Otto self-driving truck

Former Employees From Google, Apple, Tesla Start ‘Otto,’ Develop Equipment for Self-Driving Trucks

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Jennifer van der Kleut

A group of 40 former employees of top-notch firms like Google, Apple, Tesla, Cruise Automation, Nokia’s HERE and others have banded together to form Otto, a company that aims to outfit commercial trucks with equipment that turns them into self-driving vehicles.

Otto is working to develop a hardware kit that, once installed in a freight truck, would enable the vehicle to drive autonomously. The equipment could be purchased and then installed at either a service center, or possible by the truck’s manufacturer if Otto is able to establish manufacture partnerships, reports The Verge.

Two of Otto’s founders-Anthony Levandowski, who led Google’s self-driving car division, and Lior Ron, who led Google Maps-said in a blog post that commercial trucks are ripe with problems and inefficiencies that they believe autonomous driving could help solve.

“…They cause a large number of fatalities, are inefficient and, to top it off, there’s an increasing shortage of drivers. That creates the perfect storm for a tech-based solution, Otto’s founders believe,” TechCrunch reports.

Initially, Otto will focus on highway driving by the trucks they outfit. Drivers will still be responsible for navigating surface streets, and for loading and unloading the trucks as usual.

One thing that is unclear, The Verge explains, is whether the fact that the human in the truck does not have to operate the truck the majority of the time-highway driving makes up the bulk of a commercial truck’s travels-will allow trucking companies to get around laws that minimizes the number of hours trucking employees can work.

“…In theory, an Otto-equipped truck might be able to safely operate for many more hours than a human who is always in full control, but [Lior Ron] says they’ll have to work with regulators to prove that out,” The Verge explained.

TechCrunch reports that Otto initially started out developing driver assistance systems, that aim to make driving a truck more safe. That philosophy carries over into the company’s self-driving equipment.

“…Among many things, they aim to let drivers safely take a sleep break while leaving their truck driving autonomously,” TechCrunch said.

To start with, Otto is testing on Volvo VNL 780 trucks, but The Verge reports that they eventually hope to work with many Class 8 trucks, which are the largest, heaviest trucks on American roads.

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Apple Invests $1 Billion in Didi Chuxing, the ‘Uber’ of China

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Apple made a decision last week that has many industry experts scratching their heads-they announced the company has invested $1 billion in a ride-hailing company called Didi Chuxing, which many call the Uber of China.

It’s an unprecedented move that has left many asking, why?

The Washington Post has two theories.

Firstly, the Post explains that Apple has billions in revenue tied up overseas, and bringing that money back to the U.S.-such as, by investing in an American company-would come with a costly tax bill.

Secondly, we’ve all heard the rumors that Apple is quietly working behind the scenes to nab a piece of the driverless transportation pie. By investing in Didi Chuxing, Apple is looking toward making progress on that goal.

There’s even a third reason. Didi Chuxing has made no secret of their goal of surpassing other countries like the U.S. when it comes to automotive and technological innovation. By partnering up with Didi Chuxing, Apple is joining forces with one of its biggest potential competitors, as China is second only to the U.S. in those industries.

Xinhua Finance Agency reports that Didi Chuxing completed 1.43 billion rides in China in 2015.

The Post also theorizes that Apple’s monumental investment in a Chinese company will help ease tensions with the Chinese government. Just last month, Apple’s iTunes and iBooks stores were shut down across China over regulatory arguments. In addition, sales of Apple iPhones in Asia have declined by at least 26 percent in the past year.

Though Apple has been largely silent as to their reasons behind the $1-billion investment, CEO Tim Cook did tell Reuters, “We are making the investment for a number of strategic reasons, including a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market.”

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Nvidia Powers D20 Index Gain

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Leading Graphics Processing Unit provider Nvidia (NVDA) almost single-handedly powers the D20 to a slight gain despite losers outnumbering gainers almost two to one.

