Self-driving? You’re gonna need a bigger data plan

Smart technologies promise to connect us to our environment in new and exciting ways, but this increased connection comes at a cost. As more devices go online and transmit mass amounts of data to the cloud, the cloud itself needs to be capable of quickly receiving, analyzing, and returning that data.

During his keynote at the Intel Developer Forum, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich stated: “The average person today generates about 6-to-700 megabits a day. By 2020, the estimate is 1.5 gigabytes a day for the average person.” He continued, “The average autonomous vehicle, by 2020, will produce 4,000 gigabytes per day.”

That is a lot of data. In fact, it comes out to roughly 1 Gbps when you look at all the various sensors and cameras that a fully-functional autonomous vehicle requires. Long-range radar, lidar, cameras, short and medium-range radar, and ultrasonic sensors enable the vehicle to have a full, 360-degree view of its surroundings.

To put it another way, an estimated four petabytes of data is going to be generated by each autonomous car on the road every year. That type of data would take today’s average wireless user over 167,000 years to top.

Intel’s solution to this massive data problem is to give the vehicles themselves the ability to take this data, process it, and convert it into actionable information locally. But this is only part of the solution. There will still need to be some form of communication with the cloud in order for an autonomous vehicle to make sound decisions about where it is going and what the best possible path is to get there.

Traffic analysis, mapping, weather updates, finding business addresses, and more are still areas where having a constant connection to the cloud is necessary. Not only that, but the companies that create these autonomous vehicles will need access to some of that data in order to improve on their systems and troubleshoot issues. This data is valuable, and companies will be hard-pressed to let it disappear.

Enter new wireless standards

5G, which is currently in research and development phase among top communications companies, is expected to be made available as early as 2018 during the Winter Olympics, but this is early speculation as there isn’t even a standard yet for the next-generation wireless technology. Even if this demonstration is successful, there are years of rollout required before 5G connections are available in most areas.

For telecom companies, there is very little benefit to this rapid expansion of their networks. While you can charge an arm and a leg for a smartphone’s data plan, can you do the same for that user’s car? Monetization drives businesses to build, and while the White House is doing its part by providing funding incentives for 5G research and development, the long-term costs involved with building and maintaining these new, more powerful networks will ultimately fall on these companies and their customers.

Autonomous cars are coming. The question is, are our wireless networks going to be ready for them?

How to spend the extra hour your self-driving car gives you

The average commute in the United States is 25.4 minutes. If the trip home takes exactly as long, then Americans spend an average of 50.8 minutes per day behind the wheel of their car driving to or from their workplace.

That’s a lot of time, and autonomous vehicles are positioned to give that time back to drivers in a big way. Currently, doing things like eating breakfast or applying makeup in the rear-view mirror during the commute is dangerous. In many places it’s even unlawful. It creates a hazard for the driver, their passengers, and other vehicle occupants on the roadway. This is one of the strongest cases for self-driving vehicles.

That extra hour could be spent doing any number of things you normally would be able to accomplish at home or in the office. For employers, this means salaried employees are more accessible. To hourly employees, it’s an opportunity to get a head start on work and clock some extra time ahead of arrival.

Vehicle manufacturers are making this easy, as well. Concept autonomous vehicles from brands like Rolls-Royce replace the typical instrument panel and steering wheel with a screen capable of displaying video content and even work-related tasks. The interior of the vehicle is being set up more like a lounging area than a traditional car.

The concept behind the Zoox autonomous taxi project includes two bench seats facing each other so the vehicle acts like a portable meeting space. Imagine being able to hold face-to-face meetings on the ride between the hotel and the conference hall, or carpooling with coworkers and getting the morning meeting out of the way before you even arrive.

Extra time to…watch ads?

This is also a win for media companies. The car has long been an almost exclusive domain for radio. Now, an autonomous vehicle will be able to become a medium for media consumption not unlike your laptop, phone, and television at home. This opens the door for cable and Internet service providers to develop more wide-reaching services that cater specifically to autonomous vehicles, enabling passengers to enjoy broadband, television access, and more — which also opens up new advertising channels.

