Back then, we covered how Kodiak has been delivering freight daily between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, operating autonomously on the highway section of the route for over a year.
Self-driving truck puncture test
Now, they’ve published video addressing what Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Andreas Wendel describes as “probably the safety-related question we get the most”: a catastrophic tyre failure.
Kodiak self-driving truck handles catastrophic tyre puncture
“The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration estimates that tire problems were responsible for approximately 15% of truck-related crashes,” he said.
“As we develop our self-driving system, the KodiakDriver, we wanted to demonstrate that we can handle the bad things that can happen in real world driving, and tire blowouts are usually the first safety risk in mind.
“For all you non-Commercial Driver’s License-holders (CDL-holders), a tire blowout is a big deal, even when the vehicle you’re driving has 18 of them.
“On a big rig truck, the back 16 tires are paired dual tires, while all the steering is done by the two front single tires, called the steer tires.
“Steer tires are responsible for steering, handling, and ensuring a steady ride for humans and cargo alike. If one of the back 16 tires pops, a dual tire is able to compensate and carry some weight until the truck comes to a stop. If one of the single steer tires pops, it’s a whole different story.
“For all CDL-holders, you already know that the first step towards handling complex, catastrophic situations like tire blowouts is making a quick determination that a failure has occurred, then fighting to remain in control, and eventually safely pulling over to the side of the road.
“Trucks with popped tires travel erratically and unpredictably, with unexpected and unknown vehicle dynamics. Even if the tire just goes flat, you can’t maintain speed. This will potentially lead the truck to aggressively veering.
“The rubber may be stripped from the tire, forcing the vehicle to drive on a bare metal rim. In a worst-case scenario, the truck may swerve, jackknife, or even roll over. Once a truck suffers a steer tire blowout, it behaves like an entirely different truck.
Kodiak self-driving truck handles puncture
“That’s why we’re so excited to become the first self-driving trucking company to demonstrate that we can maintain complete control of the truck even after suffering a catastrophic tire blowout.
“As shown in the video, KodiakDriver can stay in control of a truck and bring it to a safe and complete stop even when rolling over a giant spike and instantaneously popping a steer tire.
“Once we incorporated the findings from our low-tire pressure tests into the KodiakDriver’s control algorithms, it was time to test with a completely deflated tire flopping off the rim. This test allowed us to confirm that the controller can still steer the truck with a completely deflated tire, laying the groundwork for a spontaneous blowout.
“After deliberate testing at different tire pressures, we were ready to demonstrate a sudden tire blowout. Executing this test is more complex than you’d think: the vehicle needs to race down the test track and squarely hit a puncture rig, which is a spike mounted to a metal plate.
“For a human, the precision needed to consistently hit the puncture rig is higher than you’d think. Thankfully, the KodiakDriver is a much more precise driver than a human, and remains dead center in a lane unless it needs to nudge over to one side or another.
“With this consistency our team was easily able to identify where the KodiakDriver would pass on specific sections of the test rack and place the puncture rig accordingly.
“Finally, we were ready to demonstrate a tire blowout with a full tractor and trailer. No holding back!”
In this Cars of the Future exclusive, we talk self-driving, Zenzic and the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro with Dr. Martin Dürr, co-founder of Dromos GmbH.
“The system is important, not just the vehicle,” said Priestman back then. “The car we designed is half the width of a normal car, with space for two or three people. It is elegant public transport designed around the passenger – the first autonomous system to deliver mass transit, and the infrastructure belongs to the city.”
Dromos 2022
Fast forward two years and this exciting concept is well on the way to becoming reality, excitingly, first, right here in the UK. As Dr. Dürr explains…
Dr. Martin Dürr, self-driving expert and co-founder of Dromos GmbH
MD: “Dromos was founded by myself and Dr. Antje Völker. We worked together 25 years ago at McKinsey and have both been in the transportation space ever since. We always wondered why no one seems to tackle the 400-pound gorilla in the corner of the room: that classical mass transit systems are extremely expensive, outdated and widely disliked.
“Transport for London came close to being bankrupt recently, contemplated shutting down lines due to operating costs. Paris subsidises its system by around €8bn annually. Many cities around the world don’t have that kind of money, so there is no public transport.
