Recently in Vehicles Category

Bryant Walker Smith writes 99 pages saying Automated Vehicles are Probably Legal in the United States:

"This paper provides the most comprehensive discussion to date of whether so-called automated, autonomous, self-driving, or driverless vehicles can be lawfully sold and used on public roads in the United States. The short answer is that the computer direction of a motor vehicle’s steering, braking, and accelerating without real-time human input is probably legal. The long answer, which follows, provides a foundation for tailoring regulations and understanding liability issues related to these vehicles. The paper’s largely descriptive analysis, which begins with the principle that everything is permitted unless prohibited, covers three key legal regimes: the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, regulations enacted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and the vehicle codes of all fifty US states.

The Geneva Convention, to which the United States is a party, probably does not prohibit automated driving. The treaty promotes road safety by establishing uniform rules, one of which requires every vehicle or combination thereof to have a driver who is “at all times ... able to control” it. However, this requirement is likely satisfied if a human is able to intervene in the automated vehicle’s operation.

NHTSA’s regulations, which include the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to which new vehicles must be certified, do not generally prohibit or uniquely burden automated vehicles, with the possible exception of one rule regarding emergency flashers.
State vehicle codes probably do not prohibit—but may complicate—automated driving. These codes assume the presence of licensed human drivers who are able to exercise human judgment, and particular rules may functionally require that presence. New York somewhat uniquely directs a driver to keep one hand on the wheel at all times. In addition, far more common rules mandating reasonable, prudent, practicable, and safe driving have uncertain application to automated vehicles and their users. Following distance requirements may also restrict the lawful operation of tightly spaced vehicle platoons. Many of these issues arise even in the three states that expressly regulate automated vehicles.

The primary purpose of this paper is to assess the current legal status of automated vehicles. However, the paper includes draft language for US states that wish to clarify this status. It also recommends five near-term measures that may help increase legal certainty without producing premature regulation. First, regulators and standards organizations should develop common vocabularies and definitions that are useful in the legal, technical, and public realms. Second, the United States should closely monitor efforts to amend or interpret the 1969 Vienna Convention, which contains language similar to the Geneva Convention but does not bind the United States. Third, NHTSA should indicate the likely scope and schedule of potential regulatory action. Fourth, US states should analyze how their vehicle codes would or should apply to automated vehicles, including those that have an identifiable human operator and those that do not. Finally, additional research on laws applicable to trucks, buses, taxis, low-speed vehicles, and other specialty vehicles may be useful. This is in addition to ongoing research into the other legal aspects of vehicle automation."

(Via Marginal Revolution.)

Autoblog tells me about the Toyota i-ROAD :

"According to Toyota, the "i-ROAD takes the company closer to its goal of creating the ultimate range of eco cars." As you're surely aware, that range of eco cars includes the enormously successful Prius family, but this new machine is nothing like the hybrid hatchback. And it's not even a car – Toyota calls the i-ROAD a Personal Mobility Vehicle.

Toyota's i-ROAD Concept, which debuts at this week's Geneva Motor Show, is adorned with just three wheels, meaning it's just as much a motorcycle as it is a car, and the driver and passenger sit in tandem style instead of side-by-side. This arrangement allows for a very thin 850mm width, which is about the same as a large motorcycle. Because the cockpit is enclosed, the occupants don't need helmets, nor are they open to the elements outside.

Also like a traditional two-wheeler, the i-ROAD tilts through the turns and when driving on uneven surfaces. Toyota says its computer-controlled Active Lean technology automatically balances the vehicle with no input from the driver.
"

This is of course cool technology, and we have been awaiting skinny cars for a long time (even before GM's Lean Machine). Even without automation, this could add significant capacity and safety to road networks, as well as providing space conservation and energy reduction. Some videos follow. When will Toyota (or anyone) mass produce this so the costs are below those of passenger cars.

A picture of the Ryno is to the right. (I have yet to see one in the wild). It is self-balancing, and so the Segway of mobility scooters/motorcycles. As they say, don't let the road get in the way of your life. It is limited to 12.5 mph, and so one may ask, how is this better than a bicycle? Well if you don't want to pedal. ... How is this better than Segway? Well if you don't want to stand, and somehow it looks cooler.

A page devoted to vehicles with only one wheel is here: Motorwheels monowheels They are not all of the unicycle variety.

For reasons mentioned in a previous post, we got a new car. I had been hoping my next car would be self-driving, but that was not to be. The new car needed to be bigger than the previous as we have 3 children who sometimes all need to be transported. The Subaru Forester and similar sized cars are incapable of carrying three children in the back row in three car seats (which is what the law requires in some states, seriously the car seat lobby must be making a fortune on fear-mongering). This requires 3 rows. After filtering for size of car, we considered the Dodge Durango, GMC Acadia, Ford Flex, Honda Odyssey, Honda Pilot, and Toyota Siena. Nissan was out of the running based on previous quality issues (damn poor Sentry that stalled out at intersections), and in the end that did in GM as well (damn poor Chevette that leaked over the driver's foot when it rained, because water accumulated in the vents). Based on quality of ride and build, and reliability (both perceived and real), and the fact that I would not want to be in a minivan, we wound up with the Pilot, which we have nicknamed Menace 2 Society.

