2021-05-29
rgb(51, 51,
blue;
text-decoration:
none;">21st
edition of the
9th year of
SmartDrivingCars
eLetter
The Future of Mobility is Slowly Coming into Focus
M. Sena, June 2021, “…Mobility-as-a-service would provide the business model to tie everything together, perhaps as an extension of your phone/broadband subscription. Private car ownership would soon be a relic of a bygone age.
This is an interesting narrative, but is not a correct one. Even before COVID-19 changed how people have been living outside of China since Friday, the 13th of March 2020, the picture of everything happening in high density cities was a rumor that companies like WEWORK spread to build their houses of cards. …
One effect of changes that have occurred in where people live and work in and around big cities is a phenomenon that was already well underway before the pandemic but has sped up: the demise of inner city buses. I wrote about this in the December 2018 issue of THE DISPATCHER, Is It Time to Throw the Bus Under the Bus?. I wrote:
We need to
start thinking
outside the
bus. If a city
is serious
about
providing a
useful bus
service, it
needs to run
them
everywhere and
often,
including at
night. It
must,
therefore, get
rid of cars
driving and
parking on its
streets. ..
One effect of changes that have occurred in where people live and work in and around big cities is a phenomenon that was already well underway before the pandemic but has sped up: the demise of inner city buses. I wrote about this in the December 2018 issue of THE DISPATCHER, Is It Time to Throw the Bus Under the Bus?. I wrote:
We need to
start thinking
outside the
bus. If a city
is serious
about
providing a
useful bus
service, it
needs to run
them
everywhere and
often,
including at
night. It
must,
therefore, get
rid of cars
driving and
parking on its
streets. ...
What cities
are doing
today all over
the world is
neither
providing an
adequate
service to
their citizens
nor using the
money
allocated for
transport in a
cost-effective
way...
Bite the bullet and get private cars off the big city streets
The reasons
that people
who live in
cities began
to buy cars
was that they
needed them to
get to their
jobs, the ones
that began
moving out of
the cities in
the '60s to
'campuses'
where there
were no
transit links.
Then they
needed them to
drop off their
children to
day care
centers since
both parents
worked. Then
they needed
them to drop
off their
older
children...
As I said, it is not buses that will meet the need. Neither is it roads filled with taxis. There are taxis offering rides in Trenton and Scranton, but they are not replacing buses because they are too expensive and are often unavailable when demand for them is highest. The Uber/Lyft model can be better at meeting demand, but they are still too costly…”
Read more Hmmmm… Enjoy the whole issue. It is enormously well written! Also listen/watch the SDC Pod/Zoom Cast 216- below with Michael. Alain
SmartDrivingCars
Pod-[Cast Episode 216](https://youtu.be/rpmB4zKAleY),
[Zoom-Cast Episode 216](https://youtu.be/rpmB4zKAleY)
w/Michael
Sena, editor The
Dispatcher
F. Fishkin, May 28 , “The Future of Mobility is Slowly Coming Into Focus. That’s on top in the June edition of The Dispatcher. From Sweden, publisher Michael Sena joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for that plus better batteries, May Mobility, Tesla and more. “Alexa, play the Smart Driving Cars podcast!”. Ditto with Siri, and GooglePlay … Alain
SmartDrivingCars
[Pod-Cast Episode 215](https://soundcloud.com/smartdrivingcar/smart-driving-cars-episode-215), [Zoom-Cast Episode 215](https://youtu.be/XdqoMpaGf64)
w/[Cade Metz](https://www.nytimes.com/by/cade-metz),
Correspondent,
NY Times &
Ken Pyle,
editor, [Viodi.com](https://viodi.com/)
F. Fishkin, May 27 , “The Costly Pursuit of Self Driving Cars Continues On and On and On. That’s the headline of a NY Times story this week. The reporter, Cade Metz, also the author of a new book on artificial intelligence, joins Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser, co-host Fred Fishkin and guest Ken Pyle of Viodi View..” 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
initiative
###
The Costly Pursuit of Self-Driving Cars Continues On. And On. And On.
C. Metz, May 24, “… So what went wrong? Some researchers would say nothing — that’s how science works. You can’t entirely predict what will happen in an experiment. … It’s not an experiment if you can predict the outcome. Why bother doing it???
