2021-05-16
rgb(51, 51, May 15, 2021
blue;
text-decoration:
blue;
text-decoration:
none;">19h
edition of the
9th year of
SmartDrivingCars
eLetter
###
Autonomous Vehicles: A Framework for Deployment and Safety
R. Diamond, May 13, “Join SAFE for an event focused on the importance of autonomous vehicles to our national and economic security and outlining pathways for the safe deployment of autonomous vehicles.
The event will
feature
remarks from
Dr. Steve
Cliff, Acting
Administrator
of NHTSA, a
discussion
between
industry
leaders, and
the release of
a report, "A
Regulatory
Framework for
AV Safety," by
O. Kevin
Vincent,
Associate
General
Counsel,
Regulatory at
Lucid...." [Read more](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efcOl4QT4vg) Hmmmm... A must watch,
complemented
by the [Vincent report](https://www.dropbox.com/s/v7d50nlj2k3o2ud/Kevin-Vincent-Regulatory-Framework.pdf?dl=0) and
our latest [PodCast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biRYIW1ULCo) below.
Alain
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 213,
[Zoom-Cast Episode 213](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biRYIW1ULCo)
w/Robbie
Diamond;
Founder,
Securing
America's
Future Energy
F. Fishkin, May 14 , “The autonomous mobility competition with China. What will it take to succeed? Securing America’s Future Energy founder Robbie Diamond dives in with Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser & co-host Fred Fishkin. Plus the latest on #AutoX, #Tesla, #GM, #TuSimple and more. Remember to subscribe!
And check out
this SAFE
panel
discussion
too.. [https://youtu.be/Z6NBRrtTDnI](https://youtu.be/Z6NBRrtTDnI)
" Alexa, play the
Smart Driving
Cars podcast!".
Ditto with Siri,
and GooglePlay
...
Alain
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](https://www.smartetfs.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.
A Regulatory Framework for Autonomous Vehicle Deployment and Safety
K. Vincent, May 2021, “Promising step-changes in productivity for economic growth, an ability to maintain leadership in the transportation sector by competing with China, saving lives on our roads, and increases in efficiency and the acceleration of electric vehicle adoption, autonomous vehicles (AVs) hold the potential for U.S. economic and societal advancement on a scale unseen since the invention of the automobile itself. AVs can follow in the footsteps of the Interstate Highway System and the Internet as the next catalyzing technology to realize dramatic economic growth across all sectors.
The promise of affordable, point-to-point autonomous transportation, with novel vehicles redesigned from the ground up, also portends significant benefits for underserved communities. Improvements in emissions through a widespread deployment of electric, autonomous vehicles would positively impact public health and the environment. Moreover, AVs stand to greatly increase economic opportunities and provide upward economic mobility, as low-income communities can access low-cost transportation that plugs the systemic gaps in today’s mass transit systems. For the disability and senior citizen communities, often unable to either access conventional mass transit or afford private or paratransit alternatives, AV transportation allows them the opportunity of greater participation in American public life.
Most importantly of all, however, is the tremendous potential of AVs to dramatically improve safety on our nation’s roads….” Read more Hmmmm… This is a really good report for many reasons, including the global competition/political aspects of this technological transformation of motive power, vehicle control, mobility and the environmental responsibility. My only caution is that when we talk about Autonomous Vehicles, we are really talking about 2 very different kinds… (I’ll knuckle under and call them..) Level 2 and Level 4.
“Level 2” are simply technological extensions of conventional cars… OEMs design and build them; we buy them; we are responsible for them; we buy insurance for them; they happen to have gizmos that keep us from crashing (what I also call Safe-driving cars) and might include Comfort & Convenience features that entices us to buy them because they allow us to take our hands off the wheel and/or feet off the pedals (what I also call Self-driving cars). Let’s be clear… the way Level 2 should work is… if we get a little ahead of ourselves and over-rely on the Comfort & Convenience features, by say, hopping in the back seat, then the “keep us from crashing features” keep us from running into a tree and avoid having the car catch on fire and cook us.
“Level 2” continues and in some ways may also enhance mobility, but the gizmos really bail us out when we misbehave and consequently substantially improve safety. Mobility is largely Constant; Safety is Enhanced.
“Level 4” are vehicles that are capable of and have been certified as being able to drive themselves in an Operational Design Domain (ODD). That ODD is NOT going to be “everywhere” any time soon or maybe even ever. Please don’t even bring it up… Level 5 will never exist except in some limit that will never be achieved! Stop talking about it!
What is important is that “Level 4” is all about improving mobility; for example, providing personal on-demand (aka auto-like) mobility for those that don’t have access to a “Level 2” (or “Level 0”) vehicle. I contend that Safety is constant (as good as we can make it and, in the limit, as good as us when we are not misbehaving.) Our objective is to provide as much high-quality mobility as we can. Here we are trying to extremize mobility without compromising Safety. Safety is largely Constant; Mobility is Enhanced. Alain
NTSB: Autopilot could not have been engaged in fatal Tesla crash
K. Korosec,
May 10, "...
Only adaptive
cruise
control, one
of the
functions in
Autopilot,
could be
engaged in
that section
of the road,
according to
the NTSB.
Autosteer,
another
feature that
keeps the
vehicle in the
lane, was not
available on
that part of
the road, the
report says.
The
preliminary
report
supports
comments made
by Tesla's
vice president
of vehicle
engineering,
Lars Moravy,
who said
during an
earnings call
that adaptive
cruise control
was engaged
and
accelerated to
30 miles per
hour before
the car
crashed....."
[Read more](https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/10/ntsb-autopilot-could-not-have-been-engaged-in-fatal-tesla-crash/) Hmmmm...[Must see...](https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HWY21FH007-preliminary-report.pdf)[PRELIMINARY REPORT HIGHWAY: HWY21FH007](https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/HWY21FH007-preliminary-report.pdf)...
However: The
question
remains... Why
didn't
the Automated
Emergency
Braking System
keep the car
from hitting
the
tree?!!!!! Alain
Connected Vehicle (CV) Infrastructure – Urban Bus Operational Safety Platform
Battelle, May 2021, “ABSTRACT: This document is the project report for the Connected Vehicle Infrastructure – Urban Bus Operational Safety Platform project also known as the Enhanced Transit Safety Retrofit Package (E-TRP) project. The report describes the project’s background and purpose, summarizes its activities and results, includes results from an independent evaluation, and provides insight into the lessons learned and experiences captured through the project….” Read more Hmmmm… In the interest of full disclosure, this project, which included Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority, was selected by FRA in 2014 instead of one that I had submitted that included Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. Unfortunately, at the time of submittal, I was unaware that Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority had also partnered with Battelle; else, I would have never wasted my time or other people’s time finishing the proposal. The probability that a competitive FRA solicitation makes two awards to the same Transit Company is as “slim2none” as one can get. Moreover, given that Batelle is located in Ohio, any influence forthcoming from Ohio would almost certainly lean towards the partnership with Battelle. Princeton might be strong, but not that strong. Consequently we didn’t stand a chance. Had we known (my fault for not knowing) we would have either found another Transit partner, or simply moved on earlier (as Jerome Lutin eventually did by crafting a very successful Active Safety-Collision Warning Pilot with the Washington State Transit Insurance Pool (WSTIP), Pierce Transit, U. of Washington and others.)
We, of course, felt we had an outstanding proposal. Reading the eventual findings of the effort that was selected over us, as are reported in Section 4, Project Results, I can only shake my head. Page 37 and 38 on RoI is just … Annual benefit reported to 6 significant digits ($106,452) and Annual costs (also to 6 significant digits are so obviously challenging that the research team should have realized at the very beginning, or early in the study, that whatever they had proposed was extremely challenged and pivoted. They certainly should not have written so many pages and just told us.. financially, what ever we were trying to do here is completely NOT in the public interest. This must be the worse RoI ever reported in any report that was over a few pages long. Can you imagine investing $2M (sorry, I’ll be a little sloppy and use only one significant number) in a new technology that necessarily involves substantial risk and getting 5% annual return in an RoI analysis (and apparently without uncovering a low probability up side). The writing should have been on the wall years ago and the report should have simply said right from the beginning…the RoI of what we tried is bad, we found no upside that we can justify. We are sorry, our best advice is, please don’t go here.
Moreover, since they couldn’t even test DSRC even though this was supposed to be a “Connected Vehicle…” says something about the lack of quality/creativity to use the funding to really try to improve bus safety. Did they really use the research money to achieve 6 digit precision on something that was DoA at single digit accuracy?
Again, please read as much as you can of this and reach your own conclusions. I admit that I’m looking at this report from a biased world view. I apologize. Alain
Driving the Future of Transportation
Video of ValleyMetro - Waymo Partnership to create an Automated Vehicle Mobility on Demand (AV MoD) Project. Read more Hmmmm… Must watch!
China’s Mars Rover Mission Lands on the Red Planet
S. Meyers & K. Chang, May 14, “The United States now has company on Mars.
A Chinese
spacecraft
descended
through the
thin Martian
atmosphere and
landed safely
on a large
plain on
Saturday
morning, state
media
reported,
accomplishing
a feat that
only two other
nations have
before. (In
the United
States, it was
still Friday—
7:18 p.m.
Eastern time —
when the
spacecraft
touched down.)
The landing
follows
China's launch
last month of
the core
module of a
new orbiting
space station
and a
successful
mission in
December that
collected
nearly four
pounds of
rocks and soil
from the moon
and brought
them back to
Earth. Next
month, the
country's
space program
plans to send
three
astronauts
back to space,
inaugurating
what could
become a
regular
Chinese
presence in
Earth's orbit.
Just by
arriving at
Mars and
orbiting the
planet in
February,
China's space
program
confirmed its
place among
the top tier
of agencies
exploring the
solar system.
Now that it
has executed a
landing — with
a deployment
of a rover
still to come
— it has
established
itself as a
principal
contender in
what some view
as a new era
of space
competition.
Read more...
" [Read more](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/science/china-mars.html) Hmmmm... Congratulations!
AutoX marks first 100 days of fully driverless robotaxi operation
L. Butcher, May 7, “The launch of AutoX’s fully driverless robotaxi in January 2021 was a major milestone for the company, as it provided the first commercial robotaxi service in China and made AutoX the second company in the world to operate a robotaxi service without a safety driver in the vehicle.
According to
AutoX, the
service has
been well
received by
Shenzhen
residents and
officials
alike. Within
the first 100
days of
operation, the
company claims
its service
has won over a
group of loyal
users from the
traditional
ride-hailing
market...." [Read more](https://www.automotivetestingtechnologyinternational.com/news/vehicle-development/autox-marks-first-100-days-of-fully-driverless-robotaxi-operations.html) Hmmmm... Be sure to [see video](https://youtu.be/2WQ6Guiyebg).
Looks good;
however, was
it
"driverless"
or "driverless
with an
'attendant'
inside". Not
to be picky,
but I couldn't
find
independent
confirmation
that "no
disengagements"
occurred
during the two
hour video.
Also, it seems
as if this was
videoed early
on a "Sunday
morning".
Anyway, it
looks good.
Alain
Union Pacific says autonomous trains are the answer to driverless trucks
B. Stephens, May 5, “How can railroads compete with autonomous or electric trucks that would dramatically reduce the cost of trucking?