“Antje and I decided we had to do something. We agreed that any solution had to meet the needs of two key audiences. The first is, of course, the user. They want a quality of ride comparable to that of a taxi, but at the price of a bus ticket. Within quality of ride, privacy is an important topic, along with convenience and cleanliness.
The second key audience is the legal entity that contracts the building and running of the system – a city or national authority. Their current options, like railway or bus networks, have hardly changed in 150 years. The user experience often isn’t great, and the costs are astronomical.
“Our challenge was to devise a transportation service suitable for the 21st century: on-demand, with privacy, CO2 neutral and deliverable without the need for subsidies. That’s Dromos. We provide capacity at a much better cost per mile, with 50% lower construction costs, construction time and space consumption.”
Dromos self-driving vehicle
NK: These megatrends often get conflated – are you saying that ridesharing is incompatible with self-driving?
MD: “Pretty much, yes. Autonomous ridesharing pilots have shown that passengers have very little – if any – desire to share a driverless vehicle with a stranger.
“We talked to people in Brazil about a system for Sao Paulo and they said rideshare was an absolute non-starter because of safety fears. Having cameras on board doesn’t really help, because the police will only be able to step in after a crime has been committed. Actually, people are willing to pay a premium not to share.”
Dromos Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro (CAM) proposal
NK: Tell us about your plans for the Cambridgeshire Autonomous Metro
MD: “Okay, so we refined our proposal and began talking to cities around the world about tendering, including Auckland, Hong Kong and Cambridge in the UK. To be precise, the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority. They issued a tender a year ago for a comprehensive 160km-long system.
“We proposed a solution that’s better for the customer in terms of the user experience, and better for the city in terms of value – connecting villages to the centres, on-demand, at low cost, with no intermittent stopping. Passengers travel directly to their destination.
“Along with our UK partners – PriestmanGoode, Buro Happold and Rider Levett Bucknall – we’ve been selected to provide a more detailed submission. It’s a huge opportunity to embrace a new transport paradigm.”
Indeed, the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, James Palmer, said: “The CAM will bring the world-leading, innovative and transformational public transport network that this region needs to continue to thrive.
“This challenge is a test to the very best brains in the market to help pioneer what the CAM will look like and how it can best be delivered. I’m clear that we want the CAM to offer our region the kind of high-quality public transport normally reserved for the biggest cities.”
Zenzic CAM Scale-Up winners
NK: Then, earlier this month, you were chosen for the Zenzic CAM Scale-Up Programme
MD: “Yes, another great achievement. As a German, it is incredibly encouraging that the UK is currently best placed to become a world leader in the safe adoption of autonomous travel.
“Britain is more willing to experiment and has a clear vision of what needs to be done – The Zenzic Roadmap to 2030. You’ve got a world class testing environment – including the Smart Mobility Living Lab in London – the legal infrastructure is coming, and there’s support from government via the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV). The package is complete, and ready to go; more so than the German government can offer today.
“As a result, following excellent discussions with the CCAV, we have shared data with them and moved a lot of our attention and our value chain to the UK. The environment here is best suited to us from a homologation point of view. It will enable us to build up to our first live installation right here in the UK.
“We were also able to invite several of our suppliers to do their testing in the UK, so that process is also on track now. We are in discussion with other authorities here – Manchester, the Ministry for Transport in Scotland and others. With a dedicated infrastructure, delivering safe and reliable transport is easy for us.”
NBC in New York has reported on a recent self-driving trial using Navya Autonom shuttles to take passengers to and from the long-term parking lot at John F. Kennedy Airport.
Self-driving news from NBC New York, October 2022
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is a bi-state agency that builds, operates and maintains many of the most important transportation assets in the country, including the region’s three major airports – LaGuardia, Newark Liberty and JFK.
Self-driving comment
“If you have a bus running every 10 or 20 minutes, and we replaced that with four or five autonomous vehicles, maybe you’re only waiting two minutes,” said Seth Wainer, of The Port Authority.
Platooning on a predetermined route, the trial included the shuttle stopping “on a dime” when a pedestrian stepped out in front of it.
Johnathan Balon, MD of Navya, explained: “It’s changing the future. It’s fully electric, fully autonomous. It’s lowering their carbon footprint and it’s allowing people to understand the new technology that’s coming.”
