The future of mobility

General Motors is putting down enormous, simultaneous stakes on electric cars and self-driving technology, a strategic bet based on its confidence that future automated vehicles will run only on electricity.

It’s a risky bet, especially if EVs and AVs are slow to be recognized by consumers. Other carmakers, like Ford, see near-term limitations to battery-electric AVs and favor a more measured method.

General Motors trusts both technologies are approaching a tipping point and hopes they will push it to the forefront of an enormous industry shift toward shared, self-driving electric cars.

“The only way to lead in either one is to go heavy and hard in both of them,” said Doug Parks, GM VP for autonomous and electric vehicle programs.

Automakers are split on the path to electrification, the Wall Street Journal reports.

• Toyota and Ford are rolling out more hybrid gas-electric models as part of a gradual shift toward fully electric cars. They are both heavily invested in hybrid tech.
• GM and Volkswagen see no need for hybrids as a technology bridge and are concentrating instead on all-electric models. They also need to defend their strong positions in China, where they face government mandates to sell more zero-emissions vehicles.

The companies’ views on self-driving technology also influence their plans toward electrification.

GM says all-electric autonomous cars have an advantage over hybrid- and gasoline-powered ones.

• They’re ideal for dense cities that need solutions for congestion and pollution.
• AVs require a lot of electrical power to run their advanced sensing and computer hardware.
• An all-electric AV is more responsive so it can make decisions and complete maneuvers like navigating around a double-parked car more quickly.

Ford sees real-world issues that favor hybrid powertrains for AVs for the time being.

• Building the necessary charging infrastructure will add to the already capital-intensive challenge of developing AV technology and operations.
• Until battery technology improves, an AV’s power-hungry computers (along with air conditioning and entertainment systems) will deplete more than half the range of a battery-electric vehicle.
• If cars are sitting on chargers, they aren’t making money. 
• Fast-charging is needed to run an AV fleet, but Ford says repeated use will degrade the battery’s lifespan. (GM says this isn’t a concern.)

“We all want to transition to BEVs eventually, but we also need to find the right balance that will help develop a profitable, viable business model,” said Sherif Marakby, president and CEO of Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC.

The ride-sharing provider Uber is creeping further into daily life, with ambitions to help manage everything from how people get to work to what meals they order when they get home.

At a conference this week Uber was showcasing concepts and partnerships as it tries to seed an ecosystem to support the world’s first urban air taxi network.

Speaking Tuesday to an audience at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said…

• “We really want to move from being a ride-hailing app to essentially being your transportation partner.”
• His vision is to have a multi-modal Uber transportation network that, with a push of a button, helps people plan how to get from A to B, balancing tradeoffs like time, convenience and price.
• Uber doesn’t just want to move people — this morning, the company announced it will start testing drone food delivery in urban areas.

Serious obstacles stand in the way of flying cars, including regulations, infrastructure and air traffic management issues, not to mention consumer acceptance and safety, Deloitte’s Robin Lineberger tells Axios.

• “They will be a legitimate part of a multi-modal transportation system, in 20 to 30 years,” he says.

At its third annual Uber Elevate conference, the company showcased vertical takeoff and landing models from 5 potential suppliers, including a full-size model from Bell that looks like a cross between a plane and a helicopter.

• Attendees could climb into a mockup of a cabin interior built by the French aerospace company Safran or strap on virtual reality headsets to experience what a flying taxi ride would be like.
• Uber said Melbourne, Australia, would be its first international pilot site for Uber Air, after Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth in the United States, starting in 2020.
• And it showcased 16 potential designs for urban skyports, where flying taxis would take off and land.

Uber wants to “get the industry moving and designing these vehicles so that they can be available for urban transportation,” Khosrowshahi said. “We want the pricing of this service to be ultimately available for the masses versus just the elites.”

So far, it looks out of reach for most. A new 8-minute Uber helicopter shuttle between Manhattan and John F. Kennedy Airport is expected to cost $200 when it launches next month.

• In the wake of a helicopter crash this week on the roof of a building in Manhattan, some lawmakers want to see a ban on such flights.
• And some argue it overshadows existing transit reform efforts.

