Near the end of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” the Blanche DuBois character, who has suffered a mental breakdown following an implied rape, tells the doctor and matron who have come to take her to the hospital: “Whoever you are – I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Sadly, this is the… Read More
Author: Roger C. Lanctot
A Blanche DuBois Approach Won’t Resolve Traffic Trouble
Auto Safety – A Dickensian Tale
As I prepare to join the International Telecommunications Union’s Future Networked Car Symposium – today through Friday – I am reminded of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” and its unforgettable opening paragraph – modified for a modern context here:
It was the best of times,… Read More
No Traffic at the Crossroads
The Federal Highway Administration in the U.S. tells us that “each year roughly one–quarter of all traffic fatalities and about one–half of all traffic injuries in the United States are attributed to intersections.” Intersections are clearly a challenge for human drivers, and the dirty little automotive industry secret is… Read More
GM’s Super Duper Cruise
It’s one thing to lead an industry. It’s another to anticipate and meet a new challenge well ahead of competitors in an industry. It’s another thing, still, to solve a long-standing problem and receive barely a hint of credit.
Such is the case with General Motors’ semi-autonomous hands-free Super Cruise feature. While many
Emergency Response Getting Sexy
For 20 years the concept of emergency response has been one of the most tired, uninteresting sectors of the automotive industry. General Motors introduced OnStar automatic crash notification 26 years ago and that application has long been considered the end of the story.
The shutoff of 3G wireless networks and the resulting … Read More
Waymo Collides with Transparency
Anyone looking to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to forthrightly assert a path-setting policy vision to guide autonomous vehicle development in the U.S. during his CES 2022 keynote was sorely disappointed. There was no guidance from the Secretary.
The issue has gained new urgency now that Waymo has sued the California… Read More
Apple and OnStar: Privacy vs. Emergency Response
In the season 6 premiere of Showtime’s “Billions,”, financier Michael Prince and his lieutenant are remotely monitoring Wags’ heart rate thanks to an Oura-like smart ring as he works out on a Peloton stationary bike. The remote observers conclude Wags is having a heart attack and dispatch emergency medical technicians to his… Read More
Tesla: Kick-ass Radio in an EV
It seems that all we hear about over-the-air radio broadcasts in electric vehicles is that AM is going away due to interference and FM is irrelevant due to streaming apps. Tesla has very affirmatively upended this conventional wisdom with an over-the-air update that adds Xperi’s DTS AutoStage to most Tesla’s.
This… Read More
Musk: Colossus of Roads, with Achilles’ Heel
For Tesla, 2021 was an amazing year. A blindspot looms in 2022.
Critics cheered the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for opening multiple investigations into fatal and near fatal Tesla crashes. Legislators decried the de facto beta testing of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving beta on public roads. And in December,… Read More
GM’s Postcard from Fantasyland
In the midst of what may well be the greatest electric vehicle debacle of the nascent EV era, General Motors put on a happy face telling investors two weeks ago that all things EV and autonomous were going swimmingly to plan with gumdrops and sugar plums coming on the road ahead. GM claimed before-end-of-year availability for the… Read More
Why NA is Not Relevant to Resolution in EUV Lithography