Maintenance of Navya self-driving vehicle
Navya CEO, Sophie Desormière, added: “Navya’s shuttles are adapted to a large number of uses, and airports represent a good case in point. Not only do our shuttles offer a solution for the transportation of people, but our Tract also offers the same for the transportation of goods.
“The trial will also provide an opportunity to demonstrate once again the strength of our hypervision technology. Our mastery of remote and platooning fleet management is already established in France, and we will be taking a further step forward by introducing it in the US.”
Navya is listed on the Euronext regulated market in Paris. For more on EV and self-driving stocks, see our recent finance feature. For further info, visit the Navya website.
Oxbotica founder and CTO, Professor Paul Newman, addresses MPs on the Transport Committee about self-driving, October 2022.
Last week, Oxbotica founder and CTO, Professor Paul Newman, addressed MPs on the Transport Committee to explain how self-driving technologies will deliver value to people, businesses and the planet.
In relation to commercialisation, he said: “I think there’s an ordering of these technologies, and there’s an ordering of the operational design domain. Burdens are rightly different in some domains – it’s different in a mine to Kensington High Street.
“I’ve never come across a city that asks for more single occupancy vehicles, ever. They’ve always said: fewer please. So, I don’t think personal, private transports are the future, because cities want to change the way transport works. They want to make it more accessible. The number of bus trips that Londoners take is absolutely extraordinary. Let’s support that.
“Technological complexity worries me far less than the regulatory complexity. That’s not just saying you should trust us. What’s great about some of the regulation that’s coming through is that there’s meaty technical requirements placed on the manufacturers of autonomy software. That allow the systems to be explainable, and explainability is the foundation of being trustworthy.”
For more on Oxbotica’s vision for universal autonomy, see this recent interview with its VP of Technology, Ben Upcroft.
Lidar sector thriving as established players and new start-ups push for safe self-driving.
Two new reports have highlighted assisted- and self-driving as key factors predicted to boost the global automotive light detection and ranging (lidar) market.
According to Polaris Market Research, it will reach US$4.14bn by 2026, increasing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of more than 35%.
The report summary noted: “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 4 cars in coming years. Further, mechanical sensors and other sensors also capture decent market share.”
A separate report, by Markets And Markets, largely concurs, projecting a CAGR of 21.6% to reach US$3.4bn by 2026. However, it focuses more on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – drones – and 4D lidar, with the prospect of new entrants making a big impact.
Lidar in self-driving
In March, 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, 4D plots velocity as a fourth dimension.
Aeva CEO Soroush Salehian on self-driving
Both CEO Soroush Salehian and co-founder Mina Rezk previously worked on Apple’s Special Projects Group. “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 4 autonomous vehicles,” said Salehian.
“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.”
You can always tell when a sector is thriving because dedicated events spring up. The fifth annual Automotive Lidar conference took place in September, while Lidar Magazine has documented the increasing crossover from surveying into car tech.
Its recent interview with Luis Dussan, founder of California-based AEye is well worth a read. “While at Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, I was designing mission-critical targeting systems for our fighter jets and special ops units that searched for, identified and tracked incoming threats,” he said.
“I realized that a self-driving vehicle faces a similar challenge: it must be able to see, classify, and respond to an object – whether it’s a parked car or a child crossing the street – in real time and before it’s too late.”
Of course, the established players are also pouring money at lidar, and making huge strides. Polaris highlighted Bosch, Continental, Delphi, Denso and Velodyne, among others, with Bosch boasting “the first long-range lidar suitable for the automotive mass market”. It has a detection range of over 200m.
Dr. Mustafa Kamil of Bosch on self-driving
Dr. Mustafa Kamil, Bosch’s project manager for automated driving sensors, explained: “For automated driving to become a reality, the vehicle must perceive its surroundings more effectively than humans can, at all times. Alongside cameras, radar and ultrasonic, a further sensor principle is required in order to achieve this goal.
“For example, when the ambient light changes from bright to dark upon entering a tunnel, it can briefly pose a challenge for the camera. Meanwhile the lidar sensor remains majorly unimpeded by the change in light conditions, and can reliably recognize objects at the entrance to the tunnel in these critical milliseconds.”
