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Zipcar Expanding Services, Looking Ahead to Driverless Car Fleets

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Jennifer van der Kleut

One might think the popularity of car-sharing service ZipCar might be waning in the face of ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft, but actually, reports say ZipCar is continuing to grow, particularly in college towns like Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Obviously self-driving car technology is right up there alongside car-sharing and ride-hailing services as one of the next big game-changers in transportation - and ZipCar is not ignoring that fact.

The Boston Herald reports that while ZipCar may not be working on developing their own self-driving cars, they are already looking ahead and preparing to take advantage of the technology as soon as it becomes available.

“Don’t worry, we’re on it,” CEO Kaye Ceille said in an email to ZipCar members across the country recently.

Vice President of Product and Member Experience Nichole Mace said the company views adding autonomous cars to its fleets as just another extension of what they already offer customers.

“Today if you need a car, there’s a car two blocks away - it’s around the corner, you can pick up the car,” Mace said. “In the future, the autonomous car - you won’t be walking a couple blocks, the autonomous car will be right outside your door.”

The Herald reports that ZipCar is working closely with the University of Michigan’s Mobility Transformation Center and with major automakers like Ford, GM and Toyota, though the company did not give details.

In the meantime, as ZipCar waits for autonomous car technology to become widely available, it is reportedly adding other new services for its members. For example - in the past, car reservations were strictly for 24-hour periods and the cars had to be returned to the same location where they were picked up from. The Herald reports that ZipCar is planning to start offering shorter reservations, including one-way trips that will allow cars to be returned to different stations.

ZipCar is also facing new competition, though. As the Detroit Free Press reports, GM just launched its own car-sharing service, called Maven, in Michigan, in response to the popularity of such services among college students and professionals.

“Maven began with 11 locations on [the University of Michigan] campus, offering 17 vehicles,” the Free Press reports. “The plan…is to grow that to 20 locations with 35 vehicles throughout the city, according to Chevrolet spokeswoman Annalisa Bluhm.”

Other big announcements from GM recently include the fact that the company invested $500 million in ride-hailing app Lyft for autonomous car technology.

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Controlling the Disruption of Autonomous Technology

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Burney Simpson

Autonomous cars could be the disruptive technology that disrupts just about everything.

A new conference in Canada, “Automated Vehicles: Planning the Next Disruptive Technology” is designed to update transportation experts on the technology and help them prepare for its impact.

The event from the Conference Board of Canada will run April 19-20 in the One King West Hotel in Toronto.

The conference will address autonomous technology and its impact on urban planning, security and privacy, transit, and the movement of commercial goods. See the agenda here.

The conference arises in part from a 2015 paper from the consultant Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre of Excellence (CAVCOE), and the Conference Board. (See “Autonomous Vehicles to Save Canada $54 Billion, Many Lives”).

One year later, the Conference Board is organizing the event and the timing is right, says Barrie Kirk, executive director of CAVCOE, a conference sponsor.

For instance, a test of autonomous vehicles on public roads began near Toronto in January, and the government just released its 10-year strategic transportation plan that includes some mention of autonomous technology. The Toronto test could bring driverless cars traveling on everything from Highway 401 to suburban side streets, according to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation.

“We’re seeing the winds of change blow through our federal government,” said Kirk. The newly-elected Liberal government “is more open. They seek partnerships. And policy groups are seeing disruptive technology coming.”

CAVCOE is taking advantage of the open mood to request that 1 percent of the 18 billion (Canadian) the nation spends on infrastructure be devoted to smart infrastructure, says Kirk. That 180 million Canadian converts to $133 million U.S.

Smart infrastructure covers a lot of ground, notes Kirk, including autonomous vehicles, emissions, data and privacy, cybersecurity, weather, and distracted drivers.

The conference is also sponsored by the Canadian Automobile Association and BlancRide, a Canadian carpooling service.

Photo by CAVCOE.

