Sunshine State Getting Driverless Transit Shuttles

Late 2017 is the projected launch for two driverless shuttles to be operated by the Tampa transit system, otherwise known as HART for Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority. They will go up and down Marion Street. The Florida Department of Transportation has thrown in some dollars, thus putting its money where its mouth is in terms of support for pushing the state to the head of the pack. I would say almost to the head of the pack because no one is leaving California or Michigan anytime soon. 

Florida's competition

Florida is taking a different approach than California and Michigan, with the former open to testing on streets and the latter, the original motor state, investing in test tracks and development. Also, despite the expense and other irritations of life in California, Silicon Valley engineers and venture capitalists seem to like living and working there.

What Florida does have are politicians that are quite pro-driverless and many, many residents who are older adults - ones who presumably want to retain their independence well beyond the time when they should relinquish the car keys.

In terms of second-tier driverless states, Arizona is close to Florida with Google still planning its testing facility promised to Chandler, AZ. The facility plans were announced in August.

Today Is Sponsored by the Letter N

nuTonomy - One of the driverless cars tooling around Singapore in anticipation of AV-taxibot services got into an accident with a truck. In marked contrast to Tesla, but in taking a page from Google PR on handling minor accidents, nuTonomy has been up front about what happened: nuTonomy has halted driverless operations and it has released all data.

Nvidia - This AI savvy company is cuddling up with Tesla, which makes sense because the founder is the proud owner of a Tesla car. Musk and Huang, Nvidia's CEO, have met at various forums and now the companies of these friends are going to capitalize on Nvidia's AI system for driverless vehicles, DRIVE PX 2, which will be used in Tesla cars. 

DRIVE PX 2 is an end-to-end AI computing system that uses groundbreaking approaches in deep learning to perceive and understand the car’s surroundings… [and] lets carmakers first train their own deep neural networks on GPU supercomputers. Once loaded into the car, it processes the networks at high speed to provide the real-time, accurate response required for autonomous driving.

It is safe to say that Nvidia is the leading or one of the leading companies developing AI for driverless vehicles.

Nashville - The Tennessee city has been selected as one of five international cities for technical assistance in planning and technology to prepare for driverless and connected vehicles. The other cities are Austin, Paris, Buenos Aires, and Los Angeles; plus, five more will be added within the next two months. Today is for the letter N, so we will celebrate Nashville. The program is officially called the Bloomberg Aspen Initiative on Cities and Autonomous Vehicles and it aims to develop a set of policy recommendations for ways cities should plan and use their land and resources for when automated vehicles arrive on their roadways.

With a word from the letter W

Wheego is changing its image and its purpose from being a tiny electric car company to being an autonomous car company - yet another driverless testing permit for the state of California - with an emphasis on deep learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Using the word of the month, pivoting is what Wheego is doing and the pivot has a geographic element. The company is shifting its focus from the US to China. The new official name of Wheego is Wheego Technologies.

Alphabet bomb

Google is ready for its car business to go out on its own. Google's Alphabet car will soon be a standalone business. Corporate legal stuff (a technical term) is in the works. No plans released yet for how the cars or travel will be sold.

Grammar

Comma.ai has been stopped in its tracks. Slated to sell its driverless-in-a-box add-on for existing cars by the end of this year (within the next two months), NHTSA has warned Comma.ai to not sell its product due to possible conflicts with federal regulations.

Third Hand: Reports of Pesky Attitude at California Hearing

Darn! I did not attend or live stream the public meeting this week to discuss the proposed California driverless regulations, so this post just has links to reports from others. Look at the reports because the fingerprints of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets is all over the autonomous vehicle industry's issues with the proposed California regulations. David Strickland, the sole person at the coalition is an experienced player and former administrator of the NHTSA.

In-depth articles

GovTech.com 

Automotive news 

Quick reads 

Endgadget

Reuters 

ArsTechnica

My two cents

I just want to say "I told you so," on some points of contention, such as the role that California has proposed for municipalities. I hope that the companies involved do not make the serious error of opposing any and all reporting requirements and regulation.

I personally like the black box/data recorder requirement. 

Significant issues under the proposed rules are trade secrets becoming publicly-available information, role of municipalities, and delays inherent for technology rollouts. 

