Merge Now

Elon Musk's lidar bashing has grabbed public attention and dominated conversations about autonomous drive technology, but his dismissal of high definition mapping has flown under the radar. According to Shaun Stewart, a Waymo veteran and new advisor and investor at the mapping startup Carmera, we're missing out on an important discussion. Stewart talks about the importance of mapping at Waymo, why Carmera's approach was so appealing to him, and how he's supporting their effort to build out HD maps that faithfully reflect the changing environments that autonomous vehicles will have to navigate.

INRIX collects a huge amount of location-based data that it turns into insights into parking and traffic, powering popular apps like Waze and helping cities manage mobility challenges. In its recent Global Traffic Scorecard, INRIX looks into its massive horde of data to understand where and how much traffic affects us. INRIX transportation analyst Trevor Reed joins the show to break down the long-term trends in traffic, how urban development affects your commute, and how local differences in traffic could create a more fragmented future market for mobility technologies.

2018 was without  doubt "the year of the scooter," as brand-new startups grew at dizzying rates and micromobility replaced autonomous vehicles as the hottest trend in mobility technology. Oliver Bruce has been at the center of all the excitement, partnering with the legendary Horace Dediu to launch Micromobility Industries, the Micromobility Podcast and the Micromobility California Summit. I joined Oliver at the Summit earlier this year to discuss the wild ride that was 2018, the reasons micromobility has taken off, why scooters sparked the trend, where it's all going and more.

One of the most popular topics related to driverless cars is the idea of moral dilemmas, often presented in terms of the "trolley problem" where a driving agent must decide between two bad choices. Beyond the popular discourse, academics have even devoted considerable time to the issue of moral dilemmas for autonomous vehicles and a number of studies and papers have been written on the subject. But according to Sam Anthony and Julian De Freitas of Harvard Psychology, the level of interest in this topic is not matched by its relevance to actual AV development. Drawing on his experience as co-founder of Perceptive Automata, Anthony explains why this resilient idea needs to be put into the context of real AV development as he and De Freitas explain their recent paper "Doubting Driverless Dilemmas."  

Welcome to Merge Now, The Drive's new weekly podcast series featuring conversations with the people shaping the future of mobility technology. In this preview Ed Niedermeyer, Senior Editor for Mobility Technology at The Drive and host of Merge Now, explains what the show is all about, what the name means, and who will be stopping by in the episodes to come. Editor-in-Chief of The Drive Mike Guy also stops by to introduce The Drive's other podcast efforts, including The Crash Diaries. Buckle up, and get ready to Merge Now!