Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Taxipods, Transit, and Testing Facilities, Oh My

Plenty of publicly available transportation pilot and permanent driverless projects are in the works. These can be somewhat neatly divided into taxipod and small or mini-bus transit. This post represents just a sample from recent news reports, but if you read this blog or other driverless news sources, you know there are pilots and plans in the works in England, Japan, Singapore, and the US. That is just off the top of my head; I'm sure there are others. That's what the index to the blog archives is for.

Before the news, one cute video from Sweden that imagines a perhaps overly optimistic driverless future in a generic city with Lego people and ice cream cone and cardboard architecture, with sweet parks to replace parking lots.



Taxi and tandoori

Construction should begin in India on a taxi-pod project in Gurgaon. This project appears similar to the Morgantown, West Virginia personal rapid transit (PRT) project built in the 1970s in the US. That's basically why I have not written about it before. The similarity with the Morgantown PRT being that the pods will operate on a fixed guideway rather than as automotive vehicles on roads. There is still an unresolved issue of which agency will be responsible for auditing the safety (and performance?) of the project. The project will start out with a 13-km pilot phase and the intent is to scale up to a full 70-km project.

Careem - not Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Okay, my basketball knowledge is not exactly current, but when I hear Kareem mentioned, the former basketball star is the one who comes to mind. That might be about to change because a Dubai driverless project with Careem is in the works. Careem, which is currently a ride hailing app (Uber-like) in the Middle East and Pakistan, plans to operate a driverless taxi-pod option in the future.

The taxi-pods will be able to function solo or attach to other pods. Careem's partner, US-based Next Future Transportation, makes driverless pods.

Careem is also partnering with Next Future Transportation to raise money for the project. The leadership of Dubai has been proclaiming its enthusiasm for driverless transportation for a while.

Euro buses sans drivers

Europe is a pretty transit-friendly place, but it's still nice to see transit again and again as a ground floor participant in driverless transportation. 

Mercedes Benz has created a driverless bus that has successfully been tested on an actual road in the Netherlands. It's called Future Bus. Now Mercedes is telling the world. There is a boring video, but it is very short. (It feels like the start to a horror movie with its cool, impersonal surroundings and muzak.) In the video, there is a driver and a driver's seat, but there's no hands on the wheel. The goal is to begin operations with the buses by 2020.

Testing facilities - everyone wants one

Two testing facilities being discussed this week: the Smart Cities winner of Columbus, Ohio, and the long-planned Willow Run near Detroit, Michigan. 

The Columbus testing site is a track at a now-empty, unused stadium. Driverless transportation is just one facet of the winning Smart Cities project. The Columbus project focuses on using transportation to help neighborhoods with struggling, low income residents. If you've visited Columbus, you know this is a huge issue.

Willow Run gets closer

Not sure why Willow Run is taking so much time for the land to be purchased and whatever needs to be built at Willow Run, which is intended to be a driverless testing facility. This is former GM land - location of a GM WWII bomber facility - for which the state of Michigan is helping to fund the acquisition and infrastructure for. Also Michigan gets enough snow to adequately test driverless technology to be able to navigate real winters.

But Willow Run is old news. It's the purchase agreement that just got signed.

Here's the news in a nutshell.
The Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response Trust on Monday announced a $1.2 million purchase agreement for the acquisition of 311 acres at Willow Run in Washtenaw County’s Ypsilanti Township. 
Trucking companies investing and salivating

If you are the owner of a large trucking company, I can only imagine your glee when considering the benefits of driverless hauling. No maximum limits on driver time, no rest stop shower and eating time, no obesity and other health problems to get bad PR about. Of course, there are details, but this is a huge opportunity. Daimler, one such company, is investing heavily in connected and autonomous systems (CV and AV). One of its buses just completed a complex, but quick AV test. CargoX is a freight broker working on a tech platform for AV and CV. It is now expanding internationally with the help of funding from Goldman Sachs. Click here for the trucking article.