The car buying experience was not great (I purchased at Buerkle (pronounced Berkeley) Honda). The salesman let me do a short test drive, I would have preferred to be longer. They had their best price. I asked for lower. They had their Costco price. I asked for lower. They said ok to a lower price (take that Costco price guarantee). I probably could have pushed them more, but I didn't have all day, and didn't want to come back (since I was in a daily rental from Enterprise).

But then they had their financing people. I chose to finance primarily because I don't carry around that much cash, but interest rates are so freakin' low it would make sense in any case. Strangely the finance people also sell the service contracts. I don't have special fondness for dealer service (though they are usually fine in my experience, if pricey), but I like to make one organization responsible for everything so there is a minimum of finger pointing. It seems break-even in costs, based on history with previous cars, though they get some money in advance, but like I said, the interest rates are really low. They also sell the undercoating/rust proofing after-market. There is controversy about this, some say it is like mattress protection, and too expensive or worthless. I plan on holding the car a long time assuming it doesn't break, crash, or the price of gas doesn't go about $10/gallon, so I am interested in long term preservation. My last car was held 14 years, and after treatment did not rust (but was beginning to rust beforehand at edges with scratches.) At any rate, they sold as a package and it is hard to decompose how much it is for each item. There is an insurance aspect to this, hoping I won't use it, but if something goes wrong in the first 8 years, they can be held accountable.

As part of their service contract, they include a contracted service (Honda Care Roadside Assistance via Cross-Country Motor Club) that is like AAA for stranded cars etc. Good luck finding them though, this is not information they want you to have, or a service they want you to use (since you already paid for it, using it is a cost to them without future revenue.) In some ways I want to test it, and see if it works. I worry though that if I call them I will get a "no one is home" message. We are still AAA members from last season, I am debating re-upping.

Honda Financial Services are not swift with their systems. First, their site says this:

Please note: email spam filters may block our emails from being delivered. If you have a spam blocker, please set it to accept email from: hondafinancialservices@emailnotify.net

Why would this be? Was your server taken over by spammers? Can you not fix this properly?

Second, once you sign up for electronic payments, they don't actually debit the first payment, only the second. Again, why? Then, since you didn't make your first payment (assuming naively that since you signed up, they could deal with it), they send bill collectors after you. Wouldn't it be cheaper to just take the money that was offered the first time.

The car runs and rides very nicely. It feels like I am just gliding down the road (especially compared to a 1998 Subaru Forester). My main complaint is with user interface:

There are so many buttons and dials on the dashboard, if only they had voice control. It does, but it is voice control c. 1998 automated phone tree. You have to push a button, and then wait so long for it to tell you what you can do you have already reached your destinations. I complained about it in the test drive, and the salesman tried to explain that it wasn't the most god-awful terrible piece of crap user interface (or something like that which I muttered), but really, this was a 2012 model, not a 1998 model.

The buttons are sort of randomly placed, environmental controls sandwiched between the radio and the navigation system. The problem is keeping your eye on the road and hitting the right button. I don't have a solution, but I am sure Apple would. Start with fewer buttons, or maybe a touch screen that only gives you controls in the right mode (environment, entertainment, navigation, communications, car statistics, whatever), or maybe a good voice control that actually does what you tell it to.

The GPS is generally accurate in my limited experience, and not too intrusive, but programming it for the destination you want is a pain. Again touch screen would be really nice here. Give me a map, let me point to where I want to go, and then you find the best path from here to there. Or a smart voice control that could understand what I said at a normal rate of speech.

I periodically get surveys from someone on behalf of Honda about whether I would recommend it to a friend or family member. Thus far aside from the UI, I am happy with it, but as the saying goes, YMMV.

In 1998 I bought a Subaru Forester at Albany Subaru in California. We test drove two all-wheel-drive vehicles with high reliability, it and the Outback. We asked Jeff, the salesman, which car would be better in the post-apocalypse. He said the Forester. In the event, that need has not arisen (yet), but the car was surprisingly useful once I took a job in Minnesota, the White Subaru being the car-du-jour of the Minneapolis Winter. When I moved to Minnesota, the car was still mortgaged to a California Credit Union, but I dutifully transferred license plates. We paid off the car sometime around 2001, and thus owned it outright. I never received the title, it was probably never sent, or may have been sent to my old California address. One never looks for things one is not expecting. For 11 years, this never mattered.

Though we maintained the car well, sometimes the fate of cars is as shown in the picture on the right (no people were seriously injured in the making of this photograph). It being a 14 year old car with serious body damage, it was not worth it for us to repair. We had been considering upgrading for a few years anyway, this accelerated the decision. The car was in the St. Paul impound lot. We had several options for disposal

(1) abandon it on the St. Paul Impound lot. This would get rid of the problem, but not provide a tax deduction;

(2) donate to charity;

(3) sell it untitled on Craigslist;

(4) abandon it on the street to be picked apart by recyclers.

To get it off the lot, or get anything out of the car, you have to pay rent to St. Paul. Since we still had things in the car, we paid the rent. Then AAA helpfully towed the car to the front of my house. However the car was barely operational. Surely it would be picked up in a day or two. I quickly realized that was not to be. I concluded after about a day I did not want to drag down property values in my neighborhood anymore with the unrepaired eyesore, and burned some rubber (the driver side rear tire was bent inward and so created a burning rubber smell when it moved, but it did move while making an awful noise and mechanically the car still worked) and drove the car from the front of my house to my garage in the back alley.