"Ultimately,
our answer to
autonomous
trucks is
autonomous
trains," Union
Pacific CEO
Lance Fritz
says. A first
step toward
automation is
reducing crew
size where
feasible,
Fritz said
during the
railroad's
investor day
Tuesday.
UP invested in
autonomous
truck company
TuSimple in
December to
keep tabs on
the
technology,
and so it can
test
driverless
rigs for
intermodal
drayage
service, Fritz
says.
TuSimple,
which runs
autonomous
trucks in the
Southwest with
a driver
aboard who can
step in if
necessary,
plans to make
its first
driverless
revenue move
this fall.
Analysts say
that
autonomous
rigs could
threaten
nearly a third
of the traffic
that currently
moves by rail.
Electric
trucks are
significantly
cheaper to
operate than
diesel rigs
and are likely
to arrive
sooner, and in
greater
numbers, than
driverless
rigs,
according to
consulting
firm Oliver
Wyman. Either
would erode
rail's cost
advantage over
trucks.... "
[Read more](https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/union-pacific-says-autonomous-trains-are-the-answer-to-driverless-trucks/) Hmmmm... If I was UP, I wouldn't
be worried
about
Driverless
trucks (they
are way way
out in the
future). I'd
be worried
about not
having 200 car
unit coal
trains to
move.
Consequently,
I'd be fully
invested in
driverless
trains and
prepared to
buy out the
two-man crews
on the UP.
Trains can
always beat
trucks on a
carbon
footprint
basis. If
they can get
out of their
own way and
better compete
on a service
frequency
basis by
running short
few-car trains
they can
readily
compete with
trucks. The
hard part of
getting to
short few-car
trains the
buying out of
the last two
crew members,
not the
automatic
operation.
Alain
Viodi View – 05/12/21
K. Pyle, May 12, “Things that were abstract dreams and nightmares in the early 1990s have become today’s reality. Specifically, the idea of electronic viruses and cybercriminals wreaking havoc on the real world has sadly become a reality and the resulting gas shortages are a reminder of the 1970 era. Unfortunately, the cyberinfrastructure vulnerabilities we are seeing today are just a sliver of what could be if GPS is compromised, according to an excellent article by former DOT Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology Diana Furchtgott-Roth….” Read more Hmmmm…GPS must NOT be compromised. See also: “Resilient Positioning, Navigation, and Timing – Right Now” Alain
Volkswagen plans self-driving electric microbus with Argo AI by 2025
M. Wayland, May 12, “Volkswagen is planning to bring to market by 2025 a version of its upcoming microbus, a retro-styled electric van, with the ability to drive itself in certain circumstances, the automaker announced Wednesday.
VW is
developing the
vehicle with
Argo AI, a
Pittsburgh-based
autonomous
vehicle
start-up
backed by the
German
automaker and
Ford Motor.
Testing of the
ID.Buzz vans
to transport
people and
goods is
expected to
begin this
summer in
Munich,
according to
the companies.
"Our aim with
the
self-driving
version of the
ID.Buzz is to
facilitate
commercial
deployment of
transport and
delivery
services starting
in 2025,"
Christian
Senger, head
of autonomous
driving at
VW's van unit,
said in a
press release.
... " [Read more](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/volkswagen-plans-self-driving-electric-microbus-with-argo-ai-by-2025.html) Hmmmm... "... starting
in 2025
Another gonna
rather dida.
Alain
MADD Identifies 241 Examples of Auto Tech to Help Prevent Drunk Driving
Press release, May 12, “Today Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) released an updated analysis of vehicle technologies that are available now – or in various stages of development – that could be installed in vehicles to prevent drunk driving and other impairments and save thousands of lives a year.
The analysis was first submitted Jan. 11 to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in response to the agency’s Request for Information on drunk driving prevention technology. MADD also submitted the RFI to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee as part of the record for an April 27 auto safety hearing… In total, this updated report details 241 examples of technology that NHTSA should consider as part of a rulemaking to prevent impaired driving. Numerous technologies to correct dangerous and deadly driving behaviors are available today, and are now an option on almost all new vehicles. Driving performance monitoring systems are critical to the elimination of impaired driving and will likely be used in tandem with other driver monitoring systems, and potentially (but not limited to) breath or touch-based passive alcohol detection technology….” Read more Hmmmm… Very interesting. Alain
Autonomous truck maker says it has nearly 7,000 driverless truck orders
Staff, May 11,
"Self-driving
technology
company
TuSimple said
Monday it has
received 6,775
reservations
for a new line
of
purpose-built
SAE Level 4
International
LT Series
autonomous
trucks.
Level 4
automated
driving means
the vehicle
does not
require human
intervention
in the event
of a problem
or system
failure.
The self-driving trucks, developed in partnership with Navistar, will be equipped with TuSimple’s autonomous driving system and manufactured by Navistar beginning in 2024…. “ Read more Hmmmm… “… beginning in 2024. Another gonna rather dida.
Plus, who is responsible (picks up the tab) if something bad happens during: “… in the event of a problem or system failure…” Navistar??? TuSimple??? I’d love to see the fine print here. I’m enormously skeptical. Alain
Cruise expects GM to begin production of new driverless vehicle in early 2023
M. Wayland, May 13, “Cruise, a majority-owned autonomous vehicle subsidiary of General Motors, expects production of its driverless shuttle called the Origin to begin in early 2023, CEO Dan Ammann said Thursday.
The time frame
given for the
vehicle is the
most detailed
yet and also
hints at when
the commercial
operation of
Cruise's
current
autonomous
vehicle test
fleet is
expected to
start.
The Origin is
the company's
first vehicle
specifically
designed to
operate
without a
driver on
board. It does
not have
manual
controls such
as pedals or a
steering
wheel.... " [Read more](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/gm-to-begin-production-of-new-driverless-cruise-vehicle-in-early-2023.html) Hmmmm... "... begin
in early 2023
Another gonna
rather dida.
Alain
More On….
See
(confidential)
[from yesterday (5/15/21](cid:part71.140024F6.C0E866AB@princeton.edu)[)](cid:part71.140024F6.C0E866AB@princeton.edu).
Then Re-see:
Pop Up Metro USA Intro 09 2020
H. Posner’77, Sept 13, 2020. “Creating Value for Light Density Urban Rail Lines” . See slides, See video Hmmmm… Simply Brilliant. Alain
0, 0);">[Annual Princeton](https://orfe.princeton.edu/conferences/sdc/session/20210128)SmartDrivingCar
Summit [It is over!!!](https://orfe.princeton.edu/conferences/sdc/session/20210325)
Now time to
actually do
something in
the Trentons
of this
world.
Making Driverless Happen – The Road Forward (Updated)
K. Pyle, April
18, ""It's
time to hit
the start
button," is [Fred Fishkin's](https://www.techstination.com/) succinct way of
summarizing
the next steps
in the Smart
Driving Car
journey.
Fiskin, along
with the LA
Times' [Russ Mitchell](https://twitter.com/russ1mitchell?lang=en)
co-produced
the final
session of the
[2021 Smart Driving Car Summit, Making It Happen – Part 2](https://orfe.princeton.edu/conferences/sdc/session/20210415).
This 16th and
final session
in this
multi-month
online
conference not
only provided
a s[ummary of the thought-provoking speakers](https://viodi.com/2021/04/18/making-driverless-happen-the-road-forward/),
but also
provided food
for thought on
a way forward
to bring
mobility to
"the Trentons
of the World."
Setting the
stage for this
final session,
Michael Sena
provided
highlights of
the Smart
Driving Car
journey that
started in
late December
2020. Safety,
high-quality,
and affordable
mobility,
particularly
for those who
do not have
many options,
was a common
theme to the
2021 Smart
Driving Car
Summit. As
Princeton
Professor
Kornhauser,
the conference
organizer put
it,....." [Read more](https://viodi.com/2021/04/18/making-driverless-happen-the-road-forward/) Hmmmm.... We had another
excellent
Session.
Thank you for
the summary,
Ken! Alain
Ken Pyle’s Session Summaries of 4th Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit:
14th Session What Will Power Safely-driven Cars
13th Session Improving the Moving of Goods
12th Session 3/18/21 Human-centered Design of Safe and Affordable Driverless Mobility
11th Session 3/11/21 Incentivizing Through Regulation
10th Session 3/04/21 Incentivizing Through Insurance
9th Session 2/25/21 Can Level 3 be Delivered?
8th Session 2/18/21 Who Will Build, Sell and Maintain Driverless Cars?
[Michael Sena's Slides](https://www.dropbox.com/s/yfzscinfy41vrka/Sena_Session8%20SDC_Summit.pdf?dl=0),
[Glenn Mercer Slides](https://www.dropbox.com/s/8x4sd97vrifa9r9/Mercer_Session8%20SDC_Summit.pdf?dl=0)
7th Session 2/11/21 Finally Doing It
6th Session 2/ 4/21 Safe Enough in the Operational Design Domain
5th Session 1/28/21 At the Tipping Point
4th Session 1/21/21 Why Customers are Buying Them
3rd Session 1/14/21 The SmartDrivingCars We Can Buy Today
2nd Session1/ 7/21 A Look into the Future1st Session:12/17/20Setting the Stage
Kornhauser & He, April 2021 “Making it Happen: A Proposal for Providing Affordable, High-quality, On-demand Mobility for All in the “Trentons” of this World”
Orf467F20_FinalReport “Analyzing Ride-Share Potential and Empty Repositioning Requirements of a Nationwide aTaxi System” Kornhauser & He, March 2021 “AV 101 + Trenton Affordable HQ Mobility Initiative”
C’mon Man!(These folks didn’t get/read the memo)
Sunday Supplement
Half-Baked
Click-Bait
A driverless Waymo got stuck in traffic and then tried to run away from its support crew
A. Hawkins,
May 14, "A
rare unedited
look at an
autonomous
vehicle in
distress..."
[Read more](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/12/volkswagen-plans-self-driving-electric-microbus-with-argo-ai-by-2025.html) Hmmmm...I'm sorry for piling on
here. No
wonder John
Kafcik
"retired".
When did we
all have so
little real
content to
report rather
than stuff
like this. At
least the [Russian Crash videos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw4n-Rpd-Qc)
are ... (I
don't know
what... they
are useless
too!).
So frustrating, yet so encouraging: it was really driverless, as opposed to everyone else’s “driverless with a driver inside”. And, that this is the worst thing that anyone can dig up. I’ll take this as a positive here… It is really good that this is only as bad as its gotten. Just think if AutoX didn’t have an attendant in the car and the video above was in this kind of traffic. Alain
A man arrested for riding in the back seat of his driverless Tesla got out of jail, bought a new one, and did it again
T. Levin, May
13, "A San
Francisco man
who was
arrested for
riding in the
back seat of
his Tesla as
it drove on
the highway
says he'll
keep pulling
the stunt
after being
released from
jail — and
he'll keep
buying more
cars as they
get impounded.
After getting
booked on two
counts of
reckless
driving, Param
Sharma arrived
for a
Wednesday
interview with
the Bay Area
news station
KTVU riding in
the back seat
of a Tesla
again. But it
wasn't the
same car that
California
Highway Patrol
pulled him
over in. ..."
