. In Episode 32 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast, Princeton University's Alain Kornhauser takes on the tough questions with straight answers and no hype, along with tech journalist Fred Fishkin. Listen in...and subscribe!"

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="33" width="81" border="0">Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 31

Waymo's chief confident his self driving vehicles would have avoided same outcome as Uber's in deadly crash. How deep are Uber's troubles? In Episode 31 of the Smart Driving Cars podcast Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and journalist Fred Fishkin are joined by Alex Roy, editor at large of The Drive.

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="32" width="79" border="0">Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 30

Investigating the Uber self driving crash that killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg: In Episode 30 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast, Princeton University's Alain Kornhauser goes in depth on why it could and should have been avoided. He chats with Fred Fishkin about the impact of the crash on other testing programs and how the technology should move forward.

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="29" width="72" border="0">Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 26

The Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 26! Join Princeton University's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin as they take an in depth look at the new driverless vehicle testing regs unveiled this week in California with the state's Deputy Director of the Department of Motor Vehicles, Bernard Soriano. Also... the latest from Waymo, Ford and Amazon.

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="32" width="79" border="0">Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 18

Episode 18 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast with Princeton University's Alain Kornhauser, co-host Fred Fishkin and guest research engineer Steven Shladover of UC Berkeley. Topics: General Motors, Waymo, the Transportation Research Board, CES, nVIDIA and how #MeToo may impact ride sharing technology in the future.

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.4&filename=fkcoajjkbhnffcof.png" class="" height="34" width="84" border="0">Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 11

Episode 11 of the Smart Driving Cars Podcast with host Fred Fishkin and Princeton University Professor Alain Kornhauser. Fred and Alain are joined by leading expert and Internet pioneer Brad Templeton. Waymo makes some history, Thee tech needed to make it work..cameras...lidar or both? Navya bringing new robotic vehicles to Paris. And an accident...as a self driving shuttle is launched in Las Vegas.

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Friday, May 18,  2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="36" width="118"> The Open Source Solution to Autonomous Safety #smartdrivingcar

K. Pyle, May 9, "Safety and, as importantly, the perception of safety could be the pin that pricks the expectations surrounding the autonomous vehicle future. Recognizing the importance of safety to the success of this still nascent industry, autonomous taxi start-up, Voyage, recently placed their testing and reporting procedures in an open source framework. ...Oliver Cameron, Voyage Co-Founder and CEO, is excited to see participation and says, “We can’t wait to have all of these contributions from companies from around the world; contribute to build the actual standard in autonomous safety.”  Read more, Hmmmm.... See the video that was played at the Princeton SDC Summit which generated substantial positive discussion at the Summit. See also full length video. Alain

Thursday, May 10,  2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="">  Uber Finds Deadly Accident Likely Caused By Software Set to Ignore Objects On Road 

A. Efrati, May 7, "Uber has determined that the likely cause of a fatal collision involving one of its prototype self-driving cars in Arizona in March was a problem with the software that decides how the car should react to objects it detects, according to two people briefed about the matter." Read more  Hmmmm....Uber is "leaking" this???  Is this Spin?  Fake News??   I guess Uber doesn't believe in transparency here.  Where is the official public statement of reassurance??? 

"The car’s sensors detected the pedestrian, who was crossing the street with a bicycle, Hmmmm....Pretty much what I wrote on March 24, the sensors "Saw something" ...   but Uber’s software decided it didn’t need to react right away. ..."right away" is Fake News.  It never reacted.  Uber has not released any data indicating that the software ever reacted.  "That’s a result of how the software was tuned." ...That was a major "tuning" faux pas.  What is being divulged here is that Uber's software never became confident enough that what it was seeing was something that it should not hit and, at least,  begin to apply the brakes (or swerve, or ???).  Even the driver in the video recognized that the object should not be hit a split second before the crash.  So the Problem     is not "tuning" it is outright "fuhgeddaboudit"  Like other autonomous vehicle systems, Uber’s software has the ability to ignore “false positives,” or objects in its path that wouldn’t actually be a problem for the vehicle, such as a plastic bag floating over a road.... Is Uber suggesting that its software can't tell the difference between a plastic bag floating over the road and a pedestrian with a bicycle, even after seeing the object 30 to 60 or more times over the 3 or more seconds that the object was in view?    If this isn't Fake News then Uber is hopelessly far behind...   In this case, Uber executives believe the company’s system was tuned so that it reacted less to such objects."  It didn't react at all!... But the tuning went too far, and the car didn’t react fast enough, one of these people said.... ... It didn't react at all! If this wasn't so important I'd put it in C'mon man.

"False positives" are the symptom, not the problem.  The problem is Uber's system design and operational policy.  Uber system designers knew that the sensors under certain conditions reported "false positives" (were "spooked").  One of those conditions was possibly  the combination of "is the closing speed = car's current speed" AND "is the car's current speed greater than 30mph."  In situations in which both are true, then Uber's "tuning"  is outright "fuhgeddaboudit". This "tuning" effectively turns-off Uber's sensors to detecting anything that is stationary or moving across its lane ahead. If Uber has understood this, then Uber would/should have ...

1.  limited the operation of its cars to speeds under 30 mph,

2.  limited the operation of its cars at speeds greater than 30 mph only to roadways where pedestrians are extremely unlikely to cross, and

3.  focus on substantially improving its ability to interpret its sensor data so that the false alarm rate becomes so small that false alarms are tolerated throughout Uber's operational domain.

..."Meanwhile, the human driver behind the wheel, who is meant to take over and prevent an accident, wasn't paying attention in the seconds before the car hit..."  ...I think that this is a cheap shot against the driver.  I suspect that this car had a screen that displayed the real-time status of the automated driving system.  I would not be surprised if that screen was mounted below the radio and that the driver was actually monitoring the operation of the automated driving system prior to the crash.  Why this display wasn't on the dash so that the driver's peripheral vision could remain on the road ahead when the driver was monitoring the performance of the system is a question Uber should answer,...  if it had any interest in being transparent.

Another question that Uber could be asked: Why didn't the monitoring system warn the driver that it was "seeing something"  and ask the driver to look to see if it should be "saying/doing something".

Since it doesn't look like Uber is going to really divulge anything, it is incumbent on the NTSB to dig deeply into this "false alarm" issue.  Disregarding "false positives" in order to circumvent a little passenger/customer discomfort enables "false negatives" which kill people.  Not pretty! 

"...Uber has reached its own preliminary conclusion..."  .The problem was what the broader system chose to do with that information". .... Is Uber going to tell us????  This is way more than a "tuning problem".  This is a design and culture problem...       

