PartDeux-072116

https://www.princetondiary.com/smartdrivingcar/PartDeux-072116

 Thursday, July 21, 2016

Master Plan, Part Deux

E. Musk, July 20 "…Integrate Energy Generation and Storage
Create a smoothly integrated and beautiful solar-roof-with-battery product that just works, empowering the individual as their own utility, and then scale that throughout the world. One ordering experience, one installation, one service contact, one phone app….

Expand to Cover the Major Forms of Terrestrial Transport…
With the Model 3, a future compact SUV and a new kind of pickup truck, we plan to address most of the consumer market. A lower cost vehicle than the Model 3 is unlikely to be necessary, because of the third part of the plan described below.

What really matters to accelerate a sustainable future is being able to scale up production volume as quickly as possible. That is why Tesla engineering has transitioned to focus heavily on designing the machine that makes the machine — turning the factory itself into a product….In addition to consumer vehicles, there are two other types of electric vehicle needed: heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport. Both are in the early stages of development at Tesla…With the advent of autonomy, it will probably make sense to shrink the size of buses and transition the role of bus driver to that of fleet manager. Traffic congestion would improve due to increased passenger areal density by eliminating the center aisle and putting seats where there are currently entryways, and matching acceleration and braking to other vehicles, thus avoiding the inertial impedance to smooth traffic flow of traditional heavy buses. It would also take people all the way to their destination. Fixed summon buttons at existing bus stops would serve those who don’t have a phone. Design accommodates wheelchairs, strollers and bikes.

Autonomy
As the technology matures, all Tesla vehicles will have the hardware necessary to be fully self-driving with fail-operational capability, meaning that any given system in the car could break and your car will still drive itself safely. It is important to emphasize that refinement and validation of the software will take much longer than putting in place the cameras, radar, sonar and computing hardware.

Even once the software is highly refined and far better than the average human driver, there will still be a significant time gap, varying widely by jurisdiction, before true self-driving is approved by regulators….I should add a note here to explain why Tesla is deploying partial autonomy now, rather than waiting until some point in the future. The most important reason is that, when used correctly, it is already significantly safer than a person driving by themselves and it would therefore be morally reprehensible to delay release simply for fear of bad press or some mercantile calculation of legal liability….It is also important to explain why we refer to Autopilot as "beta"….

Sharing
When true self-driving is approved by regulators, it will mean that you will be able to summon your Tesla from pretty much anywhere. Once it picks you up, you will be able to sleep, read or do anything else enroute to your destination.  You will also be able to add your car to the Tesla shared fleet just by tapping a button on… Read more Hmmm….This is a chock-full vision that sounds pretty good me (and doesn’t have a mention of DSRC, V2V or V2x 🙂  ); except, do I really want to invest to become a "Tesla (AirBnB) Host" or simply use the "Mobility-on-Demand Transit System" (MoDTS) that Tesla or ALK or ???? (unfortunately NJ Transit, the obvious MoDTS operator, will pass.)  Alain

Germany to require ‘black box’ in autonomous cars  

July 18, "Germany plans new legislation to require manufacturers of cars equipped with an autopilot function to install a black box to help determine responsibility in the event of an accident, transport ministry sources told Reuters on Monday…Under the proposal from Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt, drivers will not have to pay attention to traffic or concentrate on steering, but must remain seated at the wheel so they can intervene in the event of an emergency.

Manufacturers will also be required to install a black box that records when the autopilot system was active, when the driver drove and when the system requested that the driver take over, according to the proposals…" Read more Hmmm….What is the definition of "an emergency situation" ?  Is it just like some other things that "I know it when I see it"?  But here, it is the automated system that is "seeing it".  What "false alarm" and ‘false negative" rates will be imposed/tolerated?  Will there be a driver training program that will instruct us on how to react in these emergency situations?  How will the system alert us of this emergency situation?  Will it blare: "Watch out!!"??  or will it gently nudge us back into the loop.  Please, there are more questions than answers at this time and we need some focused research and creative thinking before we rush into "intervening in event of emergency" legislation. 

