- So I went to CES this year,
and I went to see basically
all the electric cars,
and the self-driving cars.
And with the exception of Nissan,
there really weren't any big announcements
that came out from any
of the major automakers.
However, one trend emerged
that I thought was fascinating.
(upbeat music)
The thing I saw that was
kind of striking to me
were these pods that were everywhere.
And they were by companies
that I hadn't ever heard of,
but they all had a central theme
of kind of being shaped like a toaster,
and having a living room feel.
With sometimes a table in
there, TVs, entertainment.
Now some of the other
ones, even such as BMW,
were making cars that
also had similar things.
Where the chairs would
turn around and rotate,
in the anticipation of a
fully-autonomous vehicle.
The aim here is to develop
fully-autonomous transportation,
and the approach these folks are taking
is to eliminate a lot of the
risks, to get there faster.
Sort of like putting up
bumpers at the bowling alley.
So the idea is that if
you have a confined space,
a known route or routes, on
a well-maintained platform,
and you're traveling at low speeds,
you eliminate a lot of the major risks
that self-driving cars face.
When you're on the regular road,
you have other drivers traveling
at extremely high speeds,
and unknown road conditions.
There could be construction,
debris on the road,
any number of unknown
factors at any given time.
So the challenges that
a fully self-driving car
on a regular road will
face are tremendous.
So if you can eliminate
a lot of those things,
then you can probably
get this done faster,
and on the road even sooner,
than the more generally-available
self-driving cars
that we're all hoping for.
Check out this one from Bosch.
Now Bosch doesn't really make cars,
but they do make parts for almost
every one out there, including Tesla.
This pod they have is really interesting
in that the price of the
service for each rider
goes down when more people are in it.
Kind of like a real-time
supply and demand curve.
Which I love.
Another key, is that Bosch is not only
looking to develop these pods,
but the software platform
for booking and billing.
And I think this might be a
bit out of their wheelhouse,
but I do wish them well,
because I think in order
for this to succeed, the
user experience on all levels
needs to be near perfect.
Otherwise, people just won't adopt it.
Now Bosch was one of many to showcase
these types of pods.
And they all kind of had the
same look and feel to them.
Some had some really innovative ideas,
such as this touch-sensitive
fabric that BMW had,
as well as some other things,
like as I mentioned before,
the price of the ride changing depending
on how many people were on it.
One key thing I really enjoyed,
was that they all were electric.
Which I love because you're
talking about reducing
the amount of cars on the road,
and switching whatever cars
would have been on the road
to electric forms of transportation.
So are these things going
to become a reality?
Well I hope so.
And as I mentioned before,
when you reduce the number of variables
that you have to design for,
it should be a quicker and
easier process to get there.
So I really look forward to that.
But in terms of regular
full self-driving cars,
that you literally don't
have a steering wheel,
you hop in and you hit a button,
or you tell it and you
schedule it with your phone,
and it takes you where you want to go.
I still think that's
about ten years or so out.
There was one demo I saw that
really impressed me though.
This demo was from Yandex,
which is a Russian company
that does all kinds of
things and now is making
this autonomous taxi service,
and they demoed it as CES this year.
Now I didn't get to ride in it,
but fellow electric car
geek and YouTuber MKBHD
did take it for a spin, or it
took him for a spin I guess,
and what he showed was really impressive.
The one hitch was that this taxi
was going on a pre-planned route.
It wasn't something
that you could just ask
it to go anywhere and it would work.
So again, what you're
doing, is you're limiting
the variables and the things that it needs
to actually figure out.
So in theory, they could have taken this,
driven it on this route 100
times before the event started,
programmed it to do that
route perfectly ever time,
and your chances of success
would be much better.
Thankfully it worked well for Marques,
and he returned safely from his test ride.
Digging in further, I see
that their taxi service
is using Lidar, radar, cameras, GPS,
and really high-quality maps.
All of those things combine
to help the car see,
and understand it's surroundings
so then it knows how to behave.
So with all that, I was
still skeptical about it.
And then I started looking at their demos
that they posted online.
This demo of the taxi
service driving a guy
in a snowy Moscow, really stood out to me,
because snow is notoriously
difficult to drive in,
especially for humans.
And I could imagine that from the get-go,
this would be really difficult for
a car to deal with as well.
However, it seems to handle it perfectly.
Now this demo, of course,
the roads have been plowed,
it looks like they're probably salted.
So they're probably the best kind
of snowy conditions you could have,
but in any event, I thought that this
was a really impressive example from them.
They even took this on a
long-distance test drive
that was over 480 miles,
where the car drove 100% of the way.
And that is impressive
because in that distance
you're gonna encounter so
many different scenarios
that the car is gonna have to figure out.
And I don't think this is something
they could have kind of
pre-programmed in there.
So this is getting closer
to general availability,
as it seems from this demo.
And of course, we can't forget Waymo,
who started opening up their
self-driving taxi service
in the Phoenix area to more
people, just a few weeks ago.
And they're continuing
to expand the routes,
and the coverage area, as well
as the people that come in
and use their service.
So I think that is a very good approach,
because you're going kind of step-by-step,
instead of making this from
0 to 60 in no time flat.
You're kind of developing it as you go,
and making sure that it's safe.
So with all that said, I'm optimistic
that self-driving cars will
get here some time soon.
I still think for the
US, regulatory approval,
different road conditions,
all those kinds of things,
it's a long way out.
But we hopefully will start to see things
that are almost autonomous
or partly autonomous,
help us be safer, reduce
emissions, reduce traffic,
and just generally drive better.
Because even on autopilot
right now with the Tesla,
I will say it is a far
better, more attentive,
driver than me, and probably
most people that use it.
If you have it, I'd love to
hear your thoughts on it.
So all-in-all, it was
exciting to see this,
and I am very hopeful.
So we'll see kind of,
how these things develop,
and stay tuned for more
here on the channel.
As I'll obviously be digging into it,
because it is a very exciting time
to be paying attention to this stuff.
So let me know what you think.
Would you ride in one of these?
Are you ready for self-driving?
Do you have autopilot?
Has it scared you ever?
Does that give you any pause?
I'm very curious to hear your thoughts
in the comments down below.
So don't forget, when you free the data,
your mind will follow.
See you guys back here in the next one.
