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DisruptMobility2

Disrupting Mobility

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An interactive forum for leading executives, government representatives, and academics to discuss sustainable futures of transportation. Disruptive trends and technologies present tremendous challenges and open new debates around:

The Sharing Economy and Shared Mobility,

Changing Demographics, Sociological, and Other Key Trends,

Role of Courier Network Services (Flexible Goods Movement) and Shared Mobility,

Urban Design and Infrastructure of Disruptive Mobility,

The Role of Policy and the Public Sector,

Designing for the Sharing Economy.

CapitolConstruct1

Autonomous Tech Scales Capitol Hill

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Burney Simpson

The autonomous transportation industry brought its game to Capitol Hill this week, holding a nearly all-day event that featured speeches from a U.S. Senator, four Congressmen, and a number of driverless leaders, all over the course of a luncheon, a seminar, and a showcase event/cocktail party with several dozen of the top firms in the business.

Not bad for a day’s work.

Trade group ITS America put on ‘The Future of Mobility: Rethinking Transportation for the Next 30 Years’ and garnered the participation of Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, and Representatives Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, Rodney Davis, an Illinois Republican, and Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon.

While much of the conversation was positive and friendly, a few of the seminar panelists took the opportunity to raise issues that Congress may have to address someday.

  • Data Privacy and Security — Daniel Morgan, chief data officer with the US Department of Transportation, noted that the security and privacy of citizen travel data was essential but that the information could be beneficial for metropolitan planners. Morgan floated the idea that a third party firm be responsible for collecting and storing the data if people objected to the federal government holding it.
  • Reserving DSRC wavelength for V2V and V2I — Alan Korn, an executive with heavy-truck parts supplier Meritor WABCO, said the Dedicated Short-Range Communications 5.9 GHz spectrum must be reserved for Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communications to ensure autonomous driving safety. Later, Sen. Peters said that new technology may allow for the sharing of the 5.9 spectrum with other Wi-Fi users.
  • Driverless Timeline — Supplying a welcome dose of reality was Tom Dingus, director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI). Dingus said developing a truly autonomous system would be considerably more difficult and probably take longer than some recent studies and press reports suggest. Driverless vehicles will have to be safer than the much-maligned human driver but consider that the average human has one rear-end crash every 25 years, and makes 3 million braking decision in that time, said Dingus. “It is very difficult to build a system that is that robust,” said Dingus.

The exhibition hall featured 22 organizations involved with autonomous transportation development, including Eberle Design, Econolite, GM, Iteris, the University of Michigan Mobility Transformation Center, NXP Semiconductors, Southwest Research Institute, and Uber.

VTTI was there too taking a bit of a victory lap after its successful demo this week on a nearby highway of its driverless Cadillac SRX. The ride along featured Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, and generated extensive media coverage (See “Virginia Seeks Autonomous Research Lead,” October 20, 2015).

The showcase garnered a little more exposure for the technology with another half-dozen members of Congress visiting the exhibit hall to check out the firms on display, according to an ITS spokesperson.

The day also offered an exhibit of a DeLorean car from an old movie that predicted people would fly on skateboardy-type things. This fascinated a number of Gen-Yers and Millennials who took selfies.

Photo: United States Capitol, 2015, Matt C.

D20 Stock Index

Driverless Stocks Rise for Three Straight Weeks

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Driverless Transportation

For the third straight week, the Driverless Transportation (D20) Stock Index outpaced both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 Index by gaining 1.3 percent and finishing at 156.19. The Dow added 0.8 percent to end the week at 12215.97 while the S&P 500 finished at 2033.11 up 0.9 percent. For the D20 this week gainers outnumbered losers 13 to seven.

D20 Stock Index, Dow Jones, and S&P weekly change ending October 16, 2015

After a one week reprieve, Volkswagen (VLKPY) returned to the losing side, dropping 4.6 percent and ending the week at $23.07. Volkswagen’s credit rating dropped and management shake-ups surfaced as the emissions scandal continues to plague the company.