With respect to capturing of "all" sensor data: of course!.  Plus these data need to be shared and placed in the public domain so that everyone can benefit and avoid making the same mistake AND most importantly, we need "hold harmless" legislation that forbids the data to be used against the data owner (the owner of the vehicle), and only allows for determining liability in the event of a crash.  (For example, the data can’t be used to give the car owner a ticket for a broken tail light, because the data stream indicated a broken tail light.)   Alain

  Pokémon Go-playing driver after hitting police car: ‘That’s what I get for playing’

R. Premack, July 20 "Not surprisingly, playing Pokémon Go while driving is a poor idea. That was demonstrated early Monday in Southeast Baltimore.   Three police officers were standing outside their patrol car, parked nearby Patterson Park. About 3:30 a.m., according to body-camera footage, a Toyota RAV4 moving down the street side-swiped the parked police car…"  Read more Hmmm….And now another reason why we need Automated Emergency Braking (AEB) and Self-driving that actually work.  Alain

State to buy former Willow Run Powertrain site for connected vehicle research

M. Durr, July 18, "The Michigan Strategic Fund is closing in on a deal to buy the former Willow Run Powertrain site to convert it into a connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) research facility in Ypsilanti Township.

RACER Trust has agreed to sell the 311-acre site to the fund for a purchase price of $1.2 million and has committed to making other contributions toward making the center a reality. In turn, the MSF would allow the American Center for Mobility to develop and operate a facility where testing and research for CAV technology will be conducted…" Read more Hmmm…Land is really inexpensive in Michigan.  Alain

Regulator on Tesla Autopilot Death Says One Incident Won’t Derail Tech

K. Fehrenbacher, July 20, "Mark Rosekind, the administrator of auto safety regulator the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, …Most importantly, he forcefully said, “No one incident will derail the Department of Transportation and NHTSA from its mission to improve safety on the roads by pursuing life-saving technologies.” Read more Hmmm…"derail its mission???..  It’s been focused on crash mitigation and "connected" stuff instead of making sure that Automated Emergency Braking  (AEB) systems actually work.  When are they really going to get "on the rails".???  Highway deaths went up last year! Alain

Autonomous Vehicles: A Case Study of Liability and Insurance

D. Cusack, July 19, "…We have run across only one policy so far that bills itself as a “Driverless Car” policy. Written by Trinity Lane Insurance Company (a Malta-based insurer) for the British market, it expressly agrees to cover the driver if the autonomous systems fail, or if the owner failed to install updates to the system software in a timely manner….Read more Hmmm…This is somewhat informative, but very light.  Alain

What NASA Could Teach Tesla about Autopilot’s Limits

J. Pavlus, July 18, "…Stephen Casner, a research psychologist in NASA’s Human Systems Integration Division, puts it more bluntly: “News flash: Cars in 2017 equal airplanes in 1983.”…Here are three things about how humans and automated vehicles behave together that NASA has known for years…THE LIMITS OF BEING “ON THE LOOP”… THE LIMITS OF ATTENTION…AUTOMATION AND AUTONOMY: NOT THE SAME THING…"  Read more  Hmmmm…Well worth reading.  Alain

Some other thoughts that deserve your attention

Uber Just Completed Its Two Billionth Ride

B. Solomon, July 18, "…The milestone comes less than six months after Uber hit one billion cumulative rides at the end of 2015–a feat that took Uber more than five years to accomplish….Comparing Uber’s numbers to those of its competitors is tricky. U.S.-only competitor Lyft told FORBES that in April it did 11 million rides, suggesting an annual trip run rate likely under 200 million, only 10% of Uber’s probable yearly goal. To be fair, many of Uber’s rides came outside the U.S. where Lyft doesn’t operate….

This time, Uber declined to single out one ride as the one that pushed the company over two billion. Instead, Kalanick says 147 rides in 16 different countries began on the moment of 4:16:48 AM GMT on June 18. 54 of those trips were in China, 46 in the U.S., 13 in Mexico, and seven each in Brazil and India…." Read more Hmmm…That’s good progress, but, there are about 1B non-walking person-trips on a typical day in the US.  This means that Lyft served about 0.04% of the non-walking person trips in the US in April.  Still a long way to go to be significant.  Uber, if it is  10 x Lyft, would be doing about 0.4% .  Again a good start, but still a long way to go.   Alain

Controversy over Tesla ‘autopilot’ name keeps growing

R. Mitchell, July 21, "…Some of the most enthusiastic proponents of autonomous vehicles and features are worried that autopilot — not the technology itself, but the very name, which some find misleading — might slow down the evolution of the driverless car. They say that would be a shame, as autonomous technologies are designed to make driving safer by preventing minor fender-benders as well as reducing the number of traffic fatalities. …" Read more Hmmm…I pointed out in SDC that this was a bad product name when it was first announced by Tesla.  🙂  Alain

