Tag Archives: Autonomous car

Driverless Transportation on Social Media

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Driverless Transportation (DT) is getting around. We’ve been on Twitter for a while, now you can like us on Facebook, link on LinkedIn and soon add us to your circle on Google+. We also hang out a lot in the Reddit SelfDrivingCars subreddit, so feel free to read it and vote us up. Got some ideas to pin? Yup, we’re even on Pinterest so follow our boards.

Thanks for recognizing DriverlessTransportation.com as a premier source of information. Buzz about the driverless / autonomous / automated / self-driving and connected vehicle industries is heating up. Concepts, ideas and technologies surrounding DT are in the headlines more frequently across the globe. Stick with us to keep up to date with all things Autonomous or V2X. We want to be your top site for collecting information. After all, connecting is what it’s about and DT is not only here for the ride, we want you to join our community and stay abreast. So let us help you connect in the place you’re most comfortable. Sounds like an awful lot of connecting, but that’s what it’s all about.

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Top 5 Reasons Why We Will NOT See Driverless Cars in less than 10 years

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In our last blog entry, we went through all the reasons why we believe that Driverless Transportation truly is sure-fire technology and why we are confident we will see Autonomous Vehicles within the next 10 years.

To be equitable, we need to think about the other side.  As we pointed out last time, a number of “can’t miss” technologies never really made it.  In this blog, we’ll take the negative perspective and look at reasons why it perhaps won’t make it.

  1. Crash!!!

    When Karl Benz came out with the first modern automobile in 1886, people were scared! The horses were scared! There are stories that people required a man to walk in front of the earliest cars carrying a red flag as a warning for fear of something happening. . Nowadays, when it comes to new technology, there are  more people that will jump in head first. They gotta have the latest, coolest gadget before anyone else. I have a friend like that and he is constantly on the search for cutting-edge emerging technologies. But for many of us, there’s a comfort level that we need to reach before we can take that step, or in this case, that drive. If that comfort level is broken before a solid foundation of trust has been established, it can shatter an image. If there is an autonomous vehicle accident, the consumer will have no problem pointing fingers. Moreover, that fear and lack of trust that consumers hold onto will be difficult to restore. Brand image is fragile.
    Regarding sensationalism, it is evident that our media has power to twist and skew pretty much anything. This power can be irrevocable.

  2. Blame the Lawyers!!
    • Liability - Government and industry cannot decide who is responsible for the insurance risk.  Car makers don’t want the insurance risk.  Insurance companies don’t reduce rates for driverless technology.

    Let’s look at the facts. If a human isn’t driving the vehicle, can they be held responsible? An autonomous vehicle should reduce the liability for the driver, after all, the driver is now out of the picture. But the risk has to fall somewhere, and the next responsible party would seem to be the vehicle. But does that mean it’s the auto manufacturer or the manufacturer of the technology or the owner of the vehicle? And if it is the technology, will we know if it was within the vehicle or an external cause? To what degree will we be able to differentiate the actual cause of the accident? And what if there’s a power outage and there are no traffic signals? Whose fault is that? The DOT for not having a back up system? You get the picture.

  3. Blame the Government(s)!
    • Regulations - government (both state and federal) can’t organize quickly around the technology.  States pass conflicting laws regulating the technology differently.  Carmakers throw their hands up in the air because they can make cars that are “legal” in all states.

    Two words: Red tape. The interstate bureaucratic agreements and changes that need to be approved are nothing short of colossal, enormous, immense and monumental (I’ll put away the thesaurus now). E-ZPass comes to mind when thinking about different DOT’s working together. But autonomous connected vehicles and a passive transponder are like apples to oranges. It does provide a glimpse at how our state and federal levels can work together to create something positive. We shall see.

  4. Money, Money, Money (the downside)
    • Economics - Car companies & government don’t want to risk negative impacts of transformation such as job loss
    • Some other worldwide economic or political event focuses attention and resources away from Driverless Technology
    • Driverless Technology cost curves don’t come down as fast as predicted

    Money shows up on both sides of this coin. After all, that’s what makes the world go round. The impact that the shift to driverless transportation will have on our entire economy and reversely the impact our economy can have on driverless transportation is an important issue to think about.

