Self-Driving All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) meets at House of Commons to discuss safety and public perception.

Self-Driving APPG on safety and public perception

We were delighted to be invited to the Self-Driving All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) workshop on “Safety and Public Perception” at the House of Commons on Monday (18 Sep 2023).

Chaired by Ben Everitt, MP for self-driving hotspot Milton Keynes North, ably assisted by Lord Borwick, former long-serving chief exec of London taxi manufacturer, Manganese Bronze, it invited expert opinions on important questions including:

  • What does a robust and credible safety framework for self-driving vehicles look like?
  • What are the implications of AI safety policy for the self-driving vehicle sector?
  • How will the roll-out of self-driving vehicles affect pedestrians and other road users?
  • What can the industry do to improve public understanding of self-driving vehicles?
  • How can Government support the industry to highlight the benefits of self-driving vehicles?
Self-Driving APPG parliamentarians
Self-Driving APPG parliamentarians: Ben Everitt MP and Lord (Jamie) Borwick

Self-driving experts

For this second workshop (the first, on “Economy and Environment”, having taken place the previous week), the participants included many names familiar to Cars of the Future readers: Doug Jenkins of AXA, Jessica Uguccioni of the Law Commission and CCAV, Nick Fleming of BSI, Professor Siddartha Khastgir of the University of Warwick, Steve Gooding of the RAC Foundation, Mark Cracknell of Zenzic, and Dr Nick Reed of Reed Mobility, along with representatives from Wayve, Burges Salmon, WSP, National Highways, Waymo and Hanbury Strategy.

Emphasising that the four leading causes of road traffic accidents (RTAs) are driver error, reckless behaviour, disobeying traffic laws and driver impairment, it set out to explore public perceptions around safety, and asked how self-driving can reduce casualties as part of a wider smart transport system.

Without wishing to pre-empt the findings, which will inform an independent policy report, three interesting opinions were: 1) that people will quickly become bored with the protest action of ‘coning’, 2) that more ‘friendly-looking’ vehicle design would be helpful, and 3) that legislation to clarify liability would be very welcome – perhaps in the next King’s Speech?

Please note, the APPG’s deadline for written evidence on the economic, environmental and safety benefits of self-driving vehicles is this Friday (22nd Sep 2023).

For further info, visit the Self-Driving APPG website.

    

Self-driving safety on upward curve – key finding from IDTechEx report Autonomous Cars, Robotaxis & Sensors 2024-2044

Study finds some 2022 self-driving cars safer than average human driver

A new industry report by Cambridge-based independent market research provider, IDTechEx, claims that “Autonomous vehicles will soon be safer than humans, some already are”.

Released on 12 September 2023, the “Autonomous Cars, Robotaxis & Sensors 2024-2044” report was authored by Dr James Jeffs, Senior Technology Analyst at IDTechEx.

Dr James Jeffs, Senior Technology Analyst at IDTechEx.
Dr James Jeffs, Senior Technology Analyst at IDTechEx.

Self-driving in California

Predicting rapid growth in the number of cities that will offer robotaxi services in the next few years, it highlights the issue of ‘coning’ in San Francisco – where protestors attempt to render self-driving cars inoperable by placing a traffic cone on the bonnet.

There are obvious parallels with the recent attacks on Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) cameras in London.

The most interesting element of the research, however, is the key metric that IDTechEx uses to monitor autonomous vehicle safety: miles per disengagement.

First, it sets out the testing miles submitted by the top testing companies – including Waymo, Cruise, Pony AI, Zoox and Nuro – in California between 2015 and 2022.

IDTechEx: self-driving testing miles in California
IDTechEx: self-driving testing miles in California

It then analyses the miles per disengagement, measuring how frequently the autonomous vehicle safety driver needs to intervene with the autonomous system.

Safety driver interventions

IDTechEx track self-driving vehicle safety driver interventions
IDTechEx track self-driving vehicle safety driver interventions

In 2022, Cruise led when it came to disengagement. During its 863,000 miles of testing, safety drivers only needed to intervene nine times. What’s more, IDTechEx concluded that four of these nine disengagements were caused by the poor performance of other nearby drivers.