GM Cadillac

Study: Self-Driving Cars Will Disrupt Auto Sales More Than Car-Sharing Services

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Jennifer van der Kleut

A new study by Boston Consulting Group suggests car manufacturers should be more worried about the introduction of self-driving cars than of car-sharing services like Uber and Lyft.

According to the study, as reported by Reuters, North American auto manufacturers can expect to lose about 52,000 car sales a year to people who decide to opt instead for hailing rides through car-sharing services. However, the study also says they will gain back 44,000 of those sales by selling cars to the car-sharing services.

And, major manufacturers like Ford and General Motors (GM) are reacting smartly to such predictions and investing in car-sharing companies to recoup some of that lost revenue. For example, GM made the major announcement a few weeks ago that it was investing half a billion in Lyft.

GM is also looking even farther forward to its own ride-sharing service using its own cars, to be called Maven. Maven is already operating in Ann Arbor, Michigan-a smart decision considering it’s a major college town where kids like to party, where they may not have the funds to own their own cars, and where parking can sometimes be scarce-and planning to add New York and Chicago to the list soon.

Therefore, the study concludes that self-driving cars will be much more of a “game-changer” than car sharing, with the biggest impact being felt around 2027, Reuters explains.

Self-driving car technology will “trigger the convergence of car-sharing and ride-hailing.”

In other words, the onset of the technology will act as the biggest encouragement for people to ditch the idea of owning a car altogether.

“…Self-driving cars will change the game, erasing the distinction between car-sharing and ride-hailing while providing users with a significant edge in the total cost of ownership,” says Reuters.

Some reports, like one from Barclays published just last month, predict the cost of hailing a self-driving car could be as low as 29 cents per mile, much cheaper than the cost of buying and maintaining one’s own car, not to mention filling it with gas regularly.

Experts say we can expect to see which predictions are accurate within the next five to 10 years.

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UK Combines Driverless Pod, Vehicle Tests in Milton Keynes

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Burney Simpson

Only 41 miles of road separate Coventry and Milton Keynes in the UK. But those miles may provide a route to 21st Century transportation.

The two midsize cities are contributing to one segment of the three-part test of connected and autonomous vehicles going on this year in the United Kingdom. Bristol and London are running the other two segments (See “London Tests Fully Autonomous, Electric-Powered Pod Transit”).

The trials in Milton Keynes and Coventry offer a mix of geographic areas and vehicle types.

There will be seven standard road vehicles along with 40 pods, otherwise known as low-speed autonomous transport systems. The pods will operate on sidewalks and other areas where they share space with pedestrians.

The road vehicles include three from Jaguar Land Rover, and two each from Ford and Tata Motors European Technology Center.

Plans call for the standard vehicles to eventually test Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications technology.

The Milton Keynes/Coventry test is covered in the article “MK dons a collaborative approach” that runs in the latest issue of Smart Highways, a three-year-old pub covering intelligent transport systems in the UK. The author is Mark Ledsom, communications manager for Transport Systems Catapult.

The Milton Keynes/Coventry program is overseen by the UK Autodrive consortium. The three-year project has funding of 18.2 million pounds, or $25.8 million, and includes 16 member organizations.

The pods are built by Coventry-based RDM Group, and include autonomous systems from Oxbotica, the spin off from the Mobile Robotics Group at Oxford University.

As the tests are going on, UK Autodrive will organize and oversee three working groups, according to Ledsom.

The safety, data security and V2X communications group will develop recommendations for future deployments.

The urban issues group will look at the coming impact of driverless technology on cities in both a 10-year and a 25-year time frame. Mobility and congestion issues will be top of mind.

The third group will conduct surveys on autonomous and connected issues, in Coventry, Milton Keynes, the UK, and such world cities as Los Angeles and Shanghai.

Milton Keynes is home to Bletchley Park, where the Brits broke the Nazi’s Enigma codes in WWII. Scientists there created the ‘bombe’ electromechanical device that deciphered the German’s strategic plans, thus saving countless lives and shortening the war.

