Perspective on the Transportation Industry from 2GreenEnergy Supporter Fritz Maffry
Continued thanks to my colleague Fritz Maffry for his regular contributions, including some terrific insights. Here’s another installment. -ed
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Ford is now readying a spend plan of $5 billion for electric vehicle development. That is a great sum, and they are projecting a huge shift in market. Remember, Mercedes recently said they are on track for an $11 billion investment. Both are signalling that they see a market transition away from internal combustion vehicles over the next 15 years.
Separately, studies are showing that by far the most potent innovator is Tesla. Note for a local dimension, that Tesla is now unable to sell their product in Missouri by law; how is that for supporting innovation? Note also that Kansas City ran Uber out of town. It should be said for the record that the most advanced efforts for accessible transit for disabled and aging communities that our research is aware of suggest that Tesla and Uber are solving on-demand transit for those constituencies better than any other entities (and we made it onerous for them to perform in our geography, not smart).
We have talked about the corporate giants making moves to thwart Tesla. Same with auto dealers; GM is involved, and utilities are believed to be also. Too bad this isn’t a little more transparent to the public, so that they might see what really goes on behind the curtains. Locally we see large buses with few riders, and a streetcar with few riders, but grasping how to work intelligently with tech seems to challenge the conventional machinery. They are working on decade planning cycles when innovation is on annual innovation cycles, and they come from a physical infrastructure perspective, when transportation is being transformed by an information revolution in artificial intelligence and autonomous tech.
Note that there are still not open innovation testbeds, or solar charging independent of utilities, or electric bike programs for transport in multi-mode as a complement to autonomous trials. Convention is dysfunctional; it is usually about protecting status quo institutions. Intel used their cash and muscle to buy in to a position with investment in Nokia’s mapping division that is a collaboration platform now owned by a German consortium. Qualcomm also doing some catch up.
National politics still under-recognizes the impact of coming transformation; it is not going to be a partisan happening. It is a global fast track happening and the economics for shared autonomous are overwhelming. A new MIT study outlines the incredible advantages of optimization of shared pools, vis-a-vis their economics. We have been outlining that conceptual case for a while now. Tesla and or Uber are going to nail it; of course a dozen other players may also at some point. The race is on.
Local taxi business is at risk. Remember how fast Uber displaced the before, and that was before pools of autonomous vehicles with huge cost advantage of labor were taken out of transit equation, or at least dramatically reduced.
Google has made key relationships with Fiat/Chrysler and with Hyundai, picking off firms that otherwise might have had trouble being competitive in future systems for navigation and entertainment. Toyota and Ford are signalling they want to “limit” tech, with a joint program to contain leverage in their vehicle systems. That is of questionable merit but we will see where it goes.
Overall, pools of autodrive vehicles in shared use are going to be remarkable. People are beginning to understand the the involvement of AI is more about a specific expertise than an overall conscious being. That is how the current generation of AI will mostly be applied, and as experts have said, on some level it is experience and learning and automated statistics coming together in a functional generation of neural networks.
Convention better be taking measure of how fast the game is going now, and if they are making smart investments for probable futures. Frankly, most of the innovation is out of the comfort zone or experience sets of usual machinery of planning and decision-making.
We still expect Tesla and others to hit autonomous for functional transit faster than is generally understood, and to be more of a sea change than is publicly recognized. We could say the same about smart assistants, which were the hit of the CES Consumer Electronics Technology Show.
Context reading:
4) http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38496175?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
5) http://europe.autonews.com/article/20170102/ANE/161219895
6) http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/01/20170103-hyundai.html
9) https://www.wired.com/2017/01/ces-gallery-day-one/?mbid=social_twitter
Craig,
Fritz Maffry seems confused. That’s probably understandable as the Auto industry isn’t easy for even insiders to understand.
But to correct some of Fritz Maffry’s errors.
1) Tesla is not prohibited from selling vehicles in Missouri or any other state. Tesla is simply required to comply, like every other manufacturer with Missouri law.
