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Siren of Mobility Entices BMW, Jaguar, Peugeot

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Burney Simpson

The Siren of Mobility has convinced European auto giant BMW to launch a car-sharing service in the U.S. this month, while Peugeot and Jaguar each announced vague plans for similar projects.

It’s too soon to tell whether mobility will be a beautiful siren’s call or an emergency siren.

BMW said it would begin operating its ReachNow car-sharing service in Seattle with about 400 of its 3 Series sedans, Mini Coopers and electric i3 model cars. Customers can book cars through the ReachNow app in either iOS or Android smartphones.

BMW is partnered in the project with San Francisco-based RideCell, a provider of software designed for car-sharing, ridesharing and transit services. RideCell has evolved into a manager of vehicle fleets after beginning as an Uber-style taxi service.

RideCell customers include the University of California-Berkeley, 3M and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, according to TechCrunch.

The Seattle launch is part of a bigger car-sharing program that BMW has planned. Its i Ventures investment arm led an $11.7 million Series A funding round in RideCell this month. BMW could expand ReachNow to 10 cities, according to reports.

BMW’s RideCell is the latest in a string of auto OEMs creating or expanding ‘mobility’ divisions that plan to offer car-sharing, ridesharing, and other non-ownership approaches for consumers. The vehicles may offer Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), and mobility divisions have proposed the eventual shift to providing driverless models.

For definition’s sake – car-sharing means multiple users sharing a vehicle, while ridesharing is a word that has evolved to cover the Uber-style method of a one-time ride provided on-demand.

JAGUAR LEAPS, PEUGEOT PREPARES

Jaguar Land Rover launched this week InMotion, a developer of car-sharing, ridesharing and mobility-type services where customers access vehicles through smartphones and other connected devices, the company announced.

InMotion is a Jaguar subsidiary that could eventually offer services in North America, Europe, and Asia. For now it is a London-based research project looking into various trial programs.

Jaguar, a subsidiary of India-based automaker Tata Motors, said it will begin the testing of some of these services next month.

Next up – PSA Group, which owns Peugeot, Citroen and DS Automobiles. It plans to get back into the US market, possibly starting with a car-sharing service in 2017.

The theory is the car-share program would get the brand name back in front of U.S. consumers, and that could lead to selling Peugeots which haven’t been marketed in the U.S. since 1991, according to Edmunds.

Peugeot is partnered with French electric car manufacturer Bollore in producing the compact EV Citroen e-Mahari.

Bollore operates a car-sharing service in Paris with 10,000 subscribers, and another in Indianapolis with 1,000 members and 120 cars, according to the Indianapolis Business Journal.

Daimler operates the Car2Go service in New York, Austin, Texas, Minneapolis, and Portland, Oregon.

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Beverly Hills Plans Driverless Shuttle

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Burney Simpson

Beverly Hills is seeking to operate autonomous shuttle vehicles as part of its public transportation system. The City Council unanimously approved the project recently.

The autonomous shuttles would provide on-demand, point-to-point transportation within the city. Users would request a ride with a smartphone app.Mayor John Mirisch proposed the idea last June in a column for the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Mirisch said the shuttles could reduce congestion and the demand for parking, while increasing mobility and road safety within the city’s 5.7 square miles.

Mirisch believes the shuttle could solve the ‘first mile/last mile’ challenge for riders who will be taking the Purple Line of the Los Angeles Metro subway. Plans call for two Purple Line stops in Beverly Hills, though those may not open until 2026.

Mirisch tells Driverless Transportation that the Beverly Hills shuttle plan is now at the conceptual stage.

“We want to set out a vision, look at the technology, and determine how far away we are from that,” Mirisch said. “We will also look at the legal environment, and determine how we can get to our goal.”

Under phase one of the city’s plan, Beverly Hills will develop partnerships with autonomous vehicle manufacturers. It will also be working with regulators and policy makers to create an outline of the project.

Beverly Hill’s shuttle concept comes shortly after a proposed $121 billion, 40-year transportation plan from the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The county is projected to grow by 2.4 million people by 2057.

But the Authority’s plan doesn’t include driverless vehicles, Mirisch said.

