Vehicle Development That Affects Transport Planning
Public given opportunity to experience autonomous emergency braking
Over the years it has been found that drivers have not used safety devices such as anti-lock braking to their full capacity because they are unfamiliar with the frantic circumstances of an emergency situation
Now Australasia’s independent vehicle safety advocate, ANCAP SAFETY, has provided consumers with the ability to experience active collision avoidance technology first-hand.
Members of the public were able to experience the automated braking technology in a controlled environment through a series of live drive demonstrations at The Bend Motorsport Park as part of a collaborative partnership with the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport.
Consumers rode inside an AEB-equipped Hyundai Santa Fe which was driven towards a static demonstration vehicle. The outcome of the potential collision was averted through the emergency intervention of the vehicle’s AEB system.
Video of the demonstrations and consumer reactions can be seen by going to drivenmedia.com.au.
Europe’s first full-sized autonomous bus demonstrated at CAV Scotland event
There is an increasing belief that autonomous vehicles that can cope with all trips to all locations will not happen in the near future. The technology is best suited for clearly defined routes and thus is well suited for public transport.
This is reflected in Project CAV Forth which had demonstrated Europe’s first full-sized autonomous bus at an event in Glasgow as part of Scotland’s Connected and Autonomous Vehicles Summit.
The autonomous buses will provide a service capable of carrying up to 42 passengers on the 14 miles (22.5km) long journey across the bridge, with capacity for up to 10,000 passengers a week. The buses will operate to SAE Level 4 standard, which means that a driver will remain on board during any journey in line with current UK regulations.
Car-Mounted Ads Take a New Direction: Data Collection
Perhaps it was inevitable that a marketing company would promote the use of advertising screens on the top of Uber and Lyft vehicles as they circulate around the streets.
A start-up called Firefly has started installing portable advertising billboards on the roofs of ride-hailing vehicles in five major cities across the country.
But they have taken this a step further. Their mini-billboards will start offering an even more valuable commodity: data. The company’s new higher-resolution screens can sense temperature and quantify pollution and track the acceleration and braking patterns of their drivers.
Firefly is just one of several startups trying to harness the advertising potential introduced by an army of drivers doing laps around a city full-time. Wrapify and Carvertise will cover your entire car in advertisements; Play Octopus offers in-car games for ride-hailing passengers, interspersed with ads.
Tesla Model Three
We have just had a ride in Telsa’s latest car the model three.
With only a large screen and no dials it takes a while to get used to but the information can be reassuring. The screen will show how the car is detecting vehicles, motor bikes and pedestrians around the vehicle.
This is an important step in letting people understand how much the car is comprehending about the situation around them rather than leaving drivers to have to trust technology that is hidden with a black box.
The Tesla has a number of other features that make it stand out from traditional cars. Some of these features are quite silly. You can set the system so that whenever you turn the indicators on the car makes the sound of a fart inside the cabin.
Tesla Model Three
The latest vehicle sales figures for Australia covering the month of October 2019, show a decline of 9.1% with is higher than the average for the entire year of 8%.
This is the 19th consecutive month of declining sales in the Australia automotive market.
Sales are down across all buyer types, with private sales down 5.2 per cent compared to October 2018, business sales are down 8.2 per cent and government sales are down 7.3 per cent.
Diesel-engined vehicles have had bad press in regard to their pollution levels and potential recalls in some models. Excluding heavy vehicles diesel sales are down nearly 11% for the month.
Electric and hybrid vehicle sales have increased over 150% but the absolute numbers are only small.
Hyundai Motor Demonstrates Autonomous Driving Tech Capabilities with First Successful Truck Platooning Trial
Hyundai has conducted the company’s first platooning of trailer trucks replicating real-world traffic conditions.
Vehicle platooning uses modern safety electronics to let trucks travel close together and thus reduce air resistance and reduce fuel usage.
The platooning manoeuvre begins when the driver of the following truck approaches the leading vehicle and activates platooning mode.
The following truck then maintains a 16.7m distance, with real-time fine tuning based on the leading vehicle’s acceleration and deceleration. The driver does not need to put his/her foot on the accelerator or brakes, vastly reducing fatigue on the road and improving safety.
The mode also activates lane keeping technology which makes it possible for the driver of following truck to take their hands off the steering wheel.
One Way to Keep the Sidewalk Clear: Remote-Controlled Scooter-Bots
One of the big problems with shared bike and shared scooter systems is that once a device has been used it can then be left on the footpath creating an eyesore or obstacle for pedestrians.
With some residents taking the bikes and dumping them in the river and with poor utilisation rates, several bike share schemes have been taken from the market.
Now an American start-up has a potential solution. The company Tortoise promises to bring semi-autonomous scooters and e-bikes to market.
Through partnerships with cities, Tortoise aims to determine where a scooter can safely move autonomously at a low speed and where a human should remotely move the unit via a camera attached to the unit (like on a highly congested city road). The goal is to safely move vehicles from a location where it may be underutilised or obstructing the road, to a city-approved parking spot, a public transit hub, or even to the doorstep of users.
World premiere for the new Golf digitalised connected and intelligent
Volkswagen has revealed the details of their 2020 Golf –the 8th generation of the vehicle.
They say they have “started a hybrid offensive” with “five hybrid drive versions”.
It uses some 48-volt technology: it has a digital dashboard to help the driver to operate the vehicle more intuitively.
And it has the Car2X system: this allows connected cars from any manufacturer to broadcast information in real-time, warning other enabled vehicles of hazards on the road ahead, or the proximity of an emergency vehicle trying to make its way through traffic.
This technology was developed by an Australian company Cohda Wireless whose headquarters are in Adelaide.
The car will be for sale in some overseas markets in December and in Australia in 2020.
Quick charge and long-life vehicle battery management
Electric vehicles will only be truly competitive when they can have quick charging and limited deterioration of the battery over the usable life of the vehicle.
The US Department of Energy has set a goal of developing extreme fast charging technology that can add 320 km of driving range in 10 min.
The big problem with lithium-ion batteries is Li plating, which usually occurs at high charge rates and drastically deteriorates battery life and safety.
Now a paper from Pennsylvania University dept of Mechanical engineering says they have a solution.
They call it ATM asymmetric temperature modulation that charges a Li-ion cell at an elevated temperature of 60°C to eliminate Li plating and limits the exposure time to 60°C to only approx. 10 min per cycle to prevent serious materials degradation.
Using available battery materials, they showed that a high-energy (209 Wh/kg) Li-ion cell with the ATM method retains 91.7% capacity after 2,500 cycles (equal to 800,000 kilometres of driving range), far exceeding the US Department of Energy target 500 cycles at 20% loss.