E. Musk, Aug. 4, .” Read more Hmmmm... Watch the Q & A portion starting about an hour in from the start. Watch especially the comments about his vision of the Tesla RoboTaxi (aka driverless cars, what I prefer to call autonomousTaxis or aTaxis, the new "Modern Transit"). The key visions are:
@ t=6375 ... the issue of how he sees these
driverless vehicles being operated (deployed).
While I don't agree with the option of
owning your own and renting it out "AirB&B -style where
B&B = Mobility". It is easier and more likely to begin
by having a Professional entity managing a fleet of Tesla
RoboTaxis that provide mobility to the everyone in the
community. This will be the the "Modern Public Transit".
An example being Trenton MOVES using a fleet of Tesla
RoboTaxis.
For these RoboTaxis to be attractive
to a fleet operator, they will need to be styled differently
than consumer versions that are sold to individuals. The
RoboTaxi will need to be easy to get in and out and
interface well with wheelchairs. They'll need to
accommodate ride-sharing (personTrips are the source of the
revenue, not vehicle sales). They should have 4-wheel
steering so they will never need to back up in stub-end
operation. He has re imagined the pickup truck. Certainly,
he can re-imagine a car focused on providing safe,
equitable, affordable, sustainable high-quality mobility
throughout a community.
At the end of addressing the future of Robotasis he states ..." assuming we do all these things, I think, probably, Tesla will be the most valuable company in the world."
@ t=7057 Elon is asked "when will Tesla launch the first pilot city for the RoboTaxi business?While a great vision, this is simply
not realistic. He started selling Teslas in California, not
throughout the whole country. He fully understands that one
must crawl before one walks, before one runs.
As you might suspect, I have the ideal "California" for him to first deploy his RoboTaxis and its not California or Arizona. It is New Jersey: Trenton, NJ or Perth Amboy, NJ or Patterson, NJ or many other cities in New Jersey where the mobility offered by Tesla RoboTaxis would be life changing to many while becoming an interesting alternative to everyone else. DoJo can more readily regress the coefficients to deliver safe driverless operation within any one of these Operational Design Domains (ODD) rather than trying to do them all simultaneously. Coefficients can/should be tied to ODDs rather than having one "magical" set that works in all ODDs. It is trivial for the Operating system to load the coefficients that work best in theRoboTaxi's current ODD. This should allow RoboTaxis to demonstrate their technical, economic and societal virtues much sooner in these communities. Market success will fuel expansion and replication in the delivery of safe, equitable, affordable, sustainable, high-quality mobility so that is spreads beyond New Jersey to California and beyond just like the purchase of the first Teslas spread from California to New Jersey and beyond.
@ t=7417 Elon is asked about
the Boring Company.
True, if one could bore
tunnels inexpensively, it would be great for longer distance
travel. Certainly, all of the freeways in and around cities
would be placed underground. High Speed rail on the
NorthEast Corridor can only go underground for long
stretches. Bringing the Dinky to a Nassau Street terminus
must be done underground. By the way Washington Road should
be underground eradicating the cancer that it is as a
surface street severing the Princeton Campus. Then there is
Rt. 29 that devastated Trenton by barricading the western
part of Trenton from the Delaware River and Rt. 129 that
severed neighborhoods; a scenario that was repeated in
essentially every city to accommodate through-moving surface
travel. They should all go underground. There is much good
that could be done. The challenge is the above if.
@ t=6665 "when disengaging autoPilot with the wheel,
the accelerator stays on. Please fix it!"
Maybe... touching or not touching the
steering wheel has little in common with acceleration (and
braking) which is (are) controlled by the feet. The
steering control should be readily overcome by input of a
torque on the steering wheel; however, the steering control
should revert to dominance if the driver ceases to exhort a
torque on the wheel. Moreover, torquing the steering wheel
should not disengage the brake or the throttle.
With respect to the driver actions on the brake and throttle:
Driver input from the throttle should
have precedence over "intelligent cruise control (ICC)"
input to the throttle and brake and should NOT turn off the
system simply because the driver touched the accelerator
pedal.