On the More Technical Side

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

Half-baked stuff that probably doesn’t deserve your time:

The Mercedes-Benz Future Bus Will Change the Way We Commute to School and Work

K. Estiler, July 18, "Mercedes-Benz struck the fairway with a lavish concept golf cart last week and just recently, the German automobile manufacturer introduced its Future Bus that is seemingly a game-changer in the burgeoning world of public transportation. The kernel of this latest concept is Mercedes’s CityPilot — an operating system for autonomous driving. The mechanization involves a network of various cameras that are placed all around the bus, GPS as well as two distinctive radar systems. The Future Bus works exactly how a normal bus would except it doesn’t require a driver to help it traverse through city streets—touting streetlight recognition and the ability to stop and unload passengers by itself. However, there is a driver seat and wheel just in case human intervention is needed.(emphasis added) …" Read more Hmmm….This bus is simply same-old, same-old except "over-the-top lip-stick’ that greatly increases the cost of mobility without dding much utility.  The relief in driver work-load and improvement in driver workplace provided by the Self-driving technology is substantial, but not even mentioned in the announcement which focuses only only on the lavish lip-stick.  In the end big buses will remain just an infrequent scheduled service that it is way too often running around essentially empty (at which time it is a financial train wreck) or it is stopping so often to let people on and off that it is excruciatingly slow.  In either case, it is only the transit captives are using it.  Unfortunately, the true future bus can’t afford to pay a driver a living wage nor the cost of the lip-stick. (The golf cart is the epitome self indulgence. Golf should be exclusively Walk&Carry, Walk&Pull or Walk&Caddie.   The course is not a freeway! You could use the exercise.  🙂  )   Alain

Transit Columbus starts petition urging city not to ‘leap-frog’ light rail

T. Knox, July 18, "An advocate for integrated public transportation has started a petition urging Columbus to include light rail and other mass transit in its transportation plans.

Transit Columbus wants local leaders to not overly rely on driverless cars and other technologies proposed in its Smart City Challenge bid…"  Read more Hmmm…. And Columbus won the SmartCities grant??  (I do understand that a $1B LightRail system brings more $$$ to Columbus than a $40M SmartCities grant.)  Alain

 

 

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

Tesla Working On Autopilot Radar Changes After Crash

July 16. "…CEO Elon Musk, in a Twitter post Thursday night, said Tesla is working on improvements to the radar system….Experts say this means that the radar likely overlooked the tractor-trailer in the Florida crash…." Read more Hmmm….But the tractor preceded the trailer across Tesla’s path and the Tesla reportedly didn’t try to slow down for that.  And, what if it was a flat-bed with no load? And… C’mon man, we need a much better explanation of what the Tesla’s sensors (and the truck driver) "saw’, didn’t see and why.   Alain

Calendar of Upcoming Events:

Sept 15 & 16, 2016
Arlington, VA

  
Sept 19-21, 2016
Antwerp, Belgium

Recent Highlights of:

Thursday, July 14, 2016

  Another Tesla crash blamed on car’s Autopilot system

S. Musil, July 12, "The most recent crash involved a Model X near the small town of Whitehall, Montana, on Sunday morning, according to the Detroit Free Press. Neither the driver nor the passenger was injured in the single-vehicle crash, the Montana Highway Patrol told the newspaper….The car failed to detect an obstacle in the road, according to a thread posted on the Tesla Motors Club forum by someone who said they’re a friend of the driver. The thread included photos showing the damage to the vehicle.

Tesla said Tuesday that it appears the driver in the crash was using the system improperly.

"The data suggests that the driver’s hands were not on the steering wheel, as no force was detected on the steering wheel for over 2 minutes after autosteer was engaged (even a very small amount of force, such as one hand resting on the wheel, will be detected)," a Tesla spokesman said in a statement. "This is contrary to the terms of use that are agreed to when enabling the feature and the notification presented in the instrument cluster each time it is activated.

