Neil Kennett - Cars of the Future

Reaction to first monthly NHTSA data on crashes involving vehicles with ADAS and ADS.

US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration publishes first monthly report into ADAS and ADS crashes

On 15 June, the US Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published the first of what will be monthly reports into crashes involving vehicles with advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and more advanced automated driving systems (ADS).

ADAS

In brief, for SAE Level 2 ADAS equipped vehicles, 367 crashes were reported from July 2021 to 15 May 2022, resulting in six fatalities and five cases of serious injury. Tesla reported the most, followed by Honda and Subaru.

Cue the headlines, “Tesla Autopilot and Other Driver-Assist Systems Linked to Hundreds of Crashes” in the New York Times and “Teslas running Autopilot involved in 273 crashes reported since last year” in the Washington Post.

However, the United States Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG) shed light on this, explaining that “Teslas are connected to the internet and automatically report if the car was in Autopilot when it crashed. Honda asks its drivers if they were using ADAS, so it relies on hard-to-verify personal accounts. Everyone else leaves it up to the police report.”

For ADS, nearly all the data comes from California. 130 crashes were reported from July 2021 to 15 May 2022. One resulted in serious injury. Waymo reported the most incidents, followed by Transdev Alternative Solutions and then Cruise.

Reaction

Dr. Steven Cliff, NHTSA’s Administrator, said: “The data released today are part of our commitment to transparency, accountability and public safety.

“New vehicle technologies have the potential to help prevent crashes, reduce crash severity and save lives, and the Department is interested in fostering technologies that are proven to do so; collecting this data is an important step in that effort.

“As we gather more data, NHTSA will be able to better identify any emerging risks or trends and learn more about how these technologies are performing in the real world.”

Autonomous vehicle safety consultant Philip Koopman welcomed the new data, commenting: “This is an excellent first step for transparency. All of us safety advocates can wish for more data and for less redaction, but this is a crucial step forward.

“If I had one wish, it would be to divide the narrative data field into two sections: public narrative and confidential narrative, and put huge pressure on the reporting companies to minimize things put into the confidential narrative.”

On this side of the pond, The Law Commission has recommended that automated vehicles must be able to record and store data necessary for incident investigation.

China’s Google, Baidu, unveils a self-driving concept car ahead of a production model in the near future

Baidu’s JIDU unveils ROBO-01 self-driving concept car

When Baidu, the company frequently referred to as “China’s Google”, unveils a self-driving concept car ahead of a nearly-ready production model it deserves our attention, so here goes…

In January 2021, Baidu announced plans to establish an electric vehicle (EV) company and formed a strategic partnership with Chinese vehicle manufacturer (VM), Geely. The result was JIDU and on 8 June 2022 the new start-up unveiled the ROBO-01 concept car, which supports “high-level autonomous driving”.

Self-driving ROBO-01 video

JIDU ROBO-01 self-driving concept car video

JIDU’s CEO, Xia Yiping, commented: “The Intelligent Car 3.0 Era is the era of robocars. The transition to this new era is marked by the shift of driving power from humans to AI, with robocars ultimately achieving self-generating progress led by AI.

“The automotive industry in the 3.0 era will see a seismic shift from a revolution in energy to a revolution in product attributes. The ultimate goal is to realize a fully driverless transportation experience.”

The robocar was unveiled at an event branded Roboday, where digital human car owner Xijiajia interacted with ROBO-01.

JIDU ROBO-01 self-driving concept car side view

The futuristic look involves a robot-like body with butterfly wing doors and an adjustable rear wing, while the interior features a large integrated screen, “swan neck” headrests and a foldaway U-shaped steering wheel – thus passing our Has it got a steering wheel? test.

The self-driving capabilities are enabled by the Baidu Apollo autonomous driving system, Nvidia‘s dual Orin X chips and 31 external sensors including two LiDAR, five millimeter-level wave radar, 12 ultrasonic radar and 12 cameras.

Self-driving production model

The aforementioned production model will be “90 percent similar” to the concept, sporting its futuristic designs and the U-shaped foldaway steering wheel.

The plan is apparently to prove the model in its home market first, targeting the 25-35 age group, and then go global.

Self-driving charger robots could remove the need for dedicated EV parking spaces.

Meet ZiGGY the super clever self-driving EV charger – but can it play guitar?

Our thanks to Takayuki Yamazaki on Twitter for drawing our attention to ZiGGY, a self-driving electric vehicle (EV) charger.

Aside from looking pretty cool, we think this is exactly the kind of innovation needed to tackle the UK’s notoriously slow rollout of EV charging points.

ZiGGY self-driving EV charger

In this recent story from The Express – ‘We’re still not ready’: Lack of electric car chargers leaving UK unequipped for EV future – Helen Robinson, corporate communications director at Euro Car Parts, bemoans the lack of investment.