Anyway, we wanted the second option, as it would give us a tax deduction. Unfortunately, all the charities require a title.

I searched my otherwise complete records. I had no title. (I had every insurance form since 1998, and every car care receipt, but no title). A charity helpfully informed the car title was registered in California.

I obtained a notarized lien release letter from my Credit Union, who is remarkably at the same address and phone number as 12 years ago.

At the beginning of September, I filled out a form and sent a check, with the lien release, and asked California to send me the title. About a month later I received a letter in reply returning the check uncashed saying they don't keep records older than 4 years.

The next day, I sent a letter to Minnesota, filling out a form, with various explanations, asking to transfer title from California to Minnesota, with a check, a copy of the letter from California, and the lien release notice from the original lender. A few weeks later I got back a letter, with my original attachments, the check uncashed, saying that was the wrong form, and I need to send them a letter with a different form, asking for a title for untitled vehicles, rather than a transfer.

I sent them the new form. A few weeks later, they sent back a letter asking me to send them the letter from California and the notice from the Credit Union that they held no lien on the car. Naively I assumed they didn't need that again, since they saw it the first time. Surely they would scan it and have it in their records.

So I resent the new form, with the letter from California and the lien release.

Success, finally in the beginning of December, I received a title in the mail from the State of Minnesota.

The next day, we went to Newgate School, which teaches car repair, and gave them the title and the keys to the car. I held the title for less than 24 hours. Two days later, they towed the vehicle from our garage. I hope someone learns something about bodywork, and someone else gets a decent car in return. We got our garage back, which the new car barely fits.

----

I thought about calling this post "DMV: Or why people hate their government". People often have unpleasant experiences with their government, especially the bureaucratic end (as opposed to the other non-bureaucratic end, like ?). DMV is perhaps the most common and most regular, but I could discuss the planning and permitting offices of local government, which are needlessly bureaucratic and succeed in preventing me from legally doing ethically reasonable things with my property. I don't want to pick on Minnesota DMV (technically Driver and Vehicle Services here), since when I get my driver's license, the line is far shorter than say it was in Maryland or California.

My main gripe has been the annual vehicle registration DVS has. I can do it online, if I pay an extra fee, or I can do it the old-fashioned way and write a check, which is cheaper to me, and must be costlier to them. Does no-one think about incentives?

Further, it was clear what I wanted on my first letter to them (the title to my car which they know I own and I have registered legally here for 13 years), they should have been able to handle it, or called and asked if they could tick a different box on a different form if that is what makes their databases happy. I could have done this in person, but mailing a letter is faster in terms of using less of my scarce time, though not faster in terms of solving the problem in real-time. In short, I would like people to think about ends and not just means.

California really shouldn't be dumping data after 4 years either (are hard drives that expensive?). They must have some privacy rationale, but really, this is a car title, it is in the national registry, they should have been able to handle this too.

(In short, no wonder gun owners don't want to be registered.)

Quartz: Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla Motors is now cash-flow positive:

"Elon Musk just disclosed on CNBC that last week, for the first time, Tesla Motors was “mildly cash-flow positive.” That’s only a couple weeks later than Musk’s earlier prediction that Tesla would become cash-flow positive by the end of November. The electric-car company is also paying back early its $465 million loan from the US Department of Energy, and the company is ramping up production to 200 cars per week."

10,000 cars per year is still a bit less than the 13 million cars per year in the US market, but it is more than zero, or what EV production has been historically. It would be about half of Nissan Leaf sales (18,000) or a third of the Chevy Volt (~30,000).

More on Electric Drive sales here at the industry trade group. Sales of hybrids + EVs are now up to 3.3% of the total market. Most of that is hybrids though.

Wired Autopia: The Next Big OS War Is In Your Dashboard :

"‘The theme I hear time and time again from every single one of our customers is you’ve got to help us move at the pace of consumer electronics,’ Derek Kuhn, vice president of sales and marketing for QNX Software Systems, told Wired. ‘It’s no longer acceptable to innovate at the pace of automotive.’"

New Yorker on Self-driving vehicles and ethics: Google’s Driver-less Car and Morality:

"‘Ethical subroutines’ may sound like science fiction, but once upon a time, so did self-driving cars."

In the end, "preservation of the driver" is where we will land, as there will never be consensus on ethics (this has been going round and round for thousands of years), but there is a consensus on the ethic of self-preservation. Hopefully this will be a rare occurrence.

Determining the strategy for self-preservation will inevitably be easier than determining the strategy for what others are doing, as the others (a crowd of people, other cars) is much less predictable. If everyone assume the other will do self-preservation, that is more stable than me trying to predict what you will do to avoid hitting me while you try to predict what I will do, ad infinitum. In short, if I assume self-preservation on your part and you assume it on my part, we are likely better off than if we assume possible altruism on each other's part. This might not always be the case though.

Imagine a scenario two cars driving fast around a narrow curve on the side of a mountain which don't detect each other until two late. The best standard routine is for both cars to swerve to their right (or their left, but everyone must agree). If one swerves right and the other left, they collide and kill everyone involved. If I anticipate you will try to be self-preserving, and I am self-preserving, we can call the same (standard) sub-routine. But if on the left is a cliff (down) and the right is a relatively flat piece of land, we might see both altruistic cars going off the cliff, or both selfish cars swerving to the flatland, both scenarios killing everyone. But if both have a standard routine, we can save at least one of the cars. The scenarios are endless.