[Read more](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-fsd-back-seat-driving-stunt-arrested-buys-new-car-2021-5) Hmmmm... You can't make up this
stuff.
Anything for
15 seconds of
fame. Tesla
is (or should
be able) to
remotely turn
off autoPilot
and/or FSD for
repeated
misbehaviors;
else, Tesla
must assume
the
responsibility/liability
for tolerating
the
misbehavior.
Alain
Calendar of Upcoming
Events
The 2021 TRB Annual
Automated Road Transportation Symposium
Virtual on July 12-15, 2021
5th Annual Princeton SmartDrivingCar Summit
Fall 2021 Live in Person To be Announced
Georgia,
serif;">
On the More Technical Side
http://orfe.princeton.edu/~alaink/SmartDrivingCars/Papers/
K. Lockean’s AV Research Group at U of Texas
and
[The SYMPOSIUM ON THE FUTURE NETWORKED CAR 2021 VIRTUAL EVENT](https://www.itu.int/en/fnc/2021/Pages/default.aspx)
R. Shields, 22 - 25 March, “Recordings from the conference:
Session 1 plus opening: (Regulatory): https://youtu.be/UcDC8gXiUFk
Session 2: ([Cybersecurity](https://youtu.be/ppp2hxlvebY)): [https://youtu.be/ppp2hxlvebY](https://youtu.be/ppp2hxlvebY)
Session 3: [(Automated Driving Systems](https://youtu.be/uL2dRHuX2Cc)): [https://youtu.be/uL2dRHuX2Cc](https://youtu.be/uL2dRHuX2Cc)
Session 4: [(Communications for ADS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFQcL6yfBso)) : [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFQcL6yfBso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFQcL6yfBso)
Read more Hmmmm… Russ, thank you for sharing! Alain
###
These editions are sponsored by the SmartETFs Smart Transportation and Technology ETF, symbol MOTO. For more information head to www.motoetf.com
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 212, Zoom-Cast Episode 212 w/Ken Pyle
F. Fishkin, May 8 , “Where does Waymo go from here? Is GM really going to market personal autonomous vehicles? Viodi View managing editor Ken Pyle joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser & co-host Fred Fishkin for a look at those issues plus Volkswagen, Tesla, Argo and more.
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 211, Zoom-Cast Episode 211 w/ Michael Sena, Editor of The Dispatcher
F. Fishkin, May 1 , “There’s plenty of combustion around the issue of banning internal combustion engines (ICE). Consultant and The Dispatcher publisher Michael Sena joins us for a look at what makes sense…and what doesn’t. Plus #Tesla, #Toyota, #Volkswagen, #Baidu and progress in Florida. …”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 210, Zoom-Cast Episode 210 w/Ken Pyle & Louis Aaron’23
F. Fishkin, April 26 , “Passengers at the Las Vegas Convention Center are about to get their first taste of the new underground mobility service from #Elon Musk’s The Boring Company. Princeton student Louis Aaron has been working there and he joins Viodi View Managing Editor Ken Pyle, Princeton’s Alain ..”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 209, Zoom-Cast Episode 209 w/Clifford Winston, Brookings Inst.
F. Fishkin, April , “The Texas #Tesla crash that killed two continues to make headlines. The impact on the electric and automated vehicle industries? From the Brookings Institution, senior fellow Clifford Winston joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for a look at what the real focus should be on..”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 208, Zoom-Cast Episode 208 w/Prof. Stephen Still, U. of Buffalo
F. Fishkin, April 18, “What does it take to bring about mobility for all in the real world? With help from the federal DOT and a team at the University of Buffalo…some big steps are being taken there. Professor Stephen Still joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that…plus, Tesla, Uber, Cruise and more on Smart Driving Cars.”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 207, Zoom-Cast Episode 207 w/Selika Josiah Talbott
F. Fishkin, April 10 , “When a driverless vehicle crashes…what should passengers, other vehicle owners, law enforcement and first responders do? American University Professor Selika Josiah Talbott says the time for planning is now. She joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus Tesla, Apple and more in the latest Smart Driving Cars.”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 206, Zoom-Cast Episode 206 w/Stan Young, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
F. Fishkin, April 2, “When it comes to future mobility, what will fuel the vehicles? How can the shortcomings of electric vehicles be overcome? Stanley Young, Mobility Systems team lead for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser & co-host Fred Fishkin…”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 205, Zoom-Cast Episode 205 w/Michael Sena; Editor The Dispatcher. President, MLSena Consulting
F. Fishkin, March 26, “Every driverless car should take the same tests that we take..and have the same responsibilities. So says Michael L. Sena in the latest edition of The Dispatcher. He joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus the latest from Tesla and more…on Episode 205 of Smart Driving Cars…”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 204, Zoom-Cast Episode 204 w/Andrew Rose, President, OnStar Insurance Services
F. Fishkin, March 15, “.With GM aiming to upend the car insurance industry, the President of the automaker’s new OnStar Insurance Services, Andrew Rose joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. What advantages will OnStar insurance bring to the table…and a look at the future of auto insurance..”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 203, Zoom-Cast Episode 203 AV 101: A. Kornhauser
###
F. Fishkin,
March 13,
".GM's move to
transform auto
insurance
through OnStar
Insurance:
Is it a win,
win for
all? Is
adaptive
cruise control
prompting some
drivers to
speed? And
what does
Tesla really
mean by "full
self
driving"?
Just some of
the questions
tackled in
the latest
edition of
Smart Driving
Cars with
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser
& co-host
Fred Fishkin."
[SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 202](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-202),
[Zoom-Cast Episode 202](https://youtu.be/Hj3GmnTqfdk) President
& CEO,
RoadDB
###
###
F. Fishkin,
March 3, "When
will we be
able to
purchase cars
that can
largely drive
themselves?
It may not be
long...but
don't expect
to vacate the
driver's
seat. That's
the view of
entrepreneur,
tech pioneer
and RoadDB CEO
Russ
Shields. He
takes an in
depth look at
where we are
and where
we're headed
with
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser
& co-host
Fred Fishkin." [SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 201](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-201),
[Zoom-Cast Episode 201](https://youtu.be/n5oEfvBrWa8)
w/Michael
Sena,
Publisher of The
Dispatcher
###
###
F. Fishkin,
Feb. 26,
"Smarter cars
need smarter
assembly...and
location
matters. The
Dispatcher
publisher
Michael Sena
joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin for a
look at that,
politics,
climate and
carmakers...plus
Tesla,
Velodyne,
Foxconn and
more.." [SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 200](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-200),
[Zoom-Cast Episode 200](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVHQuwNT4eY&feature=youtu.be)
w/Edwin Olsen,
CEO, May
Mobility
###
###
F. Fishkin,
Feb. 22, "How
May Mobility
is building
confidence in
autonomous
transportation
and creating a
road map for
growth through
the pandemic
and beyond.
CEO and
co-founder
Edwin Olson
joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin for
that and
more."
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 199, Zoom-Cast Episode 199 w/Marc Scribner, Senior Transportation Policy Analyst, Reason Foundation
###
F. Fishkin,
Feb. 19, "How
the Biden
administration
& Congress
can pave the
path for
autonomous
vehicles.
Reason
Foundation Sr.
Transportation
Policy Analyst
Marc Scribner
joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin to
focus on
what's next.
Plus jobs and
autonomous
trucking,
Waymo, GM,
Ford and
more." SmartDrivingCars
[Pod-Cast Episode 198](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-198),
[Zoom-Cast Episode 198](https://youtu.be/G7wnT9StV5Q)
w/Dick Mudge,
CEO, Compass
Transportation
&
Technology
###
F. Fishkin,
Feb. 13, Which
autonomous
vehicle
companies will
be the last
standing?
And does
private
ownership of
self driving
cars make
sense?
Compass
Transportation
and Technology
President Dick
Mudge joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin for
that...plus
the latest on
Tesla, GM,
Toyota and
more..." SmartDrivingCars
[Pod-Cast Episode 197](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-197),
[Zoom-Cast Episode 197](https://youtu.be/1DXuNFbaxIc) w/Michel
Parent,
Founding
Member of
SuburVan
###
F. Fishkin,
Feb. 5, "Smart
mobility
innovation in
France. Dr.
Michel Parent
founding
member of
SuburVan is
aiming to
provide fully
autonomous
mobility on
the outskirts
of Paris and
more. He
joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin for
that...plus
the latest on
Ford, GM,
Tesla, VW and
more...."
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 196, Zoom-Cast Episode 196 w/Steve Polzin, Recently US DoT
###
F. Fishkin,
Jan. 24, "Will
more safe
vehicle
technology
dampen the
push for
driverless
mobility?
Measuring the
progress and
challenges
ahead with Dr.
Steven
Polzin..former
Sr. Advisor,
Office of the
Ass't.
Secretary for
Research and
Technology in
the DOT. He
joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser
& co-host
Fred Fishkin
... plus GM
going zero
emission,
Tesla, Waymo
and more.."
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 195 Zoom-Cast Episode 195 w/Diana Furchtgott-Roth, G. Washington U.
###
F. Fishkin,
Jan. 24, "What
progress has
been made
towards
smarter, safer
mobility? The
push for a
back-up to
GPS. Why the
jump in
vehicle
fatalities
last year?
Those issues
and more as
former deputy
assistant U.S.
Transportation
Secretary for
research and
technology
Diana
Furchtgott
Roth joins us. Plus...Microsoft, Cruise, Tesla and more on Smart Driving Cars with
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser
& co-host
Fred Fishkin. SmartDrivingCars
[Pod-Cast Episode 194](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-194) [Zoom-Cast Episode 194](https://youtu.be/hK4Fj6erScY)
w/Anuj
Pradhan, UMass
###
F. Fishkin,
Jan. 15,
""When it
comes to
vehicle safety technology...should manufacturers be sharing instead of competing?
Should there
be
standardization?
Anuj Pradhan,
co-director of
the Human
Performance
Lab at UMASS
Amherst joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin for
that...plus
the latest
from GM,
Tesla,
Mobileye, Nio
and more." SmartDrivingCars
[Pod-Cast Episode 193](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-193) [Zoom-Cast Episode 193](https://youtu.be/OETxB_wzkDw)
w/Bobby
Hambrick,
AutonomousStuff
###
F. Fishkin,
Jan. 8, "Bobby
Hambrick
started
AutuonomouStuff
in a barn in
Morton,
Illinois....and
has pioneered
much of the
technology
moving the
autonomous
industry
forward, now
as part of
Hexagon. Bobby
joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin to
look back and
look ahead.
Plus...Apple,
Hyundai,
Waymo, Tesla
and more! "
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 192 Zoom-Cast Episode 192 w/Danny Shapiro, nVIDIA
###
F. Fishkin,
Dec. 30,
"NVIDIA
continues on a
roll powering
the Zoox robo
taxi unveiled
this month by
Amazon.