“In order for the transition from petrol or diesel to electric to be successful, the UK must be able to meet the demand and provide ample charging points for drivers,” she said.

Unfortunately, back in December, The Guardian noted that: “The government has quietly backtracked on proposals to require every shop, office or factory in England to install at least one electric car charger if they have a large car park, prompting criticism by environmental campaigners.

“The original plan required every new and existing non-residential building with parking for 20 cars or more to install a charger. However, the Department for Transport (DfT) has now revealed it will only require chargers be installed in new or refurbished commercial premises amid fears over the cost for businesses.”

The name Ziggy of course brings to mind David Bowie’s fictional alien rockstar, who, according to Wikipedia, “arrives on an Earth that is dying due to a lack of natural resources”.

Self-driving EV charger

This ZiGGY, its LA-based maker EV Safe Charge say, represents “A cost-effective EV charging solution unlike any other. ZiGGY is a robotic mobile EV charging platform that serves all parking spaces, not just a few.”

It goes on to assert that 500 million chargers could be required globally by 2040, up from fewer than six million today, representing nearly $1.6 trillion of cumulative investment in EV charging infrastructure.

ZiGGY self-driving EV charger design features

This nifty robot can be contacted via an app whereby it will secure a parking spot and wait for you.

It will notify you once you’re charged before moving on to the next EV or heading back to base to recharge.

This removes the need for dedicated EV spaces and the addition of video advertising on ZiGGY’s side means there’s a bonus revenue stream as well.

All very clever, but can it play guitar?

Government pushes ahead with plan to list ALKS-equipped vehicles as self-driving.

Are you sure this is a good idea? Concern as UK Government pushes ahead with plan to list ALKS cars as self-driving

In May, the government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) announced a new £40m funding competition to “kick-start commercial self-driving services” in the UK.

Minister for Investment, Lord Grimstone, said: “Self-driving vehicles have the potential to revolutionise people’s lives, whether it’s by helping to better connect people who rely on public transport with jobs, local shops, and vital services, or by making it easier for those who have mobility issues to order and access services conveniently.”

The launch press release went on to quote the now familiar statistics that self-driving could be worth £42bn to the UK economy by 2035, potentially creating 38,000 new skilled jobs.

ALKS and self-driving

It also contained this eye-catching line: “The first vehicles to be listed as self-driving in the UK – vehicles approved under the Automated Lane Keeping System (ALKS) Regulation – could be available for people to purchase, lease or rent later this year.” Not everyone agrees with the approach or the timetable.

Matthew Avery, Director of Research at Thatcham, was quick to emphasise that there are currently no vehicles Type Approved for automated driving in the UK.

Matthew Avery of Thatcham on self-driving

“We are signatories to the UN Type Approval mandate, so UK regulation will reflect the UN Type Approval requirements which come through Geneva,” he said. “Any vehicle that is Type Approved will also have to go through a GB approval process.

“It’s important to make sure, before a vehicle is added to the Secretary of State’s self-driving list, that it has been approved to be usable in the UK – that it can follow UK road laws, read UK road signs etc. The exact wording is being worked-up at the moment.

“There are a number of issues we feel are missed within the current UN regulation: 1) the ability of the vehicle to change lanes; 2) the ability of the vehicle to find safe harbour; and 3) the need for the vehicle to record data in every collision.

“However, amendments have been tabled to tackle these issues, which are likely to be signed-off in September and come in from January 2023. These include the ability to change lanes and find safe harbour, and also extend the speed range up to 81mph. These are all very sensible and meaningful additions which will improve usability.”

Insurers unconvinced

The picture is changing fast, but insurers aren’t yet convinced that ALKS-equipped vehicles should be described as self-driving.

Doug Jenkins, Motor Technical Risk Manager at AXA Insurance UK, said: “The government have set out the position – they want the UK to lead in this – but I am concerned that it could become confusing for the public when really autonomous vehicles come to the market.”

Indeed. Compare the headline-making Oxbotica AppliedEV – which in May became the first zero-occupancy, fully self-driving, electric vehicle to operate on public roads anywhere in Europe – with the new Mercedes S Class, BMW i7 or Volvo XC 90. They’re very different beasts.

Oxbotica self-driving vehicle

Interestingly, under the Scope section of the new funding competition, the government insists that “Terminology in your application must comply with the meanings as per BSI Flex 1890 v4.0:2022-03: Connected and automated vehicles – Vocabulary.”

Self-driving definition

Thanks to lead technical author Prof. Nick Reed, the recently updated BSI CAV Vocabulary features a handy new definition for self-driving: “Full function of the dynamic driving task (2.1.24), performed by the automated driving system (2.1.7) within its operational design domain (2.1.48)”.

Does ALKS meet the criteria? There are at least two big problems with the government’s current plan. First, as Jenkins alluded to, the conflation of assisted driving and self-driving risks drivers misunderstanding their car’s capabilities. That’s clearly dangerous.