  5. “I fear the Geeks, even when they bring gifts”(1)
    • Public fear of government control and loss of privacy
    • Public fear of technologies they don’t understand

    The onset of smartphones turned our world upside down, and perhaps inside out. We can find and transfer information at dizzying speeds. With that instant accessibility we have lost our privacy. What can we hold sacred? There is always the notion that Big Brother is behind and within everything. Now with vehicles communicating with each other there won’t be an original thought left in the universe! We might as well be living in A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick) or Knight Rider (Glen Larson). That should be enough to send you packing for a cabin in the woods, off the grid of course.

Will we have Driverless Transportation within the next 10 years? How would you feel if you heard of an autonomous automobile accident? Would it sway you one way or another to get into a driverless vehicle? Who do you think should be responsible for the insurance risk? Let us know what you think about these topics in the comments below.

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(1) Virgil  - Ancient Roman poet. (Well sort of)

Top 5 Reasons Why We Will See Driverless Cars in less than 10 years

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If you look at all the hype and writings about Driverless Transportation (much of which you can find links to from this site), you’d believe that Autonomous and Connected Vehicles are a sure-thing.

Yet, back in 2001, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was quoted as saying a new product just being launched would be “as big a deal as the PC”. Regarding the same product, venture capitalist John Doer said the product “would be more important than the internet”(1) and the company would be the fastest company to reach $1 billion in sales(2).  That company and product was Segway.

There are many other examples of can’t miss technologies from Super Sonic Passenger Planes to Nuclear Power. Super Sonic Passenger Planes can only be found in museums now and Nuclear Power plants are being shutdown as rapidly as they can.

So what about Driverless Transportation with a fully autonomous vehicle?  For the remainder of this blog we’ll look at what we think are the top 5 reasons that Driverless Transportation just can’t miss.  In our next blog, we’ll look at what might derail it.

  1. People Are Terrible Drivers
    1. 32,000 people in the U.S. and over a million worldwide are killed each year in car accidents
    2. 95% of this is due to driver error
    3. In the U.S., it is the #1 killer of people age 4 - 34.
    4. At this point, the safety features of cars make them about as safe as they are going to get when an accident occurs.  The only alternative is to now avoid accidents.
    5. Since human drivers cause 95% of accidents, the best way to avoid accidents is to replace the driver with something that won’t be drunk, drowsy or distracted.

We may have invented the wheel but that doesn’t mean we should be behind one. The statistical data of deaths occurring on our roadways overwhelming caused by human driver error should be an unequivocal reason to remove people from the driver’s seat. Yes, safety has come a long way but the laws of physics, force and motion are immutable.

  1. Driving is the Distraction
    1. People would much rather be doing something else, anything else while they are driving. This could be anything from working to texting, watching a movie or sleeping.
    2. If you believe BMW and other luxury brands there is a supposed allure of the “perfect driving machine.” In reality most driving is very boring. Most of the time it is the same roads you drove yesterday and last week. If there was a way to do something else then that is what you would do.

Imagine if each time we got in the car we were off on an exciting adventure, seeing new sights with the sun shining and the wind blowing. The truth is, for most people nowadays the vehicle is the vehicle. A few may enjoy the proverbial Sunday drive, but most of us are simply trying to get to the next place. While wanting to be present is a desired aspiration, the bottom line is when we are driving we are usually thinking of a myriad of other things.

  1. Money, Money, Money
    1. Over $121 billion is wasted each year by commuters due to time and fuel spent in traffic
    2. The opportunities for reinventing businesses are just too large for entrepreneurs big and small to pass up.
    3. Benefits to other business like delivery, long haul trucking and taxi services of removing the driver cost are just too great
    4. In addition, all that extra time means people can be consuming Google Ads or TV Ads or paying for more Netflix movies.

