On the latest episode of The Autonocast: why Level Four autonomy can mean almost anything, how Nissan plans to make a buck selling electric cars, where you can stick your platitudes about the CASE (connected, autonomous, shared electric) orthodoxy and the worst driverless car video... in the world.
Mapping has always been an important aspect of autonomous drive technology, but the full range of opportunities for maps in the future of mobility isn't always fully appreciated. This week Dr Sanjay Sood, head of Highly Automated Driving at the mapping juggernaut HERE, joins The Autonocast to explain why maps are so crucial, how they are being used to solve all kinds of mobility challenges and where the future of mapping is headed.
As the last few weeks have confirmed once again, the media can't stop talking about Tesla... and apparently neither can we. Luckily we also managed to squeeze in some discussion of the Uber-Waymo trial, the upcoming AV regulatory summit and the Apple Homepod. In short, this may well be the least autonomous drive-focused episode of The Autonocast ever.
Dr Melissa Cefkin is one of many scientists working on the challenge of developing and deploying autonomous cars at Nissan's Silicon Valley research lab. But she's a bit different than most scientists working in this space: she's a social scientist, specifically an anthropologist. On this episode of The Autonocast, she joins the crew to explain why social science is so important to the development of autonomous cars, and how her team contributes to Nissan's work in this sector.
Dr Stephen Zoepf of Stanford's Center for Automotive Research recently wrote a thoughtful commentary at Reuters about the complex nature of autonomous vehicle safety. Dr Zoepf joins the latest episode of The Autonocast to explain his thoughts on this fascinating topic with Alex, Kirsten and Ed. The conversation continues with a discussion of the California DMV's annual disengagement report, and the recently-promulgated Shared Mobility Principles For Livable Cities.
The massive Tier One automotive supplier Delphi was a relatively early player in autonomy, having completed a cross-country drive way back in 2015. Now the autonomous and future mobility technology side of Delphi has been split off from the more traditional supplier business and is now a standalone company called Aptiv. Kirsten and Ed met up with Aptiv at CES, where they took a ride in one of the company's test vehicles, caught up with its development plans and found out why autonomous cars are a bit like elevators.
With a bunch of stories breaking in the ridesharing space, we discuss the challenges, opportunities and trends currently shaping that market. From vansharing in London to potential flirtation between BMW and Daimler's ridesharing plays, from San Francisco's lawsuit against Turo to the travails of airport TNC chaos and the need for a Fifth Element-style "multipass," this episode packs it in. Plus we solicit sponsors to help us cover the upcoming Self Racing Cars event, because how awesome would that be?
For all the attention that is put on developing the technology for autonomous driving, there's another challenge that gets far less attention: what will the business model for these new technologies look like? While some startups are developing the technology without a clear go-to-market strategy, Ford is making sure that they know how to make money with autonomous cars as soon as the technology is ready. This week Jim Farley, Ford's Executive Vice President for global markets, and Sherif Marakby, Ford's Vice President for Autonomous Vehicles and Electrification, join the Autonocast to explain how and why Ford is working toward a high-utilization business strategy for autonomous personal mobility and commercial delivery.
For the second year in a row the Navigant Leaderboard Report on Automated Driving Vehicles has created a bundle of controversy by ranking establish automakers higher than Silicon Valley tech companies in the race to autonomous vehicles. This week Navigant's Senior Research Analyst for automated vehicles, Sam Abuelsamid, joins the Autonocast to explain how he came up with these often-misunderstood rankings and why factors beyond the technology itself are so important. If you've ever wondered why GM and Ford rank so high on Navigant's leaderboard and companies like Tesla rank so low, be sure to give this episode a listen.