Page 5 - September 2018 Disruption Report Flip Book

DISRUPTION OF TRANSPORTATION SEJAPNTEUMARBYER20210818
DISRUPTION OF TRANSPORTATION Self-driving cars: A race to the future
“As it has done with many recent technological advances, America’s military ignited the autonomous vehicle revolution,” wrote City Journal’s Nicole Gelinas. “Back in 2000, Congress directed the Defense Department to set a goal that ‘by 2015, one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles would be unmanned. Following the directive, the Pentagon’s Defense Research Projects Agency, DARPA, began holding contests for driverless vehicles, which would be raced by their private sector and academic sponsors across the Nevada desert for prize money.”
“‘The technology advanced so quickly that, in 2007, DARPA ‘made it an urban challenge,’ [said] Ryan Chin, CEO of Optimus Ride, a software company based in Cambridge, MA... The military had AV teams compete in a mocked-up suburban environment, awarding points for their vehicles’ ability to follow California traffic rules. ‘Most self-driving vehicle companies around today can be traced back to the teams involved in this challenge,’ Chin observed.” (City Journal, Nicole Gelinas. Summer 2018)
In “Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car,” Lawrence Burns provides unique insights into the self-driving car bonanza, based upon his role as GM’s head tech executive and more recently as a consultant for Google’s driverless car company, Waymo. “Nearly all of my fellow GM executives considered autonomous cars to be a half century away, at least – if they even considered the possibility at all,” wrote Burns, who left GM in 2009. Burns added:
...Looking back, I can’t stop marveling at that moment in Victorville, California, after the DARPA Urban Challenge in 2007—when everything changed. That race set up the battle between incumbents and disruptors that will define the future of the auto industry—and personal mobility in general. At Detroit’s darkest hour, you had these bold plays from Google, Tesla, Über and Lyft. The timing’s remarkable.
If we pull it off, and we will, we’re going to take 1.3 million fatalities a year
and cut them by 90 percent. We’re going to eliminate oil dependence in transportation. We’re going to erase the challenges of parking in cities. All that land will allow us to reshape downtowns. People who haven’t been able to afford a car will be able to afford the sort of mobility only afforded to those with cars. And we’re going to slow climate change. (Autonomy: The Quest to Build the Driverless Car—And How It Will Reshape Our World, Lawrence D. Burns and Christopher Shulgan, 08/28/18)
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