The price of crude oil has been rising in the last month and a half and that has been a boon to BYD Co. (BYDDY), the Chinese electric vehicle and battery manufacturer. BYD had its sixth consecutive weekly advance and closed Friday up 10.7 percent. Between September 4 and October 16 BYD rose from $7.70 to $12.45 a share, a 62 percent increase. NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA) also rose consistently during that time, ending last week up 6.9 percent to finish at $27.86.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

Watch: Mouser’s Empowering Innovation Together Goes Back to the Future With CAVCOE

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harbrickkia1

Renesas DevCon to Feature Highly Automated Driving from Harbrick

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Burney Simpson

The Renesas DevCon 2015 next month is shaping up as a major conference on autonomous vehicle technology and will feature ride along opportunities in vehicles just coming out of developers’ garages.

Moscow, Idaho-based Harbrick has teamed with Renesas to create several advanced vehicles loaded with autonomous technology that will be available for rides.

Harbrick is the developer of the PolySync platform for autonomous systems used by auto OEMs and tier 1 auto suppliers. Tokyo-based Renesas is a major global supplier of microcontrollers (MCUs) and microprocessors (MPOs).

DevCon runs from October 12-15 at the Hyatt Regency in Orange Co., Calif. It offers a slew of seminars, presentations, workshops and panel discussions from experts in autonomous and connected driving technology. Topics covered include ADAS, automotive embedded controls, automotive tools and ecosystems, safety and security of autonomous systems, new developments in the automotive cockpit, and more.

Harbrick will show in the parking lot two 2015 SUVs from Roush Enterprises outfitted with an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) sensor set and a full complement of technology that allows for autonomous driving.

“We will be giving rides in these. They are not actually automated yet but they are fully instrumented with V2X and V2I technology,” said Josh Hartung, Harbrick’s CEO and co-founder. “This is what highly automated driving – HAD – will look like.”

Harbrick’s SUVs will include eight different LiDAR systems, five different radar systems, along with Vehicle to Everything (V2X) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I) technology, several cameras, and motion sensors, all working together to create a sensor fusion demonstration, notes Hartung.

SENSOR FUSION
Sensor fusion occurs when data from a number of sensors are combined, or fused, to create something greater than the information supplied by a single sensor. For autonomous vehicles the sensor fusion can create a simulated three dimensional space filled with multiple objects, much like what a human experiences while driving.

The Harbrick team is preparing simulated accidents, or threats of accidents, for those taking a test drive in one of the SUVs.

Indoors at the show, Harbrick will exhibit a Harbrick Kia, a White Knight Mojavaton that was used in DARPA challenges, a bench demo of its PolySync system, along with some background on Harbrick and its plans for the future.

Harbrick uses the Renesas R-Car development boards in its PolySync platform. Renesas claims the system enables “the delivery of high-resolution camera video through multiple systems while maintaining real-time performance with low latency levels.”

This month, Renesas officially launched its R-Car T2 system-on-a-chip for Ethernet AVB-enabled vehicle camera networks, complementing its R-Car family of devices for infotainment, instrument cluster and ADAS applications.

Safe autonomous driving requires higher performance from processors to deliver continuous, high-resolution, real-time camera video from multiple sources. These systems must be able to conduct driver assist for such programs as braking, steering, and obstacle detection.

 

D20 Stock Index week ending September 18, 2015

D20 Gainers Outnumber Losers for the Week with TomTom in the Lead

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Driverless Transportation

Two consecutive weekly gains have pushed the Driverless Transportation (D20) Stock Index just over the 150 mark.  The D20 Index outpaced both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 by gaining 2.42 points or 1.63 percent to close the week at 150.83.  The Dow lost 0.3 percent of its value while the S&P gave back 0.15 percent.  In the D20, gainers outnumbered losers sixteen to four.

