“Silicon Valley Decides It’s Just Too Hard to Build a Car” – What About Tesla?

Bloomberg just published an article Silicon Valley Decides It’s Just Too Hard to Build a Car, by Keith Naughton , Alex Webb , and Mark Bergen, October 25, 2016. That make Elon Musk’s achievements with Tesla Motors that much more amazing! Tesla is a Silicon Valley company, and Tesla is producing amazing cars. The article points out that the Silicon Valley companies can’t get the real-world driving data that the conventional car companies have. And conversely the conventional car companies can’t hire the software experts to build the systems needed for the autonomous cars of the future because Silicon Valley firms are more attractive places to work. Yet attempts at partnerships between companies in the two industries remain stalled.

Meanwhile, Teslas have driven over 100 million miles with Autopilot active, so Tesla is gathering far more detailed data than the conventional car companies. By contrast Google’s much-touted self-driving car program has driven 1.5 million miles over its entire history – Teslas log 2.6 million miles a day on Autopilot. And Google says Google’s Robo-Cars Hit 2M Miles, Confirm Driving Is Dadgum Tricky. That’s why our proposal is to have Autonomous Vehicles run in enclosed Autonomous-Ways, or A-Ways, excluding human-driven vehicles, pedestrians, animals, debris, and weather. A-Ways greatly simplify the requirements on the autonomous driving system, and greatly improve the safety – in 94% ± 2.2% of crashes the driver was the critical reason, NHTSA DOT HS 812 115, February 2015. And even better, the A-Way can provide power directly to the vehicles, essentially eliminating batteries, which are such a drag on electric vehicles.

Having worked in Bell Labs, which at the time was part of the largest private company on earth, AT&T, and subsequently in several startups, I have a perspective on the challenges facing the conventional car companies. I even directed modeling efforts as part of studies leading up to the AT&T divestiture in 1984. Bell Labs was a great place to work back in “the day” but now startups are far more fun and satisfying.  

My view is that it is incredibly difficult for a large company to make the transition to drastically different technologies. On March 28, 2008, I was in Sacramento, California to make a statement at the California Air Resources Board meeting on the Proposed Amendments to the California Zero Emission Vehicle Regulations. After the session I was being interviewed on video, and I predicted that the big 3 car manufacturers would go bankrupt, as I had been predicting quietly for several years – the interviewer promptly left, presumably because he thought I was a crank. Thirteen months later I was proved right, ok 2 out of 3 isn’t bad, and Ford only dodged the bullet by presciently mortgaging all its assets in 2006. My comments weren’t based on the economy, that was just the trigger, but that the companies had ignored the changes taking place in the car industry, especially the need for higher quality, and the difficulty in changing a large company.

Now I predict that the conventional car companies will have great difficulty adjusting to the combination of autonomous driving, and the smaller numbers of vehicles due to sharing. I don’t know whether they will go bankrupt or just fade away to bit players. All those companies are making claims they will have autonomous cars by a variety of unrealistic dates, yet have no real experience. I’ve been managing research and development for my entire career, and built two high tech companies, and Tesla is the only one doing it right, IMHO.

Tesla tries things in the real world, and then rapidly modifies their system, based on the new information. That rapid cycling is essential for building complex systems. The conventional car companies are still stuck on annual model cycles, which might be appropriate when you are just bending metal, but don’t apply to high tech systems. Look at how long it has taken the car companies to come clean on the airbag and other disasters, and how long it takes them to actually fix the problems – this is a recipe for doom and oblivion.

Chevy now says the Bolt won’t be production limited to 30,000, and they could meet demand of 50,000 cars per year, reasoning that the annual sales of electric vehicles in the US so far is barely 30,000. Did they somehow miss the 276,000 people who signed up for the Tesla Model 3 in the first two days? Or perhaps they are siding with the naysayers on whether Tesla can meet the demand, despite the videos of their automated production line? Or are they conceding that they can’t compete with Tesla? Go Elon!

Autonomous Vehicles: A Glimpse from the Future

A Possible Future

Tech Crunch caused a stir last week with Dispatch From The Future: Uber To Purchase 2,500 Driverless Cars From Google, Dateline July 25, 2023.