Second, any approach which involves switching between a human driver and a highly automated car introduces the problematic moment of handover.

Dr Subhajit Basu, of The University of Leeds’ School of Law, has eloquently expressed the serious concerns shared by many experts.

“The main safety messages surround the extreme difficulty most drivers will encounter when an autonomous vehicle suddenly transfers the driving back to them,” he said. “Even if a driver responds quickly, they may not regain enough situational awareness to avoid an accident.”

Please note: a version of this article was first published by the Institute of the Motor Industry’s MotorPro magazine.

Since then, Mercedes-Benz has released details of the sales launch for Drive Pilot in Germany. The conditionally automated driving system can now be ordered as an optional extra for the S-Class for €5,000 and for the EQS for €7,430.

CAM APPG sets seven expert recommended red lines on UK self-driving.

Cross-party parliamentary group sets 7 self-driving red lines for new Transport Bill

Welcoming the Government’s commitment to include self-driving legislation in the Transport Bill, The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) has set out seven “expert recommended red lines”.

The seven points seem very sensible on the whole, covering many of the issues we regularly raise here at Cars of the Future, including the risk of confusing assisted and automated driving.

Self-driving red lines

In full, the CAM APPG’s seven red lines are:

Legislation must act as an enabler for the rollout of CAM technology, not a blocker. To achieve this, it will require a non-prescriptive and flexible regulatory framework that allows use cases to advance and innovate.
A statutory definition of self-driving must be established to distinguish this technology from assisted driving.
Clear lines of liability, accountability and responsibility for road safety must be established, in line with the Law Commission’s recommendations.
Establish minimum standards for data sharing and handling to ensure transparency and effective governance are embedded throughout the process.
Ensure the principle of interoperability is at the heart of the framework to realise the huge potential for the UK to export such a best-in-class regulatory model internationally.
Introduce regulatory sandboxes to allow businesses to test innovative use cases in the market with real consumers.
Develop a communications toolkit to accompany future legislation so that messaging can be easily disseminated to consumers to help assuage concerns around public acceptability.

Here’s our capsule review: The opening point, “Legislation must act as an enabler for the rollout of CAM technology, not a blocker” directly addresses the delicate balancing act the Government faces – facilitating these incredible cutting-edge technologies while prioritising safety and bringing the public on-board.

Point two, we bang on endlessly about this potential pitfall – it will be vital to differentiate between assisted and automated driving.

Point three, also essential of course, and huge strides are already been made by the insurance industry in this regard.

Point four, delivering “transparency and effective governance” on data sharing might prove to be the hardest of the lot.

Point five, the UK is ahead of the game on interoperability – can we translate this into a commercial advantage?

Point six, are “regulatory sandboxes” a mechanism through which the Government can achieve the balancing act referred to in point one?

Point seven – the communications toolkit – apparently there’s a UK-based website not a million miles away with free weekly newsletters which is already on the case!

Official comments

The APPG on CAM was set up with support from insurer AXA UK, law firm Burges Salmon and transport consultancy WSP. It is chaired by Ben Everitt, Conservative MP for Milton Keynes North, which makes sense given the area is one of the UK’s self-driving hotspots.

CAM APPG Chair Ben Everitt MP on self-driving

Ben Everitt MP said: “The CAM APPG was delighted to discuss how the upcoming Transport Bill can deliver the benefits of autonomous technology to local communities up and down the country.

“As we await the Government’s response to the Law Commission of England and Wales review into self- driving vehicles, and the call for evidence on the future of connected and automated mobility in the UK, the APPG will continue to advise on how we can build on the great progress made to date and ensure that the whole country is able to benefit from these innovative technologies.”

Dougie Barnett, Director of Customer Risk Management at AXA UK, said: “Self-driving technology could pave the way for safer roads, increased mobility and productivity and cleaner transport. However, alongside the legislation the Government must work with the industry to ensure there is no public confusion surrounding autonomous vehicles and place more emphasis on educating the public on how to use and interact with these vehicles safely.”

Giles Perkins, Head of Profession for Future Mobility at WSP, said: “The forthcoming Transport Bill promises to unlock the potential that autonomous mobility provides. We need to ensure the Bill acts as a catalyst to enable use cases and applications that really deliver benefits for people, communities and businesses. This must happen not only in our cities but the areas surrounding them and, importantly, rural geographies which often get overlooked.”

Lucy Pelger, Partner at Burges Salmon, said: “It’s vital that legislation is an enabler to self-driving technology. The right legislative framework will not only advance the UK’s position in the global CAM market but will importantly support in building the public’s trust and confidence in CAM technology. We look forward to the Government’s response to the Law Commissions’ recommendations.”

Likewise, we at Cars of the Future look forward to following the work of the CAM APPG in achieving these laudable aims.

