EuroWire March 2016

Transatlantic Cable

† Britain’s Delphi Automotive reported 405 disengagements, attributed mainly to poor lane markings and ambiguous tra c lights. All interventions documented in its report were executed in under one second. Delphi provided a glimpse of the standby operator with “one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on the auto/manual toggle switch on the vehicle’s centre console. Pressing the auto/manual switch kills all power to the automated system actuators and allows the operator to instantaneously take full control. † All four of Nissan’s autonomous vehicles recorded a total of only 106 disengagements in seven months. The company’s report to the DMV excluded the period April to September 2015, presumably marking a hiatus in road testing. BMW, Cruise Automation, Ford and Honda – which launched autonomous vehicles on California streets in 2015 – are required to submit their rst disengagement report to the DMV by 1 st January, 2017. Now for the hard part: struggling to satisfy the regulators, Volkswagen must also redeem itself with the American car buyer With its admission, in September 2015, to having cheated on diesel emissions tests in the United States, Volkswagen set o the biggest crisis in its 70-year history; and the end is not in sight for the company’s troubles with federal and state authorities. At the same time, VW’s relations with its dealers in the USA are fraying, sales have plummeted, and its ambitious plans for growth in the American market have had to be tabled. But the German automaker faces an even more urgent challenge. In what the New York Times calls “perhaps the ultimate hard sell,” Volkswagen must repair the broken trust with American buyers of its cars – a remarkably faithful cohort, up to now. As reported by the Times ’s Bill Vlasic and Mary M Chapman, the campaign was launched at the North American International Auto Show with the rst public appearance in the USA by VW’s chief executive, Matthias Müller. (“Volkswagen Starts Down Di cult Road of Winning Back Americans,” 10 th January) “We know we deeply disappointed our customers, the responsible government bodies, and the general public here in the US,” Mr Müller said on the eve of the auto show in Detroit. “I apologise for what went wrong at Volkswagen. We are totally committed to making things right.”

Automotive

California answers an important question about self-driving cars: exactly how often has a human been required to seize control? Disengagement is the o cial term for the failure of an autonomous vehicle to do its job, requiring human intervention to avert an accident or other threat. Recently, car makers testing such vehicles in California submitted “disengagement reports” to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). Stephanie Mlot of PCMag summarised the information provided by Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Google, Tesla, and others. (“How Are Those Self-Driving Car Tests Going in California? Now We Know,” 13 th January) Ms Mlot turned rst to Google, which has logged the most autonomous miles in its home state of California and considers disengagements a normal part of the testing process. While these events may number in the “many thousands” annually, the Web giant told PCMag , “the vast majority are considered routine and not related to safety.” † Speci cally, Google reported 272 instances between September 2014 and November 2015 in which a technology glitch forced the relief driver to take control. Average response time was 0.84 seconds. Over the 14-month test period the company counted 69 events in which safe operation of the vehicle required disengagement. Google asserted that its objective was not to minimise disengagements but to gather as much data as possible. Safety issues identi ed through disengagements are resolved, the company told Ms Mlot, “by re ning our software, rmware or hardware and incorporating those changes across our entire eet.” auto- nomous-mode disengagements – the only reporting manufacturer to make that boast. † The other luxury car maker on the California DMV list, Germany’s Mercedes-Benz, disclosed 967 manual and automatic disengagements over 15 months. Not far behind was Bosch, with 625 total disengagements in 14 months. The third German company reporting, Volkswagen, disclosed 1,087 and 2,573 disengagements, respectively, for its test vehicles Igor and Jack. † Tesla, also California-based, recorded zero

Image: www.bigstockphoto.com Photographer Zsolt Ercsel

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March 2016