S. Talbott, April 9, "...Waymo is an autonomous vehicle company that is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google. In calendar year 2019 Waymo’s vehicles drove an impressive 6.1 million miles. According to Car and Driver, the average person drives 13,500 miles per year. Additionally, Car and Driver reported last year that approximately 80 companies are testing driverless vehicles. That’s a lot of miles on our roadways.
...Since
Autonomous
Vehicles will
not be subject
to the human
actions of
distraction ...
I prefer to
say..."will
not be subject
to driver
misbehavior"
Texting while
driving is
misbehavior,
as is
tailgating, executive
speeding,
falling
asleep,
daydreaming,
drinking, ...
they
should be able
to reduce the
majority of
those crashes
making our
roadways
considerably
safer than
they are
today. But, if
we are honest
and are
objectively
looking at
vehicle
crashes, we
know that some
crashes will
still occur.
Not
necessarily
because of a
failing on the
part of the
Autonomous
Vehicle
technology,
but because
they will be
interacting on
our roadways
with other
vehicles some
of which will
not be driven
autonomously.
There will be
interaction
with
pedestrians,
bicyclists and
Autonomous
Vehicle
deliveries and
scooters, plus
a host of
other modes of
transportation
on our
roadways.
As we begin to
ready the
public for
widespread use
of Autonomous
Vehicles, we
need to
prepare the
occupants of
these vehicles
and the
communities in
which they
will ride how
to respond in
the event of a
crash..."
Read more Hmmmm... (emphasis added) A most
important
subject. Alain
[log in to unmask]" _mf_state="1" title="null" src="cid:[log in to unmask]" width="44" height="44" border="0"> The SmartDrivingCars eLetter, Pod-Casts, Zoom-Casts and Zoom-inars are made possible in part by support from the Smart Transportation and Technology ETF, symbol MOTO. For more information: www.motoetf.com. Most funding is supplied by Princeton University's Department of Operations Research & Financial Engineering and Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) research laboratory as part of its research dissemination initiatives.
K. Pyle, April 10, "Could this be a new way for Google or some other entity to capture images and metadata of the streets and buildings in a community? This module was recently seen strapped to a ski rack on an unmarked mini-SUV in Silicon Valley. It features seven cameras (6 each providing horizontal view with one pointing upwards)...." Read more Hmmmm...Hopefully the one pointing straight up will be able to more reliably determine the clearance under objects along each road segment. If maintained/current, this could go a long way towards eliminating false braking applications and essentially eliminate everyone's stationary object in lane ahead "fugetaboutit" problem with a one-time, real-time lookup in Google's streetview as to the minimum clearance in the route ahead. Alain
J.
Torchinskys,
March 25, "I
wouldn’t call
what’s
happening a
meltdown
exactly, maybe
more of a
collective
moment of
clarity. Right
now on
Reddit’s
r/teslamotors
forum there’s
an intense and
very serious
conversation
about the
now-$10,000
level 2 driver
assist package
that Tesla
calls “Full
Self-Driving”
(FSD)—specifically, whether the features Tesla and Elon Musk started
promising back
in 2016 will
ever actually
exist, and
what kind of
legal exposure
Tesla has if
it fails to
deliver.
People have
put down real
money and
haven’t yet
gotten what
they were
expecting,
which has led
to these
difficult
conversations...." Read more Hmmmm... Self-driving means that
the car can
drive itself
under the
driver's
supervision.
It is NOT
driverless.
The fine print
is clear.
The issue may instead be an accounting question... when can Tesla/Elon accrue how much of the "$10k" price tag when FSD is something that is going to be delivered in some (unspecified) future software download onto hardware that was installed in the car delivered to the car owner. Can the "cost ' of the tangible hardware be set at $10k and the "over-the-air" software byte stream be set at the cost of downloading it "over-the-air" which is essentially zero? If not, then is Tesla properly accounting for that "revenue"? Maybe the SEC and the IRS should be sniffing around. Alain
These
editions are
sponsored by
the SmartETFs
Smart
Transportation
and Technology
ETF, symbol
MOTO. For more
information
head to www.motoetf.com
F. Fishkin,
Nov 25, "What
you should
know about
electric cars,
climate change
and more. The
Dispatcher
publisher
Michael Sena
joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin in an
eye opening
edition of
Smart Driving
Cars.."
F. Fishkin, Nov 24, "When it comes to active driver assistance systems, what works and what needs improvement? Some answers from Kelly Funkhouser… program manager for vehicle interface, head of connected and automated vehicles at Consumer Reports. She joins Princeton's Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for episode 186 of Smart Driving Cars."
F. Fishkin, July 20, "Is Driverless home delivery the fastest route to Affordable Mobility for the Mobility Disadvantaged? ... "
F. Fishkin,
July 2,
"Transportation,
racial
injustices and
changing the
thinking
around the
future of
mobility. NYU
McSilver
Institute for
Poverty Policy
& Research
fellow Henry
Greenidge
joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin in an
eye and mind
opening
episode of
Smart Driving
Cars. Plus
Amazon, Zoox,
Waymo, Tesla
& more.
