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Speaker 1: And I really wanted to cover this topic and give
Speaker 1: a bit of an update because I feel it's one
Speaker 1: that is often misunderstood and frequently misrepresented. Um and that
Speaker 1: is the different levels of autonomous driving and the state
Speaker 1: of autonomous driving where we're at. I occasionally do these
Speaker 1: updates because I think it's very easy to get lost
Speaker 1: in marketing and pr speak and even some you know,
Speaker 1: political movements that suggests we might be further along than
Speaker 1: where we really are now. First of all, let's get
Speaker 1: this out of the way. Developing autonomous vehicle technology is
Speaker 1: a good idea. Here in the United States, the National
Speaker 1: Highway Traffic Safety Administration or n h t s A
Speaker 1: tracks the number of motor vehicle traffic fatalities year over year.
Speaker 1: The number of deaths due to vehicle accidents is always
Speaker 1: in the thirty thousand range or higher. So that means
Speaker 1: more than thirty thousand people here in the United States
Speaker 1: die every year due to traffic accidents, and if you
Speaker 1: just skim recent figures, that really reveals something counterintuitive. The
Speaker 1: year with the most traffic fatalities over the last decade
Speaker 1: is twenty twenty. Now I should add that I could
Speaker 1: not find an estimate for one, not for the full year,
Speaker 1: only for part of the year, so one very well
Speaker 1: might have taken the title away from twenty twenty. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the first year of the pandemic saw the most traffic
Speaker 1: fatalities in more than a decade. And you might imagine
Speaker 1: that fatalities for that year would actually be down due
Speaker 1: to more people staying at home, But you're wrong. The
Speaker 1: total that year was thirty eight thousand, six hundred eighty
Speaker 1: estimated deaths. The next highest year would be back in
Speaker 1: sixteen that had thirty seven thousand, eight hundred six deaths,
Speaker 1: almost a thousand fewer. The n h T s A
Speaker 1: also figures out that the fatality rate per one hundred
Speaker 1: million vehicle miles traveled is a good metric. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is v MT, which essentially tells you how frequent do
Speaker 1: these accidents occur, how many millions of miles are are
Speaker 1: happening in between these fatalities. Keeping in mind that's across
Speaker 1: the entire United States, so it's taking into account all
Speaker 1: the vehicles traveling across the country, and again had the
Speaker 1: highest frequency over the last decade with an astonishing one
Speaker 1: point three seven fatalities per one hundred million vehicle miles traveled.
Speaker 1: The next highest on that goes all the way back
Speaker 1: to two thousand eight with one point to six. So
Speaker 1: keep in mind like that means more than a decade
Speaker 1: of innovation and improvements in driver assist features and things
Speaker 1: of that nature ended up not making a difference because
Speaker 1: we saw more fatalities per miles traveled than ever well
Speaker 1: at least since two thousand eight, Because that's as far
Speaker 1: back as as the the sheet I was looking at
Speaker 1: wind So people were driving less in but they were
Speaker 1: dying in accidents more frequently. And it didn't get better
Speaker 1: in one either. During the first nine months of one,
Speaker 1: traffic fatalities rose by twelve percent. So within those first
Speaker 1: nine months there were an estimated thirty one thou seven
Speaker 1: twenty deaths. Again just nine months, not a full year. Now,
Speaker 1: I do not have more recent data to pull from,
Speaker 1: so I'm not certain how the year ended out, but
Speaker 1: that statistic is terrible and sobering. Here's another bad statistic.
Speaker 1: The c d C says that road traffic crashes are
Speaker 1: a leading cause of death here in the United States
Speaker 1: for people aged one to fifty four. Now, these deaths
Speaker 1: clearly have a massive impact. Beyond the obvious tragedy of
Speaker 1: losing someone or multiple someone's in a crash. There's the
Speaker 1: impact on that person's family and friends. That's an incredible
Speaker 1: emotional impact on them. If that someone who died in
Speaker 1: the crash were employed, well, there's an impact on their
Speaker 1: job and on the economy as well. There's this overall
Speaker 1: economic impact due to fatalities and accidents in general. The
Speaker 1: National Safety Council estimates that the average economic cost of
Speaker 1: a traffic fatality is one point seven five million dollars
Speaker 1: per incident. Now, this takes into account everything from medical expenses,
Speaker 1: to motor vehicle damage, to insurance costs, to wage and
Speaker 1: productivity losses, and more. So, if we take this average
Speaker 1: figure of one point seven five million dollars and we
Speaker 1: multiply it by the thirty eight thousand, six eight estimated
Speaker 1: deaths in twenty twenty, we get an economic impact of
Speaker 1: sixty seven point seven billion dollars. That's the cost of
Speaker 1: those fatal traffic accidents. When you take in all traffic accidents,
Speaker 1: by the way, the amount gets over two billion dollars.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of reasons we would want
Speaker 1: to reduce or eliminate those traffic fatalities. I mean, first
Speaker 1: and foremost, obviously, we don't want people to die. We
Speaker 1: would rather not see that happen. We would rather those
Speaker 1: people go on to lead healthy, productive lives, surrounded by
Speaker 1: friends and family, and we would not want to see
Speaker 1: that end. Less importantly, we would not want to see
Speaker 1: that negative economic impact. And we also would rather not
Speaker 1: have the thousand other problems that come with traffic accidents,
Speaker 1: such as the effect on traffic congestion and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And there's one more important fact to consider.