Transport Systems Catapult was established by the government agency Innovate UK to drive intelligent mobility for transporting goods and people.

Photo by Jaguar Land Rover.

Todd Stone-BritishColumbia-Canada-Transport Minister

One Canadian City is Saying ‘No’ to Self-Driving Car Testing

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Every day, more and more cities across the globe are saying Yes to testing and preparing for autonomous transportation. However, it appears Vancouver, Canada will not be one of them-at least, not any time soon.

News outlets are reporting that Transportation Minister Todd Stone says British Columbia has no plans to test self-driving vehicles on public roads in the province any time soon.

Furthermore, he is warning cities across the province that they do not have free reign to begin testing without the federal government’s approval.

“I don’t believe the City of Vancouver has regulatory authority over the operation of motor vehicles, that’s a provincial authority, and safety standards is a federal role,” Stone said, according to CBC News.

MetroNews Canada says Stone is not against driverless cars; he says, rather, he is “keenly interested” in the technology and its potential transportation benefits, but that there’s much more discussion that needs to take place within the government before that can or should happen.

Stone also acknowledged that other provinces across Canada-such as Ontario-are already moving forward with testing, and said that perhaps British Columbia should see how that turns out first.

“Our preference at the moment in British Columbia is to stand pat and just keep a close eye on these other jurisdictions,” he said, according to MetroNews Canada.  “There probably will come a day where driverless vehicles will be on roads across North America. For us, safety will be the most important consideration.”

MetroNews reports that, last week, Transport Minister Marc Garneau asked the Senate to “launch a study of the regulatory, policy and technical issues” associated with driverless vehicles so that Canada does not miss out on the potential benefits.

Vancouver City Councillor Geoff Meggs appeared to be disappointed in Stone’s statement, and said he wishes the city and province would be more proactive in exploring the valuable technology.

“It would be great to see the province step forward in a more comprehensive way because I think all the municipalities will be asking questions about it,” he said, according to CBC News.

 

UK Smart Mobility Living Lab

Driverless and Connected Car ‘Living Lab’ and Testing Ground Launches in UK

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Jennifer van der Kleut

The United Kingdom is moving full-speed ahead toward a society where driverless transportation is more common.

News outlets this week announced the launch of the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab in Greenwich, London. The lab will reportedly function as an “open innovation environment” where companies and researchers can design and develop self-driving and connected-car technology, test it in a realistic environment, and then work to integrate the finished product into the public, Highways Magazine explains.

Experts are saying Greenwich is the perfect place for the Living Lab to be located due to the many forms of transportation that locals use there, including roads, buses, underground, rail, the Docklands Light Railway, river buses and the Emirates Airline cable car.

“According to [the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL)], this provides an ideal environment to test the interaction and interoperability of connected and autonomous vehicles in a variety of different environments,” Highways Magazine reports.

“By providing a welcoming and real-life regulatory environment for testing, TRL can help accelerate the adoption of new technology and enable the UK to play a pivotal role in the development of this global market over the next five years,” said Rob Wallis, CEO of TRL, to Eureka Magazine UK.

IT Pro Portal reports that 9 million pounds in government funding was key in helping the Living Lab come to be. The project is one of many that received a portion of 100 million pounds in investment funds that the government pledged toward driverless transportation research in 2015.

UK elected officials are praising the launch of the Smart Mobility Living Lab.

Transport Minister Andrew Jones said to Highways Magazine, “Driverless cars will improve road safety and bring huge benefits to the economy. We have backed projects in Greenwich with [9 million pounds] of funding that are helping to turn it into a major centre for testing and demonstration. I am excited to see the UK Smart Mobility Living Lab progress, helping to keep the UK at the forefront of the motoring of the future.”