The study then applies a slightly spurious method – assuming that each disengagement would lead to a collision… and comparing this to the average US human driver performance of approx. 200,000 miles between collisions – in order to justify the ‘some AVs are already better than humans’ claim.

It isn’t an exact science, but the important point stands. Self-driving cars are getting safer year-on-year.

New ISO 34503:2023 international standard on safe self-driving trials.

UK plays instrumental role in 1st international standard for safe self-driving

Experts from the UK have been instrumental in developing the very first international standard for the safe operation of self-driving vehicles, the new ISO 34503:2023.

Based on BSI PAS 1883, developed by the UK National Standards Body, it uses the Operational Design Domain (ODD) concept championed by Professor Siddartha Khastgir, of WMG at the University of Warwick.

As covered extensively on Cars of the Future, the ODD is basically a definition of where a self-driving vehicle is going to operate.

Self-driving standard

The new ISO standard (full title: Road Vehicles — Test scenarios for automated driving systems — Specification for operational design domain) provides specifications for three key categories:

  • Scenery elements: non-movable elements e.g. roads, bridges, traffic lights
  • Environment conditions: weather and other atmospheric conditions
  • Dynamic elements: all movable objects and actors

The ISO website explains that the document is mainly applicable to level 3 and level 4 automated driving systems (ADS). It is primarily intended to be used by organisations conducting trials, testing and commercial deployment, and may also be of interest to insurers, regulators, service providers, national, local and regional governments.

Professor Khastgir praised the work of partners from around the world, including the US, Germany, Japan, China, France, Austria, Canada, Israel, Sweden, Finland, South Korea and Australia.

“Successful standardisation efforts are only possible with true international collaboration,” he said. “I am grateful to experts from various countries worldwide who have engaged and contributed actively to this standard.”

ISO members working on safe self-driving, 2023
ISO members working on safe self-driving, 2023

Guiding safe self-driving

Nick Fleming, Associate Director of Transport and Mobility at BSI, said: “It’s exciting to see the launch of this new international standard, given the potential benefits that can be realised by testing automated vehicles so they can operate safely on our roads.

“This new ISO standard has been inspired by the UK document, BSI PAS 1883:2020, the first taxonomy for ODDs developed in conjunction with UK experts and the government’s Centre for Connected and Automated Vehicles.

“BSI would like to thank Professor Khastgir for his effort in helping to lead this work at the international level which, along with PAS 1883, shows the leadership the UK is having in the development of global standardisation for self-driving vehicles.”

Sarah Gates, Director of Public Policy at Wayve, added: “The concept of ODDs is the basis of deploying self-driving vehicles safely. A common way of describing ODDs across industry is therefore vital for creating the highest safety standards, bolstering public trust and supporting the regulatory frameworks required to commercially deploy self-driving technology on a global scale.”

This wider adoption of the ODD is a big win for UK thought leadership, with US-based self-driving expert, Philip Koopman, author of the book “How Safe Is Safe Enough?”, recently describing us as “the adults in the room” when it comes to regulation.

DfT and CCAV publish two new reports on self-driving public engagement

Not 1 but 2 DfT reports on The Great Self-Driving Exploration

In summer 2023, The Department for Transport (DfT) and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) published two new reports on The Great Self-Driving Exploration.

Last year, in partnership with Thinks Insight & Strategy, University College London (UCL) and Aurrigo, they held a series of large-scale public engagement events in areas of the country where there had previously been little or no engagement with self-driving vehicles.

The aim was to study public perceptions towards, and effective communication about, self-driving. We ran a story at the time on The Great Self-Driving Exploration in Taunton.

DfT Great Self-Driving Exploration report - citizen view of self-driving technology, 2023
DfT Great Self-Driving Exploration report – citizen view of self-driving technology, 2023

Self-driving citizen view

The first report, “A citizen view of self-driving technology in future transport systems”, largely analysed the responses from a “high exposure audience” of 177 participants, who took part in a three-week programme of “deliberative engagement”, including pre- and post-ride surveys.

Further feedback came from “medium exposure” and “low exposure” audiences, of 450 and 250 participants respectively.

