Paul Gluckman

​A day after Intel completed its tender offer to buy Mobileye (see the personals section of the Aug. 9 issue of this publication), the company announced its new subsidiary will start building a fleet of Level 4 autonomous vehicles for testing in the U.S., Israel and Europe. The Society of Automotive Engineers scale on autonomous driving defines Level 4 as “high automation,” meaning a human driver need not respond to an automated system’s “request to intervene,” and is one notch below the Level 5 definition for "full automation." The first test vehicles will be deployed later this year, and the fleet will “eventually scale” to more than 100 automobiles, said Intel in a Wednesday blog post. “Building cars and testing them in real-world conditions provides immediate feedback and will accelerate delivery of technologies and solutions for highly and fully autonomous vehicles," said Mobileye Chief Technology Officer Amnon Shashua, soon to be named an Intel senior vice president and CEO of the subsidiary. "Geographic diversity is very important as different regions have very diverse driving styles as well as different road conditions and signage. Our goal is to develop autonomous vehicle technology that can be deployed anywhere, which means we need to test and train the vehicles in varying locations."

Tesla is “still on track” to complete its first “coast-to-coast” autonomous drive from Los Angeles to New York by year-end, said CEO Elon Musk on a Wednesday earnings call. “It is certainly possible that I may have egg on my face on that front, but if it is not at the end of the year, it will be very close.” Tesla’s autonomous-driving platform, Autopilot, is “very centrally about vision and image recognition,” using “effectively narrow” artificial intelligence, said Musk. In developing and refining Autopilot, “we've got the best team in the world by a long shot on that front, and we are growing it rapidly with world-class talent,” he said. Every car that Tesla has made since October “is capable of full autonomy,” using Autopilot, he said. Tesla’s website describes Autopilot as enabling “full self-driving capability at a safety level substantially greater than that of a human driver.”

Intel cleared the last regulatory hurdle in its bid to buy Mobileye, the autonomous-vehicle components supplier, when the Korea Fair Trade Commission approved the deal Monday, Intel said in a Tuesday announcement. Buying Mobileye will enable Intel to deliver “world-class end-to-end solutions” in autonomous driving “at a much lower cost, faster time to market and complete single solutions that our customers are asking for,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in March when announcing the $15.3 billion cash acquisition (see 1703130015).

More than half of new-car buyers in the U.S. expect to own at least one self-driving vehicle in the next 10 years, said Bosch in a Monday survey report. Bosch canvassed 1,000 adult new-car buyers who bought or leased a vehicle in the past five model years and plan to buy or lease a new vehicle again in the future, it said. It found that 61 percent see reduced traffic accidents as the main benefit of self-driving vehicles, and 55 percent anticipate more free time and lower stress levels will be a benefit, it said. Many buyers also are “apprehensive” about the reliability and safety of automated vehicles, it said. Of all respondents canvassed, 72 percent cited “lack of control” of a self-driving vehicles as their biggest worry, while 65 percent said their biggest concern was that autonomous vehicles were “unproven technology,” it said: “A key aspect to helping consumers overcome concerns about automated technology is to highlight the high levels of redundancy that are being built into these systems to make automated driving safe and reliable,” said Bosch, a supplier of tech products and services.

The House Commerce Committee scheduled a Thursday markup of bills including self-driving car legislation "that prioritizes consumer safety, reduces traffic-related fatalities, and clarifies federal and state roles," said Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., in a news release. The panel will consider an amendment in the nature of a substitute to the Designating Each Car’s Automation Level Act (HR-3388) to address issues discussed during a markup last week when the House Digital Commerce Subcommittee advanced the bill (see 1707190044). The 10 a.m. full committee markup will be in 2123 Rayburn.

