George Hotz, founder of Comma.ai told the world at TechCrunch that he was going to ship a $999 aftermarket autopilot system – the Comma One. The smartphone-sized device was designed to replace the rearview mirror enabling an automated driving experience in appropriately equipped cars – initially certain Acura and Honda models.… Read More
Author: Roger C. Lanctot
Hotz Tech Crunched
Ford Seeks Own Path to Car Sharing and IoT
It’s hard to be a thought leader around the future of transportation when the entire market seems to be moving in one of three directions simultaneously: either ride hailing (Uber, Lyft), car sharing (Zipcar, Car2go) or automated driving (Google, Tesla). If you’re Ford Motor Company and you care about whether you are adding to … Read More
The Fastest Route to V2V
As an occasional rider of the rails in the U.K., I am charmed by the unusual station names. Unfortunately my exposure is limited for the most part to the short run from Euston Station in London to Milton Keynes – the planned city regarded with great disdain by most Brits.… Read More
Between Waze and a Thin Hard Place
Car makers, semiconductor companies and wireless carriers are all excited these days about creating cars that can drive themselves. Billions of dollars are being spent on acquisitions and investments in companies and technologies that can make this happen. But there is a fly in the ointment by the name of Waze.
To create cars capable… Read More
Apple Car Crumble
Software, mechanical and electrical engineers working for auto makers received a huge self-esteem injection this week as events unfolding at Apple suggested that the company had abandoned long-rumored plans for building a car. Considering the fact that Apple still hasn’t delivered a decent navigation app with traffic services,… Read More
The Secret Plans of Mark Rosekind & Donald Trump
Donald Trump says he has a secret plan for defeating ISIS in Syria, but says it would be self-defeating to share that plan with the American electorate and, presumably, ISIS itself. Administrator Mark Rosekind says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a plan for reducing highway fatalities to zero in the U.S.,… Read More
Do You Know the (Green) Wave in San Jose?
No. A green wave isn’t something you do at a New York Jets or a Michigan State Spartans game. A green wave is that thing your dad or obsessive friend or maybe YOU do when you try to synchronize your driving with the changing of sequential traffic lights.
Connected Signals, BMW and Argonne National Lab are kicking off a study in … Read More
‘Que Legal,’ Uber é Legal
Uber went live in Florianopolis on September 30, a week before my wife and I arrived for some down time. But rumors suggested that the service was shuttered almost as soon as it started with a couple of drivers detained and their vehicles impounded. The word was spreading that the service was considered illegal.
As fate would have … Read More
Takata’s Deepest Betrayal
There’s been a lot of betrayal in the automotive industry over the past few years. Consumers have been betrayed by car makers that failed to identify, report or anticipate problems or that deliberately misled their customers. But no betrayal was deeper than that of Takata and the ongoing airbag recall effort. And Takata’s… Read More
The Privacy Delusion
Why do we think we have privacy in our cars? Why does the government believe there is an interest in preserving privacy in cars? Can we just get over it? One of the least private places known to mankind – outside of the Internet – is the car!
But our transportation regulators in the U.S. and their counterparts at the European Commission… Read More
Huawei’s and SMIC’s Requirement for 5nm Production: Improving Multipatterning Productivity