Executive summary: Can our emotional fear of machines and the call for premature regulation be mollified by a temporary increase in liability which takes the place of specific regulations to keep people safe?
Here is the first report of a real Tesla autopilot crash. To be fair to Tesla, their owner warnings specify fairly clearly that the autopilot could crash in just this situation -- there is a stalled car partly in the lane, and the car in front of you swerves around it, revealing it with little time for you or the autopilot to react.
The deeper issue is the way that the improving quality of the Tesla Autopilot and systems like it are lulling drivers into a false sense of security. I have heard reports of people who now are trusting the Tesla system enough to work while being driven, and indeed, most people will get away with this. And as people get away with it more and more, we will see more people driving like this driver, not really prepared to react. This is one of the reasons Google decided not to make a system which requires driver takeover ever. As the system gets better, does it get more dangerous?
Some technical notes:
Last month, various EU officials gathered in Amsterdam and signed the Declaration of Amsterdam which outlines a plan for normalizing EU laws around self-driving cars. The meeting also included a truck automation demo in the Netherlands and a self-drive transit shuttle demonstration. It's a fairly bland document, more an expression of the times, and it sadly spends a lot of time on the red herring of "connected" vehicles and V2V/V2I, which governments seem to love, and self-driving car developers care very little about.
Let's hope the regulatory touch is light. The reality is that even the people building these vehicles can't make firm pronouncements on their final form or development needs, so governments certainly can't do that, and we must be careful of attempts to "help" that hinder. We already have a number of examples of that happening in draft and real regulations, and we've barely gotten started. For now, government statements should be limited to, "let's get out of the way until people start figuring out how this will actually work, unless we see somebody doing something demonstrably dangerous that can't be stopped except through regulations." Sadly, too many regulators and commentators imagine it should be, "let's use our limited current knowledge to imagine what might go wrong and write rules to ban it before it happens."
It was a sign of the times when her Majesty the Queen, giving the speech from the throne in the UK parliament, laid out some elements of self-driving car plans. The Queen drove jeeps during her military days, and so routinely drives herself at her country estates, otherwise she would be among the set of people most used to never driving.
The UK has 4 pilot projects in planning. Milton Keynes is underway, and later this year, a variation of the Ultra PRT pods in use at T5 of Heathrow airport -- they run on private tracks to the car park -- will go out on the open road in Greenwich. They are already signing up people for rides.
In deciding which car companies are going to survive the transition to robocars, one thing I look for is willingness to stop thinking like a traditional car company which makes cars and sells them to customers. Most car company CEOs have said they don't plan to keep thinking that way, but what they do is more important than what they say.
Uber has announced the official start of self-driving tests in Pittsburgh. Uber has been running their lab for over a year, and had various vehicles out there mapping and gathering data, but their new vehicle is sleeker and loaded with sensors - more than on Google's cars or most of the other research cars I have seen. You can see several lidars on the roof and bumpers, and a seriously big array of cameras and other sensors.
Today sees the un-stealthing of a new company called Otto which plans to build self-driving systems for long haul trucks. The company has been formed by a skilled team, including former members of Google's car team and people I know well. You can see their opening blog post
My entire focus on this blog, and the focus of most people in this space, has been on cars, particularly cars capable of unmanned operation and door-to-door service. Most of those not working on that have had their focus on highway cars and autopilots. The highway is a much simpler environment so much easier to engineer, but it operates at higher speeds so the cost of accidents is worse.
That goes doubly true for trucks that are fast, big and massive. At the same time, 99% of truck driving is actually very straightforward -- stay in a highway lane, usually the slow one, with no fancy moving about.
Some companies have done exploration of truck automation. Daimler/Freightliner has been testing trucks in Nevada. Volvo (trucks and cars together) has done truck and platooning experiments, notably the Sartre project some years ago. A recent group of European researchers did a truck demonstration in the Netherlands, leading up to the Declaration of Amsterdam which got government ministers to declare a plan to modify regulations to make self-driving systems legal in Europe. Local company Peloton has gone after the more tractable problem of two-truck platoons with a driver in each truck, aimed primarily at fuel savings and some safety increases.