The bottom line: The market for air taxis is expected to grow from $3.4 billion in 2025 to $17.7 billion by 2040, according to Deloitte, and for newly public Uber, which lost $1 billion in the first quarter of 2019, that opportunity is hard to pass up.

• “We think it’s time to lean forward,” Khosrowshahi says. “The business is well positioned to profit. But the next 2, 3, 4 years are going to be about growth.”

Source:https://www.axios.com/uber-flying-taxi-plan-c1bdf6c1-6dc0-4e63-a095-9d2d7588ce5c.html

#future of mobility #future mobility

This is an article written by Michael DeKort “Today I see VW switched from Aurora to Argo. That switch will not matter in the least. As a matter of fact, you could literally combine every Autonomous Vehicle maker together and you will still never get remotely close to a legitimate L4. The use of public shadow and safety driving as well as gaming engines for simulation are that debilitating.

Public Shadow and Safety Driving — There is no way to mitigate the amount of time/work/miles (500B per RAND — One Trillion per Toyota) by driving and redriving scenarios you would have to stumble and restumble on. Spend the associated amount of money (+$300B). Or survive the casualties that will be created when handover is involved in time critical scenarios or when thousands of accident scenarios are run thousands of times each to train the ML.

Gaming Engine based Simulation — With regard to gaming engines. The real-time and model fidelity issues those systems cause especially in complex scenarios will cause differences between what the Planning system believes will occur and what will actually occur in analogous real-world scenarios. That will provide significant false confidence and lead to tragedies.

The Solution — The remedy is to use aerospace/DoD/FAA simulation technology and systems/safety engineering. Including augmenting that bottoms up Agile approach with a parallel top down approach. We also have a built in RL Engine automatic training capability built into the simulation. I will be glad to provide a demonstration this is the right approach. (Note- When I mention this approach folks usually think I am referring to air travel which is not nearly as complex as what is needed here. What is as complex and even more so is simulated DoD urban war games. Same locations, same complexity and the public experiences plus the ground vehicles can drive off the roads and shoot at each other.)

Update 6–12–2019 — Far worse than I stated

Over 1,400 self-driving vehicles are now in testing by 80+ companies across the US

• https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/11/over-1400-self-driving-vehicles-are-now-in-testing-by-80-companies-across-the-u-s/

Let’s look at the math on this compared to RAND’s estimate that it would take 500B to get to 10X a human and Toyota’s 1 trillion miles. At 40MPH driven 24X7 how long would it take to get to L4?

RAND 500B miles = 1019 Years

Toyota’s One Trillion miles = 2038 Years

1/10 of RAND’s estimated miles = 102 years

Please find more information in my articles below.

Using the Real World is better than Proper Simulation for Autonomous Vehicle Development — NONSENSE

• https://medium.com/@imispgh/using-the-real-world-is-better-than-proper-simulation-for-autonomous-vehicle-development-nonsense-90cde4ccc0ce

SAE Autonomous Vehicle Engineering Magazine-End Public Shadow Driving

• https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/sae/ave_201901/index.php

Common Misconceptions about Aerospace/DoD/FAA Simulation for Autonomous Vehicles

• https://medium.com/@imispgh/common-misconceptions-about-aerospace-dod-faa-simulation-for-autonomous-vehicles-2b3ad84b0aa1

The Hype of Geofencing for Autonomous Vehicles

• https://medium.com/@imispgh/the-hype-of-geofencing-for-autonomous-vehicles-bd964cb14d16

The Autonomous Vehicle Podcast — Featured Guest https://www.autonomousvehiclespodcast.com/“

The article is written by Michael DeKort —  a former system engineer, engineering and program manager for Lockheed Martin. Michael worked in aircraft simulation, the software engineering manager for all of NORAD, the Aegis Weapon System, and on C4ISR for DHS.

Michael is a member of the SAE On-Road Autonomous Driving Validation & Verification Task Force and was recently asked by SAE to lead an effort to establish a new Modeling and Simulation group.

He is a stakeholder for UL4600 — Creating AV Safety Guidelines.