Speaker 1: According to research, at least of all traffic accidents are
Speaker 1: caused primarily by human error. In other words, it's not
Speaker 1: a mechanical failure. It's not that a vehicle suddenly lost
Speaker 1: functionality in some way and that that led to the accident.
Speaker 1: More than are caused by someone making a mistake. And
Speaker 1: that's at least Some research pushes that even higher. The
Speaker 1: highest I have seen suggests that eight per cent of
Speaker 1: all accidents are call by human error. Um, so somewhere
Speaker 1: in that range is probably the truth. Right, That's still enormous,
Speaker 1: and that's where the sales pitch for autonomous vehicles comes in.
Speaker 1: Because what if you had a computer controlled vehicle capable
Speaker 1: of traveling at a safe speed and a safe distance
Speaker 1: from other vehicles. It would be able to pay equal
Speaker 1: amounts of attention to all areas around the vehicle. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't just be paying attention to wherever its eyes were,
Speaker 1: because it would have eyes all over. They could react
Speaker 1: much more quickly than any human could, and it could
Speaker 1: take action that could avoid an accident. You would remove
Speaker 1: human error as a contributing factor for accidents, and since
Speaker 1: we know human error accounts for more than of accidents,
Speaker 1: that would, by extension, eliminate the vast majority of accidents
Speaker 1: on the road. If you had enough of these vehicles
Speaker 1: on the road, perhaps not replacing all of them, but
Speaker 1: having a significant percentage of vehicles being autonomous, you would
Speaker 1: virtually eliminate traffic fatalities. That is the dream scenario. But
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things standing between us and
Speaker 1: that vision. I will go into that after we take
Speaker 1: this quick break. Okay. To get to that vision of
Speaker 1: the future where autonomous vehicles are taking us everywhere we
Speaker 1: need to go and traffic fatalities are a distant memory,
Speaker 1: we have to get the tech right first, and we
Speaker 1: also have to get enough vehicles out on the road
Speaker 1: to make a difference. One autonomous vehicle isn't going to
Speaker 1: change the world. And I've seen a lot of different
Speaker 1: research about this as well, some researchers saying that we
Speaker 1: might need to reach a saturation point of about one
Speaker 1: third autonomous vehicles to two thirds human driven vehicles to
Speaker 1: start seeing massive changes and things like accidents and traffic congestion.
Speaker 1: And then, of course, beyond that, we'd see even more improvements,
Speaker 1: not necessarily at the same dramatic pace, like it might
Speaker 1: level off more where we get sort of a diminishing
Speaker 1: return situation. But when you're talking about saving lives, diminishing
Speaker 1: return doesn't really have the same meaning, right, Every life
Speaker 1: saved is significant. Now, when it comes to autonomy, at
Speaker 1: least for vehicles, there is a spectrum, you know. There.
Speaker 1: Autonomy is more like guidelines, as the pirates would say.
Speaker 1: The Society of Automotive Engineers, which is a quote globally
Speaker 1: active professional association and standards developing organization end quote, has
Speaker 1: identified six levels of autonomy, ranging from zero to five,
Speaker 1: and it is ascending in autonomy. So let's go through
Speaker 1: those now. At levels zero, you have no driving automation
Speaker 1: really of any significance. I used to think that level
Speaker 1: zero just meant that you had complete manual control of
Speaker 1: the vehicle and there were no driver assist features at all.
Speaker 1: That's not the case. That was my mistake. That was
Speaker 1: my misunderstanding of this designation. Uh, you could have cruise
Speaker 1: control and it could still fall into a level zero category.
Speaker 1: So basic cruise control would not be enough to move
Speaker 1: a vehicle out of level zero designation to level one
Speaker 1: because basic cruise control will maintain a set speed, but
Speaker 1: it won't change it. Right, if there is a vehicle
Speaker 1: that's ahead of you, the standard cruise control isn't enough
Speaker 1: to detect that vehicle and change the speed. That would
Speaker 1: have to be adaptive cruise control. That's different basic cruise control.
Speaker 1: You're still at level zero. Back in the day, I
Speaker 1: used to think that that would at least push you
Speaker 1: to level one. No, not, according to the s A
Speaker 1: The s A E says that any driver assist features
Speaker 1: are in a level zero car are limited to quote
Speaker 1: providing warnings and momentary assistance end quote. So you can
Speaker 1: have like a lane correct feature, but if it's just
Speaker 1: momentarily shifting the car, that still is considered a level
Speaker 1: zero autonomous vehicle. Automatic emergency braking, lane departure warnings, all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff I'll just count as minimal driver assist.
