Autonomous Vehicles

Self-driving (2020) versus autonomous vehicle (2025)?

How will various firms respond to these developments?

1) Gain deep access to advanced knowledgea. Google - build and drive; strategic alliance with Ford? Autonomous

from the beginningb. Google has the technology lead in combining hardware and software,

plus information services, plus servers, plus searchc. Google: neural networks, AI, machine learning, machine visiond. Uber – create research center at Carnegie Mellone. GM – invest $500 million in Lyft – valued at $4.5 billion (Uber at $62

billion)f. Alibaba also invested in Lyft

Ford, GM, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan-Renault, and Toyota have all opened R&D centers in Silicon Valley over the past several years.

2) Car as a Service (CaaS) a. Ride sharingb. Delivery services

c. Google's strategy is to provide the technology infrastructure, maps and software to make CaaS happen sometime after 2020.

3) In vehicle infotainment

How will governments respond?

1) $400 million per year for 10 years for research2) Regulatory changes – supportive or resistance?3) Eliminate hurdles and reregulate based on mixed human-robot system4) Variety of regulations across state and local governments

California rules: http://dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/auto

mandate that autonomous vehicles be operated by a licensed driver who could take over if necessary.

driver would also be on the hook for traffic violations.

manufacturers of self-driving cars would have to subject their vehicles to a third-party safety test.

And they would apply for three-year permits that would allow them to lease but not sell self-driving cars to the public.

The D.M.V.’s draft is basically a starting point for two workshops — one in Sacramento, another in Los Angeles — where regulators and manufacturers will talk about rules for allowing ordinary people to operate self-driving cars.

Turns out, though, their accident rates are twice as high as for regular cars, according to a study by the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Driverless vehicles have never been at fault, the study found: They’re usually hit from behind in slow-speed crashes by inattentive or aggressive humans unaccustomed to machine motorists that always follow the rules and proceed with caution.

How will these car-robots work?

Systems of systems

Systems integration

Outsourcing versus vertical integration – which is best?

Already in Some Cars

Antilock brakes

Electronic stability control

Lane keeping

Lane departure warning

Pedestrian detection

Driver fatigue/distraction alert

Cruise control/adaptive cruise control

Forward collision avoidance

Automatic braking

Automated parking

Adaptive headlights

Traffic sign detection

Coming

Handoff from human to car and back

Multiple and cooperating cameras (redundancy?) and sensors equipped with Kinect-like capabilities:

Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) sensors to build a detailed view of the world around them.

Lidar works by rapidly firing laser light away from the car and measuring how much light is reflected back - a similar principle to radar, which uses radio waves instead.

Traffic jam assistance

Super cruise control

Night assistance thermal imaging

V2X and V2V communications cars and roads communicate via AI-based software

Overcome problems with snow – distorts road

Google's autonomous vehicle software lacks the ability to predict and react to "once in a million" events -- such as performing under diverse weather conditions, unique road work, specific traffic situations and other non-traditional driving situations.

The technology adds about $250 to the cost of a car, although this will go down in the future We need a critical mass of V2X-equipped vehicles on the roads before the benefits begin to show Even though the U.S. Government will likely mandate inclusion of V2X for all cars built after

2019, under 10 percent of vehicles on the road are less than a year old and the aftermarket for V2X devices hasn't started to be developed

The secure credential management system (SCMS) needed to ensure the authenticity, security, and privacy of V2X communications has yet to be implemented

Note the network effects!

Intersection assistance

Traffic light detection

Autos will need:

Satellite connections for GPS

Cameras that see in the dark and measure distances

Fully electronic systems for all operations

V2X and V2V connections

Street level digitized maps of everywhere

Multiple connected and cooperating CPUs and GPUs

Master O/S

Multiple apps fully integrated

AI based software systems - why is this so important?

Stages of implementation of Autos

1) 1990-2005

Application of computer-based systems to cars – anti-lock brakes and adaptive cruise control

2) 2005 – 2013More sophisticated automatic support systems – electronic stability control, various warning devices based on cameras: lane keeping and warning; self parking; backup collision avoidance; collision ahead stopping; right turn warning; GPS; satellite based systems

3) 2014-2020

Sophisticated driving systems for limited self-driving and V2V; government mandated devices; better driver monitors - eyes

4) 2020 – 2025

Limited autonomous vehicles

5) 2025-2030

Fully autonomous vehicles

6) 2020-? Ubiquitous infrastructure support

V2X/V2V IoT

7) 2040 – human drivers are banned from roads

Google vs. Apple vs Toyota vs Mercedes vs Tesla vs Ford vs GM?