The Driverless Transportation (D20) Stock Index eked out a gain of 0.3 percent last week, closing Friday at 143.80. Nvidia soared on a whopping 16 percent price increase, finishing up $5.65 to $40.98. The dramatic jump happened after Nvidia announced quarterly revenue and earnings results that beat expectations due to Tesla’s (TSLA) growing demand for Nvidia’s chips. Nvidia’s stock price has risen 88 percent since September 4, 2015, making it the leading price gainer for the D20.

The Dow dropped 1.2 percent to close at 17535.32 and the S&P 500 lost 0.5 percent to end the week at 2046.61, marking one of the rare weeks this year when the D20 went in an opposite direction from the Dow and S&P. Mobileye (MBLY) was up 4.4 percent on rumors that it had inked two more deals to help a major automaker create driverless cars. Nissan (NSANY) was up 4 percent on news that it plans to acquire 34 percent of troubled Mitsubishi.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

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Europe Gears Up to Drive Driverless

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Smart Highways

A member of the corporate board for the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says that autonomous vehicles will make an “incredible” difference to cities around the world.

Miller Crockart is a director of German modeling firm PTV who sits on the board with representatives from Ford, Google, Uber, Volvo, Nissan, Exxon Mobile, and Michelin. The board works on transportation issues with officials from leading industrial governments.

Based in Karlsruhe, Germany, PTV provides software for urban mobility, logistics and traffic engineering. Karlsruhe has been called the European Silicon Valley.

In an interview with British magazine Smart Highways, he explained how the board looked at the demand on cities if autonomous vehicles were introduced:

“We looked at a medium-sized town and asked what would happen if we replaced all the trips that were taken with shared autonomous vehicles and high-capacity public transport and the numbers that we were coming out with were incredible,” he said.

“If we looked at a 24 hour period we could undertake all the trips with only 10 per cent of the vehicles and even in the peak hours we would only need 35 per cent of the vehicles currently on the road to facilitate all those trips so that sets a macroscopic perspective on what the future can hold.

“Of course there’s a transitionary period to get to that and that’s where everyone has to start planning for that so every city in the world should have to look at its demand plans and its investment plans, things are going to radically alter with these disruptive technologies coming through.

“We’ve built 30 year models based on the combustion engine and Mr. and Mrs. Smith driving their vehicle, well that’s not going to be the way it is in 30 years’ time – it’s not. Uber, the Lyfts, they’re already here, autonomous vehicles, they’re here – I sat in one the other day and the manufacturers are full steam ahead, that won’t change.

“The transitionary period might take a lot longer because there’s regulation, that needs to be put in place, there’s the liability issue but we’re talking about that at the OECD level so when you’re talking about it, it’s not that far away from saying “plug it in, here it goes”.

FACT, NOT BUZZWORDS

“What I’ve found here is there are companies – there’s one just across the road, I’m looking at the building now, FZI - which is a research institute which is doing some incredible things with autonomous vehicles,” he says. “They’re even building some of the moon landing equipment, but you would never know that.  I’ve sat here for four years and you slowly learn that there are these little nuggets of gold just sitting around my building alone. There’s Init doing all the stuff for commuter technology, you’ve got Bosch here, and you’ve got a lot of small start-ups that have all created hugely popular technologies but there is this culture in Europe where it’s almost frowned upon to eulogize yourself, sometimes in Europe it’s construed as arrogant where in other countries it’s construed as good marketing and that’s a frustration for me.

“I hear a lot of noises coming out of Silicon Valley that they have the latest and greatest solution for everything and we’ve been doing it for the last 30 years! People talk about smart cities or data analytics, well we’ve been doing data analytics for the last 30 years and we have a hugely strong pedigree in that topic – we know what data can be used, what quality there should be, how to fuse different sources, how to clean it and extrapolate it with simulation and prediction. The challenge for us from a marketing perspective is to stand up now for the silicon valley of Europe which is here. We’ll be more vocal but we’ll do it on fact rather than the latest buzzwords.”