Speaker 1: So any vehicle having those features but nothing more extensive
Speaker 1: than that, would still be level zero. So that's a
Speaker 1: lot of the vehicles that are on the road today,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of them, in fact. But let's go
Speaker 1: on to level one, because we do have level one
Speaker 1: and even level two autonomous vehicles on the road. So
Speaker 1: a level one autonomous vehicle has the ability to take
Speaker 1: over some duty that the driver would normally do, but
Speaker 1: only one of those duties, and the human driver would
Speaker 1: have to handle everything else. So, in other words, the
Speaker 1: feature might be able to handle something like acceleration and braking,
Speaker 1: or it might be able to handle steering, but it
Speaker 1: would not be able to handle both of those, So
Speaker 1: whichever one it handles, the human driver would have to
Speaker 1: deal with the other. One adaptive cruise control that I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, in which a vehicle handles acceleration and it
Speaker 1: will ease off if it detects that it's approaching the
Speaker 1: rear of a vehicle in front of it. That's an
Speaker 1: example of a level one autonomous vehicle feature. It's handling
Speaker 1: acceleration and braking, but it's not handling steering. The human
Speaker 1: driver still still has to steer the vehicle in that scenario. Now,
Speaker 1: if we move up to level to autonomy, we're now
Speaker 1: at a phase where the vehicle can handle both the
Speaker 1: acceleration and breaking activities as well as steering the vehicle
Speaker 1: at the same time. However, a human driver must supervise
Speaker 1: these and also intervene when necessary, as the vehicle will
Speaker 1: not always be capable of avoiding an accident when something
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary happens, or even something remotely unexpected happens.
Speaker 1: So this would be a vehicle that can do both
Speaker 1: adaptive cruise control and lane centering operations at the same time.
Speaker 1: And honestly, this is where we're at with most of
Speaker 1: the really sophisticated passenger vehicles that are on the market
Speaker 1: right now. Tesla, even with its so called full self
Speaker 1: driving feature, which is not full self driving, and Tesla
Speaker 1: darnwell knows it. I have a longstanding issue with Tesla
Speaker 1: and it's naming conventions. Calling its first driver assist support
Speaker 1: sweet as autopilot when it's not really autopilot really upset me.
Speaker 1: Full self driving is even worse because it the name
Speaker 1: implies that the car just completely drives itself. That is
Speaker 1: not the case. It still requires human supervision, and Tesla
Speaker 1: says this to drivers. It says that you still have
Speaker 1: to supervised the vehicle, that you can't just take your
Speaker 1: hands off and go to sleep behind the wheel. You
Speaker 1: have to maintain supervision and be ready to intervene. But
Speaker 1: yet they insist on calling their features full self driving.
Speaker 1: I just feel like that's misleading. Anyway, that is still
Speaker 1: a level to autonomous feature. It means Tesla is on
Speaker 1: the level two on the autonomous scale. It hasn't hit
Speaker 1: level three yet. And from levels zero to two, the
Speaker 1: job of monitoring the driving environment falls on the human
Speaker 1: in the car. They are responsible for making sure that
Speaker 1: the environment is safe. Uh that for at least whatever
Speaker 1: operation the car is in at that time, and you
Speaker 1: cannot offload that to the vehicle. The vehicle is not
Speaker 1: capable of shouldering that accountability. So ultimately the person behind
Speaker 1: the wheel is still responsible for their own safety and
Speaker 1: for avoiding accidents. But now let's talk about levels three
Speaker 1: through five, in which the vehicle's automated system is in
Speaker 1: charge of monitoring the driving environment. So in this case,
Speaker 1: the car is responsible or the vehicle I should say
Speaker 1: not just car is responsible for monitoring what's going on
Speaker 1: around it and then using that information to make important decisions.
Speaker 1: So level three is called conditional automation, and that kind
Speaker 1: of clues you into what's going on. So the vehicle
Speaker 1: is capable of operating autonomously under certain conditions, but not
Speaker 1: all conditions. So unless all autonomous conditions are met, the
Speaker 1: vehicle will not operate an autonomous mode. A level three
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicle will be able to make certain environmental decisions,
Speaker 1: such as accelerating past a slower moving vehicle or maneuvering
Speaker 1: through a traffic jam, which typically involves lots of starts
Speaker 1: and stops and potentially lane changes. There are a couple
Speaker 1: of vehicles that have received international acknowledgement as attaining level
Speaker 1: three autonomy. There's a car called the Honda Legend, which
Speaker 1: is only available as a least vehicle in Japan, so
Speaker 1: unless you're in Japan, you're not likely to see one
Speaker 1: or experience it. Mercedes Benz has received a regulatory approval
Speaker 1: to manufacture level three autonomous vehicles that have its drive
Speaker 1: pilot system installed. It's recently been updated and has met
Speaker 1: international standards to be considered a level three autonomous system.
Speaker 1: So with a level three vehicle, human intervention isn't needed
Speaker 1: for most situations. It may still be required in edge
Speaker 1: cases where things are unusual. Now, at level four autonomy,
Speaker 1: an autonomous vehicle would in theory be able to react
Speaker 1: to most circumstances without the need for human intervention. It
Speaker 1: would not ask for human intervention, it would just react.
Speaker 1: The vehicle would respond properly, able to discern what was
Speaker 1: happening and then take the appropriate response. For example, such
Speaker 1: a car would presumably be able to distinguish between a
Speaker 1: trail of gosling's attempting to cross the road versus some
Speaker 1: leaves being blown by the wind, and either it would
Speaker 1: slow down to let the little goslings get across, or
Speaker 1: it would just continue without worry because it's just some leaves.
