Tag Archives: Driverless Transportation

Exploring Driverless Transportation: An Introduction to Jack

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Hi there! My name is Jack Folsom. I’m a new feature writer for Driverless Transportation and the websites newest member. I’ll post an article here twice a month, focusing on a specific topic of driverless transportation. This first article is an introduction to who I am, how I got this job and my idea of a driverless world.

I’m 25 years old and currently live in the Virginia/D.C. area with my parents. I graduated from the University of Mary Washington back in May of 2012 with a Bachelors of Science in Biology. In between then and now I’ve had temporary work in retail positions but have been on the lookout for permanent work I can make a career out of. I had done some research on this website and on other sources and knew this technology was something I was interested in, even passionate about. I brought that passion and my own ideas to both of my Driverless Transportation (DT) interviews and through those efforts I got the job. Now I’m ready to explore everything this world has to offer about driverless cars, driverless technology and how and when we might see them for real.Jack2

Now that you’ve learned a little about me you might be wondering why I’m so interested in this technology. The answer is a relatively simple one but has a huge impact on my life. I want to see driverless cars come to life because I can’t drive myself. I’m blind in my left eye and I have 20/70 vision in my right eye. That means for everything a normal person can see 70 feet away I have to get up to 20 feet away to see. That’s a pretty big difference and that’s only the minimum distance. I’m not able to see nearly enough of the things every driver has to watch out for while on the road and would be a serious risk if I ever tried to drive myself. For getting around I’m reliant on taking a taxi cab, getting a ride from someone else, riding a bike or simply walking to and from my destination. All of these have their own problems and none of them are a suitable substitute driving a car. Even Metro Access (a door-to-door service I can use due to my vision that has a shuttle bus come pick me up at a predetermined place and time) isn’t a true substitute. Trips have to be scheduled in advance and they only run on certain days and within a certain area. If I need to travel outside these parameters and there’s no one around to drive me I’m out of luck.

A driverless car could and would completely change my life. I, and others like me, would be able to go anywhere we please regardless of disability, age, ability or any other factor. This technology is still years away and won’t be rolled out all at once, but every day it gets closer. The first driverless cars may require someone who can drive a car in case something goes wrong or if the car runs into an unexpected problem. There will also be significant lack of trust in this technology until it has time to prove itself. That will most likely take years and drivers will want to stay in at least partial control of their cars until then. Plus there will also be people in this world who like to drive. It’s become a big part of our culture for the past century and that will be slow to change. Nevertheless, it will be very exciting to see how this technology ultimately unfolds. It’s already happening faster than most anticipated and companies like Google think the first driverless cars will hit the market in less than ten years. It is guaranteed to happen within our lifetimes and we will see the driver operated car phasing out.

When it does happen, it’s going to change the world as much as the car itself did. It’ll take time to iron out everything but I believe the end result will be a safer, more productive society. Accidents should be reduced as driverless cars are never distracted and follow programmed traffic laws. Traffic will flow more smoothly and that will result in less needed road space. Six lane highways will no longer be needed because an efficient traffic system with all cars working together will result in less start and stop time. No more waiting for lights to change. No more traffic jams during rush hour. Even the very concept of rush hour might disappear. People will be free to do anything they want while their car drives itself and this will both decrease stress and improve productivity.

A transportation system dominated by driverless cars will make a safer world for everyone. Removing the human element from driving will create fewer accidents and fewer situations where accidents can occur because a driverless car is never drunk, tired, or distracted. Driverless cars also always pay attention to pedestrians and can get through traffic with maximum efficiency every time. This will result in less time spent commuting or traveling. The end result of all this will be a world where when you want to go on a trip or simply need to get to work, all you have to do is sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Automated vs. Autonomous, Dr. Scott Washburn’s Take

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University of Florida Gator Engineering

We recently talked with Dr. Scott Washburn, Associate Professor in Transportation Engineering from the University of Florida Civil and Coastal Engineering Department. Dr. Washburn explained that in 2013 he and his colleagues formed a transportation institute, called the University of Florida Transportation Institute (UFTI), under the College of Engineering.