NVIDIA senior
director of
automotive
Danny Shapiro
outlines the
progress and
looks ahead to
2021 in the
latest Smart
Driving Cars
with
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin. "
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 191 Zoom-Cast Episode 191 w/ Louis Aaron’23 and Joel Johnson
F. Fishkin, Dec. 20, “College student Joel Johnson has been keeping a log of dozens of trips in Waymo’s self driving service in Chandler, Arizona, and posting videos on YouTube. Louis Aaron’23, another student, has been working with Elon Musk’s Boring Company in Las Vegas. The two share their experiences with Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin in the latest Smart Driving Cars.”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 190 Zoom-Cast Episode 190 w/Chris Urmson, Aurora
###
F. Fishkin,
Dec. 15, "With
Aurora taking
over Uber's
self driving
efforts, what
is on the
horizon for
the start up
whose leaders
have roots at
Waymo, Tesla
and Uber?
Co-founder and
CEO Chris
Urmson joins
Princeton's
Alain
Kornhauser and
co-host Fred
Fishkin in
this special
edition of
Smart Driving
Cars."
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 187 Zoom-Cast Episode 187 w/Michael Sena, The Dispatcher
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..”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 186 Zoom-Cast Episode 186 w/Kelly Funkhouser, Consumer Report
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.”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 185 Zoom-Cast Episode 185 w/Dan Smith, Waymo F. Fishkin, Nov 20, “Only Waymo has been transporting customers in driverless vehicles without a safety monitor on board. What goes into that kind of decision? Waymo Assistant General Counsel Dan Smith joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin in this special edition of Smart Driving Cars.” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 184 Zoom-Cast Episode 184 w/Marjory Blumenthal, Rand F. Fishkin, Nov 20, “So when are driverless vehicles safe enough to be deployed? Senior Rand Corporation policy researcher Marjory Blumenthal joins Princeton University’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin to examine her latest report and more.”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 183 Zoom-Cast Episode 183 w/Kirsten Korosec F. Fishkin, Nov 13, “Rivian’s hands free driver assistance will be standard equipment…while Ford unveils the E-Transit. TechCrunch Senior Transportation reporter and editor Kirsten Korosec joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus Nuro, Tesla, Uber, Lyft, Cruise and more. Plus the coming changes for mobility under a new administration!”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 182 Zoom-Cast Episode 182 F. Fishkin, Nov 6, “What will a new administration mean for autonomous mobility? And what about the passage of Proposition 22 in California after Uber’s big campaign? That plus luxury EVs coming from Bentley….and cheap EVs from China. Join Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that and more.” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 181 Zoom-Cast Episode 181 w/Sheldon Sandler & Glenn Mercer F. Fishkin, Oct. 30, “Waymo releases self driving data…while traditional car dealers enjoy surprisingly strong profits during the pandemic. Why? What about the coming autonomous mobility? Bell Air Partners’ Sheldon Sandler and researcher-consultant Glenn Mercer explain in Episode 181 of Smart Driving Cars with Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. “
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 180 Zoom-Cast Episode 180 w/John Rich, Ford/Argo, part 2 F. Fishkin, Oct. 15, “Ford and Argo AI have unveiled their next generation self-driving test vehicle. Once again, Ford’s Director of Autonomous Vehicle and Technology Development John Rich joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin to unveil the technology and the company’s self driving business plans.” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 179 Zoom-Cast Episode 179 w/John Rich, Ford/Argo F. Fishkin, Oct. 15, “Which autonomous vehicle platforms will survive? The director of Ford’s Autonomous Vehicle and Technology Development says there may only be two…and Ford /Argo AI will be one of them. John Rich joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that and more.” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 178 Zoom-Cast Episode 178 w/Andrew Hawkins, Verge F. Fishkin, Oct. 9, “Here we go! Waymo going fully driverless in Phoenix suburb service. The Verge senior transportation reporter Andrew Hawkins joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus Tesla… Amazon… Rivian and more. Subscribe!
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 177 Zoom-Cast Episode 177
F. Fishkin,
Oct. 2, "New
grades for
assisted
driving
systems from
Euro NCAP.
But Princeton
Professor
Alain
Kornhauser
says the devil
is in the
details in
this edition
with co-host
Fred Fishkin.
And there's
Amazon's
success
against Covid
plusTesla,
Uber, GM,
Nikola and
more. SmartDrivingCars [Pod-Cast Episode 176](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-176) [Zoom-Cast Episode 176](https://youtu.be/lHjSTXH-GGchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHvG6Aqt6fk&feature=youtu.be)
w/Marc
Scribner
F. Fishkin, Sept. 25, “A new government entity to oversee autonomous vehicles? Marc Scribner, Sr. Transportation Policy Analyst at the Reason Foundation on regulation and more with Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. Plus…Tesla, Nikola, GM and the California move to ban new gasoline vehicles.”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 175 Zoom-Cast Episode 175 w/Michael Sena F. Fishkin, Sept. 18, “Automobility and the future of car dealers… “The Dispatcher” publisher Michael Sena offers a different take on how car dealers may battle automakers pushing for direct to consumer subscriptions. That and more in this edition of Smart Driving Cars with Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin.”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 174 Zoom-Cast Episode 174 w/Kelly Funkhouser, Consumer Reports
F. Fishkin, Sept. 4, “Moving forward with autonomous vehicle testing, the head of safety at Uber’s Advanced Technology Group is pledging safety data transparency. Nat Beuse joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co host Fred Fishkin for that and more on the latest mobility headlines.” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 173 Zoom-Cast Episode 173 w/Nathanial Beuse F. Fishkin, Sept. 4, “Moving forward with autonomous vehicle testing, the head of safety at Uber’s Advanced Technology Group is pledging safety data transparency. Nat Beuse joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co host Fred Fishkin for that and more on the latest mobility headlines.” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 172Zoom-Cast Episode 172 Special Edition w/Danny Shapiro
F. Fishkin ,Sept. 2, “Mercedes unveils the latest S Class with more computing power than 60 average cars…with NVIDIA playing a big role. NVIDIA’s Director of Automotive Danny Shapiro joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that and more.” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 171Zoom-Cast Episode 171 w/Henry Greenidge
SmartDrivingCars PodCast 170 ZoomCast Episode170 w/Michael Sena SmartDrivingCars PodCast Episode 169 ZoomCast Episode 169 w/Anthony Townsend SmartDrivingCars PodCast Episode 168 ZoomCast Episode 168 w/Olaf Sakkers SmartDrivingCars PodCast 167 ZoomCast Episode167 w/Robin Chase, Carlos Pardo & Daniel Sperling SmartDrivingCars PodCast Episode 166ZoomCast Episode 166 w/Jay Rodgers’95, CEO Local Motors
Zoom-inar
Episode 005
AmaZooks
F. Fishkin, July 20, “Is Driverless home delivery the fastest route to Affordable Mobility for the Mobility Disadvantaged? … “
SmartDrivingCars PodCast Episode 165,ZoomCast Episode165 w/Michael Sena
F. Fishkin 16, “Is the option to buy a car at a dealership going to vanish? The Dispatcher publisher Michael Sena has a provocative perspective in this edition with Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser & co-host Fred Fishkin. Plus..an update on the Amazon Zoox deal, autonomous vehicles and how they can help battle discrimination in transportation, TuSimple, Mobileye, Uber, Tesla and more.” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast 164 Episode 164, Zoom-Cast Episode 163 w/Robbie Diamond
F. Fishkin, July 9, “Fostering economic opportunity through autonomous technology is the focus of an upcoming report from Security America’s Future Energy. Founder and CEO Robbie Diamond shares details and more in this edition with Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. Plus ..are armed police officers really needed for traffic enforcement? And the latest from Tesla, Waymo and more. …” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 163, Zoom-Cast Episode 163 w/Henry Greenidge 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. .”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 162, Zoom-Cast Episode 162 w/Cliff Winston
F. Fishkin, June 25, “From the Brookings Institution, Cliff Winston, co-author of Autonomous Vehicles…The Road to Economic Growth? joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. Plus..why are fatal crash rates rising in the midst of a pandemic…plus NVIDIA, Didi, Tesla and more.”
Episode 004 [Insurance: For or Against SmartDrivingCars?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHlPaNmjeag&feature=youtu.be)
F. Fishkin,
June 23, "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 ..."
-
Zoom-inar (Video replay) Insurance: For or Against SmartDrivingCars?
-
PodCast (Audio Only) Insurance: For or Against SmartDrivingCars?
Listen/Watch more Hmmm… We only scratched the surface. Alain SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 161,Zoom-Cast Episode 161 w/Alberto Stochino F. Fishkin, June 17, “Is less data sometimes more when it comes to driverless vehicle technology? Perceptive Founder and CEO Alberto Stochino joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus the DOT’s new plan for sharing autonomous safety information, the latest from Tesla, EVs from China and more.”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 160, Zoom-Cast Episode 160 w/Jessica Cicchino F. Fishkin, June 12, “Insurance Institute for Highway Safety Research VP Jessica Cicchino co-authored a new study saying self driving vehicles could struggle to eliminate most crashes. She joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin to discuss the study. Plus the latest on Tesla, Ford & VW, Covid-19 and more. ”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 159, Zoom-Cast Episode 159 w/Kara Kockelman F. Fishkin, June 4, “Prof. Kara Kockelman’s focus on smart transportation to save lives, money and the environment has made her a sought after global expert. The U. of Texas Transportation Engineering Professor joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin on the impact of Covid-19 and much more. Plus Tesla, Uber, Argo AI and the top smart driving headlines. For more on Dr. Kockelman’s work….please visit… http://www.caee.utexas.edu/prof/kockelman.”
DrivingTheDebate
Episode 003 [Everyone's for Connectivity; but...](https://youtu.be/DMNLH_fkcI4) 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 ..."
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 158, Zoom-Cast Episode 158 w/Chunka Mui
F. Fishkin, May 28, “In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, what are the smartest ways to re-build and plan for the future? Futurist and author Chunka Mui joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus Amazon, Zoox, Intel Mobileye, Tesla, Uber and more.” SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 157, Zoom-Cast Episode 157 w/Grayson Brulte
F. Fishkin, May 21, “Global auto makers must completely re-think their autonomous mobility strategy as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. So says innovation strategist Grayson Brulte of Brulte & Company….who joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin. Plus…Waymo, Tesla, Uber and more.”
DrivingTheDebate Episode 002 The Future of Public Roadway Transit F. Fishkin, May 14, ”Will the Bus be Thrown Under the Bus?…
-
Zoom-inar Video (Video replay)Smart Driving Cars: The Future of Public Roadway Transit
-
PodCast (Audio Only) Smart Driving Cars: The Future of Public Roadway Transit
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 156, Cars Zoom-Cast Episode 156 w/Danny Shapiro2 F. Fishkin, May 14, “With new hardware and software capabilities NVIDIA is expanding into new areas of driver assistance technology. Sr. Director of Automotive Danny Shapiro joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that…plus the latest on Waymo, Voyage, Ford and more. listen and subscribe!”
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 155,Zoom-Cast Episode 155 w/Alex Roy2 F. Fishkin, April 29, “The continuing impact of Covid-19 on autonomous vehicle progress. But it may not be all bad news. Alex Roy…host of the No Parking Podcast and Director of Special Operations at Argo AI joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus Tesla, Intel, Lyft, Uber and more. Listen and subscribe!
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 154, Zoom-Cast Episode 154 w/Dan Sperling F. Fishkin, April 29, “Can ride sharing rebound after the pandemic? Daniel Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus Tesla, Waymo, Ford and more.”
