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

Boom! Amazon buys Zoox for $1.2B; Nvidia and Mercedes partner up for AV tech in Mercedes vehicles from 2024; and Volvo and Waymo partner up, with Volvo getting lidar kit from Luminar.

Dmitry is the Founder & President of Tortoise, an autonomous/teleoperation e-scooter company.

Dr. James Wu

Dr. James Wu is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at DeepMap. Prior to founding DeepMap, James built his career at Baidu, Apple, and Google. At Baidu, James served as Principal Architect for the self-driving team. At Google, James was a core member of Google Earth and Google Maps team. James earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Alabama and his BS in Computer Science from Tianjin University.

About DeepMap

DeepMap is accelerating safe autonomy by providing the world’s best autonomous mapping solutions. We deliver the technology necessary for self-driving vehicles to navigate in a complex and unpredictable environment. We address three important elements: precise high-definition mapping, ultra-accurate real-time localization, and the serving infrastructure to support massive global scaling. 

Collectively, the founders and employees of DeepMap have built mapping technologies in use by tens of millions of people daily (including Google Maps and Apple Maps). The company’s technical advisory board includes former Google, Uber, and Apple visionaries Brian McClendon and Jaron Waldman, as well as Dr. Leonidas Guibas, a prominent Stanford University professor, and Herman Kaess, former CEO of Bosch Korea.

In May 2020, DeepMap was named a “Cool Vendor in Autonomous Systems" by Gartner.

Amazon Prime recently launched a (ridiculous) new show called Upload. The first 15 minutes show a passable take on an AV future in which the lead character's AV is hacked and he crashes and dies and goes to (virtual) heaven. There's a subtle, implicit reference to the trolley paradox, and a suggested solution to simply "prioritize" your AV according to your preferences, e.g., to prioritize pedestrians over other cars. This is a rambling, stream of conscious discussion in which I try to unpack and destroy this admittedly clever but deeply troubling approach. 

1. GM Ultra Cruise: GM's current semi-autonomous driving tech, Super Cruise, uses onboard HD maps for certain freeways to enable hands-free driving on those freeways that are mapped. Now, GM is planning to expand this tech city streets with so-called Ultra Cruise.

2. E-Scooters are going autonomous as Go X borrows Tortoise's self-driving scooter retrofit kit to shuttle scooters autonomous to passengers and then to parking spots.

3. Delivery bots like Nuro's R2 desperately need better (and more permissive) regulation.

Today we speak with Andy Schaudt, Program Director at the Automated Vehicle Systems group at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.5

Today we discuss Zoox up for sale (and I predict VW grabs them up); Voyage and FCA partner up; Intel brings in Moovit to join Mobileye. 

Today, Ford delays their autonomous vehicle launch to 2022 due to COVID-19; GM’s Maven shuts down; and Audi releases A2D2, their autonomous vehicle training data set.

A fantastic, nearly 1-hour long conversation with Leanid Tsurankou, founder & CEO of Qibus (website), a teleoperation startup.

Today's #podcast episode, Ep148, is live! A fantastic episode with Hoag+Co. partner Martin Adler, PhD and associate Nick Reed, PhD (btw, search YouTube for his TEDx talk on autonomous cars!) coming at us from Amsterdam and Oxford, respectively, as we discuss the impact of #COVID on the #AutonomousVehicle industry. Have a listen now, and catch up with the last few episodes that I forgot to share!

#covid19 #autonomousvehicles #autonomouscars #mobility #driverlesscars #tesla #selfdrivingcars #deliveryrobots #autonomousdelivery #covid_19 #coronavirus