By Jeff Sanford
Toronto, Ontario — January 1, 2017 — It’s usually a slow week around the holidays, but you wouldn’t know it from monitoring the news coming out of the autonomous vehicle (AV) space in the last week. This time around we look at how AVs may impact organ donations, Volvo plans to integrate Skype into its 90 Series, Morgan Stanley estimates AVs could result in annual savings of $1.3 trillion in the US alone and much, much more!
– Here’s an interesting unintended outcome of self-driving cars: If the new technology leads to a reduction in auto accident the number of organs available for transplant may plunge. “As technology takes the wheel, road deaths due to driver error will begin to diminish. It’s a transformative advancement, but one that comes with consequences … Barring a monumental medical breakthrough in the field of organ replication, we need a national solution for our donation shortages—fast,” reads a report in Slate magazine. Among the most reliable sources for healthy organs and tissues are the more than 35,000 people killed each year on American roads. Currently, “… 1 in 5 organ donations comes from the victim of a vehicular accident. That’s why departments of motor vehicles ask drivers whether they want to be donors. It’s not difficult to do the math on how driverless cars could change the equation.”
– A deal signed in Canada last week is being linked to the new automated vehicle (AV) economy. A story in the Wall Street Journal notes that the financing arm of Volkswagen AG’s, “… acquired a Canadian mobile payments company, the latest move by a car maker investing heavily to compete in a mobility arms race that is heating up in the auto industry. The German auto maker’s Volkswagen Financial Services AG will dish out an undisclosed sum to acquire PayByPhone, a Vancouver-based company that allows people to pay for certain parking spaces by mobile apps, phone calls or texts … But the deal is about far more than one of the world’s largest auto makers getting into the parking business. Volkswagen wants access to proven technology to connect a variety of commerce opportunities and vendors to the cabin of a car and passengers looking for easier payment methods.
– Volvo has announced it will integrate Skype into its high-end 90 Series cars. A report on Engadget notes that, “Tapping once will reveal a meeting summary, including the organiser, participants and the ways in which they can join the call … Connectivity is handled through your paired smartphone, presumably.” No word on what that would do for driver attention.
– Autocar surveyed more than 2,500 people to ask about AVs. “Opinions on the subject are polarised. The majority of people believe autonomous cars might be safer and might make life easier, but they have doubts that the technology will really work. Older people are the most resistant – and they are the ones that buy the cars – and there’s an underlying message from many people that they love driving cars, pure and simple, and they don’t want to lose that,” according to a write-up of the survey. The story goes on to say that, “Those who like the notion of autonomy feel it will provide more independence, especially for the elderly and disabled, while improving safety and relieving driver fatigue. ‘I like the idea of taking human error out of driving,’ said one new car buyer. ‘Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do every day.’ The most hostile groups make a clear assumption that technology will never be able to replicate human response and awareness, and there is a major fear that it will result in the enjoyment of driving being taken away. ‘The whole concept terrifies me,’ said one car enthusiast. Another said: ‘It means I would have to trust a machine and ultimately artificial intelligence, and fundamentally I don’t feel able to do that.’”
– CNBC reports that Amazon has been, “…awarded a patent for a giant flying warehouse that acts as a launchpad for drones to deliver items within minutes. The U.S. e-commerce giant described plans for an ‘airborne fulfillment center’ (AFC) such as an airship or blimp … When a customer places an order, a drone or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) will fly down and deliver the package. Amazon insists that this would require little power because the drone would be gliding down rather than having to take off and land.” One story goes on to say, “Amazon’s filing reveals several uses for the warehouse blimp. One example is at a football match where customers may want certain items such as food or merchandise. Ahead of the game, the AFC could stock up on items and deploy these during the game with drones when they are ordered. The airship could also be used as a giant advertising board, allowing customers to order the items on display.”
– The MIT Technology Review has a big story on the use of self-driving trucks by mining giant Rio Tinto. The company has 73 massive trucks hauling iron ore, “… 24 hours a day at four mines in Australia’s Mars-red northwest corner. At this one, known as West Angelas, the vehicles work alongside robotic rock drilling rigs. The company is also upgrading the locomotives that haul ore hundreds of miles to port—the upgrades will allow the trains to drive themselves, and be loaded and unloaded automatically.”
