Autonomy by Lawrence D. Burns, Christopher Shulgan

Book: Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car—And How It Will Reshape Our World by Lawrence D. Burns, Christopher Shulgan

Timeline

• 1885 - First Car (Daimler)
• 1896 - Ford’s first car
• 1903 - Ford motor company inc
• 1983 - John Krafcik joins NUMMI
• 1998 - EV1 decomissioned
• 1998 - Larry Burns appointed head of GM Research & Planning division
• 1999 - Zipcar founder by Robin Chase
• 2001 - Dean Kamen introduces Segway
• 2002 - Sunil Paul files ride sharing related patent for algorithm to find efficient path between two points
• 2003 - Bush offers incentives for Fuel cell tech
• 2003 - Urmson to Atacama
• 2003 - Tesla founded
• 2004 - DARPA challenge 1 (no winners)
• 2004 - John Krafcik joins Hyundai
• 2005 - GM: Byron McCormick showed Larry Burns the drastic reduction in parts that E-Flex arch would bring - 1000 parts compared to 10K for cars with Internal Combustion engines
• 2005 - DARPA challenge 2 (Thrun)
• 2006 - iPhone released
• 2007 - DARPA Urban challenge (Tartan racing)
• 2007 - GM reaches agreement with UAW to reduce wages in exchange for setting up healthcare trust managed by UAW
• 2008 - Housing crisis
• 2008 - Gas prices > $3.50
• 2008 - Larry Burns leaves GM
• 2008, 2009 - Obama slashed funding forFuel cells and focused on Electric & Battery tech
• 2008 - Tesla roadster released
• 2008, October - Google starts self driving project under Thrun, Urmson, Levondowski
• 2008, Nov, 17- UberCab founded, but only for Blackcar limoes
• 2010 - Zimride generally available in SF & LA. Later founder Logan Green and John Zimmer would start Lyft
• 2010 - Uber app for blackcar limoes available
• 2010, Sept/October - Project Chauffeur completes Larry1K, Project announced on google blog.
• 2010 - Tesla IPO
• 2011 - Larry Burns publishes paper on Earth Institite abt vision for autonomous cars as well as transportation as a service. Research shows US residents drive 3T miles per year with cost of car ownership $0.65/mile + $0.85/mile in terms of lost productivity = $1.50/mile
• 2011 - Sidecar started
• 2012 - Google develops Drivers Assist product
• 2012, June - Tesla Model S released
• 2012, Nov - Google hires Ron Medford, former deputy admin of NHTSA
• 2014, May - Google ready with Firefly “mobility pods” concept vehicle at Code conf
• 2014 - Mercedes launches Driver Assist feature in cars
• 2014/15 - Uber starts work on autonomous cars under Jeff Holden
• 2015 - Ford kickstarts work on mobility innovation
• 2015 - Nissan, Toyota start
• 2015 - GM buys Cruise
• 2015- Year Congress mandate to have 1/3 of military vehicles to be self driving by, which resulted in the DARPA challenges
• 2015, May - Google announced deal with Fiat Chrysler
• 2015, Oct - Tesla releases AutoPilot in Model S
• 2016, Jan, 4 - GM invests in Lyft
• 2016, May, 7 - Tesla crash caused by AutoPilot results in driver’s death

Notes

• Stats:

  • 95: Percent of time cars remain un-utilized during a day
  • 65: Percent of cars that are single occupancy during the day
  • 56: Mins a day a car is driven by in the US
  • 17: Seconds as per NHTSA is the time it could take for a driver to take back control after Driver Assist feature, such as Tesla’s AutoPilot disengages
  • 3: Years is the time it typically took GM to develop a hardened prototype after a project was green-lit. It took Google about 2 years (2012-2014) to do that with Firefly.
  • 1.50 : Cost per mile (including time lost) of owning & driving a car

• Interesting lessons about risk assessment and scoping in how the two main teams approached the DARPA challenge. Red team’s evaluation potentially led to an over-engineered solution for the first two challenges, compared to Stanford team’s assessment.

• EV1 debacle - Incentives & timing matter. Global oil prices, Subsidies and grants offered by govt for alternate technologies mattered in each case, including Hydrogen fuelcell tech vs battery tech. Several critical blockers to Battery tech at the time - 1. Cost battery in terms of $ / energy density (improved dramatically only ~ 2008), 2. high cost of manufacturing cars (GM’s cost structure esp labor costs, which was resolved only ~2007), 3. Bush administration taking incentives away from battery tech to focus on Hydrogen fuel
• Hydrogen Fuel cell issues - Cost of building refuelling infrastructure, cost of improving efficiency, including cost of Platinum, which was used as catalyst, Obama govt cutting funding for Fuel cell tech.
• Autonomous cars -
  • Lack of interest from Car manufacturers initially - wonder how much because of mindset and perception - they appeared to have considered driverless cars to be owned by individuals, then it might not make total sense to have autonomy as “ownership” involves “pride” and people “liking” driving. But if you discount ownership, and think in terms of what job a car actually provides cars become a commodity and incentives are more in value added services, subscriptions, etc.
  • “Occasional use imperative” - a phrase referred by John Krafcik that people buy cars not for there primary use but the occasional use.
  • There’s the human component such as existing drivers, fewer manpower needed in manufacturing. But here Containerization provides interesting parallels - where the cost savings were partly directed towards retraining those laid off.
  • How will Taxi companies handle this?
  • Cost of driving a car reduced from $1.50/mile -> $.20/mile
  • Importance of HD maps to autonomous cars - LIDAR seems critical vs purely imaging solution