Not that I disagree, just that there is a positive role for devil's advocates to be playing in terms of the California proposed rules.

Back to Strickland

The Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets is growing its website by posting a small library of driverless studies and reports. Testimony by David Strickland at public meetings and other venues is also posted there.

In-Depth Learning and Seeing - Asia and Israel

From Japan, China, and somewhere nearby the Mediterranean 

Toshiba has partnered with Denso Corporation to provide artificial intelligence (AI) capability for partial and fully autonomous vehicles. The Deep Neural Network-Intellectual Property (DNN-IP) - or DNN to its friends - that Denso has developed:

is an algorithm modeled after the neural networks of the human brain and is expected to perform recognition processing as accurately, or better, than the human brain. This algorithm will allow the system to identify different road traffic situations and a variety of obstacles and road markings. 

Due to the rapid progress in DNN technology, Denso Corp. and Toshiba Corp. plan to make the technology flexibly extendable to various network configurations, Denso adds. Additionally, the companies will design the technology to have the ability to be implemented on in-vehicle processors that are smaller, consume less power, and feature other optimizations, Denso said.

Please excuse the long quote; honestly, I do not understand the under-the-hood tech speak and I do not want to get it wrong.

A new eye for depth perception

An Israeli start up, Oryx Vision, is developing hardware to replace LIDAR. Oryx Vision recently received a $17 million boost in venture capital funding. Called Oryx, this new technology supposedly has much better depth perception than LIDAR. An Oryx Vision representative described the contrast between LIDAR and Oryx as the difference between a description of a person and live streaming a person's image. Oryx Vision claims that the speed of driverless vehicles will be able to increase because of the much-improved depth perception. The translation for my non-tech mind was that the low 25 mph speed of the Google cars is due to LIDAR's limitations.

[Editor's note: I wonder whatever happened to that optimistic Israeli radio station that declared many times a day: From somewhere in the Mediterranean, this is the voice of peace. The Internet is truly magical because one incredibly quick search turned up the whole story. As Einstein said, "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is miracle. The other is as though everything is." End of unrelated note.]

Hello pedestrians! Bring the popcorn!

LeEco has built a demonstration driverless car - sans price tag. Not only would you be able to watch a movie in it, but if you are outside the vehicle it signals to pedestrians whether the car is in autonomous mode. Think Wizard of Oz: the car changes color when it changes modes from driverless to human-operated and back again. The steering wheel also folds in when the driver hands over control and, presumably, rests back to watch a movie. (Read the linked article after all of the stuff about its delay getting to its destination.) LeEco is a Chinese company.

Musk showing attitude

News is coming fast and furious from Tesla, which is now putting self-driving hardware into ALL of its vehicles. No movie screen, but hey, most people only look at their phones anyway. Elon Musk is also charging the media with distorting the excellent safety record of driverless vehicles, thus making people unsafe by displaying a journalistic preference for unsafe, human-operated cars.

Musk is remaining somewhat defiant about Tesla's liability when crashes occur during its partially-driverless mode. Instead of following Volvo's lead in assuming strict - or complete - liability, Musk puts the onus on the driver to prove a design flaw. He compares the liability situation to elevator mishaps. Clearly Musk has not been to PR school. But for all of Musk's defiance, he has stepped back the availability of Tesla's partially-driverless software after several crashes in different countries. [Nice reporting from Bloomberg in that article.]

Driverless Becomes Ordinary Cute Fare for Kids

I have to post this new kids book available online just because it demonstrates how ordinary driverless services seem for the generation having children now and for those little ones who are growing up in a world with technology available at every moment.

Moovel Lab is the publisher of Where Do Cars Go at Night? The book invites the reader and the two-to-five year old at his or her side into an idealized world of shared-use, driverless taxi pods that deliver people and groceries during the day, get recharged and maintained at night, do not need much in terms of parking, and are powered by environmentally-friendly sources, all stored in superb batteries. 

I do not know who thought of this, but this book has jumped to the top of my list of favorite children's books. That reminds me: I will add this to the present for the new baby in the family. Our gift will be a nice introductory library of children's classics. Thinking of other transportation-oriented books, such as The Wheels on the Bus and Make Way for Ducklings, as well as a bunch of others that have nothing to do with changing the mind of the next generation about infrastructure and livability.

Apologies for only giving Amazon links instead of small independent booksellers. 

