EuroWire September 2018

Transatlantic cable

† Clearly an honest broker on the topic, AAA (Heathrow, Florida) declared its commitment to helping educate its more than 58 million members and other consumers on the effectiveness of emerging vehicle technologies, notably by way of ongoing, unbiased testing. It does advocate for “a common sense, common nomenclature and classification system” for future autonomous vehicle technologies. “There are sometimes dozens of different marketing names for today’s safety systems,” Mr Brannon complained. “Learning how to operate a vehicle equipped with semi-autonomous technology is challenging enough without having to decipher the equipment list and corresponding level of autonomy.” Elsewhere in automotive . . . † The Car Connection reported that, in four of the five largest USA cities, it may be cheaper to replace car ownership with a ride-sharing service such as Uber. Results of a study released on 30 th May found that commuters in New York City, Chicago, Washington DC and Los Angeles spend less on weekly commuting and running errands using Uber than they would owning a car. In Dallas, Texas, the study found, driving oneself is still cheaper. In New York, where parking a car in a desirable neighbourhood can cost thousands monthly, using Uber X and Uber Pool averages out to $142 over the course of a week – compared with $212 per week to drive a car the same distances. With its limited public transportation infrastructure and comparatively low density, the disparity in Los Angeles was smaller: $62 to use Uber versus $89 to drive a car. Conversely, suburban sprawl and low operating costs in Dallas mean that cars still rule the road. There, car ownership runs just $65 a week on average compared to upward of $180 weekly to be transported the same distance in an Uber car. The Car Connection also took note of the rise of the on-demand economy. Uber driving is credited with helping people supplement their incomes, allowing for more flexible scheduling, and improving “work-life balance.” In 2017, there were 5.4 million on-demand workers in the USA. This year, an estimated 6.8 million people work in the American on-demand economy. Germany’s intelligence agencies warn that cyberattacks are a mounting menace to the country’s critical infrastructure A recent issue of the Atlantic magazine carried an article by Sumi Somaskanda, an editor at the Berlin Policy Journal , on the vulnerability to cyberattack of Germany’s digital infrastructure. It recalled a number of such attacks on companies that the German government regards as providing crucial public Cybercrime and cyberdefence

† China - electric cars: 533,000 † Europe - electric cars: 280,000 † USA - electric cars: 194,000

† Germany - electric bicycles: 720,000 † Netherlands - electric bicycles: 297,000 † France - electric bicycles: 255,000 † Italy - electric bicycles: 148,000

While acknowledging that a single-passenger bike and a four-passenger car are not directly comparable, Mr Bullard noted that their use certainly overlaps. An electric bike capable of reaching a speed of nearly 30 miles per hour can match or exceed the speed of an automobile in city traffic. And he pointed out that every new bike on the road represents a car that is not being used, or one that might not be bought in the future. † Mr Bullard recommended thinking of electric vehicles – from scooters to buses – as being along a spectrum of ways to move people. The only model able to span the entire spectrum is the automobile, which can drive one person a few hundred feet or a handful of people thousands of miles. Everywhere along that spectrum, though, he wrote, “Another electric option challenges the car in more narrow uses.” According to the AAA, almost three- quarters of American drivers would be afraid to ride in a fully autonomous vehicle In addition to electric cars (See “Powered bicycles,” above), another innovative technology has fallen out of favour with the public, at least in the USA. According to the American Automobile Association, consumer trust eroded – and quickly – in the wake of several high-profile incidents involving autonomous vehicles. The results of an AAA multi-year tracking study indicate that, today, 73 per cent of American drivers would be too afraid to ride in a fully self-driving vehicle. These results are up significantly from late 2017, when 63 per cent of respondents reported having such misgivings. Moreover, two-thirds of US adults responding to the latest AAA survey report that, while walking or riding a bicycle, they would feel less safe if required to share the road with a self-driving vehicle. (“AAA: American Trust in Autonomous Vehicles Slips,” 22 nd May) In a release put out by AAA Public Affairs, Greg Brannon, the association’s director of automotive engineering and industry relations, noted the significance of these findings for the automotive industry: “Our results show that any incident involving an autonomous vehicle is likely to shake consumer trust, which is a critical component to the widespread acceptance of autonomous vehicles.” A surprise to AAA was its finding that millennials – those who reached young adulthood in the early 2000s and the group that most readily embraced automated vehicle technologies – reacted more strongly to the reported incidents than any other group. The percentage of millennial drivers who acknowledged being too afraid to ride in a fully self-driving vehicle jumped from 49 per cent to 64 per cent since late 2017, representing the largest increase in any generation surveyed by AAA.

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September 2018