In workshops, the high exposure participants were shown educational videos on various aspects of self-driving. They featured, among others, Rebecca Posner of CCAV, Camilla Fowler of Oxbotica (now Oxa), Siddartha Khastgir of WMG, Jessica Uguccioni of the Law Commission, Dr Nick Reed of Reed Mobility, Brian Matthews of Milton Keynes Council, Steve Gooding of the RAC Foundation, Tom Cohen of the University of Westminster, David Sharp of Ocado, Martin Griffiths of Stagecoach Group, Colin Robertson of Alexander Dennis, Jim Hutchinson of Fusion Processing, and Waymo – familiar names to regular Cars of the Future readers.

The participants were then asked to design an advert to describe self-driving vehicles (SDVs) to the public. As an aside, being pedants, we note a battle with software-defined vehicles for the SDV acronym. Anyway…

The report found: “Given the generally positive attitude towards SDVs [self-driving vehicles], the information campaigns and adverts designed by participants overwhelmingly focused on communicating the potential benefits of introducing SDVs rather than any of their concerns.

“Broadly speaking, to effectively improve awareness of SDVs it was seen as necessary to communicate their advantages over and above traditional human-driven vehicles.

“Using information campaigns and adverts to normalise the concept of SDVs, either as privately owned vehicles or as part of shared or public transport provision, was considered important.”

Familiarity with self-driving increased significantly among the high exposure participants, with 68% saying they knew ‘a fair amount’ by the end of the research, compared to just 11% at the outset.

In particular, these participants felt they had a better understanding of the ‘rules’ for using self-driving vehicles. However, there were still areas of potential confusion, such as what level of autonomy is currently legal on UK roads.

DfT Great Self-Driving Exploration report - wordcloud
DfT Great Self-Driving Exploration report – wordcloud

In a welcome repeat of the PAVE findings in America – “we like to put on demonstration events to demystify the technology and the good news is that knowledge and experience change attitudes”- participant ‘comfort’ increased during The Great Self-Driving Exploration process, both in terms of using self-driving vehicles and sharing roads with them.

As to how best to communicate with the public, the research concluded that the top five key themes are:

  1. Safety – both improved road safety and reassurance on self-driving vehicle safety.
  2. Reliability and security – especially the balancing of AI technology and human backup.
  3. Accessibility – promoting mobility for all.
  4. Shared – improved public transport and the environmental benefits of fewer private car journeys.
  5. Costs – being cheaper than the existing options is a powerful message.

Self-driving emotional responses

DfT Great Self-Driving Exploration report - Understanding emotional responses to self-driving, 2023
DfT Great Self-Driving Exploration report – Understanding emotional responses to self-driving, 2023

The second, more technical, report, “Understanding emotional responses to self-driving vehicles: Findings from the EEG study”, measured excitement and stress using an electrophysiological process to record participants’ brain activity. The headlines were…

On “medium to high levels of Engagement, Excitement and Interest”, that participants “have a degree of affinity with the task and tended to have more positive emotional responses to the technology.”

On “lower scores for Focus, Stress and Relaxation”, that participants “were relatively comfortable with the experience despite its novelty”.

And “as participants become more familiar with the technology the more immediate and emotional reactions, both positive or negative subside”.

Interestingly, males tended to show higher levels of ‘Excitement’ than females when on the shuttle, while the opposite was seen for the pod.

The report concluded: “These differences will have implications on both engineering and policy choices to help mitigate certain emotional states if self-driving vehicles become more widespread. The changes in emotional state observed throughout a journey also suggest the value of providing members of the public with the opportunity to trial the technology.”

Together, these two reports provide important insights into the expectations of the UK public in relation to self-driving – a valuable contribution to this fast-growing ecosystem.

43 British companies win CCAV funding for self-driving supply chain projects.

Self-driving gets healthy slice of new £50m funding for cutting edge UK manufacturing

On 4 September 2023, the UK government announced the recipients of £50m in funding “to cement the UK as the best location in the world to manufacture”. The winners included several major self-driving projects.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said: “From farm tractors fuelled by hydrogen to rapid-charge first responder motorcycles, these projects receiving funding today show we are not short of innovators in this country.

“By supporting growth in the industries of the future, including through better regulation, we are delivering on our plan to get the economy growing and make the UK the best place in the world to start and grow a business.”

Self-driving winners

In addition to 12 mainly clean fuel-related projects to be funded via the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) announced £18.5m in joint government and industry funding for 13 new self-driving projects.

