Autonomous Cars

[Gatecrasher]

The answer is return on capital and cash flow. Right now GM can make and sell a car to a taxi driver. They make maybe 8% margin, these are not the high end high margin part of their offering. If they make and operate the taxi themselves they can sweat it over several years. The objective appears to become Transport Service Providers.

Henry, you hit the nail on the head

Car manufacturers will sell less cars, but make more money per car. All of the big manufacturers are spending in this area, they are all betting big on this.

It will be interesting to see who benefits the most, car manufacturers, Uber/Lift, or the tech companies like Waymo and Mobileye

[henry]

The answer is return on capital and cash flow. Right now GM can make and sell a car to a taxi driver. They make maybe 8% margin, these are not the high end high margin part of their offering. If they make and operate the taxi themselves they can sweat it over several years. The objective appears to become Transport Service Providers.

Henry, you hit the nail on the head

Car manufacturers will sell less cars, but make more money per car. All of the big manufacturers are spending in this area, they are all betting big on this.

It will be interesting to see who benefits the most, car manufacturers, Uber/Lift, or the tech companies like Waymo and Mobileye

The real unknown, in terms of who will capitalise, is China. As with electric cars chinese companies have both a huge market and a government with a long term interventionist view.

[AJI]

...
Make no mistake, accidents will happen. It's inevitable. The question is, will you be able to put faith into a technology that you don't understand? And will you trust the companies running these cars to be transparent about mistakes and shortcomings of the software when accidents do happen? One way or another, I see it as an incredibly difficult task to see them overcoming this without the help of the government.
...

It's funny, before strad started his topic I'd always assumed AV's were inevitable; not a matter of if, but when. However, you raise some interesting points about the technical ability for AV's to even happen.
Being an electro acoustic consultant I'm a complete tech head, but I'm definitely no programmer.., so while I generally know what's involved in digital product architecture I don't really know the level of detail you guys go to to make it all work, I just have faith that you will. Some times everything works perfectly to spec and sometimes a particular unit is a total dog. But that's pro audio, a tiny niche market filled with grand ideas.

Right now AV's are also a niche market and suffer from all the problems of low volume emerging tech, but I ultimately see AV's as a mainstream retail product, and with that comes an expectation for products to work perfectly. If they don't you are destroyed by a competitor. It's in nobodies interest to cover up shortcomings in the tech if it's ultimately going to be exposed. That's not to say that it won't happen, but in this heavily litigious world you're always going to lose that battle.
Yes, the only way I can see AV's happening is with the help of government, after-all they own the roads, so it's in their interest. Perhaps improving public transport is a wiser investment, but we're a selfish bunch, so given the option of improved PT or personal AV's I can't see many people opting for the former..? After all, it's 2018, not 1818.

[Gatecrasher]

The real unknown, in terms of who will capitalise, is China. As with electric cars chinese companies have both a huge market and a government with a long term interventionist view.

Alibaba will try but I think it will take them a lot longer than 2025 to catch up with the current leaders. They are currently testing cars with Baidu and Tencent.

https://www.businessinsider.com/alibaba ... ars-2018-9

[Andres125sx]

Henry, goverments are providing licenses to L3 cars as if they were autonomous. No reason to think they will act different with a proper L5

[henry]

Henry, goverments are providing licenses to L3 cars as if they were autonomous. No reason to think they will act different with a proper L5

Andres. I think the licenses, such as they are, are being issued to companies operating L4 vehicles that, because they are not yet fully functional, have human supervisors. Some licenses have been issued for full L4, no human supervision, in California, for instance, Waymo have recently received that permission for a limited geography and limited max speed.

The licenses don’t seem to have much in the way of technical requirements, mainly concerned with procedural matters such as reporting.

A limited number of L3 equipped cars are here, or almost so. For example Tesla with navigate on autopilot and Audi with Traffic Jam Assist. I am not aware of any licensing required?

This does bring forward the technical question of what should be licensed. For instance the number of types of objects that need to be identified and processed for highway driving is different from, a subset of, those required for town or suburban. Similarly the number and type of navigational obstacles is very different.

I think governments are being bounced into acceptance of the concept of AVs and regulation of the sector will follow at some point heavily influenced by the desires of big business.