"...In the collision investigation, Uber found that a vital piece of the self-driving car was likely working properly: the “perception” software, which combines data from the car’s cameras, lidar and radars to recognize and “label” objects around it. In this case, the software is believed to have seen the objects. The problem was what the broader system chose to do with that information..."  .......NO!!!!  The problem is in the "recognize & label".  If it didn't miss-recognize and miss-label then the ride wouldn't be jerky.  The "perception" software is so intent on "seeing something" in certain domains that it ends up "imagining that it saw something that wasn't there" (false positive) so the broader system  turns off the perception system in those domains.  It is the "vital" "perception" system that is at fault and needs the work. 

I suspect that this mess will be discussed at the   [log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.5&filename=lmjdiniodjkflpia.png" class="" height="21" width="18" border="0">  2nd Annual Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit  [log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.5&filename=lmjdiniodjkflpia.png" class="" height="21" width="18" border="0">   Uber isn't the only company with a "false alarm" issue.   Alain

Thursday, May 3,  2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" height="24" width="156"> As the Number of Driverless Cars Increase, So Does the Need for Car Maker Transparency

R. Mitchell, Apr 30, "...A schism is developing in the driverless-car world — but not between fans and foes of robot cars.

Instead, on one side are driverless-car advocates who believe data transparency will lead to safer deployment of driverless vehicles and help alleviate public fears about the strange and disruptive new technology. On the other are some automobile and technology companies that, for good commercial reasons perhaps, prefer to keep their workings cloaked in mystery.

The lack of transparency about the workings of sensors, logic processors, mapping systems and other driverless technology, like the debate over robot-car regulation, could shape public perception of the nascent industry, said Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina.  "Essentially, [the public will be] looking to see whether these companies are trustworthy," he said...

In the Uber death, a video recorded by a dashboard camera — turned over to and released by Tempe, Ariz., police — showed the driverless-car system failed to brake for the pedestrian. It left open the question of whether the system sensors might have failed to notice the pedestrian at all.

Uber's reaction was to apologize, then dip into some of its $15 billion in investment capital to pay the victim's family in a legal settlement, thus avoiding a public trial.

Uber declined to make a company executive available to discuss data and transparency on the record, as did Waymo, Tesla and Lyft. Other companies — including Zoox, Nutonomy and General Motors, parent of Cruise Automation — agreed to talk.

Even driverless-car advocates are growing concerned about the silence from the industry's major players. Grayson Brulte, a well-known consultant in the driverless industry, worries that recent polls have consistently shown the public is wary about driverless technology, while companies appear reluctant to engage with the public.  "They're like Rapunzel up in the tower," he said. "They have to let down their hair and climb down."

Alain Kornhauser, who heads the driverless-vehicle program at Princeton University, said he believes that robot cars will improve safety, reduce driver stress, add productive time to the day and offer the elderly and disabled more independence. But the technology is far from perfect, he said, and some robot-induced deaths are inevitable.

Rather than wall off the lessons learned in fatalities such as the recent Uber and Tesla incidents, Kornhauser said, the companies should be sharing crash data with one another, with outside researchers and with the general public. And not just black-box data, but driverless-system data as well. That would make driverless cars safer and faster, he said.

"Uber should not gain a safety advantage over everyone else because they were involved in this crash," Kornhauser said. "All of the video, radar, lidar and logic trails in the seconds leading up to the crash should be released to the public.

"If this reveals some of Uber's intellectual property, so be it. If they want to protect their intellectual property, they shouldn't crash on public roads." ..."  Read more 

Hmmmm... Amen!  This article addresses what may well be the most important issue facing this industry.  Crashes will happen.  The industry has been holding its breath knowing that one, two, three, ... deaths are coming.  Deaths are associated with every substantial technological advance in transportation.  Deaths occurred with cable cars, with electric traction, with steam trains, with airplanes, with conventional cars, with elevators, ..., even with airbags... why do you have yellow stickers affixed to the passenger-side sun visor of your car.  That's right... airbags kill children.  No one expected that.  But when it was "tripped over", then that event was made transparent to everyone.  Similarly, total transparency needs to be created.  Uber needs to release the data that shows that their system did, in fact "see" Elaine for four (4), or however many, seconds before the crash, but didn't see her reliably enough to convince itself to apply the brakes.  The details of that decision logic and the uncertainty/stochastic characteristics of that decision process needs to be divulged.  Why wasn't it sure enough that a collision with Elaine was imminent for it to apply the brakes?  It is totally disingenuous for Uber to claim that its system never saw Elaine (Uber hasn't said that.  They've said nothing.  (They'd better not even try to say that. Their system is at least pretty good.  it was developed by competent individuals from CMU and other very good places.  It saw Elaine, it just didn't see her well enough or it chose to disregard what it saw for whatever reason.  The nitty gritty details of those uncertainties MUST be divulged in all of their minute, gory and transparent details.  Once made then everyone else in the industry can look at their comparable processes/algorithms and fix them so that the next time an "Elaine" is "seen" she will not be disregarded.  It is these situations that deserve the most serious attention.  These are infinitely more important and more challenging than the "Trolley (navel contemplation) Problem".  

We will be addressing, with some of the best people in the world, this and other fundamentally important issues at the 2nd Annual Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit    May 16 & 17.  Come join in and contribute to the conversations on these issues.  Russ Mitchell will be there. Bryant Walker-Smith will be there.  Grayson Brulte will be there. Raymond Martinez (Head of FMCSA) will be there.  Bernard Soriano (#2 @ CA DMV) will be there.  Nat Beuse (#2 @ NHTSA) will be there.  Oliver Cameron (CEO, Voyage) will weigh in,  Adam Jonas (#1 Auto Analyst, Morgan Stanley) will be there.  Fengmin Gong (Head, DiDi Research) will be there. Justin Erlich (Head AV Policy, Uber) will be there,  Sami Naim, (Manager, Public Policy, Lyft) will be there, Mike Jellen (President, Velodyne) will be there, Paul Brubaker (CEO ATI21) will be there, Matt Moore (SVP, Highway Loss Data Institute) will be there, Mike Scrudato (#1 AV Insurance guy, SVP, Munich Re) will be there, Ro Gupta (CEO Carmera) will be there. Insurance/risk assessment related: Ann Gergen (Exec. Dir. AGRIP), Jerry Spears ( Montana Association of Governments), Laura Kornhauser (President, Stratyfy), David Harmer, Head, Virginia transit Reliability Pool) plus many others will be there.  From the investment community: Sheldon, Sandler (CEO, Bel Air Partners) will be there.  And the list goes on...