Driving with Smartphone GPS

California Researchers: We Can Now Pinpoint GPS Accuracy to Within A Centimeter

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Exciting research coming out of the University of California at Riverside (UCR) this week could have a huge impact on not only the progress toward driverless technology, but also airline travel and several other industries as well.

Thanks to smartphone apps and even the somewhat-ancient dashboard device, GPS navigation has become an essential part of modern transportation. However, in most cases it can do no better than pinpoint the street or even the block you are on.

That is, until UCR’s new DGPS system.

Explains head of research Jay Farrell to ScienceAlert.com, new technology known as DGPS, or Differential Global Positioning System, can more accurately pinpoint one’s whereabouts thanks to additional data from ground-based reference stations, instead of traditional GPS’ satellite-based systems, which are usually no more accurate than about 10 meters.

Farrell says DGPS can get it down to within one centimeter, or less than half an inch.

“Farrell and his team developed a new technique that supplements existing GPS data with on-board inertial measurements from a sensor. The merging of those measurements in itself isn’t new, but in the past it’s required super-expensive computers to combine the two data sources, which meant it was never going to work in your car or smartphone, regardless of how accurate it was,” explain the folks at ScienceAlert.

“But the researchers have now created a new set of algorithms, which reduce the computations and processing power needed to integrate the two systems by several orders of magnitude, making the technology a whole lot more affordable.”

In other words, being more affordable, it’s quite possible we could see the technology in personal and mobile devices in the future.

This could have major implications not only for driverless technology, but also airline navigation, smartphones and other wearable technology, and even agriculture.

“Achieving this level of accuracy with computational loads that are suitable for real-time applications on low-power processors will not only advance the capabilities of highly specialized navigation systems, like those used in driverless cars and precision agriculture, but it will also improve location services accessed through mobile phones and other personal devices, without increasing their cost,” Farrell said to Phys.org.

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Google Wins Patent for Driverless Delivery Trucks

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Jennifer van der Kleut

In an exciting development, news outlets are reporting this week that Google has won a patent for self-driving delivery trucks.

According to publications like Quartz and The Verge, the patent application includes illustrations of trucks that would have a series of lockers that could be opened with an exclusive pin number by the person waiting for the delivery. Alternate options include allowing the person to swipe the credit card they used to make the purchase. The application implies the customer could choose a delivery window and the method of retrieving the package from the truck.

The Verge reports that the patent application indicates that the technology that would navigate the self-driving trucks functions similarly to that of its fleet of self-driving test cars.

The application implies that the person waiting for the delivery would be texted when the truck was close, or if the truck was running behind its specified time window.

Quartz writes that this patent application “dovetails nicely” with Google Alphabet’s current patent for autonomous delivery drones-an idea for which Amazon hopes to beat them to market, though there’s no telling when that might happen. Amazon has already released a handful of commercials promoting its future “Amazon Prime Air” service.

“…Whenever the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration figures out how to incorporate commercial drones into the national airspace, [Amazon] will be ready to set up its service,” Quartz writes.

There’s no telling when we might see driverless delivery trucks from Google. The Verge speculates that Google merely wants to patent all aspects of the idea before any competitors can do so.

“Most of the patent is taken up with covering every possible base. Google doesn’t pay these fancy lawyers for nothing.”

baidu

Could China’s More Relaxed Regulations Push Baidu’s Driverless Car Past Google, Ford and Others?

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Jennifer van der Kleut

When one thinks about driverless car testing these days, names like Google, Ford, GM, Tesla Motors and potentially even Apple instantly come to mind.

But perhaps there’s one other company whose name is escaping you-one that some experts think could possibly even speed right past the others-Baidu.

Baidu is a Chinese company that many don’t realize is already out there, testing driverless cars in varying weather conditions  in different spots around China. And, thanks to China’s more relaxed regulations, some think they could very well leave industry leaders in the dust and get a driverless car to market first.

It certainly seems as though Baidu has the clout to succeed, as the company is valued at around $55 billion.