“Autonomous vehicles can transform and revolutionize transportation. When you are considering spending that much money, let’s look at this disruptive technology, and find if it can it grow mobility, convenience, safety, and so on,” said Mirisch.

“(The Authority) plans to use yesterday’s transportation – heavy rail, buses. If we want to build for the next 100 years, we should look at the technology of the next 100 years.”

The first driverless shuttle in the U.S. is scheduled to start operating this summer at the Bishop Ranch business park in San Ramon, Calif. (See “Driverless Shuttle Gives Momentum to GoMentum Station”). The shuttle will be operated by EasyMile, a French firm that has run a number of driverless projects in Europe.

Photo of Beverly Hills by Prayitno, 2011.

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Zoox Recruits from Tesla with Live Tests Coming

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Burney Simpson

Driverless car creator Zoox is bringing in staff from Tesla as it celebrates being approved for live testing of its driverless car on California roads by the state Department of Motor Vehicles. Zoox is the 12th firm approved by the regulator.

Zoox seeks to revolutionize the transportation service industry, not invent a new type of automobile, according to an April 2014 interview with co-founder Tim Kentley-Klay by Driverless Transportation (See “Catching Up with Zoox”).

That fits with a current company description posted on a LinkedIn site of new board member Laurie Yoler. She has an extensive history with Tesla and joined the Zoox board in December.

According to Yoler’s write up, Zoox is:

“a robotics company pioneering autonomous mobility. We are developing our own fully autonomous electric vehicle and the supporting ecosystem required to bring the technology to market at scale. … Zoox aims to provide the next generation of mobility-as-a-service in urban environments. The company is venture backed and presently in stealth mode.”

Mobility as a Service (MaaS) is growing in the autonomous vehicle space as car-sharing, ride-sharing firms like Uber, Lyft, and Car2Go expand. MaaS could become a combination of publicly- and privately-owned transportation services provided on a subscription basis. Some say MaaS could replace private vehicle ownership for many consumers.

According to press reports Zoox was founded by Kentley-Klay, an Australian film director and designer, and Jesse Levinson, a Stanford University engineer who worked with Sebastian Thrun, the first director of Google’s self-driving car program.

TESLA CONNECTION

Zoox offers a virtually empty website. Its street address is the same as that of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory that sits on the Stanford University campus. Stanford operates SLAC for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.

zoox4Yoler is a venture capital investor and a founding board member of Tesla, serving in various roles with the electric vehicle OEM from 2003 to 2013.

Zoox appears to be recruiting others from Tesla which last year launched ‘Autopilot’, an over-the-air software update that gave many of its vehicles semi-autonomous capabilities.

Current Zoox staff with a Tesla background include its Head of Talent, the Director of Manufacturing and Supply Chain, and a talent and marketing staffer, according to LinkedIn postings.

Zoox may also have connections with the influential Silicon Valley venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Yoler was with DFJ when it backed Tesla.

By some reports Zoox is backed by DFJ though the VC firm’s website doesn’t list it in its current portfolio of companies.

NO WINDSHIELD, WHEEL, PEDALS

Zoox’s first public model was a futuristic roadster-style vehicle that predated the driverless car that Mercedes rolled out to massive attention at CES 2015. That Zoox model had no front or back, no windshield, no steering wheel, no brake pedal.

In a 2013 video from Drive the Nation, Kentley-Klay discusses his design concept that offered four independent control systems centered on the wheels, and four seats that faced each other.

At one point, the vehicle was called the L4, a nod to the Level 4 fully autonomous vehicle as defined by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The goal was a 2020 launch.

Kentley-Klay’s thingsivemade.com website provides insight on his view towards autonomous vehicles, along with photos of his visiting the Google campus to meet Anthony Levandowski, at one time the leader of Google’s autonomous efforts.

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U.S. Finalists for Smart City Challenge Announced, Will Now Compete for $40 Million in Funding

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Jennifer van der Kleut

At the SXSW Festival over the weekend, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced the seven finalists for a unique challenge that could garner the winning city $40 million in funding to transform their town into a driverless “utopia.”

