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Consumers Insist on Steering Wheels in Driverless Cars, and Canadians Say Yes to Driverless Tech, Sort Of

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Burney Simpson

Two new surveys indicate the public has high demands but mixed feelings about driverless vehicles, though they are aware of some of the challenges that auto manufacturers face as they develop the technology.

Nine out of 10 consumers demand that autonomous vehicle occupants have the ability to override the vehicle controls at any time, according to a survey of 10,000 consumers worldwide commissioned by Volvo.

At the same time, 81 percent say the auto OEM should be responsible for an accident that occurs when the vehicle is in autonomous driving mode. Further, 90 percent say that an autonomous car should pass a driving test just like a human driver.

“People have told us that they need to feel in control and have the choice of when to delegate driving to the car,” said Volvo’s Anders Tylman-Mikiewicz, in a press release. “Today, that need is ultimately fulfilled with the presence of a steering wheel. … Therefore, a steering wheel is necessary until those needs change.”

A survey of Canadian consumers found mixed feelings there as well.

About 25 percent of Canadians are excited about the cars, about 25 percent are wary, and about half say it depends on the technology, according to a survey from Kanetix.ca, an online insurance comparison shopping site based in Toronto.VolvoSafer_drive_VCC08684_ListItem2

Canadian men are twice as likely as women to say they would use a driverless car, and people aged 18-34 are the most enthusiastic about the technology. These advocates say the cars will mean safer roads, more relaxing drives, and easier parking.

And nearly one in five Canadians think driverless cars would be just “plain cool,” Kanetix reports.

Folks in Canada’s two Eastern provinces – Quebec and Ontario – are more excited about driverless than those in the West.

That is fortunate as Ontario on January 1 officially began allowed the testing of driverless vehicles, joining states like California and Michigan. As of last October, the province and partner businesses had promised they would invest about $3 million in the testing.

The Ontario Centres of Excellence Connected Vehicle/Automated Vehicle program is coordinating business and government investments in the activity.

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CES 16 - Ford’s Plucky LiDAR, BMW’s Mirror, GENIVI’s New Member

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Burney Simpson

Today’s top driverless news from the Consumer Electronics Show 2016 (CES 16) in Las Vegas:

  • Ford says it is using Velodyne’s new 360-degree LiDAR sensor in its autonomous test vehicles. Ford will be testing as many as 30 of its autonomous Ford Fusion in Ariz., Calif., and Mich., by the end of this year, according to the Associated Press.

The Velodyne sensor, called the Ultra Puck, is about the size of a coffee can but extends by 200 yards the range of velodyne_ultra_puck2other light and radar sensors, The Verge reports. Many consumers assume LiDAR devices are those clunky air-vent looking contraptions strapped to the top of Google’s Koala car.

  • More Ford – We are a mobility company, CEO Mark Fields tells Jalopnik and several hundred other reporters who were given free screwdrivers (not the hardware for turning screws, the liquid tool for screwing with your brain) at the press conference. Ford will increase its work in the transportation services sector, the term for firms like Uber, Lyft, and the vehicle-version of AirBnB, Fields said.

Jalopnik says Fields didn’t discuss Ford’s recently-announced plan to work with Google/Alphabet, though maybe the screwdrivers had taken affect by then.

  • BMW has replaced the rearview mirror with four cameras in the BMW i8 electric car it is displaying at the show, according to Car and Driver. Well, not exactly, but that’s the idea.

The i8 takes the images from the cameras installed around the vehicle and creates a single image that is displayed on a device located in the traditional rearview mirror spot. The camera system sends warning signals to the driver when it sees possible problems.

The concept could eventually replace or reduce the size of the current side mirrors that impact aerodynamic flow. However, federal regs say a camera can’t replace a mirror, according to C&D, and besides, how do you keep the external cameras clean from road dust and crud?

  • AppCarousel became the 19th Tier 1 supplier in the GENIVI Alliance, joining such players as Continental, Delphi, Denso, Harman, Bosc, Valeo and Visteon. Auto OEMs in the alliance include BMW, Daimler, Honda, Nissan, and Volvo.

Genivi is a nonprofit group that promotes the adoption of in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) software. Genivi says it “delivers an open standard for aligning consumer electronics and automotive software development cycles.”

San Francisco-based AppCarousel operates end-to-end app management platforms for connected devices in market sectors that include connected cars and fleets, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, and other devices connected through the Internet of Things.

