Autonomous Cars... Unfortunately Not Gonna Solve Real World Problems

Once, people thought fast highways would improve efficiency and erase traffic congestion and accidents. After these highways were actually built, however, induced demand quickly clogged them up, as people took advantage of the new roads to make new trips that they didn’t make before. Futurama -- not the show, the exhibition -- made this point.

If -- a big "if" -- autonomous vehicles do eventually arrive, they risk introducing a more dangerous version of the same phenomenon. Not only will efficient autonomous motorways tempt people to drive further, but the ability to work -- or even sleep -- while travelling will make people think much less of a long commute.

Cars might also become less energy-efficient as they’re modified to meet the demands of users. Electric vehicles carry heavy (and in the case of Lithium Ion batteries, more dangerous) their power supply with them. Passengers may run them at higher speeds because the cars themselves may be safer, but this consumes more energy due to aerodynamic resistance. Car manufacturers may also begin to design larger vehicles to accommodate mobile offices. 

In the autonomous vehicle utopia, we are told self-driving cars will be shared, rather than owned privately. Admittedly this would be a more sustainable option, but, unfortunately, people get attached to their cars. They like having a vehicle that is instantly available, that they can use as a mobile storage locker, and that signals their social status. While Uber, Lyft and other services show people appreciate the convenience of summoning a lift from an app, it is doubtful such services will replace private vehicle ownership.

One model being explored in Europe sees the autonomous vehicle collect you up on your way to an appointment, more in the style of a last-mile shuttle for public transit. It would move slowly but comfortably, picking up multiple passengers on its way to the local transit hub, where you would board a fast and efficient light rail line. You would still arrive at your destination with time to spare.

Of course, in all likelihood, autonomous vehicles will only become a niche product. Watch the video...

Hydrogen is the Way of the Future - so sayeth James May

James May is high on... hydrogen. He talks about why electric vs hydrogen is an important debate, in this article. May’s piece in The Sunday Times is a review of the Toyota Mirai. But he takes the opportunity to argue for continued investment in hydrogen fuel cell technology — not just for cars but for factories, homes and all power needs.

Many would argue there are a few key things about hydrogen that make it better than batteries: range, refuel time, longer life, recyclability, endurance, energy density. There are cars that have created the range of a typical battery electric car and can charge/re-fuel in three-to-five minutes.

Volkswagen, on the other hand, argues that electric with batteries is better. Here they lay out their position,  and some agree that the direction that most automakers seem to be taking for hydrogen —in the direction of commercial vehicles, if at all — has a future. Many are focused on other applications, such as "heavy-duty transport, aviation, and shipping.

Read more here...

Tesla vs German Car Manufacturers

With Tesla opening a manufacturing facility in Deutschland, and Ford aiming to only sell electrified vehicles in the coming decade, it seems German auto makers are under pressure. 

Seven years ago, Mathias Döpfner was at a ceremony celebrating Tesla founder Elon Musk. Döpfner, the head of German media company Axel Springer, was seated next to a CEO of one of Germany's biggest carmakers, and he turned to him and asked, "Isn't this guy dangerous for you?"

As he later recounted, the CEO shook his head. "These guys in Silicon Valley, they have no clue about engineering, about building really beautiful and great cars," the CEO told him. "So we don't have to worry."

At the time, the value of Tesla's shares was $23 billion, a quarter of that of Germany's largest carmaker, Volkswagen. But times have changed. Tesla's market capitalization has skyrocketed to more than $700 billion, more than three times that of Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW — Germany's three largest automakers — put together.

There have been hiccups: Tesla was ordered to suspend preparations for a car factory in Germany after a successful court injunction by environmentalists in December of 2020. Mercedes-Benz and Audi are introducing electric cars so as to defend dominance of the luxury market.

Over at the NYT, a reporter wrote about another competitor to Tesla -- the p-wagen:

The Taycan, a four-door sedan that Porsche recently let me try out at the Hockenheimring racing complex south of Heidelberg, provides an early example of what the German automakers are capable of. The car, with a starting price a little over $100,000, can blast from zero to 60 miles per hour in well under three seconds.

So, it happens, can the Tesla S. But tests by Car and Driver confirmed Porsche’s assertion that the Taycan can replicate those blastoffs 10 times in a row, unlike the Tesla, which becomes sluggish with repeat use as the battery wears down. Porsche has found a way to maintain explosive acceleration even when the battery is not fully charged.

During an hour of all-out driving on Porsche’s serpentine test track, egged on by a Porsche instructor who encouraged me to probe the car’s limits, the Taycan stayed glued to the asphalt like a roadster and never showed signs of fatigue. I ran out of juice before the car did.

One side-effect, and a positive one, is that Germany is becoming a hub of battery technology.

Read more at NPR...

Has the Robot Future Pulled Up to the Curb?