The potential business opportunities are innumerable.  Most of them probably haven’t even been imagined yet.  However, we are already seeing companies like Google not just investing in the technology for Driverless transportation but also in potential beneficiaries like Uber.

  1. Can Start Small
    1. Many previous attempts at new transportation systems such as PodCars or network based systems requiring the embedding of controls in the road required huge infrastructure changes in order to get started. Because there wasn’t a practical way to start small, it was impossible to get these off the ground
    2. Autonomous vehicles, on the other hand, don’t require any changes to the current infrastructure.

At first thought in may seem overwhelming to imagine how our current roadway infrastructure would be transformed by an autonomous vehicles system, but the concept is not only within our reach, it’s sitting in our laps. Small scale tests can be run first on campuses or bases.  This is already happening or will be soon at places like Stanford University and Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. Larger scale tests can be run in small communities as is planned for Milton Keynes in the UK. After that particular lanes such as HOT lanes can be used for dedicated autonomous vehicles until they become the norm and not the exception.

  1. Let Freedom Ring
    1. For non-drivers such the aged, handicapped, and young, Driverless cars mean freedom and much more cost-effective options.
    2. As the population continues to age, the number of people in this category will continue to grow.
    3. Freedom will also be measured as convenience – what harried soccer mom wouldn’t want a way to spend less time in her car delivering her children to their events.

Driverless transportation will open up prospects that will mean different things to different people. But it levels the playing field. Taking the wheel out of our hands allows us to begin to focus on what is truly important in our lives, whoever you are and whatever you do.

What do you think? Will we have Driverless Transportation within the next 10 years? Let us know in the comments below.

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(1) Wikipedia entry on Segway
(2) Time Inc: The 10 Biggest Tech Failure of the Last Decade

Driving Camp

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CitySlickers

I was browsing the TV channels the other night and I came across the Billy Crystal movie, City Slickers.  It’s the movie where three city born and raised men going through mid-life crises go on a cattle drive at a dude ranch to find themselves. An odd thought struck me. How would have my grandparents viewed a “dude ranch?”  They would have thought it was crazy.  I could see my grandfather who spent several years during the 1930’s great depression traveling from place to place looking for any kind of work saying, “I can’t believe someone would pay real money to ride horses, herd cattle, and sleep in a tent?”  You are probably saying to yourself, “What does this have to do with Driverless Transportation?”  Indulge me.

Picture yourself 25 years from now…

Fully (Level IV for NHTSA) Autonomous Cars are pervasive. With few exceptions, most people have stopped driving and don’t even own vehicles.  You buy a Transportation Service Plan that provides your family with vehicles, sized and appointed appropriately, when and where you need them.  You commute to work in a single person vehicle that picks you up at an appointed time, drives you to work while you browse the news or nap, drops you off and reappears when you are ready to go home.   Teenagers or even pre-teens now wait impatiently for their parents to give them the authorization to utilize the family transportation service plan, not to apply for their driver’s license.

I could see the dude ranches of the future being places where people go to drive cars.  Think Race tracks, drag strips, off road excursions (like Pink Jeep tours), with cars that don’t drive themselves and rely on the driver to make all the decisions. It sounds exciting and dangerous at the same time. Kids would ask, “What is that funny circular thing (steering wheel) that Dad is holding on to and why isn’t the Wi-Fi working?”  They won’t be able to understand - why would anyone want to drive when the car does it for you? Driving Instructors become some kind of exotic specialty teachers as opposed to an afterthought in high school.

There will of course be hardcore hobbyists who will have their own vehicles that they have painstakingly restored and maintained. This is similar to horse owners today who ride and care for their own horses. There may even be Driverless Transportation Vehicles that transport your 2015 50th Anniversary Mustang to the “Driving Camp” so you can drive it!

Just as horses have gone from being a way of getting to work or getting work done to a hobby, so too will cars that require driving and the average person won’t ever bother.

How about you?  Would you be happy to give up driving or do you imagine wanting to drive for as long as you can?