By the way, the Columbus Smart Cities program will include testing of truck platooning and driverless non-lead trucks near the airport. Platooning is a connected vehicle approach for trucks so they can travel quite close together (I'm thinking of brio train magnets). The webpage linked to has an incredibly bad video that demonstrates an awesome and seamless platooning experience.

Legal stuff

China has cold feet - for now - as far as allowing driverless vehicle testing on its roads. The country has ambitious plans, projects underway, and companies heavily invested in driverless. But until further notice, Chinese roads are off limits. However, players in China are actively working out the details of regulations that will allow driverless operations on public roads.

Tesla crash news continued

Here is a link to the letter to Tesla from the US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). The letter requests all sorts of information about the fatal crash in May and about all Tesla autopilot cars. No question that the NHTSA feels public pressure to investigate fully. There's competition with sibling agency NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board), which is also investigating. Also NHTSA has no history of a close relationship with Tesla, in contrast to its coziness with the traditional automakers. 

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Another Day, A New Crew of AI Startups

I do indeed feel like Lucy and Ethel on the chocolate wrapping factory assembly line. The news is speeding up with driverless in terms of old and new players. Bright minds see dollar, yen, euro and other signs on the horizon and they are forming startups to capitalize on and realize the driverless reality.

Unlike Lucy and Ethel, I don't have a factory uniform where I can stuff all those candies that are coming too fast to wrap. It is one of the top five I Love Lucy episodes (not that I am at all an expert here).



Actual news - knowledgable maps

Reports are all around about the startup funding and partnerships of Civil Maps. The company has raised over $6 million. Its mapping service combines AI with 3D location-based mapping. Civil Maps is hiring and located in Berkeley, California. Capital is coming from Ford, a Yahoo founder, and venture capital firms. 

Civil Maps has one approach to minimizing the potentially incredible amounts of data that LIDAR produces as a driverless vehicle rides down the road with lots of stuff to see, interpret, or ignore. 

Across the pond

Oxbotica, a startup out of Oxford University, looks like it has adopted the Comma.AI model of creating a driverless tech package that can be used on existing, conventional vehicles. Better than Comma.AI, however, Oxbotica can work beyond highways - vehicle-only environments - and on regular streets where there are people and other moving stuff. Basically, Oxbotica has the capability to "learn" from its human driver. As long as the human driver is good and experienced, that's a positive.

The company says "Oxbotica is the nominated provider of the autonomous control system for two of the UK’s three Driverless Car Challenges taking place over the next few years in Milton Keynes, Coventry, Greenwich and Bristol." This information is available on the Oxbotica website.  

There's four in the bed and the little one said - roll over, roll over

So there's Comma.AI, Cruise Automation, Civil Maps, nuTononomy, ... 

Seems like a nice bubble for these AI start ups. Get rich quick with a good AI or other high-tech addition to driverless technology. The car companies, especially, are investing in these competitors. By investing, these companies are essentially seeding their own fields and racing around the bend to get to the driverless starting gate.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Strongly Worded Letter

I'm wondering what President Obama - or whatever assistant - was thinking when he opened his morning email and read the quite strongly worded letter opposing autonomous driving technology. While the letter specifically targets the partially driverless technology of the Tesla Model S that arguably, through bad design and interface with the human driver, resulted in a deadly crash in May, the letter does not limit its message to that particular incident or to any particular driverless technology.

The ire of the signing partners is targeted directly at the US Department of Transportation and especially at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA). The signatories of the four-page diatribe are:

  • Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA Administrator and President Emeritus, Public Citizen, 
  • Clarence Ditlow of the Center For Auto Safety,
  • Rosemary Shahan of Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, and 
  • John M. Simpson of the Privacy Project at Consumer Watchdog.

Having seen Ms. Claybrook at the first NHTSA hearing in April, she chooses her words carefully and she does not make frivolous points. Though I disagree with quite a bit in the letter, there are some valid issues raised.