Marginal Revolution discusses as well.

Elizabeth Macdonald, Rebecca Sanders, and Alia Anderson write: Performance Measures for Complete, Green Streets: A Proposal for Urban Arterials in California:

"In the State of California, speed limits are set using requirements in the California Vehicle Code, which states that the speed on multilane State highways (which includes State urban arterials) will be 55 MPH unless a traffic and engineering study has shown that speed is not reasonable or safe in that location. On the other hand, on a non-State highway in a business or residential district, the Vehicle Code sets the speed limit at 25 MPH. Although these speeds can be adjusted by the DOT or by the local government through a series of studies and petitions, it does not seem reasonable that, in urban areas, State and local arterials should be treated so differently.

Furthermore, localities can petition to have their speed changed if they demonstrate that 85% of drivers are driving a certain speed. In other words, the 85th percentile rule adjusts the law (speed limit) to fit the behavior (actual speed). According to the Vehicle Code, “a reasonable speed limit is one that conforms to the actual behavior of the majority of motorists, and by measuring motorists’ speeds, one will be able to select a speed limit that is both reasonable and effective.” While this system may be appropriate on freeways and major highways, it is not suited to urban environments where roads are shared by a variety of users. Research has shown that posted speed limit signs appear to have a limited effect on reducing driver speeds when not accompanied by enforcement and roadway design.108 While enforcement can be effective, it is a reactive approach that is limited by financial resources. The most proactive and long-term approach is to design arterials for the safest and most appropriate behavior (actual speed) for each location."

I have long doubted the reasonableness of the 85th Percentile Rule. Why 85th Percentile? Why any percentile? Presumably it has to do with safety. Copenhagenize discusses this today, and suggests it is due to the Solomon curve. I think it is older than that (1964), but have not been able to find the source. [Google Ngram viewer suggests 1959 as the first mention of the term 85th percentile speed, but that does not tell us about speed limit rules, which I don't see until 1981, and that is far too late, maybe someone has a better query.]

Solomon's curve is not gospel, Davis et al. (2006) Speed as a risk factor in serious run-off-road crashes: Bayesian Case-Control Analysis with Case Speed Uncertainty could not corroborate it, finding higher speeds associated with higher likelihood of certain crash types, but not lower speeds.

We can think of the rule as potentially acting as a positive feedback system, an upward moving ratchet for speed limits. In year one, speed is set at 30 mph but many drivers exceed it and the 85th percentile speed is found to be 45 mph. The new speed limit is set at 45 mph. Before 15% of drivers were exceeding 45 MPH, but now some drivers, seeing the higher speed limit, drive faster. (I.e. following +10 mph rule, that you won't get ticketed if you are within 10 mph of the speed limit, you get more speeders). So the new 85th percentile speed is higher still. Sure there is an upper limit to this (e.g. if the speed limit were 100 mph, we would not get 15% of drivers exceeding it), but as noted in Copenhagenize what is safe for drivers may not be safe for other road users (especially pedestrian, bicyclists, neighbors).

There are lots of alternative strategies for setting speed limits, and rules for urban areas should differ from rural areas. Perhaps we don't need explicit speed limits, which act as both a ceiling and a floor, everywhere if instead we moved toward self-explaining roads and shared space. Raising speed limits on freeways may improve overall safety (e.g. Lave and Elias) if you take impatient traffic off of non-freeways. The issues are complex.

Tim Taylor (Conversable Economist) on: Driverless Cars:

"The fully self-driving car isn't right around the corner. Clearly, costs need to come down substantially and a number of complementary technologies need to be created. However, we do already have cars in the commercial market with cruise control and anti-lock brakes, as well as cars that sense potential crash hazards and can parallel park themselves. Changes like these happen slowly, and then in a rush. As the report [Self-driving cars: The next revolution From KPMG and CAR] notes, "The adoption of most new technologies proceeds along an S-curve, and we believe the path to self-driving vehicles will follow a similar trajectory." Maybe 10-15 years? Faster? "

A pessimistic colleague of mine writes:

the arguments in favor of energy efficiency will be swamped by the added demand. Right now, people don't drive more because it's a pain. If I can drive while sleeping, I'll be more likely to work in one city, commute to another; or, go to the cabin every weekend; or, allow little Johnny to sign up for a soccer league since the car (not me) will drive him; and so on.

automatic-drive cars would make travel much more convenient, which would increase travel demand -- likely, a lot. That's not a benefit for energy consumption.

maybe we'll have electric-only cars, which would help with local emissions but not energy consumption; and, we'll only get those if we require them, which it's not clear we will..

signed,
pessimist.

I agree distances will increase, but the cars will be more efficient as human driving patterns (excessive braking and stop and start, e.g.) will be replaced. There are parallel trends in making cars more energy efficient as well. How this nets out is unclear, but I am more optimistic.

Green Car Congress: New Mobile Life Guard app monitors driving behavior and issues verbal alerts:

"Ram Dantu, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of North Texas, is developing ‘Mobile Life Guard’—a mobile app that will enable smart phones to detect weather, road conditions and bad driving using existing sensors in the devices.

...