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Planners Missing Driverless Revolution

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Burney Simpson

Urban planners are finding it’s harder than ever to prepare for the future, even though it’s only a few years down the road.

This week transportation experts in Washington, D.C., released a report calling for more uniform regulations of such firms as Uber, Lyft and other transportation network companies (TNCs) that have upended the taxi industry in cities nationwide.

Uber provided more than 1 million rides daily worldwide in June, and Lyft now claims more than 100,000 drivers operating in 60 U.S. cities.

The report “Between Public and Private Mobility: Examining the Rise of Technology-Enabled Transportation Services” was released by the Transportation Research Board, and sponsored by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The TNCs need consistent regulations across a state or region addressing such topics as driver background checks, liability insurance, and accessibility for the disabled and elderly, according to the report.

The problem for the experts is that the TNCs could be upended by automated and connected vehicle technology by 2020.

Last January Uber began hiring a reported 40 researchers from Carnegie Mellon’s National Robotics Engineering Center to develop driverless vehicles. Execs from Nissan and Ford have predicted autonomous cars will be available to the public in 2020.

So why spend years fighting for uniform regulations when the givens of 2015 will be gone by 2020? (OK, 2025).

“Driverless technology will be here in five to 10 years. Many of the components are already here,” said James Zepp, first vice president of the Montgomery County Civic Federation, a community group in a Maryland county neighboring Washington, D.C.

 The Washington metro area has the worst traffic congestion in the nation, according to the Texas A&M Transit Institute, and government planners have introduced multi-year projects that include a new subway line and a combined bus rapid-transit system.

But Zepp is skeptical of the proposals.

“These are multi-billion dollar, long-term investments that are potentially irrelevant,” he said.

Zepp noted that only 6 percent of the 68 largest cities in the country had considered driverless transportation as part of their planning process, according to a November report from the National League of Cities.

MISSING THE REVOLUTION

The League’s “City of the Future: Technology & Mobility” found that a mere 3 percent of city planners had even included the TNCs in their transportation proposals. Instead, 50 percent offered “explicit plans for new highway construction.”

The League reports that rapid technological advances, demographic shifts, and changes in public preferences are impacting how people travel in and around cities.

But many planners are missing the revolution.

There are “widening gaps between innovation in the private sector, the expressed preferences of citizens and the visions of city planners regarding transportation investment. The mobility environment in cities is rapidly shifting … (but) a majority of cities do not have concentrated efforts to prepare for new transportation innovations,” the League found.

Image ‘City of Future’ from National League of Cities.

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Latest KPMG Report: Connectivity More Important Than Horsepower in Cars of the Future

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Luxury, gas mileage and horsepower-features such as those have long been the deciding factors for consumers when picking the car for them.

The latest report from research/consulting firm KPMG says those features are starting to move toward the back burner, though-and that the future is all about connectivity.

According to KPMG, processing capability and connectivity will be more important than horsepower in the cars of the future.

In the report, KPMG analysts go so far as to theorize that technology is completely taking over auto innovations, and that within a decade, automakers will no longer exist as independent companies, implying that OEMs will join together with tech companies like Apple and Google to continue manufacturing cars, or perhaps tech companies will even even acquire car companies.

Mobility-on-demand (such as ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft) and autonomous cars are two areas of auto innovation that KPMG says are experiencing the biggest push right now-largely by tech companies.

In short, KPMG’s report says that tech companies, not car companies, are the ones most focused currently on what consumers really want, and that is why they are poised to take over automakers.

In addition, KPMG says companies like Apple-perhaps best known for its smartphones these days-are more accustomed to high levels of production, cranking out hundreds of millions of units each time a new product comes out, in comparison to automakers’ mere millions.

“Maybe automakers should start thinking about behaving like phone companies,” comments columnist Patrick Nelson of Network World.

D20 Stock Index week ending November 27 2015

VW’s Dead Cat Bounce Lifts D20 Index

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Driverless Transportation

With 13 gainers, six losers, and NVIDIA (NVDA) unchanged, the Driverless Transportation Stock Index (D20) gained 0.6 percent last week to close at 162.24. In a relatively quiet week for the indexes, the D20 edged out the Dow Jones Industrials decline of 0.1 percent and the virtually unchanged S&P 500.

