Narrative: Tech Disrupts Transportation
Each narrative page (like this) has a page describing and evaluating the narrative, followed by all the posts on the site tagged with that narrative. Scroll down beyond the introduction to see the posts.
Building the Supercharger Network for the Future – Tesla (Jan 12, 2017)
Tesla announced the outlines of this new approach several months ago, but has now fleshed out some of the details – it will begin charging for using more than 400kWh annually at its supercharging (rapid charging) stations for new cars sold from this month onward, but the rates will be very low – apparently just $120 to drive across the US from New York to Los Angeles. The motivation here is that this charging infrastructure remains absolutely critical to the owner experience for electric cars, and densifying the network is expensive. As such, Tesla wants to recoup some (though apparently not all) the costs from those who actually use it. One of the big challenges for the big auto manufacturers is not just matching the performance of Tesla’s cars but matching its charging infrastructure over time too, and some have partnered in Europe to accelerate this rollout.
via Building the Supercharger Network for the Future | Tesla
U.S. Department of Transportation announces a new committee focused on automation – TechCrunch (Jan 11, 2017)
If there’s one thing that’s become very clear to me this week as I’ve attended the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, it’s that autonomous driving is a vastly more complex proposition than many of the claims from its various proponents would suggest. All autonomous driving technology is not created equal, and governments and regulators have lots of thorny issues to resolve before widespread autonomous driving can become a reality. The good news is that the US Department of Transportation seems to understand that and is taking steps to understand all the implications, working with many of the players likely to make it a reality in the coming years. I hope this work continues under the incoming administration, because it’s critical.
via U.S. Department of Transportation announces a new committee focused on automation | TechCrunch
Alphabet Inc.’s Self-Driving Car Unit Creates Its Own Sensor Package – WSJ (Jan 8, 2017)
Just when we’d got used to the idea that Alphabet was only going to do software when it comes to autonomous driving, it seems it will do some of its own hardware work, specifically on sensors rather than making cars. Not every carmaker that partners with Waymo will want to use its sensors, but it allows Alphabet to own more of the technology and ensure it all works well together.
via Alphabet Inc.’s Self-Driving Car Unit Creates Its Own Sensor Package – WSJ
Volkswagen will be integrating Amazon’s Alexa into its cars – The Verge (Jan 8, 2017)
This is the second of two Alexa car announcements made at this year’s CES, along with Ford’s, and together they’re part of Amazon’s push to get Alexa out of the home. There’s no date yet for this one, so it’ll be a while still before we start to see this, and of course unless you’re buying a new Ford or VW in the near future, you won’t benefit, but this is part of the longer-term push.
via Volkswagen will be integrating Amazon’s Alexa into its cars – The Verge
Nvidia and Mercedes-Benz to bring an AI car to market within a year | TechCrunch (Jan 7, 2017)
Though lots of the fuss about AI in cars relates to autonomous driving, the reality is that we’re many years from broad scale autonomous driving, and so what we’ll get in the meantime is lots of technology that assists human drivers rather than doing the driving itself. This Nvidia-Mercedes partnership is very much in this category, though we don’t know all the details yet, but we’ll see lots more of this kind of thing in the next few years, which in turn will help train AIs to take over the driving later on.
via Nvidia and Mercedes-Benz to bring an AI car to market within a year | TechCrunch
Lyft Co-Founder John Zimmer Drives And Dishes On Automation, Car Subscriptions, And Cash – BuzzFeed News (Jan 6, 2017)
An interesting tidbit in here – Lyft is already profitable on a per-ride basis, and the $150m or less it aims to lose each quarter is down to customer acquisition costs – free rides and so on. In that sense, it’s like many enterprise SaaS companies, and the burn rate is a factor of the rate of growth versus the base of customers. Lyft is much smaller than Uber, but also losing a lot less money. The key question therefore is whether it can at some point shift that balance between growth and profitability despite its smaller scale.
CES 2017: Microsoft Connected Car 2.0 rolls along | ZDNet (Jan 5, 2017)
Given that so many big tech companies are falling over themselves to grab a slice of in-car technology, Microsoft’s strategy is somewhat striking – it doesn’t want a direct role in, say, autonomous driving, but instead wants to provide a set of services to enable others to build that and other in-car technology. That’s a subtle distinction, but a sensible one for Microsoft, and one that will allow it to be seen as less of a threat to the carmakers than either Google or Apple, which each appear to have deeper ambitions in the car.
via CES 2017: Microsoft Connected Car 2.0 rolls along | ZDNet
Audi Pushes Toward Fully Autonomous Cars – WSJ (Jan 5, 2017)
Nvidia has been making big strides in the car technology space, and made more news this week at CES with a partnership with Audi. This is one of the most interesting battles among the major chipmakers at the moment, and Nvidia does seem to be doing well, while Intel and Qualcomm also make advances (both also made news at CES this week).
via Audi Pushes Toward Fully Autonomous Cars – WSJ
Lyft’s Ridership Reaches 52.6 Million in Fourth Quarter – WSJ (Jan 4, 2017)
This article highlights two things: first, Uber still dwarfs Lyft, with 78 million rides in December to the latter’s 18.7 million. Secondly, both companies are still growing ridership at a rapid pace. That’s important because although this sometimes feels like a zero sum game, it clearly isn’t, at least not yet. The overall pie is still growing, and even though Lyft’s slice is far smaller, that’s growing too. The question is how long both the overall growth and individual companies’ growth will continue.
via Lyft’s Ridership Reaches 52.6 Million in Fourth Quarter – WSJ
Ford and Toyota Establish SmartDeviceLink Consortium to Accelerate Industry-Driven Standard for In-Vehicle Apps | Ford Media Center (Jan 4, 2017)
This announcement builds on an existing partnership between Ford and Toyota around in-car entertainment systems, and it’s hard to see it as anything but a concerted effort to bypass CarPlay and Android Auto. Ford supports both technologies after being a holdout early on, but Toyota never has. It’s likely that for most of the consortium members those options will be present in addition to their proprietary systems, but it’s clear these carmakers aren’t willing to cede the in-car UI to Apple or Google.