More importantly, Mother Nature is involved and you don’t know what she is going to throw at you. Which is why simulations are not the complete answer… They’ll only regurgitate what you told them to do (which is somewhat useful because they implicate together the things that you thought you knew, giving you new insights.). The challenge is, She’s not involved in the simulation but She is every time you do it… But that’s life and that’s what makes it exiting and worth living…. The self-driving car project just happened to be one of the most hyped technology experiments of this century, occurring on streets all over the country and run by some of its highest-profile companies….
Self-driving tech is not yet nimble enough to reliably handle the variety of situations human drivers encounter each day. It can usually handle suburban Phoenix, but it can’t duplicate the human chutzpah needed for merging into the Lincoln Tunnel in New York or dashing for an offramp on Highway 101 in Los Angele … True! But getting it to work in the Nevada desert and then Pheonix is an enormous accomplishment. Frank didn’t just roll out of the womb and make it in New York. He also went through “..the blues…” where he could actually sing and be appreciated in the “..small towns…” before he made it in NYC. It took GM about ‘12 seconds’ to realize that the required human chutzpah was way to much to get started and they were outathere.
“If you look at almost every industry that is trying to solve really, really difficult technical challenges, the folks that tend to be involved are a little bit crazy and little bit optimistic,” he said. “You need to have that optimism to get up every day and bang your head against the wall to try to solve a problem that has never been solved, and it’s not guaranteed that it ever will be solved.” … Absolutely true. By definition! (I also like to say that you need to be fundamentally stupid; else, you would have known how hard it was going to be and you would have just played golf or video games in your parent’s basement…)
“These cars will be able to operate on a limited set of streets under a limited set of weather conditions at certain speeds,” said Jody Kelman, an executive at Lyft. “We will very safely be able to deploy these cars, but they won’t be able to go that many places.” … Yup!! There is absolutely nothing bad about that. Go someplace else. It doesn’t need to be much tougher that “Chandler”. It doesn’t really need to be any “bigger” than “Chandler”.
Waymo needs what Chandler doesn’t have.. Customers … Definition: folks whose quality-of-life can be substantially improved by what Waymo’s Technology can readily deliver today. )
That's the
market side of
this
initiative
that Silicon
Valley seems
to have
forgotten.
Cool
Technology
doesn't
happen, just
because it is
Technology.
Technology
happens
because it is
Cool. Cool is
the value
proposition,
not
Technology:
else we'd have
[Segways](https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/23/say-so-long-to-the-original-segway/)
and people
wearing [GoogleGlass](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/052115/how-why-google-glass-failed.asp)
all over the
place.
Assisted Driving (what I call Self-drivingCars, or, sorry, SAE Level 1 and Level 2, or Tesla AutoPilot) are Cool (That technology delivers Comfort and Convenience to those that can afford and wish to buy cars). The buyer/customer just relies, for the most part, that engineers are making sure that the Technology works. Customers demand that the Technology adds to what they already enjoy (Cool). Their attention span is really short. The “lipstick” wears off quickly.
For Driverless… not so much Cool in Chandler. Maybe as a fling, or a tale, but actually, the negatives, largely outweigh the positives, think GoogleGlass. Few move or stay in Chandler unless you have a car (~70% Households have 2 or more cars). ‘everyone’ has their own car. So while the Waymo technology might work in Chandler, it doesn’t have enough Waymophiles (customers for whom Waymo substantially improves what they already have for themselves) to make it a Go.
However, take “Trenton”. 70 % of the households have one or zero cars. Many more Trentonians have the opportunity to appreciate the incremental value that Waymo will bring to their lives. They will more easily become Waymophiles if Waymo delivers in Trenton what Waymo has well demonstrated the “Cool” that it can deliver in Chandler. Even if Waymo shuts down until the few roads that it uses are plowed the few times it snows in Trenton. Trenton is Waymos’s (Ford/Argo & GM/Cruise as well) “New York”.
In short… While Chandler is an ideal place for Waymo to start getting its Technology working, Trenton is a great place for them to deliver societal value, which is supposed to be the fundamental mission of these Google “X.Projects” … …”
...X's primary
output
is
breakthrough
technologies
that have the
potential to transform
people's lives
and become
large, sustainable
businesses."
It is time that Waymo begins to take what they’ve accomplished and actually begin to deliver primary output. “Read more Hmmmm… Excellent. Comments in line above. Also Listen/Watch PodCast above. Alain
Driverless – The VOD of Today?
