Technologies and Waymo

Overview

  • Waymo was the first robo-taxi in US
  • a quick history of autonomous vehicles
    • history of driverless or automated cars
    • the DARPA grand challenge
    • levels of automation achieved

Driverless car technologies

  • radar
  • cameras
  • lidar light detection and ranging
  • onboard computers

Impact of driverless vehicles

  • benefits
  • risks
  • disruption

Who does Waymo compete with

  • GM Cruise — originally from Ycombinator as a retrofit rooftop unit
  • Audi — the Audi A8 had the highest degree of autonomy in a production vehicle
  • Tesla — no LiDar, frontrunner until March 2018 accident killing a pedestrian in Tempe, AZ
  • Baidu
  • Didi

Self-Driving Cars and the Smart City

Examples of self-driving

  • AI and connected vehicles = smart mobility
  • Waymo’s robo-taxis have reached level 4
  • AutoX
    • the Chinese government has invested in AVs and 5G for smart cities
    • AutoX has 100 RoboTaxis in Shanghai in the Jiading district
    • the Chinese RoboTaxis are trained on relatively congested traffic streets with urban scenarios
  • Didi
    • large user and driving database in Chinese cities
    • public-private partnership with Chinese city governments
    • Didi integrates B2G smarter city traffic management systems and traffic lights/sensor systems with its RoboTaxi services
    • Didi’s “transportation brain” has been pilot tested in 20 Chinese cities with municipal government support
  • Baidu
    • in March 2018, Chinese search giant Baidu became the first player to operate driverless vehicles on public roads in China
    • Baidu is working with BAIC to produce Level 4 AVs by 2021
    • Ford has used Baidu’s software self-driving system called Apollo

Trend

  • robo-trucks are emerging as a early adopter sector

Additional Reading