Jared-Overton-smashed-Tesla-car

‘Summon’ Feature Drives Tesla Model S Into Trailer: Autonomous Bungle, or Driver Error?

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Jennifer van der Kleut

It is unclear whether the car’s self-driving system or operator error is to blame after a Tesla Model S drove itself into another parked vehicle recently.

According to news outlets who spoke with the owner of the Model S, Jared Overton of Utah, Overton said he parked his Model S behind a truck with a large trailer when he was out running errands.

A few moments later, Overton returned to find his car crashed into the trailer parked in front of him, Electrek reports.

Electrek reports that Overton contacted Tesla Motors to report that his car had driven itself into the other vehicle on its own. Tesla engineers reported that they reviewed the car’s logs, and discovered that the car’s “Summon” feature had been activated.

The Summon feature on a Model S “allows the car to drive itself on short distances without anyone in the car,” Electrek explains.Jared-Overton-smashed-Tesla-windshield

However, Tesla engineers say the logs indicate Summon was activated seconds after the car was turned off-yet Overton said he actually stuck around for at least 20 seconds after getting out of the car and shutting it off because an interested passer-by stopped him and asked him questions about the car. Therefore, Overton said he would have seen if the car started moving on its own just seconds later.

Tesla representatives also explain that drivers are specifically cautioned to stick around and “supervise” the car’s movements when they activate Summon. Also, drivers have to double-press the button to activate it, followed by an audible notification that the feature is being activated, allowing them to cancel it if they wish.

BGR news website obtained a copy of a letter Tesla sent to the driver after reviewing the incident, with a complete report of the car’s logs:

“The vehicle logs confirm that the automatic Summon feature was initiated by a double-press of the gear selector stalk button, shifting from Drive to Park and requesting Summon activation. The driver was alerted of the Summon activation with an audible chime and a pop-up message on the center touchscreen display. At this time, the driver had the opportunity to cancel the action by pressing CANCEL on the center touchscreen display; however, the CANCEL button was not clicked by the driver.”

“In the next second, the brake pedal was released, and two seconds later, the driver exited the vehicle. Three seconds after that, the driver’s door was closed, and another three seconds later, Summon activated pursuant to the driver’s double-press activation request. Approximately five minutes, sixteen seconds after Summon activated, the vehicle’s driver’s-side front door was opened again.”

Overton gave Electrek the photo above, which he took when he returned to his car to find it crashed into the trailer of the truck parked ahead of him.

This incident not only appears to shows the early challenges of self-driving car systems like Tesla Motors’ Autopilot and self-parking Summon feature, but it also shows how valuable logs as precise as Tesla’s can be in evaluating these systems and determining ways to improve and perfect them.

BGR agrees: “Tesla’s precise logs are impressive, and could be valuable in future cases where a crash is caused by an autonomous feature of the car.”

Photos by Jared Overton/Facebook as published by Electrek and TechInsider.

 

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States on Front Lines on Driverless Policy: Seminar

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Burney Simpson

State legislators will be among the most influential writers of driverless vehicle policy and an upcoming seminar will argue it is essential they are involved as the technology evolves nationwide.

The one-day “Automated Vehicle Policy and Regulation: A State Perspective Workshop” will be held on Wednesday, May 18, at the University of Maryland.

“Most transportation legislation is created at the state and local level. State legislators are on the front lines of the changes we will see with this technology,” said Stanley Young, the conference organizer and advanced transportation and urban scientist with the National Research Energy Laboratory (NREL).

“We need to get state and local officials engaged and aware of the issues as these massive changes occur in society,” said Young.

He notes that driverless transportation has the potential to reduce traffic fatalities and accidents, improve mobility for seniors and people with disabilities, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as vehicle idling and wasted trips

The seminar runs from 8:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Howard Frank Auditorium at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, on the school’s College Park campus, near Washington, D.C.

Most states have yet to address autonomous and connected vehicle technology even though it could impact transportation for years to come. This is despite huge media attention on the topic, and a few states that are actively testing the technology.