In a nutshell

The heart of the letter reads as follows.
Thus far the administration’s policies on automated technologies have been developed in the shadows. NHTSA granted Google the right to consider the robot the “driver” in its autonomous vehicles in an interpretation issued without public notice, let alone the opportunity for public input. In March, NHTSA announced an agreement with 20 automakers on voluntary standards for automatic emergency braking that were substantially lower than the findings of NHTSA’s own scientists. They also circumvented the public rulemaking process for auto safety features contrary to the law. The rules of the road for automated technologies that would dramatically alter transportation in this country should be developed thoughtfully, in the light of day and with the highest level of transparency and public participation.
Tell us what you really think.

Oh, but there is so much more. The signatories also praise the state of California for its backward - my word - regulations that require specially trained human drivers even in completely autonomous vehicles and its onerous (arguably burdensome) reporting requirements for any incidents involving autonomous vehicles.

Looks matter

The signatories most valid points go to the appearance of impropriety if not to propriety itself. The revolving door and relationships of current NHTSA officials do not pass the smell test of a normal person. Very fishy. I have to say I noticed this at the NHTSA public hearings this spring where NHTSA staff seemed quite familiar and chummy with car company representatives, for example. And their attention to the words of other parties was not impressive either. (Hint: If you conduct a public engagement process, at least buy into your own hype about it and actually listen.)

And the letter goes after all parties, not just the usual corporate adversaries of public interest organizations. Car companies are not specifically taken to task except insofar as they are adopting partially autonomous technology, but tech companies are. Google is named and the letter rails against "Silicon Valley hype."

It's not all negative: Kind words are written in the missive about Volvo and Mercedes, which have declared that they will accept liability if their autonomous vehicle technology is responsible for a crash. (Okay, as a person with a legal education, I just have to say that word "responsible" could launch a thousand lawsuits, subject as it is to various interpretations. This was not pointed out in the letter. Plus, those two companies do not have the screw-you attitude that Tesla flaunts, so they would probably be inclined to take responsibility, settle lawsuits, and make any bad press go away.)

Follow the yellow-brick link

If you have five minutes, definitely read the whole letter. The document is a complete attack on what the signatories see as the Administration's tendency thus far to be in thrall with this new technology and to permit its adoption and operation on the roads without proper rulemaking procedures - that is without transparency and public comment.

You can't stop progress or technology

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is doing quick prototype testing of autonomous vehicles and the Mayor of Beverly Hills is meeting with staff from Google and others as part of a strategy to bring transit AV shuttles to the wealthy enclave (well, small city) as quickly as possible.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Transit, AI Routes to Driverless & International Stories

Time to book travel to Tokyo - oh wait, I mean the Tokyo suburbs, where there's a cute driverless transit shuttle currently in operation. DeNA is operating the service, working with EasyMile on this project.

Comma points - not a grammar thing

Comma.ai, the George Hotz company, is giving out comma points in exchange for collecting data from consenting drivers. Comma.ai put out an app called Chffr, which grants comma points to drivers who agree to allow Comma.ai to "record users' views as they drive." For now, Hotz is keeping information about what those points will be currency for close to his vest, but the speculation is that they will be redeemable at some point to get a good place in line or a discount for the upcoming Comma.ai self-driving kit due out later in 2016. 

Hotz isn't the only one with an AI approach. There's Cruise Automation, for which GM paid approximately $1 billion - with a "b" - and now a new entrant, a small British start-up named Five AI, which just received $2.7 million in venture capital, not that much really.  The company plans to be much less map-based than Google and other driverless producers. It is confident that British universities can supply the talent for its growth. 

China investing big and spreading the wealth

China is working on driverless transit, but it seems more interested in the luxury automobile market of the future. "Future Mobility Corp, the Chinese electric car startup backed by internet giant Tencent Holdings, plans to have its first driverless vehicles on the road by 2020." Production will be in China and it will be geared towards a Chinese audience (at least at first). Future Mobility, like Chinese company Faraday Future, has offices in Silicon Valley. Future Mobility has also played the game of poaching talent from its competitors, in this case German-based BMW and Mercedes-Benz, as well as Tesla and Google. More on this particular poaching in a second article.