."
F. Fishkin,
June 2, "But
the debate is
not really
about
technology nor
is it about
who delivers
the best value
for the money
or the most
privacy. It is
about ..."
A.
Ohnsman, April
2, "John
Krafcik, the
auto industry
veteran who’s
run Waymo for
over five
years, is
stepping down
as CEO of the
Alphabet Inc.
self-driving
tech giant and
is being
replaced by
two
high-ranking
company
executives.
J.
Gallagher,
March 24, "Two
prominent
labor unions
want the U.S.
Department of
Transportation
(DOT) to
reject the
Trump
administration’s
automated
vehicle (AV)
strategy for
relying too
much on the
viewpoint from
industry
without enough
attention paid
to potential
damage to
worker safety
and jobs.
The 38-page Automated
Vehicles
Comprehensive
Plan
(AVCP), one of
the last
documents
released for
public comment
by DOT under
Secretary
Elaine Chao
before she
left the
administration
in January,
laid out the
previous
administration’s
vision for
integrating
AVs – both
cars and heavy
trucks – into
the U.S.
transportation
system.
The plan received 23 comments before the comment period closed on Tuesday, with trucking technology companies generally supporting the strategy and labor rejecting it.
“This document doubles down on the previous administration’s irresponsible, hands-off approach to AV deployment and regulation and mostly boosts the agency’s role as cheerleader and enabler rather than safety regulator,” wrote John Samuelsen, international president of the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU), which represents transit workers...." Read more Hmmmm... One might suggest that TWU's position is enormously short sighted. Transit pre_Covid served 1% of the person-miles in the US. That is a niche of a niche. During Covid, almost anyone who could affords a car and didn't have one, bought one. Transit ridership took an enormous hit. Even with enormous subsidy, Transit, especially bus transit, is hardly ever the "mode of choice" for anyone because its level-of-service is fundamentally poor. It serves relatively few locations, loosely connected by a route which delivers service only at infrequent fixed times. Essentially no other consumer commodity today operates with so little regard to its customer's real-time needs and desires. Even network television has adapted to become demand-responsive as opposed to take-it-or-leave-it.
Conventional transit is labor
intensive
because it
needs a
chauffeur for
each vehicle
and that
chauffeur
deserves nice
working
conditions and
a living
wage.
Unfortunately,
the service
that a
chauffeur can
deliver can't
attract enough
customers to
make that
service a
going
concern.
However, an
automated
driver can
arguably
deliver
demand-responsive
service while
having the
total cost of
its working
conditions and
level-of-effort be substantially less than a TWU driver. This might let
a Transit
entity to
actually
develop a
going concern
that would
serve 10x or
more
person-miles
and create
better paying
and better
working
conditions for
all TWU
members.
M.
Hogan, March
19, "A beta
version of
Tesla's "Full
Self Driving"
Autopilot
update has
begun rolling
out to certain
users. And
man, if you
thought "Full
Self Driving"
was even close
to a reality,
this video
of the system
in action
will certainly
relieve you of
that notion.
It is perhaps
the best
comprehensive
video at
illustrating
just how
morally
dubious,
technologically
limited, and
potentially
dangerous
Autopilot's
"Full Self
Driving" beta
program
is...." Read
more Hmmmm... The Video
is
MUST watch.
This is what I
would call a "Semi-SelfDriving
Alpha"
product in
this
Operational
Design Domain
(non-dense
city/commercial
suburban
streets,
during
daylight, in
clear weather
with moderate
temperature
conditions).
Drivers have four (4)
"responsibilities".
1. Feet/foot
on/near the
pedals, 2.
Hand(s) on the
wheel, 3. Eyes
on the road,
and 4. Butt in
the driver's
seat (and
possibly 5....
Have
reasonable
cognitive
brain
functions).
If the
Operational
Design Domain
is a straight
lane with a
slight
downgrade and
nothing else
around, my "55
Chevy" can
"Self-drive"
and even be
"Driverless".
I don't even
have to be in
it. However,
we must all
agree, that we
can't call my
"55 Chevy" a
"Driverless"
car. We can't
even call it a
Self-driving
because I'm
going to need
to have my
butt is the
driver's seat
to do
something when
the ODD
changes (the
road turns ,
...) and it
is, at best,
Semi-Self
driving
because my
eyes will need
to be on the
road for me to
realize that
the "55 Chevy"
is about to
exit its ODD.
It is going to
need help from
me to not
crash.
So Elon's FSD is definitely Semi-SelfDriving because its ODD doesn't come close to including many of the situations that it found in its video journey above. It is Alpha because any potential user can be expected to have little if any idea what is required to use this product without getting hurt. So, please be very careful out there and don't stop paying attention to the road ahead!!! Alain