Transportation experts will have to add autonomous vehicles to their discussion topics which traditionally have focused on highways and transit, said Young.

The workshop brings together a number of nationally-known experts in the driverless field.

Bryant Walker Smith, developer of the Center for Internet and Society website that tracks state legislative activity on driverless technology, will be on the opening panel framing the issues.

Smith will be joined by Robert Peterson, co-author of A Look at the Legal Framework for Driverless Vehicles (See “Send Lawyers, Guns and Driverless Vehicles”), and Frank Douma, who will discuss Minnesota’s initiative on mobility and people with disabilities.

Another panel features state legislators active in autonomous vehicles. State Sen. Mark Green of Tennessee (See “Tennessee Senate Scheduled to Vote on Proposed Driverless Law SB 1561 This Week”), and Del. Glenn Davis of Virginia will discuss their recently enacted legislation designed to build driverless-oriented business and encourage research on the technology (See “Careful Steps on Driverless Laws for Tennessee, Virginia”).

There will also be discussion on the opportunities for merging energy and transportation issues. The seminar will conclude with remarks from Alain Kornhauser, director of Princeton University’s Transportation Research Program.

The workshop is sponsored by the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT) at the University of Maryland, the I-95 Corridor Coalition, and NREL, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Photo: FBI Press Conference by Jay Baker, 2014

Data

A Roadblock to Self-Driving Cars: Who Owns the Data?

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One question that may be holding back progress toward autonomous cars - who will own the data?

As more automakers look toward partnerships with technology companies to develop their cars into self-driving transportation vehicles, one wrench in the wheel appears to be a disagreement over who will own the data garnered from the vehicle.

As some of the earliest self-driving car models come into reality, the data gathered from those early cars-mapping, sensor data, traffic data, efficiency, and much more-is incredibly valuable to many parties.

However, other data collected could be on the drivers themselves-where they eat, where they shop, what movies they like to see and more, explains TheStreet.com, especially as in-car shopping and entertainment systems become more popular.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that the question of the ownership of such data is a very big deal.

In fact, determining that ownership is what several news outlets report put the brakes on partnership talks between General Motors and Google previously, as well as talks between Ford and Google. TheStreet reports the point of contention could also be complicating GM’s recent acquisition of San Francisco-based self-driving car tech firm Cruise Automation.

“Automakers don’t want to relinquish control of data in return for access to computer code; at least, not now,” TheStreet said.

Now, Google has confirmed it will be partnering with Fiat-Chrysler. Google’s technology will be put into 100 Chrysler Pacifica mini-vans for testing on public roads.

Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne recently told Reuters that the question of who will own the data from the prototype vans has yet to be determined, but it seems that talks are going amicably. TheStreet speculated, “More than likely, [Fiat-Chrysler] had to agree to respect Google’s boundaries pertaining to software and intellectual property.”

Marchionne said to Reuters, though, before they get that far, they need to get the vans up and working.

“We need to get to a stage where the car is viable so we can discuss the spoils of that work. We’re not there,” he told Reuters.

Seegrid2

Self-Driving Forklifts Automate Warehouses

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Burney Simpson

Automated, electric-powered forklifts developed at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute are contributing to the growing use of self-driving technology.

Coraopolis, Penn.-based Seegrid takes off-the-shelf electric-powered forklifts, adds hardware and software, and turns them into Vision Guided Vehicles (VGV), said Amanda Merrell, Seegrid marketing director.

Once transformed, the VGVs perform such warehouse tasks as Put Away; Long Haul; End of Line where the finished product is taken to a shipping dock; Replenishment where inventory is moved from storage to picking; and more.

Seegrid says its VGVs reduce labor costs, improve warehouse safety, and increase productivity.

Customers include Volvo, Daimler, Denso, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, and Freightliner.

This YouTube video cleverly contrasts the measured style of the automated VGV with its human-operated counterparts - Seegrid Vision Guided Vehicles in Action.