PinkJeep

State Laws

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In a previous blog entry, we discussed why we think Virginia should be one of the hubs for Driverless Technology, and talked about working to get a law passed in Virginia about this.  We’ve been working this.

Since then, we’ve met with Jim Duffey, Virginia’s Secretary of Technology at the Virginia Center for Innovative Technology.  However, Secretary Duffey is on his way out as we have a new governor from a different party recently elected (but not yet sworn in) so we didn’t make much progress.  We’ll try to meet with his successor (once he has been identified) as soon as we can.  We’re also going to start meeting with our state delegates and senators.

We’re working now to continue our research both to gain a better understanding of where things stand today, and to come up with logical ways of moving forward.

As you can see in the image below from Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society, three states, California, Nevada and Florida, plus the District of Columbia have passed laws around Driverless Technology.

State DT Laws

We also talked to Bryant Walker Smith, a fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford. Mr. Walker Smith is one of the leading (if not the leading) experts on the legal issues regarding driverless technology.  Mr. Walker Smith stated that there isn’t anything preventing the operation of driverless cars in any state.  When the laws were written no one contemplated a car that would drive itself.  (Click here for Mr. Walker Smith’s paper on this.)

The California law actually state that California law “presently does not prohibit or specifically regulate the operation of autonomous vehicles.”.  It also requires additional rule making by the end of 2014.  The Nevada law “directs state DMV to adopt rules for license endorsement and for operation, including insurance, safety standards, and testing[1].

A big risk if each state puts together its own guidelines is that we get a complex mix of rules that hinder the development and launch of the technology.  This is a real risk.  The NHTSA (National High Transportation and Safety Administration) is urging states to be careful and in their Preliminary Statement of Policy Concerning Automated Vehicles:

In general, we believe that states are well suited to address issues such as licensing, driver training, and conditions for operation related to specific types of vehicles.  NHTSA has considerable concerns, however, about detailed state regulation on safety of self-driving vehicles for purposes other than testing.

The NHTSA goes on to recommend that state level legislation contains the following provisions:

  • Ensure that the Driver Understands How to Operate a Self-Driving Vehicle Safely
  • Ensure that On-road Testing of Self-driving Vehicles Minimizes Risks to Other Road Users
  • Limit Testing Operations to Roadway, Traffic and Environmental Conditions Suitable for the Capabilities of the Tested Self-Driving Vehicles
  • Establish Reporting Requirements to Monitor the Performance of Self-Driving Technology during Testing
  • Ensure that the Process for Transitioning from Self-Driving Mode to Driver Control is Safe, Simple and Timely
  • Self-Driving Test Vehicles Should Have the Capability of Detecting, Recording, and Informing the Driver that the System of Automated Technologies has Malfunctioned
  • Ensure that Installation and Operation of any Self-Driving Vehicle Technologies does not Disable any Federally Required Safety Features or Systems
  • Ensure that Self-Driving Test Vehicles Record Information about Status of Automated Control Technologies in the Event of a Crash or Loss of Vehicle Control

As we stated in out last blog, we think that Virginia makes an ideal location for another hub around driverless technology.  While technically, there is no requirement to put a new law in place in order to allow testing of these vehicles, we believe it makes sense for the legislature to put some guidelines around it and that those outlined by the NHTSA are a very good starting point.  Consequently, we are going to continue to pursue this and to recommend this type of bill.

[1] The Stanford Center for Internet and Society

Getting Started

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Since we started DriverlessTransportation.com last summer, we’ve been amazed at the amount of information that is available on the topic.  It seems that every month multiple reports come out, and every day there is more news. We list more than one news item per day and filter out at least 4 others.  (Generally these are the same basic story by a different news organization).  Given the large volume, unless you are highly committed to the topic (like we are!) you’re not going to have the time to read it all; therefore we’ve put together this little primer to help you get started.

First let’s start with some terminology and a few definitions.