The app then issues a verbal alert, such as ‘Sudden accelerate’; ‘Hard braking’; ‘vehicle wandering detected’; ‘tailgating detected’; ‘lane hopping detected’; ‘bad right (or left) lane change’; or ‘left (or right) swerve detected’, among other things. It also will warn you not to talk or text."

JW writes:

I've suggested to a number of people that smart phones could detect when a car is driven in congested conditions. This article seems to confirm that.

The reason this is important is that for road pricing you want to internalize the negative externality of congestion. Time of day pricing is not as effective as detecting when a vehicle is actually in congestion. Time of day pricing actually charges drivers for externalities they are not imposing on others. The smart phone app could also address privacy issues because it would be unnecessary to determine where the vehicle is to charge congestion pricing rates. The congestion charge could be allocated statistically based on congestion observed through traffic management centers or regional transportation models.

Human “Only Just” Edges Out Robot Car On The Racetrack : ""

"3 of every 4 states that have enacted a ban on texting while driving have seen crashes actually go up rather than down"

From Tim Haab: @ Environmental Economics: Moral (road) hazard:

"It's perplexing for both police and lawmakers throughout the U.S.: They want to do something about the danger of texting while driving, a major road hazard, but banning the practice seems to make it even more dangerous.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that 3 of every 4 states that have enacted a ban on texting while driving have seen crashes actually go up rather than down.

It's hard to pin down exactly why this is the case, but experts believe it is a result of people trying to avoid getting caught in states with stiff penalties. Folks trying to keep their phones out of view will often hold the phone much lower, below the wheel perhaps, in order to keep it out of view. That means the driver's eyes are looking down and away from the road.
"

Kendra Levine: California OKs Driverless Cars:

This week Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB1298, legalizing driverless cars in California. Some people are concerned about the safety risks of these robot cars. At the signing, Google's Sergey Brin said, "You can count on one hand the number of years it will take before ordinary people can experience this."

(I copied the brilliant use of anthropomorphized vehicle for illustration.)

Alexis Madrigal @ The Atlantic: How Google Builds Its Maps—and What It Means for the Future of Everything - Technology :

"Or as my friend and sci-fi novelist Robin Sloan put it to me, 'I maintain that this is Google's core asset. In 50 years, Google will be the self-driving car company (powered by this deep map of the world) and, oh, P.S. they still have a search engine somewhere.'

Of course, they will always need one more piece of geographic information to make all this effort worthwhile: You. Where you are, that is. Your location is the current that makes Google's giant geodata machine run. They've built this whole playground as an elaborate lure for you. As good and smart and useful as it is, good luck resisting taking the bait. 
"

Chris Urmson @ Official Google Blog: The self-driving car logs more miles on new wheels:

"Our vehicles, of which about a dozen are on the road at any given time, have now completed more than 300,000 miles of testing. They’ve covered a wide range of traffic conditions, and there hasn’t been a single accident under computer control.

We’re encouraged by this progress, but there’s still a long road ahead. To provide the best experience we can, we’ll need to master snow-covered roadways, interpret temporary construction signals and handle other tricky situations that many drivers encounter. As a next step, members of the self-driving car team will soon start using the cars solo (rather than in pairs), for things like commuting to work. This is an important milestone, as it brings this technology one step closer to every commuter. One day we hope this capability will enable people to be more productive in their cars. For now, our team members will remain in the driver’s seats and will take back control if needed.

And while these team members are commuting, many of them will be testing our algorithms on a new type of vehicle we’ve added to the self-driving car family over the past few months to help us refine our systems in different environments and on different terrain: the Lexus RX450h.
"

Autoblog Green: Better Place Israel lowers rates, gives plug-in drivers 'a simpler and better deal':

"Better Place's first customer deliveries happened in January after years of testing and delays, which Better Place blamed mostly on trouble with building permits. BP's marketing and strategy manager, Ori Lahav, told the Jerusalem Post, that 'Israeli bureaucracy really slowed us down.' Currently, there are 250 cars and 10 battery stations in operation in Israel, and many more should be online soon. We have an in-depth look at Better Place's plans here."

Autoblog Green: With WattStation Connect, GE using PayPal for electric vehicle fill-ups:

"It's not too difficult to make the case that PayPal has already played a large role in the modern resurgence of electric vehicles. After all, Elon Musk – now the CEO of Tesla Motors – made a nice chunk of coin selling the online payment service to eBay before coming to the EV company. Turns out, the circle is coming 'round again with General Electric's announcement that its EV chargers will soon accept PayPal."

KurzweilAI: Elon Musk bets half of all cars built in 2032 will be electric | KurzweilAI:

"Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk recently predicted that in 20 years, half of all new cars sold would be plug-in electric cars, says Green Car Reports."

Atlantic Cities: San Francisco to L.A. in 30 Minutes? Sure, on the Hyperloop:

"Elon Musk, he of PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX fame, thinks he has that way. And it is a notional vehicle that can carry people between Los Angeles and San Francisco ... in 30 minutes flat.

He calls it 'the Hyperloop.'

'We have planes, trains, automobiles and boats,' Musk told Sarah Lacey at a PandoDaily event in Los Angeles. So: 'What if there was a fifth mode?'"

Techcrunch" Eric Schmidt: Google Self-Driving Cars Should Become The Predominant Mode Of Transport In Our Lifetime:

"‘It’s a terrible tragedy,’ Schmidt said, ‘The sooner we can get cars to drive for us the more lives we can save … self-driving cars should become the predominant mode of transportation in our lifetime.’"