Speaker 1: And yeah, just saying that filled me with anxiety because
Speaker 1: I think goslings are cute and the thought of a
Speaker 1: car just driving through a crossing animal really really upsets
Speaker 1: me on a deep level. However, a level for autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicle would still be a conditionally autonomous vehicle, so there
Speaker 1: would still be some conditions under which this vehicle would
Speaker 1: not operate autonomously. And because this is the level that
Speaker 1: the s a E considers to be appropriate for robo taxis,
Speaker 1: it would mean that under a certain con asitions you
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to get a ride in a robotaxi.
Speaker 1: Because if if conditions are wrong for autonomous operation, then
Speaker 1: they won't they won't pick you up, right, They won't work.
Speaker 1: Those conditions could include things like weather events like let's
Speaker 1: say it's really pouring down rain and because of the
Speaker 1: heavy precipitation, there's a fear that the vehicle's sensors won't
Speaker 1: operate properly so it's unavailable. Or it could involve things
Speaker 1: like geo fencing. That is, the vehicles can only operate
Speaker 1: within a certain geographic area. Typically we're talking about a
Speaker 1: specific town or specific city, or specific lane between two cities,
Speaker 1: and the cars systems will not allow the vehicle to
Speaker 1: venture beyond certain borders. In fact, we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: how geo fencing is one way that companies are looking
Speaker 1: to tackle very tough engineering challenges in an effort to
Speaker 1: bring robotaxis to various places. Also, at this level, things
Speaker 1: like a steering wheel and or pedals like an acceleration
Speaker 1: and brake pedal. Those might not even be installed in
Speaker 1: a level for autonomous vehicle, so there would be no
Speaker 1: controls for you to take over should you feel the
Speaker 1: need to intervene. You would not have that option. You
Speaker 1: might have a button to press that was like an
Speaker 1: emergency stop feature where the car would then pull off
Speaker 1: to the side and come to a halt, but that
Speaker 1: might be it. So a level for autonomous vehicle should
Speaker 1: be able to handle pretty much any situation that could
Speaker 1: pop up under its operational conditions. And finally, we have
Speaker 1: level five autonomy. Now at this level of vehicle under
Speaker 1: any conditions would be able to operate autonomously. So this
Speaker 1: is the level where a vehicle could go anywhere and
Speaker 1: operate safely no matter what conditions might be present. Such
Speaker 1: a vehicle might have no other controls in it and
Speaker 1: handle absolutely everything by itself. We are nowhere close to
Speaker 1: achieving level five autonomy right now. So when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about some of the things that are holding
Speaker 1: us back from full autonomy, and some of them are
Speaker 1: technical and some of them are social and political. But
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. Okay, let's talk limitations,
Speaker 1: and we'll start with the technical. We've seen some pretty
Speaker 1: dramatic improvements in sensor technology over the years, but the
Speaker 1: fact is that under some conditions sensors can have trouble
Speaker 1: detecting the environment effectively, particularly when you're talking about the
Speaker 1: sensors being mounted to a platform that's moving at several
Speaker 1: dozen miles per hour or kilometers per hour. So this
Speaker 1: can include conditions like dense fog or heavy precipitation. Like
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, it would be pretty dangerous to ride
Speaker 1: in an autonomous vehicle that ends up mistaking fog for
Speaker 1: a solid surface. For example, let's say that whatever technology
Speaker 1: the sensors are using, the signals are bouncing back because
Speaker 1: it's hitting the fog or the precipitation. A car like
Speaker 1: that might start breaking suddenly, like applying the brakes suddenly,
Speaker 1: and that could pose a hazard for vehicles that are
Speaker 1: behind you. And since their limitations aren't a hypothetical either,
Speaker 1: we've seen some tragic cases in which driver assist systems
Speaker 1: failed to detect a danger and that led to loss
Speaker 1: of life fatalities. I mean back in famously, a Tesler
Speaker 1: driver named Joshua Brown was on a Florida divided highway.
Speaker 1: So that's a highway that has a couple of lanes
Speaker 1: going in one direction. Then you typically have a divider,
Speaker 1: a median of some sort, and lanes going in another direction.
Speaker 1: Uh and back in ten, Joshua Brown's on a Florida
Speaker 1: divided highway. He had autopilot in his test engaged and
Speaker 1: as he was traveling down there was a semi truck
Speaker 1: that was pulling out of a driveway that was perpendicular
Speaker 1: to the highway. The semi truck was crossing Brown's lanes
Speaker 1: of traffic in an effort to make a left hand
Speaker 1: turn to go the opposite direction down the highway, so
Speaker 1: it was pulling across the lanes that Brown's vehicle was in,
Speaker 1: uh the Tesla. Brown's Tesla failed to detect that there
Speaker 1: was an obstacle in the way, so the Tesla did
Speaker 1: not slow down and ended up colliding with the truck
Speaker 1: and Brown died in that car accident. Now, back then,
Speaker 1: Tesla was relying on systems that were provided by a
Speaker 1: company called Mobile I, but Tesla subsequently ended that partnership
Speaker 1: and then began to develop new sensor technology in house.