It’s not just the number of test miles driven that will spell “validation” of autonomous vehicles, but also “the quality of the miles," said General Motors CEO Mary Barra on an earnings call Tuesday. “To our knowledge, we're the only one testing our autonomous vehicles in downtown San Francisco, which is a pretty dense urban environment with a lot more, I'll say, opportunities to learn from different situations,” said Barra in Q&A. “There's quite a bit of work we're doing, even with agencies or groups outside of the company, to put that together.” Under last fall's autonomous-driving report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (see 1609200039), “a big portion of the guidelines they've put out” is for automakers to “demonstrate how you're measuring” self-driving progress and performance, “and then share that” data with industry and government as NHTSA looks at “authorizing, pulling the driver out of the vehicle,” she said. “There's quite a bit of work going on there. So I would say it's much more involved than just miles traveled, and that's what we're working on right now, and we'll share more.” Lyft’s recent announcements it’s starting its own autonomous-driving research efforts won’t affect their self-driving alliance (see 1601040068), Barra said. “The partnership that we have with Lyft was never exclusive for either Lyft or for General Motors.” GM's efforts without Lyft are "quite far along in our autonomous-vehicle development based on the fact that shortly we'll have 180 vehicles testing,” she said. That “grows, frankly, on a weekly basis,” she said. In partnering with Lyft, GM also still believes in the “opportunity to deploy” self-driving cars in a ride-hailing environment, she said. Integrating autonomous vehicles “in a ride-sharing fleet I think allows you to get the best exposure for the vehicle to keep learning as we go forward, but I would say that's in the early stages of sub-deployment," she said. "We have a good relationship with Lyft."

Automakers would be permitted to manufacture up to 100,000 autonomous vehicles per year under a bill advanced by the House Digital Commerce Subcommittee following a Wednesday markup. Passed by voice vote, the bipartisan bill would prevent states and localities from regulating design, development and testing of such vehicles, giving the federal government the sole authority. Automakers and supporters have testified that a patchwork of state laws would stifle advancement (see 1703280005). Chairman Bob Latta, R-Ohio, said states and localities will still determine insurance requirements, titling, registration and traffic laws. He said raising the cap on federal motor vehicle safety standards exemptions would "dramatically increase the amount of data and information on safety and performance, all without sacrificing safety." Ranking member Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said the draft bill is going in the right direction. She wants to reach bipartisan agreement on all sections before a committee markup next week, saying "state pre-emption and exemptions remain major issues to resolve. I cannot endorse this legislation until we have bipartisan agreement." A House subcommittee spokeswoman emailed that the full committee would like to see the bill marked up before August but nothing is scheduled. Rules state that a markup must be announced 48 hours in advance, she added.

To facilitate an age of self-driving cars, “we’re potentially going to have to share some spectrum,” said Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., citing his legislation with Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D. “that we hope to introduce shortly.” He cited the 5.9 GHz band and the “process going forward right now to see whether that can be shared.” He asked nominees at their hearing Thursday for a commitment that such testing is a “fair and transparent process that is driven by facts.” NTIA Administrator nominee David Redl agreed and said “we should be pushing for transparency at every venture.” Derek Kan, the nominee for undersecretary of transportation for policy, also made that commitment. Communications Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, secured a commitment from Redl that he would work with the Commerce Department to comply with appropriations law requiring an interagency review group. Schatz warned against IoT-focused companies “operating under 17 different statutory regimes.” Redl wants to “try and knock down some of those barriers,” he agreed.

Pioneer’s Chinese subsidiary will exhibit at CES Asia to trumpet its goal to become a leader in “comprehensive infotainment” for cars, the company said in a Thursday announcement. Its booth will showcase “a wide array” of technologies under development for autonomous driving, including a “concept cockpit" designed for a Level 3 self-driving system, Pioneer said. The cockpit will include a head-up display that provides “intuitive information” through augmented reality “representations” and a monitoring system that detects driver drowsiness, it said. CES Asia opens June 7 in Shanghai for a three-day run.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk doubts the migration to autonomous driving will mean a “dramatic change” in a car’s “interior design,” he said on a Wednesday earnings call. Musk foresees autonomous vehicles having perhaps “an option where you have club seating instead of everyone facing forward, but I wouldn't call that radical,” he said. The “sensor hardware” and computing power required for “at least Level 4" autonomy on the Society of Automotive Engineers scale “has been in every Tesla produced since October of last year,” said Musk. “So it's a matter of upgrading the software, and we can reach Level 5. And if it does seem that we need to upgrade the compute power, it's designed to be easy to upgrade.”