On 9 June 2022, Westfield Sports Cars and its self-driving arm, Westfield Autonomous Vehicles, went into administration

Self-driving setback as Westfield Autonomous Vehicles falls into administration

In sad news for British motorsport and self-driving fans, on 9 June it emerged that Westfield Sports Cars and its subsidiary Westfield Autonomous Vehicles had both gone into administration.

Founded in 1983 and based in Kingswinford, near Birmingham, Westfield Sports Cars specialised in Lotus Seven inspired kit cars and was often compared to Caterham.

Westfield self-driving

Its diversification into self-driving was widely considered an astute move and it gained many plaudits for its involvement in the landmark GATEway Project in London,

In my 2018 article Autonomous Now, which led to the launch of Cars of the Future, I noted: “GATEway is entering its final phase, which will see a fleet of driverless pods providing a shuttle service around a 3.4km route on the Greenwich Peninsula.

Westfield self-driving pod in Greenwich 2018

“In a world first, members of the public are invited to take part in the research, by riding in or engaging with the pods and sharing their opinions.”

Supported by Innovate UK, Westfield went on to run a live commercial trial at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5. The future seemed bright.

Just prior to the Queen’s Speech, on 10 May, Westfield Technology Group CEO Julian Turner was one of the 17 major UK business representatives calling for the Government to announce primary legislation for automated vehicles (AVs).

A slightly bizarre last hurrah – if indeed this is the end – came a few weeks ago when the Westfield Pod featured on Grace’s Amazing Machines on BBC children’s channel CBeebies.

Westfield self-driving pod on CBeebies Grace's Amazing Machines — Westfield self-driving pod on CBeebies Grace’s Amazing Machines

For the record, presenter Grace Webb preferred it to the other two contenders – an electric bus and a ride-on lawnmower.

Distressed business listing service, Business Sale, reported that: “In its accounts for the year ending December 31 2021, Westfield Sports Cars reported fixed assets of close to £750,000 and current assets of slightly over £4 million. Less liabilities, the company’s net assets amounted to £1.179 million.

“Westfield Autonomous Vehicles, meanwhile, reported total assets of £1.4 million in its most recent accounts, but ended 2021 with net liabilities of close to £316,000.

“Despite the company’s demise, the assets set to be sold could represent a major opportunity for the right buyer, given their strong offering in the emerging self-driving electric vehicles sector and the niche kit car market.”

Autocar added: “Westfield had built up a solid reputation for creating interesting sports cars majoring on handling and horsepower rather than refinement.

“CEO Julian Turner also planned to push the autonomous pod side of the business, with the aim of turning Westfield into “the Boeing or Airbus of the automotive world”, selling these vehicles to fleet operators.

“Westfield Autonomous Vehicles created the Heathrow Pods that connect the Terminal 5 business parking to the main building and claims to have delivered “more fully autonomous vehicles than anyone else in the UK”.”

Self-driving assets

Mark Bowen of MB Insolvency was appointed as administrator on 9 June, but parent companies Westfield Technology Group and Potenza Enterprises don’t appear to be included.

Mark Bowen told the local media there had already been an “encouraging level of interest shown in the company’s remaining assets” and that MB Insolvency were “liaising with a number of parties at the moment to see if anybody is interested in the assets and possibly trying to resurrect something here.”

On 14 June, the counter on the Westfield Autonomous Vehicles website clocked a not insubstantial “9,983,709 Autonomous Kilometres” and “6,015,384 Passengers Driven”, and still rising.

Surely that should be of interest to someone.

New reports predict self-driving will massively boost the global LiDAR market, with Aeva’s Aeries 4D LiDAR highlighted.

Self-driving to super charge global LiDAR market to US$3bn+ within 5 years

Two new reports have highlighted self-driving as one of the main factors predicted to boost the global LiDAR market to at least US$3.4 billion a year by 2026.

According to Polaris Market Research, the global automotive LiDAR market is anticipated to reach US$4.14bn by 2026, increasing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of more than 35%.

LiDAR for self-driving

The report summary noted: “The Automotive LiDAR market growth is attributed to the increasing demand of autonomous vehicles for active safety and self-driving. As advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles are expected to witness growth at significant rates, it is expected to have a direct positive impact on the growth in the Automotive LiDAR market.

“These automated vehicles provide opportunities for a large number of firms to access a range of untapped facts, creating new revenue-generating opportunities, which will boost the market growth.

“The solid-state/flash LiDAR market is expected to grow at a very high pace during the forecast period. Solid state sensor being low-cost, robust, as well as compact in size makes it ideal for potential large-scale production of level 3 and level 4 cars in coming years. Further, mechanical sensors and other sensors also capture decent market share.”

Polaris highlight leading industry players including Scans, Velodyne LIDAR, Quanergy Systems, LeddarTech, First Sensor, Novariant, Delphi, Continental, Robert Bosch and Denso.

A separate report, by Markets And Markets, largely concurs with these findings, projecting that the LiDAR market will grow at a CAGR of 21.6% from 2021 to 2026 to reach US$3.4 billion by 2026.

