There’s few things that make me more suspicious than hearing the Model T invoked, as in predictions of its second coming. There’s never, ever going to be a second Model T, just like there’s never going to be a second invention of the railroad or bicycle. These were one-time historical personal mobility disruptions on a scale that’s hard to even quantify. All three of them had profound and lasting effects on the built environment, gender dynamics, rural density, commerce, etc.
Undoubtedly, autonomous shuttles like the Cruise Origin will have a potentially significant effect on urban life, but not anywhere nearly on the scale of the Model T. It’s a shuttle van that seats six, without a driver. Will folks actually be all that thrilled to share a space that small with up to five others? Certainly some or many, but there’s going to still be many other mobility options.
GM’s Cruise division recently revealed the endgame of its multi-year autonomous test program in San Francisco using Bolt EVs. Admittedly, it’s something different, although rather familiar too, as it looks a lot like an autonomous shuttle pod one might encounter at an airport or so. It has sliding doors and seats six; three and three, facing each other, just like a stage coach. And of course it’s totally driver-less.
The plan is for Cruise is to make mobility as a paid service even more compelling as a consumer product. And presumably, cheaper than an Uber or Lyft, although that assumption still needs to be proven, given that all of the sensors on the Origin are not yet cheap. But by keeping them in service essentially continuously, the opportunity for cost reduction certainly is conceivable. And even more so if it’s shared with up to six riders.
There’s still a major regulatory hurdle, of course, as vehicles without steering wheels are not yet permitted, except for a 25mph maximum limit in neighborhood electric vehicles (“NEV”), which is why the now-abandoned Google/Waymo Firefly (above) was able to do without one. But Waymo abandoned that as it’s just too limiting, and is now offering its first commercial services in Arizona using Pacifica hybrid vans.
And some of those vans are now offering “driverless” service, although a safety driver will still be aboard the van, if not behind the wheel. That’s my son Ed in the back seat of one under way(mo); he was the first journalist invited to ride in one. His report (with video) is here at techcrunch.com.
The Origin will be built at GM’s Hamtramck plant in Detroit, which GM recently committed to a number of new EVs, all based on a single “skateboard” architecture. It might be in 2021 or 2022, but there’s still serious obstacles. From an Autonews article:
Most AV companies, along with Cruise, haven’t announced launch dates for their self-driving vehicles. They are working on AV technology in the interim to be ready whenever NHTSA outlines the regulation around it. Ammann said the Origin needs “super-human” performance, which it hasn’t yet achieved. To start, Cruise will test the Origin on private campuses.
“The regulation issue is a problem for everyone and has to be settled at the federal level,” said Ramsey. “The biggest issue is determining who does what. It’s hard for states when they don’t know what feds are going to do. It’s a big barrier.”
A mighty big barrier. In any case, once AV regulations are real, there’s no doubt whatsoever that they will be geofenced, meaning their use will be restricted to specific metro areas, starting with ones that tend to be more friendly to them in a number of ways, such as a lack of severe weather and such. Cruise using SF as its pilot operation is interesting, as it does have good weather, but the city streets are hardly as placid as the suburbs of Phoenix.
GM’s one relative advantage is in the possibility to wring out costs by utilizing the same basic EV platform in numerous other vehicles, as well as the fact that the Origin doesn’t need high performance. Tesla 0-60 times are obviously not welcome in an AV. Cruise CEO Dan Ammann specifically is targeting a cost point at one half that of the Tesla Model X.
All that talk of volume and lower resulting cost is of course invoking the Model T. But Hamtramck’s size limits total volumes, and as of yet, projecting lofty sales for new GM EV’s might be a fool’s errand. The EV market so far is actually languishing except for Tesla, which is increasingly dominating it at the expense of others. GM’s Bolt EV suffered a second year of sales declines, and recently had to resort to $10,000 incentives to keep them from piling up.
So what’s all of this really about? The valuation of Cruise, which has become important to the stock valuation of GM, which owns Cruise. OK, that’s my cynical side talking, but invoking the Model T tends to do that to me.
And if you want a more nuanced take on Cruise and the Origin from another Niedermeyer, son Ed just published his at Arstechnica.com. The title is “Cruise’s autonomous Origin hints at ‘McDonalds’ of mobility. Now how’s that for a double hit? The Origin invokes both the Model T and McDonalds. What’s next: the Cadillac of autonomy? Oh, never mind.