For the brake, it is a little
different. Tapping the brake should turn off the
acceleration function of the ICC. Acceleration should
remain off until the driver explicitly re-engages it.
Moreover, driver input to the brake, if less than what the
ICC calls for, should always be dominated by the
ICC's desire to brake. Tapping of the brakes should not
turn off the braking function of the ICC. That intelligent
brakig function should continue to keep m fro getting to
close to the vehicle in front of me. The acceleration
function has been turned off so I won't accelerate into the
back of the car ahead of me and the braking function should
continue to do its best to keep a proper separation between
me and the vehicle ahead. Turning the whole system off
placing me completely in control should require an explicit
action by me that indicates I'm knowingly usurping
responsibility.
I believe ICC should be on all the
time. Driver sets the speed and separation (or it is done
automatically relative to the speed limit, weather
conditions and road curvatures). Driver can choose to
override the throttle and override the braking at any time;
however, in the absence of overrides, the ICC is in charge.
Alain
[log in to unmask]" _mf_state="1" title="null" src="cid:[log in to unmask]" class="" width="44" height="44" border="0"> The SmartDrivingCars eLetter, Pod-Casts, Zoom-Casts and Zoom-inars are made possible in part by support from the Smart Transportation and Technology ETF, symbol MOTO. For more information: www.motoetf.com. Most funding is supplied by Princeton University's Department of Operations Research & Financial Engineering and Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) research laboratory as part of its research dissemination initiative
R. Mitchell, Aug. 5, "The California Department of Motor
Vehicles has accused Tesla of false advertising in its
promotion of the company’s signature Autopilot and Full
Self-Driving technologies.
The agency alleges the electric-car maker misled customers
with advertising language on its website describing Autopilot
and Full Self-Driving technologies as more capable than they
actually are.
The company “made or disseminated statements that are untrue
or misleading, and not based on facts,” the DMV said in a pair
of complaints filed with the state Office of Administrative
Hearings on July 28.
The DMV complaints point to the very names of the
technologies, as well as other “misleading” language such as
the following, which appears on the Tesla website’s Autopilot
page:..." Read more Hmmmm...
This is welcome news. We all agree that the names are
really misleading and are totally confusing. We need
truth in naming, advertising, politics, ... Alain
A. Hawkins, Aug. 4, "Last April, a semi-trailer truck
operated by the San Diego-based company that was traveling
down I-10 in Tucson, Arizona, suddenly lurched left, slamming
into a concrete divider, according to dashcam footage leaked to YouTuber
Asian Mai. TuSimple blamed “human error,” but a report
in The Wall Street Journal says that’s a
major oversimplification.
An internal report viewed by the Journal says that the crash
occurred because “a person in the cab hadn’t properly rebooted
the autonomous driving system before engaging it, causing it
to execute an outdated command.” The left-turn command was 2.5
minutes old and should have been erased but wasn’t, according
to the internal report.
But autonomous vehicle researchers say that blaming the crash
on human error is misleading, arguing that common safeguards
would have prevented the autonomous driving system from
executing the outdated command and likely would have prevented
the crash. AV systems should not respond to commands that are
even a couple hundredths of a second old, the researchers told
the Journal. And sharp turns at 65mph should also never have
been allowed...." Read more
Hmmmm... Agreed. Good thing there was a driver and
attendant on board. Moreover, since humans write all
the code, all crashes of code-driven vehicles could be
called "human error". Thus, calling it "human error"
doesn't earn a passing grade. Alain
C. Winston, Aug 5."... AVs’ social benefits derive from
their much safer overall operations compared with
nonautonomous vehicles. They would make highway travel much
safer, eliminate the stress of driving, maintain economic
activity and social distancing during a pandemic, and
virtually eliminate traffic stops and violent police-motorist
encounters.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Department of Transportation and
Congress have made little progress in fulfilling their
responsibilities when it comes to AVs. To usher in this new
technology, the government needs to establish a framework for
testing and adopting AVs, modernize the highway infrastructure
to facilitate safe AV operations, and reform highway policies
to encourage efficient operations. Instead, they have
conducted themselves in a lawyerly fashion by raising legal
and procedural matters. The result is delay and inaction.