What would you do with your extra hour? Would you spend it watching YouTube videos? Would you spend it working to go home an hour earlier than usual? Would you use it to organize your home life and pay bills or arrange appointments? You could even take nap and catch up on that extra 25 minutes of sleep you would have otherwise hit the snooze button for.

No matter what you choose to do, it’s clear that autonomous vehicles will change the way we commute.

Self-driving car market worth trillions by 2030?

As the world’s biggest players in IT and the car makers dive frantically into self-driving cars, a new report estimates this market will grow to an astonishing $2.6 trillion annually within 15 years.

The site Gas2.org reports the startling growth prospects for self-driving cars revealed in a new Mogran Stanley report led by Katy Huberty.

Her research team estimates that the global shared mobility market will reach $$2.6 trillion annually by 2030.

Much of what’s superficially driving this market is disruptive technology and business models of companies like Uber and Lyft. These companies have muscled into the traditional taxi market in big cities worldwide and shown a thriving willingness for tech savvy citizens to pay for new types of services.

More importantly, Uber’s disruptive approach has broken open the car-buying paradigm in big cities, and exposed an increasing desire by urban dwellers to reduce vehicle ownership or skip it all together. And as individual car ownership is expected to wane, this will be countered by a corresponding rise in vehicles sold to shared mobility networks.

Demand seems strong – but trillions?

Earlier this spring, Uber’s CEO boldly pronounced that if Tesla developed an autonomous car by 2020 Uber would by the entire manufacturing run. Following this Tesla guru Elon Musk coyly hinted that electric car company may be poised to enter into the race to develop self-driving cars.

Another new contender in the car market is Apple, which invested $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride hailing service. Not only will that deal allow Apple to integrate its existing technology in a new market, but it will provide vital data on consumer behavior in China, a market that analysts predict will be one of the most open to switching to autonomous vehicles.

This seismic market shift has traditional automakers scrambling to catch up to the drastically changing technology and consumer landscape.

Volkswagen recently announced that it would focus more of its resources on self-driving and electric cars, while pumping $300 million into Israeli firm Gett.

Not to be outdone, General Motors recently acquired Cruise Automation for $1 billion and invested an additional $500 million into Lyft.

Add to this Chrysler teaming up with Google self-driving minivans and BMW’s refocusing its “i” division toward developing autonomous car technology.

And with such huge players from both the IT world and the automaking universe gambling big, it’s clear there will be massive winners and losers as the technology shakes out. So strap in, it’s going to be one wild ride.

Beverly Hills’ autonomous shuttles to self-dodge paparazzi

The Beverly Hills City Council unanimously agreed last week to work on a plan to develop autonomous shuttles which will provide transportation for the citizens of Beverly Hills.

The idea is to create a fleet of city-owned driverless shuttles which will act as part of a municipal on-demand transportation service picking up and dropping off individuals at virtually any spot in the city.

So, instead of hiring an Uber driver or calling for a taxi, the people of Beverly Hills will be able to call for and hop in driverless shuttles that will take them anywhere in the city they want to go.

The Beverly Hills City Council wants to pave the way for autonomous vehicles to occupy roads in the United States – without breaking the budget of their riders.

Until recently, purchasing a vehicle with self-driving capabilities has been a recent experience reserved for the wealthy.

Tesla recently received over 325,000 reservations of its upcoming Model 3 vehicle, which has a moderately high price tag of $35,000 – roughly half the price of any Tesla vehicle prior. One of the key features of a Tesla vehicle that has so many people eagerly standing in line for it: autonomous driving.

From a safety standpoint, autonomous vehicles are proven to be as safe – if not safer – than ones driven by a human.

According to several studies, over 90% of all vehicle accidents are caused by human error. This includes driving while distracted, intoxicated, or simple lapse in judgement.

