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The Autonomous Report: Mary Barra of GM sees ‘a future of zero crashes’

Mary Barra, CEO of GM, published a post on LinkedIn this week, promoting a new three-pronged GM policy of, 'Zero Crashes. Zero Emissions. Zero Congestion.'

By Jeff Sanford

Toronto, Ontario — October 8, 2017 — In this week’s Autonomous Report, Waymo may launch self-driving taxis before the end of the year, other autonomous taxis may be set to expand beyond a gated community, GM’s CEO projects a crash-free future and much, much more!

– A report from tech-focused website The Information suggests full AVs could be on the road by the end of this year. Two anonymous sources told the reporter that, “Google’s self-driving car unit, Waymo, is preparing to launch ‘a commercial ride-sharing service powered by self-driving vehicles with no human ‘safety’ drivers as soon as this fall.’” A common assumption has been that full Level Five AVs would not hit the road before 2020 or 2025 at the earliest. Many predict AVs will not arrive for decades.

Now, according to the report, “Obviously, there’s no guarantee that Waymo will hit this ambitious target. But it’s a sign that Waymo believes its technology is very close to being ready for commercial use. And it suggests that Waymo is likely to introduce a fully driverless car network in 2018 if it doesn’t do so in the remaining months of 2017 …”

Waymo apparently plans to launch the AV-based taxi service in the Phoenix suburbs. The story goes on to say that, “Waymo chose the Phoenix area for its favorable weather, its wide, well-maintained streets, and the relative lack of pedestrians. Another important factor was the legal climate. Arizona has some of the nation’s most permissive laws regarding self-driving vehicles.”

Also according to the story: “As a way of preparing for the launch of these vehicles Google has built a real-time command enter that allows self-driving cars to ‘phone home’ and consult human operators about the best way to deal with situations [the cars] find confusing.”’ Apparently the ability to remotely monitor vehicles and give timely feedback in tricky situations will be essential to this service.

– Another self-driving vehicle project coming to fruition was the subject of an article in the New York Times this past week. A company called Voyage is starting to expand its driverless taxi service beyond a small test in the Villages, according to the story. The taxis are currently servicing a gated retirement community. According to the story, “In the Villages, there are 15 miles of roads where autonomous vehicles can learn how to navigate other cars, pedestrians, golf carts, animals, roundabouts and many other obstacles … The speed limit, just 25 miles an hour, helps reduce the risk if something goes wrong. And because it is private property, the company does not have to share ride information with regulators and it can try new ideas without as much red tape.”

– A subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet is said to be close to signing the deal that would see this company develop a part of Toronto’s waterfront, according to a report by Reuters. This deal would be the first major, “… foray of the search-engine giant into the creation of high-tech urban space.” The Google subsidiary is called Sidewalk Labs, and would, if the deal is signed, “… spearhead the so-called digital-city project, to be located along a 12-acre section of Toronto’s eastern waterfront.”

Digital networking tech would be built right into the real physical infrastructure of the neighborhood, allowing a new level of AV and AI-based products to be developed and deployed.

– The new Google-built Toronto neighborhood will benefit from the various possibilities opening up around the use of drones and small AVs. A report by The Verge appeared this week discussing some recent advances in drone tech including a story about one of Japan’s biggest tech companies, Rakuten, which just announced it was forming a joint venture with the American startup AirMap.

“The goal is to develop a robust traffic management system for unmanned aerial vehicles, allowing large numbers of drones to operate autonomously in the same airspace. Rakuten, which is best known as an e-commerce company, has been experimenting with drone delivery since June of last year. Like Amazon, it wants to enable customers to order something online and have it delivered to their doorstep, or windowsill, in under an hour. The company sees low-altitude airspace as a wide-open market, where the only competition comes from birds and radio waves. AirMap recently disclosed a $26 million round of funding led by Microsoft Ventures. The company is using that cash to open new offices in California and Germany, and is already planning for the day when its mapping technology could be used to help a variety of different autonomous vehicles navigate safely through low-altitude airspace, including flying cars.”

– Ford also recently unveiled a new concept vehicle at a conference in Florida. According to a report by The Verge, the company has designed, “… an electric self-driving delivery van that can launch a fleet of drones to pick up and drop off packages in hard-to-reach places.” Like most automakers, Ford is suddenly in a race to create AVs. Last month, Ford acquired a brand-new autonomous driving startup, Argo AI, for $1 billion that will help the company solve, “… the last-mile challenge in delivery, specifically the last 15 metres between the delivery truck and the drop-off … The drones will come in handy when dealing with deliveries in dense, urban areas, where parking is impractical and people live in high-rise apartment buildings. And as more people shop online, the pressure to improve the efficiency of delivery services will grow,” according to the report.

You can check out a video on how the system would work in the player below.

 

– The CEO of GM, Mary Barra, published on LinkedIn this week, promoting a new three-pronged GM policy of, “Zero Crashes. Zero Emissions. Zero Congestion.” According to the post, “We see a future of zero crashes where, instead of trying to protect passengers during and after a crash, we harness new technologies to prevent crashes from happening in the first place. With safety as General Motors’ number one priority, we’ll keep innovating. Drowsy, distracted or impaired drivers will have another way home. No more crashes. One day, no more lives lost … And we see a world of zero congestion where new technologies allow us to travel smoothly, safely and more quickly to our destinations. No more sitting in traffic. No more wasted time, fuel and money. And just maybe, no more road rage.”

Barra goes on to say, “GM has the right team — more than 180,000 engineers and builders with the technical and business expertise to solve any problem and the passion to change the world … GM has the right hardware — a century’s worth of experience designing and assembling more than 500 million vehicles, more than any other automaker in the world, integrating software and hardware and delivering to customers the vehicles and experiences they want. And, as America’s largest automaker, GM has the right scale. In contrast to companies that have built a small number of self-driving cars, our 150 manufacturing facilities can produce some 9 million vehicles a year, giving GM the capability to test and manufacture the next generation of electric and autonomous vehicles at scale …”

Barra delivered a call to arms for employees of the company, saying, “We’re positioned to lead on autonomous driving, which avoids crashes and improves safety. In the coming months, we’ll take the next bold steps in testing our autonomous technology as we lead the way to fully self-driving vehicles without any human driver as a backup… We’re leading on connectivity — connecting vehicles to each other, and, in the years ahead, to the traffic lights and roads around them so that vehicles know how to avoid backups and collisions, choose the most efficient routes and reduce congestion … “

 

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