Actually, both the McDonald’s and Cadillac references are valid, as son Ed points out that Cruise’s strategy for outdoing Uber and Lyft is to offer a service that is cheap and consistent, without the highly variable factor of a driver, as in drivers that are too chatty, stinky, or prone to sexual assault, as has happened 3,000 times in Ubers. No driver, no unexpected behaviors, as long as the Origin performs as expected and you’re not sharing the very utilitarian transit-grade interior accommodations with other passengers that are…too chatty, stinky, or prone to sexual assault. In which case, there’s no driver to intervene.
Let’s just say that the autonomous future still has some potential wrinkles to iron out. And that calling the Origin the next Model T might just be a wee bit premature.
Model T–NO.
Aztek–perhaps.
Perhaps in 2031, this rideshare concept has a place. After all, without smart phones, Uber and Lift are not possible, right? Even so, Uber still loses tons of money as business.
As with several other technologies, I see GM spending too much money too soon.
The aluminum block for mass-priced cars (Vegas), widespread use of robots in car plants (1980s) both proved to be very expensive losers for GM–when it was rich in the 1970s, and relatively rich in the 1980s.
Eventually these became mainstream–and the expensive lessons learned by GM helped them succeed.
This may well be like the Aztek–but more costly. An expensive flop, that nonetheless points the way to the future (just as the Aztek pointed the way to the angry-looking, robotic-looking, “techie” CUVs that outsell cars.
the Chrysler Airflow of the 1930s fits that description too.
GM, stop trying to make the next Model T happen! It’s not going to happen!
Nicely written. You point out the whole flaw of the auto and tech innovation space which propagates these “breakthrough” narratives. Chasing the next Model T is a nice distraction from the mountains of cash being hemmoraged without any forseeable plan to profit or regulatory compliance in sight. The Model T was what it was because it worked for multiple dimensions of social actors: appealing to people, profitable to the private sector, and legitimized mass spending on road building by public agencies. Everyone got a piece. Current prognostications of AV/EV success at best create a “win” for only 2 of 3 actors: people and companies are happy but government loses in some kind of de-regulared free for all; government and companies “win” but we pay by living in some sort of Minority Report like surveillance state; or, people and government win” in some sort of low-car-ownership traffic free Utopia but companies lose.
oops…..a clarification
The General DID mass produce aluminum engines successfully—for the Corvair! Look at how many of these cars still exist! And look at how rare Vegas are.
Did the Corvair have steel or iron liners?
The Vega block had no liners–GM was to first to use a silicon-infused alloy. For whatever reason (there are several, I believe CC has covered them in the past, if not, Google Vega or XP887), these engines were disasters for many, and for the General’s reputation.
The Porsche 928 and/or Mercedes did successfully use this process… AFTER Vega. The high-end Germans did not take short cuts, and their engines were fine.
GM spearheading the BIGGEST, BROADEST application of robots in assembly plant body and paint shops in the 1980s (remember Roger Smith–his ‘vision’ was in the dark–a “Lights out” plant, no workers, pun intended) is probably a more apt comparison. Today everyone does it–GM did it first–and worst–very expensive learning curve the General shouldered, and other profited from later.
I fear this Cruise Origin may be a similar experience…. we will find out soon enough.
How is your comment in any way relevant to the article?
FWIW, the Corvair engine used individual cast iron cylinders, like the VW. Only the crankcase and heads were aluminum.
spending a lot of money on an idea that’s not ready for prime time, losing money, and then having other companies learn (and benefit by not repeating) your mistakes, so they reap the benefits.
Hehe! That is very funny image, Mr N.
“GM, in their laudable quest to lower the risk to the hail-service passenger that there may be a malodorous and prolix deviant at the wheel, removed the wheel, but then inadvertently increased the risk by a factor of five.”
Slightly more seriously, I’ll likely live to see this stuff happen – the ubiquity of autonomy, hopefully not the unwonted pongy wierdo passengers, natch – and it will indeed surely be Model T-like in its omnipresence, but you’re quite right, it won’t be this moveable bus stop. This isn’t even the Cadillac of those.
Much talk of autonomous cars. I am employed as a commercial truck driver. Lifetime mileage near one million. My current ride is an International MV. The technology “safety features” that this truck has should scare the shit out of everyone. It has automatic braking. The truck applies the brakes if the driver doesn’t in the event of an impending crash. Trouble is that the truck sees things that aren’t there sometimes and locks up the brakes. You’d better be buckled in because it locks them right up. I had a guy follow me yesterday to chew my butt out for giving him a brake job. I didn’t do it the truck did and for no reason! Lane departure alerts sometimes go off for no reason and they don’t work in a snowstorm. It reads speed limit signs and warns you if you exceed the speed limit. Excessive violations throw a flag to my boss. One day while doing 55 mph in a 55 zone with no speed limit sign visible the dash starts flashing that the speed limit has been exceeded and that I am 20 mph over. Twenty over is criminal speeding. No doubt my boss got an alert so now I have to call him to defuse this mess. There is a massive shortage of commercial drivers and this kind of BS isn’t going to attract anyone to the profession. The technology is not ready for primetime but that doesn’t seem to matter.