LiDAR for UAVs

However, it focuses more on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – drones – and 4D LiDAR specifically.

“The rising adoption of LiDAR systems in UAVs, increasing adoption of LiDAR in engineering and construction applications, use of LiDAR in geographical information systems (GIS) applications, the emergence of 4D LiDAR, and easing of regulations related to the use of commercial drones in different applications are among the factors driving the growth of the LiDAR market,” it says.

“However, safety threats related to UAVs and autonomous cars and the easy availability of low-cost and lightweight photogrammetry systems are restraining the growth of the market.

“The market for 4D LiDAR is projected to grow at the highest CAGR from 2021 to 2026. This growth is attributed to the high adoption of 4D LiDAR in applications such as self-driving cars, robots, and other autonomous systems.

“Apart from automobiles, 4D LiDAR has applications in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, entertainment, and AR/VR. Some of the major companies offering 4D LiDAR are Aeva and TetraVue.”

In March, sensing systems developer Aeva announced that its Aeries 4D LiDAR sensors are now supported on the Nvidia Drive autonomous vehicle platform.

As well as measuring distance and plotting the position of objects in x, y and z, Aeva’s 4D-LiDAR plots velocity as a fourth dimension.

Aeva CEO Soroush Salehian on self-driving

Soroush Salehian, Co-Founder and CEO at Aeva (formerly of Apple’s Special Projects Group), said: “Bringing Aeva’s next generation 4D LiDAR to the Nvidia Drive platform is a leap forward for OEMs building the next generation of Level 3 and Level 4 autonomous vehicles.

“We believe Aeva’s sensors deliver superior capabilities that allow for autonomy in a broader operational design domain (ODD), and our unique features like Ultra Resolution surpass the sensing and perception capabilities of legacy sensors to help accelerate the realization of safe autonomous driving.”

Gary Hicok, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Nvidia, added: “Aeva delivers a unique advantage for perception in automated vehicles because it leverages per-point instant velocity information to detect and classify objects with higher confidence across longer ranges.

“With Aeva as part of our Drive ecosystem network, we can provide customers access to this next generation of sensing capabilities for safe autonomous driving.”

Leading voice on US self-driving policy Latta namechecks China, Japan and Germany as self-driving leaders. No UK?

The UK is a global leader in self-driving. Someone please tell Bob Latta.

The race for global leadership in self-driving is well underway, but there are worrying signs that the UK’s recent achievements are going unrecognised.

Last week, a senior voice on US autonomous vehicle (AV) policy, Bob Latta – the Republican leader of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee – wrote an opinion piece for The Hill, including the line: “Unfortunately, the lack of a federal AV framework threatens U.S. leadership on this issue and empowers countries like China, Japan and Germany to take the lead.”

Leading voice on self-driving policy, Bob Latta

So, for this big hitter at least, the UK apparently doesn’t spring to mind when it comes to self-driving.

Latta continued: “If Congress fails to act, other countries will step in and dictate the future of AV technology. We cannot allow this to happen. For the United States to be the driver of cutting-edge technology, we need a framework that allows the industry to innovate while ensuring high safety standards. To maintain our leadership in the world, Congress must avoid shortsightedness, look over the horizon and pass the Self Drive Act.”

There are certainly parallels with the debate on this side of the pond. In May, the government’s Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) announced a new £40m funding competition to kick-start commercial self-driving services in the UK.

The launch press release contained this eye-catching line: “The first vehicles to be listed as self-driving in the UK – vehicles approved under the Automated Lane Keeping System (ALKS) Regulation – could be available for people to purchase, lease or rent later this year.”

Not everyone agrees with the approach or the timetable, so the government has a tricky balancing act to perform.

Back in 2018, then Business and Energy Secretary, Greg Clark, commented: “Low carbon and self-driving vehicles are the future and they are going to drive forward a global revolution in mobility. This revolution has the potential to be worth £52bn to our economy by 2035, and the opportunity to be at the forefront of this change is one we cannot afford to miss.”

Self-driving readiness

At the time, we were fifth in KPMG’s Autonomous Vehicles Readiness Index (AVRI), judged against four pillars – policy and legislation, technology and innovation, infrastructure, and consumer acceptance.

By 2019, we had slipped to seventh, behind The Netherlands, Singapore, Norway, the US, Sweden and Finland, just ahead of Germany in eighth.

By 2020, we were down to 9th in the KPMG ranking, having been overtaken by South Korea and the United Arab Emirates, with Germany slipping to 14th.

Germany have upped their game since, with 13,000km of motorway approved for conditionally automated driving and Mercedes-Benz announcing that it will accept legal responsibility for accidents caused by its Drive Pilot system.

Let’s remind ourselves of the three countries namechecked by Bob Latta: China, Japan and Germany. According to the latest KPMG ranking those three placed 20th, 11th and 14th respectively.