He continued: “A former supervisor once told me that a lidar sensor is like a plate of spaghetti: As soon as you try to grab one piece, the others move as well. If you want to make the sensor smaller, this affects properties such as the visual field-of-view or detection range. Optimizing all components in such a way that they do not impede other variables is technically challenging.”
Please note: a version of this article was first published by the Institute of the Motor Industry’s MotorPro magazine.
Self-driving news from Autonomy’s London City Summit 2022
Autonomy’s invitation-only London City Summit at the Southbank Centre featured a great line-up of speakers on subjects ranging from self-driving tech to last-mile logistics.
It was 12 October and, hands up, I could only spare a few hours (including lunch, of course), so apologies to those I missed.
The overriding theme was the UK as a showcase for the safe adoption of self-driving, with world-class testing facilities and sensible standards… and therefore a prime location for investment.
Bosch on self-driving
The event was sponsored by Bosch and my first session was a keynote by their head of autonomous transport solutions, Olaf Monz.
London City Summit 2022: Olaf Monz of Bosch on self-driving
“It’s not about selling a vehicle anymore, it’s about shaping an ecosystem,” he said, talking of the partnership with British software company, Five AI, which Bosch acquired earlier this year.
He promised that Bosch’s approach would be “chip agnostic” and referred to “the magic moment when you can remove the driver”.
There followed a short video of Bosch’s self-driving car navigating around an 18km route in Stuttgart at speeds of up to 100km/h.
Next up was a panel moderated by Nick Reed, of Reed Mobility, and featuring Connor Champ, lawyer on the Automated Vehicles Project at the Law Commission of England and Wales, and Jakob Kammerer, senior product manager at Bosch.
London City Summit 2022: Nick Reed self-driving panel
Reflecting the candour which characterised the whole event, Reed expressed surprise that he was allowed to call the session “Are we sure we want AVs in cities?”
Champ detailed how the government had accepted virtually all of the Law Commission’s recommendations. Notably, encouraging “a no blame safety culture”, with a regulator similar to the Civil Aviation Authority, and an incident investigator similar to the Air Accidents Investigation Branch.
To facilitate public acceptance, he wants said authority to report on how implementation is going. However, when it came to measuring safety, “people disagreed with every suggested metric!”
Jakob Kammerer poetically referred to discovering “the beauty in software”, describing Bosch’s pioneering work on verification and validation.
“Our trials show that people are curious about self-driving,” he said. “Transparency always helps. We explain what we are doing and why – to make improved mobility for everyone. Once they see that a product is good, that it works and solves a problem, they will adopt it very quickly.”
Buro Happold on self-driving
The next panel was moderated by Federico Cassani, director of transport and mobility at Buro Happold, and featured Prof Bani Anvari, of University College London, Margarethe Theseira, head of UK consulting at Buro Happold, and designer Marco Mazzotta of Heatherwick Studio.
London City Summit 2022: Federico Cassani self-driving panel
Prof Anvari outlined the impressive facilities at UCL’s new Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory (PEARL) in East London, where they create all manner of life-sized surroundings and examine how people interact with them.
Theseira, an economist who advised on the new Elizabeth Line, looked at the costs and benefits of self-driving – the likelihood that “the real benefits will come when everything is fully automated”, but also her worry that “it will be a rich person’s toy”. She noted that car ownership is already much lower among lower income groups, resulting in restricted access to mobility and increased loneliness.
Cassani saw self-driving as “an opportunity for far more equitable mobility”, while Mazzotta mused on how cities might evolve architecturally with widespread AV adoption. He suggested that a huge amount of parking space could be freed up, asking: “What will we use the space for? Is it going to be public or private?”
Self-driving education
The last keynote before lunch was by Yasmine Fage, co-founder of Goggo Network, on her vision to provide all people with autonomous, electric and shared mobility. She described last mile delivery as “an increasing pain point for companies in cities”, and pointed to Goggo’s mobile lockers in Paris as one of many innovative solutions.
The networking lunch – a veritable banquet – was a chance to catch up with, among others, Lukas Nekermann (more of him in a moment), Patricia La Torre of Humanising Autonomy, Richard Barrington of Smart Cities and Land Mobility, Roland Meister of Five, Luigi Bisbiglia of SBD Automotive, Mark Cracknell of Zenzic, the CCAV’s Michael Talbot, and Dr Martin Dürr of Dromos.