“Uber has committed to invest up to $375 million for a fleet of Google’s GX3200 vehicles, which are the company’s third generation of autonomous driving cars, but the first to be approved for commercial use in the U.S. … In California, where the state is testing so-called “autopilot lanes” on the freeways, driverless vehicles can speed up to 120 miles an hour, drastically reducing commute times. And while it’s still early, Google has yet to have an autonomous vehicle be found “at fault” for a major accident, even at those high speeds.”

Apparently a number of bloggers, tweeters, etc. ran with the story, overlooking the future dateline J. The big news, in my view, is that so many people believed it was a current announcement. The world is more ready to believe Autonomous Vehicles, or at least “cars”, than even I thought.

Florida Focus

The Tampa Bay Times article Florida at vanguard of autonomous car future, interviewing State Senator Jeffrey Brandes, Chair of the Florida Transportation Committee, is a current indication of the potential for Autonomous Vehicles, or at least “cars”.

“Florida is vying to be a testing ground for this vehicle of the not-too-distant future. Florida is one of just three states (California and Nevada are the others) that have put laws on the books to govern the testing of autonomous cars.”

Specific Manufacturers

Nissan has made an interesting pledge:

““Nissan Motor Co. pledges that we will be ready to bring multiple affordable, energy efficient, fully autonomous-driving vehicles to the market by 2020,' Executive Vice President Andy Palmer said during a presentation in Southern California.”

And here is a BMW Autonomous Car Video showing an autonomous BMW tooling around. 

Are Autonomous Vehicle Feasible?

Are Autonomous Vehicles really feasible? Are they realistic in any reasonable time frame? Excellent questions, and hopefully this will help convince you that both answers are YES!

It’s always challenging predicting the future of technology, we tend to be too optimistic in the short term and too pessimistic in the long term. So much depends on what else gets invented, how it relates to other technologies, the buzz generated, etc.

One key indicator is whether there is strong demand for a technology. That’s why I’ve been talking so much, and will continue, about specific uses and the people who really need the types of technology I’m discussing. Note, I don’t care if my specific ideas get picked up, what I really want is that the problems I’m discussing get a solution, or multiple solutions. I’m hoping to stir people up to build a new transport system.

So on to feasibility!

I’ve already talked about Kiva Systems that are already deployed and working wonderfully in the warehouses of major companies. And I believe these units could just as easily pick up a chair with you sitting in it – we’ll discuss the costs, challenges and details of this in future posts. J

I’ve also talked about Google and the others in the Autonomous Vehicle race to coexist, or even replace, the automobile. You could argue that these are still experimental, and I would agree. But they are also solving a much more complex and harder problem than we need for the Autonomous Vehicles I’ve been discussing. They have to deal with the well known foibles of human drivers, and all the other challenges of highways and byways: dogs, children, flying debris, rain, wind, … 

Science News is a bi-weekly magazine that covers developments in science, and is not oriented toward technology. So I was fascinated with the article in the March 9, 2013 issue The 3-D Printing Revolution. You might say, what’s so new about that, I’ve been reading about it for a long time, for example this Nov. 30, 2012 Wired article Next Years 3-D Printers Promise Big Things – Really Big Things that says the 3D printing industry is decades old.  Speaking of vehicle feasibility,  the article shows a printed bike, and the printer that made it.

The Science News Article features an autonomous boat, almost entirely printed.  The science angle is that the inventors hope to build a fleet of these to be used for collecting scientific data. There is even a Kickstarter project for the Robotboat Mark VI. BTW, Science News talked about the potential for 3-D printing for living cells in January 26. 2008 article (sorry you need a subscription to get access ;-(. 

One of the innovations that led to the Robot Boat was a novel rudder, which the inventor printed out in tact, even including a spring (which I find truly amazing).

So if items of this complexity can be printed today in your home, or in your neighborhood 3-D printshop , the types of vehicles I’m talking about are definitely feasible.

In the next posts I’ll talk about specifics, such as navigation, avoidance, …