Speaker 1: So the autopilot of today's Tesla's works on a totally
Speaker 1: different techno logical platform then the one back in two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen. Because Tesla recognize that this is not something
Speaker 1: that it can it can support and still expect to
Speaker 1: be able to sell vehicles that have this autopilot feature
Speaker 1: in them. Now that being said, we saw a near
Speaker 1: identical tragedy occur in two thousand nineteen when Jeremy Banner,
Speaker 1: also going down a divided highway, also in Florida, also
Speaker 1: driving a Tesla that was in autopilot mode, also collided
Speaker 1: with a semi truck that had pulled out to make
Speaker 1: a left hand turn. It was, in many ways an
Speaker 1: identical scenario to what we saw before. So that leads
Speaker 1: to a question, how could two different autopilot systems make
Speaker 1: the same fatal error? And a lot of this potentially
Speaker 1: has to do with the types of technologies we depend
Speaker 1: upon to do certain things. So a lot of the
Speaker 1: anti collision technology we find in vehicles real lies on
Speaker 1: Doppler radar. Let's talk about what that means for just
Speaker 1: a second. First radar, Now, that involves sending out a
Speaker 1: radio signal and then detecting the echoes of that signal
Speaker 1: as they bounce back to the source. So your radar
Speaker 1: has an emitter and it has a sensor. The admitter
Speaker 1: sends out a radio signal, the sensor detects the returning
Speaker 1: radio signal after it's bounced off something. And when you
Speaker 1: measure the amount of time it took for a signal
Speaker 1: to go out and then bounce back to you, that
Speaker 1: tells you how far away you are from whatever it
Speaker 1: is that you're beaming signals at, which is pretty simple, right,
Speaker 1: But let's talk about the Doppler part. Now, if you've
Speaker 1: got two objects that are standing still, well, that means
Speaker 1: the signal you send out and the signal you get
Speaker 1: back are going to be pretty much the same wavelength
Speaker 1: and frequency because both you and the object are at
Speaker 1: a standstill. But what if one of you is moving
Speaker 1: toward the other, Well, in that case, the signal that
Speaker 1: comes back to you is going to be compressed. It's
Speaker 1: going to be shorter in wavelength and higher in frequency
Speaker 1: than the signal you sent out. It's being pushed by
Speaker 1: whatever it is that's moving towards you, or, in the
Speaker 1: case of you moving toward it, the fact that you're
Speaker 1: getting closer. So this tells you not only are you
Speaker 1: within a certain distance of another object, it tells you
Speaker 1: that you are getting closer to that object or that
Speaker 1: object is getting closer to you, depending on your point
Speaker 1: of reference. Now, for those of us who are are
Speaker 1: able to hear, this is something that we can experience
Speaker 1: out in the real world without any radar at all.
Speaker 1: If you've ever heard and approaching emergency vehicle that's running
Speaker 1: its siren. You probably noticed the sound of the siren
Speaker 1: changes when the vehicle passes you, So as the vehicle
Speaker 1: is approaching you, the pitch of the sirens sound is higher,
Speaker 1: and as it moves away from you, the pitch goes lower.
Speaker 1: And that's because the actual sound wave is being compressed
Speaker 1: as the vehicles moving towards you, and it's expanding as
Speaker 1: it's moving away from you. The vehicle pushes those sound
Speaker 1: waves closer together as it's coming at you and stretches
Speaker 1: amount as it's going away. That's when why the pitch
Speaker 1: is higher one way and lower the other way. The
Speaker 1: same thing happens with stuff like radar and radio signals,
Speaker 1: and obviously it gets more complicated if both you and
Speaker 1: the other objects are in motion at the same time.
Speaker 1: But these systems work best when everyone is moving in
Speaker 1: the same direction of travel, right, So it works really
Speaker 1: well if you're behind another vehicle and that vehicle slows down,
Speaker 1: then the system is very good at detecting that. But
Speaker 1: in a case where a truck is pulling across lanes
Speaker 1: of traffic, where the truck is moving perpendicular to your
Speaker 1: direction of travel, it doesn't work as well. It doesn't
Speaker 1: work as well on stationary objects, and a truck would
Speaker 1: appear to be stationary as it was moving laterally across
Speaker 1: your lane of traffic. Now, depending upon the lighting and
Speaker 1: the time of day and autonomous vehicles, camera system might
Speaker 1: not do much good either. It might misidentify a truck
Speaker 1: as being like a road sign, and a road sign
Speaker 1: hangs over the highway, it's not in the way of
Speaker 1: the highway, so the system wouldn't think of it as
Speaker 1: being a potential threat. Or it might interpret the side
Speaker 1: of the truck to be the sky, depending on those
Speaker 1: lighting conditions, and that would mean that the vehicle safety
Speaker 1: features would not initiate, and that could lead to tragedies
Speaker 1: like we've mentioned here on this episode. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: mean to suggest that these technical problems are impossible to solve.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true, but I do think it's
Speaker 1: going to take a lot of work, and it might
Speaker 1: require technologies that for the moment are prohibitively expensive, meaning
Speaker 1: that yeah, we could create a more reliable autonomous system,
Speaker 1: but then the cost of the vehicle would be so
Speaker 1: high that it wouldn't be practical from an economic standpoint.
