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News Roundup: U.S. Senate Approves Driverless Car Bill, Federal Government Gives State Millions For Automated Taxi Service, and More

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Driverless car bill passes in the U.S. Senate

Members of the U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a bill similar to one already passed in the House of Representatives that will presumably help clear the way for driverless car technology to move forward. The bill keeps approval of driver’s licenses, regulation of insurance and enforcement of traffic laws within the states’ purview, but places oversight of the design and manufacture of driverless vehicles in the hands of the federal government-specifically the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Like the House bill, the Senate bill also permits Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to hand individual auto manufacturers exemptions from federal safety standards for up to 100,000 vehicles per year while they are fine-tuning their technology; and it also places responsibility with tech designers to protect their vehicles from cyber attacks. Read more from the Washington Post. 

 

Federal government giving South Carolina county millions for driverless taxis?

According to a news report from a USA Today-affiliated regional newspaper, the federal government has pledged millions of dollars toward the development of a driverless taxi service in Greenville, South Carolina. Greenville Online says $4 million has been pledged to help develop the nation’s first automated taxi service in Greenville County. In a news conference Thursday, county officials announced the first test vehicle will be deployed on the Clemson University campus, in connection with the college’s International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR). While the test vehicle is only the size of a golf cart, officials said the program’s expansion will feature typical-size vehicles, as well as possible non-emergency medical vehicles for senior and disabled residents. A group called the Global Autonomous Vehicle Partnership is matching funds to help the development of the autonomous vehicles. Read more from Greenville Online.

 

Driverless startup hires execs away from Google’s Waymo, Microsoft

Driverless vehicle startup Nauto is fresh off a monster round of funding, and is already looking to expand its business both locally and globally. In a first step toward that goal, the startup announced this week that it has hired executives from Microsoft, and Google Alphabet’s self-driving car spinoff, Waymo. Waymo’s former head of business, Jennifer Haroon, has joined Nauto as its new vice-president of corporate development and business operations. Microsoft’s former vice-president of global enterprise sales, Sanket Akerkar, joins Nauto as its new senior vice-president of global fleets and insurance. Nauto most recently raised $159 million in funding from a number of major firms, and already has several lucrative partnerships in place with auto manufacturers such as General Motors, BMW and Toyota. The company currently outfits commercial fleets with accident detection devices (shown in image), and is looking to scale out its geographic operations and commercial business. Read more from Recode.

Image: Nauto accident detection device / Credit: Nauto Inc.

In Q1 2016, the Biggest U.S. Demographic Buying Mobile Data Service Was…Cars

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Can you name someone you know who does not own a smartphone? It might be tough. It’s no secret that the U.S. smartphone market is heavily saturated.

When it comes to cellular service and data plans, the biggest piece of the pie when it comes to sales continues to be existing customers-that is, people who are already devoted smart-device customers, but are looking to upgrade to fancier, more high-tech mobile devices with better features, or who are switching providers to get a better deal on their service.

But an interesting new market report indicates that the biggest growth these days is coming from new customers wanting new types of devices-and the most attractive new customer is actually your car, Recode reports.

“In the first quarter, for example, the major carriers actually added more connected cars as new accounts than they did phones,” Recode reported.

In fact, 32 percent of all net-add devices (new devices previously not hooked up to data service) were cars last quarter, indicates industry consultant Chetan Sharma in her U.S. Mobile Market Update report.

Sharma reports that AT&T has been adding the most new connected-car clients, though Verizon remains an undisputed, overall industry leader.

“Verizon’s IoT/Telematics accounted for $195M in Q1 and is likely to cross the $1-billion mark in 2016, making the U.S. the hotbed for ‘Connected Intelligence’ activities, growth, and continued experimentation,” Sharma said.

Sharma reported that Apple dominated the device market in Q1, with a 39-percent share, and Android business rose only slightly, mostly thanks to sales of Samsung devices, while Sony, HTC, LG and some other Android players suffered “deep losses.”

Looking ahead, Sharma predicts the U.S. mobile data traffic to grow by 65 percent in 2016.

Ford’s Autonomous Cars Show They Can Navigate in Complete Darkness

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Ford Motor Company’s autonomous car program is marking off all the important checkpoints these days.

Not long after the company demonstrated how their test cars could perform well in ice and snow, and then demonstrated its new algorithm that can tell the difference between different types of precipitation like raindrops and snowflakes, Ford is showing off how its self-driving cars can navigate in complete darkness.

That’s complete darkness-no streetlights, no headlights.

How do they manage this? PC Magazine explains, “The cars are equipped with LiDAR technology and 3D maps, which work together to allow the vehicles to drive without headlights.”

Ford recently filmed a video showing off its new “Nightonomy” ability at the Proving Ground testing area in Arizona, driving along pitch-black desert roads. The test operator sitting in the driver’s seat was equipped with night-vision headgear, and Ford technicians monitored the drive on computer screens.

Ford executives say this shows the company’s incredible progress toward cars capable of fully autonomous driving, as they say the cars performed “flawlessly” in the test, even on windy roads.

Ford’s Randy Visintainer, head of the company’s autonomous car project, told Re/code magazine that the successful Nightonomy test also shows how, even if one of their autonomous cars’ cameras failed, the car could still operate safely using only 3D maps and LiDAR.

“[Testing the car] in complete darkness basically took the camera completely out of the equation. The lidar, being the active laser source, was able to illuminate the space [in close proximity]. And you can see we could do the localization, object detection and tracking [with just the lidar],” Visintainer told Re/code. “That was the purpose of the test, to show the capability to continue to operate in the absence of the camera.”

Ford said it is committed to delivering fully autonomous cars in the near future. The company told PC Magazine its next move is to triple its autonomous test car fleet, with at least 30 self-driving hybrids testing in California, Arizona and Michigan.

See video of Ford’s “Nightonomy” test below:

 

How Traffic App Waze Could Be Key in Winning the Driverless Race for Google (Particularly Over Uber)

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Jennifer van der Kleut

Google’s purchase of Waze a few years ago could turn out to be a clinching factor in Google’s race to win driverless.

Waze, a traffic mapping app that allows drivers and commuters to report accidents and delays, has data-sharing agreements with 51 municipalities around the world. Those municipalities love that they can use Waze’s traffic data for planning and maintenance purposes, Recode recently reported.

This bodes well for Google’s relationship with local and state governments.

Uber, on the other hand, has had a rather volatile relationship with municipalities in the recent past.

As AutoBlog points out, the California Department of Motor Vehicles’ recently released regulations that require that all self-driving vehicles have both a steering wheel and pedals (which Google’s prototype cars do not), and that a licensed driver be ready and capable of taking over operation of the vehicle at all times, deal a death blow to any of Uber’s plans to try and build a driverless ride-hailing business, similar to their current model but without costly employee drivers that dig into the company’s profits.

The fact that Uber has operated in defiance of most governments, most times debuting its services in cities without asking for prior permission, does not bode well for Uber’s future plans.

Though California’s recent regulations for driverless cars do put somewhat of a damper on Google’s current operations, perhaps its pleasant relationship with the state government, and the offering of Waze’s invaluable data, can help pave the way for Google to win.

Only time will tell.