Lewis Lehe @ PriceRoads: Nassim Taleb and Infrastructure. He complains about lack of what OR folks would call "slack" in the system. We have so optimized the network that it is no longer robust to slight disruptions.

Alex Tabarrok @ Marginal Revolution The Google-Trolley Problem [will the Google smart car kill the big guy to save five small guys?]

Trucks, like other vehicles, have been anthropomorphized. The Anthropomorphic Uhaul has drawn ire. On Sodor, Elizabeth the Vintage Lorry was already old stock. Trucks of course were major rivals to trains, so Thomas and Friends' prejudices are understandable.

To be clear, the anthropomorphic vehicle is not always goodness and light, e.g. Maximum Overdrive. There is an entire genre of horror movies about possessed vehicles, including: "Car, Maximum Overdrive, Duel, Christine, Black Cadillac and Blood Car to name just a few."

One should also see: The Taco Truck Anthropomorphic

Herbie the Love Bug appeared in quite a few films. While Herbie was good, Christine was less so, and is one of many possessed vehicles appearing in literature, film, and TV. The most famous is probably Butterfly Lightning McQueen. The headlights and radiator of the car are a natural anthropomorphizing feature as the eyes and mouth. Most such vehicles however lack the senses of smell and sound.

The movie Cars, and its knockoffs (e.g. Little Cars), and spin-offs (Cars Toons) dominate the animated genre. But they did not invent it.

Other shows with anthropomorphic vehicles include:

• Roary the Racing Car
• Brum
• Speed Buggy
• Autobots
• KITT [updated due to Bill Lindeke, I am not sure how I missed this. I guess I am a fan of neither Knight Rider nor Knight Ridder]

Sodor has a few off-track vehicles, mostly trucks and tractors, while Sir Topham Hatt's car is not anthropomorphized. So nothing from the land of Thomas today.

KurzweilAI shows the press release from Volvo: Volvo’s autonomous cars travel 124 miles in Spain in ‘road train’

[This is interesting technology, I am glad they got it to work technically. I still want and expect autonomous robot cars.]

A podcast makes today's Linklist: Horace Dediu on The Critical Path #40: Awaiting the Big Bang:

"This week, Horace follows up on his discussion of automobiles and road infrastructure by talking about how road networks were rebuilt in European countries to accommodate cycling. That leads to hints about the challenge of re-building energy infrastructure to support new power train technologies. Finally He and Dan also analyze comments made by Tim Cook at the recent D10 conference about Apple TV and disruption of the entertainment industry."

Colin Harris @ streets.mn: Open Streets 2012 is Back:

"Following the inaugural Open Streets Minneapolis event in June of 2011, Minneapolis residents will have another opportunity to explore and enjoy their neighborhood streets without the presence of motorized traffic on June 10th, 2012.  Open Streets events (based on the Ciclovía from Bogotá, Colombia) bring together families and neighbors to bike, walk, socialize, play and shop in their communities in a safe, car-free environment."

LA Times: Plan for, autonomous, or self-driving cars passes California senate hurdle.

From JW: Green Car Congress: Google’s technology campaign for autonomous driving:

"Search engine giant Google is looking for partners within in the auto industry to help launch one of the most significant applications of artificial technology over the next several years, the self-driving car.

In a keynote address to the SAE 2012 World Congress on 25 April 2012, Anthony Levandowski, Business Lead for Google’s Self Driving Car Project provided an overview of Google’s autonomous vehicle program and requested that the auto industry partner with Google on the implementation. (Levandowski joined Google in 2007 to launch StreetView—Google Maps with Street View lets you explore places around the world through 360-degree street-level imagery.)

We’re not perfect; the technology is nowhere near ready. We want to set expectations low but we want to encourage dialogue on how we want to move the technology forward.

—Anthony Levandowski

‘For some, driving is a distraction.’ —Allen Taub, former GM VP, Global R&D

Levandowski shared that 32,788 people were killed in the US last year in auto accidents and 90% of those accidents were related to human error. Multi-tasking while driving is only increasing to the extent that people view driving as the distraction. Twenty percent of the food consumed in America is eaten in cars. Google believes that a future state with having computers drive cars can ‘remove a gigantic chunk’ of the US fatalities.

Approximately 1.5 million people/year are killed in auto accidents globally. Google is involved because the company has a strong technical legacy and the company likes to take on problems where the ‘solutions have a high impact on humanity that involve challenging technical problems’.

In addition to the safety impact, Google believes your brain should be able to engage in activities other than driving.

It is a bug, not a feature, that you need to drive all of the time…What if I gave you a pill that allows you to get 10% longer life without any side effects …given how much time we spend in a car, a self driving car is that pill.

—Anthony Levandowski"

SA: Why America's Love Affair with Cars Is No Accident: Scientific American:

"The change in American public opinion from thinking of cars as wildly dangerous vehicles to having a 'love affair with the automobile' was no accident. Instead, it reflected a serious push by the car industry to change people's psychology. Automobiles had to win the battle for hearts and minds before they could take over streets where people had once swarmed."

Brendon sends me to MPR Minneapolis moving toward single-sort recycling

Wikimedia blog: Welcome to the world’s first Wikipedia Town

Fast Company: J. Crew CEO, Apple Board Member Mickey Drexler Reveals Steve Jobs' iCar Dream, Confirms "Living Room" Plans:

"'Look at the car industry; it's a tragedy in America. Who is designing the cars?' Drexler said. 'Steve's dream before he died was to design an iCar.'"

