Is Google Behind? Ride in an Uber, a Volvo, Soon a Ford

If you follow driverless news each day, you already know that Google invented something for its software that alerts its self-driving cute cars to yield to emergency vehicles. Here's a random article. There's also Volvo, which promoted with fanfare its assembly line roll-out of its driverless cars. Swedish drivers will be testing those. New York drivers would be better, but I say go for the lunatics on this one.

Back to Google: Is it only me who thinks this, someone who does not have a clue how to develop the simplest software and never looks under the hood of a car, or are the AI (artificial intelligence) folks are already past this one-small-situation-one-bandaid approach to driverless software? That's the whole point of AI isn't it? You teach it through accumulated experience. By way of analogy, by the time your kid is learning to drive, he or she does not need to be taught specifically what to do in every little situation. Part of what we want from driverless is what we want from humans - judgment in unusual circumstances. We also want the capacity to pay close attention in endlessly boring situations, something humans are not good at.

Where's the Google ride?

So I ask if Google has slipped? Why weren't they before Uber or all of these transit and taxipod pilots in introducing their cute pod cars to the general public? Has Google become a prudent, risk-averse, large, conventional corporation where innovation gets lip service but not real support? I don't know. I'd have to ask the 20-somethings I know who work there. 

Speaking of Uber, okay, yes, I'll be the 50th or 100th site to post one of the videos of giddy journalists who trekked to Pittsburgh taking a driverless Uber ride. Well, with a driver and an engineer and lots of explaining. I'm sure there's a million of these videos already. Here's the one from Wired. It's cute, but not on youtube.

Relax in the self-driving Uber backseat

Here's a six-minute video from the PBS NewsHour. (Yes, even years later, I still think of the show as the MacNeil-Lehrer Report. MacNeil co-wrote an entertaining history of the English language, by the way. Quite readable. There's a companion series that aired on, where else, PBS.)

Ford is there, but more prudent?

Ford is testing and showing off driverless rides to journalists and using testing grounds. 

Already with ride hailing (Uber, Lyft, etc.), micro-transit (Chariot, Brid), shared rides (UberPool, LyftLine, Via, Split), and even bikeshare, our larger cities beyond the five boroughs are changing into places where one does not need a car, or where going car-lite is entirely feasible.

But outside of the relatively few places where transit works well - usually with rail, a few with BRT (bus rapid transit) - will the driverless revolution be the last nail in the coffin for transit viability in places large and small where there is, using a technical term here, crappy transit? Ford thinks so; the company is buying Chariot, a San Francisco micro-transit operation.

Volvo Gets Interesting

Too many articles to keep track of that say the same thing about the basics of the deal between Volvo and Autoliv. Both are located in Sweden, though Volvo is owned by the Chinese. The photo of the Volvo and Autoliv chief executives looks like the beginning of a Ingmar Bergman movie about upper class angst in Scandanavia, with beautiful white kitchens in which there is no screaming or Italian food.

I'm just going to list a few articles; there are so many more. The reports all pretty much cover the same material facts.
Wall Street Journal article
Endgadget.com post - also information about the Volvo/Uber deal
The Detroit Bureau (an automotive industry publication) - has the aforementioned photo

Question

Lingering in my mind is the question of whether Volvo is already behind the curve on a path that Nvidia, Drive.ai, and Comma.ai are well in the midst of paving? Perhaps Volvo believes it is technologically ahead; perhaps the company believes and indeed can bank on its credibility and its acumen to surge ahead; perhaps there is something of the Jackson Pollock style of painting here - throw something and see if it sticks. (Apologies to Pollock and modern art enthusiasts, but I'm not a big fan of the artist's work.)

Something new in the Swedish water?

Volvo has been a busy bee of late. In addition to the Uber deal and the Autoliv deal, Volvo is testing other driverless vehicles. It is showing off a driverless vehicle in New Zealand as well as testing a driverless truck in an underground mine. According to wikimapia, "[t]he mine consists of polymetallic ore containing zinc, copper, lead, gold and silver, as well as copper ore and gold ore. Around 80% of the ore mined at Kristineberg is extracted using the cut-and-fill method." Correctly assume that I have no idea what that means or how environmentally responsible such mining practices are.

And there's more with Uber and Volvo partnering on driverless Volvo trucks that are currently tooling around the San Francisco Bay area. These are already on the highway.

One can assume that the B2B market of trucking will be, no pun intended, a gold mine. One can assume that Daimler and Volvo will be big competitors, as past reports have shown.

Crazy Weeds of Soon-to-Launch Autonomous Services

Speaking of Drive.ai

Drive.ai has developed a sweet vehicle-to-pedestrian signal system with text and emojis for communication with sighted pedestrians and auditory signals for those without an adequate sense of sight. The article was not entirely clear about what those auditory signals would be and whether they would be sufficient to put people with visual impairments in an equitable position to their sighted peers. 

Drive.ai is developing a kit that will transform a regular car into a self-driving one and is using artificial intelligence technology. The company just named a former General Motors executive to its board of directors. Drive.ai is like Cruise Automation, but without GM as its patron, or like Comma.ai, but without a genius crazy guy as its founder and leader.

