10.36-TheFuture-100822

Saturday, October 08, 2022

SmartDrivingCar.com/10.36-TheFuture-100822

36th edition of the 10th year of SmartDrivingCars eLetter

  The Present and Future of Autonomous Vehicle Technology, Economics, and Policy

Media briefing and discussion examining where autonomous vehicle technology stands and is headed, the socioeconomic implications of those technologies, and the role public policy and journalism play in shaping the future.

When
Wednesday, October 12, 2022, at 2 pm ET / 11 am PT

Who

•     Clifford Winston, Senior Fellow in Economic Studies, Brookings Institution
•     Marc Scribner, Senior Transportation Policy Analyst, Reason Foundation
•     Alain Kornhauser, Professor and PAVE Faculty Chair, Princeton University  Moderated by: Fred Fishkin, Producer, Techstination

What

You’re invited to join the Brookings Institution, Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering, and Reason Foundation for a conversation examining autonomous vehicle technology—where it stands and is headed, the socioeconomic implications of those technologies, and the role public policy and regulation should play in the future….

Following their presentations, the panelists will answer questions from reporters.

Where
Zoom. RSVP required. If you cannot attend this briefing, you can register and watch the recording at your convenience.

Contact

Chris Mitchell
Director of Communications
Reason Foundation
(310) 367-6109

Technical support provided by:

The SmartDrivingCars eLetter, Pod-Casts, Zoom-Casts and Zoom-inars are made possible in part by support from the Smart Transportation and Technology ETF, symbol MOTO.   For more information: www.motoetf.com.  Most funding is supplied by Princeton University’s Department of Operations Research & Financial Engineering and Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) research laboratory as part of its research dissemination initiative

  Tesla AI Day 2022

Tesla Staff, Sept. 30, “Streamed live…”  Read more Hmmmm… I’m not much of a fan of humanoids so you may skip the first hour; however, starting @ 0:58:00 – FSD Intro, the next hour and a half is substantive and a must watch.  My takeaway remains driverless “everywhere” is so enormously challenging that the near-term opportunity (next 10 years) to sell such a vehicle to a consumer is simply unthinkable. The terms & conditions would need to be so onerous making the total addressable market essentially null. 

That said, I suspect that there exist some, possibly many, societally beneficial Operational Design Domains (ODD), where “FSD 69.2.2” or near term releases can deliver safe driverless mobility.  This deployment strategy is what I with the technical support of CARTS, Inc. have decided to focus on.  Alain

The Long Road to Driverless Trucks

C. Metz, Sept. 28, In March, a self-driving eighteen-wheeler spent more than five straight days hauling goods between Dallas and Atlanta. Running around the clock, it traveled more than 6,300 miles, making four round trips and delivering eight loads of freight.

The result of a partnership between Kodiak Robotics, a self-driving start-up, and U.S. Xpress, a traditional trucking company, this five-day drive demonstrated the enormous potential of autonomous trucks. A traditional truck, whose lone driver must stop and rest each day, would need more than 10 days to deliver the same freight.

But the drive also showed that the technology is not yet ready to realize its potential. Each day, Kodiak rotated a new team of specialists into the cab of its truck, so that someone could take control of the vehicle if anything went wrong. These “safety drivers” grabbed the wheel multiple times…..”  Read more Hmmmm…  These “safety drivers” grabbed the wheel multiple times.  Not to be a nay sayer, but for this technology to pay for itself (and more, if someone s going to buy it and use it) it can’t “ever” need a safety driver to grab the wheel (or hit the brakes).  This is an enormous hurdle which is what makes this technology so challenging.  It has to really work.  The challenge to those working on this is that they are going to need to be at least as good as the FSD that Tesla will likely put on Tesla Trucks.  That is an enormous competitor.  Alain

  Tesla now has 160,000 customers running its Full Self Driving beta

A. Hawkins, Oct. 1, “Tesla’s Optimus robot prototype was not the only thing the company shared on Friday evening during its AI Day presentation. Autopilot director Ashok Elluswamy took the stage during Tesla’s AI day to talk about how the company’s Full Self Driving software has improved. He revealed that there are now 160,000 customers running the beta software, compared to 2,000 from this time last year.

In total, Tesla says there have been 35 software releases of FSD. In a Q&A at the end of the presentation, Musk made another prediction — he’s made a few before — that the technology would be ready for a worldwide rollout by the end of this year but acknowledged the regulatory and testing hurdles that remained before that happens…..” Read more Hmmmm… What has impressed me is the infrastructure that Tesla has amassed in the last year to “solve” this problem is, to me, very impressive.   More importantly, it may well be that the infrastructure is actually necessary in order to “solve” this problem.  If so, many of the competitors may have a lot of catching up to do.  And only MobilEye may have “160,000” customers crowd sourcing data for them. 