Several folks have sent me to Wired's take on the paper discussed in the SciAm article I linked to earlier: World's Subways Converging on Ideal Form

Alex @ Getting Around Minneapolis discusses the rerouting of buses in St. Paul in response to the Central [University Ave.] Corridor Green Line … St Paul transferring

[My #8 bus is getting absorbed by the 67. The rider will be pleased the route now goes farther (actually there are 172 average daily rides over 50 daily bus trips, and they run a full size bus) and hopefully has a higher frequency (it can't be lower). The #2 is still crazy from a circuity perspective.]

SR sends me to Betabeat, which discusses Zimride: Nine Startups Tried to Teach Brooklyn Bowl How to Share Last Night :

"Next, former Lehman Brothers employee John Zimmer came up to pitch Zimride even though he really didn’t need to. The San Francisco based startup just got funded for $7.5 million. Mr. Zimmer explained that 80 percent of the seats in cars on America’s highways are unoccupied. That’s why he founded Zimride, which allows users to find a driver with empty seats and book a ride just like you would a bus, train or plane ticket.

Zimride is a social marketplace for drivers and riders who can see each other’s profiles and decide if the ride is one they’re willing to take. If it takes off, Mr. Zimmer believes Zimride will help take cars off the road, reduce traffic wait times and help people make new friends. In fact, Zimride has been the catalyst for more than one relationship already—but please guys, it’s not a dating site."

Strib: No-frills air carrier is filling in gaps :

"Meet Great Lakes, a no-frills newcomer that believes there's a lucrative opportunity in connecting rural America with bustling airports like MSP. The Wyoming-based airline is in the midst of adding more than a dozen new cities to its local roster, with the Twin Cities serving as its hub for 20 percent of its destinations."

The frequent fliers who flew too much - Los Angeles Times. Matt Yglesias writes:

Back in 1981, American Airlines needed cash. Interest rates were sky high, so rather than borrowing the money, they hit upon a weird idea: sell lifetime passes good for unlimited first-class air travel for $250,000. Add a companion pass for $150,000 more. The resulting program, the AAirpass, turned out to be a huge disaster brilliantly chronicled over the weekend in the Los Angeles Times. Losing millions of dollars a year on its highest-use members, American has in recent years been employing investigators to try to find instances of rule violations that let them cancel members' passes.

I absolutely love this story because it illustrates so much about the business and economics worlds. It highlights the fact that there are a lot of ways to engage in "hidden borrowing" and that this kind of hidden leverage is often very costly. It illustrates the importance of avoiding adverse selection if you want to succeed. And most of all, it illustrates that over and above the structural issues facing the notably unprofitable U.S. aviation industry there also seems to be a problem of systematic mismanagement and repeated blunders.

Amtrak to Use iPhones to Streamline Service - NYTimes.com:

"Old-school train conductors are finally ready to give up their hole punchers to try something new: the iPhone.

Amtrak, the government-owned corporation that oversees the nation’s railroad train services, has been training conductors since November to use the Apple handset as an electronic ticket scanner on a few routes, including from Boston to Portland, Me., and San Jose, Calif., to Sacramento."

Ars: Google gets license to test drive autonomous cars on Nevada roads:

"On Monday, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles approved Google’s license application to test autonomous vehicles on the state’s roads. The state had approved such laws back in February, and has now begun issuing licenses based on those regulations.

The state previously outlined that companies that want to test such vehicles will need an insurance bond of $1 million and must provide detailed outlines of where they plan to test it and under what conditions. Further, the car must have two people in it at all times, with one behind the wheel who can take control of the vehicle if needed.

The Autonomous Review Committee of the Nevada DMV is supervising the first licensing procedure and has now approved corresponding plates to go with it, complete with a red background and infinity symbol."

The Prospect Park Newsletter sends me to Pete LeBak ... :

"Pete LeBak's barber shop is a neighborhood institution in Prospect Park.  He's been here over 31 years.  Light rail is going in on University Ave. now, and the work has wiped out the parking in front. Access is daunting folks; traffic has slowed to a trickle. So business has cratered.  By the way, that's 'Bug' (short for Ladybug) on the floor in her usual posture. She's about 110 in dog years.  Neighbors and friends are trying to get Pete some press and spread the word to help him make it through the construction gauntlet.  Pete was fixing to move out, but he thought back on the 31 years he'd been there, all the friends he'd made, and it got his back up.  Longtime customers stopped by to beg him not to go. So now he's fighting to stay.  We're rallying the troops."

Reason says: New Light Rail Ridership Falls Short by More Than Half:

"Los Angeles’ brand new $930 million Exposition light rail line is carrying so few riders and bringing in so little revenue that it will, at best, take 65 years for the train to earn back its capital investment (not including ongoing operating costs). If the project completes its next phase and establishes an at-grade train that runs through heavy street traffic from Downtown L.A. to the city of Santa Monica, it will not pay for its construction for 170 years. "

Daniel Teridman @ CNET: Hindenburg disaster 75 years ago abruptly ended zeppelin era:

"Yet the Hindenburg accident, as dramatic as it was, only put a sudden exclamation point on the already seemingly inevitable end of the era of the great zeppelins. In the years leading up to World War II, airplanes were already beginning to supplant the giant airships as a much more efficient and economical way to cross oceans."

