Tesla Autopilot under US Dept of Transportation scrutiny

Several times now, Tesla vehicles struck stationary first responder vehicles dealing with stuff on the road. The concern is whether Tesla’s autopilot system exacerbates human factors to undermine the effectiveness of the driver’s ability to supervise the vehicle. Remember that Tesla’s autopilot system is not a full-fledged driving automation system…

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Digital redlining with scooter and car sharing services

Most or all the automakers are exploring self-driving car technology, and have plans to launch Transportation-As-A-Service services. Under such a service, we would not own cars any longer, but instead use a smart phone app to request a self-driving car to bring itself to us. It would be like Uber…

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Uber self-driving car fatality: Everyone is to blame

March’s pedestrian fatality from an Uber self-driving car can be blamed on Uber’s faulty software, an inattentive operator, and an inattentive pedestrian, according to an initial NTSB report into the fatality.  There’s blame to go around, and perhaps it is Uber’s software that is most to blame?  I don’t understand…

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Uber self-driving car fatality blamed on faulty software

Uber seems to have determined their own software was, unsurprisingly, the primary cause of last months fatal self-driving car accident.  In that accident a pedestrian crossing a street was struck by an experimental Uber self-driving car, and died of injuries shortly thereafter.  According to sources within Uber cited by “The…

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Uber, Lyft, reduce car ownership and car travel

Traffic congestion is one of the negative sides of the car-dominated transportation system.  The road system wasn’t built to handle the amount of traffic currently on the roads.  Building more roads is not the solution since traveling in that direction simply leads to more sprawl because of geometrical requirements placed…

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