Dr. Scott Washburn

Dr. Scott Washburn, Associate Professor in Transportation Engineering from the University of Florida Civil and Coastal Engineering Department

The intent of the UFTI is to bring together faculty and staff from multiple departments across campus (such as computer science, mechanical engineering, urban and regional planning, and even occupational therapy) with expertise and interest in transportation issues. The UFTI not only focuses on research, but also specializes in education and technology transfer. As defined on their website, the UFTI aims to advance the transportation state-of-the-art, disseminate research results, and provide educational opportunities related to transportation across the lifespan. Florida has recently passed legislation allowing the testing of autonomous vehicles on its roads (under very specific conditions) and as a result the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) is aggressively pursuing a research agenda to facilitate the move toward a completely autonomous highway system. The UFTI has been part of the initial discussions with the FDOT for shaping this research agenda, and they anticipate being a key partner to the FDOT in carrying out this research agenda. However, research in the area of autonomous vehicles is hardly new to UFTI, as affiliated researchers in the mechanical engineering department built autonomous vehicles to compete in the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges.

Currently, Dr. Washburn spends his time teaching one or two classes per semester, advising students, and conducting research. Dr. Washburn’s research focus areas include Traffic Operations, Level of Service, and Statistical and Computational Methods. In support of his research, Dr. Washburn makes extensive use of simulation, especially custom simulation programs that he develops. An area he has recently been focusing on is using simulation to study the impacts of driverless transportation on traffic operations.

trafficflow

What became of particular interest as we spoke was Dr. Washburn’s distinction between two words that are often used interchangeably in this industry: autonomous and automated.

Autonomous, he explained, is the type of work that Google is focusing on. An autonomous vehicle is one that is completely independent, not subject to any outside control. In the automated highway system, autonomous vehicles do not need any additional input from the infrastructure beyond what is currently in place. He explained that less reliance on additional infrastructure is appealing, as it leads to fewer complexities, fewer costs, and fewer possibilities for someone to hack into. He explained that as far as Google is concerned, with this approach you may not get as optimal traffic flow conditions, but by reducing investment costs and reducing overall complexities, you get a system in which fewer things could go wrong.

What he explained about automated vehicles, however, is that they involve some level of coordination between the vehicles and the roadway infrastructure (sometimes referred to as connected vehicles). In this system, the vehicle is not entirely independent. This could mean vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and/or roadside communications. The U.S. Department of Transportation defines vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication as the wireless exchange of critical safety and operational data between vehicles and highway infrastructure, intended primarily to avoid or mitigate motor vehicle crashes but also to enable a wide range of other safety, mobility and environmental benefits. Automated vehicles generate information from other nearby vehicles and traffic control devices, which are deployed by the DOT. This system provides vehicles with a rich set of information and data, thus leading to a safer and more efficient driving environment.

Although Dr. Washburn was hesitant to make predictions on when we will see implementations of automated/autonomous vehicles, as he feels the odds of predicting this correctly are about as good as predicting the “Final Four” correctly, he predicted that we would see a partial implementation of automated vehicles on our roads around the year 2035. He did indicate that policy issues were likely to affect the implementation timeline more than the technology issues.

If you’re interested in learning more about the work that the UFTI does, be sure to check out the UFTI webpage http://www.transportation.institute.ufl.edu/ simulation

Catching Up with zoox

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Back in November at the LA auto show, zoox made a big splash with their announcement of plans to develop a fully autonomous, level 4 vehicle(1).The imagery was spectacular and many of the concepts were revolutionary. However, people questioned whether it was “visionary or vaporous“. We caught up with zoox CEO Tim Kentley-Klay about the work that they’ve been doing, including, how they got started, what they do now, and where they’re headed.

zoox1

Getting its name from a type of plankton that live on the tentacles of polyps, zoox is rooted in the idea of symbiosis. The zoox plankton and the polyps share a symbiotic relationship: zoox provide oxygen to the polyps so they can grow, and the polyps provide a place for the zoox plankton to live. Tim expressed how this is the same type of relationship that should exist between man and machine: man and machine must work together to create efficiencies. Driverless transportation is a way to make the world a more efficient and mobile place. Tim is focused on the idea of mobotics: robotics specialized in the art of mobility.