London City Summit 2022: Lukas Nekermann on self-driving education
Immediately after lunch came a keynote by the aforementioned Mr Neckermann, of PAVE Europe. Cars of the Future readers will be familiar with PAVE’s origins in America and their mission to “inform the public about automated vehicles”. Despite a jibe from the audience about the required marketing budget (!), such educational initiatives must surely be welcomed.
Mobility super-apps
Next-up, the final session for me, was a panel on “mobility super-apps”, moderated by Suzanne Hoadley, of Polis, and featuring Duncan Robertson, of e-scooter and e-bike operator Dott, and David Koral of Free Now, “the app with the largest vehicle choice for consumers across Europe”.
London City Summit 2022: mobility super-apps panel
Robertson argued that decision makers must limit the number of operators as “having too many doesn’t work for anyone, although consumers might benefit from a price war to start with.”
Koral highlighted the importance of offering “anywhere to anywhere” journeys within cities and beyond, while both were surprisingly open to sharing data with public authorities.
The stat of the day was the Transport for London target that, by 2041, 80% of journeys in the capital should be either by public transport or active travel.
My capsule review is that reassuring uncertainty abounded. There was general agreement that self-driving will be a gamechanger, but people freely admitted they didn’t have all the answers. How will AVs impact future mobility? How quickly?
Many of the big questions remain unanswered, and we in the UK are comfortable with that for now, because safety is our top priority.
For further info, visit the London City Summit page on the Autonomy website
Must-see video: October 2022 Bloomberg Quicktake interview with Anthony Levandowski on self-driving and safety
In this October 2022 Bloomberg Quicktake report, we hear from one of the most controversial men in self-driving: Anthony Levandowski.
Anthony Levandowski on Bloomberg Quicktake
It covers Levandowski’s history with Google and Uber, trade secrets, being pardoned by Donald Trump, and his new role as co-founder and CEO of autonomous vehicle company, Pronto.
Self-driving safety
“Self-driving is defined as the occupant is not responsible for the movement of the vehicle,” he says. “I’m a firm believer in that. I think it’s gonna be transformational. It’s a trillion dollar a year business that everybody’s chasing.
“The only metric that determines when an autonomous vehicle is ready is safety. It doesn’t matter how much they cost. It doesn’t matter how bulky they are, how ugly they are. The only metric is safety. Are they safer than a person?”
Tantalisingly, the top half of the Pronto.ai homepage, “Offroad”, has an “Enter” button, while the bottom half, “Onroad”, says “Coming Soon”.
In late September, at the glamorous Chantilly Arts & Elegance event, near Paris, Volkswagen Group unveiled the Gen.Travel, an all-electric Level 5 concept vehicle. Sorry, did you just spill your tea?
“The all-electric powered Innovation Experience Vehicle (IEV) is a real prototype that drives autonomously (Level 5) and gives a realistic outlook for the mobility of the coming decade,” said the VW blurb. Sounds amazing.
Dr. Nikolai Ardey, Head of Volkswagen Group Innovation, says: “With Gen.Travel, we can already experience today what will be possible in the near future with innovative technology. Door-to-door travel at a new level. Emission-free and stress-free.”
Are VW really claiming to have cracked Level 5? That’s certainly the impression given by some reports.
“Volkswagen is presenting a new way of traveling in luxury and relaxation, with its new vehicle prototype featuring Level 5 autonomy that takes the wheel all the way from departure to arrival,” said Tech Times.
A quick reminder, the SAE international standard describes Level 5 as: “Can drive everywhere in all conditions”. That’s quite an ask.
In our 2020 long-read, Kevin Vincent, Director at the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Automotive Research, mused: “Level 5 in terms of anytime anywhere automation is very difficult; I sometimes wonder if it will be possible, and whether people will even want it.”
Not a problem, apparently VW have sorted it!
Video of Cruise self-driving taxi disrupting traffic in SF
What’s more, there’s an unfortunate ratio at play: the more disruptive the self-driving, the greater the media appeal.
Self-driving local news
In late September, SFGATE reported that: “At least three driverless Cruise cars were responsible for holding up traffic and reportedly blocking a bus lane in San Francisco last week”.