January 12, 2015

Self-driving cars drew 5-10 years closer to reality in the last week. That’s the impact of a half-dozen automakers announcing plans at CES 2015 for autonomous driving vehicles that will be on the road sometime between 2017 and 2020. To underscore how close we’ve come, Audi sent a car 560 miles from

Silicon Valley to Las Vegas with lightly trained drivers — journalists, actually — sitting behind the wheel, hands-off.

Also at CES, Mercedes-Benz unveiled a swoopy prototype self-driver, the F 015 Luxury in Motion. The front seats swivel so driver and passenger can sit face to face with back seat passengers. BMW showed a self-parking i3 EV, not just parallel parking but able to hunt through a parking garage for open spaces. The same sensors avoid cars and pedestrians while under way. Ford CEO Mark Fields in a CES keynote said Ford will produce an autonomous driving car for the masses who can’t afford Audi/BMW/Mercedes level pricing.

Gesture Controls for Passengers The Mercedes is built to enable a constant exchange of information between vehicle, passengers and the outside world. Inside the car, six display screens are integrated into the instrument panel and the rear and side panels, allowing passengers to control systems using gestures

Ford Opens Lab in Silicon ValleyBy Molly Wood January 22, 2015 6:23 pm January 22, 2015 6:23 pmPhoto

Mark Fields, Ford’s chief executive, speaking at the International CES earlier this month. Under Mr. Fields, Ford has moved aggressively to establish itself as a technological innovator.Credit Ethan Miller/Getty Images

In the latest sign that the distinctions between the auto and tech industries are becoming more blurry, Ford on Thursday celebrated the opening of a new research center in Palo Alto, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley.

The company said the new center would help advance new car technologies like built-in Internet connections and eventually self-driving vehicles. It will be led by Dragos Maciuca, a former senior engineer at Apple who has also led research and development at Lockheed Martin.

04.03.15 7:00 am

This Is Big: A Robo-Car Just Drove Across the Country

Click to Open Overlay Gallery STEPHEN LAM/Reuters/Corbis

An autonomous car just drove across the country.

Nine days after leaving San Francisco, a blue car packed with tech from a company you’ve probably never heard of rolled into New York City after crossing 15 states and 3,400 miles to make history. The car did 99 percent of the driving on its own, yielding to the carbon-based life form behind the wheel only when it was time to leave the highway and hit city streets.

This amazing feat, by the automotive supplier Delphi, underscores the great leaps this technology has taken in recent years, and just how close it is to becoming a part of our lives. Yes, many regulatory and legislative questions must be answered, and it remains to be seen whether consumers are ready to cede control of their cars, but the hardware is, without doubt, up to the task.

The iCar?March 24th 2015 | Multiple countries | Passenger vehicles

Apple has a habit of disrupting established industries. But has it really set its sights on the automotive industry too?

When it comes to product development, Apple likes to play its cards close to its chest. The Cupertino, California-based company has initiated Project Titan and is hiring automotive engineers and car designers, but whether it is actually working on a motor vehicle remains a matter of conjecture. According to a joke making rounds in Silicon Valley: the Apple iCar, if it is ever created, will certainly have no Windows.

Since its inception in the early 1970s, Apple invented the personal computer - changing the world forever - and went on to disrupt the music business and then the cell phone business. It then turned its attention back to personal computers, dealing the industry a major blow with its iPad. It is currently trying to get young people to wear wristwatches, while changing yet again the way they communicate with each other.

World's First Autonomous Truck Goes Into OperationBy Paul A. Eisenstein

5/5/15

The world's first autonomous 18-wheeler is getting down to business. At a ceremony at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Tuesday, Gov. Brian Sandoval handed over an official Nevada license plate for use by a new Freightliner Inspiration Truck on public roads.

Though a human "driver" will need to sit behind the wheel in case of an emergency, the new system is intended to usher in an era that could very well lead to fleets of trucks that have no humans on board at all, said Wolfgang Bernhard, the board member overseeing truck operations at Freightliner's parent, Daimler AG.