Speaker 1: Some of these systems. These components like LDAR, some of
Speaker 1: them can cost as much as a brand new car
Speaker 1: does all by itself. And I'm not talking about the
Speaker 1: cheap car either. So when you start looking at that,
Speaker 1: you have to then take the economic factors into consideration
Speaker 1: and say, doesn't make economic sense to develop a system
Speaker 1: that relies on these components, because will we ever make
Speaker 1: our money back? Like would you be able to sell
Speaker 1: the vehicle at a cost that would make sense, or
Speaker 1: would no one buy it because it would be far
Speaker 1: too expensive. Even if you're talking about, say a taxi service,
Speaker 1: maybe a taxi service wouldn't buy it either because they'd say,
Speaker 1: the likelihood of us making our money back with cars
Speaker 1: that are that expensive before we have to replace those
Speaker 1: cars is so low that it doesn't make sense to
Speaker 1: go into it. That could be a real obstacle, and
Speaker 1: as you know, more to do with the cost than
Speaker 1: the actual technology. I also think that a major problem
Speaker 1: with autonomous vehicles has been in messaging and in hype
Speaker 1: companies in the autonomous vehicle business, not just Tesla I.
Speaker 1: I heap a lot of abuse on Tesla for this,
Speaker 1: but it is by far not the only company to
Speaker 1: engage in these kinds of things. But I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of the leaders in that space and made
Speaker 1: some really aggressive promises that in hindsight were impossible to
Speaker 1: follow through on. At least they were impossible given the
Speaker 1: time frames that were being tossed around. There were folks
Speaker 1: suggesting that we would have cities filled with autonomous vehicles
Speaker 1: able to operate in all conditions by well, it's two
Speaker 1: and obviously that didn't happen. And no, it wasn't just
Speaker 1: because a pandemic really messed things up. Though that definitely
Speaker 1: didn't help because it disrupted everything from workflow to supply chains.
Speaker 1: But even with sophisticated sensors, you then have to consider
Speaker 1: the decision making factor and take add into account. Now,
Speaker 1: at the moment, autonomous vehicles are for the most part
Speaker 1: independent computing islands. It's like a personal computer that isn't
Speaker 1: connected to the internet. So all the technology used to
Speaker 1: keep the car in autonomous operation typically is just on
Speaker 1: the car itself. So the car is relying on its
Speaker 1: own sensors and its own processor to detect the environment
Speaker 1: and make decisions. That is a tremendous amount of responsibility
Speaker 1: to put on technology. Then again, it's also a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of responsibility to put on a teenager too, but
Speaker 1: that's a different discussion. There are some proposals that suggest
Speaker 1: the real future for autonomous vehicles is one in which
Speaker 1: vehicles are in constant communication with one another and potentially
Speaker 1: with the infrastructure itself, with the road system that a
Speaker 1: vehicle would be able to stay in communication with, like
Speaker 1: a smart city, The road system and the cars on
Speaker 1: it would both be capable of adapting to different situations. So,
Speaker 1: as an example, a smart city might have intersections that
Speaker 1: could proactively change the timing on traffic lights to accommodate
Speaker 1: changes in traffic patterns and smooth out the experience and
Speaker 1: avoid long traffic jams. Cars in communication with the smart
Speaker 1: city infrastructure could plot out the most efficient routes that
Speaker 1: will save time and energy and adapt to changes that
Speaker 1: happened on the fly. It might even be able to
Speaker 1: adapt to routes that cause less wear and tear on
Speaker 1: the actual infrastructure, giving city planners the chance to address
Speaker 1: things before they become really big problems. I say that
Speaker 1: as someone who lives in Atlanta and is very used
Speaker 1: to the site of giant metal plates laid across the
Speaker 1: road because potholes have developed and the city has not
Speaker 1: had time to address it. If you had really smart infrastructure,
Speaker 1: you could start to detect things before they got to
Speaker 1: that point of of a problem. So these are really
Speaker 1: cool ideas, and the improvements in quality of life in
Speaker 1: those kinds of cities would be enormous. But to make
Speaker 1: this happen a lot of other stuff has to fall
Speaker 1: into place. First. Vehicles and cities would need to agree
Speaker 1: upon a common set of languages and protocols in order
Speaker 1: to communicate effectively. That alone is going to require tons
Speaker 1: of work. Typically, we see car companies develop their own
Speaker 1: in house systems which may or may not be compatible
Speaker 1: with the systems that are used by other car companies,
Speaker 1: which could lead to real delays. And seeing a fleet
Speaker 1: of truly autonomous vehicles navigate the roads, it would be
Speaker 1: kind of like putting a bunch of people who don't
Speaker 1: speak the same language into a maze and have them
Speaker 1: try and navigate it together. The cars would only understand
Speaker 1: other vehicles that were from the same manufacturer, and that
Speaker 1: would have limited usefulness unless we all just migrated to
Speaker 1: the same vehicle manufacturer. But that would turn that company
Speaker 1: into a global monopoly and uh I humbly suggest we
Speaker 1: don't do that. But that future in which vehicles talk
Speaker 1: to each other as well as two road systems into
Speaker 1: cities will require tons of other work as well. Obviously,
Speaker 1: cities are going to have to build out smart infrastructure,
Speaker 1: and that's likely to be expensive and time consuming. We
Speaker 1: also need really good wireless technologies in place to five
Speaker 1: G has promise, but we would need it to be