While trucks are big and thus riskier to automate, they are also risky for humans to drive. Even though truck drivers are professionals who drive all day, there are still around 4,000 killed every year in the USA in truck accidents. More than half of those are truck drivers, but a large number of ordinary road users are also killed. Done well, self-driving trucks will reduce this toll. Just as with cars, companies will not release the systems until they believe they can match and beat the safety record of human drivers.
Self-driving trucks don't change the way we move, but they will have a big economic effect on trucking. Driver pay accounts for about 25-35% of the cost of truck operation, but in fact early self-driving won't take away jobs because there is a serious shortage of truck drivers in the market -- companies can't hire enough of them at the wages they currently pay. It is claimed that there are 50,000 job openings unfilled at the present time. Truck driving is grueling work, sometimes mind-numbing, and it takes the long haul driver away from home and family for over a week on every long-haul run. It's not very exciting work, and it involves long days (11 hours is the legal limit) and a lot of eating and sleeping in truck stops or the cabin of the truck.
Average pay is about 36 cents/mile for a solo trucker on a common route. Alternately, loads that need to move fast are driven by a team of two. They split 50 cents/mile between them, but can drive 22 hours/day -- one driver sleeps in the back while the first one takes the wheel. You make less per mile per driver, but you are also paid for the miles you are sleeping or relaxing.
A likely first course is trucks that keep their solo driver who drives up to 11 hours -- probably less -- and have the software drive the rest. Nonstop team driving speed with just one person. Indeed, that person might be an owner-operator who is paying for the system as a businessperson, rather than a person losing a job to automation. The human would drive the more complex parts of the route (including heavy traffic) while the system can easily handle the long nights and sparse heartland interstate roads.
The economics get interesting when you can do things that are expensive for human drivers and teams. Aside from operating 22 or more hours/day at a lower cost, certain routes will become practical that were not economic with human drivers, opening up new routes and business models.
Computer driven trucks will drive more regularly than humans, effectively driving in "hypermile" style as much as they can. That should save fuel. In addition, while I would not do it at first, the platooning experimented with by Peloton and Sartre does result in fuel savings. Also interesting is the ability to convert trucks to natural gas, which is domestic and burns cleaner (though it still emits CO2.) Automated trucks on fixed routes might be more willing to make this conversion.
There is strong potential to reduce the damage to roads (and thus the cost of maintaining them, which is immense and seriously in arrears) thanks to the robotruck. That's because heavy trucks and big buses cause almost all the road wear today. A surprising rule of thumb is that road damage goes up with the 4th power of the weight per axle. As such an 80,000lb truck with 34,000lb on two sets of 2 axles and 6,000lb on the front axle does around 2,000 times the road damage of a typical car!
A week ago, a rather strange event took place. No, I'm not talking about just the Transit of Mercury in front of the sun on May 9, but an odd result of it.
My recent efforts in consulting and speaking have led to a lot more travel -- which is great sometimes, but also often a drain. I've been staying in so many hotels that I thought it worth enumerating some of the things I think every hotel room should have, and what I often find missing.
Most of these things are fairly inexpensive to do, though a few have higher costs. The cheaper ones I would hope can be just included, I realize some might incur extra charges or a slightly more expensive room, or perhaps they can be offered as a perk to loyalty program members.
Most rooms usually only have a workspace for one, even if it's a double room. The modern couple both have computers, and both need a place to work, ideally not crammed together. That's also true when two co-workers share a room. And in a perfect room, both desk spaces share the other attributes of a good desk, namely:
To my horror, Marriott has been building some new hotels with no desk space at all. Some person (I would say some idiot) decided that since millennials use fewer laptops and just want to sit on a couch with their tablet, it was better to sacrifice the desk. Those hotels had better have folding desks you can borrow, in fact all hotels could do that to fix the desk space shortage, particularly if rooms are small. Another option would be a leaf that folds down from the wall.
Many rooms are very lacking in table or surface space beyond the desk. Almost every hotel room comes with only one luggage holder, where a couple might find themselves with 3 or in rare case 4 bags. I doubt these folding luggage holders are that expensive, but if you can't put more than one in every room, then watch people as they check in, and note how many bags they have, and have somebody automatically send up some extra holders to their room. At the very least make it easy for them to ask. I mean these things are under $30 quantity one. Get more!