One such incident was captured by news anchor Dan Thorn, who posted the following video to Twitter:
A San Francisco Story: while driving a colleague home from work we stumbled upon a @Cruise self-driving car no longer self-driving. It was blocking Sacramento at Mason. “Jasper” the car was playing tunes but no one was inside. @SFMTA_Muni bus had to reroute. pic.twitter.com/NYYdeRmNPD
All part of the learning process, but too many incidents like this will dent public acceptance.
A spokesperson for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) warned: “If an autonomous vehicle company violates their permit conditions, the CPUC has the authority to suspend or revoke their operating authority.”
Long-read interview with self-driving expert Ben Upcroft, VP of Technology at Oxbotica.
Over the last few years, Cars of the Future has reported extensively on the growth of Oxbotica – from Founder and CTO Professor Paul Newman’s ambition to target “anything that moves people or goods”, to exciting partnerships with big hitters including BP, Navtech, NEVS, Ocado, Wenco and ZF, to its headline-grabbing achievement of running a zero-occupancy self-driving electric vehicle on UK public roads.
Self-driving expert: Ben Upcroft of Oxbotica
In this exclusive long-read interview, Oxbotica’s VP of Technology, Ben Upcroft, discusses the company’s vision for universal autonomy and its role in sustainable mobility.
NK: Thanks for your time, Ben. For starters, tell us about your work at Queensland University of Technology and how you ended up in the UK at Oxbotica?
BU: “I’ve been involved in robotics and autonomous platforms for over two decades, initially on draglines, shovels, and haul trucks for mining. We were looking to take autonomy out into the field, to understand how we could use it in industry. Since then, I’ve been involved in underwater robotic platforms, aerial vehicles, and robotic manipulation.
“Vehicles present such rich problems. Solutions will continuously evolve, just like computers – we’ve gone from mainframes taking up whole rooms to being in everyone’s pocket. Today, we have autonomous vehicles out there operating in all sorts of different domains – on-road, off-road and everything in between – and they’ll continue to improve.
“It has been a real privilege to be part of this product development, from the very early days to a place where we will see autonomy in everyone’s hands, where every person and every organisation will be able to leverage autonomy. That’s what attracted me to Oxbotica.
“We’re creating a Universal Autonomy software platform to enable any vehicle in any place to operate autonomously and gain all the benefits that autonomy brings – efficiency gains, productivity gains and safety gains.
“We’re working in different industries, with lots of different organisations, and have already deployed it into many different domains. To do that, we have made a software platform without baking in assumptions on the hardware, the domain, or the environmental conditions.
“Assumptions are dangerous. For example, to presume that you’ll always be able to see lane markings (not true for off-road domains) and making that a fundamental part of your technology limits your capability for off-highway and off-road domains. Conversely, thinking about things in terms of Universal Autonomy – with a capability to deploy around the globe in various domains – has many advantages.
“Oxbotica is one of very few companies, if any, operating in mining environments, airports, ports, quarries, urban environments for grocery deliveries and passenger transport. It’s such an exciting place to be, to see how we can enable all these industries to take advantage of autonomy.”
Self-driving: Oxbotica Applied EV in Oxford, May 2022
BU: “Yes, we’re really proud of that particular vehicle – demonstrating how, with our software, any type of vehicle can be autonomous. On one hand you had the technical challenge, but perhaps the greater challenge was understanding how to work with the government, proving bodies, regulatory bodies, policymakers and certification authorities to create the ecosystem.
“It was great to have all those appropriate authorities watching and being involved in the program – understanding how autonomy can go from an add-on to a vehicle driven by a human, to one with no human, no steering wheel or pedals. That unleashes a whole expanse of capabilities for industry to amplify, from deliveries to public transport.
“Zero occupancy enables all kinds of changes. For example, space savings because you don’t need to build a vehicle around the person anymore. Since the invention of the motor car, design has always had to be about the driver, until now. Then there’s power requirements, comfort levels, all those things.
“If it’s a zero-occupancy vehicle for grocery deliveries, the milk doesn’t care if the acceleration is different to what you’d expect from a normal car. If it has to stop and wait for a little while, maybe that’s not such a big issue, because you’re not optimising for the human in the loop anymore. I’m really excited to see how these factors change how industry operates.