Chinese Company Moves Ahead in California

Baidu, which is reportedly partnering with Nvidia, also recently received a permit to begin driverless testing in California. The former is big news because this is China's Google, as Baidu is known, getting an instant surge from an artificial intelligence enterprise that is perhaps the leading concern in terms of driverless technology.

Autonomous, yes, but no stairs

Boston-based Bridj, a ride-hailing-meets-fancy-transit company that operates in Beantown, DC, and, with subsidized service, in Kansas City, is getting into the delivery drone business, presumably to fill vehicles or to make some money with them in off hours. The three-mile-an-hour drone is not such a great robot. It will deliver as long as there are no stairs or doors to open. I guess it needs a human to be present.

While I'm here

Tesla decides to insure its own partially driverless vehicles. Speculation is that Tesla will be well positioned for fully driverless insurance when those vehicles go on the road.

nuTonomy is partnering with a ride hailing company in Southeast Asia. No surprise, this is seen as a move for both companies to be better positioned to compete with a future driverless Uber.

Michigan Lets Go of Steering Wheel

Go Wolverines 

Proposed state legislation is proceeding quickly in Michigan. A bill that does not require any particular equipment, such as brakes or a steering wheel, and that will not require that a human driver be located in a vehicle could soon become law. The State Senate held a hearing yesterday.

The bill, SB 995, also provides for connected vehicle platooning and it envisions hassle-free ride hailing services that are completely driverless. The definitions in the bill places its regulation footprint on every vehicle operated on Michigan roads that is partially to totally autonomous.

I'm feeling bad for the Buckeyes in Ohio already and I'm dreaming in blue and yellow. Fingerprints of Ann Arbor's academicians, Detroit's automakers, and visitors from Silicon Valley are all over this bill. Here is tracking information about SB 995.

There is more 

The bill would establish the Michigan Council on Future Mobility. Eleven voting members will be appointed by the governor. Right now that would mean business interests would be well represented, I assume. There would also be representatives of various state departments, including transportation and law enforcement, as well as non-voting members from the state legislature.

The bill also takes a dim view of humans who are driving partially self-driving vehicles - such as the Tesla one-second-the-car-is-in-control,-the-next-second-you-are variety - AND at the same time using any device in one's hand or on one's lap. Perhaps the car companies helped to craft that language to avoid quite distracting and entertaining stuff installed on car dashboards. Does not look like you will be permitted to watch a movie and monitor the vehicle at the same time, at least if you are using your tablet or phone.

And more

SB 996 calls into being "SAVE projects" that only vehicle manufacturers may participate in. In case you are wondering, SB 997 defines a SAVE project as basically a driverless ride hailing operation. The SB 996 summary puts it this way:

The term "SAVE project" would be defined by Senate Bill 997 as an initiative that authorizes eligible motor vehicle manufacturers to make available to the public on-demand automated vehicle networks. "On-demand automated vehicle network" would mean a digital network or software application used to connect passengers to automated motor vehicles, not including commercial motor vehicles, in participating fleets for transportation between points chosen by passengers, for transportation between locations chosen by the passenger when the automated motor vehicle is operated without any control or monitoring by a human operator. [Emphasis added.]

Find the status of SB 996 here. 

FYI: The Michigan legislature provides online access to the text of each bill, tracking information, and a summary analysis. I will try to confine myself to the tracking page because it links to everything else. This situation is pretty common.

SAVE projects and private roads - that the public has an interest in

Testing of autonomous vehicles at research centers and on private roads are specifically addressed in SB 997. I like looking at the analysis of each Michigan bill because the actual text is not generally user friendly. Still, I imagine, courts would find the actual text of any law passed to be controlling in a dispute that reaches the judiciary.

SB 998 is the usual get-out-of-jail-free-card in driverless legislation for manufacturers of driverless vehicles and the mechanics who repair them according to manufacturer specifications. The reason I find this provision intriguing now is because it does not conceive of a kit, such as Comma.ai or Drive.ai are developing, that would transform a normal car into a driverless one, rather inexpensively and easily. As these could be on the market soon, it seems like a rather large oversight.

An article from Crain's does a nice job of discussing who has been involved with crafting the Michigan legislation. The article discusses a hearing on the bill.

On the West Coast

California seems stuck in the mud compared to Michigan. It took a long time to pass a simple one-off piece of legislation to allow a driverless shuttle pilot to be tested at an office park. This went on for months. The bill is AB 1592. It has passed both houses of the state legislature and will presumably become law. One does not get the sense of shared momentum in California as exists between the Michigan legislators and their home-state vehicle manufacturers.

The office park shuttle will be another cute pilot project and it will be limited to 35 mph, according to the legislation. Here's an article that summarizes the bill and process.

Bye, Bye Bus Driver

Australia - A pilot transit bus - really a cute shuttle vehicle - is being tested in Perth. Hopes are to expand the 2.5-km/1.6-mile route if all goes well. This is not a relatively complex autonomous vehicle. It will go slowly and travel on a route with plenty of pedestrians to watch out and stop for. (I do not believe in avoiding finishing sentences with prepositions.) This project required a unique permit from the state government. 