In a milestone for the self-driving industry, Waymo said it will open up its autonomous ride-hailing service to the general public in metro Phoenix, Arizona. In the upcoming weeks, people in the Phoenix area can hail a taxi like they would a Lyft or an Uber ... then hop in a car that’ll know where they want to go to be taken to that destination. But... the car will be driving itself!

Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving vehicle division, has been testing its cars in the Phoenix area since 2016, diligently upgrading the technology and capacity to eventually roll out a fully fledged commercial service.  Hundreds of testers have been experimenting with the Robot Taxi service through the Waymo One app. 

The announcement expands the current program in two ways:

• Existing customers of Waymo One can start taking their friends and family along.
• By November, Waymo will make the app available to the “general public” in the Phoenix area.

To deal with the current pandemic, Waymo is limiting the scope of its service by restricting it to fully driverless rides. It is installing barriers in its vehicles so down the road it can plunk a human safety driver in the front seat and address a larger geographical market. 

Other car companies -- namely Tesla and GM -- are racing to introduce driverless vehicles, but Waymo has recently pulled away from the pack. This spring, it raised $3 billion to accelerate the rollout of its commercial service, using money for the first time from a company not associated with Google.

Read more here...

Waymo Placing Fully Autonomous Vehicles on the Road

Waymo, the autonomous vehicle business under Alphabet (neé Google), sent an email to customers of its ride-hailing app in Phoenix, Arizona (USA) that their next trip might not have a human safety driver behind the wheel. Fully autonomous / robot cars are here!

Waymo opened a testing and operations center in Chandler, Ariz. in 2016. Since then, the company has ramped up its testing in Chandler and other Phoenix suburbs, launched an early rider program and slowly crept toward commercial deployment. The early rider program, which required vetted applicants to sign non-disclosure agreements to participate, launched in April 2017.

Read more about the service here...

Will Robo-Cars be Unaffordable?

Many are eagerly awaiting self-driving cars -- but we should recall that all of Silicon Valley’s big bets don’t always pay off.

Silicon Valley is pouring billions into robot cars. Soon – although the time scale keeps shifting – tech manufacturers say driverless cars will replace their traditional counterparts, car parks will become parks again and road fatalities will plummet. People have argued over ethical concerns surrounding the technology, the ensuing job losses and the public’s antipathy to this robot revolution. But the biggest obstacle may well be money.

The article continues, "Driver wages are a key part of taxi fares today. The average cab ride in San Francisco, for example, will cost you around $13. The driver keeps most of that. There is one caveat, however. Taxis are inefficient – so inefficient in fact that cabbies only spend about half their time earning fares."

Read more here....

Passengers are using Self-Driving Cars in California

Self-driving car startup Zoox won permission Friday to start offering rides to passengers in California. Zoox will submit information to the commission on the number of passenger miles traveled in the test cars and any incidents that occur, along with pollution and safety data.

It's a milestone in the race to make autonomous vehicles safe and comfortable enough to be trusted by lawmakers and the public at large.

Read more...

Ban the Car... from Cities

With so many deaths that could be avoided, many wonder why we should allow cars into cities...

"More than 40,000 Americans were killed by cars in 2016 — the equivalent of a fully-loaded Boeing 747 falling out of the sky once every three days. It's more than the 33,000 annual gun deaths, and more than the 20,000-plus people killed by synthetic opioids that year. Half of those automobile fatalities occurred in urban areas; about 6,000 of them were pedestrians."

Read why cars should be banned from cities...

Coming Soon to a Road Near You (if you live in California)

Next year, autonomous cars without human drivers will be allowed on California roads.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles will allow autonomous cars without steering wheels, foot pedals, mirrors, and human drivers behind the wheel to be tested on its roads starting next year. The department released its revised regulations today governing the safe deployment of autonomous vehicles on public roads.

Read more at the Verge

VW to build a National Charging Station Network for Electric Vehicles

As part of its court settlement with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the DieselGate scandal, Volkswagen agreed to invest $2 billion in electric vehicle infrastructure in the US. 


Read more... https://electrek.co/2017/04/14/vw-nationwide-150-kw-fast-charging-network-electric-vehicle/

Ford Bets on an Unknown, in the Race to Autonomy

We learned that...

Seemingly out of the blue, Ford announced today that it's investing $1 billion in Argo AI, a Pittsburgh-based company building self-driving technology. Ford is effectively buying the previously unknown startup, which was founded by engineers from Google and Uber. Argo AI will operate as an independent subsidiary and will focus on developing a software platform for Ford's self-driving car, which the company is targeting for 2021. Notably, Ford is also planning to license the technology out to other companies.

Read more...

Any Car Autonomous - Via Open source

Read over at the Washington Post how a code jockey has released a system to make any car drive itself... for free...