As Gizmodo explains, the country’s Smart City Challenge is a “fast-track initiative” to get cities thinking more about smart, high-tech solutions to urban transportation-with a particular focus on autonomous vehicles.

After receiving proposals, Foxx announced seven finalist cities that will compete for $40 million in funding from the Department of Transportation (DOT) for the implementation of their ideas.

The seven finalist cities are:

  • Austin, Texas
  • Columbus, Ohio
  • Denver, Colorado
  • Kansas City, Missouri
  • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
  • Portland, Oregon
  • San Francisco, California

Gizmodo reports that the challenge was initially announced across the country in connection with the DOT’s “Beyond Traffic” report, which warned cities that if they didn’t start preparing for autonomous transportation soon-a big push by the Obama administration, which recently pledged $4 billion to help make it happen-they could find themselves wasting millions on infrastructure improvements that become obsolete as the technology becomes the new norm.

The competition was specifically open to midsize cities with populations between 250,000 and 850,000. Finalists were selected based on “how well their proposals match the DOT’s goals — and how likely they look to succeed,” CNET said.

CNET reports that DOT representatives were “blown away” by the quality of the 78 submissions they received from cities all over the country. In fact, they had initially planned on five finalists, but added an extra two because they were so impressed.

The seven finalist cities will now receive $100,000 each and begin work with some of the world’s most powerful tech companies to fine-tune and streamline their project ideas.

The winning city, to be announced in June, will not only receive up to $40 million in funding from the DOT, but Gizmodo reports they “will receive tools and assistance from several partners, including data storage by Amazon Web Services, driver-assistance tech from Mobileye, a 3D modeling platform from Autodesk, and a V2V communication system from NXP.”

The winner will also get up to $10 million more from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s company Vulcan, “which is focused on vehicle emissions reduction and helping cities to stop climate change.”

“I want our country to lead the world in transportation again,” Foxx said. “Unfortunately we got into this practice of thinking small, and we can’t afford to do it anymore if we’re going to lead the world in economic growth and quality of life and pass along a country that is better than the one we inherited,” Foxx told Gizmodo.

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Cities Should Start Testing Autonomous Transit: Planner

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Burney Simpson

Cities should begin testing Level 5 autonomous vehicles now in last mile/first mile transit applications to stay ahead of the coming changes brought by driverless technology, according to Grush Niles Associates, a transportation planning consultant.

Implementing Level 5 transit on an incremental, application-by-application basis will help it to expand and spread as demand grows, the consultants write in “Getting Past the Hype” in the new Thinking Highways, North America.

Level 5 vehicles, defined as fully autonomous and capable of operating without a driver, have been successfully used in several cities in Europe during the CityMobil2 project. Cities include La Rochelle, France; Lausanne, Switzerland; near Helsinki, Finland; and Trikala, Greece.

The providers include EasyMile, Navya, RoboSoft, and 2getthere. Specs vary but a typical vehicle is electric-powered, has a range of 50 miles, and can carry 12 passengers. They have onboard navigation systems and obstacle detection systems, and are monitored from a control room.

EasyMile is scheduled to begin operations at a business park this year in California (“Driverless Shuttle Gives Momentum to GoMentum Station“).

“These vehicles run in controlled loops through residential areas to a work area,” says Bern Grush. “Level 5 (vehicles) are here for constrained, simple transit.”

TRANSIT LEAP

Transit Leap approach from Grush Niles Associates.

Grush calls his approach Transit Leap, where “public-use, robotic, shared-mobility applications” will encourage consumers to shift to transit and away from single-owner cars.

His goal is a transportation system where 40 percent of trips are done on public transit, 40 percent are provided by a private transit owner (Uber, for example), and 20 percent in a privately-owned car.

In comparison, today about 90 percent of trips are done in a privately-owned car, with the remaining 10 percent delivered either by public transit or a private transit provider like Uber or a cab company, says Grush.

Grush’s goal contrasts with the concept seen in the futuristic driverless cars showcased by Mercedes and Volvo at events like CES 2016. These still have a steering wheel and play on the desire by many consumers to own a car, he says.