The future of autonomous vehicles now depends on a policy
making environment where lawyers are the most represented and
influential occupation in government and where the legal
profession’s strong influence on government policy puts it in
a powerful position to affect policies that benefit its
members at the expense of other members of society.
Accordingly, as AVs are slowly adopted, law firms will exploit
opportunities in areas like liability, intellectual property,
and privacy to create new business, increase billable hours,
and capture a share of the AV industry’s capital. They will
face little resistance from policy makers. .." Read more ... Hmmmm...
Cliff's comments are even more poignant when one looks
at the equity opportunity made available by driverless
mobility systems that provide affordable auto-like
demand responsive mobility to everyone... the new
public transit... available to take anyone at any time
24/7 (less than a 5 minute wait) from any nearby
location directly to anywhere within the system's
Operational Design Domain. Mobility service that is
comparable (and in some way better) than that
available from one's personal automobile at a market
price that is comparable, if not cheaper, than driving
yourself (more productive use of the vehicle and
propensity to share rides during peak hours.). Such a
mobility service may well become the most powerful
innovation that begins to level the opportunity field
between the rich and the poor. Alain
M. Reuss, Aug. 4, "Advanced driver assistance technology and
fully autonomous vehicles are officially no longer the stuff
of fiction. They’re on our roads today. General Motors
pioneered this space in 2017 by launching the world’s first
truly hands-free driver assistance technology, Super Cruise.
Today, we have parallel paths to get hands-free driving to
market for individuals with currently available Super Cruise
and soon Ultra Cruise, while pursuing fully autonomous driving
through our work with Cruise.
With fully driverless vehicles now available through ridehail
services in the city of San Francisco and the continued
expansion of advanced driver assistance systems, it’s
increasingly important that we continue to keep safety at the
forefront in both ongoing developments in hands-free driving
and the future availability of retail AVs. We want to help our
customers expand their driving experience with exciting, safe
technologies...." Read more Hmmmm...
No disagreement here. Safety is a necessary
condition. It is a floor. It is a constraint
irrespective of the extent of automation. It is great
to have a "...
vision of zero crashes... " , but the objective is to
provide mobility. Alain
J. Swanson, May 18, "... According to Pittsburgh-based
autonomous vehicle technology developer, Argo AI, no sentient
beings are required to man its fleet of driverless vehicles,
which debuted yesterday on public roads in Miami — and it's
completely safe and legal.
"Elevators used to be a novelty, but today we take them for
granted," Alex Roy, Argo AI's director of special operations,
points out. "The two most common misconceptions about
driverless vehicles are that they will never work, or that
they will work everywhere overnight. The reality is,
driverless vehicles are on the road in several cities right
now, and that number will only grow."..." Read more
Hmmmm... Alex, we love the elevator analogy.
Congratulations. A shame I can't get you to come to
New Jersey. Alain
These editions are sponsored by the SmartETFs Smart
Transportation
and Technology
ETF, symbol
MOTO. For more
information
head to www.motoetf.com
https://www.cartsmobility.com/ provided technical support
Reuters,
July 26,
"General
Motors Co
(GM.N) has
lost nearly $5
billion since
2018 trying to
build a
robotaxi
business in
San Francisco,
and now as the
automaker's
Cruise unit
starts
charging for
rides, the
losses are
accelerating.
GM said on
Tuesday it
lost $500
million on
Cruise during
the second
quarter - more
than $5
million a day
- as it began
charging for
rides in a
limited area
of San
Francisco. ... that may be the case for the last quarter, but
the chart
below from GM's 6/30/222 10-Q Shows ($800M) for the
last 6 months
or $4.38/day
when divided
by 182.625
Whew!😅...
Cruise's
costly effort
to transform
autonomous
driving
technology
from a
long-term
research
project to a
profit-spinning
business comes
as investors
are backing
away from
riskier bets
on technology,
and
reassessing
how soon robot
vehicles of
any kind will
be deployed in
large scale on
public roads.
Shares of autonomous vehicle technology company Aurora Innovation Inc (AUR.O), for example, are down 80% for the year to date. Shares of robo-trucking company TuSimple Holdings Inc (TSP.O) have lost more than 70% of their value. Some automakers, including Ford Motor Co (F.N), have scaled back investments in automated vehicle units, or taken on partners to share the costs....