Please come join in the discourse.  Click to register.  Alain

Thursday, April 26,  2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> This startup’s CEO wants to open-source self-driving car safety testing

M. Harris, Apr 24, "... "I had to spend time after [the Uber crash] calming people down, telling folks at our deployments that it was an isolated incident," says Voyage CEO Oliver Cameron in an exclusive interview with Ars Technica. "But the truth is that everyone in the industry is reinventing the technology and safety processes themselves, which is incredibly dangerous. Open source means more eyes, more diversity, and more feedback.".

Starting today, Voyage will begin to share safety requirements, test scenarios, metrics, tools, and code that it has developed for its own Level 4 self-driving taxis. Five Voyage cars are currently deployed carrying passengers within two retirement communities in California and Florida..."  Read more  Hmmmm... This is a very positive step taken by Voyage's Oliver Cameron to address the enormous safety aspects of this technology.  It isn't obvious how everyone involved in this industry needs to work together to assemble the best "...safety requirements, test scenarios, metrics, tools, and code....".  There are serious concerns about collusion and protecting fundamentally valuable IP.  

None the less, what is important is that it is in everyone's best interest to have everyone be safe.  The Uber crash negatively affected everyone, even Waymo.   Everyone would be better off today, had Uber not crashed.  Similarly with the Tesla crashes.  They've also had a negative impact on everyone.  This is a market where the faster the better products are available in the marketplace, the larger the sum of benefits to society, and, arguably, the large the accumulated benefits to each individual contributor/producer.   That argues for everyone working together, aka sharing: "...safety requirements, test scenarios, metrics, tools, and code....".  Whether  "open-source" his the exact right mechanism for "optimal sharing" , or it is Standards Committees, or Regulations (heaven forbid), working together for Safety rather competing on Safety is absolutely necessary in this r/evolution.  Kudos to Oliver for this initiative.  Alain

Thursday, April 12,  2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="" class=""> The way we regulate self-driving cars is broken—here’s how to fix it

T. Lee, Apr 10,"...Federal car safety regulation has traditionally been based on a thick book of rules called the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). These regulations, developed over decades, establish detailed performance requirements for every safety-related part of a car: brakes, tires, headlights, mirrors, airbags, and a lot more....

Federal regulations don't say much about how companies develop and test cars before bringing them to market. ... But that approach doesn't work for driverless cars. Companies can do some testing of driverless cars on a closed course, but it's impossible to reproduce a full range of real-world situations in a private facility. So at some point, carmakers need to put self-driving cars on public roads for testing purposes—before a manufacturer is able to clearly demonstrate that they're safe. In effect, this makes the public involuntary participants in a dangerous research project.

But updating the FMVSS is neither necessary nor sufficient for effective regulation of driverless cars....  Read more  Hmmmm...What needs to be recognized is that Driverless cars (much more so than Safe- and Self-driving cars) are really a NEW MODE. They are in many ways closer to an elevator than a conventional car.  Sure they run on conventional roads and not vertical shafts and they can run into each other and have to deal with conventional drivers and "pedestrians". but they will not be owned nor operated by consumers, but fleet operators (think buildings) .  They will serve demand upon request to everyone and anyone, be shared when appropriate and convenient and don't even have a driver's seat, let alone the controls of a conventional car. Driverless cars are enormously different than conventional cars. 

Just as railroads and airplanes have their own safety legislation and regulatory administration tailored to their needs, so should Driverless cars.  The best way to approach regulation of Driverless is to start fresh by declaring them as a new mode.  Alain

Thursday, April 5,  2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.34&filename=cehhneiahdkhjibi.png" class="" height="22" width="60" border="0">Waymo Isn’t Going to Slow Down Now

M. Bergen, "Apr 2, " Waymo, the self-driving car company started by Google, did nothing after an autonomous vehicle run by Uber killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. It didn’t pull back on tests in the nearby suburb of Chandler, where passengers are already taking rides with no one behind the wheel. Its fleets elsewhere didn’t abandon public streets, a precautionary move made by Toyota.   For Krafcik, the crash video validated the philosophy Waymo had been following long before he joined, back when it was still part of Google: Never trust humans in cars....

Waymo is now nearing a final deal with a third automaker, Honda Motor Co., in a move that will test the company’s ability to compete in the $164 billion delivery and logistics market. The delivery focus of the alliance with Honda hasn’t been previously reported. The companies have been silent since announcing talks in late 2016, but results are coming soon. ...
For his first initiative, Krafcik tried to cut an ambitious deal with a former employer: Ford. The two companies conceived a plan with new self-driving vehicle designs and a multi-year business alliance. The talks collapsed after Mark Fields, Ford’s then-CEO, flew to Google’s headquarters for a dinner with Page where he pushed for a faster timeline, according to a person familiar with the episode.

Krafcik said Waymo walked away because the terms were unfair. “It just wasn’t the right one for us,” he said. “We already had the risk of the technology. We’re also deciding on vehicle formats for years and years and years. There was significant capital risk on our plate, not shared equally.” A Ford spokesman declined to comment. This was also the moment when Krafick discovered brewing rancor within Waymo. Anthony Levandowski, a founding engineer on the Google self-driving project, had simmering disputes with Chris Urmson, the program’s longtime leader. Krafcik was brought in to “referee a cage match,” a former employee said. Tensions boiled over, and Levandowski left—but not before sending an email to Page that criticized Krafcik and the attempted Ford deal and proposed splintering the car team.  ...
Krafcik said that future deals with Hyundai, Ford and others are all possibilities, and he has talked to companies in China, too. (He said he hasn’t spoken with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi since the settlement of the lawsuit.) He now sees Detroit, after years of fearing Google, feeling less threatened. “Very much so,” he said.

Some onlookers question if Krafcik will be around to see Waymo’s alliances through. “You can’t meet John,” said Noble, the consultant, “and not think he’s someone that would have fun running a carmaker.”

For now, though, Krafcik looks to be having fun running a company that’s resolutely not making cars. On the convention floor in Las Vegas, he spotted a Ford Transit Wagon. It’s a hulking eight-seat model he worked on years ago that looks best suited for shuttling around a troop of Girl Scouts or a military platoon.