NYT

Google to Test Bubble-Shaped Self-Driving Cars in Silicon Valley

By CONOR DOUGHERTY and AARON M. KESSLERMAY 15, 2015

Photo

A prototype of Google's self-driving car. Credit Tony Avelar/Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO — The world is one step closer to the day when people can, in good conscience, drive to work while sipping coffee, texting with a friend and working on a laptop computer.

On Friday, Google announced that sometime this summer several prototype versions of its self-driving cars are set to hit the streets of Mountain View, Calif., the search giant’s hometown. The move is still just another round of testing but it is a significant step toward a pilot program in which regular consumers could ride in self-driving cars.

A Dialogue of Car and HighwayBy Quentin Hardy June 10, 2015 6:30 pm June 10, 2015 6:30 pm

Traffic in Stockholm on a morning in April 2014. IBM said it helped reduce traffic in the Swedish capital by a fourth.Credit Jonathan Nackstrand for The New York Times

One peek at all the electronics under the hood is proof that today’s car is as much computer as engine. Examine the larger picture, and you’ll see how much the stuff around cars is becoming smarter, too.

Smart roads, toll plazas, traffic lights and signs are all increasingly connected to cars. Connected cars are talking to one another, and to the devices over and around them. Often the reasons for this will involve cost savings and faster-moving traffic. Travel will be safer, too, advocates say.

Special Section: Transportation

A look at how technology is changing how we get around

“Cars won’t be by themselves anymore, they’ll be connected to the road and each other,” said Eric-Mark Huitema, a manager in IBM’s “Smarter Cities” initiative. “Eventually there won’t be many accidents, which means you can reduce the weight of a car by 70 percent, all the metal we put in there to protect people. Cars might be made of glass.”

That is a decade or more away, but already IBM says it has helped reduce traffic by 25 percent in Stockholm, in part by examining traffic patterns and telling people the best times to drive. In Singapore, there is a pilot project to override traffic lights when the roads detect an accident. At IBM buildings in Copenhagen and Amsterdam,

the company monitors bicycle use among employees in some locations, giving bonuses to people who forgo autos for bikes on a daily basis.

One way Audi plans to inspire confidence in consumers is by taking design cues from commercial airplanes, which people already trust, even when they know that a computerized autopilot is guiding them through the air.

A coming Audi A8 will be loaded with redundancies — two braking systems, two steering systems — so that if one fails, the computers can use the other to operate the vehicle. The concept is inspired by planes, which often fly with three versions of their most crucial components.

Another pair of redundant systems is, essentially, the car’s eyes. A front- and rear-facing camera system, along with a highly precise GPS, can tell Audi prototypes where they are on the track, which the computer has memorized. If the positions the systems give don’t match, the automation shuts down.

Fortune

3 ways AT&T wants to cash in on connected cars

by  Jeff John Roberts

@jeffjohnroberts

July 23, 2015, 8:05 PM EDT

The phone company is now a car company! Well not really, but AT&T offered some insights onto how it will try to make money from Internet-connected cars.On its quarterly earnings today, AT&T boasted of 2.1 million new subscribers. That’s an impressive feat in a saturated phone market – until you realize that most of those subscriptions aren’t for phones at all, but instead for tablets and 1 million “connected cars.”

The arrival of connected cars is intriguing as both a technology breakthrough and as a business opportunity, and AT&T is poised to be a prime beneficiary. On an earnings call Thursday afternoon, the company set out three car-related revenue streams it hopes to tap:

1) Selling data and marketing information to car makers

NYT

Among the States, Self-Driving Cars Have Ignited a Gold Rush

AUG. 6, 2015

A traffic signal at an intersection in MCity, a 32-acre testing environment for driverless vehicles, in Ann Arbor, Mich. Credit Laura McDermott for The New York Times

By DINO GRANDONI

Whether it is fuel savings, safer commutes or freed-up time behind the wheel, drivers have many reasons to embrace self-driving cars.

But another group is just as eager to see these vehicles on the road: politicians.

Lawmakers from California, Texas and Virginia are wooing the autonomous car industry, along with the jobs and tax revenue that come with it.

