Bunch of links: Pilots, UK law, SAE announcement

Pilots

Truly awful of me to send out a post that is a list with links. Too busy this week to do otherwise and this post is more personal filing of information than entertaining or informative writing for an audience. My apologies.

Australia - Regional pilot locations announced in New South Wales.

Phoenix, Arizona area - Waymo and Phoenix's public transit, AND Waymo and Walmart partner up for rides to the store, AND Waymo test families include a teenager with the coolest driver - as in none.

Austin, TX - Cap Metro, the transit agency, is testing AVs prior to year-long pilot with EasyMile shuttles. More local coverage.

Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, area - AV service within geofenced area by Drive.ai with bright orange Nissan vans.

Regulation and insurance

Pennsylvania - Stronger "voluntary" regulations, I mean "guidelines," demand more of AV testing companies.

New insurance law in England, mostly concerned with partial vehicle automation.

SAE

SAE to develop standards for AV safety. First draft due by end of 2018.

New SAE J3016 levels of automation came out in June and a new graphic was released in July. Still clumping together the very different and distinguishable partial automation level 3 with full automation levels 4 and 5.

Popping Up Like Weeds from the Sidewalk

[Image from Cision PR Newswire.]

Gov. Hickenlooper of Colorado declared Monday, Dec. 4th to be Connected and Autonomous Vehicle (AV) Day. No word on store sales for that holiday. Part of Hickenlooper's C-and-AV Day photo op was to showcase Colorado's upcoming AV pilot project.

The declaration of the special day was a way for the pro-AV governor - whose administration paved the way for the driverless truck beer delivery PR stunt - to continue to highlight AV partners and Colorado's enthusiasm.

According to the press release, in very press-release-y language:

"Panasonic, a global leader in smart cities and smart automotive technology solutions, welcomed Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Denver offices, where he proclaimed December 4 as "Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Day" to reinforce initiatives like Panasonic's connected vehicle partnership with CDOT's RoadX Program, as well as acknowledge EasyMile, a leader in autonomous technology, for their North American headquarters grand opening co-located within the Panasonic building."

Best of luck to Lauren Isaac of EasyMile as she awaits the birth of her baby. By the time that baby is a teenager, he or she will never need a driver's license. My own kids told me about six years ago that their generation would be the last for that.

Other EasyMile news is that the company is graduating, or rather expanding, from cute AV shuttles to real buses, AVs, of course. EasyMile is partnering with the French government and "IVECO, Sector, Transpolis, ISAE-SUPAERO, Ifsttar, Inria, and Michelin" to produce the AV buses. The buses will be large enough to transport 100+ passengers. (A warning to all of you traveling with more than one small child: Whether or not a bus has a driver, get on at a stop where you can sit together and where you do not have to stand holding a child of 30 pounds or one wearing a snow suit. AVs will not solve every transportation conundrum.)

Watch this nice video of the EasyMile AV shuttle at Bishop Ranch office park in California, being piloted in a partnership with the Contra Costa Transportation Authority.

In the state where everyone believes every visitor wants to move there

Look at the cute Colorado license plate for the EasyMile AV shuttle. It will be spring 2018 before regular passengers can get on board to ride the first-mile/last-mile route near Denver's 61st and Peña Station. Political and business partners came out to shine anyway for the early dog and pony show on Monday.

Perfect would be taking that shuttle from the commuter bus stop near Louisville, CO (near Boulder) to the Moxie Bread Company hipster bakery and coffee place. It's a Denver transit bus, so why not?

[Off topic: Moxie bialys are nowhere near the real thing, but their whole grain, naturally-leavened bread is excellent. In the bialy/bagel realm, I remain true to my pre-hipster Brooklyn roots.]

Pilots popping up everywhere

Nissan will be starting a pilot in Japan for app-based AV ridehailing. Will start with only two Nissan Leaf electric vehicles. The pilot will begin in March 2018.

Lyft riders in Boston's Seaport neighborhood may be experiencing AV ridehailing trips due to a pilot program and a partnership between Lyft and nuTonomy.  Delphi owns nuTonomy, which has experience in Singapore with AV pilots.