“We call this an economy software platform, building on top of what autonomy brings. Much like Android on a Google phone – they don’t build all the apps, they build the capability for others to add apps.
“Microsoft never set out to build a booking system for a dentist business, but they enabled people to come up with the ideas and build on the platform to enable those capabilities. That’s what I really want to see – our platform enabling countless further innovations, progress that no one expected or foresaw.
“The zero-occupancy side of things is very exciting and Oxbotica is one of the first companies in the world, certainly in Europe, to achieve it on public roads.”
Self-driving: Oxbotica Applied EV
NK: It seems that every company developing self-driving tech pays close attention when someone else makes a breakthrough…
BU: “We all rely so much on vehicles to get our goods and move ourselves around, and autonomy brings such a new paradigm to transport, that I can absolutely understand why everyone’s watching everyone else – maybe Oxbotica more than most, because of the partnerships we’re building.
“Our Universal Autonomy capability makes us a horizontal across multiple industries. We build the software into all these different domains, all these different vehicles, and any industry can give us a call if they can see benefits in working with us.
“We’re not trying to be a taxi company or a mining company, and we don’t want to be. Just like we won’t tie people into using a certain type of sensor or fleet management system. We build software that enables companies to innovate, to amplify what they’re doing.
“We work with partners that are experts in their domains, and this gains us experience in terms of the benefits that autonomy can bring in different sectors. For example, Ocado has such an amazing automation system for grocery packing in their warehouses. What we do is connect a warehouse to the kerbside using autonomy, so they’re extending automation all the way to their customers.
“BP is another amazing partner to work with, because it has such a diverse set of domains. Solar farms, wind farms and refineries all require different types of vehicles, and they have locations all around the world which, again, means different requirements. We’re agnostic to the type of vehicle and the type of domain.
“ZF is an automotive tier one supplier developing passenger transport shuttles and we’re its autonomy software platform provider. That’s a super exciting partnership for us because we’ll enable these shuttles to operate autonomously in urban environments all around the world.
“Another one is NEVS, an OEM car manufacturer building small electric passenger vehicles.
Working on autonomy for these vehicles has really changed the way we think about how passengers and people can move around, reducing the need for individual car ownership and reducing congestion.”
Self-driving: Oxbotica Applied EV, 2022
NK: That brings us nicely to the relationship with the traditional motor industry. How do you see that evolving over the next 10 years?
BU: “It’s going to be mixed. You’re going to start seeing autonomy in some places, in some industries. As that proves out, it will expand, both geographically for that particular industry, and into other markets, as we as a community gain confidence and better understand the technology and the regulatory frameworks.
“There’s not a huge pull for consumers to have an autonomous car at their doorstep that they can use whenever they want. Don’t get me wrong, that’s potentially a very large market for the future. But there are other markets that have a need for autonomy right now – mining, airports, logistics – they’re looking for safety, productivity and efficiency gains, and the ability to operate 24/7.
“It’s likely that industries struggling to recruit enough drivers will increasingly turn to autonomy to deliver the kind of productivity levels they’re aiming for. And, as we service these markets, that will bring confidence.
“The ability to drive anywhere, anytime, anyplace is a vision that we are working towards, starting in domains that can significantly benefit from autonomy now. So you’ll start seeing autonomous public transport, shuttle buses, soon, within two to three years, maybe earlier.
“Those types of platforms will pop up in different cities, different urban environments. We’ll see other types of autonomous vehicles too, for goods delivery, for example, in an even shorter timeframe. And that’s just going to continue and expand. Autonomy brings so many advantages that industries will soon need to leverage it to be competitive.
“For us to deploy into all these different domains, we need to demonstrate that our technology is safe, both to get insurance and to assure the communities that we’re working with. But traditional verification and validation involves years of continuous testing, driving millions of miles. That doesn’t seem like the smartest way of going about it.
“We think there’s a way to verify and validate in a more accelerated way: to give the system the ability to test itself in simulation and find the edge cases much more rapidly. We’ve developed a product that enables rapid validation and verification called MetaDriver. It’s exciting. It will enable us to deploy new products more quickly, so everyone can gain the advantage of whatever new feature is available in autonomy. That will be key.”