“If they have a steering wheel, it’s designed to be a (consumer) vehicle,” said Grush. “If not, then it’s transit.”

The future vehicles from the auto OEMs generally have an autonomous technology of Level 3, or conditional automation. Drivers must take the wheel on congested, complicated city roads but the car will run on its own for highway driving.

These vehicles, possibly widely available by 2025, encourage the owner to live further from work, says Grush. That will lead to more car ownership, more congestion, and increased public demand for more large highways.

That’s not the way to go, as Grush Niles explains on its End of Driving website:

“(T)here is a risk to municipalities and their populations to be overwhelmed by a new wave of private, low-occupancy automobile dominance that collectively detracts from community livability, adds to sprawl, increases infrastructure costs, and degrades the environment.”

HYPE CYCLE

While the move to autonomous vehicles seems inevitable, municipal planners still have some time to experiment with the concept. That is, if technology consultant Gartner is right with its Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle.

Last July Gartner put autonomous vehicles at the very top of its Peak of Inflated Expectations in the Hype Cycle. That was when one expert after another said the technology would end hunger, bring peace, and reunite the Ramones.

emerging-tech-hc (2)The next step in the Hype Cycle is for driverless to enter the Trough of Disillusionment, possibly after an accident or cybersecurity breach that shows its fallibility.

However, the technology will comeback, and go on to reach a Plateau of Productivity when it is working efficiently and is widely accepted.

That’s why planners should begin testing CityMobil2-style vehicles now to work out the bugs, says Grush.

“Municipalities need the experience. This is still a few years away,” says Grush. “The Trough gives us the opportunity.”

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Mobility as a Service (MaaS) Growing in the EU

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Burney Simpson

The Mobility as a Service concept is gaining adherents in Europe.

The start-up MaaS Finland garnered 2.2 million Euros ($2.4 million) in an early funding round last month with hopes of going back to investors for more this fall, according to release from the firm.

French transportation giant Transdev and Turkey’s commercial auto manufacturer Karsan Otomotiv Sanayii and Ticaret AS, each own 20 percent of MaaS Finland.

MaaS Finland officially opened its doors in February. It plans to deliver its services in Finland and two other countries this year, then expand in 2017.

Proponents believe MaaS will bring greater efficiency to transportation services, lower public reliance on autos, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Mobility as a Service Alliance says that MaaS offers travelers “tailor made mobility solutions based on their individual needs. … for the first time, easy access to the most appropriate transport mode or service will be included in a bundle of flexible travel service options for end users.”

HOW IT WORKS

Consumers access their MaaS provider through a smartphone app. The provider creates and manages a trip for the user by finding the right solution with a combination of public transport, car-sharing, ride-sharing, taxi, and bicycle-sharing.

In one business model the gateway firm purchases the rides/transport on a volume basis from the individual providers. The gateway firm also conducts data analysis on the subscriber’s preferences, and uses the information to develop more efficient trips for the customer.

The consumer receives either a single bill for the trip, or becomes a monthly subscriber to the service.

The MaaS concept takes advantage of the move away from car ownership by millennial consumers, and the corresponding growth in transportation sharing services like Uber and BikeShare.

“(A)sk yourself: ‘What would happen if I gave up my car?’” MaaS Finland CEO Sampo Hietanen, who holds a 10 percent stake in the company, said in a release.

“For one hundred euros [per month], you could have unlimited access to public transport services plus limited access to taxi rides and a rented car for a given number of kilometers.”

Other MaaS Finland shareholders include InMob Holdings of Cyprus; Neocard; Korsisaari; GoSwift; MaaS Australia; Goodsign; IQ Payments; and Delta Capital Force, according to a company release.

The European Mobility as a Service Alliance was launched at the 2015 ITS World Congress in Bordeaux, France. The Alliance was founded by 20 organizations, including AustriaTech, Ericsson, Helsinki Business Hub, Connekt, MOBiNET, Xerox, and ITS Finland and ITS Sweden.

The early provider UbiGo tested its MaaS service in Gothenburg, Sweden. It reported 70 subscribers made 12,000 transactions in six months. No customers cancelled the service after the test. Volvo was one of the partners in the test.