Designed to address critical technology gaps, enhance safety and security, improve performance and reliability, and create scalable opportunities both domestically and globally, these connected and automated mobility (CAM) supply chain projects will be delivered in partnership with Zenzic and Innovate UK.

The winning projects are, in alphabetical order:

·       AIM-DBW

·       Autonomous Cargo

·       CERTUS

·       DeepSafe

·       DriveSafeAI

·       Driven By Sound

·       evolvAD

·       High-Performance Imaging Radar (HPIR)

·       Photonic Inertial Sensors for Automotive (PISA)

·       Sim4CAMSens

·       StreetCAV

·       Systems for Autonomy in Fail Operational Environments (SAFE)

·       Torque Overlay Automated Steering Technology (TOAST)

Decarbonisation and Technology Minister, Jesse Norman MP, commented: “Self-driving vehicles have the potential to transform how we get around, making journeys safer, more convenient and more accessible while also creating skilled jobs. These grant winners underline how the UK is at the cutting edge in developing automated technologies that are not only innovative but have safety at their heart.”

Meanwhile, Minister for Industry and Economic Security, Nusrat Ghani MP, visited Wayve, one of the 43 British companies involved, yesterday (5 September). “The automotive industry will go through a self-drive revolution = huge economic growth & new jobs,” she said on Twitter (X). “We are supporting AI tech firms in leading the way.”

The headline facts and figures for each winning project are as follows:

AIM-DBW – lead partner Aim Technologies, with TRL – to deliver a universal drive-by-wire system to enable the automation of throttle, steering, braking and gears. Grant: £400,000.

Autonomous Cargo – lead partner Aurrigo, with UPS – to create a self-driving 7.5 tonne dolly for airside cargo movements, along with a simulation tool. Grant: £480,000.

Certus – lead partners Horiba Mira, with Coventry University, Connected Places Catapult, Polestar Automotive UK, and IPG Automotive UK – to provide a verification and validation (V&V) test requirements toolset for an automated driving system (ADS). Grant: £1.5m.

DeepSafe – lead partner Drisk.ai, with Imperial College London, Claytex Services, DG Cities, and rFpro – to support the V&V of ADSs through industry-critical data and a next-generation simulation toolchain. Grant: £2m.

DriveSafeAI – lead partner Wayve Technologies, with University of Warwick – to develop a safety assurance framework for the safe deployment of AI in self-driving technology across all driving domains. Grant: £1.9m

Driven By Sound – lead partner Calyo, with Baro Vehicles – is a collaborative initiative to create a robust navigation system for automated vehicles, with a particular emphasis on adverse weather handling. Grant: £910,000.

evolvAD – lead partner Nissan Motor Manufacturing UK, with TRL, Humanising Autonomy, Connected Places Catapult, and SBD Automotive – to develop an AV capable of safely driving in residential, urban and rural environments. Grant: £2.3m.

High-Performance Imaging Radar (HPIR) – lead partner Aptcore, with Garfield Microelectronics, Plextek Services, and Cambridge Sensoriis – aims to develop a high-performance imaging radar specifically for AVs. Grant: £1.8m.

Photonic Inertial Sensors for Automotive (PISA) – lead partner Zero Point Motion, with WAE Technologies, University of the West of England, and the Royal Institute of Navigation – to leverage Micro Electromechanical Systems (MEMS), Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), and low-cost laser/detectors to develop advanced position and navigation sensors. Grant: £1.4m.

Sim4CAMSens – lead partner Claytex Services, with University of Warwick, National Physical Laboratory, Syselek (UK), Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult, rFpro, Oxford RF Solutions, and Techworkshub – to enable accurate representation of ADS sensors in simulation. Grant: £2m.

StreetCAV – lead partner Smart City Consultancy, with Dell Corporation, Milton Keynes Borough Council, and Ohmio UK – will create a ‘plug-and-play’ roadside connectivity solution for self-driving shuttles, robots and drone-based services. Grant: £1.8m.

Systems for Autonomy in Fail Operational Environments (SAFE) – lead partner Streetdrone, with Alcon Components, University Of Surrey, and Chassis Autonomy – will develop a fail operational drive-by-wire technology platform to enable safe SAE Level 4 autonomy. Grant: £1.2m.