KurzweilAI: Robot cars get ready to roll:

"Manufacturers such as Ford have announced that autonomous vehicles are the future. Bill Ford, executive chairman of the Ford Motor Company, recently said that the company sees ‘the introduction of semi-autonomous driving technology, including driver-initiated ‘auto pilot’ capabilities, and vehicle platooning in limited situations’ as early as 2017.

In the longer term, from 2025 onwards he believes we will see the ‘arrival of smart vehicles capable of fully autonomous navigation, with increased ‘auto pilot’ operating duration, plus the arrival of autonomous valet functions, delivering effortless vehicle parking and storage.’"

By occupying metered parking spaces on Oak Street, General Motors has set up a mobile showroom for its Chevy line in Minneapolis. Is this guerrilla marketing or standard business behavior (I haven't seen it before)? Is it legal? Should the city charge more for parking if it is going to be used like this?

It seems clever, since this is right before graduation, and many graduating students will be in the market for new cars.

Bloomberg: Microsoft Inspired by London Tube Seeks Sleeker Designs

Bloomberg: California High-Speed Rail Spending Probed by U.S. House :

"A U.S. House of Representatives committee said it will investigate reports of conflicts of interest at California’s high-speed rail authority when it received federal money to start construction."

Bloomberg: ’Fortune 500’ of 1812 Shows U.S. Banks’ Early Influence [Look at all those Turnpikes and Canals though]

Autoblog Green: U.S. new-vehicle fuel economy hits 24.1 mpg, another record, in March

Brendon Slotterback on David Alpert on driverless cars:

"I’ve been meaning to write a “how this urbanist stopped worrying and learned to love the driverless car” post for a while, but I’ve finally been spurred into action by this piece in the Atlantic Cities by Greater Greater Washington founder David Alpert. Right up front I want to say I still have a lot of concerns about how we plan and incorporate robot cars, but on this issue of competing road users, I take a different view."

Jarret Walker: quote of the week: hopeful intentions of the u.s. federal transit administration:

"[In reading this, recall that mobility means "how far you can go" or "how much area you can cover" in a given time.  "Accessibility" or "access" means "how many economic, social, and recreational opportunites that you can reach" in a given time.]

"[The U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA)] believes improvements to both access and mobility are key features of a good transit investment. FTA agrees a measure that defines accessibility instead of mobility might be a better representation of the kind of benefits transit projects are intended to produce. As noted, however, it has proven very difficult to measure. Although it is relatively easy to specify a measure such as number of jobs within a specified travel time of a single location, creating a broader corridor or regional measure including calculations to and from multiple locations is more difficult and complex. FTA believes a measure focusing on project ridership will indirectly address access improvements since more people will ride a project that has enhanced access to jobs or other important activity centers. Focusing on the way a transit project can enhance an individual’s ability to get places, rather than just travel faster, is a desirable outcome of the evaluation process. FTA intends to continue to explore how best to do so."

The FTA's Notice of Proposed Rule Making [pdf] that 
proposes to shift the criteria for funding 
new transit projects from travel time to ridership, 
a move that Socrates* had some questions about.
Hat tip to Susan Pantell for reminding me
of this passage.

This is indeed hopeful.  I'll lay out a fuller argument on how this agenda might move forward in a coming post.

Question: When FTA refers to the difficulty of aggregating accessibility measures for everyone in a region, do you think they're referring to a logical problem (i.e. the stated task is logically or philophically incoherent), or a data availability problem, or some other kind of problem?  It certainly shouldn't be a processing power problem anymore."

[Surely FTA has heard of person-weighted averages. I am not sure why this should be a problem.]

Mashable: Google To Test Driverless Cars On Nevada Roadways:

"The roads in Nevada are ready for driverless robot cars. Earlier this month, Nevada’s Legislative Commission approved testing of autonomous vehicles on the state’s roadways. The cars will be identifiable by a red license plate."

Lisa Schweitzer in Politico: Opinion: Obama clueless on transit funding:

"His problem? The legislation would eliminate the deficit-plagued Highway Trust Fund as a funding source for transit, walking and biking projects. Money for those projects would instead have to come out of the general fund.

Transit and sustainability advocates are outraged. Don’t the bill’s supporters know how crucial these non-automobile means of travel are to cities?

Unfortunately, the bill is an all-too-predictable backlash against the White House and its apparent cluelessness about the difference between national transportation policy and urban transport policy."

Five articles on self-driving cars

Tom Vanderbilt @ Wired: Let the Robot Drive: The Autonomous Car of the Future Is Here

Molly Rants @ CNET News: Self-driving cars: Yes, please! Now, please!

John Markoff @ NY Times: Google’s Autonomous Vehicles Draw Skepticism at Legal Symposium [The first thing we do, let's kill all the ___]

Matt Yglesias @ Slate: Three Barriers To Robot Cars

Jeremy Hsu @ MSNBC: [Sebastian] Thrun leaving Stanford for online startup: "When a Stanford University professor [and autonomous vehicle developer, ed.] first offered a free online version of his "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" class, he attracted 160,000 students from around the world. Now he has given up his tenured academic position to create a startup that could deliver university-level education for low cost to anyone with an Internet connection."