Krafcik leaped into the second row and turned to the nearest Ford employee: “Do you have a self-driving version?” The answer was no.  “Coming soon,” Krafcik said with a laugh."  Read more  Hmmmm... Wow, this is more info than has been put out by Google/Waymo in the previous 9 years combined.  Looks like Waymo has entered the market/sales phase of its metamorphosis.  By the way, who gets to benefit from the deployment of the 1st 20k  of the Jaguars.  Phoenix and Mountain View don't have enough demand.  Is there going to be a competition a la the frenzy created by the "who wants the 2nd Amazon HQ”?   Alain

Saturday, March 31,  2018

[log in to unmask]" class="" height="19" width="61" border="0">The Most Important Self-Driving Car Announcement Yet

A. Madrigal, Mar 28, "On Tuesday, Waymo announced they’d purchase 20,000 sporty, electric self-driving vehicles from Jaguar for the company’s forthcoming ride-hailing service.... But the company embedded a much more significant milestone inside this supposed announcement about a fancy car. With orders now in for more than 20,000 of these vehicles and thousands of minivans that Chrysler announced earlier this year, Waymo will be capable of doing vast numbers of trips per day. They estimate that the Jaguar fleet alone will be capable of doing a million trips each day in 2020.

You could quibble with their math (will it really be that many daily trips per car?) or their overall utilization rate (how many cars will be lost to maintenance per day?), but if Waymo is even within 50 percent of that number in two years, the United States will have entered an entirely new phase in robotics and technology.

The company’s autonomous vehicles have driven 5 million miles since Alphabet began the program back in 2009. The first million miles took roughly six years. The next million took about a year. The third million took less than eight months. The fourth million took six months. And the fifth million took just under three months. Today, that suggests a rate on the order of 10,000 miles per day. If Waymo hits their marks, they’ll be driving at a rate that’s three orders of magnitude faster in 2020. We’re talking about covering each million miles in hours.

But the qualitative impact will be even bigger. Right now, maybe 10,000 or 20,000 people have ever ridden in a self-driving car, in any context. Far fewer have been in a vehicle that is truly absent a driver. Up to a million people could have that experience every day in 2020.

2020 is not some distant number. It’s hardly even a projection. By laying out this time line yesterday, Waymo is telling the world: Get ready, this is really happening. This is autonomous driving at scale, and not in five years or 10 years or 50 years, but in two years or less...."   Read more  Hmmmm...Yup!! This is HUGE!  It will change the city and the key to making it so it doesn't make thing worse is Ride-sharing.  If we ride-share we'll reduce energy, pollution & GHG by more than 50% and provide high-quality, affordable mobility indiscriminately for all.  It becomes the new high-quality, low-cost mass transit.  If it's kept/operated as another alternative for the 1%ers to be chauffeured alone, then the outcome is UGLY.  Ride-sharing is KEY!  Alain

Saturday, March 24,  2018

[log in to unmask]" class="" height="25" width="156" border="0">Experts say video of Uber's self-driving car killing a pedestrian suggests its technology may have failed

R. Mitchell, Mar 22, "Police late Wednesday released a video that shows an Uber robot car running straight into a woman who was walking her bicycle across a highway in Tempe, Ariz. The woman was taken to a hospital, where she died Sunday night.

The video, shot from the car, is sure to raise debate over who's to blame for the accident.   In the video, the victim, Elaine Herzberg, 49, appears to be illegally jaywalking from a median strip across two lanes of traffic on a dark road. But she was more than halfway across the street when the car — traveling about 40 mph, according to police — hit her. The car did not appear to brake or take any other evasive action....

Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor and driverless specialist at the University of South Carolina, said: "Although this appalling video isn't the full picture, it strongly suggests a failure by Uber's automated driving system and a lack of due care by Uber's driver as well as by the victim."..."  Read more  Hmmmm...  "..."What we now need is for the release of the radar and lidar data," Princeton's Kornhauser said in an email. (Lidar is a sensing technology that uses light from a laser.) "Obviously, the video of the driver is extremely bad for Uber and probably implies that Uber should suspend all of its 'self-driving' efforts for a while if not for a very long while.

"The 'self-driving' systems are supposed to have 'professional' overseers who are really supposed to be paying attention during these 'tests'. Apparently Uber didn't make it clear in this case."

Kornhauser questioned the police description of a situation that would have been difficult to avoid. He said Uber should reveal what its collision-avoidance software was doing during the couple of seconds before impact.

"The front-facing video suggests that this person was crossing the lane at a slow speed and should have been noticed by the system in time to at least apply the brakes, if not stop the vehicle completely," he said. "While a human may not have been able to avoid this crash, a well-designed, well-working collision avoidance system should have at least begun to apply the brakes."..."
"  ...  Again, my sincerest condolences to Elaine Herzberg's family and friends.

The simple arithmetic is:  She crossed more than a lane and a half before being struck or more than 15 feet.  Average walking speed is about 4.6 ft/sec which means that she was "visible" on this stretch of road for more than 3 seconds.  Uber's speed of 38 mph =  55.7 ft/sec means: Uber was 150 ft away when she began crossing the left-hand lane and could have been visible by an alert driver.  The car's lidar and radar surely must have "seen" her beginning at about that time.   Car stopping distance including "thinking time used in The Highway Code" @ 38mph is 110 feet.  The driver should have been able to stop 40 feet short.  Any Automated Emergency Braking (AEB) system should have been able to stop the car in little more than the stopping distance of 72 feet, half way to Elaine.  This simple arithmetic suggests that there may be a very fundamental fatal flaw in Uber's AEB.

And the driver was not paying attention.  At 3 seconds prior to impact, Elaine was within a 12 degree field of view when she began to cross the left lane. While outside the fovea, this is well within a normal gaze had the operator been looking out the window. 

The released video is from a "dash cam" and is unlikely to be the video captured by Uber's "Self-driving" system (or whatever Uber calls it).  That video may well be at a much higher resolution and frame rate.  Uber MUST release that video (not just the dash-cam video) as well as the radar and lidar data that was being used by their "Self-driving" system.  Uber was testing its system at the time of the crash and therefore MUST have been logging those data in case something went wrong.  Uber needs those recorded data in order to have a chance to learn what went wrong and fix it.  Something did go wrong, very wrong.  Uber and everyone else MUST also have the opportunity to learn from this tragedy.  So Uber MUST release all of the data.  Alain

Tuesday, March 20,  2018

[log in to unmask]" class="" height="25" width="156" border="0">Robot drivers may be safer than humans, but tech companies are way behind in proving it

R. Mitchell, Mar 21, "As long as robot cars roam public streets and highways, they will occasionally kill people. That's an ugly truth that no one in the driverless vehicle industry can deny.

Will those robot cars kill people at significantly lower rates than drunk, stoned, tired or distracted human drivers do now? Automakers, technology companies, politicians and regulators are betting they will, as driverless vehicles are rolling out faster than almost anyone expected as recently as a year ago.  But the Sunday night incident in Tempe, Ariz., in which an Uber robot car hit and killed a woman walking her bicycle across the street, makes clear the industry is much further behind in making its case to the public.