They are financing research centers, building fake suburbs for testing the cars, and, perhaps most important, going light on regulation, all in an effort to attract a rapidly growing industry.

The prize: A piece of the estimated $20 billion automakers and other companies will spend globally on development over the next five years, according to an analysis by Gartner.

Toyota to Finance $50 Million ‘Intelligent’ Car Project

By JOHN MARKOFFSEPT. 4, 2015

Gill Pratt is leaving his position at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to direct Toyota’s artificial intelligence effort.

The Toyota Motor Corporation announced on Friday an ambitious $50 million robotics and artificial intelligence research effort, in collaboration with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to develop “intelligent” rather than self-driving cars.

The distinction is a significant one, according to Gill Pratt, a prominent American roboticist, who has left his position at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Pentagon to direct the new effort.

Toyota plans $1B R&D push on A.I. and robotics in U.S.More like this

Toyota's A.I. research efforts could mean cars that anticipate traffic,...

Toyota's Highway Teammate, a modified Lexus GS the company is using to trial autonomous driving technology. Credit: Toyota Motor

A new R&D center will open in January, headed by a former DARPA scientist

By Martyn Williams

Follow

IDG News Service | Nov 5, 2015 9:16 PM PT

Toyota plans a major push into artificial intelligence and robotics technology research and will invest US$1 billion over the next five years to establish a Silicon Valley research and development center to pursue those goals.

The Toyota Research Institute will be led by Gill Pratt, who recently joined Toyota from DARPA where he ran the Robotics Challenge, an event that promoted work on robots that can work with humans.

Some important questions and problems?

Legal

Who or what will have liability for an autonomous vehicle?

Insurance

Who or what will be required to purchase insurance? What coverage?

Political

Should governments assist in creating the conditions for network effects?

Mandate standards?

Where do autonomous vehicles already exist?

AVs are already a reality in selected applications that feature controlled environments, such as mining and farming. In these cases, the restricted nature of operations and the possibility to operate on private roads facilitate adoption. Some of the benefits of autonomy in these fields include labor-cost savings and the reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions through optimized driving (shown to cut emissions by as much as 60 percent). Other adjacent equipment applications—for example, in the construction and warehousing sectors—should see the next AV applications for vehicles such as excavators, forklifts, and loaders.

In the medium term (through 2040), on-highway trucks will likely be the first vehicles to feature the full technology on public roads. Prototypes already exist, and companies are currently developing the software algorithms needed to handle complex driving situations. Long-term automated commercial fleets might include vehicles for parcel delivery as well as automated drones, which multiple players

are already field-testing.

What strategies will auto companies employ in the early stages (2015-2025)?

Premium incumbents. Established premium players with extensive customer bases and strong technical and commercial legacies will probably take an incremental approach to AVs. This likely means they will gradually introduce increasing levels of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) in their vehicles.

Attackers. New industry players developing “radically new” vehicle architectures—such as high- tech giants, first-tier suppliers, and mobility operators—will focus on the “accessible mobility” consumer segment to capture volumes quickly and sustain ancillary business models.

Fast followers. These OEMs have significant technical and commercial legacies. They will most likely invest in AV research and then wait for the vehicle-level costs of the core technologies to drop while penetration in the premium segments grows.

Late entrants/nonadopters. As the name implies, these automakers will avoid entering the AV market in the short to medium term.

Other strategies?

New mobility models emerge. While OEMs are developing autonomous vehicles, a variety of other transport-mobility innovations are already hitting the road. Many of these take the form of pay-per-use models such as car sharing, carpooling, “e-hailing” taxi alternatives, and peer-to-peer car rentals. These plays are attracting investments and seeing impressive growth rates. The e-hailing model in particular has experienced strong growth given both annual investment funding and market penetration.

Will car rental companies be best positioned to do this?

Is this a form of cannibalization?

Strategies in the Intermediate period (2025-2035)?

4. The car-service landscape changes. The proliferation of AVs could represent an opportunity for car OEMs. As of 2014, for example, roughly 80 percent of the car-service shops in Germany were “independent” from OEMs. Given the safety-critical nature of AV technologies, customers might strongly prefer strict adherence to OEM service processes and the use of original service equipment when it comes to maintaining and repairing AV systems. This could imply a disadvantaged position for independent service providers unable to afford AV-maintenance systems. Furthermore, our research shows that nearly 60 percent of customers would follow their smart cars’ recommendations for service locations. Beyond the benefits of a bigger after-sales revenue stream, OEMs will have a strong incentive to service these vehicles, since regulators could ultimately force them to take on the greatest portion of the responsibility and risk associated with crashes caused by AV technical failures.