"As road conditions became increasingly uncertain, the vehicle again alerted the driver to put his hands on the wheel. He did not do so and shortly thereafter the vehicle collided with a post on the edge of the roadway," the spokesman said. He added that the Autopilot feature was being used on an undivided mountain road despite being designed for use on a divided highway in slow-moving traffic….Read more  Hmmm….Interesting that Tesla didn’t say that the car began to slow down (as it is supposed to if the driver does not put his/her hand back on the wheel!!!!???? (The "lane-centering" should NOT turn off if the driver does not respond (I believe the Mercedes "997 package" turns off lane-centering if you don’t respond to the buzzer 🙁  (However, since the lane centering on my 2014 S-550 only works if the lane is essentially perfectly straight, and Mercedes has never made an effort to fix/update my software, I rarely take my hands off the wheel.  The system is so poor that I can’t tell if lane-centering is just not working or the buzzer turned it off.  🙁  )) ,  What should happen is that the car should turn on its emergency flashers, slow down at a rate that is proportional to the quality of the road conditions and once it reaches a slow enough speed have the capability to determine if a lane change to the right (in US and …) is safe or a clear shoulder to the right is available.  If so,  make the lane change and come to a complete stop, all the while announcing to the driver what the system is doing because hands have not been put back on the wheel.  After stopping, "AutoPilot" should then turned off as should "AutoPilot" privileges until a "Tesla" representative resets the system.  If that doesn’t convince the driver to put "hands-on-wheel", then the car has just averted a possible catastrophe associated with a comatose driver.     Alain

Monday, July 11, 2016

Lessons From the Tesla Crash

Editorial Board, July 11, "A recent fatal crash in Florida involving a Tesla Model S is an example of how a new technology designed to make cars safer could, in some cases, make them more dangerous. These risks, however, could be minimized with better testing (Hmmm….Yes!) and regulations (Still too early, we don’t know enough, yet)…Tesla’s electric cars are not self-driving, but when the Autopilot system is engaged it can keep the car in a lane, adjust its speed to keep up with traffic and brake to avoid collisions. Tesla says audio and visual alerts warn drivers to keep their hands on the steering wheel and watch the road. If a driver is unresponsive to the alerts, the car is programmed to slow itself to a stop.

Such warnings aren’t sufficient, though; some Tesla drivers, as shown in videos on YouTube, have even gotten into the back seat while the car was moving. Such reckless behavior threatens not just the drivers but everyone else on the road, too. (Absolutely!)… If that system (V2V) had been in place, Mr. Brown might have survived. (Sure, but Mr Brown would have had to wait more than his normal expected life span before that system would have been adopted by more than 70% of all vehicles for it to have better than a "coin flip" chance of helping him.   What would have helped Mr. Brown is if the Automated Emergency Braking system worked on his Tesla, or if the truck driver had seen him coming (not become distracted) and had not "failed to yield".  ) Federal officials could take lessons from the history of airbags and the lack of strong regulations. (This is a VERY appropriate and relevant lesson!)… The agency does not yet have regulations for driverless cars or cars that have driver assistance systems. But when officials do put rules in place, they will have to update them regularly as they learn about how the technology works in practice. Automation should save lives. But nobody should expect these vehicles to be risk-free. (This is very wise.  They should also immediately focus on Automated Emergency Braking systems which are the foundation of any Self-driving or Driverless systems. )  Read more  Hmmm….Comments in-line above.  Alain

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

May 7 Crash

Hmmm…What we know now (and don’t know):

1.  On May 7, 2016 at about 4:40pm EDT, there was a crash between a Tesla and a Class 8 Tractor-Trailer. The accident is depicted in the Diagram from the Police Report: HSMV Crash Report # 85234095. (1)  Google Earth images from the site.

 2. The driver of the Tesla was Joshua Brown.  "No citations have been issued, but the initial accident report from the FHP indicates the truck driver "failed to yield right-of-way."" (2) .  Hmmm….No Citations??? Did the truck have a data recorder?  Was the truck impounded, if so, how is the truck driver making a living since the crash?  Why was his truck not equipped with sensors that can warn him of collision risks at intersections?  As I’ve written, driving is one of the most dangerous occupations.  Why isn’t OSHA concerned about improving the environment of these workers?  Why doesn’t  ATRI (the American Trucking Association’s research arm recognize the lack availability/adoption of "SmartDrivingTruck technology" as one of its Critical Issues?  Why didn’t his insurance agent encourage/convince him to equip his truck with collision risk sensors.  If they aren’t commercially available, why hasn’t his insurance company invested/promoted/lobbied for their development?  These low-volume rural highway intersections are very dangerous.  Technology could help.

"…(the truck driver)…said he saw the Tesla approaching in the left, eastbound lane. Then it crossed to the right lane and struck his trailer. "I don’t know why he went over to the slow lane when he had to have seen me,” he said…." (2) .  Hmmm….If the driver saw the Tesla change lanes, why did he "failed to yield right-of-way"???