2) $5 billion is not such a large investment for Ford. Considering that the investment is spread over a number of years, and that the average new model requires and investment of 2-3 billion, the investment by Ford is commendable, but not excessive.
3) Uber remains a controversial enterprise in many nations and jurisdictions for valid reasons. Kansas City is not alone in refusing to allow an unsupervised, uninsured, unregulated, unlicenced, untaxed, operator to destroy local taxi providers.
4) Fritz seems to be surprised that corporations are not willing to ‘share’ technology ! He seems to feel that the public, (if they knew ) would be upset.
In fact, with only a few exceptions like Fritz, the vast majority of people are quite aware that corporations are highly competitive and jealously guard any advantage in technology. Corporations, including Tesla, are profit making enterprises, not philanthropic enterprises.
Any corporation giving away valuable IP would not only attract no investment, but it’s directors would face criminal proceedings.
There are some advantages in Autonomous vehicle technology, exactly how these vehicles can operate in real world traffic, and the social ramifications of such technology is yet to be evidenced.
There will always be a gap between utopian concepts and real world adoption.
One thing Fritz has got right is the suitability for of electric vehicles for autonomous technology as opposed to the far more complicated conventional ICE vehicle.
I have no idea what #4 is about. Looks like a nerve was struck and parsing is going on. We will see who is confused. Missouri law is in some cases a coin operated anti competitive status quo protecting mechanism for special interests. Uber may attract some criticism, but if you don’t get that GM, Tesla, Ford, virtually every automaker is getting ready for shared pools, then you miss the point.
Frank Maffry,
Thank you for your reply, and the use of the term “parsing”, not a word heard often these days.
You are entitled to your opinion about the State of Missouri and your opposition to it’s laws and regulations. What you shouldn’t do is claim erroneous information to be fact. If Tesla Motors complies with the laws that apply to every other automaker, (including Nissan’s and BMW)nothing prevents Tesla selling vehicles in the State of Missouri.
The concept of car sharing pools, is neither new, nor a guaranteed success in future car ownership, although the idea has far more attraction with autonomous technology.
Automakers do on occasion invest in a common component manufacturer to develop technology in competition with existing major competitors.
Perhaps you are confusing the SmartDeviceLink Consortium, with car pool operators.
SmartDeviceLink is a non-profit group created by Ford and Toyota to offer an alternative to the market dominance of Google and Apple.
SmartDeviceLink’s members include Ford and Toyota, Mazda, Suzuki, PSA Group,Fuji Heavy Industries, along with first suppliers
Elektrobit, Luxoft, and Xevo. Harman, QNX, Pioneer, and Panasonic are also hoping to be included.
SmartDeviceLink is a standardized platform capable of running regular apps on any connected car and will be able to change and grow with the market.
It’s hoped SmartDeviceLink will enable the auto-industry to compete with platforms already developed by Google, Apple etc.
Corporations often jointly develop technology to difficult or risky for any individual maker. In this case by creating a non-profit consortium, the ‘members are able to access the IP without violating any anti-competition laws.
Even Bill Ford the most enthusiastic of car sharing advocates admits that the percentage of future car sharing v private ownership is uncertain.
Toyota, while maintaining it’s faith in the future of autonomous technology, admits trials have been disappointing when applied to real traffic situations.
Frank, it’s obvious that you are a person fascinated and enthusiastic with new technology and convinced of it’s social benefits.
You represent a large number of tech savvy, mostly younger, mostly urban citizens who think of the world in a new dynamic.
Others are less sure of the ‘benefits’ bestowed by the information age and are beging to question whether some social changes are really beneficial. Maybe you are correct and the changes are inevitable, or maybe the rate of “connectiveness” will lose it’s allure as the downsides become better appreciated.
I find the very adaptive, resilient, yet illogical and contrary nature of our species to be the well-spring of individual inspirational creativity and the excitement of human endeavor.
As long as there’s people using terms like ‘parsing’ there’s still hope for individualism !:)