Michael has also been presented the IEEE Barus Ethics Award and am on the IEEE Artificial Intelligence & Autonomous Systems Policy Committee (AI&ASPC)

#future of mobility #future mobility

Cars of the future need to be able to heal themselves. We’re not driving cars anymore — we’re driving computers.

Cars are complicated, with 100 or more computer-controlled subsystems that are needed for functions like steering, braking, and adjusting the seats. And all that hardware is embedded with massive amounts of software.

• By 2020, 98% of new cars will be connected to the internet, making it easier to add new features or capabilities via over-the-air software updates.
• Samsung’s Harman subsidiary handles OTA updates for 24 automakers, but most carmakers still require customers to make a trip to the dealership for driving updates.
• Tesla is the exception. The company says it has pushed out hundreds of OTA updates to its vehicles since 2012.

Being connected to the internet can make vehicles vulnerable and software updates can sometimes introduce new problems.

The risks will only grow in the push toward automation, so having a software safety net will be important, tech analysts say.

• “It’s going to be a necessity — especially when you’re downloading safety critical systems — that you don’t break the car,” says Michael Ramsey, mobility analyst at Gartner.

What to watch: New self-healing software from Israeli startup Aurora Labs — now undergoing tests by a half-dozen automakers — monitors a car’s systems to help ensure that doesn’t happen.

• It uses artificial intelligence to self-diagnose coding problems and fix errors on-the-go.
• The technology sifts line-by-line through the estimated 100 million lines of code in today’s cars to detect faults and predict problems before they occur.
• If it finds a glitch, the software seamlessly rolls back to an earlier, safer version so related functions aren’t disabled while the problem is addressed. (Harman says it, too, has rollback capability.)
• Self-healing software could be a viable way to protect against both malicious and accidental corruption of vehicle software, Navigant Research analyst Sam Abuelsamid says.

Yes, but: The approach requires additional onboard storage to preserve all of the previous changes, which could bog down performance. New electronic systems that automakers have in the works should address that, Abuelsamid notes.

The bottom line: If machines are going to replace human drivers, they will need to be resilient like humans.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqLDpHsxvf8

https://www.axios.com/self-driving-cars-fix-bugs-bdfa1952-074e-4be2-ae42-32fb5c2a670f.html

15th May was a historic occasion. The first cab-less, electric truck – Einride’s T-pod – drove on a public road. The world premiere and inaugural run took place at DB Schenker’s facility in Jönköping, Sweden. The T-pod will transport goods between a warehouse and terminal at the facility, as part of a commercial flow.

Robert Falck, founder and CEO of Einride, Jochen Thewes, CEO of DB Schenker, and Mats Grundius, CEO of DB Schenker Cluster Sweden, Denmark, Iceland hosted the inauguration ceremony.

– This day represents a major milestone in Einride’s history, and for our movement to create a safe, efficient and sustainable transport solution, based on autonomous, electric vehicles, that has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions from road freight transport by up to 90 percent. I can’t begin to describe how proud I am of our team that made this happen in collaboration with our great partner and customer DB Schenker, says Robert Falck, CEO and founder of Einride.

– Autonomous trucks will become increasingly important for the logistics sector. Together with Einride, we have now introduced autonomous, fully electric trucks to a continuous flow on a public road – a milestone in the transition to the transport system of tomorrow,” said Jochen Thewes, CEO of DB Schenker.

In November 2018, the Swedish startup Einride and leading logistics firm DB Schenker initiated the first installation of an autonomous, all-electric truck or “T-pod” at a DB Schenker facility in Jönköping, Sweden. It was the first commercial installation of its kind in the world.

March 7 the Swedish Transport Agency concluded that the T-pod is able to operate in accordance with Swedish traffic regulations. March 11, the agency approved Einride’s application to expand the pilot to a public road. The permit applies to a public road within an industrial area – between a warehouse and a terminal. The permit is valid until December 31, 2020.

Einride and DB Schenker entered into a commercial agreement in April 2018 that includes the pilot in Jönköping and an option for additional pilots internationally.

Source: http://www.einride.tech/news/world-premiere-first-cab-less-and-autonomous-fully-electric-truck-in-commercial-operations-on-public-road

#future of mobility #future mobility #glocalness