Since the inception of the company, Tim’s concept hasn’t been to make money or compete with other companies, but to make life more fun and livable. He expressed that he felt that there was a lack of vision in the industry, with technology limited to ground-up thinking, and car manufacturers trying to solve the problem from an engineering perspective. At zoox, their goal is to change the way we view the technology we have, and to introduce new technology to revolutionize the driving experience. Tim believes that zoox are in the right place at the right time, and understand the benefits autonomy can deliver.

zoox2

At the moment, zoox is focused on furthering their vision. The team is currently a group of three, but they hope to expand. The team is looking for partners, doing a lot of traveling searching for others who share their dream, and looking for artists to work on concept designing and prototyping. Tim told us that they will update the website in this quarter to reveal a new team. They are overwhelmed by the amount of interest they have received from people who are interested in joining, such that they can hardly get to all of the emails between the three of them! They have been able to speak to many organizations within the industry, including Google, MIT, Freie University in Berlin, Mercedes, and many others including many of the participants from the DARPA challenges.

It’s important to understand, however, that zoox is not an automaker. They’re looking at things differently than the automobile companies. They’re a group that’s trying to come up with a new paradigm for transportation, and that’s where the idea of mobotics comes in. If you’re looking at this venture as providing a new type of automobile, Tim says, then you’re missing the point. What zoox wants to do is view the transportation service industry in a new way, and that’s how we can really change the world.

If you’re interested in the work that zoox does, visit their website at http://zoox.co/. You can also hear Tim speak Friday, April 11, at the Autonomous Vehicle conference in Santa Clara, California.

zoox3

(1) The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) defines a Level 4 as a full self-driving automation: the vehicle is designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip. Such a design anticipates that the driver will provide destination or navigation input, but is not expected to be available for control at any time during the trip.

 

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.

If you haven’t done so already, please be sure and follow our blog. You can do so by entering you e-mail address in at the top of the right hand column and hitting the Follow button.

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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

Driverless Cars & Auto Insurance

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It was a big auto insurance weekend for me. First, I got the bill from my insurance company. Given that I have three young drivers (daughters age 18, 20 & 22) and four cars, the bill was not insignificant. More relevant to Driverless Transportation though was two articles that we reviewed and posted on the impact Driverless Cars will have on the Auto Insurance Industry.(1)

The first article was entitled: “Auto insurers prepare for self-driving cars and frayed nerves“. It was written by Insure.com. The article states that although the frequency of accidents may decline because of Driverless Cars, due to the added and costly technology in these vehicles that the cost of accidents will go up. In addition, they feel that new types of coverage such as cyber coverage may be required. The conclusion from one insurer was: “We don’t believe we will be obsolete.”

The second article entitled: “Driverless Cars Are Going to Kill Insurance Companies“. This article came from a publication called Motherboard. The premise of this article is that because Driverless cars will be so much safer that human driven cars that in the future the only casualty will be companies that make their money off of car accidents i.e. insurance companies. This would not only be auto insurance companies but also health insurance companies since injuries related to automobiles would drop dramatically. The article quotes author Chunka Mui and writes:

Auto insurers, which collect more than $200 billion in premiums each year in the United States, would initially see profits rise as accidents declined and payments to customers dropped but would eventually see something like 90 percent of premiums disappear.

We don’t believe that the auto insurance industry will escape unscathed during the transition to Driverless Vehicles. With a large percentage of the accidents eliminated because of Driverless technology, the auto insurance industry market will get significantly smaller. The added cost of the Driverless vehicles due to new technology will be vastly outweighed by the decrease in accidents.  We think we will be seeing less of “Flo”, the iconic front woman for Progressive Auto Insurance advertisements.

As Danish physicist Neils Bohr said: “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future”. Clearly that is the case here as at least one and perhaps both will be wrong. That being said, what do you think? How will Driverless cars impact the insurance industry? Let us know in the comments section below.