UK self-driving

The self-driving industry is evolving at lightning-fast speed and the UK is still very much in the vanguard.

Just last month, Oxbotica ran the first zero-occupancy, fully self-driving, electric vehicle on publicly accessible roads anywhere in Europe.

Oxbotica European self-driving 1st

Lord Grimstone, Minister of State for Investment, said: “This exciting development will further strengthen the UK’s reputation as a leading destination to develop and deploy self-driving vehicles, as well as helping grow a sector that will support highly-skilled jobs across the country.”

Then there’s Project Encode, which recently demonstrated transfer of control across three states – manual driving, autonomous driving and teleoperation – in live vehicle tests in Oxford and London.

And CAVForth, with its landmark two-week trial of a Level 4 automated bus in Scotland. The list goes on.

However, if Bob Latta’s comment is anything to go by, we clearly need to do more to highlight these successes on the international stage.

RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding, a member of the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles’ expert advisory board, talks Highway Code, ALKS and self-driving

Self-driving cars? Think like Parker from Thunderbirds advises RAC Foundation’s Gooding

In this exclusive interview with Cars of the Future, RAC Foundation director Steve Gooding brings much-needed pragmatism to the UK self-driving debate.

We contacted Gooding after he was quoted in the government statement setting out changes to the Highway Code to move Britain “closer to a self-driving revolution”. Yes, the one that triggered national media meltdown, including Clarkson’s memorable “Driverless cars are pointless – and they have built-in instructions to kill you” headline in The Sun.

Fortunately, Gooding is far more level-headed. Fully aware that strong winds of change are blowing through the motor industry, he meets the prospect of connected and automated mobility (CAM) with down to earth opinion based on solid experience.

Assisted or automated?

We started by asking him about the danger of people confusing assisted and automated driving, given his widely reported comment that the Highway Code changes “will help us all understand what we must and must not do as we move forward to an environment where cars drive themselves”. Here’s what he said…

“The guts of the matter are, if you’re in a vehicle that is so highly automated that you don’t need to be involved in controlling it – like you’re sitting on a train – then it shouldn’t be a problem. You can get your phone out and catch up on your emails, flip open your laptop and start to write the next great American novel, or you can fall asleep. None of those things particularly matter until you arrive at your destination. Hopefully you’ll wake up in time to get off at the right stop.

“There’s a direct parallel there with automated driving in a private car. The vehicle needs to be designed and the technology needs to work so that it gets to a place of genuine safety, ideally where you want to be and not some point in the far distance. My wife didn’t appreciate my call to suggest she came to pick me up at the far end of our railway line when I fell asleep after a long day in the office, nor would you want your highly automated car to trundle on past your motorway exit while you snoozed the miles away.

“I think there’s an issue here and I worry about the stance that the auto industry has taken on it; if you tell me the vehicle is driving itself, it better had be. We know that with the most advanced driver-assist technologies you might not be doing much of the driving task, but you are still in control with your hands on the wheel. But what if you’re only required to be able to retake control, and to be able to do so at a moment’s notice?

“I wouldn’t point the finger at any particular manufacturer, but I can think of one whose vehicles are able to sense whether you’ve been holding the steering wheel. But if you go to any of the social media video channels you can look at how some people have chosen to fool these systems. When the vehicle doesn’t even require that much interaction from the ‘driver’ then how distracted, bored or just plain fast asleep do you think drivers, particularly on long motorway trips, will be?

“We also need to get away from the mindset some people still have that the motorway is a racetrack, with 70mph (or more) as a target rather than a maximum speed. I’ve talked with lots of people who are great fans of the latest highly automated driver-assist systems, because they do long journeys and find it more relaxing to use adaptive cruise control and lane-assist to help them waft along comfortably somewhere between 60 and 70mph. The mindset is much more like being on a train, coach or bus. However much you might wish it would get a move on, it’s only going to go as fast as the driver judges to be safe, taking account of the speed at which other traffic is moving.

“Hence I draw a sharp distinction here – and we’re all going have to start getting our heads around it, no matter how sceptical some of us were in the first place – between advanced driver-assistance and genuine automation. It’s often described as a continuum but I think that in reality there’s a massive step-change. And it’s not just a change that affects the people who’ve opted in to the automated vehicle.

Self-driving mode

“Imagine, in the relatively near future you might be driving along a motorway and a car goes past you with the person in the driving seat apparently fast asleep or reading a broadsheet newspaper. You might think ‘What’s that idiot doing?’ and maybe sound your horn. You might think, ‘Good grief, there’s going to be a crash, I’d better call the police’. It’s a world that could happen relatively soon – the people in those vehicles aren’t being irresponsible, they’re just in cars that are driving themselves – but in the early days they are likely to be in quite a small minority.