Is UW a New Driverless Hotbed?

Two reports in the past few days about creative driverless developments out of the University of Washington Bothell, a campus I had never heard of before (probably because I have lived my entire life on the East Coast). 

1. Driverless tricycle - so I'm not sure why anyone would need this and does this machine pedal for you? Transport packages? Right now, this is an incredibly early prototype that goes in circles and thrills only the students working on it. But you never know where it will go. I wrote about this tricycle yesterday, very briefly, at the end of a pretty unrelated post.

2. The ELF, a tricycle that looks like a mini-car, is driverless and being developed with funding from Amazon. It is solar powered and can hold up to 550 pounds of persons and/or merchandise. That's a lot of books. The startup working with UW-Bothell is called Organic Transit. You can already buy a non-driverless ELF from Organic Transit. They come in cute colors and cost $7000 and above. I'm not sure you can bring it up to the office; might need conventional parking, though it is considered a bicycle and can travel at the speed of a heavy bike. This is definitely a vehicle that can go to the supermarket, but it might be really slow on steep hills on the way home. 

Pre-Market Approval Floating and 18 for California

California issued its 18th permit to test driverless vehicles to NextEV, a company that is also receiving millions in tax credits for creating jobs in the state's zero-emission industry. I have read a few sources, but they are repeats of press-release-speak and without real details.

Real debate

The real news is the bubbles of unhappiness floating to the surface with California's new proposed driverless regulations and the proposed NHTSA guidelines out of Washington, DC. Toyota is grousing about the possibility of pre-market approval of driverless vehicles and a 15-point safety checklist included in the proposed guidelines. 

We test 16 year olds before they can go out on the road alone and we inspect vehicles at least once a year (my state does) , so perhaps a road-ready inspection system for driverless vehicles is not unreasonable. Total bull that a technology-agnostic testing requirement would necessarily stifle innovation. Like lawsuits are efficient in this regard? Then you have, effectively, regulation by jurors and judges, who know nothing about technology, but generally prefer the little guy defendant.

Pre-market approval

Right now, the argument is, as legal speak would term this, not yet ripe. It would take an act of Congress to grant pre-market approval authority to NHTSA. NHTSA can talk of this possibility, but it has no power at this time to implement such a process. 

From a substantive angle, the other side of the argument is that government will take too long, be inefficient, and blah, blah, blah ruin the auto industry or words to that effect. It's not too often the auto industry begs for government regulation, so excuse me for thinking of Toyota's response as pretty much a knee-jerk reaction.

Interesting that there has been no public word from David Strickland of the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets and its tech and auto industry players. No doubt they are working behind the scenes.

Maybe the auto and tech companies should not fight every government requirement. Makes them look unreasonable to most people, as in people who know little to nothing about the details of driverless technology. 

FYI: Decided not to post the video of the self-driving tricycle - without a seat - that is able to go around in circles. The trike is being developed at the University of Washington Bothell. 

No Break From Driverless Developments

A few days off to enjoy real-life family and events. A little less attention paid to driverless while immersed in much home baking of holiday and rye breads for friends and family. (Everyone needs a source of good bread, but truly here's nothing like homemade. Not that I am the best baker, but a fresh homemade bread has amazing taste and is pure comfort food. Plus, naturally leavened bread is far healthier than breads made with commercial yeast. Rant over.)

The result? I fell woefully behind - for just a few days - on driverless news. Really, driverless news should not come out if I am not paying attention.

Acquisitions and money flowing

German-based Infineon acquires Innoluce BV, a Dutch producer of miniature, and potentially a very cheap, lidar technology. Infineon us a chip manufacturer. Here's a Business Insider article about the acquisition, which also explains well the differences in production costs.

A French driverless shuttle startup, Navya, is receiving a funding boost from, among others, Keolis, a large international transportation and transit company. The boost is to the tune of $34 million, with a $224 million valuation that demonstrates the current groupthink about Navya.

MIT-spawned Optimus Ride is also receiving an infusion of about $5 million. No specifics on the emerging technology that Optimus is incubating, but there is deep autonomous vehicle experience on the staff of the Boston startup.

Technology advance

The University of California at Riverside (UC Riverside) has created a new type of navigation technology. The technology does not rely on GPS, which does not work well in certain settings (such as mountain valleys), and instead relies on existing signals, such as cellular networks and wifi.

