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.

Car Makers Plans and Business Models

Just a round up today because I'm super busy.

Volvo

Volvo announcement and its other driverless plans:
Testing in 2018, production and sales in 2021, working with Uber
Will produce private cars and fleets
Volvo joins club of opening Mountain View facility

As GM goes ...

GM-owned Cruise Automation grows to 100 employees as it tests cars in California

Business models

Car companies are planning for different possible business models or a combination thereof: Ride sharing/hailing versus private ownership (a/k/a a car or two or three in every driveway). This is explored in a report from the Center for Automotive Research, which mostly explains how shared-use modes work and their value for the customer, particularly where and at what levels of miles traveled.

Toyota Goes Yellow and Blue; Google Into Ride Hailing

Toyota is investing in the University of Michigan (sorry Buckeyes) to the tune of $22 million for artificial intelligence research that will go into driverless vehicles and many other types of products. The Japanese company is also interested in robotics products that enable older adults to remain independent and to assist people with disabilities. 

In a move that I perceive as related to autonomous vehicles, but is not technically so, Google has partnered with Israeli company Gett, a ride hailing, app-based, business similar to Uber. (Now I can't help but mention that according to Jewish law a gett is a document related to divorce that a husband must give to the wife - but without any reciprocal requirement - if she is to be free of the marriage.) 

Cozy linkage

The Jerusalem Post reports that 

In the deal, Google will offer information and a link to Gett in its popular Maps app when users search for directions, including an estimated fare and travel time. The feature, which previously went live in the UK and as of Wednesday is available in Israel and Russia, lets users seamlessly jump from Maps to Gett to order their cabs, or directs them to the app store to download the app. Google has offered the same feature with Uber for some time ...

The Gett deal is just one of a number of similar deals between Google and ride hailing companies around the globe. The deals demonstrate that Google perceives the ride hailing market as significant. Or perhaps Google is hedging its bets because no one can be sure of the business models for future transportation. 

These deals put Google into the space that RideScout formerly inhabited, though that app company did not operate on a global scale. In the musical chairs game of transportation app businesses, Moovel, which is owned by Daimler, purchased RideScout in April 2016.

From the warehouse to the street?

For those who doubt that driverless vehicles are another few decades away or that they will not play nicely with walking humans (otherwise known as pedestrians), this excellent article about the use of self-driving forklifts being employed in factories might give pause. The article does a good job of explaining the technology and operations.

Data convinced union leaders to allow these (or not to oppose them). Experience demonstrates that the autonomous forklifts are safer than human-driven ones and that there have been no collisions with walking human factory workers. Oh and they save the factories lots of money as well.