“While some thought has been given to it I don’t think we’ve really got to the point of being able to say what, if any, indication there needs to be from the vehicle to other road users to indicate that it is operating in self-driving mode, maybe ‘Don’t panic, there is control here, this vehicle isn’t run away’. I think it’s probably sensible for the vehicle to give people some sign. That said, in slow moving city situations I’m conscious of the risk that automated vehicles might find it very hard to make progress if pedestrians all decide to take priority.

“If we went back two or three years I suspect we’d be having a conversation about crisis moments where the automated vehicle couldn’t cope. What I’ve been saying consistently is that the vehicle has to be designed to cope with crisis moments, because humans don’t snap back into control very well at no notice. My plea to the designers is for pity’s sake don’t make the human the failsafe – we’re arguably the weakest link in the drivetrain – and that just doesn’t feel safe to me.”

Highway Code changes

We then went on to talk about the (mis)interpretation of the Highway Code changes, with the implication that automated vehicles might literally be just around the corner.

Gooding’s view was that it is forgivable for people to get the wrong end of the stick (including the idea that propping a 42” widescreen TV on the dashboard would be OK to keep up to date with Love Island or Strictly while the car drives itself), but that this of itself doesn’t mean that the Department for Transport (DfT) should hold off trailing the changes that automation will bring. A long lead time should help ensure that people are prepared.

“The first incarnation of driverless technology that appears to be headed our way is the automated lane keeping system (ALKS),” he said. “That’s the technology that’s closest to market and closest to deployment in this country.

“ALKS is cleared at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN ECE) level for traffic moving at no more than 37mph. It enables the vehicle to speed up and slow down and stay within a defined lane on a motorway. The insurance industry has voiced concern about the fact that under this system the vehicle can’t change lanes. I think there’s some further head scratching going on at the DfT about that.

Genuine self-driving

“Of course ALKS is some way short of genuine self-driving – but one might imagine a button by which, in the same way that I could trigger adaptive cruise control whilst on a motorway, I could go one step further and trigger a system that would take me on to a certain junction, within the legal speed limit, anticipating the traffic ahead, steering and braking if necessary. How are we going to feel about that? My point is, let’s start that conversation now.

“Imagine you’re in a supermarket car park and someone has parked too close for you to open your door. Wouldn’t it be handy if you could summon the car? Indeed, if it was pouring with rain, wouldn’t it be good if you could just stay under the canopy and summon your car?

“Other shoppers struggling back to their cars with their shopping bags might be quite shocked to suddenly see a car coming towards them that appears to have nobody in it. It’s not science fiction anymore. We need to move the conversation on, to start gearing people up for the thought that this is going to happen, and soon.

“What if you summon your car from the far end of the car park but it never gets to you because there’s a constant stream of pedestrians in the way, or because children decide it’d be hilarious to stand in front it just to make it wait? How’s that to be handled? I think that’s one of the great imponderables for having automated systems in more built-up areas.

“I’m not convinced that I will be driven by a car in a UK city street. I hear a lot about the challenges of the urban environment in America, but jaywalking is illegal in the States. There are parts of this country where you’d assume jaywalking was a moral obligation! But by contrast I’ve long thought that I will be driven by a car on a motorway in my lifetime – within the next 20-30 years (with a bit of luck).”

The RAC Foundation’s role

Talk turned to the RAC Foundation’s role in all this.

“Probably the most important thing we’re doing is by virtue of the fact that I’m a member of the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles’ expert advisory board,” said Gooding. “It’s a very broad-ranging group of people who are genuinely world-leading experts in their fields, for whom the question is not just “What’s needed to make you safe?” but “What’s needed to make you feel safe?”, which is subtly different.

“One of the things we know from past studies of traffic is that you don’t have to get everybody on the road to drive more smoothly and safely. If you get a proportion to do so, it has a calming and beneficial effect on all the rest.

“I don’t like sideways G-forces when I’m being driven. I can think of no higher praise for an automated system that to compare it to the driving of my great cousin William, who was a professional chauffeur. He could do a three-point turn in a stretch limo and if you were sitting in the back holding a drink you wouldn’t spill a drop. That’s the standard of driving we want from an automated system – that of a highly proficient chauffeur, like Parker from Thunderbirds who’d have been mortified if his driving caused Lady Penelope to spill her champagne down her frock.”

Excellent, that’s the headline sorted.

He continued: “There are two issues with the Highway Code. One is that nobody expects to return to it after they pass their driving test. I passed mine before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, and there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then. The second issue is that changes to the Highway Code tend to come in fits and starts. In the last year, there have been a few really significant changes, first relating to the hierarchy of vulnerability and the way we should approach junctions, and now about highly automated technologies.

“Some of the work we’re doing at the RAC Foundation is about bringing such changes to people’s attention – informing them there’s been a change they ought to know about. Probably the best we can do in that regard is to get as much coverage in the mainstream and motoring media as we can. We need people to be saying to their friends: ‘Did you see the change to the Highway Code?’”