Monday, July 11, 2016

British Are Coming - Going Legal on Driverless

The Brexit vote has apparently not stopped the UK government from preceding with legislative plans announced on May 18 to give driverless vehicles a legal route to insurance coverage and operations on public roads. 

Two article links are included here that explain the process. I admit I have too much work at the moment to explore this fully.

The process is called a "consultation," a public engagement process to determine the legislative and regulatory wishes of the public. And one more explanation. Here's the link to the UK government's questions.

Update: Adding a link to the article on this topic from the Guardian newspaper site. They do a great job of covering driverless developments. As usual, the Guardian offers lots of good details about insurance, regulations about driving and parking, and legal issues related to operation of partially autonomous cars.

Just a Bit More - Tesla Crash

One cannot read about driverless vehicles without coming across tons - and I mean tons - of written pieces about the fatal Tesla crash. I am mainly staying away from this topic, except to distribute links to some insightful articles and what I consider significant news. 

Fatal crash wakes up safety agency

NTSB - or the US National Transportation Safety Board - has determined that the inquiry by the more car-company-friendly NHTSA into the fatal crash that killed Joshua Brown will not be sufficient. NTSB, often seen as more objective (though without any regulatory authority), will conduct its own investigation into the crash. 

Good articles


In my mind, dual federal inquiries - plus the Florida investigation - will do a lot to keep NHTSA more objective because it will not wish to be viewed as less than thorough in its fact-finding and analysis.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

The Russians, Chinese Are Coming in Driverless Buses, Pods

Russia plans to introduce a driverless bus. So far, it has been tested, presumably at low speeds, on private roads, such as campuses. The bus is low floor, and therefore accessible (I presume), and runs on electricity. No confirmation if the bus will be launched during the 2018 soccer World Cup games. Warning: Even insomniacs will fall asleep to this video.


Toronto wants driverless buses, or at least little shuttles

Though driverless vehicles - sans drivers - are not yet legal in Ontario, Toronto council members are hatching a plan for driverless transit. They will meet in mid-July to consider a report to plan driverless transit. Toronto was one of the first cities to designate a staff person to begin to look at the transformation that driverless transportation will bring.

Intel + MobilEye + BMW = ?

The three companies: a chipmaker, driverless player, and a traditional high-end car company, are teaming up. The question is whether the deal will push BMW ahead in the driverless car race. Bloomberg did a nice summary. More speculation and details are provided by Android Headlines (AH). I have not seen anything yet that would make me believe this is a game changer. 

Baidu chooses Chinese town as third of 10

Baidu has chosen an ancient Chinese town, a tourist magnet, for a driverless project with a route system. The company, known as the Chinese Google, is planning to introduce driverless vehicles to 10 cities. The ancient town of Wuzhen is the third to be announced. There is no date set for the launch of the demonstration projects.

Tesla fatal crash

To all of us who did not know the victim, the Tesla crash heard round the world is a piece of information, something to be fixed. To me, personally, the fatal crash demonstrates the dangerous and disingenuous game that the partially driverless vehicle plays. Human drivers, such as the victim, himself a big fan of his beloved Tesla autopilot, get lulled into complacency with each day's safe trip. One day, when daydreaming, watching a movie - as the "driver" was reportedly doing - or just staring out the window, but hardly paying attention to the road, the human is not driving or thinking about driving, when an instant you-must-pay-attention-right-now situation presents itself. We humans are not generally good at the split second jolt to action. The crash occurs before the driver knows what is happening, in that split second when he or she is processing information, before action is taken.

While Mobileye and Tesla hash out who was responsible in the press, presumably continuing into the courts unless the victim's family is placated with lots of money first, I hope that NHTSA, which will investigate, will take the opportunity to impose a black box requirement for driverless vehicles and also consider the great risks of the combination of the partially driverless vehicle and the human who is supposedly ready to drive.  

My condolences go out to the family of Joshua Brown. His death is a great sorrow to his family and friends. May they be comforted by memories of him.