Cruise's
losses for the
first six
months of the
year deepened
to $900
million from
$600 million
during the
same period in
2021 - when
Cruise was not
charging for
rides. Higher
compensation
costs to keep
staff on board
after putting
aside plans
for an IPO
were one
factor in the
results, GM
executives
said.
Chief
Executive Mary
Barra said on
Tuesday she is
still bullish
on Cruise, and
reaffirmed a
forecast that
the unit could
generate $50
billion a year
in revenue
from automated
vehicle
services and
technology by
2030. .” Read more Hmmmm... Nice optimism. The
source of the
reality check
above comes
from GM's 6/30/222 10-Q. Start reading from page
41. then on
page 43:
[log in to unmask]" alt="" class="" width="635" height="98" border="0">
Whoa! The only nice thing that can be imagined is by
assuming that
they've had
essentially
zero revenue,
the operating
costs have
"only" been
$800M for the
last 6
months. That
is non-small.
I'd like to suggest that the strategy of trying to create a profitable driverless mobility service for folks that already have 2 or more cars in their garage, have excellent public transit service or travel on expense accounts when wanting to go to between the airport and "downtown" may not be the wisest way to launch such a mobility service. There is little opportunity to be substantially better or even equivalent to what those potential customers already have. Little opportunity to get loyal and repeat customers. The focus to date has been too heavily weighted on getting the technology to work for folks who already have more mobility options than they know what to do with. Great for click-bait; challenging for the 10-Q. What must Waymo's 10-Q Cash Flow chart look like?
Capturing loyal and repeat customers is really tough when the competition is excellent and entrenched. While pricing can be high, volume is almost non-existent even with nominal pricing. Except for the novelty, the marketplace in the Chandlers and SFs is essentially non-existent. To date those markets have been quiet, at best. What must Waymo's 10-Q Cash Flow chart look like?
It astonishes me that to date none of the leading
driverless
companies have
spent any
money trying
to serve the
needs of folks
that don't own
cars, aren't
traveling
using someone
else's money,
nor have
access to a
good public
transit system
focused on
their mobility
needs.
These folks definitely can't pay as much for a ride
as those that
are being
chased by
Cruise &
Waymo, but
there are more
of them.
Moreover, its
almost trivial
to provide
them with a
mobility
option that is
substantially
better than
what they have
today for
many, if not
most, of their
daily
personTrips.
This is the market that we've found in New Jersey; in Trenton & Mercer County, Perth Amboy & Middlesex County and Patterson & Passaic County. We haven't even begun looking in Newark, Camden, Atlantic City and the rest of New Jersey.
The excuse seems to have been that it would be too
expensive to
deal with NJ's
bad weather,
even though,
we've made it
clear that New
jersey is not
interested in
a 365.25
days/yr.
mobility
solution.
We'd be more
than pleased
with a 350
days/yr.
operation.
New Jersey has
more than 350
good days a
year. We
aren't so
entitled that
we can't wait
for the
hurricane to
blow through,
the snow to be
shoveled or
the fog to
lift before we
go about our
normal
business. We
enjoy the
"snow day" at
home. We are
convinced that
is actually
easier and
cheaper to
capture
recurring and
loyal NJ
customers.
The rule-of-thumb for a
Trenton-MOVES
style
operation is:
a vehicle
needs to serve
at least 100
personTrips/day.
With slightly
better
ride-sharing
and
time-of-day
pricing, one
might be able
to get to 150
personTrips/day. To cover a fleet of 100 vehicles, ridership needs to
be about 10k
to 15k
personTrips/day.
This kind of
utilization
leads to per
personTrip
capitalization
costs of less
that
$1/personTrip
for vehicles
costing
upwards of
$150k @
interest rates
upward of
7.5%. That is
to say, $1/personTrip readily covers the
vehicle
capital costs
even at
moderate
scales.
Given that trips on-average
are less than
five miles,
vehicle
operating
costs are less
than
$1/personTrip.