"…Meanwhile, the accident is stoking the debate on whether drivers are being lulled into a false sense of security by such technology. A man who lives on the property where Brown’s car came to rest some 900 feet from the intersection where the crash occurred said when he approached the wreckage 15 minutes after the crash, he could hear the DVD player. An FHP trooper on the scene told the property owner, Robert VanKavelaar, that a "Harry Potter" movie was showing on the DVD player, VanKavelaar told Reuters on Friday.

Another witness, Terence Mulligan, said he arrived at the scene before the first Florida state trooper and found "there was no movie playing."   "There was no music. I was at the car. Right at the car," Mulligan told Reuters on Friday.

Sergeant Kim Montes of the Florida Highway Patrol said on Friday that "there was a portable DVD player in the vehicle," but wouldn’t elaborate further on it. She also said there was no camera found, mounted on the dash or of any kind, in the wreckage….

…Mulligan said he was driving in the same westbound direction as the truck before it attempted to make a left turn across the eastbound lanes of U.S. Highway 27 Alternate when he spotted the Tesla traveling east.  Mulligan said the Tesla did not appear to be speeding on the road, which has a speed limit of 65 miles per hour, according to the FHP…." (2) .

3. "…the vehicle was on a divided highway with Autopilot engaged when a tractor trailer drove across the highway perpendicular to the Model S. Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied. The high ride height of the trailer combined with its positioning across the road and the extremely rare circumstances of the impact caused the Model S to pass under the trailer, with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S. Had the Model S impacted the front or rear of the trailer, even at high speed, its advanced crash safety system would likely have prevented serious injury as it has in numerous other similar incidents…" (3). Not sure how Tesla knows what Joshua Brown saw or did not see.  Events prior to the crash unfolded over many seconds.  Tesla must have precise data on the car’s speed and steering angle, video  for those many seconds prior to the crash, as well as, what it was "seeing" from MobilEye’s cameras and radar data.  At no time prior to the crash did it see anything crossing its intended travel lane?  More important, why didn’t the truck driver see the Tesla?  WHAT WAS HE DOING? What was the truck doing.  How slow was it going?  Hopefully there was a data speed recorder on the truck.  Was the truck impounded, if so, how is the truck driver making a living since the crash? 

One can also ask: Why was the truck not equipped with sensors that can warn the driver of collision risks at intersections?  As I’ve written, driving is one of the most dangerous occupations.  Why isn’t OSHA concerned about improving this workplace environment?  Why doesn’t  ATRI (the American Trucking Association’s research arm) recognize the lack availability/adoption of "SmartDrivingTruck technology" as one of its Critical Issues?  Why didn’t the driver’s insurance agent encourage/convince him to equip his truck with collision risk sensors.  If they aren’t commercially available, why hasn’t his insurance company invested/promoted/lobbied for their development?  These low-volume rural highway intersections are very dangerous.  Technology could help.

While the discussion is about AutoPilot, the Tesla also has Automated Emergency Braking (AEB) which is supposed to always be on.  This seems more like an AEB failure rather than an AutoPilot failure. The Tesla didn’t just drive off the road,  The discussion about "hands-on-wheels" is irrelevant.  What was missing was "foot-on-brake" by the Tesla driver and "eyes-on-road" by, most importantly, the truck driver, since he initiated an action in violation to "rules of the road" that may have made a crash unavoidable. 

3. "Problem Description: A fatal highway crash involving a 2015 Tesla Model S which, according to Tesla, was operating with automated driving systems (“Autopilot”) engaged, calls for an examination
of the design and performance of any driving aids in use at the time of the crash." (4). Not to be picky, but the initiator of the crash was the failure to yield by the truck driver.  Why isn’t this human failure the most fundamental "Problem Description"?  If "driving aids" were supposed to "bail out" the truck driver’s failure to yield, why isn’t the AEB system’s "design and performance" being examined.  AutoPilot’s responsibility is to keep the Tesla from steering off the road (and, as a last resort, yield to the AEB).  The focus should be on AEBs.  How many other Tesla drivers have  perished that didn’t have AutoPilot on, but had AEB?  How many drivers have perished of other cars that have AEB?  Seems as if this crash was more about an emergency automated systems failing to apply the brakes, rather than a driver not having his hands-on-wheel.  Unfortunately, it is likely that we will eventually have a fatality in which an "AutoPilot" will fail to keep a "Tesla" on the road (or in a "correct" lane), but from what is known so far, this does not seem to be the crash. 