K. Pyle, May 27, “It was an honor to be on the Smart Driving Car podcast with Cade Metz, Fred Fishkin, and Alain Kornhauser for a thoughtful discussion of what makes driverless different than an Internet app. Inspired by Metz’s recent New York Times article, The Costly Pursuit of Self Driving Cars Continues On and On and On, the focus of the discussion was on the challenges of crossing the chasm to mass adoption of driveless. Metz is also the author of the book, Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the World.
As alluded to in the above video, driverless is similar to cable television, broadband, or video on demand in the salad days of those markets. All of those technologies had to slog through on a market-by-market basis, learning the nuances of their particular Operational Design Domains (ODD)). …” “Read more Hmmmm… Excellent. Nice to have you contribute your perspective. Alain
Note:
In comparison
with the above
three
articles,
everything
else this week
is really
minor.
Tesla activates cabin camera for monitoring drivers using Autopilot
N. Bormey, May 28, “…” Read more Hmmmm… It is about time. Thank you, Elon. Think of the fundamental value of “over-the-air”updating… Fixing something “everywhere” as soon as you’ve decided to fix it… “Priceless”!
Take a ride now on autonomous shuttles coming to Indy next month
M. Sullivan, May 27, “.New Shuttle Service with No driver…” Read more Hmmmm… Nice, but why is the “No Driver” part of the story. If it was really good and really valuable, then it would focus on the incredible value that this mobility was going to offer. Again, the thinking is that the “Cool” part is the “Technology” instead of the “Mobility” part. Unless, the “Mobility” is really not all that valuable and the best thing that one has to show is “Technology” hoping that carries the day. Alain
Russia’s Sberbank unit unveils self-driving vehicle FLIP
Staff, May 27, “..”, Read more Hmmmm…Nice, but again, the essence of what would make this a no-brainer and disruptive and game changing and Cool … has…“…so far has only been tested on closed tracks.” Alain
###
When Driving Is (Partially) Automated, People Drive More
Aarian Marshall, May 27, “… In new research released this month, Hardman and postdoctoral researcher Debapriya Chakraborty suggest that making driving less terrible leads to a natural conclusion: more driving.
…Using data from a survey of 630 Tesla owners, with and without Autopilot, the researchers found that motorists with partial automation drive on average 4,888 more miles per year than similar owners without the feature. The analysis accounted for income and commute, along with the type of community the car owners live in….” Read more Hmmmm…Maybe??? Or.. sample bias… Those who drive more have a greater propensity to buy something that delivers added value while driving, than folks who don’t drive much.
Take a set of People, P{} = PA{} + PB{}. PA{} drive a lot, PB{}, not so much. Each P{} buys a Tesla. Some buy with, PA{w}, PB{w}. The rest buy without, PA{w/o}, PB{w/o}.
Sum up the distance driven by each P{} before they bought new teslas…
Postulate: AverageBeforeDistance(PA(w} + PB{w}) » AverageBeforeDistance(PA(w/o} + PB{w/o})
maybe not the whole 4,884 miles difference, but a heck of a lot of it. And we didn’t even ask about how much they drove after buying the Tesla.
The real
question is
how much
driving
changed after
someone bought
a Tesla with
versus without
AutoPilot. In
my quick read
of the paper
it did not
seem to me
that they had
access to data
reporting
milegage
driven before
purchase.
Consequently,
one can't
really suggest
that the
(main) reason
for the
difference is
AutoPilot,
especially
given the
self-reflective
aspects.
There are many
other reasons
why some
people drive
more than
others, only
one of which
is: driving
is/has become
easier.
I hope that I’m wrong here because this study is going to be quoted as gospel by many in order to add weight to their thesis.
Finally, ‘more travel’ is good because people have improved their quality-of-life more than they would have by traveling less … an option that they explicitly rejected as less beneficial to them when they chose to travel more. Alain
Tesla is no longer using radar sensors in Model 3 and Model Y vehicles built in North America
K. Korosec, May 25, “…Tesla Model Y and Model 3 vehicles bound for North American customers are being built without radar, fulfilling a desire by CEO Elon Musk to only use cameras combined with machine learning to support its advanced driver assistance system and other active safety features…..” Read more Hmmmm…Wow!! I can’t get away from feeling that this is really dangerous.
Yes… We don’t have radar in our heads…
And, yes, … I continue to argue that if LiDAR was all that good, God, she would have implanted one right in the middle of out forehead. I’m with Elon on this one….
And, yes, … Having two independent systems telling you different things doesn’t really help in determining which one is right (if either.) If you really believe one system is better, go with that system and abandon the other. The favored system will “always” win the tie breaker; so don’t bother with the redundant one.
