Last Week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) smart car technology blew away big screen TVs as the stars of the show.  I've been obsessed with V2V a couple of years ago when I first learned it could virtually eliminate car crashes.  In early 2012 I wrote an opinion piece on he subject and set up a facebook page to advocate for acceleration of this technology.   http://www.facebook.com/dance2022  This technology wili likely transform cities over the next 30 years.   Here are quotes from three articles about the affect on cities.

"Imagine a Boston where you could drive straight to the office and let the car park itself. Think about an MBTA so efficient that buses and trains always arrive on time. Or how about commuting from the Western suburbs, with every driver sipping coffees on complete autopilot?"
Boston Globe:
http://www.boston.com/cars/newsandreviews/overdrive/2014/01/boston_as_the_harmonious_drive.html

"By 2018, one in five cars on the road will be “self-aware,” able to discern and share information on their mechanical health, their global position and status of their surroundings, said Gartner’s Koslowski. A system of sensors, vehicle-to-vehicle communications and computing power will lead to intelligent cars that interact with their owners, he said.
'In the future, your car may actually tell you to stay in bed 30 minutes longer because the traffic situation isn’t as bad as it usually is,' Koslowski said. 'Your car can talk to your alarm clock and reset it 30 minutes later so you can stay in bed without doing anything.'"
Kansas City Star:
http://www.kansascity.com/2014/01/10/4740939/connected-cars-are-hot-models.html

"A glimpse of the highway of tomorrow — one that federal transportation officials and automakers are spending heavily to explore — can be seen in cities such as Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Ann Arbor, Mich., and in Nevada, California and Florida."
Chicago Tribune:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-01-05/news/ct-future-speed-limits-20140105_1_variable-speed-limits-traffic-sensors-atm

Here are a couple of videos of a demo of Ford's vehicle-to-vehicle demonstration at CES:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/10/5293892/automakers-want-to-see-through-walls-in-the-name-of-safety#ooid=50c3ZwajqrNygd8nl72MlIgqEnAPURYS
and
http://youtu.be/aPrLhSAA07Y

Somewhat related is the planned OBD-III specification. Depending on implementation, it sounds a bit-brotherish.

WHAT IS OBD-III?

A program to minimize the delay between detection of an emissions malfunction by the OBD-II system and repair of the vehicle

Two basic elements:

- Read stored OBD-II information from in-use vehicles.
- Direct owners of vehicles with fault codes to make immediate repairs

OBD-III TECHNOLOGIES

Three ways to send/receive data:

- Roadside reader
- Local station network
- Satellite

Enforcement Mechanisms

Roadside Pullover

- CHP flags down vehicles with fault codes
- Technician verifies problem by inspecting and/or testing vehicle
- Issuance of notice requiring out-of-cycle inspection
- Same enforcement (C of C /citation)

LEGAL ISSUES

OBD-III imposes sanctions based on "suspicionless mass surveillance" of private property
- Random, possibly frequent testing
- No advanced knowledge vehicle will be tested
- Results of testing not immediately available (unless roadside pullover follows)
- No opportunity to confront or rebut
- Possible use of system for other purposes (Police pursuit/immobilization, tracking, cite speeders)

OBD-III raises 4th Amendment search and seizure privacy issues:
- "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated...'' (emphasis added; also see Art. I, Sec. 19 of Calif. Constitution)
- From legal perspective, it is unprecedented: previous cases have looked at surveillance of individuals

Read more: http://lobby.la.psu.edu/_107th/093_OBD_ ... stions.htm

Here is a link to the DOT press release on Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+ ... t+Vehicles

Unfortunately, this is even weaker than I had anticipated. They just say they are going forward with V2V communication research and analysis, and will "begin working on a regulatory proposal that would require V2V devices in new vehicles in a future year." With this half-hearted endorsement, rather than specifics, it is likely that Japan or Germany will get to define the future of crashless cars and we'll be buying the technology from them.

Later update: In the press conference today, they said they hope to require this on all new cars by the end of President Obama's term, which would be January 2017.

1 in 5 by 2018? I doubt that. Maybe 2025 at best.

Here's something else that could potentially change what cars will be like in the future:

Imagine both of these technologies combined! Holy cow, that will really be something, won't it?

Nice video. One of the visions of vehicle-to-vehicle communication and crashless cars is that they won't need to haul around all that crash hardware if they can't run into things. (Roller coasters don't need airbags, for instance since they almost never crash.) It opens the door for tiny vehicles like this to not get run over by semi-trailer trucks. But it also protects bicycles and pedestrians, especially if they are carrying their own transmitters, or cell phones that the car can detect. I read that the 2015 Subaru are actively advertising that they will be able to detect and stop for pedestrians.