UbiGo says consumers pay only for what they use, without the hassle of owning a car.

Last May UbiGo was awarded the Promising Innovation award by the International Transport Forum of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development.

Photo: (Untitled) by Caitlin H, 2011.

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Zipcar Expanding Services, Looking Ahead to Driverless Car Fleets

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Jennifer van der Kleut

One might think the popularity of car-sharing service ZipCar might be waning in the face of ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft, but actually, reports say ZipCar is continuing to grow, particularly in college towns like Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Obviously self-driving car technology is right up there alongside car-sharing and ride-hailing services as one of the next big game-changers in transportation - and ZipCar is not ignoring that fact.

The Boston Herald reports that while ZipCar may not be working on developing their own self-driving cars, they are already looking ahead and preparing to take advantage of the technology as soon as it becomes available.

“Don’t worry, we’re on it,” CEO Kaye Ceille said in an email to ZipCar members across the country recently.

Vice President of Product and Member Experience Nichole Mace said the company views adding autonomous cars to its fleets as just another extension of what they already offer customers.

“Today if you need a car, there’s a car two blocks away - it’s around the corner, you can pick up the car,” Mace said. “In the future, the autonomous car - you won’t be walking a couple blocks, the autonomous car will be right outside your door.”

The Herald reports that ZipCar is working closely with the University of Michigan’s Mobility Transformation Center and with major automakers like Ford, GM and Toyota, though the company did not give details.

In the meantime, as ZipCar waits for autonomous car technology to become widely available, it is reportedly adding other new services for its members. For example - in the past, car reservations were strictly for 24-hour periods and the cars had to be returned to the same location where they were picked up from. The Herald reports that ZipCar is planning to start offering shorter reservations, including one-way trips that will allow cars to be returned to different stations.

ZipCar is also facing new competition, though. As the Detroit Free Press reports, GM just launched its own car-sharing service, called Maven, in Michigan, in response to the popularity of such services among college students and professionals.

“Maven began with 11 locations on [the University of Michigan] campus, offering 17 vehicles,” the Free Press reports. “The plan…is to grow that to 20 locations with 35 vehicles throughout the city, according to Chevrolet spokeswoman Annalisa Bluhm.”

Other big announcements from GM recently include the fact that the company invested $500 million in ride-hailing app Lyft for autonomous car technology.

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Controlling the Disruption of Autonomous Technology

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Burney Simpson

Autonomous cars could be the disruptive technology that disrupts just about everything.

A new conference in Canada, “Automated Vehicles: Planning the Next Disruptive Technology” is designed to update transportation experts on the technology and help them prepare for its impact.

The event from the Conference Board of Canada will run April 19-20 in the One King West Hotel in Toronto.

The conference will address autonomous technology and its impact on urban planning, security and privacy, transit, and the movement of commercial goods. See the agenda here.

The conference arises in part from a 2015 paper from the consultant Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre of Excellence (CAVCOE), and the Conference Board. (See “Autonomous Vehicles to Save Canada $54 Billion, Many Lives”).

One year later, the Conference Board is organizing the event and the timing is right, says Barrie Kirk, executive director of CAVCOE, a conference sponsor.

For instance, a test of autonomous vehicles on public roads began near Toronto in January, and the government just released its 10-year strategic transportation plan that includes some mention of autonomous technology. The Toronto test could bring driverless cars traveling on everything from Highway 401 to suburban side streets, according to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

“We’re seeing the winds of change blow through our federal government,” said Kirk. The newly-elected Liberal government “is more open. They seek partnerships. And policy groups are seeing disruptive technology coming.”

CAVCOE is taking advantage of the open mood to request that 1 percent of the 18 billion (Canadian) the nation spends on infrastructure be devoted to smart infrastructure, says Kirk. That 180 million Canadian converts to $133 million U.S.

Smart infrastructure covers a lot of ground, notes Kirk, including autonomous vehicles, emissions, data and privacy, cybersecurity, weather, and distracted drivers.

The conference is also sponsored by the Canadian Automobile Association and BlancRide, a Canadian carpooling service.

Photo by CAVCOE.