[Greg Locock]

On Friday I'll be driving from my house in the middle of nowhere to Sydney. This is roughly 1.5 hours of country roads (high speed and towns) then 8 hours of freeway boredom, and then an hour or so of Sydney mayhem. At least 8 hours of that could be handled by an L2. I get no pleasure from driving that bit. To me that is the obvious market for an AV. It doesn't have to be very smart, just drive in one lane and not crash into whatever is in front.

[Big Tea]

Henry, goverments are providing licenses to L3 cars as if they were autonomous. No reason to think they will act different with a proper L5

Andres. I think the licenses, such as they are, are being issued to companies operating L4 vehicles that, because they are not yet fully functional, have human supervisors. Some licenses have been issued for full L4, no human supervision, in California, for instance, Waymo have recently received that permission for a limited geography and limited max speed.

The licenses don’t seem to have much in the way of technical requirements, mainly concerned with procedural matters such as reporting.

A limited number of L3 equipped cars are here, or almost so. For example Tesla with navigate on autopilot and Audi with Traffic Jam Assist. I am not aware of any licensing required?

This does bring forward the technical question of what should be licensed. For instance the number of types of objects that need to be identified and processed for highway driving is different from, a subset of, those required for town or suburban. Similarly the number and type of navigational obstacles is very different.

I think governments are being bounced into acceptance of the concept of AVs and regulation of the sector will follow at some point heavily influenced by the desires of big business.

There must (surely?) be different license concerns for 'driver'(?) owned and operated vehicles and AV's that are passenger conveyance, as the insurance and plating is different for own cars and taxi/P/hire cars?

[Gatecrasher]

There must (surely?) be different license concerns for 'driver'(?) owned and operated vehicles and AV's that are passenger conveyance, as the insurance and plating is different for own cars and taxi/P/hire cars?

All of the companies testing are big enough to be self insured, so that won't be an issue. The company can also own them for licensing, they would effectively be the driver.

Now how do you have a company pass a driving test, that is an interesting question, can't wait to see that in the DMV

[Andres125sx]

I think the licensing will be required to the human up to the point a real L5 is released. Then the car will need a special licence to operate autonomously, as that will be the point where even a kid without a driving license can get into the AV and go anywhere.

Before that, the human driver will always be responsible, so any automatism is considered just a feature of the car, but it´s the human who is responsible of anything that car is doing


About the license for first L5, yes that´s a good question, what will be required?

[henry]

I think the licensing will be required to the human up to the point a real L5 is released. Then the car will need a special licence to operate autonomously, as that will be the point where even a kid without a driving license can get into the AV and go anywhere.

Before that, the human driver will always be responsible, so any automatism is considered just a feature of the car, but it´s the human who is responsible of anything that car is doing


About the license for first L5, yes that´s a good question, what will be required?

It might be illuminating to look at what the license test for drivers is in our own countries.

I was licensed some years ago so I hope what I write is reasonably correct.

Here in the U.K. the tests are:

Sensors, visual only you must be able to read the letters on a car license plate at a prescribed distance. Nothing else is tested. The onus is on the citizen to report any visual impairment that might compromise their road safety. After certain illnesses a license may be revoked and only restored if a qualified opthalmist certifies vision is not impaired enough to drive.

Actuators. During a physical driving test the ability to operate the controls is tested. We have a separate license for those who do not demonstrate the ability to use a manual gearbox and separate tests apply for various sizes and types of vehicle.

Processing. A written test examines knowledge of the legal rules of the road as written for laymen in the “Highway Code”. As with all subset tests it doesn’t establish total understanding.
A physical driving test finds out if the driver can navigate, identify objects of interest and take reasonable and logical decisions based on them. Until recently there was no need to demonstrate these at speed, as for example negotiating a motorway junction.

Everything else is assumed to be OK because the driver is a human and understands the various concepts of reasonable behaviour etc. Their are laws that punish carelessness or aggressiveness but they are not, and probably, can’t be tested for.

So it may have seemed difficult at the time but it’s a pretty low bar.

So for an AV, or at least it’s sensor, actuator, processor suite, their probably ought to be some equivalents. What can it observe and assess with its sensor arrays, what does it know of the rules of the road, and how well does it apply them in a test environment.

It might be possible then to issue licenses for particular activities, drive on motorways OK, drive down busy high streets NOK. And just as we should be geofencing drones, we should be geofencing AVs.

[Big Tea]

I think the licensing will be required to the human up to the point a real L5 is released. Then the car will need a special licence to operate autonomously, as that will be the point where even a kid without a driving license can get into the AV and go anywhere.