"It's likely there will be far fewer deaths with driverless cars," said Marlene Towns, a professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. "But getting to the point where people will be convinced of that will be tough."

Speculation by Tempe's police chief that the robot may not be at fault in the crash may temper any public or political backlash.

Uber was testing the robot car in autonomous mode with a human engineer, who was behind the wheel but not driving. Elaine Herzberg, 49, walking a bicycle, stepped in front of the car from a center median, according to video evidence, police said...."  Read more  Hmmmm...  "...Carmakers and technology companies need to be far more transparent as they push forward, experts said. "It's important that we all learn from this accident and we make these technologies even better, said Alain Kornhauser, a professor at Princeton University and a leading authority on driverless cars. "To that end Uber must release all of the data leading up to this crash. All of the video, radar, lidar and logic trails for the three or so seconds leading up to the crash. If this releases some of Uber's intellectual property, so be it."..."
"  ...  My sincerest condolences to Elaine Herzberg's family and friends.  I hope that Uber with its "$60"B  valuation will make a very generous contribution to homeless charities and think even more seriously about "buying" (by partnering) rather than "making" this technology.  Alain

Tuesday, March 13,  2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.29&filename=plniedlciijelnkn.png" class="" height="20" width="39" border="0">Waymo shows off what it is like to ride in a truly driverless self-driving car

G. Kumparak, Mar 13, "...."  Read more  Hmmmm... This is REALLY big news.This marks the real beginning of on-demand mobility provided by vehicles without a driver or an attendant on-board, only the passengers and the vehicles used normal public roadways that operated in normal everyday manner and used by conventional cars and trucks.  Ng Waymo to their o police escorts, no warning signs, just normal everyday operating conditions.  Except for the one trip given to Steve Mahan in November 2015 in Austin Texas, this is the First time that it kind of mobility service has been delivered anywhere in the world.  Waymo has achieved 5 million vehicle miles of Self-driving (automated driving on normally operating public roadway; however, with a driver/attendant in the car ready to take over should the automated system begin to fail.  Many others including Uber, Lyft/Aptiv, GM/Cruise, nVIDIA, Apple, Tesla, Nissan and many others have also done many miles of Self-driving on normal roads but each an everyone had a driver/attendant in the vehicle ready to "save the day" should something go bad.  Nobody else anywhere in the world is doing what Waymo is now doing in Chandler AZ. Now that the first one has been done, any community that is similar to Chandler AZ can now think seriously about inviting Waymo to provide affordable on-demand mobility to everyone in their city.

Be sure to see the video.  Congratulations Waymo!!!!! Alain

Wednesday, February 28,  2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.29&filename=plniedlciijelnkn.png" class="" height="20" width="39" border="0">California to allow testing of self-driving cars without a driver present

D. Etherington, Feb 27,  "California’s Department of Motor Vehicles established new rules announced Monday that will allow tech companies and others working on driverless vehicle systems to begin trialling their cars without a safety driver at the wheel. The new rules go into effect starting April 2.

Until now, the DMV has allowed companies approved for autonomous vehicle testing to run their cars on the roads, with autonomous driving systems engaged, provided that there’s a trained safety driver behind the wheel ready and able to take over manual control. Now, the regulators are updating their rules to allow for fully driverless test, which is a key step along the route towards actually deploying self-driving vehicles in a commercial capacity.

This doesn’t mean test vehicles will be out there on the roads without any kind of human intervention backup – the DMV will require that those testing autonomous cars without a driver present have a dedicated communications channel that ties the car to a remote operator, who can take over if needed. ..." Read more  Hmmmm... Even though we have been expecting this, it is a major hurdle for it to actually have occurred.  How long after April 2 will Waymo take to begin this type of testing.  Again this is only testing and deployment, but NOT commercial service, which may happen first in Arizona, but it is a major step in this r-evolution.  Commercial services are regulated by other agencies in California, not CA DMV.  It is those other agencies that will need to grant/award the licenses for the various commercial operations where these driverless vehicles would be used.  This regulation allows properly licensed commercial operations using CA DMV certified driverless vehicles to have those vehicles use California public roadways in delivering the otherwise licensed commercial activity. Note: CA DMV does not license the commercial transport of people or goods.  That is the purview of other CA regulatory agencies.  Alain  

Friday, February 23, 2018

[log in to unmask]" class="" height="24" width="78" border="0">  Broadening Understanding of the Interplay Between Public Transit, Shared Mobility, and Personal Automobiles

S. Feigon, Jan 2018, Pre-publication draft of TCRP Research Report 195 "Urban mobility is rapidly evolving in the United States, particularly since the introduction o app‐based  transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft.  A these services become more widespread, man have begun to question what effect they are having on the cities where they operate, including on public transit ridership, single‐occupancy vehicle trips and traffic congestion. In the face of    widespread declines in public transit ridership after a decade or more of growth nationally, these questions have become especially pressing. Speculation has  grown around whether TNCs are leading to real changes in how people use public transit and private automobiles, or if these fluctuations are caused by other factors.   

Key findings from this research include:...3. There is no clear relationship between the level of peak‐hour TNC use and longer‐term changes in the study regions’ public transit usage. ..." Read more  Hmmmm... Very interesting report. Worth reading.  My opinion: The evolution of TNCs in the past "5 years" is an approximate blueprint of what can be expected in the first "5 years" of autonomousTaxis, give-or-take.  That's why this is worth reading.  Alain  

Friday, February 16, 2018

[log in to unmask]" class="" height="30" width="73" border="0">Billionaire Bets On a World Without Car Crashes

A. Webb, Feb 12, "It has almost become a refrain: just what is Masayoshi Son up to? After plowing money into companies as diverse as Uber Technologies Inc., office rental specialist WeWork Cos Inc. and fintech lender SoFi, the billionaire chief of Softbank Group Corp. is in talks to buy as much as a third of Swiss Re, a 155-year-old reinsurance giant.... It has almost become a refrain: just what is Masayoshi Son up to? After plowing money into companies as diverse as Uber Technologies Inc., office rental specialist WeWork Cos Inc. and fintech lender SoFi, the billionaire chief of Softbank Group Corp. is in talks to buy as much as a third of Swiss Re, a 155-year-old reinsurance giant...

And it just so happens that the $700 billion motor insurance market is reinsurers' most important business line, Swiss Re has said. So you can see why it might be useful to make introductions between the insurance folk and the ride-sharing apps, especially as the latter will be at the vanguard of self-driving cars.  ..or what I call Driverless Cars......