  • Autonomous or Driverless Vehicles - These basically mean the same thing.  Ultimately this will be a vehicle that drives itself; the human being simply needs to give it a destination.  This complete automation is probably a decade (or two) away.  In the interim there are different levels of automation, where the vehicle still maintains a driver and sometimes the vehicle does the driving and sometimes the human does it.
  • Connected Vehicles - In addition, technology is being developed to allow vehicles to talk to each other (V2V) and to the roadway infrastructure (V2I).  These technologies will allow vehicles (initially through their human driver) to operate more safely.

So why all the fuss about this?  There are two main factors that are driving the big push in this technology.  The first is safety.  There are about 32,000 people killed each year in auto accidents in the US alone.  It is the leading cause of death for young people and is a larger part of our healthcare costs than any other cause.  In the developing world, the problem is even greater and more than a million people are killed each year.

The second is economics.  Driverless Vehicles have the potential to greatly change the costs in a number of industries from trucking to taxis to delivery.  (It will actually impact a lot more than that but we’ll talk about those in a future blog entry).  Driverless transportation also has the potential to reduce the operating costs of vehicles and to change the way cars are purchased so that consumers can save money through a driverless car service instead of owning a car.  Again, we will go into more detail on these as well as some potential negative effects in future blog entries.So that is the big picture.  Besides our blog (be sure to Follow us to get updates), here is what we see as top 5 things to read:

  1. The ENO Center for Transportation Report: Preparing a Nation for Autonomous Vehicles: Opportunities, Barriers and Policy Recommendations.  This is a very good high level summary of where things stand and where they may be headed.
  2. The GAO Report on Connected Vehicles.  A good summary of how the DOT is driving standards for Connected Vehicles and the types of applications they can be used for.
  3. Popular Science’s article entitled “Inside Google’s Quest To Popularize Self-Driving Cars” gives really good insights into what Google can do today and where they are headed.
  4. Automotive News describes what automakers are doing and how they see driverless technology rolling out in stages.
  5. The Mail Online describes how town centers in the UK will be changed with driverless pod cars.

If you’d rather see video, here are 4 that we’d recommend:

  1. MSNBC takes a driverless car from Carnegie Mellon & GM out for a ride.
  2. CBS Good Morning shows you what it is like behind the wheel of a driverless racecar at Stanford.
  3. Author Chunka Mui discusses how driverless cars will transform a $2 trillion economy and save hundreds of billions of dollars because of fewer accidents.
  4. In a TED talk Sebastian Thrun, who works for both Stanford and Google, talks about what has motivated him in his work towards driverless cars.

Driverless Vehicles in Virginia

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Driverless Transportation is coming.  Google Co-Founder Sergey Brin said last year that within 5 years we’ll be riding in robot cars.  Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, has stated, “We should be able to do 90% of miles driven within three years.”  Nissan and Renault CEO, Carlos Ghosn, has declared, “I am committing to be ready to introduce a new ground-breaking technology, Autonomous Drive, by 2020, and we are on track to realize it.”  That is just a sampling.  GM, Audi, Mercedes and others are all working on this technology as well.

In addition, the US DOT has awarded $25 million to build a test-bed for connected vehicle systems at the University of Michigan and has awarded a total of over $77 million for the program in general.  The UK has just announced a £65 million driverless pod system in the town of Milton Keynes.  If successful, the plan is to roll them out in towns across England.

Yes, Driverless Transportation is coming and it is coming quickly.

The team from Driverless Transportation is based in Virginia.  (Well, Shawn is currently in going to school at Stanford in California, but her home address is still Virginia.)  As business leaders and entrepreneurs, we would like to see Virginia become one of the major hubs for driverless transportation technology.

Virginia has a great starting point.  Besides us, :-), there are a lot of great Virginia-based organizations that can help expand this vision of a driverless future:

We think the right place to start is to enact a law allowing the testing of driverless cars similar to what has passed in California, Nevada, DC or Florida.  We’re starting by meeting with a senior official in the Virginia state government later this week.

If you’d like to help or have ideas on how we can make this happen, please let us know.