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Ford to Triple Mobility, Autonomous Tech Funding

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Burney Simpson

Ford will triple its investment in driver-assist and autonomous-vehicle technology, Ford CEO Mark Fields pledged at the massive Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona yesterday.

The technology includes hands-free parking assist, and traffic jam assist, which Ford will roll-out within three years.

Fields stressed in a keynote address that Ford is “an auto and mobility company” and not just an auto company, according to the Associated Press.

“(P)eople want mobility solutions, they want options, whether it’s car-sharing, ride-sharing, what we call multi-modal modes of transportation where you are taking a car for a portion of a journey or a train and then maybe a bike,” said Fields.

He called the mobility programs “a big revenue opportunity.”

Ford’s European car-sharing programs include GoDrive in London, and Ford Carsharing in Germany. The German project has 170 stations in small and medium-sized cities, and its bookings rose more than 75 percent last year, according to Ford.

At Mobile World Ford was promoting its in-vehicle Sync connectivity system that is compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It is to be launched in Europe this year. The driver can use voice commands to Sync to control navigation, audio, and vehicle climate, Ford said.

Ford’s aggressive announcement at the Mobile show follow the $500 million investment that rival GM made in the ridesharing firm Lyft in January (See “GM Invests Half a Billion in Lyft for Autonomous Car Network”). Lyft is estimated to be worth between $4 billion and $5 billion.

The Mobile World Congress last year drew 94,000 attendees from 200 countries. It runs through Thursday, February 25.

Traffic Jam Assist is a push-button system for use in crowded, slow-moving traffic. It keeps the vehicle in its lane, and accelerates and brakes in accord with the vehicle ahead.

Ford announced last month at the CES 2016 it would expand the number of its Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicles. That meant Ford was testing 30 of the vehicles in Arizona, California, and Michigan.

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UK Combines Driverless Pod, Vehicle Tests in Milton Keynes

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Burney Simpson

Only 41 miles of road separate Coventry and Milton Keynes in the UK. But those miles may provide a route to 21st Century transportation.

The two midsize cities are contributing to one segment of the three-part test of connected and autonomous vehicles going on this year in the United Kingdom. Bristol and London are running the other two segments (See “London Tests Fully Autonomous, Electric-Powered Pod Transit”).

The trials in Milton Keynes and Coventry offer a mix of geographic areas and vehicle types.

There will be seven standard road vehicles along with 40 pods, otherwise known as low-speed autonomous transport systems. The pods will operate on sidewalks and other areas where they share space with pedestrians.

The road vehicles include three from Jaguar Land Rover, and two each from Ford and Tata Motors European Technology Center.

Plans call for the standard vehicles to eventually test Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications technology.

The Milton Keynes/Coventry test is covered in the article “MK dons a collaborative approach” that runs in the latest issue of Smart Highways, a three-year-old pub covering intelligent transport systems in the UK. The author is Mark Ledsom, communications manager for Transport Systems Catapult.

The Milton Keynes/Coventry program is overseen by the UK Autodrive consortium. The three-year project has funding of 18.2 million pounds, or $25.8 million, and includes 16 member organizations.

The pods are built by Coventry-based RDM Group, and include autonomous systems from Oxbotica, the spin off from the Mobile Robotics Group at Oxford University.

As the tests are going on, UK Autodrive will organize and oversee three working groups, according to Ledsom.

The safety, data security and V2X communications group will develop recommendations for future deployments.

The urban issues group will look at the coming impact of driverless technology on cities in both a 10-year and a 25-year time frame. Mobility and congestion issues will be top of mind.

The third group will conduct surveys on autonomous and connected issues, in Coventry, Milton Keynes, the UK, and such world cities as Los Angeles and Shanghai.

Milton Keynes is home to Bletchley Park, where the Brits broke the Nazi’s Enigma codes in WWII. Scientists there created the ‘bombe’ electromechanical device that deciphered the German’s strategic plans, thus saving countless lives and shortening the war.

Transport Systems Catapult was established by the government agency Innovate UK to drive intelligent mobility for transporting goods and people.

Photo by Jaguar Land Rover.