brad's blog
Home delivery when shopping stops in a virus shutdown
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2020-03-13 14:13If we shut down public areas, we're going to need a lot of online shopping and home delivery. How can we do that in a virus-infected world? Here's some plans for how to make it happen even with gig workers (who aren't driving Uber and Lyft much any more.)
I outline some of the ways to make it work in this Forbes.com article.
Could a working health care system be built by industry under the threat of the current industry's destruction?
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2020-03-11 12:48LAX pushes Uber pickups to a remote lot. It's the wrong direction
Submitted by brad on Sun, 2020-03-08 21:38As LAX and other airports push ride-hail to remote lots (which you have to take a shuttle to in the case of LAX-it) I examine why that's a crazy decision in my new article at Forbes.com. In the article I also touch on how we can eventually move to being picked up, not at the curb, but at the plane, in an airport with lots of robocar pods.
LAX won't let Uber pick you up at the curb. It should be at your plane
Summary of swing state poll results, Democrat vs. Trump
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2020-03-03 14:38I have built a spreadsheet summarizing the recent poll results in head to head polls of a Democratic candidate and President Trump. These are the only polls that matter. Do not look at or cite national polls. Results and pollster quality ratings come via 538.
EasyMile Self-Driving Shuttle Banned After Sudden Stop Hurts Passenger — Are Seatbelts Needed?
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2020-03-03 10:57An EasyMile made a sudden stop from 7mph and a seated passenger fell off her seat to minor injuries. Now NHTSA has ordered EasyMile to stop testing with passengers.
Transit shuttles don't usually have seatbelts, but maybe EasyMile needs them during the testing phase. But can it ever take them out?
Nobody wins the GoFly Prize, but personal flight is coming
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2020-03-02 09:58This weekend I went to the finals of the GoFly prize, a Boeing sponsored contest for personal VTOL flying machines. Sadly, nobody was able to build one that could meet all the requirements in the rules, and only a few of the contestants could even fly. That was disappointing, but then so was the first Darpa Grand Challenge.
Internet, AR, genomic and robotic technologies could make a pandemic much less disasterous
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2020-02-28 10:55California Disengagement Reports aren't too engaging
Submitted by brad on Thu, 2020-02-27 16:04The California robocar disengagement reports are out. And everybody is now pointing out that they're not very useful because everybody uses different methods. So I have an article about what we do learn from the data, little as it is.
Read California Disengagement Reports aren't too engaging at Forbes.com
NTSB comes down hard on Tesla, Driver Monitoring, AEB
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2020-02-26 09:58Researchers fool an old Tesla into misreading a speed limit sign; that fools the public into panic
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2020-02-24 10:20Many of the media were keen to pick up on a report from McAfee researchers about how they were able to simply modify a speed limit sign to cause the MobilEye in old Teslas to misread it and speed up. We get spooked when AI software acts like an idiot. But in reality, this isn't the sort of attack that is likely to be done in the wild, and it's also unlikely to cause any danger.
Panorama of Silicon Valley from Mt. Umunhum and a story of fraud and corruption
Submitted by brad on Wed, 2020-02-19 11:21Recently, we had a day of extremely clear air here in Silicon Valley, so we made our first trip up to Mount Umunhum, the high peak to the south of San Jose, and the former site of a SAGE radar station. Recently it was opened to the public. Close as it seems, it's an hour drive, but fun in the Tesla.
$16 billion spending on robocars is a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions to be made
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2020-02-18 11:49Recent coverage summed up robocar spending as about $16 billion to-date. Many have wondered how this can be worth it, since nobody is shipping. When you look at other analysis of how much the winners stand to gain, it's a drop in the bucket. I analyse the numbers in a new article on the Forbes site:
Companies Have Spent Over $16B On Robocars. It’s A Drop In The Bucket
How should we handicap the political polls?
Submitted by brad on Fri, 2020-02-14 11:18NTSB report on Tesla Autopilot Silicon Valley Fatality is out
Submitted by brad on Thu, 2020-02-13 10:14The NTSB has released their docket on the fatal crash of a Tesla on Autopilot in Silicon Valley in 2018. In this article, I examine what they learned about the cause of the accident and the few new details and wrinkles found in the latest report. The full hearing will be Feb 25.
Read it at NTSB report on Tesla Autopilot Silicon Valley Fatality is out
Top 17 surprises from a year of driving a Tesla EV
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2020-02-11 10:53Before I bought an electric car, I knew it would be different and I was ready for it. Even so, here is my list of 17 things that I didn't quite expect, that I only realized after driving one for a while.
See the list at my Forbes site article Top 17 surprises from the first year of a Tesla
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for average people to imagine they can control and use it
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2020-02-04 12:41We often repeat the misattributed quote that "for evil to triumph, it is only necessary that good men do nothing." We also often cite father Niemoeller's poem about how "First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- Because I was not a socialist... Then they came for the Jews ... Then they came for me."
These lines remind us to resist the forces of evil, and to do it early. And we definitely should.
Everybody's focused on "sharing" -- is it actually the right first path?
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2020-02-03 09:55I wrote earlier about Cruise's "Origin" which they say is a vehicle devoted to shared rides. Many other companies also are hoping to make vehicles for shared rides -- it's treated as almost a received wisdom. But the reality is that sharing rides isn't all that it's cracked up to be, and to work what you really need is frictionless instant mode transfers so nobody goes out of their way. And for that you need automated single person pods, not big shared vehicles.
Early leaks and reports on Uber weren't too long on the truth
Submitted by brad on Tue, 2020-01-28 12:38With the story of the Uber fatality now behind us, I thought I would do a review of the various leaks and early releases that we saw about the incident, and how well they scored once the final NTSB report came out. The score is not at all good.
Read my report on Forbes.com at Early leaks and reports on Uber weren't too long on the truth
GM/Cruise releases a plan for a future custom designed robotaxi -- and it reminds me of Zoox
Submitted by brad on Mon, 2020-01-27 06:22Recently, Cruise, the unit of GM (and partner of Honda) did a splash release of a new vehicle design which they say is "not a concept." It's a custom-designed robotaxi, and it reminds me a lot of the plan of Zoox, the $billion funded startup that I advised when it was just getting going.
I've written an article about the risks and benefits of making your own custom vehicle, and whether it's smart or crazy. You can find that at: