Autonomous Vehicles, LEAF and others...

[cwerdna]

How Cruise Automation Self-Driving Cars Navigate Double-Parked Vehicles in SF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCGkAIdOVjw

I hadn't bothered browsing their page at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP1rvC ... lJw/videos until now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tiyZXKwdOA was good.

Cruise
Published on Jan 25, 2019
Our driverless cars constantly encounter challenging situations on the streets in San Francisco. The driving seen in this video is 100% autonomous. This video is sped up approximately 2.5x. Do you have what it takes to solve challenging problems like this? https://getcruise.com/careers

[GRA]

Although I'm sure they picked the videos that were most favorable to them and it is speeded up 2.5 times, the system's performance was nevertheless quite impressive, and shows just how good humans are at dealing with very complex situations and how difficult a job it is to program to do the same. I was particularly impressed with one situation in the second video (ca. 1:00 in), where the car pulls into the left lane to pass a delivery truck, then has another truck make a right turn into the oncoming lane when almost at the same time a cyclist zooms diagonally from the left rear to cross in front of the Cruise car.

[cwerdna]

Someone at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads ... ts.158244/ pointed to a whitepaper https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/02/how-s ... blueprint/ points to.

Headline is "How safe are robotaxis? BMW, Intel, Aptiv (and 8 others) just laid out a safety blueprint".

[cwerdna]

Elon tweeted something that someone pointed out at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads ... st-3814179. My reaction on TMC was "funny".

It comes from https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1148070210412265473.

I also noticed https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1148078989866520576 (which I posted at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads ... st-3814297) along with the reply "To me, that's further evidence that they are likely well behind Waymo and Cruise Automation."

[cwerdna]

Via IEVS:

First US Public Self-Driving Shuttle Launches In Las Vegas, In Accident Shortly Thereafter – Video

https://insideevs.com/aaa-and-keolis-la ... las-vegas/

America’s first public self-driving shuttle has launched in downtown Las Vegas using NAVYA Arma vehicle – supplied from Michigan where 25 are to be build for North America customers by the end of 2017.

The shuttle pilot project will enable a quarter-million residents and visitors to Las Vegas a first-hand experience using autonomous vehicle over the course of a year.

Unfortunately, the shuttle was involved in a minor accident about an hour after it launched, when a truck backed into it (the shuttle was not found at fault, but probably could have done a better job avoiding this accident – more/video on that below).

It’s pretty cool to see the first all-electric, autonomous vehicles on the road (in this case being a fixed routes and just low-speed driving for now), although it will take some time for the technology to match a human driver – at a reasonable cost. . . .

As noted, the autonomous shuttle had a minor accident on its first day of use, when a semi-truck backed into it. It was reported that the shuttle stopped when it noted the truck, but the semi continued to reverse…ultimately right into the side the passenger vehicle, unaware it was in its path.

While the truck was cited at fault, the first question one thinks of in this situation (as did one of the passengers recounting the event in the news video below) is: “would an aware human driver not only have noticed the truck, but taken further corrective actions to avoid it? Or at least peeped the horn?” The answer of course being – yes. . . .

Las Vegas autonomous shuttle crash happened due to lack of manual control
https://www.engadget.com/2019/07/12/las ... ash-probe/

[cwerdna]

Ford, VW confirm plan to expand collaboration to include autonomous and electric vehicles
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/12/ford-vw ... icles.html

Hyundai Sonata gets a self-driving makeover from Yandex
https://mashable.com/article/hyundai-so ... prototype/

Russia's Yandex plans bold step for self-driving cars
https://www.autonews.com/mobility-repor ... iving-cars

Starting in August, the company intends to remove human safety drivers from five of its autonomous vehicles operating in the Russian city of Innopolis and conduct completely driverless commercial operations.
...
Currently, the company's safety drivers sit in the right seat during commercial operations in both Innopolis and Skolkovo, Russia. Between those two locations, Yandex has provided about 4,000 rides through its self-driving systems. There's not a specific date the safety drivers will exit vehicles in August. Teleoperation services will be enabled once drivers are removed.

[GRA]

GCC:

Toyota starts automated driving testing on urban public roads in Europe

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/0 ... 6-tme.html

. . . After successful simulations and trials on closed circuits, TME is now taking its in-house developed AD systems to a real-life urban setting: the city center of Brussels, Belgium, where a modified Lexus LS will repeatedly complete a fixed loop for the next 13 months.

• Within Toyota’s global operations, TME’s Brussels R&D facility is the Regional Centre of Excellence for Computer Vision – making computers ‘see and understand’ the environment around them. Toyota’s ultimate goal is zero casualties from traffic accidents, and the main goal of this pilot is to study complex and unpredictable human behavior and its impact on automated driving system requirements.
  
  Responding to the complexity and diverse population of an urban environment like Brussels—the European capital and home to citizens of 184 different nationalities—is key to understanding human behavior. After successful trials on public roads in Japan and the US, we are now adding European conditions to the technology’s understanding.
  
  —Gerard Killmann, Toyota Motor Europe (TME) Vice President Research and Development. . . .

In the car, a Safety Driver, who can intervene and overrule the AD vehicle control system at any time, will be accompanied by an Operator supervising the entire system. . . .

[cwerdna]

GM’s Cruise will miss 2019 target for robotaxi service launch
Safety and validation, a massive EV charging station and community outreach are the focus
https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/24/cruis ... t-in-2019/

[GRA]

GCC:

UPS invests in autonomous trucking company TuSimple, tests self-driving tractor trailers

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/0 ... 6-ups.html

Tests are being done on a route between Phoenix and Tucson.

[GRA]

Seems we're not done with this yet. ABG:

Engineer charged with stealing Google self-driving car secrets
Anthony Levandowski, who once ran Uber autonomy program, faces 33 counts

https://www.autoblog.com/2019/08/27/ant ... iving-car/

This is (federal) criminal, not civil like Waymo/Uber suit.