Finally on the street

After announcements and plans, finally, finally, driverless cars have appeared on the streets of Milton Keynes, a city in England. They are slow - at 5 mph - and cute and there. Australia, site of the current ITS World Congress conference, has hosted an actual driverless car on its roads as well. Bosch is the producer of the driverless system used on that car.

Iowa and Factory Floors - Hotbeds for Driverless Testing?

Yes, California has two more companies permitted to do driverless testing. I'm just repeating the headline here. Ars Technica reports that "[t]he Wall Street Journal reports that Valeo (a tier-one supplier to the auto industry) and Wheego (an electric vehicle powertrain engineering company) have each been granted permits by the state's DMV to begin testing a single autonomous vehicle on public roads." (I do not have a WSJ subscription; otherwise I would read the actual article.) It has become so common for companies to test in California that it is hardly news any more. I thought twice about mentioning it.

In the heartland, real news

The real news from the Ars Technica report is that Iowa will be opening up a major highway between Cedar Rapids and Iowa City for driverless testing. Think snow and trucks on such a road. The report states that the Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT) and HERE - remember the jointly owned mapping firm of Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz? - are getting together to create a corridor for testing of driverless trucks and cars.

According to the Des Moines Register, IDOT is emphasizing that this is solely a mapping project and that no physical infrastructure work is 'involved. This effort is part of Iowa's attempt to lure driverless testing to the state.

Streets aren't the only thoroughfares with traffic 

Ford and Caterpillar, through their venture capital partners, are investing in robots for transporting stuff on factory floors. These are more predictable environments than actual streets. On the factory floor, rules are heeded for pedestrian/machine interaction; no one wants to lose a job for not obeying a right of way. The company receiving the $30 million infusion is Clearpath Robotics. There is no announcement of capitalizing on the robotics work for Ford and Caterpillar's own driverless vehicle efforts.

California Proposed Regs: Multiply by 50

A post in two parts - first part, my thoughts on state regulation of driverless vehicles, given what California proposes; second part, a review of the regulations. Read what you want to read.

Perspective through which I interpret the proposed California Regulations

Yes, the California proposed regulations conceive of testing and operations of autonomous vehicles that lack steering wheels, brakes, and other driver-controlled equipment. The regulations also show the detail work that will be involved for driverless manufacturers in each state with the passage of relatively simple driverless statutes that basically allow state departments of transportation to regulate each in its own way. It's like going under the hood of a gleaming, fancy new car. The devil is in the details.

You do the math. When you multiply all that would be involved with complying with California's proposed regulations, begin to wonder what all that will mean for 50 - slightly different - set of regulations. And that does not even begin to conceive of what would happen if five or 10 states take significantly different approaches. With the proposed California regulations for driverless car operation we can see just how maddening and inefficient state-by-state rules could be.

We need a common app

In the US, college applicants can fill out one application, affectionately called the common app (formally, the common application), that almost every school will accept. No filling in your name, address, and social security number 10 times; no 10 separate long application essays. (Many have their own short essays, but they tend to be similar and not require that much extra time.) In contrast, every college and university has a slightly different medical form. So when Junior gets ready to go to XYZ University and Junior's pal gets ready to go to ABC College, their neighborhood doctor can't zip quickly through the medical forms. Attention to details - and the time it takes to make sure the differences in forms are respected - takes lots of extra time. Our doctor hates this.

We need a common app for driverless vehicle regulation. Each state having its own set of forms, its own slightly different reporting requirements, its own testing demands - you get the picture. There are two choices: Either we pass a federal law or we have a uniform code of regulations that allows for one set of requirements and paperwork demands that each state administers for the vehicles "licensed" - or whatever it will be called when the vehicle software operates the vehicle - in its jurisdiction.

