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News Roundup: Waymo Gets Patent For Exterior Airbags On Self-Driving Cars, Ford to Test ‘Cellular-V2X’ Tech in San Diego and More

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Jennifer van der Kleut

 

Waymo granted patent for exterior airbags

Google’s self-driving car spinoff company, Waymo, has been granted a patent for an airbag system that would be located on the outside of a car. Since self-driving cars are outfitted with sensors, cameras, radar and lidar on the outside of the car, Waymo engineers argue that the car itself can predict an accident even sooner than a human driver can (or can’t, if he or she is distracted). The concept of exterior airbags could protect passengers in the vehicle from an impact, as well as “reduce the likelihood of severe injuries or damage to objects such as pedestrians, bicyclists, animals, other vehicles, or simply inanimate objects.” Read more from Silicon Beat.

 

Mcity autonomous vehicle testing ground gets big investment from automakers, corporations

Mcity, the University of Michigan’s testing ground for autonomous vehicles, has received a total of $11 million in funding from 11 different companies, both corporations and automakers. Ford, General Motors, Toyota and Honda all contributed about $1 million each, and other corporations like State Farm Insurance, Verizon, LG and others. Mcity is a 32-acre man-made “city” where companies can conduct research and test autonomous vehicles. The hub offers a number of varied conditions for vehicles to test in, such as different road conditions, four-lane highways, high-pedestrian streets featuring fake, mechanical pedestrians, and much more. Read more from HybridCars.com.

 

Ford partnering with AT&T, Qualcomm and Nokia to test ‘cellular-V2X’ technology

Ford Motor Co. announced this week that it has formed a partnership with Qualcomm, AT&T and Nokia to test cellular modems that can connect vehicles to each other and to roadside infrastructure to help better navigate in bad weather or construction zones. “Cellular-V2X” technology, as it is called, aims to connect vehicles with traffic lights, roadside beacons and other vehicles on the road to share real-time information about driving conditions. It’s meant to improve safety, as well as help speed up the deployment of self-driving vehicles. Testing is scheduled to take place in San Diego, California before the end of the year. For testing, Ford vehicles will be outfitted with Qualcomm hardware powered by AT&T’s 4G LTE cellular network and Nokia’s computing technology. Read more from Automotive News.

Image: Rendering of self-driving minivan with exterior airbags by Waymo

News Roundup: Driverless Truck Delivers Beer 120 Miles Away, London Decides Not to Mark Self-Driving Cars for Fear of Bullying, and More

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Jennifer van der Kleut

A roundup of some of the most interesting headlines to come out of the industry this week:

London to test unmarked driverless cars for fear of ‘bullying’

Volvo is getting ready to kick off a test of around 100 cars in the UK capital of London in 2018-but many people may not even realize. That’s because British lawmakers fear that if motorists realize they are driving next to a self-driving car, they may decide to “bully” it by cutting it off, overtaking it with speed or other similar acts-at least, that’s what a recent research study suggested. Therefore, Volvo has decided not to mark the 4x4s they will be “loaning” to participants in any way, so they are indistinguishable from regular human-driven cars. London’s trial will be one of the world’s first to use public volunteers to test the self-driving cars. Read more from the Telegraph Observer.

 

Otto driverless truck makes 120-mile trip-to deliver beer

The Uber-owned driverless truck company Otto made history recently when it made a 120-mile journey from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs with its “driver” barely needing to touch the wheel at all. The truck delivered 50,000 cans of Budweiser beer, and the driver was only needed to take the controls for on-ramps and freeway exits. The rest of the time? He was relaxing, monitoring the trip from a comfortable sleeper berth in the back of the truck. Otto representatives are calling the trip a big success. Read more from Automotive News.

 

Toyota makes big investment in car-sharing service

Toyota has invested $10 million in the on-demand car-sharing company Getaround, based in San Francisco. Getaround operates much like the “Airbnb of cars,” allowing car owners to rent out their cars on an on-demand basis for an hourly or daily rate. The service boasts around 200,000 members and has been operating in San Francisco, Chicago, Washington D.C. and a few other U.S. cities since 2013. Getaround promises up to $1 million of insurance coverage to every renter and owner, and says car owners can make up to an extra $10,000 of annual income by offering up their cars when they’re not using them. Read more about Toyota’s investment in Getaround from Reuters.

Courtesy Image: Otto self-driving truck

IIHS Study: Automatic Braking and Forward Collision Warning Systems Could Have Prevented 700,000 Crashes in 2013

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Jennifer van der Kleut

A new study about the potential benefits of automatic braking asserts that the technology could have prevented a whopping 700,000 rear-end crashes in 2013.

The study, conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and Highway Loss Data Institute using U.S. police-reported crash data, is adding fuel to the fight being waged by countless safety groups, regulators and even some automakers to include automatic braking systems in all future car models.

The study also touches upon the benefit of forward collision warning systems, reporting that the technology reduces crashes by 23 percent.

Crashes are reduced by 40 percent on average in cars that feature automatic braking, the study indicates.

Though front-crash prevention technology is becoming more prevalent, the study reports that in most cases, it is still only being offered as optional equipment.

“That may soon change, however. In September, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and IIHS announced an agreement in principle with automakers to make autobrake standard on all models,” the report reads.

The study also suggests that automatic braking reduces injuries in front crashes.

“The rate of rear-end crashes with injuries decreases by 42 percent with [both] forward collision warning [and] autobrake,” the report said.

“Even when a crash isn’t avoided, systems that have autobrake have a good chance of preventing injuries by reducing the impact speed,” says Jessica Cicchino, the study’s author and IIHS’ vice president for research.

All in all, the study says 700,000 crashes in 2013 could have been avoided with safety technology like forward collision warning systems and automatic braking, which amounts to 13 percent of all police-reported crashes that year.

Still, it seems a slow road toward implementing the technologies widely.

According to Automotive News, “For the 2015 model year, just 1 percent of vehicles included automatic braking as a standard feature, while 26 percent offered it as an option, according to IIHS.”