Autonomous Vehicles, LEAF and others...

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Toyota to collaborate with Japan Federation of Hire-Taxi Associations on next-gen taxi; role of automated driving

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/08 ... 6-tmc.html


Also GCC:

MIT researchers developing LiDAR on a chip

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/08 ... lidar.html

Researchers at MIT’s Photonic Microsystems Group are developing a LiDAR-on-a-chip system that is smaller than a dime, has no moving parts, and could be mass produced at a very low cost to be used in self-driving cars, drones, and robots. An article describing the new system is published in IEEE Spectrum. . . .

The device is a 0.5 mm x 6 mm silicon photonic chip with steerable transmitting and receiving phased arrays and on-chip germanium photodetectors. The laser itself is not integrated into the chips; however, there are on-chip lasers that could be integrated in the future. . . .

The current on-chip LiDAR system can detect objects at ranges of up to 2 meters; the researchers are hoping to achieve a 10-meter range within a year. They said there is a clear development path towards technology that can reach 100 meters, with the possibility of going even farther.

The MIT team is producing the LiDAR chips on 300-millimeter wafers, making their potential production cost on the order of $10 each at production volumes of millions of units per year.

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Uber acquires self-driving truck company Otto

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/08 ... rotto.html

Uber has acquired Otto, a 90-plus person technology startup the stated mission of which is to rethink transportation, starting with self-driving trucks. Anthony Levandowski, Otto’s co-founder, will now lead Uber’s self-driving efforts and report directly to Travis Kalanick, Uber CEO and Co-Founder—across personal transportation, delivery and trucking—in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Pittsburgh.

Otto hardware and software is tuned for the consistent patterns and easy-to-predict road conditions of highway driving. Sensors are installed high atop existing trucks, offering vehicles an unobstructed view of the road ahead. Highways represent only 5% of US roads, allowing Otto to focus its testing on this specific set of critical trucking routes. . . .

Related story from GCC:

Volvo Cars and Uber join forces to develop next-gen autonomous driving cars; $300M joint project

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/08 ... ouber.html

Volvo Cars and ride-sharing company Uber have signed an agreement to establish a joint project that will develop new base vehicles that will be able to incorporate the latest developments in AD technologies, up to and including fully autonomous driverless cars. The base vehicles will be manufactured by Volvo Cars and then purchased from Volvo by Uber. Volvo Cars and Uber are contributing a combined $300 million to the project. . . .

[GRA]

Transcript of McKinsey podcast:

Self-driving cars and the future of the auto sector

http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/auto ... k-oth-1608

[edatoakrun]

From two drivers to none in ~five years?

World’s First Self-Driving Taxis Hit the Road in Singapore

Singapore’s nuTonomy debuts autonomous cabs, beating the likes of U.S. tech giants Uber and Google

...NuTonomy’s test vehicles, a Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car, will have a computer engineer and backup human driver during the trial phase in case anything goes wrong, and can be hailed by select members of the public using a smartphone app, the company said. The one-north district is a self-contained area of about 0.8 square miles accessible by trunk roads but much quieter than most public roads in Singapore. NuTonomy said it would test its vehicles on a 6 kilometer (3.7 mile) route...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/worlds-firs ... 1472102747

Self-driving cars reach a fork in the road, and automakers take different routes

Cars capable of driving themselves may be on the showroom floor sooner than you think, but whether they should come with all the current essentials — including a steering wheel and pedals on the floor — has the auto industry at a fork in the road.

Ford sided with the pioneering engineers at Google last week in announcing plans to introduce limited-use vehicles without traditional controls within five years. Some other major automakers — and virtually all of them are well along in their work on self-driving vehicles — say they will introduce automated elements one step at a time, until drivers accept that they no longer need to control their cars.

The different approaches are rooted in conflicting views of safety and what the public is willing to accept...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/tr ... story.html

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Baidu and NVIDIA team up on cloud-to-car platform for self-driving cars; HD maps, Level 3 control, automated parking

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/09 ... baidu.html

[edatoakrun]

Toyota shares its AV plans, and expected limitations:

Toyota's two-step autonomous push

Toyota guru sees true autonomy in 5-10 years

...The target is a so-called Level 4 autonomous vehicle — a car capable of driving itself anywhere, anytime, under any weather scenario, while the human sits back, hands off.

Toyota’s first applications of Level 4 autonomous driving will be “geofenced,” said Eustice, who, with Olson, is co-director of Toyota’s autonomous driving program. That means the cars will be fully self-driving but in restricted areas such as interstate freeways.

“In reality, I don’t think anybody is going to launch a product and say on day one it will be Level 4 everywhere,” Eustice said in an August interview. “That is a monumental goal.”

Geofenced Level 4 Toyotas, however, are just five to 10 years away, he said...

http://www.autonews.com/article/2016090 ... omous-push

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Strategy Analytics: consumers showing less interest in autonomous driving systems

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/09 ... 18-sa.html

After reaching an all-time high in 2015, consumers’ interest in autonomous driving systems has fallen in 2016, reflecting hesitance about the reliance of self-driving technology, according to a recent survey from the In-Vehicle UX (IVX) group at Strategy Analytics.