There's the possibility too that SoftBank might be interested in tailoring insurance apps for gig economy workers such as Uber drivers (at least until they're replaced by robots)...." Read more  Hmmmm...  There's much more here...  There is an enormous opportunity to be "ahead of the curve" on this one.  By leading rather than following, an insurance entity can both accelerate the adoption of SmartDrivingCars and improve its own bottom line.  It really is that simple.  Alain 

Thursday, February 1, 2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.15&filename=ndbfegdelfddpnfl.png" class="" height="18" width="101" border="0">Waymo strikes a deal to buy ‘thousands’ more self-driving minivans from Fiat Chrysler

Andrew Hawkins, Jan 30, “Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, has reached a deal with one of Detroit’s Big Three automakers to dramatically expand its fleet of autonomous vehicles. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced today that it would supply “thousands” of additional Chrysler Pacifica minivans to Waymo, with the first deliveries starting at the end of 2018.

Waymo currently has 600 of FCA’s minivans in its fleet, some of which are used to shuttle real people around for its Early Rider program in Arizona. The first 100 were delivered when the partnership was announced in May 2016, and an additional 500 were delivered in 2017. The minivans are plug-in hybrid variants with Waymo’s self-driving hardware and software built in. The companies co-staff a facility in Michigan, near FCA’s US headquarters, to engineer the vehicles. The company also owns a fleet of self-driving Lexus RX SUVs that is has been phasing out in favor of the new minivans. (The cute “Firefly” prototypes were also phased out last year.)…” Read more  Hmmmm... We’ve all been wondering”  Who’s going to make the cars?  How will that evolve?Will they magically appear???

Well….Looks like it is FCA for now. We've gone from a handful 5 years ago, 2 years ago added 100, added 500 last year, “thousands” this/next year, …  Beginning to look like exponential growth! (A Bit Coin Bubble??)   What is also most interesting: no parallel announcement that Waymo was hiring “thousands of attendants” to ride around as "drivers" in these “thousands of minivans”.  Guess what that means… The Kornhauser Scale is going to start really going up!!! J 

While ultimately they’ll need about 35 million of these to provide affordable mobility to all in the US, this is a real start at making this into a business as opposed to an NSF-style study that collects dust on a shelf or, worse yet, a digital manuscript that is never downloaded by anyone outside a "group of three". This is a major announcement!  

From Stan Young: It will be interesting to watch.  It probably has the OEMs, Uber and Lyft scared out of their wits.  Based on any objective comparison of accomplishment with automated vehicles, there is not a close second to Waymo, despite all the claims to the contrary by trade rags – and the competition knows it.   Still a huge unknown concerning the ‘social side’ of riding in an un-attended vehicle, but we will likely get over it like we did with elevators.   ‘Thousands’ of vehicles if deployed in one city will put it on scale of Uber and Lyft – an interesting study when/if it comes to that.

...An issue is:  where will Waymo choose to deploy (and for Waymo, the word "deploy" is the right word...  they make the decision where to place these, in some sense take it or leave it... as opposed to waiting for people to show up at a dealership to buy or have it stay on the lot or have some governmental agency thinking that it actually has a role/power/where-with-all to “deploy”) where, when and how many.  They could "flood/concentrate" on Chandler/Phoenix/Tuscon  area with scale to be really relevant and  substantively demonstrate the evolution of mobility, or they could sprinkle them out nationwide and remain irrelevant everywhere.  I like the "flood/concentrate" approach in a state (Arizona) where they seem to be truly welcomed and whose climate, topography and road network are "easy".  More importantly it would demonstrate the viability/challenges of the at-scale approach.  From our simulations we uncovered that at-scale, one might need to be managing as many as 20,000 aTaxis in a 2.5x2.5 mile area  (the extreme in Manhattan, which may be the last place that you want to try this) but it can be large. We’ll drill down in our data and take a look at Chandler/Phoenix and report back as to what we think it would take to provide mobility for all.  Alain

Monday, January 29, 2018

[log in to unmask]" class="" height="20" width="193" border="0">Didi Chuxing looks beyond ride-hailing to help Chinese cities tackle transport challenge

M. Jing, Jan 25, "On Thursday the company launched an integrated solution for smart city traffic management by harnessing data generated by its platform that compiles roughly 25 million rides per day....More than 20 cities in China have already partnered with Didi to use the company’s transport solutions in their smart city development strategies. In Jinan, Shandong province, 344 sets of smart traffic signals – which change lights based on real-time traffic conditions – have been installed..." Read more  Hmmmm... For this to actually work, Didi must be making available not only the real-time location of each of their "drivers" but also their destination (which, of course, they know).  They know this continuously but more importantly they know it even before the rider's ride even starts.  They know it as soon as a driver is dispatched  to a pickup.  This is enormously valuable information if you're trying to anticipate congestion ahead and have any hope of doing anything to alleviate it.  You need a lot it and they have a chance at serving enough trips to actually make a difference. Very interesting!  Alain

Sunday, January 14, 2018

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.3&filename=amfndgbljfoobiik.png" class="" height="39" width="47" border="0">Say hello to Waymo

Jan. 9, T. Papandreou & E. Casson. "... Waymo driverless service..."  Read more Hmmmm...  Tim and Ellie made presentation at the Transportation Research Board's  Vehicle-Highway Automation (AHB30) Committee meeting on Tuesday in which they gave an update on Waymo's progress to launch "Waymo's driverless service" (slide 11), an app-based ride hailing service to the general public in a geo-fenced area of Arizona.  To date Waymo has been testing such a service using volunteer riders in their driverless vehicles in various areas around the country (slide 7): however, to date, except for one ride given to Steve Mahan in Austin, TX, rides on normally operating public streets have always had  trained Waymo-authorized personnel (an attendant) in the vehicle capable to intervene in the driving of the vehicle should the need arise.  Since October, in Arizona, those personnel no longer sit behind the wheel, but are in the back seat so that Waymo can observe the response of the volunteer riders to riding in a vehicle on normal public streets under normal conditions without anyone in the front seats of the vehicle. 

Tim said, without providing a specific date, that Waymo will soon launch "Waymo's driverless service" providing mobility to the general public on public roads in a geo-fenced area of Arizona.  I asked Tim "Will that service be offered with vehicles that have an attendant in the vehicle?".  Tim's answer was "No!".  I asked a follow-up question: "Will these vehicle's have telemetry capabilities that enable these vehicles to be closely monitored from a "situation room" or "control center" that would enable remote operation of the vehicle, should the need arise?".  Tim's answer was  "No!".  Another questioner asked if the geo-fenced area included special "connected vehicle" road infrastructure improvement that Waymo's system will be relying on?"  Tim's answer was "No!".