Personally, I would favor federal regulation, but we are not writing on a clean slate. Our custom in the US is for a considerable state regulatory presence that governs who drives and the inspection and licensing of vehicles. Perhaps AASHTO (American Association of State Highway Transportation Official), AAA (American Automobile Association), the Uniform Laws Commission (not to be confused with the Uniform Code Council, which fosters consortia of companies within particular industries to self-regulate), the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers (also known as the Auto Alliance), and SAE International (because it is already in the business of standards and expertise regarding autonomous vehicles) should begin to hash this out. One could add more players for a complete regulatory kumbaya, which would mean the American Trucking Associations (that's the name; it's only one entity), the Taxi, Limousine, and Paratransit Association (TLPA) (because it has experience with managing passenger fleets), and the American Bus Association. Surely any group will have to include the fledgling Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, which is aiming to grow its membership and occupy a large space in this arena. Whatever the mix of stakeholders, they must figure out how to make regulation flexible enough to encourage innovation, to effectively monitor vehicles and promote safety, and to create a seamless system of regulation from sea to shining sea (that means all across the US, for any who do not understand the reference).

Into the weeds on the California proposal - starting at the end

Read through to the end: There are marbled tidbits of all the way through this regulatory meat (brisket reference). In fact, the very last subsection (Sec. 227.90(b)) reads like a pointed finger in the face of Elon Musk at Tesla, but also others that sell partially self-driving vehicles.

Terms such as “self-driving”, “automated”, “auto-pilot”, or other statements made that are likely to induce a reasonably prudent person to believe a vehicle is autonomous, as defined, constitute an advertisement that the vehicle is autonomous for the purposes of this section and Vehicle Code section 11713.

Vehicle Code section 11713, by the way, prohibits false and misleading statements relating to the advertising and sale of vehicles. Now the section will also be nipping in the bud the imagined meeting of partially AV and the classic image of the used car salesman. The section applies to new vehicles as well.

Return to the beginning for a list of highlights

Before I start, a little disclaimer: I will not be writing about aspects of the proposed regulations that do not change previous versions.

Read the definitions for:

Autonomous technology data recorder (ATDR): Black box defined. Good feeling this will show up further into this thick pile of what used to be paper, but is now an endless scroll on my laptop. To be kosher, the ATDR must record "for 30 seconds prior to a collision and at least 5 seconds after a collision or until the vehicle comes to a complete stop." (Sec. 227.02 (b))

Autonomous vehicle: Adopting the SAE International standards of level 3-5 for autonomous vehicles. That is significant and shows California is willing to play with others and have the rationality of agreed-upon terms define the sphere of autonomous vehicles. (Sec. 227.02 (d))

The added proposed definitions also conceive of deployment of driverless vehicles by regular people, meaning not people who are testing or developing or otherwise working on a pre-market phase of driverless operation. There is also a definition of remote operator, which is self-explanatory.

Sprinkled throughout

All through the proposed regulations are references to the NHTSA “Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles." For example, the California proposed regulations adopt the requirement of a safety assessment letter submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as specified in the “Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles.” The California regulators are presuming that the NHTSA Guidance survives into a new Administration in DC.

For now, forget the driverless motorcycle

New - Explicit bases for suspending a driverless testing permit. (Sec. 227.40)

No driverless testing or ordinary driverless operation of motorcycles, trucks and intercity buses (given the weight restriction, weight being one defining feature of a commercial motor vehicle according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations), and vehicles carrying hazardous materials - at least for now. (Sec. 227.52). This provision seems to rule out as well the driverless tiny house. I am sure this will change. Nevada already allows for driverless truck testing.

Before you test sans driver, read the NHTSA Guidelines and other fine print

Driverless vehicles - without a driver present - may be tested on California's public roads (Sec. 227.54). But wait, there is a long list of conditions given. In addition to bureaucratic hurdles, there must be a remote operator, hopefully not some guy with his feet up who is eating a sandwich and reading the sports pages. The vehicle must be capable of communication with the remote operator (who is a human). By the way, that remote operator human must be trained (Sec. 227.54 (l)). "The certification shall include a description of how the manufacturer will monitor the communication link." And one thing more, in case of a crash, the vehicle must be capable of taking out, I mean displaying or sharing, its owner and operator information.

If there is no steering wheel and brakes, that's fine by California, but before testing may begin on public roads, the state would require that the vehicle:

... complies with all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards as well as the “Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles” in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Federal Automated Vehicles Policy, or the manufacturer provides evidence of an exemption that has been approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. (Sec. 227.54 (g)(4))

California is basically opting for uniformity and for someone else to have the bureaucracy in place for approval of completely driver-incapable vehicles.