Again, if solving this problem requires this amount of effort, then we may be down to only a handful of potential winners.  Alain

5x Speed – ZERO Intervention Dirt Road, Night, Light Rain Drive FSD Beta 10.69.2.3

Dirty Tesla, Oct. 8, “…” Read more Hmmmm…Watch also… FSD Beta Dominates Downtown with Tesla Update 10.69.2.3… My view is FSD Beta 10.69.2.3 exhibits substantially better driver capability and manners than Dirty Tesla. Alain

  Mobileye IPO warns of potential potholes in the road to autonomous driving

J. Trop, Oct 5, “Mobileye, Intel’s automated driving division, filed Friday for what is expected to be the year’s largest IPO, but its success is far from guaranteed.

The Israeli company, acquired by Intel five years ago for $15.3 billion, touts a broad vision: An autonomous future “where congestion is seen only in history books.” But its S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission underscores its precarious position in the ever-evolving self-driving vehicle industry.

Founded in 1999, Mobileye has benefited from its first-mover advantage, supplying automakers with computer vision technology to power their advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Now, as Mobileye expands its business model, it faces a proliferating number of rivals — from every side — in the wild and woolly world of automated vehicle technology.

The company’s list of competitors in its S-1 extends beyond the “Tier 1” suppliers in its core business to now include robotaxi developers like Argo AI, Aurora, Auto X, Baidu, Cruise, Momenta, Motional, Waymo and Zoox, as well as what it describes as “consumer AV” competitors Apple, Sony and former customer Tesla.

TechCrunch pored through the S-1 to identify the speed bumps and bright spots in its pursuit to dominate autonomous driving….” Read more  Hmmmm…I encourage you to read the S-1 yourself.  Alain

  Uber and Motional to launch robotaxis across US over 10 years

R. Bellan, Oct. 6, “Uber is getting back into the robotaxi game, only this time it’s tapping a third party to handle the self-driving tech.

Motional, the Aptiv-Hyundai joint venture commercializing self-driving vehicle tech, will put its robotaxis on the Uber network later this year as part of a 10-year operating agreement that will eventually roll out to major cities across North America. The deal comes a year after the two companies struck a partnership to test autonomous delivery in Santa Monica, California using Motional’s autonomous vehicles.

As with the delivery pilot, the new agreement will feature Motional’s all-electric Hyundai Ioniq 5-based autonomous vehicles. Uber and Motional have not disclosed where it will launch first..”  Read more  Hmmmm…  The only way this is anything other that just click-bait is if Aptiv-Hyundai can deliver driverless vehicles whose Operational Design Domains overlap sufficiently with the vast diffusivity and specificity of Uber’s ridehailers.  My guess it that’s not going to be anytime soon to have a significant impact of either Uber or Aptiv-Hyundai. 

The beauty about ride-hailing is that in most urban areas, if you can get one, it will take you from essentially anywhere to anywhere.  Price is the only variable.  Chances Aptiv-Hyundai is going to be able to deliver driverless vehicle that can do that anytime soon is ???? 

Ride-hailing may well be the most challenging market opportunity for this technology because its expectations are essentially unconstrained.   Alain

  Mobileye IPO warns of potential potholes in the road to autonomous driving

J. Trop, Oct 5, “Mobileye, Intel’s automated driving division, filed Friday for what is expected to be the year’s largest IPO, but its success is far from guaranteed.

The Israeli company, acquired by Intel five years ago for $15.3 billion, touts a broad vision: An autonomous future “where congestion is seen only in history books.” But its S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission underscores its precarious position in the ever-evolving self-driving vehicle industry.

Founded in 1999, Mobileye has benefited from its first-mover advantage, supplying automakers with computer vision technology to power their advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Now, as Mobileye expands its business model, it faces a proliferating number of rivals — from every side — in the wild and woolly world of automated vehicle technology.

The company’s list of competitors in its S-1 extends beyond the “Tier 1” suppliers in its core business to now include robotaxi developers like Argo AI, Aurora, Auto X, Baidu, Cruise, Momenta, Motional, Waymo and Zoox, as well as what it describes as “consumer AV” competitors Apple, Sony and former customer Tesla.

TechCrunch pored through the S-1 to identify the speed bumps and bright spots in its pursuit to dominate autonomous driving….” Read more  Hmmmm…I encourage you to read the S-1 yourself.  Alain

  When Will AVs Actually Start to Smooth Traffic Flows?

Sept. 28, “A study by Carnegie Mellon University found that if at least 20 percent of cars are autonomous vehicles, traffic systems may start to see the operational improvements these vehicles are expected to bring….”  Read more Hmmmm…  What???  Operational improvements??  I can’t imagine that any of the private sector’s >$300B investment in this technology has been to capture operational improvements out of this technology.  I doubt that any consumer purchasing this technology is doing it to contribute to operational improvements. Finally, I doubt that any traffic manager is seriously looking at harmonizing these systems to smooth traffic flows.  I have yet to see a fixed or variable message, sign or heard a public advisory campaign, encouraging me to use my intelligent cruise control to smooth out traffic flow, an option that’s existed for years.  What is this all about???  Alain