Which seem to be Elon’s view here… less is better, especially when ‘the more’ never have a chance at being relevant.
However, I’m still nervous. But slowly getting on-board … What I really do NOT want out of my radar is that it cries “Wolf” when there is no “Wolf” and I have to use something else, my cameras, to rest comfortably again. The radar in this case is superfluous… I should have just used the cameras to tell me there is an object and that I can pass underneath it, no problem, or I need to apply the brakes now!
Radar is really good at giving me approach speed… of fundamental value when I’m trying to not rear-end the car moving in front of me. However, when that approach speed is essentially the same as my current speed (the object near my lane ahead is stationary), then radar is not really good at also telling me if I can readily pass under, to the side or over that stationary object. This wouldn’t matter much if one didn’t encountered stationary objects very often.
Unfortunately, most objects encountered as one drives are stationary (parked cars, trees, telephone poles, buildings,…). For most, I can readily pass to the side (telephone poles, … ), underneath (overpass, … ) or over (a bump, … ).
Even though rare, a stationary object, dead ahead, that can’t be passed under is mission critical. It doesn’t happen often, but it must be addressed. But if an object above is mistakenly thought to be unpassable under, then brakes come on when they shouldn’t. Not acceptable! This “false positive” rate for radar must be such that “SAE members” have decided to address this circumstance by implicitly assumes that is can pass under the object ahead and explicitly disregards the radar information. This is what happened with Joshua Brown, Elaine Herzberg, Walter Huang , William Warner/Everette Talbot, and….
That inability to reliably determine that aspect of the stationary object ahead renders Radar to be essentially useless, if not downright costly.
Elon may if fact be making another good, if not brilliant, call here.
Alain
More On….
See
(confidential)
[from (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
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 re sponsored by the SmartETFs Smart Transportation and Technology ETF, symbol MOTO. For more information head to www.motoetf.com
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 214, Zoom-Cast Episode 214
F. Fishkin, May 23 , “An interview with the chief engineer behind Ford’s F150 Lightning EV truck…Waymo shares rider stories and the AFL-CIO tells Congress autonomous vehicles should be required to have human operators. Join Princeton’s Alain Kornhauser and co-host Fred Fishkin for those stories and more.” Alexa, play the Smart Driving Cars podcast!”. Ditto with Siri, and GooglePlay … Alain
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 213, Zoom-Cast Episode 213 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. “..
SmartDrivingCars Pod-Cast Episode 213, Zoom-Cast Episode 213 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 “
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."
Link to previous SDC PodCasts & ZoomCasts
Recent Highlights of:
May 22, 2021
Why I Ride with Waymo: Mike Waymo One, May 13, “… I started taking it to work, and after crunching the numbers for gas, maintenance, insurance, upkeep, and owning a depreciating investment, it was pretty much a no-brainer that we really didn’t need two cars. I sold off my car and made Waymo my choice for commuting to and from work and for trips my wife and I need to take when the other is using our car…” Read more Hmmmm…This is really great that he “crunched the numbers” and found it to be “pretty much a no-brainer”, which is what every real Waymo customer in Chandler has to do to become a Waymo customer. One “doesn’t move to Chandler unless one has “two cars”. See slide 5: 70% of the households have 2 or more cars in Chandler, so most of the folks have had to do the math to become a customer. If Waymo offered the same service in Trenton, where 70% of the households have at most one car and 30% don’t have any, then it doesn’t take much number crunching to appreciate Waymo when walking is the next best way to go.
The Chandler Operational Design Domain (ODD) may be a great place to get the technology working. It may well be the “easiest” ODD in the world. A Trenton ODD may well not be all that much more difficult technologically. What Trenton does have are customers for whom what Waymo can deliver is truly a no-brainer. Alain
May 15, 2021
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
May 8, 2021 [Why has't Waymo expanded its driverless service? Here's my theory](https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/05/why-hasnt-waymo-expanded-its-driverless-service-heres-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
Alain L. Kornhauser, PhD
Professor
&
Director of
Undergraduate
Studies
Operations
Research &
Financial
Engineering Director,
Transportation
Program
Faculty Chair,
Princeton
Autonomous
Vehicle
Engineering
Member, NJ Commission on Science, Information & Technology Member, NJ Autonomous Vehicle Task Force
229 Sherrerd Hall
Princeton
University
Princeton, NJ
609-258-4657
(o)
609-980-1427
(c)