Bathrooms need surface space, too. Too often I've seen sinks with nowhere to put your toiletries and freedom bag. In fact, I want space everywhere to unpack the things I want to access.
Sure, I get that older hotel rooms did not load up with power outlets, and modern ones do. But aside from the desk, most people want power by the bed now, for their phone charger if nothing else. If you just have one plug by the bed, put a 3-way splitter (global plug, of course) on that plug so that people can plug things in without unplugging the light or clock. And ideally up high, so I don't have to crawl behind things to get at it.
A little more controversial is the idea of offering USB charging power. Today, we all carry chargers, but the hope is that if charging becomes commonplace, then like the travel hair dryer people used to carry and no longer do, we might be able to depend on finding a charger. Problem is, charging standards are many and change frequently -- we now have USB regular (useless) and fast-charge, along with Qualcomm quick-charge and USB C. More will come. On top of this, strictly you should not plug your device into a random USB port which might try to take it over. You can get what's called a "USB Condom" to block the data lines, but those might interfere with the negotiation phase of smarter power standards. A wireless "Qi" charging plate could be a useful thing.
As a couple, we have had up to 8 things charging at the same time, when you include phones, cameras, external batteries, headphones, tablets and other devices. So I bring a 5-way USB fast charger and rely on laptops or other chargers to go the distance.
Some rooms block you from any access to the TV. Some have a VGA or HDMI port built into a console on the desk. The latter is great, but usually the TV is mounted in a way that makes it not very useful as a computer monitor for working. It's primarily useful for watching video. I pretty much never watch video in a hotel room, so given the choice, I would put the monitor by the desk, and it should be 1080p or better -- in fact 4K should be the norm for any new installations. If you don't have one, have one I can call down for, even at a modest fee.
A recent news story from Utah describes a Tesla which entered self-park ("summon") mode and drive itself into the back of a flatbed truck raises some interesting issues.
If you had asked me recently what big car company was the furthest behind when it came to robocars, one likely answer would be Fiat-Chrysler. In fact, famously, Chrysler ran ads several years ago during the superbowl making fun of self-driving cars and Google in particular:
I have often written on the challenge facing existing automakers in the world of robocars. They need to learn to completely switch their way of thinking in a world of mobility on demand, and not all of them will do so. But they face serious challenges even if they are among the lucky ones who fully "get" the robocar revolution, change their DNA and make products to compete with Google and the rest of the non-car companies.
While I'm very excited about the coming robocar world, there are still many unsolved problems. One I've been thinking about, particularly with my recent continued thinking on transit, is how to provide robotaxi service to the poor, which is to say people without much money and without credit and reputations.
In particular, we want to avoid situations where taxi fleet operators create major barriers to riding by the poor in the form of higher fees, special burdens, or simply not accepting the poor as customers. If you look at services like Uber today, they don't let you ride unless you have a credit card, though in some cases prepaid debit cards will work.
Today a taxi (or a bus or Uber style vehicle) has a person in it, primarily to drive, but they perform another role -- they constrain the behaviour of the rider or riders. They reduce the probability that somebody might trash the vehicle or harass or be violent to another passenger.
Of course, such things happen quite rarely, but that won't stop operators from asking, "What do we do when it does happen? How can we stop it or get the person who does it to pay for any damage?" And further they will say, "I need a way to know that in the rare event something goes wrong, you can and will pay for it." They do this in many similar situations. The problem is not that the poor will be judged dangerous or risky. The problem is that they will be judged less accountable for things that might go wrong. Rich people will throw up in the back of cars or damage them as much as the poor, perhaps more; the difference is there is a way to make them pay for it. So while I use the word poor here, I really mean "those it is hard to hold accountable" because there is a strong connection.
As I have outlined in one of my examinations of privacy a taxi can contain a camera with a physical shutter that is open only between riders. It can do a "before and after" photograph, mostly to spot if you left items behind, but also to spot if you've damaged or soiled the vehicle. Then the owner can have the vehicle go for cleaning, and send you the bill.
But they can only send you the bill if they know who you are and have a way to bill you. For the middle class and above, that's no problem. This is the way things like Uber work -- everybody is registered and has a credit card on file. This is not so easy for the poor. Many don't have credit cards, and more to the point, they can't show the resources to fix the damage they might do to a car, nor may they have whatever type of reputation is needed so fleet operators will trust them. The actions of a few damn the many.