Before no-driver testing, to make sure that the federal requirements are adhered to: "The manufacturer [must] provide[] a copy of the safety assessment letter that it submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as specified in the “Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles” in the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy." (Sec. 227.54(h))

Recordkeeping requirements include, but are certainly not limited to, an annual report (Sec. 227.54 (n) (1)) and manufacturer retention of "data related to the disengagement of the autonomous mode.  For the purposes of this section, “disengagement” means the deactivation of the autonomous mode when there is a failure of the autonomous technology or when the safety of the vehicle, the occupants of the vehicle, or the public requires that the autonomous technology be deactivated." (Sec. 227.54 (n))

Oh and testing companies (or entities) must cooperate with 'local authorities." So, town A, on one side of the road, might say welcome to testing, while town B, on the other side of the strip mall, might be furious. (Sec. 227.54 (a))

Are you asleep yet?

This stuff is about as boring as could be. I am tempted to join my dog in that very relaxing nap he is taking. Just to make sure that no one goes permanently catatonic while reading this post, I will heretofore restrict myself to highlights and avoid every last detail.

On to normal operations a/k/a post-testing deployment

What are we talking about the War in Iraq? If post-testing deployment is normal operations, why are terms used that are superfluous? Andy why use terms that sound so military? Useless rant ends here.

Normal operations will require the vehicle equivalent of the flight data recorder or AVDR (Sec. 227.58 (a)(6) and the manufacturer will be required to specify any weather or road conditions, such as fog or wet roads, that render the vehicle incapable of safe operation (Sec. 227.58 (a)(3)). I am inserting the word "safe.' The text actually refers to operation.

What did you see and where were you?

In addition to complying with federal safety standards, pretty routine, all sensor data will be available to law enforcement upon request (Sec. 227.58 (a)(6)(A)). No mention of the Fourth Amendment or its California equivalent. No mention whether this police purview only relates to crashes or does it relate to any possible criminal activity (as in could the defendant have possibly seen something or have been at a particular location at a particular time?). Well, we have redefined the reasonable expectation of privacy.

Instead of heading over for a vehicle inspection every year, the autonomous technology will have to be updated at least once a year (Sec. 227.58 (b)(2)) by a certain date and with the possibility of local regulation as well.

The vehicle will be required to come safely to a stop when there is a malfunction (Sec. 227.58 (b)(4)) - without needing to reboot first. I guess true emergency, immediate malfunctions will be rendered illegal and will never happen.

Plan for Hello Hal

Law enforcement and other first responders - EMT and fire departments - must be furnished with a "law enforcement interaction plan" for:

... how to interact with the vehicle in emergency and traffic enforcement situations. The manufacturer shall certify that it developed the law enforcement interaction plan in consultation with the impacted law enforcement agencies. (Sec.  227.58 (b)(5))

Now you are multiplying not by 50, but by thousands of local jurisdictions - if this is not a standard specification. [Note: Sec. 227.60, the contents of the application for post-testing deployment on public streets mirrors Sec. 227.58 and will not be discussed further.]

We're waiting, we're waiting

The proposed regulations do not set forth the maximum amount of time that the State of California will have for reviewing applications to test or to deploy autonomous vehicles. Will applications be outstanding for a month, for a year? There is no clue.

No surprise that manufacturers must notify the state of material changes to the vehicle's capability, but this must be done via a new permit for post-testing deployment (Sec. 227.64 (b)). Deployment of the material change may not occur until a permit has been granted (Sec. 227.64 (c)).

[A] material change is defined as any hardware, software, or other significant update to the autonomous vehicle’s autonomous technology that triggers the need to submit a new safety assessment letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as specified in the “Vehicle Performance Guidance for Automated Vehicles.” (Sec. 227.64 (b))

Yes, safety stuff must be reported. Discoveries of bad things. blah, blah, blah. I should not say that because lives are in the balance, but in this complete set of regulations, it is expected that this information will be included. Oh, and procedures for contesting decisions about applications and review of decisions to deny applications are provided for as well.

What does GM, Google, and Uber know about you?

To try to prevent the inevitable invasions of privacy and the free floating of private information, the proposed regulations make an attempt at privacy protection in Sec. 227.78. Data must either be anonymized or " [p]rovide a written disclosure to the operator of an autonomous vehicle that describes the information collected by the autonomous technology that is not necessary for the safe operation of the vehicle." I'm uncomfortable with the latter. All the manufacturer has to do is tell me? Great, now Google will not only know every website I visit, but when I go to CVS to buy dental floss. Armed with that information, any company will invade someone's else's privacy.