Torque Overlay Automated Steering Technology (TOAST) – lead partners Titan Motorsport & Automotive Engineering, with Alexander Dennis, and TRL – will develop a modular dual redundant steer-by-wire system for heavily automated and electric vehicles. Grant: £760,000.

Quick on the draw with a press release, Alex Kendall, CEO of Wayve, said: “Leveraging AI, we have the chance to bring the benefits of self-driving vehicles to everyone’s door. But first, securing trust in AI is paramount. DriveSafeAI will give the public and policymakers confidence in this technology, which has the potential to revolutionise transport.”

Wayve self-driving car, 2023
Wayve self-driving car, 2023

Professor Siddartha Khastgir, Head of Verification & Validation at WMG, added: “AI and particularly embodied AIs like self-driving vehicles is one of the biggest disruptors for society. Deploying this technology safely is essential.”

Congratulations to all, particularly TOAST for the best acronym, and we will follow all of these exciting projects with great interest.

Reva2’s “more humble” self-driving concept uses painted lines embedded with RFID chips.

Allez les blue lines! France’s Reva2 offers simpler self-driving

Matthias Vanoni, acting CEO at Reva2, on plans to put on-demand self-driving pods on the streets of Nice, in the south of France, by 2025… using clever blue lines.

Matthias Vanoni, acting CEO of French self-driving company Reva2
Matthias Vanoni, acting CEO of French self-driving project Reva2

“We have problems with cars, in that there are too many of them in our cities, bringing pollution, traffic jams and parking space shortages,” he said.

“One solution is to switch from everyone having a personal car to mobility as a service (MAAS). We saw the success of Uber in that direction. But still, it’s costly, and the driver represents around 70% of the cost.

Affordable self-driving

“Electric self-driving cars can bring affordable mobility to the masses, driving a massive transition away from personal vehicles. Withdrawing a lot of the cars from cities means less co2 emissions and less traffic, much better from a climate change point of view.

“The traditional car manufacturers talk about making their cars drive themselves anytime, anywhere. They have spent hundreds of billions pushing for level five autonomy, and it has not been successful.

“Look at the comments of people like Anthony Levandowski (formerly of Google’s Waymo). It’s too big a moonshot to have self-driving cars everywhere.

“That’s why the founder of Reva2, Raoul Parienti, came up with this more humble idea: The Blue Line System. Limit self-driving to the city and do it using a blue line painted onto the road, embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips for positioning.”

Video: Reva2’s self-driving solution

“This way you no longer need GPS or artificial intelligence,” he continued. “You reduce it to one dimension – you ask the car to follow the blue line, like a tramway. It is an infinitely simpler solution, and the cars can synchronise into a vehicle train using secure wireless connections. 

“We had the patent for that in 2007. From 2022, we have a new patent allowing the car to follow digital lines. An advantage being that this covers the blue line being distorted or covered by snow.

“Make a Reva2 booking on your smartphone and a vehicle will come to you automatically, within minutes, and drop you at your desired destination.

“We have partnered with a specialised concept car company in the south of France to make the first six cars. We also have another partner for delivering the first 12km of blue lines.”

Reva2 self-driving vehicle train
Reva2 self-driving vehicle train

Nice self-driving

“The mayor of Nice is very much an ambassador for our solution, and we are in discussion with the French government and others to get funding in place to launch a pilot there.

“The plan is for this phase to be completed by the end of 2026, and then we industrialise. The Nice metropolis has a population of around half a million people, so the full solution would involve around 7,500 cars.

“We are already in discussion with larger French cities, like Marseille, too, and beyond that we will look at licences to operate in other countries, such as the UK.”

For further info see www.reva2.eu

Self-driving on track in 1967 feat. BBC Archive footage of an amazing connected, automated, shared and electric vehicle.

Cars of the Past: BBC’s 1967 report on self-driving Alden staRRcar

As regular Cars of the Future readers will know, we occasionally like to look back in a series we call… Cars of the Past. Well, today is one of those days.

Following last year’s release of a 1971 news broadcast on “driverless cars and the future of motoring”, the BBC Archive has published another great Retro Transport report: “The Self-Driving Car Of Tomorrow”, from 1967.