Management costs are largely
fixed. With
volume the per
personTrip
burden
decrease
enormously,
and can't be
more than
$0.50/personTrip.
Break-even fare is thus
roughly
$2.50/personTrip.
An average market fare of $3.50/personTrip delivers a profit of >$1.00/personTrip, >$100/vehicle-day.
A fleet of 100 vehicles delivers a profit >$10k/day, >$3.0M/yr. in the Trenton ODD serving 10k personTrips/day.
From where do these 10k personTrips/day materialize?
Essentially all the riders of NJ Transit rail would love a simple reliable convenient way to get to & from the train. By on-demand service within the community around the train station, loyalty upwards of 80% could be achieved for anyone wanting to go to NYC or within walking distance to any other NJ train station. For Trenton that represents a marketplace of 8,000 personTrips/day that currently drive to & from the station every day and those that currently don't use the train that would if it was easy and reliable to them to get to AND from the station, when they wanted to get to and from there. Half of the 10k would easily come from serving the Trenton Train Station.
Trenton Central HS has 1,800 students. More than 1,500 live more than a 10 minute walk to the TCHS. Truancy is proportional to how far a student has to walk to school. Trenton MOVES could readily serve 1,250 of these students every day. That's 1/4 of the needed 10k.
We only need another 2.5k personTrips and we haven't
even begun
dealing with
getting people
to & from
work in
Trenton,
doctors,
shopping
visiting
friends, etc.
needed by the
70% of Trenton
households who
have access to
one or zero
cars. 100
vehicles
serving 10k
personTrips/day
making
>3.0M/year
@ an average
fare of
$3.50/personTrip
is just the
start of a
profitable
business.
Employing 200
vehicles
costing at
most $100k at
interest rates
of less than
7.5% serving
150
personTrips/day
at fares of
$3.00/personTrip
makes way more
than $5M per
year.
Expanding Trenton MOVES throughout Mercer County
giving the
opportunity to
increase
average fare
(because of
the longer
personTrips)
to maybe
$5/personTrip
keeping
utilization @
150
personTrips/vehicle-day
of a fleet of
1,000 vehicles
and doing a
little better
on interest
rates and cap
costs can lead
to profits of
>$10M/year
for
Trenton/Mercer
MOVES. There
are at least
10
replications
of
Trenton/Mercer
MOVES that
could be done
in NJ by 2030
utilizing a
fleet of at
least 10,000
vehicles
leading to a
profit of
>$100M/year.
This kind of success leads to having many more people
leave their
cars at home
and
frequenting
NJ-MOVES as
their mobility
system. This
could lead to
a NJ-Moves
fleet of
>100,000
vehicles is
generating a
profit of
>$1B.
Reuters,
July 16,
"China's
search engine
giant Baidu
Inc on
Thursday
unveiled its
new autonomous
vehicle (AV)
with a
detachable
steering
wheel, with
plans to put
it to use for
its robotaxi
service in
China next
year.
Cost per unit
will drop to
250,000 yuan ($37,031.55)
for the new
model,
compared with
480,000 yuan
for the
previous
generation,
Baidu said in
a statement.
“This massive
cost reduction
will enable us
to deploy tens
of thousands
of AVs across
China,"
Baidu's chief
executive
Robin Li said
at the Baidu
World
conference.
"We are moving
towards a
future where
taking a
robotaxi will
be half the
cost of taking
a taxi today.” Read more Hmmmm... Really?? See video. Where do I buy 10 for immediate
delivery to
New Jersey
with option to
buy 100 more
by EoY'22 and
1st inline to
buy 1,000 more
by EoY'23. [log in to unmask]" moz-do-not-send="true">eMail me!!!
While the design is certainly not ideal for "Trenton MOVES" or "Perth Amboy MOVES" they would be good enough to get started with addressing the "Sociology Challenges" of MOVES-style deployments. And the price is right if this isn't total click-bait. But... that is a really big if . 🙁 Alain
June
15, Press
release,
"Today, as
part of the
U.S.
Department of
Transportation’s efforts to increase roadway safety and encourage
innovation,
the National
Highway
Traffic Safety
Administration
published the initial round of data it has
collected
through its Standing General Order issued last year and
initial
accompanying
reports
summarizing
this data.