While the definition of "soon" was not given, I've taken this as a really big pronouncement that Waymo is actually going to go to launch commercially-viable on-demand mobility to the general public on conventional public roads.  This is really big news because this is finally going to enable us to begin to evolve on the "Kornhauser Scale" ( log of (world-wide VMT of Driverless (VMT-D) vehicles without a human attendant/driver on board accumulated while providing mobility to the general public on conventional roadways).  So far we are beyond the "undefined value" associated with VMT-D = 0 and are at KS = 1 only by virtue of the one Steve Mahan ride in Austin).  :-) Alain

Saturday, December 2, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.19&filename=pnnmfilnfldgacje.png" class="" height="29" width="63" border="0">  Personal Sedan Sales in Jeopardy as U.S. Auto Market Transitions to “Islands” of Autonomous Mobility: KPMG Research

Sunday, November 26, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.20&filename=llkakmemphmaamem.png" class="" height="24" width="156" border="0">Volvo to supply Uber with up to 24,000 self-driving SUVs for taxi fleet

S. Masunaga & R. Mitchell, Nov. 20, " fleet of self-driving Volvo vehicles operated by Uber Technologies Inc. could be ready for the road as early as 2019, marking the ride-hailing firm’s biggest push yet to roll out autonomous cars.  Volvo said Monday that it would sell Uber tens of thousands of luxury sport utility vehicles between 2019 and 2021 outfitted with the Swedish automaker’s safety, redundancy and core autonomous driving technologies. Uber will then add its own self-driving technology to the autonomous taxi fleet..."  Read more Hmmmm...  This is a significant announcement and recognizes that it is going to take another year-plus for the Uber/Volvo existing 'Self-driving' technology stack (which now requires an Uber attendant in the car)  to become 'Driverless' (can operate safely without an Uber attendant in each car).   If these cars don't become Driverless, their cost per ride will be so prohibitively high that their use will not be sustainable. 

24,000 is a reasonable number with which to start   These vehicles would become Uber's work horses.  They'll operate ~20 hours a day and could serve ~5 short trips per hour when concentrated in Uber's highest demand areas.  With some ride sharing they could serve 100 person trips per day,  allowing them to serve nearly half of Uber's current 5.5 million trips a day.  Unfortunately, this is the short-trip half. The half remaining is dominated by long trips.  Vehicles serve these at only about 1.5 trips per hour.  Vehicle (driver)  productivity is consequently limited to about 30 trips per day.  That means that each day Uber will still need two shifts of 100,000 gig workers each to show up and deliver the mobility services needed to serve their 3 million daily longer trips.  To really scale, Uber will need to order many more of these Volvos and and get them to operate Driverlessly in much larger geographic areas so that they can serve some of these long trips.

In the US there are about 1 Billion vehicular trips per day. Many are short, some are long, very few are very long.  It is doubtful that a Driverless car could serve more than 2.5 person trips per hour or 50 blended-length trips per day.  Thus, to serve 10% of the Billion trips per day would require a fleet of about 2 million Driverless cars.  In 2016, 17.5 Million cars & light trucks were sold in the US.  By devoting about 10% of the car & light duty truck manufacturing capacity to the production of Driverless vehicles, enough Driverless cars are produced in a year to serve 10% of all US vehicular trips.  So the manufacturing capacity exists to enable an Uber or Lyft or Didi or Waymo or ... to in a few years serve many/most trips in the US. 

This suggests to me that Waymo must have already established a deal/arrangement with a manufacturer to begin very soon to produce thousands of cars that can accept Waymo's Driverless stack of hardware and software and aggressively begin to serve pockets of those 1Billion daily person trips.  Alain

Friday, November 17, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.21&filename=pljpdefgdfalbick.png" class="" height="23" width="222" border="0">THE TECH & DESIGN ISSUE: LIFE AFTER DRIVING

Friday, November 10, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.20&filename=llkakmemphmaamem.png" class="" height="24" width="156" border="0">Waymo will now put self-driving vans on public roads with nobody at the wheel

AP, Nov. 7, 2017 "Waymo, the self-driving car company created by Google, is pulling the human backup driver from behind the steering wheel and will test vehicles on public roads with only an employee in the back seat.

The company’s move — which started Oct. 19 with an automated Chrysler Pacifica minivan in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, Ariz. — is a major step toward vehicles driving themselves on public roads without human backup drivers. ..." Read more Hmmmm...  Not to be too critical, but Waymo is still just 'Self-driving' .  While they moved the 'engineer' with the ability to 'take over and drive the vehicle' from behind the wheel to the back seat, this is just a step along the broad 'Self-driving' continuum which is a vehicle that, under certain circumstance, can drive itself, but does that only if there is a person ready and able to take over if the unexpected appears. 

The big-leap/major-step will come when Waymo removes the 'engineer' entirely from the vehicle and it is human-less when it arrives to pick up a passenger and drives away human-less after the last passenger(s) disembark.  That enormous leap-of-faith in the technology will mark Waymo's inception of the Driverless Era. (or what Waymo prefers to call 'Fully Self-driving' era.) 

Just to be clear, when that time comes, I'm sure that Waymo will have telemetry throughout that Driverless vehicle and there will be a room full of engineers in Waymo's 'Situation Room' ready to take over the driving should the need arise.  However,  until that time, Waymo is just like all the other wanabes, they are just 'Self-driving' without the 'Fully'.

