From Tech Maven Fritz Maffry: Consumer Electronics Show and More
CES 2019 is about here, this category is the game changer
The real smart city of consequence is about to be demonstrated, with many flavors of light-duty autonomous shuttles being shown. Makers include Navya, Local Motors, Bosch, Fisker, Rinspeed, Nuro, Tesla and many, many more. Combine this type of technology with Google current-state autonomy in some route configurations, and you have an amazingly advantaged experience for travelers, with responsiveness and flexibility, and cost structures that current transit can only dream of. In the next two months you will see dozens of pods, and they are a revelation. Twenty pods can probably replace 400 cars for in-city travel, and can operate like robot private drivers. Google for one is intending to take costs down to unprecedented levels.
More on this here, here, and here.
This is early, but not too early
Google is already “operating” more advanced autonomy scenarios than this; the technology is at the threshold. Decisions on designs for transit and communities should already be changed. Every developer should get up to date on what is coming, because otherwise they are making wasteful, soon to be obsolete decisions. Far more on/off stops should be built into new developments, and less parking, particularly in some areas. Unlike some aspects of electric vehicles, there is no long price curve that needs to be followed for product economics to be greatly advantaged. The main cost items of fuel, driver, and operating periods was just turned upside down.
The most interesting question is what Google, Tesla, Uber, and Apple are going to do in the next two years. Honda is working with GM related to this category. We are previewing this and also explaining its significance, but it flies in the face of Donald Trump’s saying electric cars won’t work. The president should go to CES with someone who can show him what is coming and why it matters. Perhaps that would be someone like Peter Thiel.
The public has no idea
Most local news cycles don’t have you grasping this, though perhaps in California there is some sense this is coming from the more aware members of the tech community. Google has this category picked as #1 in terms of growth opportunities for the next few years, Prepare to be surprised, in the case of pods; the near futures are highly advantaged in economics. 2019 will be the year electric bikes and autonomous shuttles in pools becomes makes a major impression on the mind share of the public
Watch what happens now
When you optimize a pool, working in concert with this technology, you can achieve performance not even thought of by traditional systems. The software has simulated these orchestrated systems; it is a wonderful use case that lends itself to the strengths of computers, via algorithmic optimization. This means less and very different infrastructure, as well as superior performance in virtually every way, with a lot more flexibility to boot
New Ways of thinking about infrastructure
Information is better than traditional infrastructure. Competitive leveraging for leapfrog should be fundamental to all positive approaches. Infrastructure should be prepared on flexible platforms and high quality roads. Such platforms should be clean designs, not overbuilt solutions that are proprietary and intertwined so they can’t be upgrade all the time.
Concrete pouring will be dramatically behind systems iterations; you don’t want to confuse the two in how you prepare. The beauty of the B52 is that it can be modularly and flexibly upgraded in terms of systems, but has a simple base platform that is stable. It will be most interesting to get price comparisons on the table, compared to opportunity cost advantages like subsidizing the building of luxury parking garages downtown, clogging streets with crowded parking, tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for a streetcar extension approach.
Tech comes to transit; this will be interesting. If historical records are to be repeated, not much goes up against tech and wins for any length of time. Disruption is at hand.