The hardware that Seegrid adds includes 10 cameras that keep the forklift aware of its surroundings.

The software includes coding that allows the warehouse operator to program a driving route for the VGV.

“You simply get on the machine, hit record, drive it on some particular route, get off, hit play, and it just loops around on that route forever,” Seegrid CEO Jim Rock told radio station WESA fm in Pittsburgh.

It hasn’t all been easy. Seegrid declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2014 as it got ahead of itself and explored new markets. Rock helped the firm to re-focus on its core forklift sector. In addition, supermarket operator Giant Eagle, an original Seegrid funder, agreed to swap debt for a greater equity share of the firm.

The company exited bankruptcy in February 2015.

A customer that purchases VGVs will use the Seegrid Supervisor app to manage the devices. It provides for real-time monitoring, intersection control, and the ability to set operating rules, such as recharging.

To do that, the VGV is programed to visit a charging station once its battery power has dropped to a certain level, “say when it’s at 30 percent,” said Merrell.

A human is still needed to physically attach the forklift to the recharging station, said Merrell.

Rock says the VGVs have operated safely for more than 125,000 miles due to sensors that ‘tell’ the machine when a human is within a certain distance. And the VGVs beep and make other noises as they move so workers are made aware of their presence.  

Dr. Hans Moravec developed the Seegrid technology at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. The company was founded in 2003 and launched its first VGV in 2008.

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Tesla, Mobileye Send D20 Losing Again

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Losing 3.2 percent of its value while falling to 143.39, the Driverless Transportation (D20) Stock Index last week far outstripped the 0.2 percent loss in the Dow and the 0.4 percent slump in the S&P 500. With 18 losers and only two gainers, the D20 logged its second consecutive weekly decline.

The D20’s biggest loser was Tesla (TSLA), dropping close to 11 percent and falling all the way to $214.93, its lowest level since mid-March. Tesla’s plunge came after it announced that it was doubling its plan for vehicle deliveries. Israel-based Mobileye (MBLY) also dropped sharply as it announced disappointing first quarter results, losing 8.2 percent and closing at $35.00.

The two gainers for the D20 this week were Alphabet (GOOG) and Nissan’s ADR (NSANY). GOOG gained 2.7 percent closing the week at $711.12 while NSANY edged up nearly 2 percent to end the week at $18.12.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

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General Motors and Lyft to Test Self-Driving Electric Taxis on Public Roads Within 1 Year

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Just months after General Motors (GM) announced it was investing half a billion dollars in ride-hailing app Lyft, now the two partners say they will be conducting joint tests of driverless taxis on public roads-within a year.

The Wall Street Journal reports the tests will be of autonomous, electric Chevrolet Bolt taxis.

One other firm will have its hands in the mix as well. As GM recently purchased San Francisco-based tech firm Cruise Automation Inc., WSJ reports Cruise’s self-driving technology will power the cars.Lyft-GM car

WSJ says details are still being worked out, but that Lyft sources say the tests will involve average taxi customers in an undisclosed city (perhaps San Francisco?).

GM is hoping the popularity of its Chevy Bolt will soon take off, despite slow demand for electric vehicles due to most U.S. cities still lacking a sufficient supply of charging stations. GM is banking on the fact that more drivers will appreciate the larger storage space and passenger leg room of the Bolt, since the car’s electric battery is located under the floor instead of the front of the car.

This is just the latest in a long line of recent autonomous vehicle announcements by major automakers. Earlier this week, Google and Fiat-Chrysler announced a joint venture to manufacture self-driving Pacifica mini-va
ns. Elon Musk and the gang at Tesla Motors announced they are taking a short-term profit hit in order to speed up productio
n to meet the demand for its less expensive Model S, now promising to have 500,000 cars ready by 2018 rather than 2020. And Volvo announced it would be conducting “the largest and most ambitious autonomous car test yet” with its “Drive Me London” program, scheduled for next year.

With all of those announcements (and more), plus several U.S. states working on autonomous vehicle legislation, things are certainly heating up.