Speaker 1: more dense and more widespread than it is currently. For
Speaker 1: some industries like trucking, five G is not a great
Speaker 1: solution because on long hauls between cities, you're gonna hit
Speaker 1: routes that are going to have little to know five
Speaker 1: G support along those routes, and it would be foolish
Speaker 1: to build out a business that depends upon five G
Speaker 1: connectivity if that business involves navigating through places that don't
Speaker 1: have five G support. Meanwhile, there has to be a
Speaker 1: strong enough business case for the telecommunications industry to build
Speaker 1: out five G availability to these regions. That's hard to
Speaker 1: imagine if there just aren't that many people living along
Speaker 1: those routes, right, if it's not densely populated, then the
Speaker 1: telecommunications companies are gonna say, well, it's really expensive to
Speaker 1: build out the infrastructure. We have to put antennas all
Speaker 1: over the place. If we want to have high frequency
Speaker 1: five G, the stuff that's really high through put, low latency,
Speaker 1: that stuff, the five G that we think of when
Speaker 1: we think, oh, this can replace fiber Internet. You have
Speaker 1: to have very dense antenna deployment for that to work. Well,
Speaker 1: that's expensive and if a place is not densely populated,
Speaker 1: it's a really tough thing to tell a telecommunications company
Speaker 1: you need to put out the expense to build out
Speaker 1: that infrastructure even if you only have a few thousand
Speaker 1: customers in these area, is right, Like, that's that's a
Speaker 1: tough sales pitch to make to these telecommunications companies. So
Speaker 1: it's not likely that we're going to see intense five
Speaker 1: G coverage along some of these places. So five G
Speaker 1: could work in cities, and it might be a really
Speaker 1: good solution for the future of smart cities, but that
Speaker 1: would likely mean we would see autonomous vehicles largely confined
Speaker 1: to a specific region that geo fencing approach. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily be able to travel outside of those regions, not
Speaker 1: without having a robust enough system on board. The vehicle
Speaker 1: itself to handle everything when it, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: loses connectivity. And that's a really big part of it too.
Speaker 1: The fact is, all sorts of weird stuff happens on
Speaker 1: the roads, and engineers are not able to anticipate all
Speaker 1: of them. None of us are. There's just no practical
Speaker 1: or even possible way to preprogram the right response to
Speaker 1: every possible thing that could happen on the roads. This
Speaker 1: is another reason why geo fencing is an important solution,
Speaker 1: or at least a temporary one, because it limits the
Speaker 1: operational range of an autonomous vehicle. That also means it
Speaker 1: limits the number and variety of weird stuff that that
Speaker 1: vehicle could potentially encounter. It's not gonna eliminate weird stuff.
Speaker 1: It'll just limited to mostly a subsection of all the
Speaker 1: weird stuff. Right, Eliminating variables makes the whole problem less complicated.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say easier, but that's the wrong implication.
Speaker 1: Less complicated is probably the better wording, because it's still
Speaker 1: wicked complicated. Then we have to get through all these
Speaker 1: social components to making driverless vehicles an acceptable reality. According
Speaker 1: to Alex Kopatinski of Policy Advice around fort of people
Speaker 1: in the United States do not feel safe in a
Speaker 1: driverless car. They do not like the idea of getting
Speaker 1: into a driverless vehicle. I actually think for being uncomfortable
Speaker 1: is pretty low. I would have expected that more than
Speaker 1: half of people in the United States worry about their
Speaker 1: safety if they were to get into a driverless vehicle.
Speaker 1: Now that's not based on any hard data. That's just
Speaker 1: my my feeling, which we all know is not really
Speaker 1: that's not evidence, it's not worth while. I just feel
Speaker 1: forty feels uh really generous. And that's because whenever a
Speaker 1: driverless vehicle gets in an accident, we see a disproportionate
Speaker 1: amount of coverage about that accident. Now, we all know
Speaker 1: fatal accidents due to human error happen far too frequently.
Speaker 1: They're happening every day, lots of them, with thirty eight thousand,
Speaker 1: uh nearly thirty nine thousand happening in lots are happening
Speaker 1: every single day, and they typically do not receive nearly
Speaker 1: as much coverage as an autonomous vehicle accident beyond maybe
Speaker 1: local reports. Your local news might cover it, but and
Speaker 1: sometimes it might just be something like a traffic report,
Speaker 1: but you don't get the coverage that you would get
Speaker 1: if it were an autonomous vehicle. When an autonomous vehicles
Speaker 1: at fault, that becomes national or maybe even global news.
Speaker 1: So there is a disparity going on here. Right. You
Speaker 1: could argue that the autonomous vehicles in in aggregate are
Speaker 1: far more safe than human driven vehicles, but the news
Speaker 1: reporting has an amazing disparity there. There's going to be
Speaker 1: way more reporting on autonomous vehicle accidents than on your
Speaker 1: typical human caused accident. Still, even at you're still looking
Speaker 1: at a ton of people who would feel unsafe getting
Speaker 1: into a driverless car, and whether that worry is justified
Speaker 1: or not, it poses as a challenge when it comes
Speaker 1: to policy. See another really big component in the adoption
Speaker 1: of drive list car technology is getting politic Aisians to
Speaker 1: support it and to develop laws that create the guidelines
Speaker 1: around it. Many places lack laws that would cover autonomous
Speaker 1: driving vehicles. That gap is something to be concerned about.