Personal car ownership

We were wrapping up now, but there was still time for Gooding to give a convincing, perhaps controversial, opinion on the future of personal car ownership.

“I see no evidence that mobility as a service (MAAS) is coming anytime soon,” he said. “The full-on version of MAAS requires a ‘ring-master’ – a system integrator – that is modally agnostic, and therefore able to offer you the full selection of travel options, prices and booking options. Such a system isn’t going to spring into existence all by itself. The nearest thing to it that I’ve seen so far is the Transport for London (TfL) website, and I don’t see TfL volunteering travel by private car as one of its options.

“Imagine you’re a car buyer looking in the £15,000 bracket. You’ve decided which model you want, which spec, which colour. Are you going to ditch all those bespoke choices and the convenience of knowing the vehicle is at your personal beck-and-call because you’re going to be able to summon a self-driving vehicle? With those, you won’t really care what it looks like, so long as it’s been cleaned since the last person travelled in it. I just feel we’re going to need an awful lot of self-driving vehicles and an awful lot of cleaning products for that future to be viable in the sort of street where I live.”

All that look less than half an hour. Amazing eh? Personally, I feel reassured knowing that Gooding has the ear of government. He’s a motoring man embracing self-driving, and he’ll help the UK get there more safely.

Big self-driving hardware news as Tesla registers a new radar unit with the US Federal Communications Commission.

Does Tesla’s brave U-turn on radar signal a more sensible approach to self-driving?

Thanks to Angelos Lakrintis on the Linkedin Self Driving Cars group for alerting us to the news that Tesla is apparently doing a major U-turn and re-embracing radar.

The EV specialist famously stopped fitting radar to new cars in May last year, following years of protestations by CEO Elon Musk that self-driving could be best achieved with cameras and silicon neural nets alone.

Self-driving hardware

Last year, The New York Times reported: “Musk has repeatedly instructed the company’s Autopilot team, which works on self-driving car tech, to ditch radar and use only cameras instead.

“The reason for this approach, Musk said in October, is to focus the data that’s being presented to the car’s computer systems.

“Tesla’s camera-based “vision” self-driving tech “became so good,” Musk said, that adding radar data was actually giving the system more information than it needed.”

Musk on self-driving at FT Future of the Car Summit 2022

Indeed, he was still making the point at last month’s FT Future of the Car Summit 2022, saying: “Anyone who’s driven a car for any length of time, once you have some years of experience, the cognitive load on driving a car isn’t that high.

“You’re able to think about other things, listen to music, have a conversation and still drive safely. So, it’s not like matching everything a human does.

“It is matching enough of the silicon neural nets to at least be on a par with the biological neural nets to enable self-driving, and I think we’re quite close to achieving that.”

Well, a week is a long time in politics, they say, and on 7 June Tesla registered a new radar unit with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Radar for self-driving

It has been widely reported that senior Tesla engineers have long disagreed with Musk on radar, pressing home many of the points made by Clem Robertson, CEO of R4dar Technologies, in our very first Zenzic CAM Creator profile.

“Each technology has its shortcomings,” Robertson said. “GPS is no good in tunnels; the cost of 5G can be prohibitive and coverage is patchy; cameras aren’t much good over 100 metres or in the rain, lidar is susceptible to spoofing or misinterpretation; digital maps struggle with temporary road layouts – but together they create a more resilient system.

“Radar only communicates with itself, so it is cyber-resilient. It works in all weathers. It is reliable up to 250-300m and very good at measuring range and velocity, while the latest generation of radars are getting much better at differentiating between two things side-by-side.”

This latest development suggests that Tesla is now on-board with such thinking.

According to Drive Tesla Canada, the registration allows Tesla to sell vehicles with the new units installed in the US. It speculates that they could form part of the highly anticipated Hardware 4.0 (HW4).

“Tesla currently builds vehicles with HW 3.0, otherwise known as the Full Self-Driving (FSD) computer,” it notes. “It is believed that Tesla will introduce the next-generation computer with the launch of the Cybertruck.

Will Tesla Cybertruck have HW4 for self-driving?

“Whether Tesla will offer existing customers a free upgrade to the new computer, like it did after the introduction of HW3, remains to be seen.”

Given Tesla was previously such a strong advocate for binning radar, it will be interesting to see whether others also back away from the idea.

For instance, Auto Evolution reported in April that Michael Benisch, VP of Engineering at Toyota subsidiary Woven Planet, believes a camera-only approach is possible.

Perhaps tellingly, Toyota itself always remained committed to using multiple sensors, both lidar and radar, on all vehicles offered for sale.

Musk himself calls the motor industry “hyper competitive” and with all major vehicle manufacturers now embracing electric, Tesla’s old USP is no longer unique.

If this U-turn on radar is a sign of a maturing, perhaps more sensible Tesla, its rivals should probably be pleased and worried in equal measure.