The SAE Level
2 advanced
driver
assistance
systems
summary report
is available here, while the SAE Levels 3-5
automated
driving
systems
summary report
is available here. Going forward, NHTSA will
release data
updates
monthly..."
Read more Hmmmm... This is a good
start;
however, as
NHTSA repeats
many times,
this is just a
start and
there are many
"data
limitations".
The most
severe may
well be the
possibility of
substantial "sampling bias", the most severe of which is
that each OEM
sourced the
reported data
very
differently.
That makes the
data between
OEMs
incomparable.
Also un reported is any measure that would enable a "crash rate" for an OEM to be determined. One only has a numerator value but no denominator value.
Finally, 392 crashes of "Level 2"
cars were
reported
during the
"10" month
period of July
2021 and May
15, 2022.
About 12 million vehicles are involved in traffic
crashes
every year
among the 283
million
vehicles that
operate in the
US. Assuming
any one
vehicle is
unlikely to be
involved in
more than one
crash per yer,
it means that
each vehicle,
on average is
involved in
12M/283M =
0.0424 crashes
per year.
Thus, if these
ADAS cars were
involved in
crashes at the
average rate,
and had their
ADAS on all
the time, the
500 vehicle
crashes per
year contained
in these data
would expect
to be
generated from
a fleet of
only about
11,800
vehicles (or
0.0042% of the
vehicles
("everything
being equal",
ADAS on all
the time.).
Consequently, either, ...
Anyway. It is a start and at least to me the numbers
are not
startling.
What needs improvement is sourcing of the incidents.
Maybe OtA
should be
mandated. At
minimum, the
VIN should
specify the
existence of
theses
capabilities.
Then normal
police
reportings can
begin to
"automatically"
access the "black box event recorders" (see also Accident data recorder and NHTSA) that are in most cars today.
Unfortunately,
privacy concerns makes this not-easy. So
here we are.
It wont be
easy to do
much better,
but we should
continue to
try.
What the data do point out is that a substantial
number of the
crashes
involved the
rear ending of
a stationary
object. I
have pointed
out repeatedly
that the
source code of
these systems
explicitly
disregard
stationary
objects in the
lane ahead.
Justifying
this explicit
process is
that current
sensors incur
unacceptable
false
positives when
trying to
determine if
sufficient
headroom
exists under
detected
stationary
object in the
lane ahead.
Thus, to avoid
braking in
response to
these rare
false
positives,
stationary
objects in the
lane ahead are
all assumed to
be "pass
under-able".
As one drives, one encounters many stationary objects
in the lane
ahead. These
are readily
sensed and
precisely
located
ahead.
Readily sensed
are
overpasses,
signs, tree
canopies,
traffic
lights, ...
all of which
can usually be
readily passed
under. (As
can vehicles
ahead that
come to rest
in
vehicle-follower
mode. These
are not
disregarded
because one is
in
vehicle-follower
mode.)
But when one is in vehicle-leader mode and one
encounters a
stationary
object ahead,
I believe,
most, if not
all "Level 2"
systems
disregard that
object and
assume the car
can pass
underneath.
So if you are
in vehicle
leader mode
and come over
the crest of a
hill to be
confronted
with a stopped
object ahead,
your system
will disregard
that object.
Similarly, if
the vehicle
that you are
following
changes lanes
forcing you to
become a
leader, any
stationary
object ahead
will be
disregarded.
Alain
The 5th Summit: https://www.cartsmobility.com/summit
A.
Nathans, May
11, "When
Serena Ren
presented her
senior thesis
on using
machine
learning for
art appraisals
last month,
she hoped to
see her
friend, Joyce
Luo, present
her thesis on
fighting
opioid
addiction. But
since all
students in
the Department
of Operations
Research and
Financial
Engineering
present their
theses in
parallel
sessions, this
was
impossible.
But on May 4,
Ren and Luo
finally got to
see each
other’s
presentations
in a classroom
in Sherrerd
Hall, thanks
to the
department’s
first-ever
event in which
selected
students
present their
thesis work to
the whole
department....