4. "What we learn here is that Mobileye’s system in Tesla’s Autopilot does gather the information from the vehicle’s sensors, primarily the front facing camera and radar, but while it gathers the data, Mobileye’s tech can’t (or not well enough until 2018) recognize the side of vehicles and therefore, itcan’t work in a situation where braking is required to stop a Tesla from hitting the side of another vehicle.

Since Tesla pushed its 7.1 update earlier this year, the automaker’s own system used the same data to recognize anything, under adequate conditions, that could obstruct the path of the Tesla and if the radar’s reading is consistent with the data from the camera, it will apply the brakes.

Now that’s something that was put to the test by Model S owners earlier in the week:" (4). See video,  "In the last two tests, the Autopilot appears to detect an obstacle as evidenced by the forward collision warning alerts, but the automatic emergency braking didn’t activate, which raised questions – not unlike in the fatal crash.

Though as Tesla explained, the trailer was not detected in the fatal crash, the radar confused it for an overhead sign, but in the tests above, the forward collision warning system sent out an alert – though as evidenced by the fact that the test subject wasn’t hit, the AEB didn’t need to activate and therefore it didn’t. Tesla explains:

“AEB does not engage when an alternative collision avoidance strategy (e.g., driver steering) remains viable. Instead, when a collision threat is detected, forward collision warning alerts the driver to encourage them to take appropriate evasive action. AEB is a fallback safety feature that operates by design only at high levels of severity and should not be tested with live subjects.”…" Read more (5) With all of the expertise that MobilEye has in image processing, it is surprising that it can’t recognize the side of a tractor trailer or gets confused with overhead signs and tunnel openings.  If overhead signs (and overpasses and tree canopies) are really the issue, then these can be readily geocoded and included in the digital map database.)

5.  It seems that all of the other stuff about DVD player, watching movies, previous postings on YouTube is noise. Automated Collision Avoidance Systems and their Automated Emergency Braking sub-system MUST be more robust a mitigating "failed to yield right-of-way" situations irrespective of the "failure to yield" derived from a human action (as seems to have occurred in this crash) or an "autoPilot" (which doesn’t seem to be the case in this crash).  Alain

(1) Self-Driving Tesla Was Involved in Fatal Crash, U.S. Says, June 30 NYT,

(2) DVD player found in Tesla car in fatal May crash, July 1, Reuters

(3) A Tragic Loss, June 30, Tesla Blog

(4) NHTSA ODI Resume PE 16-007 Automatic vehicle control system, June 28, 2016

(5) Tesla elaborates on Autopilot’s automatic emergency braking capacity over Mobileye’s system Electrek, July 2, 2016  See also: Understanding the fatal Tesla accident on Autopilot and the NHTSA probe July 2, 2016, Tesla Autopilot partner Mobileye comments on fatal crash, says tech isn’t meant to avoid this type of accident [Updated], July 1,

Monday, June 27, 2016

Who Will Build the Next Great Car Company?

E. Griffith, June 24, "…Also, he’s hit the decoy plenty of times. In 2012 he even did it in front of Ford’s board of directors.  Back then the idea of self-driving cars looked, to Ford’s leadership, like a frivolous Silicon Valley moonshot. Four years later things have dramatically changed. Today Ford’s vehicle lineup features more than 30 options for semiautonomous features, including the automatic brakes I tested, and the company is aggressively working on cars that fully drive themselves. By year-end the company expects to have the largest fleet of autonomous test vehicles of any automaker.

Ford is not alone. The entire automotive industry is in the midst of a radical transformation that is reshaping the very definition of what it means to be a car company. There is hype, hope, fear, and insecurity—and at the center of it all is the self-driving car. Thanks to cheap sensors, powerful machine-learning technology, and a kick in the butt from the likes of Google and Tesla Motors  , driverless vehicles are becoming a sooner-than-you-think reality…." Read more Hmmm…A very good summary of where the industry stands with respect to Self-driving; however, it really doesn’t address Driverless, (autonomousTaxi (aTaxi) shared-ride on-demand transit).  It makes no mention of the low-speed Easy Mile, 2GetThere, CityMobil2 approaches.  Fortune is still seeing a personal car future and not a Mobility-on-Demand future.  That would be way too disruptive.  See also the intro video  Alain