DrivingTheDebate Episode 001 The Driverless “New Normal” Debate F. Fishkin, April 27,
-
SmartDrivingCar PodCast (Audio Only) Smart Driving Cars: The Driverless New Normal Debate
-
Zoom Audience Questions (Only a few were addressed in Zoom-inar)
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 153, Zoom-Cast Episode 153 w/Dick Mudge2
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 152,Zoom-Cast Episode 152 w/Brad Templeton
SmartDrivingCars Podcast Episode 148 w/Richard Bishop
SmartDrivingCars Zoom-Cast Episode 148 w/Richard Bishop
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 147 - Michael Sena
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 142 - J. Hughes
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 141- A. Roy
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 139- Randal O’Toole
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 138-Nick Zart
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 136
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 135 - with Jim Atkinson
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 130 with Dick Mudge & Michael Sena
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 112 - J. Hardiman NJM
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 110 - Lance Elliot
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 108 3rd Summit Wrapup
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 106 3rd Summit David Kidd & Cecillia Feeley
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 104 3rd Summit Anil Lewis & Katherine Freund
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 97 - Michael Sena’69
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 71-Nader’55
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 69 - Chunka Mui
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 65 - Bernard Soriano, CA DMV
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 58-Keith Code,Motorcycles
Smart Driving Cars Podcast Episode 55-Larry Burns, Autonomy
Recent Highlights of:
May 8, 2021
Why has’t Waymo expanded its driverless service? Here’s my theory
###
T. Lee, May 7,
"Suburban
ride-hailing
is a lousy
business to be
in.
Last October, Waymo did something remarkable: the company launched a fully driverless commercial taxi service called Waymo One. Customers in a 50-square-mile corner of suburban Phoenix can now use their smartphones to hail a Chrysler Pacifica minivan with no one in the driver’s seat.
And then...
nothing. Seven
months later,
Waymo has
neither
expanded the
footprint of
the Phoenix
service nor
has it
announced a
timeline for
launching in a
second city.
It's as if
Steve Jobs had
unveiled the
iPhone,
shipped a few
thousand
phones to an
Apple Store in
Phoenix, and
then didn't
ship any more
for months—and
wouldn't
explain why.
Last Friday,
two Waymo
employees [participated in an "ask me anything" thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/n031vq/you_voted_and_were_excited_to_chat_about_waymo/) on
the
SelfDrivingCars
subreddit, a
watering hole
for
self-driving
industry
insiders.
Questions
about
expansion
plans
dominated the
conversation.
"How are you
going to
scale?" one
redditor
asked. "What
are the
impediments to
service
expansion at
this time?"
The Waymonauts
responded with
maddening
generalities.
"We feel the
same urgency
to scale
quickly that
others do, but
a ton of work
goes into
doing it
safely," wrote
Waymo's Sam
Kansara." [Read more](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/05/why-hasnt-waymo-expanded-its-driverless-service-heres-my-theory/) Hmmmm... Not at all surprising.
Can you
imagine trying
to be better
than one's own
Land Rover or
Porsche in car
country. That
is a heavy
lift. Making
it heavier is
the focus on
today's most
entitled
yuppies.
That's as bad
as the
original focus
of driverless
cars on
1%ers. Waymos
are pure and
simple
mobility
machines to
get you
from/to places
horizontally,
just as
elevators do
vertically ...
just get you
up to the "8th
floor". Why
are elevators
so successful
at what they
do?... Second
best is the
stairwell!
They win all
the time,
hands down.
In Chandler, the “stairwell” is your car parked in your garage. You don’t even have to go outside in all that heat. Waymo’s got to be really good to beat that! Waymo might end up getting close to that good, but in the beginning chances “slim-to-none”. Not that the car in the garage doesn’t have an enormous amount of “excess baggage”. Everyone seems to have conveniently forgotten about it. When even with all of its LiDars, radars and deepLearning, whereas the car with the Mad Men fantasies is way more than half full and your go-to mobility is your car. Your car allowed you to consider the Chandlers of this world as a place whee you want to live. That’s a challenging market place for Waymo. It’s worse than Bing v Google
A better place for Waymo ( or Ford/Argo or GM/cruise) the place to start is to focus on a market where they can easily deliver better service. The obvious market is to provide Waymo mobility to concentrations of households that have zero or only one car. Folks that have been left behind by the automobile and don’t have access to one. Those that have been relegated to take the staircase thereby not even having the opportunity to reach “the eighth floor”; which, once they can using Waymo, would substantially improve their lives. They might in fact appreciate Waymo right out of the box.
Manhattan is one such place, but it has a great subway and safely driving its roads is enormously challenging, so that’s arguably the last place for Waymo to go. However, the census identifies many communities and “inner suburbs” that have substantial densities of zero and one-car household. For example: Trenton New Jersey. Waymo would be the obvious mobility choice. Numerous Trenton residents would readily perceive Waymo as the “Google” in their trip mode-choice.
Another note… trying to sell Waymo technology on its ability to improve safety is a fool’s gambit. Since Waymos don’t misbehave, it is “easy” to make them safer, but that argument is hard to get across Misbehaviors are core to the fantasies of driving and are thus excused and forgotten about. Alain May 1, 2021
[May 2021 Issue: To Ban or Not to Ban: Should That Be the Question?](http://www.michaellsena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/The-Dispatcher_May-2021-1.pdf)
M. Sena, May
1, " They
banned spray
cans with
chloro-fluorocarbons,
didn't they?
Why not ICE?
TAKING THE
PLEDGE to stop
selling cars
with
internalcombustion
engines (ICE).
That's what
cities and
states and
provinces and
countries are
doing all
around the
world. It's
become a
competition:
Who will ban
them
sooner and who
are the most
credible in
making their
bans stick?
Gas stations
and car repair
workshops like
Pee Wee's
Texaco Service
Center
pictured left
are already
relics of a
bygone era.
How long will
it take for
gas pumps to
disappear?..."
[Read more](http://www.michaellsena.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/The-Dispatcher_May-2021-1.pdf) Hmmmm... Another great issue
discussed in [Pod](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-211)/[Zoom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNHrvtz0j8k)-Cast
Episodes 211
below. As
well as two
excellent
articles on
V2X and the
continuing
discussions
about spectrum
allocation,
DSRC and
Cellular V2x.
Read these two
sections
thoroughly and
carefully.
Alain
April 23, 2021 [Scrutiny of Tesla crash a sign that regulation may be coming](https://apnews.com/article/business-technology-general-news-280521ffcddd7b8d63a15c9d99fc2add) T.
Krisher, Feb
19, "The fiery
crash of a
Tesla near
Houston with
no one behind
the wheel is
drawing
scrutiny from
two federal
agencies that
could bring
new regulation
of electronic
systems that
take on some
driving tasks.
The National
Highway
Traffic Safety
Administration
and the
National
Transportation
Safety board
said Monday
they would
send teams to
investigate
the Saturday
night crash on
a residential
road that
killed two men
in a Tesla
Model S.
Local
authorities
said one man
was found in
the passenger
seat, while
another was in
the back.
They're
issuing search
warrants in
the probe,
which will
determine
whether the
Tesla's
Autopilot
partially
automated
system was in
use. Autopilot
can keep a car
centered in
its lane, keep
a distance
from cars in
front of it,
and can even
change lanes
automatically
in some
circumstances.
On Twitter
Monday, Tesla
CEO Elon Musk
wrote that
data logs
"recovered so
far" show
Autopilot
wasn't turned
on, and "Full
Self-Driving"
was not
purchased for
the vehicle.
He didn't
answer
reporters'
questions
posed on
Twitter...."
[Read more](https://apnews.com/article/business-technology-general-news-280521ffcddd7b8d63a15c9d99fc2add) Hmmmm... I'll stand by my
quote... "..."Elon's
been totally
irresponsible,"
said Alain
Kornhauser,
faculty chair
of autonomous
vehicle
engineering at
Princeton
University.
Musk, he said,
has sold the
dream that the
cars can drive
themselves
even though in
the fine print
Tesla says
they're not
ready. "It's
not a game.
This is
serious
stuff."..."
... even
though it
isn't the most
critical
comment.
What is more concerning…. “Why didn’t Tesla’s Automated Emergency Braking System prevent the Tesla from hitting the tree?” The common theme in the Joshua Brown, Elaine Herzberg, Walter Huang, Firetruck/Derrick Monet, 2nd_Firetruck_Tesla crash …, Teslas seem to disregard stationary objects directly ahead, or certainly doesn’t avoid hitting them enough of the time. The Tesla code must assume that it can pass underneath them. Can such an egregious oversight in Tesla’s AEB computer code really exist? Is the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) involved in this oversight because it has made Tesla and maybe others so adverse to false positives that they simply assume that Teslas can pass under any and all stationary objects in the road ahead? Not a pretty situation. Alain
[Making Driverless Happen – The Road Forward (Updated)](https://viodi.com/2021/04/18/making-driverless-happen-the-road-forward/)
K. Pyle, April
18, ""It's
time to hit
the start
button," is [Fred Fishkin's](https://www.techstination.com/) succinct way of
summarizing
the next steps
in the Smart
Driving Car
journey.
Fiskin, along
with the LA
Times' [Russ Mitchell](https://twitter.com/russ1mitchell?lang=en)
co-produced
the final
session of the
[2021 Smart Driving Car Summit, Making It Happen – Part 2](https://orfe.princeton.edu/conferences/sdc/session/20210415).
This 16th and
final session
in this
multi-month
online
conference not
only provided
a s[ummary of the thought-provoking speakers](https://viodi.com/2021/04/18/making-driverless-happen-the-road-forward/),
but also
provided food
for thought on
a way forward
to bring
mobility to
"the Trentons
of the World."
Setting the
stage for this
final session,
Michael Sena
provided
highlights of
the Smart
Driving Car
journey that
started in
late December
2020. Safety,
high-quality,
and affordable
mobility,
particularly
for those who
do not have
many options,
was a common
theme to the
2021 Smart
Driving Car
Summit. As
Princeton
Professor
Kornhauser,
the conference
organizer put
it,
"We want the
value [of safe driving and driverless] to
be captured by society."....." [Read more](https://viodi.com/2021/04/18/making-driverless-happen-the-road-forward/) Hmmmm.... We had another
excellent
Session.
Thank you for
the summary,
Ken! Alain
April 17, 2021
blue;
text-decoration:
none;">
[UB, partners receive $8.2 million to help vulnerable populations with transportation issues](https://engineering.buffalo.edu/home/news/seas.host.html/content/shared/university/news/news-center-releases/2021/02/020.detail.html?utm_source=Buffalo+Engineer+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9bde50071a-BUFFALO_ENG_NEWSLETTER_2017_10_31_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_39e94e67af-9bde50071a-197212690)
P. Murphy, Feb
18,
"University at
Buffalo
researchers
are part of an
$8.2 million
effort to
improve
transportation
options for
vulnerable
people in the
City of
Buffalo.
The project,
called
"Complete Trip
Deployment,"
is led by
Virginia-based
ICF
International
and funded by
an $8.2
million U.S.
Department of
Transportation
grant.
