Robocars
The future of computer-driven cars and deliverbots
Handling the pick-up "rush" when everybody leaves at once
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-02-08 11:45
The discussion on cars circling to avoid parking fees (short-answer, they won't) leads to a few other interesting issues I want to cover.
No, cars won't circle around in traffic to avoid paying for parking
Submitted by brad on Thu, 2019-02-07 10:01For many years, people have wondered if people might tell their robocars to just drive continuously around the block rather than pay for parking. I've written before about how that doesn't make sense, but a recent paper from Adam Millard-Ball of UC Santa Cruz tries to make a real case that it could make economic sense, even if it's antisocial.
New Forbes.com post: The in car experience of the robocar will be quite minimalist
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2019-02-06 12:26I have started doing some of my posts on forbes.com. They invited me to contribute and I felt it is worth finding out if it extends my reach. For now, I will link to posts here, and eventually I will perhaps build a special RSS feed to combine the posts I do there with the ones here to make it easy for readers.

When snow or bugs shut down an entire robotaxi fleet
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2019-02-04 13:39
German mega-partnership, Apple layoffs and Waymo factory
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2019-01-28 12:32
Various announcements and rumors suggest the major German automakers, including VW/Audi, Daimler and BMW might be planning a real alliance on robocars.
Longwave LIDAR burns out camera sensor -- a big problem in the making?
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-01-25 12:36
Photo Gallery from CES 2019
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-01-18 12:53Big OEMs wouldn't mind a robocar slowdown one bit
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2019-01-15 12:28
We continue to see lots of reports of a "pull back" on robocars, a "winter" of sorts. It is often presented as "the problem was harder than people expected" I discussed some of this in the prelude to my 2018 year in review.
The news from CES is there wasn't much news from CES
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-01-11 12:47
My feet are aching, as usual, after 3 days on the CES show floor, and the question people always ask others there is "what have you seen that was interesting?"
Tesla in autopilot whacks a robot at CES (or does it?)
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2019-01-07 16:29I'm on my way to CES tonight, and am surprised to have not seen much robocar news yet from there. I'll publish some reports of what I see. The first modest announcement is the creation of a public education collective called PAVE which is the first consortium to have almost all the major players.
If you're a computer nerd, buy the Tesla model 3
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2019-01-04 11:47
As I posted earlier I purchased a Tesla Model 3, the mid-range version with one motor and autopilot.
There are many reviews of this car out there, so I will go quickly over the common issues to get to areas I can give a special perspective on.
If Tesla wants to show off advanced summon, it could start at their superchargers
Submitted by brad on Thu, 2019-01-03 11:40
Robocar Year in Review for 2018
Submitted by brad on Sun, 2018-12-30 18:54
to learn from the crash damage.
The utilitarian math overwhelming says we should be aggressive in robocar development. How do we do that?
Submitted by brad on Thu, 2018-12-20 11:00A frequent theme of mine has been my identification of "proving you have done it" as the greatest challenge in producing a safe robocar.

Anthony Levandowski, Jiajun Zhu and Dave Furguson, all formerly of Google Car, make big announcements
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2018-12-18 12:05By coincidence we see two significant announcements today from people who were former leaders on the Google car project, now in their own companies.

Uber dares to return, Senate pushes law, and query about recharging scooters
Submitted by brad on Thu, 2018-12-06 13:49Some news items, and then some analysis of the energy needed to reposition and charge all the dockless scooters from Lime and Bird.
Waymo soft launches in Phoenix, but...
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2018-12-05 13:21
Waymo announced today they will begin commercial operations in the Phoenix area under the name "Waymo One." Waymo has promised that it would happen this year, and it is a huge milestone, but I can't avoid a small bit of disappointment.
Flying cars, robocars and more will rewrite the rural landscape, for good and ill
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2018-11-26 12:15How and where we live is governed most by transportation, and all the new mobility technologies are poised to cause big changes. Today, I want to look at the following technologies and how they will affect life outside the city. In many case, they will come last to the country, but in other cases, they may come first.
Uber's quest for a "smoother ride" brought them down
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2018-11-21 13:23