The “dual-mode” Self-Transport Road and Rail Car (staRRcar), was designed by Harvard graduate William Alden in the 1960s.

The report describes it as “America’s answer to the universal problem of personal transport in congested cities – combining the door-to-door convenience of the private car with the speed and relaxation of public transport at its best.”

Self-driving on track

The battery-powered three-seater can be driven ‘normally’ on local roads, but also has the ability to join automated guideways – 8ft-wide tracks designed to be installed alongside existing road lanes.

Self-driving on track in 1967: Alden staRRcar
Self-driving on track in 1967: Alden staRRcar

Users simply press a button to select their destination, sit back and read the paper, while the staRRcar slots into a train of such vehicles, self-driving at up to 60mph.

After taking a spur exit, they can retake control and continue their journey, or leave the staRRcar at a car park, ready to be used by others.

So… connected, automated, shared and electric (CASE) – that’s pretty forward-thinking for 2023, let alone 1967.

Thanks to Dr Nick Reed, of Reed Mobility, on Linkedin for putting us on to this video.

Related articles:

Cars of the Past: Sinclair C5 race in Margate

Cars of the Past: who needs seatbelts?

Software-defined vehicle debate feat. experts in computer engineering, automotive fintech and ADAS.

Software-defined vehicles: Cars of the Future editor hosts Reuters webinar on amazing emerging tech

In case you didn’t catch it live, Cars of the Future editor Neil Kennett recently moderated a fantastic discussion on The Evolution of Automotive Technology for Reuters Events.

The high-profile three-man panel consisted of Dr Mario De Felice, Head of Software Architecture at Jaguar Land Rover, Nico Kersten, CEO of Mercedes Pay, and Plato Pathrose, CTO of Vinfast.

With world leading expertise in computer engineering, automotive fintech and ADAS, the main topics covered included EVs and hybrids, software-defined vehicles (SDVs), over-the-air updates (OTAs) and in-car purchase systems (ICPSs).

In particular, they discussed an Accenture report predicting that revenues from digitally-enabled services will rise tenfold by 2040 (to US$3.5 trillion), and the letter by the European Association of Automotive Suppliers to the President of the European Commission calling for sector-specific regulation on the use and sharing of in-vehicle data.

They also covered Mercedes’ Drive Pilot becoming the first SAE Level 3 system in a standard production vehicle to be authorised for use on public freeways in America, and the UK’s recent self-driving public transport successes in Scotland and Didcot.

Software-defined debate

Highlights included…

How is modern software architecture changing vehicle design?

Mario De Felice: “At JLR we’ve integrated Alexa so that the user seamlessly moves from one ecosystem to the other – more complex software architecture enables all of those features. That revolution is incredible.”

How will in-car purchase systems deliver more personalised driving experiences?

Nico Kersten: “If you have digital extras available, you can really reconfigure your car. Two important words are trust and responsibility. This is how we need to approach data.”

What are the challenges and opportunities of being an emerging VM in the age of zero fatalities?

Plato Pathrose: “The major advantages we have are flexibility and adaptability. We have to deliver products that are stable and trustworthy, and show we are capable of providing better technologies.”

The full hour-long session can be viewed here.

Self-driving headline news from CES 2023

CES 2023: Self-driving advances overshadowed by Terminator hero

As has become customary at this time of year, here’s our Cars of the Future review of notable self-driving developments at CES, “the most influential tech event in the world”.

First, it would be remiss not to point out that self-driving impressively made headlines by not stealing the show! For instance, Cleantechnica ran with the headline: “CES 2023 Shies Away From Autonomous Driving Technology”.

Self-driving premiere

That’s maybe a bit harsh. For starters, ZF gave a world premiere to its next generation Level 4 autonomous shuttle, and announced an important new partnership with Beep.

ZF self-driving shuttle announced at CES 2023
ZF self-driving shuttle announced at CES 2023

Integrated into ZF’s autonomous driving system is the Virtual Driver software stack, developed in partnership with Oxfordshire-based Oxbotica. It consists of two major parts, the performance path and the safety path. The safety path monitors situations and defines ‘virtual guardrails’, while the performance path enables smooth driving.