John

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(1) I realized after I wrote this  paragraph there could have been much worse reasons to have been dealing with Auto Insurance.  Fortunately, there weren’t any accidents involved for me. :-)

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We Are Hiring

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Driverless technology is taking off and is going to completely change the world.   At Driverless Transportation, we’re working to become the premier website for information on the industry. We currently get our message out with the use of social media, staff-written blogs, and by sharing news from the industry.  But we’re looking for someone to help us take Driverless Transportation to the next level.  If this is something that sounds exciting to you and is an area that you’d like to work in, please keep reading.

We see this job as a 50/50 mix of journalism and marketing.  This job is ideal for someone who likes variety in what they do and excels in reading, editing and writing – sometimes in 140 character chunks.  Experience with SEO, SEM and online marketing is a plus, but if those are things that you think you can learn, that works too.

You’ll have almost complete flexibility with the hours you work.  We see this as part-time position to start that will expand to full-time as the business grows, though we also might consider just bringing on another person part-time.  Location is flexible as well, we don’t mind if you want to work from home. It would be a plus if you are in the DC area so we can get together once in a while, but if not we can make that work.

If you are interested in joining the team, please send a 1 to 2 page write-up on why you think you’d be a good fit to john@driverlesstransportation.com.   In your write-up, include suggestions as to how we might improve on what we have in place today.  We promise we’ll send a response one way or the other.

Rand Report: Autonomous Vehicle Technology

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The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis, released a report last month on Autonomous Vehicle Technology.  We’ve read a lot of reports and news articles on the topic and this is definitely one of the most comprehensive.

Rand Report

The beginning gives a good description of what autonomous vehicles are and why they are important.  The next section is a detailed analysis of its potential impacts with the portion on Land Use being particularly interesting.  This includes an analysis of how Driverless cars, since they don’t need to be parked in the city, could lead to much denser cities because cities would now be able to reuse space currently allocated to parking lots.  They also note that autonomous vehicles could impact land use in the opposite direction as people may be willing to have a longer commute if they are able to do other things while being driven to and from work.

Not too surprisingly, given the Rand Corporation’s mission, the chapter on Current State Law and Legislative Activity is very complete.  In fact on this subject in particular, it is by far the most thorough document that we’ve read to date.

The most intriguing part of the document though was the final Guidance for Policymakers.  In this section, Rand goes through a series of risks and externalities that may cause Autonomous Vehicles to never achieve widespread adoption.  They note:

In 1966, it seemed a truism that supersonic transport planes would shuttle businessmen around the country. A RAND researcher predicting trends in air transportation focused not on whether supersonic transport would be adopted, but whether they might be powered by nuclear or hydrogen engines.

They go on to list a number of risks from cost to regulation to liability that could be the factors that kill the Autonomous Vehicle dream.  If you really believe that Driverless Transportation is going to change the world, as we do, this gives you something to think about.

In summary, if you are involved in policy formation or planning in ground transportation, this paper is something that you really must read.  If you are interested in the subject matter of Driverless Transportation (which given that you are reading this blog is probably a safe assumption), you won’t find a more comprehensive place to start other than, of course, the Driverless Transportation website.

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Videos Page

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Sebastian Thrun

Sebastian Thrun: Google’s driverless car

We’ve added a new page to the site for Videos on DriverlessTransportation.com.  We have generally concentrated on videos from the last three months, however we did start the page with three videos that we think are key to the history of Driverless Transportation.  These are:

  • Sebastian Thrun’s Ted talk where he discusses what drove him to driverless cars.
  • Google’s Self-Driving Car Test with Steve Mahan.  This video shows some of the huge promise from this technology.
  • Chris Gerdes’ Ted talk where he talks about the autonomous racecar that is developing at Stanford.

The other videos range from a panel discussing self-driving cars at Stanford, to a discussion on the design and plans for Zoox to Audi’s keynote address at CES.

Check it out.  They are all very interesting.  If you have others we should be linking to, please let us know.

Prof. Rupert Stadler

Prof. Rupert Stadler, chairman of the board of management of Audi AG