Strategy Analytics surveyed consumers in the US, Western Europe, and China regarding their interest and willingness to pay for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Consumer interest in all forms of ADAS remains somewhat high but has moderated from 2015 in the US and Europe.

Interest in autonomous parking and driving features has fallen in some regions, especially in the US. Consumer willingness to pay for most ADAS features has dropped for all but the lowest reasonable price points, especially for advanced functions and semi-autonomous features. . . .

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Lyft co-founder projects private car ownership will all but end in major US cities by 2025

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/09 ... -lyft.html

. . . In a piece published in Medium, Zimmer proposed that the coming transportation revolution—which will shape the future of our communities—will be defined by three key shifts:

• Autonomous vehicle fleets will quickly become widespread and will account for the majority of Lyft rides within 5 years.
  
  By 2025, private car ownership will all-but end in major U.S. cities.
  
  As a result, cities’ physical environment will change more than we’ve ever experienced in our lifetimes. . . .
  
  Ridesharing is just the first phase of the movement to end car ownership and reclaim our cities. As I mentioned before, the shift to autonomous cars will expand dramatically over the next ten years, transforming transportation into the ultimate subscription service. This service will be more flexible than owning a car, giving you access to all the transportation you need. Don’t drive very often? Use a pay-as-you-go plan for a few cents every mile you ride. Take a road trip every weekend? Buy the unlimited mileage plan. Going out every Saturday? Get the premium package with upgraded vehicles. The point is, you won’t be stuck with one car and limited options. Through a fleet of autonomous cars, you’ll have better transportation choices than ever before with a plan that works for you.

As with all such predictions of inevitable major changes, the actual rate at which this occurs (assuming it does - I think it's very probable), is likely to take far longer than the enthusiasts believe. Still, I'm one of the people who could switch to this now, given convenient car-sharing. I'm already using pay-as-you-go insurance, and don't use a car locally except for the occasional trip in crummy weather, or emergencies. If I didn't have a paid-for car on my parking pad, I could fairly easily do without car ownership.

[edatoakrun]

The logic is inescapable:

Robot rides may force error-prone human motorists off the road

New rules of the road for robot cars coming out of Washington this week could lead to the eventual extinction of one of the defining archetypes of the past century: the human driver.

While banning people from driving may seem like something from a Kurt Vonnegut short story, it’s the logical endgame of a technology that could dramatically reduce -- or even eliminate -- the 1.25 million road deaths a year globally. Human error is the cause of 94 percent of roadway fatalities, U.S. safety regulators say, and robot drivers never get drunk, sleepy or distracted...

With mobile devices an added distraction, U.S. highway fatalities rose 8 percent last year, the biggest increase in 50 years. Some 38,300 people were killed on the road in 2015 and 4.4 million were seriously injured, according to the National Safety Council. Globally, 1.25 million people die in car crashes annually, according to the World Health Organization.

“Behind the wheel, we are only human and we are expected to screw up,” said Raj Rajkumar, co-director of the General Motors-Carnegie Mellon Autonomous Driving Collaborative Research Lab in Pittsburgh. “There will come a point in time where we should not be allowed to drive.”...

http://www.autonews.com/article/2016092 ... f-the-road

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Consumer Watchdog urges California DMV to prohibit autonomous vehicles without human driver until NHTSA safety standards are enforceable

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2016/10 ... 20-cw.html

Consumer Watchdog urged the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to prohibit autonomous vehicles without a human driver capable of taking control until the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) enacts enforceable standards covering safety performance.

Consumer Watchdog notes that NHTSA’s proposed voluntary safety checklist contains no enforceable standards. The proposed DMV rules would require manufacturers to submit that federal checklist before testing or deploying robot cars. Consumer Watchdog testified that the checklist is inadequate to protect public safety on the roads, and that DMV must therefore prohibit driverless cars until enforceable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards are in place. . . .

The regulation’s advertising provision would prohibit manufacturers of cars that use only some automated technologies from advertising their vehicles in a way that would leave the impression that a car is fully autonomous when it is not. The regulation specifically cites “self-driving,” “automated,” and “auto-pilot” as cause for concern.

Current California DMV regulations cover the testing of autonomous vehicles in California and require a licensed test driver who can take control when the robot technology fails. Another key requirement of that regulation is that manufactures report all crashes involving their robot cars. They must submit an annual “disengagement” report detailing all the times that the autonomous technology failed. Google, for example, reported its technology failed 341 times. There were 272 times that the software turned over control to the driver and 69 times when the driver felt compelled to override the robot system.

Consumer Watchdog said the regulations should be tweaked to require disengagement reports on a quarterly basis and that video and technical data associated with any crash should be made public. Police should investigate all crashes.