“ZF delivers innovative technologies that contribute to sustainable mobility and help decarbonize the world,” said Dr. Holger Klein, CEO of ZF Group. “Today, we have everything to support our customers with holistic vehicle systems based on advanced high-performance controllers, intelligent sensors, smart actuators, connectivity and cloud solutions, and cutting-edge software and functions.”

The agreement with Beep includes plans for “several thousand” Level 4 shuttles in the US. Joe Moye, CEO of Beep, added: “This vehicle will help expand use cases and meet growing customer demand as we continue to pursue our vision of extending mobility equity and reducing carbon emissions with safe, efficient shared autonomous transportation.”

Self-driving AI

Then there was Korean company AIMMO’s announcement of “the world’s first AI-powered Autonomous Driving Data-as-a-Service” – ADaaS – designed “to overcome the industry-wide problem of excessive data collection that has constrained the progression and commercialisation of AV technologies”.

AIMMO AI-powered Autonomous Driving Data-as-a-Service (ADaaS) for self-driving
AIMMO AI-powered Autonomous Driving Data-as-a-Service (ADaaS) for self-driving

“Over the years, we have seen a huge amount of anticipation around when we will see autonomous vehicles commercialised, but with standards and regulations ever-changing across the world, it is an extremely complex market to navigate,” said AIMMO CEO SeungTaek Oh. ”We believe that the arrival of AIMMO ADaaS is a game-changer for many companies operating in this space.”

There was the small matter of Honda and Sony teaming up to launch a whole new brand, Afeela. It promises “the car of tomorrow”, with first deliveries scheduled for 2026.

Self-driving tech

Plastic Omnium announced the creation of a new division, OP’n Soft, focused on “mobility solutions that are more electric, more connected, more autonomous and more shared”. There’s probably an acronym for that.

“OP’n Soft will enable Plastic Omnium to offer its customers a unique range of integrated solutions and services, such as merging radar data processing software with lighting technologies,” said CEO Laurent Favre.

Plastic O also showcased a new “smart bumper” featuring embedded antennas to deliver “unequaled sensing faculties”, and announced a partnership with startup Greenerwave “to transform body panels into 4D imaging radar to give autonomous cars supervision”.

Another startup, Exwayz, unveiled SLAM – new generation software offering self-localization accurate to 2cm “to simplify and accelerate 3D LiDAR integration into autonomous systems”.

Exwayz SLAM self-localization for self-driving announced at CES 2023
Exwayz SLAM self-localization for self-driving announced at CES 2023

“We are proud to introduce Exwayz SLAM, aimed at saving years in hard software development to autonomous system manufacturers,” said CEO Hassan Bouchiba. “The reality is that autonomy can only happen with robust, accurate, reliable and truly real-time algorithms, which are the critical lacking elements in currently available solutions.”

Terminator star

Perhaps understandably, these advances were somewhat overshadowed by Terminator star Arnold Schwarzenegger joining BMW CEO Oliver Zipse on-stage to unveil the eye-catching BMW i Vision Dee colour-changing car.

The Dee Movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger on Youtube

CNBC in America has reported on “an ugly month” for a key electric vehicle and self-driving ETF.

EV and self-driving stocks suffer big fall in Sept 22

CNBC in America has reported on a key exchange traded fund (ETF) for electric vehicle (EV) and self-driving stocks suffering “an ugly month” in September.

On Friday 30 September, the Global X Autonomous and Electric Vehicles ETF closed 37% off the group’s 52-week high. 

CNBC said: “It was the second worst-performing month for the group on a percentage basis on record, behind only March 2020 when the overall stock market saw dramatic declines.”

Self-driving stock

CNBC re EV and self-driving stocks Sep 2022
CNBC re EV and self-driving stocks Sep 2022

Global X says the DRIV fund offers high growth potential, noting that: “While global EV registrations increased by more than 40% in 2020, EVs were still less than 5% of new cars sold, highlighting substantial room for further adoption.”

The top 10 holdings (as of 10/04/22) were:

  1. Tesla 
  2. Apple 
  3. Microsoft 
  4. Alphabet 
  5. Qualcomm 
  6. Toyota 
  7. Nvidia 
  8. Intel 
  9. Pilbara Minerals 
  10. Honeywell 

At Cars of the Future, we suspect the falls have more to do with the EV side and assisted driving than true self-driving… but rumours of a global recession don’t help!