The project
brings
together
researchers
from the
School of
Engineering
and Applied
Sciences
(SEAS) and the
School of
Architecture
and Planning
(SAP), who
will serve as
technical
leaders.
Local partners
include the
Niagara
Frontier
Transportation
Authority,
Buffalo
Niagara
Medical
Campus, Inc.,
Niagara
International
Transportation
Technology
Coalition, New
York State
Department of Transportation, and the City of Buffalo.
The project
focuses on
addressing the
transportation
needs of three
distinct
populations:
people with
mobility,
visual and
hearing
disabilities,
people living
in low-income
neighborhoods
and older
adults." [Read more](https://engineering.buffalo.edu/home/news/seas.host.html/content/shared/university/news/news-center-releases/2021/02/020.detail.html?utm_source=Buffalo+Engineer+Newsletter&utm_campaign=9bde50071a-BUFFALO_ENG_NEWSLETTER_2017_10_31_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_39e94e67af-9bde50071a-197212690) Hmmmm... Absolutely the right
focus and
absolutely
necessary.
Alain
April 2, 2021
[Waymo Chief John Krafcik Resigns, Co-CEOs Tapped To Run Alphabet's Self-Driving Tech Giant](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2021/04/02/waymo-chief-john-krafcik-resigns-co-ceos-tapped-to-run-alphabets-self-driving-tech-giant/?sh=2921a28b65ca) 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.
...Takedra
Mawakana,
Waymo's chief
operating
officer, and
Dmitri Dolgov,
its long-time
CTO, are both
being promoted
to co-CEOs,
the company
said. Krafcik
will continue
to work with
Waymo as an
advisor.
"After 5
exhilarating
years leading
this team,
I've decided
to depart from
my CEO role at
Waymo &
kick-off new
adventures,"
he said on
Twitter. "To
start, I'm
looking
forward to a
refresh
period,
reconnecting
with old
friends &
family, and
discovering
new parts of
the
world."..." [Read more](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2021/04/02/waymo-chief-john-krafcik-resigns-co-ceos-tapped-to-run-alphabets-self-driving-tech-giant/?sh=2921a28b65ca) Hmmmm... John, thank you for a
fantastic 5
years and for
keeping Waymo
focused on
bringing
high-quality,
affordable
mobility to
all. Doing
good for many
isn't easy.
Enjoy and
thank you!!
Alain
March 26, 2021 [Labor to DOT: Scrap Trump administration's automated vehicles plan](https://www.freightwaves.com/news/labor-to-dot-scrap-trump-administrations-automated-vehicles-plan) 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](https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2021-01/USDOT_AVCP.pdf)
(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.
More importantly, there is no downside for the TWU with these automated drivers. If they aren’t substantially better than a TWU driver, they won’t be adopted by any Transit operator. If they are, they’ll so improve the level-of-service that ridership will boom and there will be better jobs for all TWU members and more. There is no downside here. All of this is in the TWU’s best interests. Alain March 19, 2021
[Tesla's "Full Self Driving" Beta Is Just Laughably Bad and Potentially Dangerous](https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a30186/tesla-autopilot-crash-employees-worried/) 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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=antLneVlxcs)
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](https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/car-technology/news/a30186/tesla-autopilot-crash-employees-worried/) Hmmmm... The [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=antLneVlxcs)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
Saturday, March 13, 2021
[General Motors Aims to Transform Auto Insurance Industry with OnStar Insurance](https://www.dropbox.com/s/96y8p2x2hpet1zr/GM_OnStar%20Auto%20Insurance%20Launch%20Media%20Advisory.pdf?dl=0)
Press Release,
March 11, "GM
announced it
will take its
relentless
focus on
safety and
delivering a
world-class
customer
experience one
step further
with [OnStar Insurance](https://www.onstarinsurance.com/).
... OnStar
Insurance
Services
intends to
leverage its
unique
understanding
of the
vehicles GM
produces to
offer..."
[Read more](https://www.dropbox.com/s/96y8p2x2hpet1zr/GM_OnStar%20Auto%20Insurance%20Launch%20Media%20Advisory.pdf?dl=0) Hmmmm.... See Kornhauser's [Automated Driving of Road Vehicles 101: Why, What, Where, When](https://www.dropbox.com/s/e9gnpjre1oqsbyd/AutomatedVehicleTechnologiesWhyWhatWhenWhere.pdf?dl=0). Also:
Given that:
1. “>90%” crashes involve driver misbehavior;
2. OEMs are including more SmartDriving technology in cars. That technology comes in two part: a. SafelyDriven technology which “works” essentially everywhere, all the time to avert crashes by mitigating driver misbehavior, see #1 above..
i. Examples: anti-lock brakes, electronic stability control, automated emergency braking, blind spot warning, …) ii. Liability/Insurance implications: the better these work the lower the expected liability, the lower the expected LOSS and the happier the company that insures their owners. 😁! iii. OnStar/GM Insurance Advantage: They know earlier and better how well these systems can be expected to work. They designed and tested the systems before they put them in the showroom and have “the data” to compute better expected liabilities by driver characteristics and thus be better able to craft and price an insurance product for each purchaser of a GM vehicle. Simply, they will be better able to “know when to hold ‘em .. know when to fold ‘em … they can better know what’s comin’”.
b. SelfDriving technology which works only some of the time and some of the places (Don’t worry, as soon as they work all of the time and all of the places it will be a very big deal and you’ll know it, but don’t hold your breath.)
Nor do any of them perform better than an average driver that is not misbehaving. Again, don’t hold your breath. Consequently these systems are Comfort & Convenience features that, at best, should not degrade safety. To not degrade safety, these systems must work properly when engaged by the driver and the driver must not engage them when and where these systems aren’t going to work properly. (… Drivers must not misbehave in the use of these systems (… Use these systems outside their certified Operational Design Domain, ODD)).
i. Examples: Cruise Conroe (Feet-off , but required the driver to steer (Hands-on), be aware and alert (Eyes-on) and be seated in the driver’s seat (Butt-in), and available only in a certain speed range, lane-grade range, doesn’t respond to traffic signals, doesn’t work if there is a stationary object in the lane ahead, …); Automated lane keeping ({Feet-on, Hands-off, Eyes-on, Butt-in}, but only if proper lane markings exist); Automated parking ({Feet-off, Hands-off, Eyes-on, Butt-out} all starting from speed zero in an area that is recognized by the systems as a parking opportunity); StupidSummon ({Feet-off, Hands-off, Eyes-on, Butt-out}, but only available within the driver’s own property), “Level3” ({Feet-off, Hands-off, Eyes-off, Butt-in}, but only on some certified in real time road segments.)
ii. Liability/Insurance implications: To date these systems have been sold on a “buyer beware” basis in that all liability implications of their use fell on the shoulders of the driver and their insurer. Consequently, misuse of these systems was the driver’s/insurer’s “problem”. Unfortunately, misuse of these systems and the resulting degradation of safety can be expected to cause regulators to insist that future versions of these SelfDriving technologies must include monitoring systems that preclude them from being available, let alone be used, outside of their real-time Operational Design Domain(ODD) for which their functionality has been “certified by the OEM” to not degrade safety. This “floor” for safety can be expected to be that experienced by an average non-misbehaving driver in similar driving situations.
This implies that if a crash happens during the use of one of these systems, it is 1. one of these “rare” events in which the driver was not misbehaving. The insurer is dragged in and may well be liable (This is what insurance is supposed to be all about), or 2. the system failed in its automated driving function. The OEM is dragged in and may well be liable from a product liability standpoint or 3. the driver was mis-behaving in the use of the system. This means that the system failed in precluding the system’s use. The OEM is dragged in and may well be liable from a product liability standpoint.
3. Implications on Insurer: Let: $Aij be the distribution of expected expenses of “being dragged in and possibly having to pay damages” if driver i of GM car with features j gets involved in a “Rare events” crash, or crashes, over the duration of the insurance policy.
(This expense
distribution
is largely a
function of
the kinds of
driving driver
i is going to
do. Its
estimation is
independent of
any
proprietary
product
information
held by GM.
OnStarInsurance
is not
advantaged.)
$Bij be the distribution of expected expenses of “being dragged in” if driver i of GM car with features j gets involved in a crash, or crashes, resulting from the failure of features j to avoid the crash when driver i was misbehaving.
(This expense
distribution
would arise
from
situations in
which GM's
SafelyDriven
technology
didn't perform
perfectly.
Given all of
the testing
that GM
conducts on
each of its
technologies
prior to their
placement for
sale in
showroom,
having access
to those
testing data
allows
OnStarInsurance
to more
accurately
estimate this
distribution.
OnStarInsurance is substantially advantaged.)
$Cij be the distribution of expected expenses of “being dragged in” if driver i of GM car with features j gets involved in a crash when the System was engaged and the incident occurred outside the System’s certified ODD.
(This expense
distribution
would arise
from
situations in
which GM's
automated
Comfort&Convenience
features
either didn't
perform as
well as a
well-behaving
driver inside
the feature's
certified ODD,
or driver i
was able to
mis-use the
system by
engaging it
outside its
ODD. Again,
given all of
the testing
that GM
conducts on
each of its
technologies
prior to their
placement for
sale in
showrooms,
having access
to those
testing data
also allows
one to more
accurately
estimate this
distribution.
OnStarInsurance is substantially advantaged.)
In pricing insurance, the insurer must estimate the distribution of expected expenses associated with the crashes driver i can be expected to have in car with features j over the life of the policy and price that insurance product accordingly.
For an outside insurer, call them WB: the expenses expected to be incurred over the life of the policy to insure Driver i in the purchase of a GM car with features j = $WBij = {$Aij}wb + {$Bij}wb + {$Cij}wb
For GM: the expenses expected to be incurred over the life of the policy to insure Driver i in the purchase of a GM car with features j = $GMij = {$Bij}gm + {$Cij}gm (They get dragged in to all of the “non-rare” crashes because of product liability responsibility
For OnStar Insurance: the expenses expected to be incurred over the life of the policy to insure Driver i in the purchase of a GM car with features j = $OSij = {$Aij}os (Since GM is already dragged in, no need for OnStarInsurance to also be drawn in to defend themselves.).
Consequently, OnStar has a fundamental pricing advantage because $OSij « $WBij. Plus OnStar/GM can better estimate the $Bij and $Cij distributions. Thus OnStar “knows when to hold ‘em..” in the insurance pricing game.
Finally, it is very much in GM’s interest to get its SafelyDriven technologies as perfect as possible so as to minimize {$Bij}gm on every vehicle GM sells and to forbid, as best as possible, the mis-use/availability of it SelfDriving Comfort&Convenience features outside their ODD to minimize {$Cij}gm on every vehicle GM sells.
The above is an extraordinarily strong financial incentive for GM to make its SafelyDriven and Comfort&Convenience automated driving technologies as good as possible and, if they are going to do that, GM might as well also be in the insurance business. Alain
[Automated Driving Technologies: Driving Change in Insurance](https://viodi.com/2021/03/05/automated-driving-technologies-driving-change-in-insurance/)
K. Pyle, March
5, "It is in
the insurance
industry's
best interest
to use
automated
driving
technology to
make things
safer through
crash
avoidance, not
just crash
mitigation.
Unlike crash
mitigation,
crash
avoidance
saves the
insurance
company money.