Read more here...

Autonomous Vehicles -- from Ford

According to the Guardian,

Ford ... announces plans to make self-driving vehicles for companies such as Uber and Lyft by 2021, saying automation of cars will define the next decade

This comes on the heels of a lobbying effort by Ford and others
Read more here...

Better Ways to Get to Work -- While We Wait for Autonomous Cars

Read about car share and other upgrades coming thanks to technology, over at the WSJ--

Ride-sharing firms Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. are experimenting with carpooling services that are changing how people get to work. Both companies, best known for providing a fleet of private drivers that can be matched to individual passengers through their smartphones, have introduced technology that groups strangers as passengers—thus saving commuters money—by using algorithms that match distances and times of trips with other people going to similar places or in similar directions.

In Late March, Lyft launched Lyft Carpool, a pilot program in the San Francisco Bay Area, to address a heavily congested section of Highway 101 between San Francisco and Silicon Valley. That program matches commuters with other commuters rather than private drivers. The company also is working with the regional Metropolitan Transportation Commission to expand carpool lanes along that route...

Researchers are looking at how mobile apps, social media and predictions about traffic flow can all combine to deliver a better commute. Of course, the NYT has information on how Uber is looking to relieve congestion.

Call up the app, specify your destination, and in exchange for a significant discount, UberPool matches you with other riders going the same way. The service might create a ride just for you, but just as often, it puts you in a ride that began long ago — one that has spanned several drop-offs and pickups, a kind of instant bus line created from collective urban demand.

Leap Day 100 Years Ago - the Cloverleaf

The cloverleaf interchange (junction) was patented in the US by Arthur Hale, a civil engineer from Maryland. It is a two-level interchange in which left turns (in countries that drive on the right) are handled by loop roads (US: ramps, UK: slip roads). To go left (in right-hand traffic), vehicles first pass either over or under the other road, then turn right onto a one-way three-fourths loop ramp (270°) and merge onto the intersecting road.

Read more...

Robot Cars Fight it Out!

This past Thursday, two self-driving prototype cars, one operated by Google Inc and the other by Delphi Automotive Plc, had a close call on a Silicon Valley street, according to Reuters -- possibly the first such incident involving two vehicles specially equipped for automated driving.

The incident occurred Tuesday on San Antonio Road in Palo Alto, said John Absmeier, director of Delphi's Silicon Valley lab and global business director for the company's automated driving program, who was a passenger in one of the cars. No collision took place. The Delphi vehicle was a prototype Audi Q5 crossover vehicle equipped with lasers, radar, cameras and special computer software, with a person at the wheel as a backup.

As the Delphi vehicle prepared to change lanes, a Google self-driving prototype - a Lexus RX400h crossover fitted with similar hardware and software - cut off the Audi, forcing it to abort the lane change, Absmeier said.

Google declined to comment.

Check out The Register...

GoogleCar in the wild...

While some of Google’s self-driving vehicles have been involved in (but not the case of) a few crashes, Google is now producing monthly progress reports. Google has made a dedicated site to catalog the vehicles being tested, the total amount of miles traveled in both autonomous and “manual” mode, along with “interesting situations.”

The first report provides a broad view and compiled all the crashes GoogleCars have been involved in since the project began in 2009.

Autonomous Cars = Less Private Cars

Would you give up your car, if a robot would ferry you where you need to go?

According to Brian Johnson in his report Disruptive Mobility, when most vehicles are self-driving he predicts around 2025—new car sales in the U.S. could drop by 40 percent, while the number of cars on American roads could decline by 60 percent to fewer than 100 million. Many see driving as more of a chore than something pleasurable.

Read more in the CS...

The Merc Lorry is on Nevada Roads, Now the GoogleCar is Roadworthy

Just a year since we saw its self-driving car prototype, Google is ready to go from the test track to public roads in California. The company moves to the next phase of testing, which will see vehicles with removable steering wheels, accelerator and brake pedals undergo the same testing that its modified self-driving Lexus SUVs were put under. Google prototype autonomous vehicles have already racked up "nearly a million autonomous miles" on its test tracks and have recently been driving 10,000 miles on their own each week. Although the idea is for the cars to operate completely free from human interaction, Google says the removable controls are there for a safety driver to take over if required. Of course, Mercedes (Daimler) is charging ahead, with its self-driving truck.

From Engadget: When they do hit the streets of Mountain View, the prototypes will be limited to 25mph. Although they're controlled by the same systems already in use inside its Lexus test models, Google says it wants to "uncover challenges that are unique to a fully self-driving vehicle." This will certainly include monitoring stopping distances and whether it can navigate its way through a congested area, but it will also help the public familiarize themselves with the vehicles. Google may have already overcome the technological obstacles, but ensuring they're accepted by Californians may be an even bigger challenge

Watch the video!