The middle class don't even need credit cards. Those of us wishing to retain our privacy could post a bond through a privacy protecting intermediary. The robotaxi company would know me only as "PrivacyProxy 12323423" and I would have an independent relationship with PrivacyProxy Inc. which would accept responsibility for any damage I do to the car, and bill me for it or take money from my bond if I'm truly anonymous.
Without the proxy, robotaxi operators will want some sort of direct accountability from passengers for any problems they might cause. Even for the middle class, it mostly means being identified, so if damage is found, you can be tracked down and made to pay. The middle class have ability to pay, and credit. The poor don't, at least many of them don't.
People with some level of identity (an address, a job) have ways to be accountable. If the damage rises to the level where refusing to fix it is a crime at some level, fear of the justice system might work, but it's unlikely the police are going to knock on somebody's door for throwing up in a car.
In the future, I expect just about everybody of all income levels will have smartphones, and plans (though prepaid plans are more common at lower income levels.) One could volunteer to be accountable via the phone plan, losing your phone number if you aren't. Indeed, it's going to be hard to summon a car without a phone, though it will also be possible using internet terminals, kiosks and borrowing the phones of others.
A likely solution, seen already in the car rental industry, is to charge extra for insurance for those who can't prove accountability another way. Car rental company insurance is grossly overpriced, and I never buy it because I have personal insurance and credit cards to cover such issues. Those who don't often have to pay this higher price.
It's still a sad reality to imagine the poor having to pay more for rides than for the rich.
An option to mitigate this might be cars aimed at carrying those who are higher risk. These cars might be a bit more able to withstand wear and tear. Their interiors might be more like bus interiors, easily cleaned and harder to damage, rather than luxury leather which will probably be only for the wealthier. To get one, you might have to wait longer. While a middle-class customer ordering a cheap car might be sent a luxury car because that's what's spare at the time, it is less likely an untrusted and poor customer would get that.
Before we go do far, I predict the cost of robotaxi rides will get well below $1/mile, heading down to 30 cents/mile. Even with a 30% surcharge, that's still cheaper than what we have today, in fact it's cheaper than a bus ticket in many towns, certainly cheaper than an unsubsidized bus ticket which tends to run $5-$6. Still my hope for robotaxi service is that it makes good transportation more available to everybody, and having it cost more for the poor is a defect.
In addition, as long as damage levels remain low, as a comment points out, perhaps the added cost on every ride would be small enough that you don't need worry about this for poor or rich. (Though having no cost to doing so does mean more spilled food, drink and sadly, vomit.)
Over time, fortunately, poor riders could develop reputations for treating vehicles well. Build enough reputation and you might have access to the same fleet and prices that the middle class do, or at least much cheaper insurance. Cause a problem and you might lose the reputation. It would be possible to build such a reputation anonymously, though I suspect most people and companies would prefer to tie it to identity, erasing privacy. Anonymous reputations in particular can be sold or stolen which presents an issue. One option is to tie the reputation to a photo, but not a name. When you get in the car, it would confirm you match the photo, but would not immediately know your name. (In the future, though, police and database companies will be able to turn the photo into a name easily enough.)
Poor riders would still have to pay more to start, probably, or suffer the other indignities of the lower class ride. However, a poor rider who develops a sterling reservation might be able to get some of that early surcharge back later. (Not if it's insurance. You can't get insurance back if you don't use it, it doesn't work that way!)
It could also be possible for the poor to get friends to vouch for them and give them some starter reputation.
Unfortunately, poor who squander their reputation (or worse, just ride with friends who trash a car) could find themselves unable to travel except at high cost they can't afford. It could be like losing your car.
The government will have an interest in making sure the poor are not left out of this mobility revolution. As such, there might be some subsidy program to help people get going, and a safety net for loss of reputation. This of course comes with a cost. Taxes would pay for the insurance to fix cars that are damaged by riders unable to be held accountable.
The alternative, after all, is needing to continue otherwise unprofitable transit services with human drivers just for the sake of these people who can't get private robocar rides. Transit may continue (though without human drivers) at peak times, but it almost surely vanishes off-peak if not for this.