This was Alain
Kornhauserâ's
premise for
the Smart
Driving Car
Summit,
Incentivizing
Through
Insurance. The trillion-dollar question is whether the incentives to automate will
overcome the
countervailing
forces of
existing
business
practices in
other parts of
the mobility
industry?...."
[Read more](https://viodi.com/2021/03/05/automated-driving-technologies-driving-change-in-insurance/) Hmmmm.... We had another
excellent
Session.
Thank you for
the summary,
Ken. Alain
[March 2021 Issue](https://www.dropbox.com/s/vcwicdu3rz3h73z/The%20Dispatcher_March%202021.pdf?dl=0) M.
Sena, Feb 23,
" ... There is
no way to test
a car
virtually...
OEMs are still learning that that today’s cars are not your father’s Oldsmobile.
Vehicle
connectivity
is not
something that
is tacked onto
a car, like a battery-operated portable TOMTOM or GARMIN (or [CoPilot](https://copilottruck.com/)...Michael,
How could you
forget?...!)...navigation
system....
Driving Neat:
Can U.S. Take
Its Cars
Without
ICE?..." [Read more](https://www.dropbox.com/s/vcwicdu3rz3h73z/The%20Dispatcher_March%202021.pdf?dl=0) Hmmmm... Plus much much more.
Enjoy!!! Alain [COMMENTARY: How the Biden Administration and Congress Can Pave the Path for Automated Vehicles](https://reason.org/policy-brief/challenges-and-opportunities-for-federal-automated-vehicle-policy/) M.
Scribner, Feb.
11, "Automated
vehicle
technology is
coming; it's
advancing very
quickly," said
now-confirmed
Secretary of
Transportation
Pete Buttigieg
during his
confirmation
hearing. “It
is something
that holds the
potential to
be
transformative
and I think in
many ways
policy has not
kept up.â€
Secretary
Buttigieg is
absolutely
correct. The
U.S.
Department of Transportation, specifically the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration
division, has
a number of
tools at its
disposal that
can be used to
modernize the
federal
regulatory
environment to
help speed the
deployment of
automated
vehicle
technologies
that can
greatly
enhance
safety,
mobility, and
access for all
Americans.
There is also
an important
role for
Congress,
especially at
this early
stage of
automated
vehicle
development.
To support
reform efforts
within the
executive and
legislative
branches, my
new Reason
Foundation
policy brief,
[Challenges and Opportunities for Federal Automated Vehicle Policy](https://www.dropbox.com/s/7oiex3xvdh98f5y/challenges-opportunities-federal-automated-vehicle-policy.pdf?dl=0),
lays out
several steps
policymakers
can take to
adapt the
automotive
regulatory
apparatus to
automated
driving system
technologies.
The brief is
broken into
three main
sections:
defining
automated
vehicles, a
survey of
current
federal
automated
vehicle policy
development
activities,
and
recommendations
for federal
policymakers.
The reform
recommendations
for
legislators
and regulators
are
categorized
under four
themes: ..." [Read more](https://reason.org/policy-brief/challenges-and-opportunities-for-federal-automated-vehicle-policy/) Hmmmm... Read especially: "[CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR FEDERAL AUTOMATED VEHICLE POLICY](https://www.dropbox.com/s/7oiex3xvdh98f5y/challenges-opportunities-federal-automated-vehicle-policy.pdf?dl=0)". Included is an extensive
discussion on
the SAE Levels
where Marc
states: "...most legacy automakers and new
automated
driving
developers are
planning to
avoid SAE
Level 3
altogether.."
and "Given
the wide
diversity of
road network
operating
conditions,
achieving SAE
Level 5 poses
significant
challenges...."
That leaves
just two very
different
classes of AVs
...
Safely-driven
AVs,
encompasing
SAE Levels 1
& 2, that
assist and
support human
drivers while
requiring that
a human driver
ensures that
the vehicle
will be driven
safely... and
Driverless
AVs, SAE Level
4, where the
responsibility
that the
vehicle will
be driven
safely is
entirely borne
by the driving
technology.
Those are the
only two
kinds. Policy
should focus
on only those
two and get
those right.
They are they
only real
opportunities
for this
technology ...
one to help
human drivers
drive more
safely and the
other is to
drive safely
without any
help or
involvement by
anyone riding
long with the
vehicle.
Thus, the
first order of
business for
Federal Policy
is to simplify
the process by
concentrating
on those two
very diffent
kinds of AVs
and get those
right. Alain
[Biden inherits big traffic safety mess](https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=59e39325-8a38-42b3-af1d-6b62bdd0d6a0&v=sdk)
R. Mitchell,
Feb. 4, "...
" [Read more](https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?guid=59e39325-8a38-42b3-af1d-6b62bdd0d6a0&v=sdk) Hmmmm... If the driver/owner is
expected to be
prepared to
intervene to
maintain
safety, then
it is NOT full
anything,
period.
Moreover, if
the
owner/driver
is NOT
prepared, nor
permitted to
intervene to
maintain
safety, then
the fleet
operator is
required to
accept the
responsibility
and "make
whole" any and
all
liabilities
arising from
any and all
"at fault"
crashes.
Until Elon is
willing to
step up and
take on that
responsibility/liability
or sell his
cars
exclusively to
operating
entities that
assume that
responsibility
his Teslas are
NOT full
anything, period! Alain
Analyzing Ride-Share Potential and Empty Repositioning Requirements of a Nationwide aTaxi System G. Laniewki, Jan 26. “:…“ Read more Hmmmm… Very nice Nation-wide investigation by my students this past Fall. Alain
G.M. Will Sell Only Zero-Emission Vehicles by 2035
N. Boudette,
Jan. 28, "The
days of the
internal
combustion
engine are
numbered.
General Motors
said Thursday
that it would
phase out
petroleum-powered
cars and
trucks and
sell only
vehicles that
have zero
tailpipe
emissions by
2035, a
seismic shift
by one of the
world's
largest
automakers
that makes
billions of
dollars today
from
gas-guzzling
pickup trucks
and sport
utility
vehicles.
.." [Read more](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/business/gm-zero-emission-vehicles.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20210128&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=headline®i_id=89228009&segment_id=50516&user_id=bb3a3afb7a60246a936251b2f79cc1db)Hmmmm...
Great!
(maybe???):
Good News:
Zero emission
vehicles; Bad
News: From
where cometh
the marginal
electricity
that enables
that
Zero-Emission
Vehicle to
move and what
carries that
electricity to
the point on
the road where
that
electricity is
used to power
that Zero-Emission
Vehicle?
Until we have
a "Zero
Emission
Battery" and
all
electricity is
created using
Zero Emission,
GM cannot
produce, nor
sell, Zero
Emission
Vehicles that
actually move
(other than [downhill a la Nikola](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/nikola-admits-prototype-was-rolling-downhill-in-promotional-video/)).
So please tout
the whole
story!! (Will
these EVs be
less polluting
than an ICE
that GM could
build and sell
"by 2035"? is
the real
question. The
answer depends
on where we
will be with
electricity
production and
distribution,
the efficiency
and makeup of
batteries and
the
improvement of
ICEs. (I
didn't mean to
imply that it
was a simple
question, but
the NY Times
should be more
than
click-bait.).
Alain
January 29,
2021
blue;
text-decoration:
none;">
[U Mich's Robert Hampshire joins Biden administration to work in transportation research and technology](https://news.umich.edu/u-ms-robert-hampshire-joins-biden-administration-to-work-in-transportation-research-and-technology/)
J. Karoub,
Jan. 21,
"Robert
Hampshire,
associate
professor at
the University
of Michiga's
Gerald R. Ford
School of
Public Policy
whose research
and policy
engagement
focuses on
understanding
the societal,
climate and
equity
implications
of autonomous
and connected
vehicles and
other
innovative
mobility
services, has
joined the
Biden
administration
to work in the
U.S.
Transportation
.. [Read more](https://news.umich.edu/u-ms-robert-hampshire-joins-biden-administration-to-work-in-transportation-research-and-technology/) Hmmmm... What a fantastic
appointment. Congratulations Robert! Alain
[AUTOMATED VEHICLES: Comprehensive Plan](https://www.dropbox.com/s/35vtszzmvv90ohx/USDOT_AVCP.pdf?dl=0) E.
Chao, Jan.
2021, "The
Automated
Vehicles
Comprehensive
Plan
(Comprehensive
Plan)
describes how
the United
States
Department of
Transportation
(U.S. DOT) is
supporting the
safe
integration of
Automated
Driving
Systems (ADS)2
into the
surface
transportation
system. It
explains
Departmental
goals related
to ADS,
identifies
actions being
taken to meet
those goals,
and provides
real-world
examples of
how these
Departmental
actions relate
to emerging
ADS
applications...
" [Read more](https://www.dropbox.com/s/35vtszzmvv90ohx/USDOT_AVCP.pdf?dl=0) Hmmmm... I guess this is a good
plan. Of
course, Safety
is #1, as it
should be.
DoT's #1
public
responsibility
is Safety.
Whether Cyber
Security and
Privacy are #
2 and 3 and
ahead of
Enhanced
Mobility and
Accessibility
is certainly
debatable.
And if the Enhanced
Mobility and
Accessibility
of the
"mobility
disadvantaged
that have been
left behind by
our current
favored
transport
system" were
to be a
category, then
that one
should be
right behind
Safety at #2
if not ahead
of Safety and
a solid #1.
The rest. as
they should,
are
appropriately
details. What
is most
disconcerting
about the
report are the
images. To me,
those images
depict the
current
"haves", not
"have-nots"
and thus don't
really address
the mobility
needs and
desires of
those whose
quality-of-life
could be most
enhanced by
automation
technology.
These images
seem to focus
the Plan on
giving those
that already
have pretty
good ways to
get around,
yet another
way to get
around, where,
when you
finally get
right down to
it, may at
best be only
slightly
better than
what they
already have.
This
Comprehensive
Plan should
first be
focused on
providing
high-quality
affordable
mobility to
those whose
quality-of-life
could be most
improved by
such new
technologies
and
subsequently
serve those
that already
enjoy and can
afford other
high-quality
forms of
mobility.
Also, Elaine, thank you for a really good 4 years. You (and USDoT) were really the star of what was otherwise a most embarrassing Presidency. Also, thanks to Diana Furchtgott-Roth and many others in US DoT. Alain
January 08,
2021
Automatic braking is now on most new cars. But not GM or Fiat Chrysler vehicles C. Isidore, Dec 17, “Automatic braking, once a feature available exclusively to high-end cars, is becoming common across the industry, according to analysis from Consumer Reports and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
.. " [Read more](https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/17/business/automatic-braking/) Hmmmm... Set up for the [3rd session of the SDC Summit](https://orfe.princeton.edu/conferences/sdc/session/20210114).
Alain
December 11,
2020
[Uber, After Years of Trying, Is Handing Off Its Self-Driving Car Project](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/technology/uber-self-driving-car-project.html)
December 04,
2020
Nikola Teaches GM a Lesson S. Wilmot, Nov 30, “Nikola Corp. NKLA 0.76% isn’t turning out to be the next Tesla that investors and were hoping for. …“ Read more Hmmmm… Lessons for many in this endeavor. See alsoAndrew Hawkin’s take as well as David Morris’. Alain
November 26,
The Vehicle Fuel Debate Has Been Hijacked
M. Sena, Nov. 19, “The lead article this month was inspired by a diagram I received showing how much of the energy that we generate to heat our homes, light up our rooms, make the concrete and steel to build our infrastructure and power our transportation is wasted. It’s over two-thirds. Wasted! Half of it is from producing electricity.