The story also notes that, “Suncor, Canada’s largest oil company, has begun testing driverless trucks on oil sands fields in Alberta.”
– Massive investment bank Morgan Stanley estimates that, “… self-driving vehicles could result in annual savings of $1.3 trillion in the US alone–the figure is cumulative of fuel savings, savings from accident avoidance, productivity gains and congestion avoidance gains. While the economic aspect is exciting, its social and safety benefit is equally compelling. In 2015 alone, 35,092 people died on U.S. roadways with 94% of crashes tied to human error or choice … This kind of innovation even has the potential to offer personal mobility to the elderly and people with disabilities in addition to streamlining congestion and reducing pollution, among other benefits. The market for autonomous vehicles (partially and fully) which is projected at $42 billion by 2025, is expected to leap further to nearly $77 billion in 2035 …” according to a story on NASDAQ. The story goes on to say that, “By 2020, IoT (the Internet of Things) will include 50 billion devices, with each of those devices generating about 1.5 gigabytes of data every day while the average autonomous car will be creating about 40 gigabytes of data each minute.”
– The world was shocked just before Christmas when a dozen people were killed and many more injured when a terrorist drove a truck through a crowded Christmas market in Berlin. According to Gizmodo, “If it hadn’t been for an automatic brake system mandated by European Union rules, however, last week’s tragedy could have been even worse. According to German investigators say the truck ground to a halt less than 300 feet after its autonomous brakes sensed a collision. Early reports suggested the truck’s injured driver may have stopped the vehicle, but authorities later said he had been mortally wounded before the attack began. In 2012, the EU passed regulations requiring newly manufactured heavy vehicles to come equipped with advanced emergency braking (AEB) systems, which ‘detect the possibility of a collision with a preceding vehicle, warn the driver by a combination of optical, acoustic or haptic signals and, if the driver takes no action, automatically apply the vehicle’s brakes.’”
– As the era of AVs draws nearer, “… organizations representing people who are blind are taking a more active role in shaping the vehicles and software being developed,” according to MIT Technology Review. The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) has already developed a Blind Driver Challenge (in 2011). Now advocates for the blind want companies “to make their autonomous vehicles disability friendly rather than produce special cars for the visually impaired, which would probably be extremely expensive.” Those in the blind community, “… can’t assume that autonomous-vehicle makers will take their needs into account.” Advocates want companies to make sure to provide adequate floor space for service dogs in their vehicles. They also emphasize, “…the need for a nonvisual interface that passengers could use to communicate with the car. For example, a touch-screen-controlled vehicle could accommodate blind users by integrating voice technology or haptic feedback.”
– A couple of stories in the tech press note that AVs will begin operating in Boston next week. According to a report in the Boston Globe, “Massachusetts has given the green light to a Cambridge start-up to begin testing a self-driving car in a small section of Boston … nuTonomy will put its driverless car on the roads of South Boston’s Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park beginning Tuesday … At its start, the program will be confined to the 191-acre park, which has about 3 miles of roads, during daylight hours and in good weather. But the tests can expand after hitting various milestones, according to nuTonomy’s approved application. For example, after logging 100 miles in good driving conditions, nuTonomy can then begin testing at night and in precipitation.”
-A report in Wired suggests that in, “… 2017, the Fargo-based Autonomous Tractor Corporation is set to release a fully autonomous self-driver. The company’s AutoDrive retrofitting system for older tractors uses its Laser-Radio Navigation System to find its way around the field. University of Regina academics, along with other universities across the US, are pushing farming’s autonomous boundaries. In May, the engineers converted a tractor to autonomously lay seeds in straight lines.” According to the story, “It is only a matter of time until fully autonomous vehicles take to the fields. When they do, the entire process of farming will be streamlined: connected ploughs, seeders and combine harvesters will talk and work together … Ultimately, the vehicles will communicate with autonomous trucks taking produce from farm to table.”
