What We’re Reading
April 27, 2022
States Diverge on AV Regulation. How Much Is Too Much? (GovTech, April 21, 2022)
A general lack of standardization—from nomenclature to technology to regulation and more—presents challenges in the AV world. One such challenge receiving increasing attention relates to equitable access. As Tyler Duvall, CEO of AV tech company Cavnue, commented during a recent panel presentation at CoMotion Miami: “Autonomous vehicles can be one of the greatest egalitarian trends in world history, or it can pivot and become effectively a privilege for certain classes of people who can afford it and take advantage of it.” Debate ensued between panelists regarding the government’s role in regulating AV development to further equality, with Karina Ricks of the Federal Transit Administration offering that “government should set the baseline for safety, access and the equitable distribution of transportation technologies.”
We have seen equity and access issues become part of the conversation before. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg highlighted equity as a DOT funding priority in his address at this year’s SXSW, and equity and access are drivers in the right to repair movement we wrote about here.
Ford launches production of F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck, says it’s a ‘Model T moment’ (electrek, April 26, 2022)
Pre-sale figures for Ford’s F-150 Lightning skyrocketed after it was announced that the new EV pickup “would start at $40,000, with a range of up to 300 miles,” causing the OEM to increase its annual production rate. Executive chair Bill Ford invoked nostalgia, saying “today we celebrate the Model T moment for the 21st Century at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center. The Rouge is where Ford perfected the moving assembly line, making it a fitting backdrop as we make history again.”
We tried to build our own F-150 Lightning with the company’s on-line configuration tool to see which ADAS features might be included. The bottom line is that some features are available, but they impact the bottom line (underscoring equity and access issues?). The “Lariat” trim, for example, is advertised to drivers wanting to “be a tech titan” with standard features including intelligent adaptive cruise control and Ford Co-Pilot360 Assist 2.0—but it starts at $67K. Or, for $90K, you can “have it all” with the “Platinum” trim, which comes standard with Ford Co-Pilot360 Active 2.0—Ford’s BlueCruise offering “allowing for hands-free driving on more than 130,000 miles of highway across North America.”
Tesla’s Robotaxis Coming in 2024, Full Self-Driving Feature in 2023 (IoT World Today, April 23, 2022)
Elon Musk has made some big announcements recently. Some had nothing to do with Twitter. During a shareholder call on April 20, Musk “teased” mass production of a Tesla robotaxi fleet by 2024, calling the expected steering-wheel-and-pedal-free vehicles a “‘massive driver’ of Tesla’s growth.” And, true to form, Musk all but promised a “feasible and practically” useful FSD feature by year end—despite recognizing the significant technological challenges in reaching FSD, including that “you actually have to solve real-world artificial intelligence, which nobody has solved.”
Interestingly, just days later, it was reported by AZO Robotics that a team at MIT may have cracked the code with a new system that “works out the relationship between other road users, for example, calculating which driver or cyclist has the right of way in a given situation, and from this relationship can predict potential maneuvers offering a multiagent behavior solution.” While these researchers do not promise FSD by year-end, their system “could make for better, safer self-driving vehicles when placed in real-world scenarios” and, in training “future planning algorithms for autonomous self-driving cars, the system could also help create vast amounts of driving data to continually enhance performance in the long-term and, in turn, deliver a new generation of autonomous vehicles.”