" Read more Hmmmm... I'm so proud! Hopefully we'll be able to
release the
video so you
can enjoy.
Keep trying
the link:
PAVE,
May 4,
"Autonomous
vehicle
technologies
offer
incredible
potential:
they could
make our
highways
safer, they
could offer
new mobility
options for
people who
can’t drive,
and they could
help create a
more equitable
transportation
system for
those who are
not
well-served by
our current
system.
During the
month of May,
we are
highlighting
places where
AVs are in use
— today —
being
deployed,
tested, and
used for
public good.
We want to
look at
examples of
the technology
being used to
serve food
deserts, to
expand access
to rural
communities,
to offer new
accessibility
options, and
more.
We are
starting with
the Trenton
MOVES
initiative,
which is the
first
large-scale
urban transit
system in
America based
entirely on
self-driving
shuttles. The
shuttles,
which carry
four to eight
passengers,
serve
traditionally
underserved
Trenton
neighborhoods,
where 70% of
households
have limited
access to a
single
automobile, or
no access at
all. Our
panelists will
detail the
program,
describing how
it works, the
results it has
achieved, and
their vision
for the
future......"
Read more Hmmmm...
Very nice. Be
sure to watch video 😁 and see ZoomCast 267 Alain
P. Keller, April 29, "New Jersey recently announced a $5 million grant for the Trenton Mobility & Opportunity: Vehicles Equity System or MOVES Project. The grant to the City of Trenton will support the planned start up and eventual deployment of 100 Autonomous Vehicles that will provide an on-demand automated transit system to serve the 90,000 residents of Trenton....." Read more Hmmmm... Very nice. 😁 AlainSaturday, April 23, 2022
H.
Jin, April 6,
"Electric
carmaker Tesla
(TSLA.O) will
make a
"dedicated"
self-driving
taxi that will
"look
futuristic,"
Chief
Executive Elon
Musk said on
Thursday,
without giving
a timeframe.
The
50-year-old
billionaire,
wearing a
black cowboy
hat and
sunglasses,
made the
comments at
the opening of
Tesla's $1.1
billion
factory in
Texas, which
is home to its
new
headquarters.
"Massive
scale.
Full
self-driving.
There's going
to be a
dedicated
robotaxi,"
Musk told a
large crowd at
the
factory...." Read more
Elon followed the graceful rollout of his Supercharger infrastructure which enabled the upper-middle class that doesn't have a backup fleet and needs to have a toy and reliably go back and forth to grandma's house. Viola!!! No longer just a toy. Seamless evolution to "Massive Scale" scale and Massive Profitability.
RoboTaxis' evolution
to "Massive Scale" is
turning out to
be different.
Starting with
rich
WesternStaters
doesn't seem
to be working
sociologically
for Waymo.
The rides
offered seem
to be taken
for
entertainment
and side-show
purposes
rather than
valued
enablers of
enhanced
quality of
life. Nice
for selfies,
but not much
more.
Recall fundamental value is to provide a safe, high-quality ride from A to B. "Safe" is "safe", but "high-quality" is relative to what one now has readily available. For the rich, that's where they've already put a lot of money to create for themselves something really nice. The chances someone is going to offer something better to an individual that has crafted something perfect for themselves is slim-to-none. Consequently, the service is used primarily for taking selfies.
For those that don't have their
own car for
whatever
reason (can't
drive, don't
want to, too
young, too
old, and/or
too poor)
their mobility
options are
simply
dreadful.
Absolutely
trivial for an
aTaxi service
to be viewed
as the quality
winner and
used to
provide
customer
accessibility,
improved
quality of
life,
endearment,
respect, love,
appreciation,
loyalty, and
use.
Consequently, if Elon is really serious about achieving "Massive Scale" then he should basically flip his Tesla strategy and start by focusing on serving the mobility needs of those that will fully appreciate and gain the most personal value from his market offering;
These are the customers of Trenton MOVES; only about 50,000 of Trenton's 90,000 population; but 50,000 that will really appreciate you. Start by only serving Trenton's 8 square mile area with about 100 vehicles and only during the best 350 days out of the year's 365.25.