Russia - Maybe it's the Putin-uber macho mystique, but Russia is (like the US Army) working on a driverless tank, or, as it is officially referred to, an armored vehicle. The tank can fit 10 soldiers and their gear, so it is also the first tiny driverless barracks. This video is like a combination of a bad car commercial and a bad the-vehicle-as-villain scary movie. 

It is truly a weird thing that I am reading any article from Popular Mechanics, but the worlds of mechanics, technology, and transportation are merging when it comes to autonomous vehicles.

And on the farm

It's not only soldiers whose jobs will be redefined or lost. We're doing away with farm hands as well, at least the ones holding onto to steering wheels. Driverless tractors are being perfected and soon to be sold to farmers everywhere. You will be able to use your i-pad or other tablet to start and monitor the tractor as it plants and does other stuff. (I'm from Brooklyn. Assume I know nothing about agricultural operations.) Warning: The video on the linked webpage is creepy.

Loud Wake Up Calls from Columbus and VW

Two mostly inactive contestants in different aspects of the race to driverless are announcing plans to push full steam ahead. One is a car manufacturer and the other is a Midwestern state in the US.

Join the label club

I didn't even have Volkswagen in the index to this blog. The company has been absent from the driverless race. Not any more. The company is making waking up noises to signal its intentions.

Like Ford Motor Company, VW is aiming for a 2021 rollout of fully autonomous vehicles. Both companies are rejecting the Tesla/Nissan approach of incrementally increasing autonomous features of partially self-driving cars. According to the Reuters article, VW is hiring 1,000 software engineers and developing a much larger presence in Silicon Valley.

On the way to Chicago, Get Graeters Ice Cream

There is a reason to go to Columbus, OH, and it is Graeter's Ice Cream. I like the place on Main Street in Bexley, which is a town surrounded on all four sides by the city of Columbus, but that is a whole other story. Columbus is the state capital, though driverless testing will not be happening there anytime soon.

Ohio is planning to open up a highway - actually one US interstate highway - to driverless testing. I-80 does not go through Columbus, so sorry about the Graeters recommendation. You'll be going to a different ice cream place somewhere in Cleveland or Toledo. So we're talking an interstate highway, with cars switching lanes at 80 mph, or 70 mph in heavy traffic, in the mix with testing vehicles. Okay, I'm told that I-80 has much less traffic than I-70, but still. The testing could begin by the end of this year.

Four benefits of driverless testing on I-80:

1. Ice and snow in the winter.

2. Flat and straight. (I'm not sure why that is a benefit as the people of Seattle and San Francisco will one day be clamoring for rides in driverless vehicles.)

3. The road already has a fiber network.

4. Space available on the roadway for maintenance.

Uber or Jetsons Flying Taxi?

By now, you and the entire world know about the Uber driverless announcement and all of you are contemplating a trip to Pittsburgh, not to go on a tour of Carnegie Mellon or Pitt (University of Pittsburgh) with your high schooler, but to take a ride in downtown Pittsburgh in an Uber driverless taxibot - well, with a driver, steering wheel, and brakes. 

It's like the Google car, but not as cute. But Uber has now officially won at least a preliminary foot race in the competition to bring about the driverless revolution by being the first to charge fares for taxi-like, ride hailing, services in the US in exchange for a ride in a vehicle that is not being operated by a human being.

I am considering the trip. But I am considering flying to a country I have no curiosity to visit just to ride on a driverless vehicle. Wait, Uber will only be offering the driverless perk to an undisclosed number of existing customers. C'est la vie. The linked article also has a description of the Uber-Volvo deal. Here's one more article with background on the Uber-Volvo partnership (nothing new). 

Uber joins the game of acquisition musical chairs

Uber is also acquiring a self-driving truck start up that is a Google-spin-off; maybe traitor is a better word. The company was started by two ex-Google-car engineers. Called Otto, the company was initially promising partially autonomous trucks. Otto's full name, by the way, is Ottomotto. 

Uber plans to open a 180,000-square-foot facility in Palo Alto, Calif., to house Otto, which will operate as a stand-alone company focused specifically on upending the long-distance trucking industry. Otto engineers will also work out of offices in San Francisco and Pittsburgh.

Forget surface transportation, take the pilot-less Jetson helicopter 

Airbus is working on a transportation option that it hopes will make the Uber driverless service look like the Model T - pilot-less helicopters. Do not hold your breath. There is no projected date for this service. 

A key goal of the project is alleviating traffic congestion expected to accompany the growing populations of the world's cities. But like the self-driving cars currently undergoing testing, one of the major obstacles to the launch of the self-flying taxi is the lack of a reliable sense-and-avoid technology that allows airborne vehicles to avoid crashing into buildings.  

"That's one of the bigger challenges we aim to resolve as early as possible," Lyasoff says.

 No kidding. I am glad that a company that has not worked out such a significant kink is hesitating before placing a product on the market. 

Articles are referencing the Jetsons' flying contraption, which required a pilot, but not his or her full attention. Enjoy the 1960s' white-washed and sexist introduction to the famous cartoon show.