In addition, Motley Fool reports, “Baidu also has the big ambitions to go with its big size: The company hopes to have driverless cars in 10 Chinese cities within three years. By comparison, Google has been working on the technology since 2009 and only has driverless cars on the road in two cities — Austin, Texas and Mountain View, Calif. Ford has driven a driverless test vehicle at Mcity, a simulated city at the University of Michigan, while GM hopes to begin road testing one on its campus by the end of this year. None of these American companies have taken any steps toward testing in China.”

Motley Fool also points out that the Chinese seem eager to adopt the technology, where most surveys still indicate at least half of Americans remain skeptical of it.

“Baidu is focusing on China, where the market for autonomous vehicles could be nearly as large as North America’s by 2035, according to data from IHS Automotive. Indeed, according to a recent University of Michigan survey, 96 percent of Chinese drivers would be interested in purchasing an autonomous vehicle, compared to only 66 percent in the U.S.”

Plus, regulations in America complicate a move toward autonomous transportation-there is currently no consistent national policy, and a small handful of states have conflicting regulations, while others have no law on the books at all.

By contrast, in China, Motley Fool points out that there is a one-party, “top-down” regulatory system, where local laws are not allowed to contradict national laws.

To its benefit, Baidu has reportedly made several presentations to China’s president on the merits of autonomous and connected vehicle technology.

“Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly considers autonomous vehicles and digital technology key areas of opportunity for Chinese manufacturers,” Motley Fool reports.

Though historically, China has been a century behind other nations in automotive technology, Baidu’s co-founder and CEO says he is confident Baidu has the technical expertise to reach its autonomous transportation goals.

“Robin Li, Baidu’s co-founder and chief executive officer, has invested heavily into a subfield of artificial intelligence known as deep learning, which aims to improve search results and computing tasks by training computers to work more like the human brain,” Bloomberg Business reports. “[Wang Jing, Baidu’s senior vice-president in charge of its autonomous drive division,] thinks the company can leverage its expertise in artificial intelligence, data mapping and Internet connectivity to excel in autonomous driving technology.”

“Google enjoys a huge lead in autonomy today. But don’t underestimate the Chinese will to compete,” Michael Dunne, president of Dunne Automotive Ltd. in Hong Kong, said to Bloomberg.

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London Tries to Lure Google Self-Driving Cars for Testing

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Barely two weeks after news broke that Google was applying to add four additional U.S. cities to its self-driving car testing program, it seems Google could be setting its sights across the ocean as well.

News outlets like The Guardian and Engadget are reporting that London officials are attempting to woo Google to their city.

Engadget claims that one of the key reasons to test Google’s self-driving cars in the U.K. is because things are the polar opposite there-drivers sit on the right side of the car, and drive in the left lane.

Engadget reports the most recent meeting between Google reps and London officials took place just in the past few weeks, but that it was just the latest of “at least a dozen” such meetings over three years.

“It is still very early days, but we would be keen for trials to happen in London whenever Google are ready to move them into other countries,” The Guardian quotes Isabel Dedring, deputy mayor for transport.

Both The Guardian and Engadget add, there’s a lot going on in the U.K. transportation-wise these days.

In an effort to ease congestion between London’s east and west ends, The Guardian reports that two different tunnels are being proposed. Dedring pointed out that autonomous car technology could allow the tunnels to be built much more narrowly, since radar and sensors control the distance between autonomous vehicles.

Engadget says earlier this month, the U.K. government also announced that it will invest 20 million pounds in eight driverless car projects. This comes after the government partially funded a number of research projects including electric shuttle buses and two-person pods, virtual simulators and LIDAR-equipped jeeps in December of 2014.

The four U.S. cities Google plans to expand its testing to are still not completely clear, though the famous Koala cars suddenly popped up in Kirkland, Washington one day last week, a sea-side suburb of Seattle.

Speculation is that Contra Costa in northern California, where the GoMentum Station testing ground is located, could be another spot where they pop up soon.