One of the reasons self-driving is guaranteed to take hold is the sheer
numbers of competitors in the space all striving for the best solution. There
is also competition between cities, states and countries.
On August 18, Uber announced it would test self-driving taxis in
Pittsburgh later this month. But second place will have to do. The World’s First Self-Driving Taxis Debut in Singapore
starting Thursday.
Select members of the public will be able to hail a free ride through
their smartphones in taxis operated by nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle
software startup. While multiple companies, including Google and Volvo, have
been testing self-driving cars on public roads for several years, nuTonomy
says it will be the first to offer rides to the public. It will beat
ride-hailing service Uber, which plans to offer rides in autonomous cars in
Pittsburgh, by a few weeks.
The service will start small — six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end
of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully
self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the
number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. Eventually, the model could be
adopted in cities around the world, nuTonomy says.
For now, the taxis only will run in a 2.5-square-mile business and
residential district called “one-north,” and pick-ups and drop-offs will be
limited to specified locations. And riders must have an invitation from
nuTonomy to use the service. The company says dozens have signed up for the
launch, and it plans to expand that list to thousands of people within a few
months.
The cars — modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrics — have a
driver in front who is prepared to take back the wheel and a researcher in
back who watches the car’s computers. Each car is fitted with six sets of
Lidar — a detection system that uses lasers to operate like radar — including
one that constantly spins on the roof. There are also two cameras on the
dashboard to scan for obstacles and detect changes in traffic lights.
Doug Parker, nuTonomy’s chief operating officer, said autonomous taxis
could ultimately reduce the number of cars on Singapore’s roads from 900,000
to 300,000.
“When you are able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot
of possibilities. You can create smaller roads, you can create much smaller
car parks,” Parker said. “I think it will change how people interact with the
city going forward.”
Olivia Seow, 25, who does work in startup partnerships in one-north and is
one of the riders nuTonomy selected, took a test ride of just less than a
mile on Monday. She acknowledged she was nervous when she got into the car,
and then surprised as she watched the steering wheel turn by itself.
“It felt like there was a ghost or something,” she said.
But she quickly grew more comfortable. The ride was smooth and controlled,
she said, and she was relieved to see that the car recognized even small
obstacles like birds and motorcycles parked in the distance.
“I couldn’t see them with my human eye, but the car could, so I knew that
I could trust the car,” she said. She said she is excited because the
technology could free up her time during commutes or help her father by
driving him around as he grows older.
An Associated Press reporter taking a ride Wednesday observed that the
safety driver had to step on the brakes once, when a car was obstructing the
test car’s lane and another vehicle, which appeared to be parked, suddenly
began moving in the oncoming lane.
NuTonomy Test Drive
Above image from the BBC report Self-Driving
Taxi Trial Kicks Off in Singapore.
Once again, I note the date on my calendar. It appears to be 2016. Ford
has five years of testing to get the technology correct for its launch date
of cars without steering wheels.
It won’t take that long.
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New Lidar Chips for Self-Driving Vehicles are Smaller Than a
Dime, Cost $10 to Manufacture
Launch Dates
Here are the announced launch dates from Driverless Car Watch
Delphi and MobilEye to provide off-the-shelf self-driving system
by 2019
Both companies have announced that they will bring a fully self-driving (SAE
level 4) system on the market for use in a variety of cars in 2019.
Source: TheVerge,
2016-08-23
Ford CEO announces fully autonomous vehicles for mobility services
by 2021
Mark Fields, Ford’s CEO announced that the company plans to offer fully
self-driving vehicles by 2021. The vehicles, which will come without steering
wheel and pedals, will be targeted to fleets which provide autonomous
mobility services. Fields expects that it will take several years longer
until Ford will sell autonomous vehicles to the public.
Source: Reuters,
2016-08-16
Volkswagen expects first self driving cars on the market by 2019
Johann Jungwirth, Volkswagen’s appointed head of Digitalization Strategy,
expects the first self-driving cars to appear on the market by 2019. He did
not claim that these would be Volkswagen models.
Source: Focus,
2016-04-23
GM: Autononomous cars could be deployed by 2020 or sooner
General Motor’s head of foresight and trends Richard Holman said at a
confererence in Detroit that most industry participants now think that
self-driving cars will be on the road by 2020 or sooner.
Source: Wall
Street Journal, 2016-05-10
BMW to launch autonomous iNext in 2021
At their annual shareholder meeting, BMW CEO Harald Krueger said that BMW
will launch a self-driving electric vehicle, the BMW iNext, in 2021.
Source: Elektrek,
2016-05-12
Ford’s head of product development: autonomous vehicle on the
market by 2020
Raj Nair, Ford’s head of product development, expects that autonomous
vehicles of SAE
level 4 (which means that the car needs no driver but may not be capable
of driving everywhere) will hit the market by 2020.(Source: autonews,
2016-02-27)
Baidu’s Chief Scientist expects large number of self-driving cars
on the road by 2019
In an interview session, Andrew Ng, the chief scientist of the Chinese search
engine Baidu expects that a large number
self-driving self-driving cars will be on the road within three years, and
that mass-production will be in full swing by 2021.
(Source: Quora,
2016-01-29)
First autonomous Toyota to be available in 2020
Toyota is starting to overcome its long-standing reluctance with respect to
autonomous driving: It plans to bring the first models capable of autonomous
highway driving to the market by 2020.
(Source: Wired.com,
2015-10-08)
Elon Musk now expects first fully autonomous Tesla by 2018,
approved by 2021
In an interview by Danish newspaper Borsen,
Tesla’s founder Elon Musk accelerates his timeline for the introduction of
fully autonomous Teslas by 2 years (!) compared to his estimate less than a
year ago (October 2014). He now expects fully autonomous Teslas to be ready
by 2018 but notes that regulatory approval may take 1 to 3 more years
thereafter.
(Source: Borsen Interview on youtube, timeline:
8:06-8:29, recorded on 2015-9-23)
Mike “Mish” shedlock