The reason why 'remote emergency driving' is 'Driverless' is because it scales.  By that I mean that it takes the provision of horizontal mobility on our public streets from needing at least one human per vehicle to needing less than one human per vehicle.  Initially the remote driver will monitor one car.  Before you know it that person will be monitoring two, four, eight, ... vehicles and truly Driverless with zero remote human oversee-ers will be approached asymptotically.  But just like the old saw between the engineer and the mathematician: engineer and mathematician were sitting on a bench recalling their youth... Engineer said "Long ago, I was sitting on this very bench with my girl.  We wanted to kiss but we were too far apart.  So we agreed to move towards each other by halving the distance between us on each move.  The mathematician blared " You're so stupid!  If you did that, you never came together!"  The engineer just smiled: "we got close enough!".  Alain

Saturday, November 4, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.22&filename=igeboonchfmfnafc.png" class="" height="31" width="86" border="0">APNewsBreak: Gov't won't pursue talking car mandate

Friday, October 27 , 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.23&filename=kdcpkpfeflmnnepe.png" class="" height="34" width="35" border="0">Strategic Plan for FY 2018 -2022

Sunday, October 15 , 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.26&filename=kdoagilhbhbiliok.png" class="" height="27" width="38" border="0">Proposed Driverless Testing and Deployment Regulations – Released October 11, 2017

 Rulemaking Actions, Oct 1The following 3 PDFs are important:
1. Autonomous Vehicles Notice of Modification (PDF)  Act

2. Autonomous Vehicles Statement of Reasons (PDF)  Act

3. Autonomous Vehicles 15 Day Express Terms (PDF)   Act  Hmmmm..This is all about Driverless!  Thank you California, and especially Dr. Bernard Soriano, for leading this noble effort and for continuing to distinguish this technology from Self-driving and all of the various other names seemingly meant to confuse.  Alain

Friday, October 6 , 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.23&filename=kdcpkpfeflmnnepe.png" class="" height="34" width="35" border="0">FHWA Awards $4 Million Grant to South Carolina’s Greenville County for Automated Taxi Shuttles

Friday, September 1, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.27&filename=gcpfjpplbdkjplbn.png" class="" height="21" width="133" border="0">Automated Vehicles: Are We Moving Too Fast or Too Slow?

Friday, August 25, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.28&filename=heghnhhbdldfllgi.png" class="" height="19" width="61" border="0">Inside Waymo's Secret World for Training Self-Driving Cars

Monday, August 21, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.10&filename=kienajpoinkongdk.png" class="" height="39" width="50" border="0">Driverless-Car Outlook Shifts as Intel Takes Over Mobileye

Monday, August 7, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.29&filename=plniedlciijelnkn.png" class="" height="20" width="39" border="0">Cadillac’s Super Cruise ‘autopilot’ is ready for the expressway

Sunday, June 25, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.31&filename=jlblhiilkfodmohp.png" class="" height="39" width="38" border="0">NTSB Opens Docket on Tesla Crash

The docket material is available at: https://go.usa.gov/xNvaE" Read more  Hmmmm... A few comments...
1.  Since lateral control (swerving) couldn't have avoided this crash (the truck is almost 70 ft long (6 lanes wide) stretching broadside across the highway) , it doesn't matter if Josh Brown ever had his hands on the steering wheel. That's totally irrelevant. 
2.  Why didn't autobrake kick in when the tractor part of the tractor-trailer passed in front of the Tesla?
3.  How fast was the truck going when it cut off the Tesla.  I couldn't find the answer in 500 pages.   
4.  With sight distances of greater than 1,000 feet, why didn't the truck driver see the Tesla?  Was it the drugs?
5.  This intersection invites "left-turn run-throughs" (no stop or yield and a 53 foot median and turn lane need to be crossed before one slips through a gap in two traffic lanes.  So you certainly roll into it, (plenty of room to stop if you see something coming) and if you don't see anything, you hit it.  If you're in the Tesla, you think you've been clearly seem, you expect the truck to stop, it doesn't, you can't believe it, BAM!  All in probably a second or so.
6.  The head injury description (Table 1 p2 of 3) certainly suggests that Joshua Brown was seated upright facing forward at impact.  The bilateral lacerations on the lower arm from the elbow to the wrist may indicate that he saw it coming in the last second and raised his arms in an attempt to protect his head.   The evidence reported doesn't seem to suggest he saw this early enough to bend toward the passenger seat and try to pass underneath. 
7.  About 40 feet of tractor and trailer passed directly in front of the Tesla prior to impact.   Depending on how fast the truck was traveling, that takes some time.  Has NTSB run Virtual Reality simulations of various truck turn trajectories and analyzed what the truck driver and the Tesla driver could/should have seen?  Seems like a relatively simple thing to do.  We know what the Tesla was doing prior to the crash (going 74 mph straight down the road.) and we know where it hit the truck.  How fast the truck was traveling doesn't seem to be known.
8. Why wasn't there any video captured from the Tesla.  Didn't that version of the MobilEye system store the video; I guess not, :-( 
Anyway, lots to read in the 500 pages, but there is also a lot missing.  I'm not linking the many articles reporting on this because I disagree with many of their interpretations of the facts reported by NTSB.   Please reach your own conclusions.   Alain

Monday, June 19, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.10&filename=kienajpoinkongdk.png" class="" height="39" width="50" border="0">Amazon Deal for Whole Foods Starts a Supermarket War

Sunday, May 28, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.32&filename=cghgagjkncegolbb.png" class="" height="27" width="52" border="0">Rethinking Mobility: The 'pay-as-you-go' ca: Ride hailing, just the start

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.5&filename=lmjdiniodjkflpia.png" class="" height="52" width="46" border="0">Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit

May 18, Enormously successful inaugural Summit starting with the Adam Jonas video and finishing with Fred Fishkin's live interview with Wm. C Ford III.  In between, serious engagement among over 150 leaders from Communities at the bleeding edge of deployment, Insurance struggling with how to properly promote the adoption of technology that may well force them to re-invent themselves and AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the various technologies that are rapidly advancing so that we can actually deliver the safety, environmental, mobility and quality of life opportunities envisioned by these “Ultimate Shared-Riding Machines”.

Save the Date for the 2nd Annual... May 16 & 17, 2018, Princeton NJ  Read Inaugural Program with links to Slides. Fishkin Interview of Summit Summary and Interview of Yann LeCun.  Read Inaugural Program with links to Slides. Hmmmm... Enormous thank you to all who participated.  Well done!  Alain

Tuesday, April 17, 2017

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.34&filename=cehhneiahdkhjibi.png" class="" height="22" width="60" border="0">  Don't Worry, Driverless Cars Are Learning From Grand Theft Auto

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.36&filename=ajafjpkfaclhelpc.png" class="" height="50" width="44" border="0">Extracting Cognition out of Images for the Purpose of Autonomous Driving

announce historic commitment of 20 automakers to make automatic emergency braking standard on new vehicles

Sunday, December 19, 2015

[log in to unmask]" alt="imap:[log in to unmask]:993/fetch%3EUID%3E/INBOX%3E3022058?part=1.38&filename=ccalfjfhllohpdpa.png" class="" height="63" width="96" border="0">Adam Jonas' View on Autonomous Cars

Video similar to part of Adam's Luncheon talk @ 2015 Florida Automated Vehicle Symposium on Dec 1.  Hmmm ... Watch Video  especially at the 13:12 mark.  Compelling; especially after the 60 Minutes segment above!  Also see his TipRanks.  Alain

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