I have a similar electronic pest on the dash of the truck I’m currently driving its got no idea whats going on at the time when it throws orange warnings at me or red ones to my boss, because I rarely use the brakes (exhaust brake and retarder do most of it) any use of the service brake results in a harsh braking event it simply isnt used to that much deceleration, overspeeds kick in at 6kmh over the posted speed limit but it doesnt actually have the position of the limit signs down right or some of the speed limits, great idea but seriously flawed. Harsh acceleration events are the funnyest, really, in a laden (25000kg) 400hp Isuzu even empty its not neck snapping.
My days of driving (smaller) trucks are over but I hear the same stories from people who still drive and it’s all stupid beyond belief. Here in the EU trucks are electronically limited to 100 Km/H with the result that most truck to truck overtaking is an agonizingly long event. That of course leads to people hogging the fast lane for fear of being stuck behind the overtaking truck in the middle lane. Never an issue in the old days when even with 300 hp trucks could accelerate to 110-120 Km/H and the maneuver would’ve been finished in 3 rather than 10 min utes. Anyone with half a brain could have seen this. Not, of course, the imbecilic regulators in Brussels.
As for the AV hype, for some reason everyone ignores the 800 lbs gorilla in the room, namely _hacking_ into the control systems of this vehicles for Zoomer “fun”, criminal enterprises or terrorism. To date, no one has perfected a hacker-proof electronic data transfer system and I doubt anyone ever will. Progress is not always progress.
^ “these vehicles”
The big question for me, assuming reliable and safeautonomous cars really happen as projected, is which model or paradigm will prevail. AVs replacing human-driven vehicles will allow more relaxed transportation, the ability of people who are too young, too old, too inebriated, or handicapped to go places in cars on their own, as well as potentially being less accident-prone than human drivers.
But AVs also open up lots of other new possibilities. Most cars spend most of their time parked, often at home or at work. AVs though could be in use nearly full-time, shuttling other people around after they’re done shuttling you, using phone apps and awareness of other cars’ locations to coordinate things. This could potentially allow us to get by with fewer cars, and make huge carparks unnecessary. But who would own the vehicles? Private owners who help pay for their cars by allowing others to use them when they’re not? Uber and Lyft? The manufacturers? The local municipality? Third parties who buy fleets of AV shuttles?
The problem with that fewer cars argument is that most people use it at the same time, that is why we have traffic jams in the morning and evening. So either you have enough vehicles to meet the demand at those hours and they spend the vast majority of time sitting, or you have way to few vehicles to meet peak demand in hopes of keeping them moving more than just 2-3 hrs per day.
Although this won’t be until the distant future at best, the prospect of AVs, if they become ubiquitous, allows for far faster traffic flow if every car knows the position of other cars (and perhaps can communicate with them) as well as the road topography, with far less space needed than with human drivers as cars slow down or speed up as necessary to traverse intersections.
By the distant time this could even happen, how do we know people even be commuting en masse by car anymore? Many existing careers presently can work from home right now if not for inertia, and those that cannot are likely to be automated out of existence by this very technology anyway, and goods and services can be delivered right to their door by drones. At that point who even needs transport to the point AVs are even desirable anymore?
…Drunk partiers who need to go to the bars and patients that need to go the hospital due to their sedentary lifestyle issues, that’s who! That animation needs far more ambulances and less color and variety in the cars.
‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’ by Eiffel 65 would make a great audio accompaniment to this animation. 🙂
Scottdude, if this model is to work, there will be ‘peak demand pricing’, as in $5 per mile from 7 to 9, vs $1 mile at say 10pm.
I think it is plausible, IF society collectively expends enough resources, and disincentivizes the use of privately owned vehicles.
If we get there, I also think it is a very expensive, steep learning curve, for the initial entrants.
Time will tell.
I can’t follow on the comment about shuttling people around all day. I can’t quote facts, but it seems like in major urban areas, most folks work 9-5 or some variant thereof. In order to get everyone to work, there would be a mass call for transportation in the morning and afternoon, and much less need throughout the day and at night.
Just like now if you want or need a taxi – it’s a lot easier at 2pm than at 5:30pm. Now add rain, it just gets worse.
Exactly. So a 4 lane intersection got made more efficient, too bad you need to patiently wait forever for the anonymous autonomous personal shuttle that smells like the previous occupant so you can zip through an intersection without signals.