Speaker 1: It means that if something happens, like if an autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicle gets into an accident in one of those places,
Speaker 1: you would have no framework to establish things like accountability.
Speaker 1: That's just one tiny slice of how it's important to
Speaker 1: establish policy so that there is a legal infrastructure around
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicle operation. That legal structure would in turn inform
Speaker 1: manufacturers as to certain requirements their vehicles would have to meet,
Speaker 1: and that would mean that these policies would also shape technology.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't just be how can we make this technology do
Speaker 1: the thing we wanted to do, It would be how
Speaker 1: can we make this technology do the thing we wanted
Speaker 1: to do within the legal framework. So that's an important
Speaker 1: thing that has to happen too, And in some places
Speaker 1: we're seeing that. In other places there's not really any
Speaker 1: official policy. If the policies don't match each other, that
Speaker 1: also creates a complication, because what do you do in
Speaker 1: a case where an autonomous vehicle that's legal to operate
Speaker 1: in one place ventures into a place where it's not
Speaker 1: legal to operate because it doesn't fully meet all the requirements.
Speaker 1: These are tough questions now. Way back in the day,
Speaker 1: if you listen to tech stuff, you know, I was
Speaker 1: really super hyped up for autonomous vehicles. I was so
Speaker 1: excited about it, and that's because I recognized the fallibility
Speaker 1: of humans. I recognize that we make mistakes, and the
Speaker 1: fact that technology can detect and react at a speed
Speaker 1: that is impossible for us to even imagine, meant the
Speaker 1: potential for this technology to save thousands of lives every year.
Speaker 1: And based off that very limited perspective, yeah, autonomous cars
Speaker 1: are phenomenal, but it also ignores all the other things
Speaker 1: that you have to take into consideration that driving, say fleet,
Speaker 1: is about way more than just seeing something and then
Speaker 1: reacting to it in time. And that's really where I
Speaker 1: was being blind. I bought into the hype and was
Speaker 1: eagerly looking forward to one when I'd be able to
Speaker 1: hop into a driverless car and go wherever I wanted.
Speaker 1: These days, i'm I would say, I'm more cautiously optimistic.
Speaker 1: I do still think we're going to get to a
Speaker 1: future where autonomous vehicles will play a more central role
Speaker 1: in how we get around locally, and in fact, it
Speaker 1: might it might even cut way back on the number
Speaker 1: of vehicles we have on the road in the long run,
Speaker 1: But I think that's going to take ages to play out.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll see those visions of a future where parking
Speaker 1: lots are reclaimed and turned into stuff like parks and whatnot.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll see that come true, Because maybe we will
Speaker 1: see a future where we have a fleet of autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicles that just kind of are there on demand whenever
Speaker 1: we need them, and then go somewhere when we don't.
Speaker 1: That somewhere is a big question mark by the way,
Speaker 1: that we haven't answered, and that we don't own our
Speaker 1: own car, right, we just use driverless vehicles as an
Speaker 1: on demand service whenever we need to get somewhere. It
Speaker 1: will be priced at a point where it would make
Speaker 1: sense to do that, where you know it would be
Speaker 1: at least uh no more expensive than owning and maintaining
Speaker 1: your own vehicle, and preferably less expensive than that. For
Speaker 1: that to happen, a lot of stuff has to fall
Speaker 1: into place, and it goes well beyond the scope of
Speaker 1: this episode, so I'm not going to go into it.
Speaker 1: But let's say that all these things are actually able
Speaker 1: to come true. If that's in fact a possibility, it's
Speaker 1: gonna take decades, if not longer, for us to get there.
Speaker 1: We we've just got we've got so much inertia built
Speaker 1: up that we have to get through that in order
Speaker 1: to make that future reality. And we have to remind
Speaker 1: ourselves that to achieve that vision, it's going to require
Speaker 1: a ton of work and the solution to a lot
Speaker 1: of non trivial problems. That is not a reason to
Speaker 1: give up, but it is a good reason to check
Speaker 1: our expectations and to look at things from a more
Speaker 1: critical point of view, and to approach things that way.
Speaker 1: That way, when we're really being critical, when we're really
Speaker 1: acknowledging the challenges that face us, were more equipped to
Speaker 1: meet those challenges, to find solutions, and to work through it.
Speaker 1: If we fall into the trap of being overhyped, like
Speaker 1: I was back in the day, then we're not gonna
Speaker 1: realize those challenges until they are undeniable, and when we've
Speaker 1: wasted time, money, and resources on things that were trivial
Speaker 1: in the in the long term. So still, I'm still
Speaker 1: up on autonomous vehicles. I still I'm eager to see
Speaker 1: them become a thing, not entirely sure that they're going
Speaker 1: to be an effective thing within my lifetime. I mean,
Speaker 1: they will exist, they will be out there. I just
Speaker 1: don't know at what sort of density it will be.
Speaker 1: But I do think it's a worthwhile pursuit. I think
Speaker 1: the benefits are undeniable if we are able to solve
Speaker 1: the problems. All Right, That wraps up this catch up
Speaker 1: on autonomous vehicles. Hope you enjoyed it as a reminder,
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