Video: M1 freeway system in Melbourne, Australia

As far-fetched as the idea may sound, Gernot Spiegelberg, head of development electric mobility at Siemens, delivered a presentation at the IEEE Technology Time Machine symposium in Dresden that envisioned a whole new class of players vying for a piece of the electric-powered mobility market.
Siemens is interested in grabbing a chunk of the market not only for smart electric cars but also for smart traffic technology that communicates with them and the smart grid that powers it all, said Spiegelberg who, by the way, also managed to snatch a good hunk of panelist speaking time.

via IEEE Technology Time Machine 2012: Siemens the Car Maker – IEEE Spectrum.

German supplier Ibeo will supply lidar systems for an undisclosed automaker in 2014 for about $250 per vehicle, said sales director Mario Brumm.

via Driverless Car Summit Day 2 – LIDAR to Cost $250 by 2014 – Driverless Car HQ.

Schumacher said Continental’s testing revealed a significant weakness. Technology that reads lane markings fails when there are no markings.

Summary of Day 2 of Driverless Car Summit

Traffic fatalities are on the decline (33K in 2010), but the decline is slowing.

93% accidents are caused by human error.

LIDAR cost to go from $70K to $250 (by German supplier Ibeo) by 2014, perhaps bringing the $150K Google car down to $80K

Driver interface still a problem, as are policy, liability, regulation, testing

More than 200 people gathered in Detroit today for the first ever Driverless Car Summit, a gathering organized by AUVSI and the Connected Vehicle Proving Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. 

Dedicated to understanding the myriad issues present in making driverless vehicles a reality by 2022, the day kicked off with a speech by Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. 

via Connected: Automakers, roboticists, government, academia gather to make intelligent vehicles a reality.

Initiative for driverless vehicles by 2022 (20 years). Ready, set, go!

An Intel research center based at MIT will be the cornerstone of a new research project dubbed ‘bigdata@CSAIL.’

via MIT, Intel unveil new initiatives addressing ‘big data’ – MIT News Office.

Madden himself is involved in a host of big-data projects, including the CarTel initiative, which he co-leads with Hari Balakrishnan, the Fujitsu Professor in EECS, and Daniela Rus, the newly appointed director of CSAIL, who also spoke at the event. Madden explained that the CarTel project has equipped a fleet of Boston-area cabs with sensors and developed innovative algorithms to process the data they collect. One application he described was an algorithm for computing the most reliable route between any two points; another was a map of potholes.

Intel has committed $2.5 million a year to the center for at least the next three years, with an additional two-year commitment possible if the center passes a three-year review.

Exciting stuff. Future Mobility @ SMART is certainly a big-data project as well.

In new book, urban studies professor Brent Ryan says shrinking American cities should stop emulating the suburbs and start supporting creative rebuilding ideas.

via A design to save American cities – MIT News Office.

With the onset of autonomous vehicles, perhaps the only way to fight urban sprawl is to make cities more appealing.

It’s been awhile since we saw Volvo’s SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project, which was last running out of harm’s way on a test track near Gothenburg. Volvo has just taken a big step forward in fostering confidence by conducting its road train on public asphalt. The 124-mile Spanish test both proved that the cars could stay driverless without posing a threat and upped the ante for what the cars could do: the lead truck, an S60, a V60 and an XC60 all moved along at a brisk 53MPH with a tighter gap between vehicles than there was in the original test, at just 20 feet. SARTRE was so successful in the public run that Volvo is now focusing on far less contentious issues — like making sure fuel use drops by the promised 20 percent. There’s still the looming question of making a viable business model, though Volvo’s dream if realized will make sure no driverless car has to go solo.

via Volvo's driverless road train in Spain is public mainly on the plain (video) — Engadget.

After 2.5 years, testing of 50MPH+ driverless road platoons complete!