I really believe that the idea of shared ride vehicles – and mass transit in general – is limited in the United States by our shared perception that riding with strangers is “icky”. We avoid riding in anything where we may sit next to someone we don’t know, and thus may well not like. Hell, the reason for three row SUVs seems to be to keep the occupants as far away from each other as possible in a single vehicle.
As long as this is the norm, regardless of technological advances in AV safety and practicality, the single (or double) occupant vehicle would be the only one adopted by the masses. Personal Mass Transit. An oxymoron for our times.
Because it’s not inaccurate.
I see GM finally can spell Cruise correctly at least.
The Model T brought untethered personal mobility to the masses, this takes that away and barricades you into the cities. The Model T directly and indirectly created blue collar and middle class jobs from manufacturing to maintenance to roadside services, this takes those away so big companies can have a monopoly on services(like robber baron railroad owners before the Model T). Sorry Mr. Cruise, but you sir, are no Model T. I don’t want to live in the late 19th century.
GM continues to spend too much money with too much publicity on totally autonomous driving, which isn’t going to happen in the real world 24/7 for a very long time. Good success is possible under ideal conditions in suburban landscapes, but good enough self-driving that you’d delete the driver permanently under all conditions everywhere is a very long way away. There are judgment calls in bad conditions that computers are not nearly good enough to make.
Google’s Waymo has gotten quieter of late, a more sensible position. It makes some sense for automakers to work on autonomous technology, to improve driver safety aids which are popular in production cars. But hype like this people mover is just silly.
What the Model T provided that these will not is total freedom. With my own car at the curb I can leave exactly when I want, drive the route and speed I want, take as many or as few people as I want, and make as many interim stops as I want.
There are costs to this freedom, of course, and some of these things are possible with Uber – but there are costs to that approach too.
Mass transit has worked in situations where there are large numbers of people going to a small number of places from a small number of starting points. Or where it was around from the beginning and development followed its routes – Like Philly’s Main Line. This approach may broaden the appeal of some kind of shared transit, but I am not convinced that they have the tech worked out yet. We will see.
I could see this working in a place like Washington DC, where many people (my stepson’s family included) leave the car home and take an Uber everywhere.
Or New York, where there are a lot of people, and most consider a car a big time liability, and use a taxi cab or the Subway.
If you live in the suburbs, as most people working in and around Baltimore do, this change is going to be a long time coming. Personal transportation is still king. We’ve had seriously under utilized mass transit in this area for years. We even have a Metro that few people even know about.
And is it me, or did GM get the styling idea for this thing from the Nissan Cube? Good luck unseeing that now. ;o)
It’s halfway between the Nissan Cube and a Disney World monorail
Mentally I couldn’t sit in a moving car without a driver at the wheel. The anxiety would get me.
No thank you. Only six people per unit? It may sound appealing but there’s safety in crowds/numbers as well on a bus or train. After the first few 5 on 1 muggings/rapes/killings on a Cruise that get publicized it’s over, even or maybe especially if someone goes all Bernie Goetz on the assailants. The US just isn’t a safe enough environment to have this type of thing and have people not worry about it, it isn’t Mayberry everywhere.
I’ll bet son Ed has never buckled a seatbelt as fast in his life as when the machine was ready to depart… 🙂
I could see this thing as a neat-O option if you want to take the wife and kids to a nice restaurant and you have every intention of having a few beers or wines. Then you can have the car ferry your family back home. Not bad. But sharing a relatively tight space with 5 strangers? I guess it would be ok for super-urban areas. NYC/DC/CHIC. I sincerely hope GM makes a go out of it, just because the technology is cool and could have some other knock on benefits. I guess the biggest argument is who is riding backwards?
Ask any regular public transit user if they want to be seated facing strangers, and I suspect a large majority would say, ‘no thanks!’.
Netflix started with CD’s, but they eventually got to streaming – that was always the destination.
Similarly, autonomous mobility needs to start with a “crutch” to own marketshare. There is no doubt that ‘district to district’ driverless buses and shuttles are the future for efficient mobility. But, how do we get from today’s world to full autonomy?
GM actually owns the crutch in this case, rfid guided transitways, to help them get there….easily deployed on campuses. Little cheap rfid tags implanted in curbs and guardrails to ensure confident travel routes – rain, snow, whatever. The roadways communicate with vehicles and the vehicles communicate with one another, augmented by lidar and other perceptive tech.
The key is having the network built when full autonomy finally arrives. Then one simply converts what one has to full autonomy – if actually competitive. It could very well end up that rfid guidance is a less expensive, less risky alternative in the end to full autonomy…