They'll be so appreciative and you
will have
provided the
spark that
will allow
your aTaxis
to go
viral! You'll
quickly serve
Mercer county,
Newark,
Camden,
Atlantic City,
New Brunswick,
Toms River,
Perth Amboy,
all of New
Jersey,
Eastern
Pennsylvania,
New York City
(except
Manhattan),
Long Island,
.....
That's the natural road to "Massive Scale" for Mobility for all. Start with those in most need and evolve to convert those that will leave their own cars parked in their driveway.
"Massive Scale" starts with Trenton MOVES. Alain
The Waymo
Team, March
30, "This
morning in San
Francisco, a
fully
autonomous
all-electric
Jaguar I-PACE,
with no human
driver behind
the wheel,
picked up a
Waymo engineer
to get their
morning coffee
and go to
work. Since
sharing that
we were ready
to take the
next step and
begin testing
fully
autonomous
operations in
the city,
we’ve begun
fully
autonomous
rides with our
San Francisco
employees.
They now join
the thousands
of Waymo One
riders we’ve
been serving
in Arizona,
making fully
autonomous
driving
technology
part of their
daily
lives...." Read more Hmmmm... Congratulations! Enormou!
s accomplishment and
fundamental
expression of
confidence in
your
technology.
Please come to
New Jersey
where we are
certain that
you can
actually
delier "Safe,
Equitable,
Affordable,
Sustainable,
HIgh-quality
Mobility" that
will
substantially
improve the
quality-of-life
of many by
transforming
affordable
housing into
affordable
living and
more.
K. Pyle, Feb. 9, "Dr. Alain Kornhauser’s vision of bringing equitable, sustainable, and affordable mobility to the people of Trenton took another step forward with the February 9th, 2022 announcement (Facebook) of a $5 million NJDOT Local Transportation Planning Fund Grant for the Trenton Mobility & Opportunity: Vehicles Equity System (MOVES) Project (PDF). The significance of this event goes beyond the grant announcement..." Read more Hmmmm... Ken, thank you for the kind words. Alain
W. Skaggs, Feb. 3,"We are excited to invite you to join Mayor Gusciora, N.J. Department of Transportation (NJDOT) Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, and Trenton Public Schools Superintendent James Earle to celebrate a $5 million award from the NJDOT Local Transportation Projects Fund for an unprecedented public transportation project right here in the Capital City. The project is called the Trenton Mobility & Opportunity: Vehicular Equity System (MOVES) initiative.
Originally announced by Governor Murphy and Commissioner Gutierrez-Scaccetti in December, TrentonMOVES seeks to provide a safe, equitable, and affordable high-quality on-demand mobility service to Trenton residents. The effort is a collaboration between the Governor’s Office, NJDOT, the City of Trenton, and Princeton University.
The $5 million award is a huge milestone for the project. This will be the first large-scale urban transit system in America to be based entirely on self-driving shuttles. Each vehicle will carry four to eight passengers at a time. The AVs will be low-cost to users in underserved neighborhoods. The high school will be one of the central destinations on the first routes.
The
event will
take place at
11:00 a.m.
on
Wednesday,
Feb. 9, 2022
in the Trenton
Central High
School
auditorium.
Members of the
press will be
invited to
attend. ...."
Read more Hmmmm... Another real milestone. !
;
The Trenton MOVES RfEI closed
February 25,
with 20
submittals.
Next comes the 5thPrinceton
SmartDrivingCar Summit June 2 -> 4, 2022 in Princeton &
Trenton, NJ.
The Summit
will be
focused on
enabling
Trentonians to
get a first
glimpse at
technology and
mobility
systems that
can deliver
Trenton MOVES'
mobility
objectives
(Safety,
Equity,
Affordability,
Sustainability,..) and, very importantly, enabling technology and
mobility
companies to
learn the
market
opportunities
available to
be captured in
Trenton, the
rest of Mercer
County, and
throughout New
Jersey.
Trenton MOVES is a win-win opportunity for the citizens of New Jersey (The Public) and the shareholders of mobility provider(s) (The Private), who can come together in a Trenton MOVES Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) that will be created through a Request for Proposal (RfP) process commencing shortly after the close of the Summit. 😁 Alain
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