One of the D20’s newest members, TomTom (TOM2), led the advance this week with a 7.69 percent gain in value.  TomTom’s rise was due to a combination of factors.  First, since Nokia’s sale of its Here! mapping business, rumors continue to swirl around the prospect that TomTom will do the same.  Second, TomTom announced strong year to date sales results.  Right behind TomTom was BYD Company (BYDDY) who gained 6.98 percent.

The D20 loss leaders for the week were Volvo (VOLVY) who lost 4.30 percent of its value and Volkswagen (VLKPY) who lost 4.62 percent amid allegations that they cheated on their periodic state emissions testing for some of their diesel powered cars.

Since the D20 changed its measurement method on August 28th, 2015, the top three gainers have been:

The three biggest losers have been:

  • Mobileye (MBLY) – down 14.02%
  • Renesas (TYO:6732) – down 7.49%
  • Volkswagen (VLKPY) – down 4.83%

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

D20Sept11b

Growing Driverless Stock Index (D20) Reflects Dynamic Industry

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We have some exciting changes in the Driverless Transportation D20 Index to announce. First off, we are replacing three companies in the index and making the D20 more international in scope. We also changed the basis for our calculation of the D20 Index, moving to a dollar averaged approach.

The three new stocks in the D20 are:

  1.  Amsterdam-based TomTom (TOM2) is traded on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange. It replaces Nokia (NOK) which is selling its Here mapping division, its only business involved in driverless or connected vehicles. TomTom, known for its popular aftermarket GPS turn-by-turn directional devices for cars, has three units that are involved with driverless technology – the auto unit provides components such as maps, traffic and software to auto OEMs; the licensing group leverages maps, traffic and navigation content and services; and the telematics unit is dedicated to fleet management and vehicle telematics.
  2. Ontario, Canada-based Magna International (MGA) is traded on the NYSE. It replaces the lightly-traded KVH Inc. (KVHI), a business that primarily delivers ISP services for hotels, resorts and ships. Magna has a large and growing electronics division which focuses on driver assistance systems, as well as systems to support power-train electrification. It manufactures electronic, electromechanical and mechatronic products, and provides software and hardware development.
  3. Tokyo-based Renesas Electronics (TYO: 6723) trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. It replaces Iteris (ITI), a lightly-traded firm that provides intelligent transportation systems for municipalities. Renesas was formed through a merger of NEC Electronics Corp., and Renesas Technology Corp., (a joint venture of Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric). Renesas Electronics is a semiconductor manufacturer that designs, develops, manufactures, sells and services microcontrollers for the automotive industry.

The D20 Index now has companies — TomTom in Amsterdam and Renesas in Tokyo — with stocks that are primarily listed on non-US exchanges and use foreign currencies for prices. To calculate the D20 and include these stocks we convert the non-US stock prices (Euros and Japanese Yen) to US dollars using a current conversion ratio. The values were: Euro – currently 1.136 dollars per Euro; and Japanese Yen – currently .00829 dollars per Yen.

CALCULATING THE INDEX

We have changed the basis for calculating the D20 Index. Previously, the value of the D20 was calculated by using one share of stock from each of the 20 stocks in the index. With the new dollar-averaged approach we track the value of $1,000 invested in each of the 20 stocks. And on August 28, 2015 we started with roughly a total of $20,000 invested equally in the 20 stocks ($1,000 per company) in the D20 Index.

