Brad Ideas

Robocars & More

In some discussion, I have seen it become almost an assumption that the economic meltdown and the Covid crisis will erode confidence in the President and settle the election, presuming things continue to November as they likely will. Historical patterns suggest that Presidents with good economies and stock markets get elected, those without them don't. We're seeing economic meltdown, high unemployment, fear and more.

I've been involved with delivery robots for a long time, and on my walk through empty streets yesterday, I noticed a certain irony. We have a desperate need for more delivery capacity, especially without humans handling packages, and teams have been working hard to make deliverbots safe enough to drive on our streets.

It is possible if, among the swing states, Trump wins Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and the Nebraska 2nd (Omaha), while Biden wins Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin. This is not one of the most likely scenarios, because Arizona and Wisconsin are currently more on Trump's side than Biden's, but it's possible.

If 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.

As 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

I 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.

An 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?

This 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.

The 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

Yesterday's NTSB hearings contained much stronger criticism of Tesla Autopilot than ever before. In particular the NTSB made recommendations:

Many 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.

Recently, 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.

Recent 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

The 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

Before 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

We 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.