#171-Uber selling ATG; Motional in Vegas; Honda reaches Level 3

11/18/20 • 10 min

Marc Hoag AI Law Pod (formerly Autonomous Cars with Marc Hoag)

1. Uber selling ATG

News is circulating that Uber is prepping a sale of its self-driving car division Uber ATG -- Advanced Technologies Group -- to Aurora. Once worth over $7B, this sale would come almost three years after Uber's autonomous driving ambitions were stalled following the tragic accident in which an Uber test vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. But is this really game over for Uber's self-driving car plans? I think not.

2. Motional in Vegas

Two episodes back we talked about Motional -- the joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv which recently partnered up with shuttle service Via -- and now there's news that Motional will itself begin driverless car testing in Las Vegas. This news comes right on the heels of Cruise's recent announcement that it too had been granted a driverless testing permit in San Francisco.

3. Honda reaches L3

Despite Audi's claim not long ago that it had achieved a Level 3 vehicle with its Audi A8, Honda says its 2021 Legend will be the first widely available consumer vehicle with Level 3 technology enabling so-called "traffic jam assist" functionality. Like the Audi, this means that in traffic jams, meaning slow traffic speeds, presumably with cars in front and behind, and with clear lane indications, the driver will be able to take its eyes off the road unless and until the car alerts the driver the intervene. This is different from a Tesla and its impressive Autopilot system which requires human attention at all times, thereby qualifying it as a Level 2 system.

1. Uber selling ATG

2. Motional in Vegas

3. Honda reaches L3

Previous Episode

#170-John Rossant, NewCities.org, CoMotion, & Neom City

Today’s guest is John Rossant, the Chairman of NewCities.org and CEO of CoMotion. John also sits on the advisory board of Saudi Arabia’s impressive Neom City, a 150 sq-mi (388 sq-km) planned smart city powered fully by renewable energy, and eschewing conventional transportation methods for autonomous vehicles, both land-based and air-based.

During our 40-minute conversation, John shares his fascinating insight on Neom, while touching on his global experiences derived from his time at NewCities and CoMotion.

Next Episode

#172-Brett Bavar, rideOS.ai

Today's guest is Brett Bavar, the Engineering Lead at rideOS.ai, a universal mobility-as-a-service platform that aims to "efficiently move people and things throughout the world." I first connected with Brett via my good high school friend Bill Chen, one of the first team members of rideOS, and we agreed it made sense to do an episode together on the fascinating work they've been up to which, frankly, is fairly unique in the AV landscape. Simply put -- though of course I leave it to Brett to explain more fully -- rideOS is a sort of routing optimization layer between any autonomous vehicle -- defined quite broadly -- and optimal navigation and prioritization routes for any thing that has mappable paths between A and B. It's a fascinating conversation spanning some 40 minutes in length, so I hope you're sitting comfortably to learn all about Brett and his work with the rideOS team.