 

Name

  

Symbol

 (As of 8/28/2015)
Share Price Shares Currency Conversion Value
BlackBerry Ltd BBRY $             7.37 135.690 1.000 $           1,000
BYD COMPANY LTD ADR BYDDY $             8.44 118.480 1.000 $           1,000
Continental AG (ADR) CTTAY $           42.86 23.330 1.000 $           1,000
Daimler AG (USA) DDAIF $           80.70 12.390 1.000 $           1,000
Delphi Automotive PLC DLPH $           75.35 13.270 1.000 $           1,000
Denso Corp (ADR) DNZOY $           22.69 44.070 1.000 $           1,000
Ford Motor Company F $           13.73 72.830 1.000 $           1,000
General Motors Company GM $           29.01 34.470 1.000 $           1,000
Google Inc GOOG $       630.38 1.586 1.000 $           1,000
Magna MGA $           49.23 20.313 1.000 $           1,000
Mobileye NV Amsterdam MBLY $           56.42 17.724 1.000 $           1,000
Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. (ADR) NSANY $           18.31 54.620 1.000 $           1,000
NVIDIA Corporation NVDA $           22.73 43.990 1.000 $           1,000
Tesla Motors Inc TSLA $       248.48 4.025 1.000 $           1,000
TomTom TOM2 €             8.97 100.010 1.115 $           1,000
Visteon Corp VC $       100.49 9.950 1.000 $           1,000
VALEO SA (ADR) VLEEF $           63.66 15.710 1.000 $           1,000
Volkswagen AG (ADR) VLKPY $           38.32 26.100 1.000 $           1,000
Volvo AB (ADR) VOLVY $           10.94 91.410 1.000 $           1,000
Renesas TYO:6732 ¥       708.00 168.008 0.00841 $           1,000

Why the change? We found that with the one-share approach the stocks with the highest prices, i.e., Google, trading over $600, and Tesla, over $250, could swing the D20 wildly with just a small change in their pricing. The dollar-average approach means each company in the D20 now makes up about five percent of the index’s underlying value.

Why didn’t the D20 Index change radically when we switched the basis? We have always used a divisor with the D20 Index, and it started as 10.0. That meant we added up all the stock prices at the close of the trading day and divided by 10. To switch to the new dollar-average approach we changed the divisor so the new D2’s underlying value would be the same as the old D2. So on August 28, 2015 we used the closing stock prices to find the value of each of the two D20s, then adjusted the divisor for the dollar-averaged D20 so it had the same value as the old D20. The new divisor is 134.27296.

On September 4 we switched over to the revised D20 Index with the three new stocks and the new divisor.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

D20 Stock index week ending August 21, 2015

Deep Dow Drop Dooms Driverless Index

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Driverless Transportation

With its biggest absolute loss ever, the Driverless Transportation (D20) Stock Index followed the Dow Jones Industrials and gave back 6.6 percent of its value, falling 10.18 points to end the week at 143.55. Faced with a triple threat of bad news — a floundering Chinese economy, uncertainty at the U.S. Fed, and weakness in the commodities markets — the Dow lost 5.8 percent of its value, finishing the week at 16,459.75.

D20-DJ-SP-Stock-Index-week-ending-2015-08-21-weekly-changeFor the D20 Index, losers outnumbered gainers 19 to one. That lone bright spot was Iteris (ITI), which received good news about four new major customers and reported fairly positive quarterly results. The information technology supplier added 18 cents, or 9.5 percent, to close the week at $2.08.

Now the bad news. Google (GOOG) led the losers, shedding $44.64 a share, or 6.8 percent, to finish the week at $612.48. Meanwhile, BYD Co. (BYDDY) declined 14.7 percent and ended the week below $8 for the first time since early February. Other notable losers were Tesla (TSLA), down $12.38, and Mobileye (MBLY), dropping 13.1 percent or $7.84 per share.

Visit the Driverless Transportation D20 Stock Index page to learn more about it and its component stocks.

Events

DisruptMobility2

Disrupting Mobility

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An interactive forum for leading executives, government representatives, and academics to discuss sustainable futures of transportation. Disruptive trends and technologies present tremendous challenges and open new debates around:

The Sharing Economy and Shared Mobility,

Changing Demographics, Sociological, and Other Key Trends,

Role of Courier Network Services (Flexible Goods Movement) and Shared Mobility,

Urban Design and Infrastructure of Disruptive Mobility,

The Role of Policy and the Public Sector,

Designing for the Sharing Economy.