Comma.ai situation

California regulators are wise to imagine the reconfigured vehicle and not just the brand new driverless vehicle. Comma.ai and others are getting ready to sell driverless-in-a-box kits to render conventional automobiles into driverless, or at least Tesla-like, machines. Sec. 227.80 addresses this situation, but regarding autonomous vehicles.

I must admit that I am confused. Are vehicle owners obligated to re-register their cars that are outfitted after sale with a driverless kit? Is this required for partially autonomous vehicles? Are these regulations applicable to something like and including a Tesla? Looking at the Vehicle Code references, I remain confused, but ready to say I believe this obligation applies to individual owners. After  all, it is individuals or their significant others who register vehicles.

Due to my confusion about the parameters of this subsection, I am copying it here.

(a) In addition to the requirements set forth in Vehicle Code section 4150, an application for registration of an autonomous vehicle previously titled in California prior to the incorporation of autonomous technology shall include:
(1) The certificate of ownership or certificate of origination from the vehicle manufacturer as defined in Vehicle Code section 672.
(A) The certificate of origination shall clearly indicate when a vehicle has been equipped with autonomous technology by including a field designated as “MISC”, followed by “AV” as an abbreviation for autonomous vehicle or “AVD” as an indication the vehicle is capable of operating without a driver.
(2) An indication that the certification label pursuant to section 227.82 is present on a Verification of Vehicle (REG 31).
(b) An autonomous vehicle so modified shall be identified as such on the face of the registration card and any certificate of ownership.

The manufacturer of parts (software, sensors, etc.) that render a conventional vehicle driverless will be obligated, pursuant to the proposed California regulations, to "affix a certification label on each vehicle."  (Sec. 227.82 (b)) The label will be similar to the label that manufacturers of driverless vehicles will be required to supply. The label would be required to include this statement:

“This vehicle has been modified with the incorporation of autonomous technology that the manufacturer has certified conforms to State of California requirements for autonomous vehicles in effect on the date of manufacture shown above.”

Perhaps these manufacturers will have to be more hands on than they wish.

Juicy stuff right near the end

Just when you think there's nothing else that's interesting, you get to the division of responsibility between driver and manufacturer. Oh yea. 

The message of Sec. 227.86 is that if you have a Tesla, keep your hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road. The manufacturer will not be liable if you should have been paying attention, but instead you were watching on your phone the SNL parody of the last presidential debate.

Autonomous mode = shift of liability

However, Sec. 227.86 provides:

The manufacturer shall be responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle, including compliance with all traffic laws, when the autonomous vehicle is operating in autonomous mode within its approved operational design domain.

So, does this mean that Teslas and their ilk will be required to comply with speed limits? That could be a boost to road safety.

And for completely driverless vehicles,

[t]he manufacturer of any autonomous vehicle that is capable of performing all aspects of the dynamic driving task without reliance on the intervention of a driver  shall be responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle at all times the vehicle is operating in its operational design domain, including compliance with all traffic or other laws.

Wow, deep pockets available in lawsuits when vehicle codes - especially speed limits - are not obeyed. I'm smiling. Perhaps those who speed and weave in and out of traffic will not be.

On the Edges of Driverless Development

This video seems a bit like technology-meets-Reading-Rainbow in its approach, but it does show possibilities for the future in travel and in sitting at home watching your drone have a wonderful day outside. Or the drone can check traffic up ahead or how long the line is outside your favorite restaurant or whether the parking lot up ahead is full.

The car comes with a drone.

The 3D-printed car has not been made, but Local Motors is in exactly that business, with work on 3D-printed driverless vehicles.

Beware: The video is part of a public relations effort.

Korean initiative has sensors seeing colors

The sensors for driverless vehicles that are being developed in Korea do not only see colors - as in traffic signals - they communicate with sensors on roads. Driverless meets CV. The CV or connected vehicle and road sensors give each driverless vehicle information from beyond its own little moving structure. Working on this are a mobile phone carrier, SK Telecom and Seoul National University (SNU) Intelligent Vehicle IT Research Center.