It will take a while for all the cars to get the transmitters and receivers, but this is the phase where we lock down the standard. I will happily buy an option that transmits my position if it means the truck bearing down on me picks it up and applies the brakes as a last resort when the driver isn't paying attention.

By some estimates, this technology could save nearly half a trillion dollars a year in the US alone in reduced insurance premiums, collision repair, and medical costs. And it could eventually transform how we layout lane widths on highways, etc., and even reduce the need for so many highways if the cars can get through intersections non-stop by communicating with all intersecting cars and traffic signals.

So we may not want to pour too many billions into the current highway infrastructure (like rumble strips) just before the current model becomes obsolete.

V2V communication reminds me of how beautifully a flock of birds coordinate with one another in flight.

innov8ion wrote:V2V communication reminds me of how beautifully a flock of birds coordinate with one another in flight.

Counterpoint: birds flying into windows.

MarkHaversham wrote:

innov8ion wrote:V2V communication reminds me of how beautifully a flock of birds coordinate with one another in flight.

Counterpoint: birds flying into windows.

Heh, hopefully we can learn from their mistakes. But in all seriousness, there will certainly be issues to work out.

Here is a discussion on how this technology may affect cities.

"Because cars that can drive themselves won't stay parked all day, builders and regulators should think about how new parking structures should be designed for adaptive reuse if future parking demand declines."

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/pos ... ut-cities/

gary kreie wrote: I have a Subaru Forester with Eyesight -- two small stereo TV cameras that warn me if I am about to hit the car in front of me and then slam on the brakes as a last resort if I don't. If someone were to put a giant mirror glass window in front of my car, it would slam right into it just like a bird. We obviously need to supplement with radar -- like bats.

Wouldn't it try to avoid the other Forester?

Oh yeah, that's right. It should. Now I'm wondering why a bird doesn't try to avoid the reflected bird on a collision course. Maybe they didn't get the nav software update.

I just got the new nav software update yesterday, and now when the lady talks, my car mutes the music in the front speakers but not music in the rear speakers. The Nav lady, not my wife.

JuanHamez wrote:Imagine: A World Where Nobody Owns Their Own Car
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commut ... -car/8387/

A world without car crashes may just be the first step to a world without car-ownership... Think about this world of shared autonomous vehicles for a moment. You wake up and get ready for work, and a few minutes before it's time to leave you press a button and order an SAV. The car has been strategically positioned to wait in high-demand areas, so you don't have to wait long. You might share the ride with a couple travelers just as you share an elevator, or perhaps pay a premium to ride alone. Either way, you clear your inbox or read the paper during the commute, which is safer and more reliable than it used to be.

Then you sh*t, shower, and shave in the car on the way to work. Your Google Glass bionic eye allows you to pull up the internet inside your own brain and run a virus scan on your body. Once it detects the flu virus, it sends anti-bodies to heal you. Snow and sick days are over forever, and you have to go to work...every...day...

Sometimes I think the future might be kinda cool.

Sounds like Americans are ready for driverless cities according to this poll. Of course you can't trust polls and focus groups. A focus group told Ford they would never pay extra for a second sliding door on the driver side of mini-vans. So Ford didn't offer it. Chrysler did and Ford has never caught up with Chrysler and others on mini-vans. People are fickle.

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/ ... rless_cars

Why does this forum topic make me think of Johnny Cab from the original "Total Recall"?

I like what Google is doing here. Instead of (or along with) incrementally adding features to existing cars to gradually wean people in to self-driving cars, they decided to jump-start small with a slow golf-cart size car that does 100% of the driving -- just not very big or fast yet. No steering wheel. No pedals. Just a start button and an emergency stop button and a screen showing the route.

As is, it could cover the older and disabled portion of the population who just want to be independent enough to putter around town to get to the pharmacy and grocery store. But as one Google engineer said, once it is proven to be safe, there is no reason it couldn't go 100 mph.

How would this car, or a productionized follow-on change cities. I believe this type of car would help downtowns, since the parking issue is greatly improved, but it is most practical as a local distributor -- like a horizontal elevator that could go anywhere close, rather than a long distance commuter solution. And I assume you might not own one, but rather summon one or find them lined up ready to go. Picture more folks riding Metro-link to the Fox if they could hop from the light rail car into one of these --swipe a credit card, and push the FOX button to go the rest of the way. Then do the reverse for the return trip. Same with Muny or a host of other things in the city folks would like to got to but not deal with traffic, parking, or short-trip taxi rides.

Here is the link to the YouTube video put out by Google yesterday.

http://youtu.be/CqSDWoAhvLU