Before that, the human driver will always be responsible, so any automatism is considered just a feature of the car, but it´s the human who is responsible of anything that car is doing


About the license for first L5, yes that´s a good question, what will be required?

It might be illuminating to look at what the license test for drivers is in our own countries.

I was licensed some years ago so I hope what I write is reasonably correct.

Here in the U.K. the tests are:

Sensors, visual only you must be able to read the letters on a car license plate at a prescribed distance. Nothing else is tested. The onus is on the citizen to report any visual impairment that might compromise their road safety. After certain illnesses a license may be revoked and only restored if a qualified opthalmist certifies vision is not impaired enough to drive.

Actuators. During a physical driving test the ability to operate the controls is tested. We have a separate license for those who do not demonstrate the ability to use a manual gearbox and separate tests apply for various sizes and types of vehicle.

Processing. A written test examines knowledge of the legal rules of the road as written for laymen in the “Highway Code”. As with all subset tests it doesn’t establish total understanding.
A physical driving test finds out if the driver can navigate, identify objects of interest and take reasonable and logical decisions based on them. Until recently there was no need to demonstrate these at speed, as for example negotiating a motorway junction.

Everything else is assumed to be OK because the driver is a human and understands the various concepts of reasonable behaviour etc. Their are laws that punish carelessness or aggressiveness but they are not, and probably, can’t be tested for.

So it may have seemed difficult at the time but it’s a pretty low bar.

So for an AV, or at least it’s sensor, actuator, processor suite, their probably ought to be some equivalents. What can it observe and assess with its sensor arrays, what does it know of the rules of the road, and how well does it apply them in a test environment.

It might be possible then to issue licenses for particular activities, drive on motorways OK, drive down busy high streets NOK. And just as we should be geofencing drones, we should be geofencing AVs.

There are some insurance companies that now insist drivers below a set age or driving experience have a 'box' in the car to record some parameters that suggest poor or aggressive driving. (also available voluntarily for a discount on premium)

I would imagine the expected behavior patterns as recorded will be quite well defined and understood, in not now then soon.

It is not that big a step for insurance companies to want full monitoring, both data and visual, when they actually come to the point of having to cover thousands of vehicles.

In an accident there then would be little gray area as the 'footage' would be examined in the way F1 stewards do today, from both (or all) vehicles concerned and any coverage from other recorders in the area.

[AJI]

...
It is not that big a step for insurance companies to want full monitoring, both data and visual, when they actually come to the point of having to cover thousands of vehicles...

The trialling of 'digital' licences in NSW is the first step in this process. Thus far they are simply an electronic version of your standard licence on your mobile phone, however the ability to track your driving habits is there, ready to be activated at any moment. I expect in the not too distant future to be sent a fine for any breach of the road rules that can be tracked by your phone. Add in compulsory video from the car and the ability to live transmit telemetry and the powers-that-be will simply send you a text informing you of any infraction, whether that be speeding or a lane change without indicating.
I suppose the points system (which currently gives you 13 points in NSW) will have to be adjusted as there will be millions more infractions. Say, 1000 points per year? Not indicating during a lane change = 1 point, driving at >45kmh over the limit = 1000

Whether anyone thinks AV's are coming or not, digital driver tracking is definitely coming. Once implemented, will anyone actually want to drive a car on a public road anymore?

[henry]

Plugged in to the OBD port of my current VW is a device that can send journey data to my phone. I fitted it to monitor my journey profile as I consider whether an electric car is for me. It knows my speed profile but little else. Earlier this year VW loaned me a car fitted with its driver assistance suite. It read road speed signs, lane markings, distance to car in front, and probably other things I didn’t notice. It would be a trivial matter to link that to the sort of surveillance system that AJI suggests. It might be beneficial but I’d hate it.

Amusingly the phone app munges the data and gives me a rating for how economically I drive. I tend to fall short on only one measure, I don’t change up early enough. It’s a DSG.

It does highlight the need for standards, the data mungers apply a different economy standard from the DSG programmers.

[Just_a_fan]

It does highlight the need for standards, the data mungers apply a different economy standard from the DSG programmers.

Of course, the DSG "knows" about the engine's characteristics and so might well be changing gear appropriately for maximum economy. The plug in thingy will just be using a general "change up early" rule for economy.

That's the problem with applying the general to the specific.