Previous posts about nuTonomy activity in Singapore: AV ridehailing in 2018; Singapore is a driverless sandbox; plus more posts about AV activity in Singapore.

Will vans be cool again?

The company first known for its cool vans is trying to climb back to regain that reputation. Volkswagon has developed an AV van called MOIA that will be launched as the vehicle for a ridehailing service. "The van-pooling MOIA service will launch in Hamburg in 2018 with 200 vans, letting passengers enter a departure point and destination in an app. "We've set ourselves the goal of taking more than a million cars off the roads in Europe and the USA by 2025," said MOIA CEO Ole Harms."

[Image from Endgadet.]

FYI: No flower power on these sleek, corporate-looking VW vans.

Fiskers has also developed an AV shuttle called Orbit and its shape varies from the cute boxy design of other companies. No word on when this van-like shuttle vehicle will appear on roads or where it will launch.

School bus without driver

[Image from Teague.]

So, I hope parents are aware that school bus drivers do not actually supervise children who ride the bus. I mostly walked my kids to school up to high school, but I overheard plenty of kid conversations about school bus rides.

The AV school bus design, named Hannah,  crafted by the Teague design firm is cute. The affluent-and-white world portrayed in the photographs suggests a crime-free, suburban paradise. In the real world, perhaps parent volunteers would be needed up to high school, especially in the prime cliquey years of fourth grade through middle school.

More on Corporate/Start Up Musical Chairs

When the music stops, who is sitting on whose lap as shakeups and pairings continue in the race for developing and bringing driverless vehicles and services to market? Some pairings are partnerships and others are financial investments.

Quick update

Late players in both the technology and car manufacturing worlds have found each other. Microsoft partnering with Renault-Nissan.

nuTonomy is searching for additional funding. The MIT-based company has found willing partners in the government of Singapore, where the start up has a pilot driverless taxipod program currently in operation, and in a venture capital firm co-founded by Ford Motor Company, as well as other backers.

Race Is On: Tesla vs. Ford/Google vs. GM/Lyft etc

Elon Musk is pushing up his timeline, now saying that a completely driverless Tesla will be available in two years. Apparently, Musk does not want to be outdone by Google or Uber. Maybe Musk was alarmed by the early rumors of the Ford/Google coupling.

The Ford/Google rumored marriage will be an immediate powerhouse coupling of technology and automobile manufacturing. Ford has been making quite progressive statements and moves of late. The company is applying for patents right and left, particularly relating to driverless technology and connected vehicles. What better spouse could Google desire as it readies itself to progress from testing to sales, taxi pods, and other strategies for selling the driverless dream?

A menage a trois? 

Ford has announced that it will work with Amazon to use the delivery/warehouse/online-retailer's personal assistant software in Ford's driverless vehicles. The software will enable a person to remotely control or monitor the vehicle. Call the car, check it's oil, crash a KGB agent - oh wait, I'm too immersed in watching The Americans.

Yes, yes, I've been busy with other stuff, what with baking and actual office work and real life. But driverless developments literally never sleep.

And another entrant into the race

Everyone - and I mean every auto company - is at least attempting to compete in this race. Here's a rundown of recent activity. It is not complete. For example, I've left out anyone currently saying they are aiming for a 2030 rollout of a completely driverless vehicle. 


GM and Lyft's partnership has gotten lots of buzz. Here's two articles.

1. GM/Lyft partnership looks like a giant "We're out to beat Uber" quest - and GM happens to include in its plans a driverless component as part of it's Michigan campus activities.

2. A different view perceives the GM/Lyft partnership as the first step into a networked foray into the driverless-shared-vehicle-universe.

A European/Asian alliance and more

Renault/Nissan partnership to sell driverless cars by 2020.

Mercedes procures driverless license in Nevada, but the car is only partially autonomous.

Volvo banking on AI software and will be testing it in the carmaker's hometown.

Watch the movie on the way to school

Volvo is also working on media streaming for driverless cars. Apparently, the Swedish car company believes we are all screen addicts. Let's face it, many people are.

And late to the party

Nashville's mayor and Tennessee's legislature are making noises about encouraging driverless testing and travel. Nothing happening yet.