..." [Read more](https://www.dropbox.com/s/lw27g9qlolrjkpb/The%20Dispatcher_December%202020.pdf?dl=0)Hmmmm... What can I say?? Another great
edition of the
Dispatcher. Be
sure to read
all the way
through
including "[Musings of a Dispatcher: Cars are from Mars](https://www.dropbox.com/s/lw27g9qlolrjkpb/The%20Dispatcher_December%202020.pdf?dl=0)". Enjoy and listen/watch the
following [Pod](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-187)/[Zoom](https://youtu.be/eyGCKObQ4e0)-casts. Alain
Waymo’s Safety Methodologies and Safety Readiness Determinations N, Webb, Oct. 30, “As the world’s most experienced developer of automated driving systems, Waymo has extensive experience in developing and applying state-of-the-art safety methodologies. Waymo’s methodologies help implement Waymo’s forward-looking safety philosophy: Waymo will reduce traffic injuries and fatalities by driving safely and responsibly, and will carefully manage risk as we scale our operations. Waymo’s safety methodologies, which draw on well established engineering processes and address new safety challenges specific to Automated Vehicle technology, provide a firm foundation for safe deployment of our Level 4 ADS, which we also refer to as the Waymo Driver. Waymo’s determination of its readiness to deploy its AVs safely in different settings rests on that firm foundation and on a thorough analysis of risks specific to a particular Operational Design Domain )….” Read more Hmmmm… The process. Must read! Alain
[Waymo Public Road Safety Performance Data](https://www.dropbox.com/s/6sf4mu1y3f8fr7s/Waymo-Public-Road-Safety-Performance-Data.pdf?dl=0) M. Schwall,
Oct. 30,
"Waymo's
mission to
reduce traffic
injuries and
fatalities and
improve
mobility for
all has led us
to expand
deployment of
automated
vehicles (AVs)
on public
roads without
a human driver
behind the
wheel. As
part of this
process, Waymo
is committed
to providing
the public
with
informative
and relevant
data regarding
the
demonstrated
safety of
Waymo's
automated
driving system
(ADS), which
we call the
Waymo
Driver...." [Read more](https://www.dropbox.com/s/6sf4mu1y3f8fr7s/Waymo-Public-Road-Safety-Performance-Data.pdf?dl=0) Hmmmm... The substance. Must
read! ...
I had the priveledge of reviewing Waymo’s most recent Safety Reports 1 , 2 (above)
In the past, safety reports by the AV community have largely been a response to NHTSA’¢s Voluntary Safety Self-Assessments and have, in my opinion, been largely public relations documents. While generally descriptive about the testing processes they contain very little, if any, substantive information about their safety related experience to-date focused exclusively on driverless operation.
Safe driverless operation is absolutely necessary for AVs to evolve from extremely expensive chauffeured rides to affordable mobility available to essentially anyone throughout an Operational Design Domain (ODD). Affordability requires that the mobility be delivered without a driver or attendant on-board the vehicle. Only passengers.
The decision to remove the driver/attendant rests in part on the shoulders of public safety regulators who need to allow such operation, but more importantly, on the shoulders of the real decision makers at the AV company. In the end, it is those AV company decision makers who will be held fully responsible for any lapse in the safety of the driverless operation. These decision makers are inside the AV companies and are, of course, privy to all the details and substance about their own safety related driverless operation, which, in the past, has not been shared in their Voluntary Safety Self-assessments.
My impression is that these just released Waymo Safety Reports contain the substantive information that clearly depicts Waymo’s safety-related driverless operational experience. To me, they read like internal documents meant to guide and inform internal decision makers to objectively decide if a sufficiently safe operational experience has been achieved in order to vote to fully accept the safety responsibility of driverless operation in their Operational Design Domain.
Given the information that is contained in these documents, it does not surprise me that Waymo decision makers have decided to proceed with driverless operation in the Phoenix Operational Design Domain. Had I had the responsibility of being one of the decision makers reviewing these documents, I would have also voted yes.
Alain
rgb(51, 51,
October 09,
2020
Waymo starts to open driverless ride-hailing service to the public
K. Korosec, Oct. 8, “Waymo, the Google self-driving-project-turned-Alphabet unit, is beginning to open up its driverless ride-hailing service to the public.
..." [Read more](https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/08/waymo-starts-to-open-driverless-ride-hailing-service-to-the-public/) Hmmmm... "...fully Driverless...".
That means
that Krafcik,
the Waymo
"Board",
Alphabet's
Board and all
the lawyers
have signed
off and
said... We are
safe enough to
basically bet
the ranch that
the expected
value of the
mobility that
we'll be
putting out on
the streets
of our Operational Design Domain, which is under our control,
is worth
whatever
expected risk
still exists
that some bad
things may
happen. That
is an enormous
hurdle that
has been
achieved by an
entity that
has an
enormous
ranch. CONGRATULATIONS!!!
It hasn't come
easy, nor has
it come
without intese
diligence and
effort. CONGRATULATIONS!!! Alain
rgb(51, 51,
October 09,
2020
[ASSISTED DRIVING GRADINGS](https://www.euroncap.com/en/ratings-rewards/assisted-driving-gradings/) Staff,
Oct. 2020 "On
this page you
will find the
gradings of
cars tested by
Euro NCAP on
automated
driving
technologies.
September 25,
2020
[Proposal for a new UN Regulation on uniform provisions concerning the approval of vehicles with regards to Automated Lane Keeping System](https://www.dropbox.com/s/k9aa8x6p4rqjaxd/Level3RegulatonECE-TRANS-WP29-2020-081e.docx?dl=0)
rgb(51, 51,
September 11,
2020 [Tesla's 'Full Self-Driving Capability' Falls Short of Its Name](https://www.consumerreports.org/autonomous-driving/tesla-full-self-driving-capability-review-falls-short-of-its-name/)
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Saturday,
[The Biggest Self-Driving Truck Startup Stumbles in Hitting High Goals](https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-biggest-self-driving-truck-startup-stumbles-in-hitting-high-goals)
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Thursday,
[Car OEMs Driving Toward Relevance or Perdition](https://www.dropbox.com/s/ltmk5s3hdpwf6nr/The-Dispatcher_August-2020.pdf?dl=0)
###
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Thursday,
[Fostering Economic Opportunity through Autonomous Vehicle Technology](https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bUHzsV9BSm-tJkKQ6QVNqg)
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Thursday,
Announcing 2020-2021 Fellow-in-Residence Henry L. Greenidge, Esq. rgb(51, 51, 255);”>Thursday,
[Luminaries Battle In Lincoln-Douglas Style Debate About The Future Of Self-Driving Cars](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2020/04/28/luminaries-battle-in-lincoln-douglas-style-debate-about-the-future-of-self-driving-cars/#35c0455028b6)
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Friday,
What Negative Oil Prices Mean and How the Impact Could Last rgb(51, 51, 255);”>Friday,
Starsky Robotics Failed. Does That Mean Automated Trucking Is Dead?
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Friday,
January 31,
2020
2020 Hyundai Sonata stars in Super Bowl ad all about ‘Smaht Pahk’
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Sunday,
January 12,
Hmmmm… Reflections
A. Kornhauser, Jan 12, Hmmmm… Self-driving cars are hot and the OEMs are responding. I’m about to buy a new Subaru Outback and EyeSightis standard. It is no longer just AutoPilot or expensive options that car salesmen don’t sell. Car companies, as reflected in what is in showrooms and what was promoted at CES, have realized the comfort and convenience of Self-driving technology (cars that have a lot of the Safe-driving car features but also enable you to take your feet off the pedals and hands off the wheel at least for short periods of time. These technologies are really becoming the ‘chrome and fins’ that sell cars to individuals in the 2020s. The momentum is all behind that happening and there is little Washington or Trenton or Princeton Council can do about it. Hopefully part of that momentum will be to make these systems actually work well, especially the Automated Emergency Braking Systems (MUST quit assuming that all stationary objects in the lane ahead can be passed under and consequently each is disregarded. As Tesla is finding out, sometimes those objects are parked firetrucks.) and begin to put hard limits on over-speeding, tailgating and use while driver is impaired. Self-driving cars are unfortunately going to lead to substantial urban sprawl, increased VMT, increased congestion and do nothing to help the energy and pollution challenges of our addiction to the personal automobile. Only ‘Waymo-style Driverless’ (autonomousTaxis, (aTaxis)) tuned to entice ride-sharing can potentially stem the tide of ever more personal car ownership and ever expanding urban sprawl. Alain
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Monday,
January 6,
2020
A. Kornhauser, Jan. 6, Hmmmm… I’m in rehab and hope to go home on Wednesday morning. Thank you to so many of you for all the good wishes and prayers. They each helped. I’m looking to making a full recovery. Remember, if you don’t feel well, get evaluated by a doctor. I was totally clueless about what hit me from out of nowhere. Alain
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Saturday,
November 23,
2019 [Self-driving car capital? One senator thinks it can be Florida](https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article237625484.html)
rgb(51, 51,
255);">
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Saturday,
September 28,
2019 [Public forum will explore possibility of transit on demand in Princeton](https://planetprinceton.com/2019/09/22/public-forum-will-explore-possibility-of-transit-on-demand-in-princeton/)
rgb(51, 51,
255);">Thursday,
November 22,
Market Framework and Outlook for Automated Vehicle Systems
October 24,
New Jersey Pending Legislation re: Autonomous Vehicles
Oct 16, Establishes fully autonomous vehicle pilot program A4573 Sponsors: Zwicker (D16); Benson (D14)
Oct 16, EstablishesNew Jersey Advanced Autonomous Vehicle Task Force AJR164Sponsors: Benson (D14); Zwicker (D16); Lampitt (D6)
Oct 16, [Directs MVC to establish driver's license endorsement for autonomous vehicles A4541](https://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2018/Bills/A5000/4541_I1.PDF) Sponsors:
Zwicker (D16);
Benson (D14);
Lampitt
(D6)..." [Read more](https://orfe.princeton.edu/%7Ealaink/SmartDrivingCars/PDFs/NVIDIA-Self-Driving-Safety-Report-2018.pdf)Hmmmm.... Things are beginning to move in New
Jersey. Alain
Audio Recording of Assembly Science, Innovation and Technology - Monday, October 22, 2018 - 10:00:00 AM
PRELIMINARY REPORT: HIGHWAY: HWY18MH010 (Uber/Herzberg Crash) May 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](http://orfe.princeton.edu/%7Ealaink/SmartDrivingCars/PDFs/NTSBuberPreliminaryMay2018.pdf) 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 of SmartDrivingCar, 10, 2018 Don’t Worry, Driverless Cars Are Learning From Grand Theft Auto
Extracting Cognition out of Images for the Purpose of Autonomous Driving
Sunday, December 19, 2015 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
Alain L. Kornhauser, PhD
Professor,
Operations
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Engineering
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Program
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