5. Car insurers might shift their business model. Car insurers have always provided consumer coverage in the event of accidents caused by human error. With driverless vehicles, auto insurers might shift the core of their business model, focusing mainly on insuring car manufacturers from liabilities from technical failure of their AVs, as opposed to protecting private customers from risks associated with human error in accidents. This change could transform the insurance industry from its current focus on millions of private consumers to one that involves a few OEMs and infrastructure operators, similar to insurance for cruise lines and shipping companies.

6. Companies could reshape their supply chains.

AV technologies could help to optimize the industry supply chains and logistics operations of the future, as players employ automation to increase efficiency and flexibility. AVs in combination with smart technologies could reduce labor costs while boosting equipment and facility productivity. What’s more, a fully automated and lean supply chain can help reduce load sizes and stocks by leveraging smart distribution technologies and smaller AVs.

Impact of High Levels of AV Penetration

7. Drivers have more time for everything.

AVs could free as much as 50 minutes a day for users, who will be able to spend traveling time working, relaxing, or accessing entertainment. The time saved by commuters every day might add up globally to a mind-blowing one billion hours—equivalent to twice the time it took to build the Great Pyramid of Giza. It could also create a large pool of value, potentially generating global digital-media revenues of €5 billion per year for every additional minute people spend on the mobile Internet while in a car.

8. Parking becomes easier.

AVs could change the mobility behavior of consumers, potentially reducing the need for parking space in the United States by more than 5.7 billion square meters. Multiple factors would contribute to the reduction in parking infrastructure. For example, self-parking AVs do not require open-door space for dropping off passengers when parked, allowing them to occupy parking spaces that are 15 percent tighter.

9. Accident rates drop.

By midcentury, the penetration of AVs and other ADAS could ultimately cause vehicle crashes in the United States to fall from second to ninth place in terms of their lethality ranking among accident types. Today, car crashes have an enormous impact on the US economy. For every person killed in a motor-vehicle accident, 8 are hospitalized, and 100 are treated and released from emergency rooms. The overall annual cost of roadway crashes to the US economy was $212 billion in 2012. Taking that year as an example, advanced ADAS and AVs reducing accidents by up to 90 percent would have potentially saved about $190 billion.

10. AVs accelerate robotics development for consumer applications.

The broad penetration of AVs will likely accelerate the development of robotics for consumer applications (including humanoid robots), since the two share many technologies. These include remote advanced sensing, hyperprecise positioning/GPS, image recognition, and advanced artificial intelligence. In addition to sharing technology, AVs and robots could benefit from using the same infrastructure, including recharging stations, service centers, and machine-to-machine communication networks. These commonalities might push multiple players to invest in both applications, as already shown by the significant investments in robotics made by selected automakers and high-tech players.

Other changes and opportunities from AVs

Highway communities – social media on long trips

Fusion of social media and AVs with intelligent sensors

Over the past 20 years, digital tools have changed the way people meet, access knowledge, and navigate—all built upon networks, sensors, mobile communication, and real-time information. These technologies are only now beginning to enter the urban space. In effect, more and more intelligence is suffusing our cities. It is possible to collect real-time information, seamlessly, on every dimension of urban life. HubCab, for example, is a web-based interactive visualization that looks at how New York’s 170 million annual taxi trips connect the city.

A parallel trend is happening with regard to the automobile: cars collect information about passengers and about the environment.

By combining ride sharing with car sharing—particularly in a citymsuch as New York—MIT research has shown that it would be possible to take every passenger to his or her destination at the time they need to be there, with 80 percent fewer cars.

How do cities change as a result of 80% fewer cars?

Business Opportunities

Makers and Developers

Infrastructure of sensors and high speed wireless internet

Aftermarket

Services for Passengers

Support systems

InsuranceLegalGovernment

Coupled changes:

TimeOwnership or not (new disposable income)

Environmental ChangesSmart environments and AVsFewer cars

Decline in taxi drivers and truck driversDrone robotic delivery