Beverly Hills hasn’t yet decided which technology to use

Google’s Self-Driving Car Project has already exceeded 1.7 million miles of autonomous driving on US roadways in cities including: Mountain View, CA, Austin, TX, Kirkland, TA, and Metro Phoenix, AZ.

During all that time, not one accident out of the 11 that Google was involved in was attributed to the autonomous vehicle.

Even a city with as small of a footprint as Beverly Hills’ 5.7 square miles could benefit greatlyfrom this initiative. Traffic congestion, driver costs, the need for parking spaces, and the amount of accidents taking place in its roadways stand to be reduced by an accessible fleet of autonomous vehicles.

This autonomous vehicle program will be discussed in greater detail during a public summit set to be held this fall. Attendees will receive demonstration rides and witness expert-lead panel discussions on the new program.

PSA Group hits the self-driving road from Paris to Amsterdam

Last week, two modified Citroën C4 Picasso cars drove all the way from Paris to Amsterdam in “eyes-off” mode, the third and highest level of car automation currently sanctioned on a few European roads.

The 300km drive was part of demonstration by the PSA Group — the shared company of Citroën, Peugeot, and DS Automobiles brands — to show off self-driving car capabilities to “The Experience” attendees.

The Experience is an informal event set up by the Netherlands for European Union transport ministers.

A few days before the event, the European Council issued a statement calling for manufacturers to work with the government on self-driving cars, on the promise of further research and development, regulatory reform, and advanced infrastructure.

That regulatory reform will become very important as more car manufacturers start to test cars on European roads. Right now, level four (mind off) and five (driverless) are both not accepted on roads in Europe, but companies like Tesla, Audi, and Google are looking to implement these systems into vehicles in the next few years.

PSA Group test demonstrates confidence in self-driving systems

The drive shows that PSA Group is confident in its self-driving system, letting EU transport ministers take turns in the vehicle. This confidence and willingness to cooperate might give the group some special privileges, when the EU transport commission considers manufacturers to test fully driverless vehicles.

PSA Group already has special privileges in its home country of France, being the only company allowed to test self-driving cars. Its four self-driving cars have clocked 20,000km since being approved on July 2015, travelling from Paris to Vigo, Spain and Paris to Bordeaux.

The group plans to have some autonomous functions in its cars by 2018 and a completely autonomous vehicle by 2020. Now it just needs to hope that the EU transport ministers agree with that timeline.

Baidu building a self-driving team in Silicon Valley

The Chinese web search giant Baidu is looking to expand its autonomous car program to the United States by bringing a 100-person team to Silicon Valley. This puts it in the same space – and now, same neighborhood – as its closest American equivalent, Google.

Baidu isn’t a household name here in the United States, but in China, it is the go-to search engine for over 80% of its 1.35 billion citizens. It was also the first Chinese company to be listed on the NASDAQ-100 index, making it an easy company to compare to Google.

Like Google, Baidu has been branching out in recent years to social networking, mobile operating systems, and even self-driving cars.

Baidu says the Silicon Valley team will be known as Autonomous Driving Unit-US, or ADU-US. It will focus on areas integral to self-driving car development, including planning, perception, control and systems. ADU-US will work alongside Baidu’s existing Silicon Valley-based teams, including Baidu Research.

Earlier this month, Tesla opened its doors to receive pre-orders for its yet-to-be-unveiled Model 3. It received over 325,000 pro-orders – many of which were made sight unseen – in just a few days. One of the primary drivers of interest in this vehicle was Tesla’s self-driving mode that enables you to take your hands off the wheel and enjoy the ride while the car changes lanes, turns, and navigates you to where you want to go.

With interest in autonomous vehicles this high, it’s no surprise that Baidu has decided to jump in and develop its own platform that it can then partner with manufacturers like BMW to bring to market.

“Baidu is fully committed to making self-driving cars a reality,” said Jing Wang, SVP of Baidu and General Manager of Baidu’s Autonomous Driving Unit. “Autonomous vehicles will save lives and make transportation more efficient. Baidu’s Silicon Valley car team will play a significant role in building the car of the future.”