Leading the D20 Index this week, Volkswagen (VLKPY), in a typical ‘dead cat bounce’, gained a whopping 17.2 percent to end at $26.36. There was little news other than Volkswagen’s refusal to compensate European vehicle owners for the rigged emissions tests, so the only explanation for the price jump is that short investors bought stock to cover their bets. Volkswagen has lost 31 percent of its value since early September.

The biggest loser for the D20 this week was the Chinese electric car and battery maker BYD (BYDDY), shedding 13 percent of its value and closing at $10.56. BYD’s share price continues its rollercoaster ride, plummeting to a low of $7.70 and rising to a high of $12.53 in the last 12 weeks, a range of almost 63 percent.

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

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Feds Need Interagency Connected Vehicle Office: Rep. Lipinski

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Burney Simpson

Autonomous technology could well be part of the multi-year surface transportation reauthorization bill making its way through Congress, due in part to Rep. Daniel Lipinski, a Chicago Democrat, transportation committee veteran, and one of the dozen House members with an engineering degree.

Lipinski is a member of the conference committee charged with reconciling the Senate and House transportation bills that have already passed.

Lipinski laid the foundation for federal support for automated technology with three programs that he included in the House version of the transportation bill.

He’d like to see the establishment of an “autonomous and connected vehicle research center … a report on the readiness of the Department of Transportation for connected vehicles,” … and “the creation of an interagency group to coordinate research, technology commercialization, and workforce development” in the automated and connected vehicle sector, according to a column he wrote this month for Roll Call.

Lipinski did not spell out specifics on each of his goals, though he is adamant that a study be done on the DOT’s work in the connected sector, and he has met with Gregory Winfree, the agency’s assistant secretary for research and technology, to discuss a coordinated approach by Washington.

“The federal government agencies do not always communicate with each other,” said Lipinski. “This is designed to try to make sure more coordination is there. They do various related research projects but there is no connection among the different agencies.”

Meanwhile, the DOT itself needs to make autonomous and connected vehicles a top priority. One aspect of that is getting behind a university-based research center for the technology.

TECHNOLOGY BELIEVER

Lipinski is a believer in automated vehicle technology and the safer roads it can bring. About 18 months ago he rode in a prototype autonomous vehicle that Carnegie Mellon brought to Capitol Hill, then visited Silicon Valley to see the work going on around transportation and mobility.

Earlier this year, Lipinski joined with Rep. Joe Heck, a Nevada Republican, to re-launch the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, designed to be a bipartisan education center on air-, marine- and land-based autonomous systems.

Lip2Lipinski was first elected in 2004 from Illinois’ 3rd Congressional District, home to Midway Airport, huge rail and truck freight operations, and the Argonne National Laboratory. Prior to Congress, Lipinski taught at Notre Dame and the University of Tennessee. He has engineering degrees from Northwestern and Stanford.

Autonomous and connected vehicles are revolutionary in so many ways – safety benefits, job creation, and changes in mobility just for starters – that it is inevitable that the government will be involved, he says.

“I know that government will play an important role. At its worst it will impede the private sector. At its best it can speed it up and make sure it is to the best public benefit,” Lipinski said.

His concern is that the federal bureaucracy doesn’t understand the topic, will be left behind by the fast-moving private sector, and, even worse, could stand in the way of its development.

“I’m on the Transportation (and Infrastructure) Committee but there’s almost no talk about autonomous and connected vehicles,” he said. “Most of the focus is on building and repairing roads. There’s not a lot of forward thinking, not a lot of focus on how technology can impact the future of transportation.”

PAYING FOR THE FUTURE

Connected vehicles may be that future, but they can’t work at their full potential unless the roadside infrastructure is in place that communicates road conditions, weather, and other travel information to the vehicles, he argues.

“(R)oad infrastructure must be connected to the car. The government has got to put in the infrastructure,” he said. “Government has to do everything it can to get this communication system in place.”

One issue of course is paying for the Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) equipment needed. In a study conducted at Lipinski’s request the General Accountability Office in October reported that installing a single roadside V2I system could cost more than $50,000 (“Each V2I Site Could Cost $51,650”).

“Local governments are largely responsible for this. They need help from the (federal government) and we’re not doing enough now. Cost will be a problem,” he said.

The conference committee will decide if any of Lipinski’s three programs make it into the final transportation reauthorization bill. Political leaders of both parties are eager to see a bill completed and sent to the President, and that should happen before Christmas, says Lipinski.