From the Editors CAVCOE's Speakers' Bureau has been a big success and we spoke at about 50 events during 2016 in Canada, the US and overseas. We have decided to expand this activity to include half- and full-day seminars. In just the space of a few short years, it is possible that AVs will have an impact on almost every person, business and organization in North America and beyond. We recommend that everyone plan to maximize the benefits and mitigate the downsides of this transformational technology. CAVCOE's seminars will be useful to any organization that wants a more detailed briefing on the future of AVs. Examples include organizations in the transportation, auto and technology sectors, industries that will be impacted by AVs, and departments in all levels of government. Depending on the client's requirements, the scope of these seminars can include passenger cars, goods delivery, service vehicles, and autonomous flying taxis. Seminars typically include the status and deployment of autonomous, connected, electric and shared (ACES) vehicles, the "big-picture" socio-economic impact and business opportunities, as well as material focused on the specific needs and interests of the client. Please write to seminars@cavcoe.com to discuss your requirements and request a quote.   The Automakers, Tier1s and AV Developers Waymo have just announced that residents in the Phoenix, Arizona area can apply to join their early rider program which will give 24/7 access to Waymo’s self-driving fleet. To achieve the scale needed for this program, Waymo will be adding another 500 Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivans to the existing fleet of 100. John Krafcik, Waymo's CEO, said “We’ll learn things like where people want to go in a self-driving car, how they communicate with our vehicles, and what information and controls they want to see inside.” With other recent news that Waymo are setting themselves up for the mass manufacture of automated vehicle driving systems, we believe that Waymo intends to commercialize their service at the earliest reasonable opportunity. In some great news for Canada, Ford has announced that it will spend $337.9 million on a new research and development centre in Ottawa that will focus on developing self-driving vehicles. Under this agreement, about 300 employees have been hired by Ford from Blackberry to accelerate its research and development initiatives. Another 100 or so employees will also be hired by Ford. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was present at the Windsor event for the announcement. UK-based AV designer and manufacturer, RDM Group has been awarded a $1M grant by the Government of South Australia to conduct trials of its autonomous vehicle technology. RDM's base in Australia is in Flinders University in Adelaide. RDM Group’s ‘Pod Zero’ (see the photo above) has two variants: 4 seats and 8 seats, and it can operate at speeds up to 24 km/h with a battery life of up to 8 hours or 80km. The Pod was also recently tested in the UK.  RDM Group’s Adelaide-based Autonomous Programme Director, Roger van der Lee, said the funding would also be used to further establish the company’s Asia-Pacific base by completing a $1.8m driverless cargo pod trial that will transport goods within Adelaide’s Tonsley Innovation Precinct Back to Waymo which, it appears, is testing its vehicles under extreme weather now. Towards the end of last month, a Waymo vehicle was seen navigating the snowy terrains of South Lake Tahoe. As Waymo is attempting a Level 4 vehicle, testing the vehicle under extreme weather and terrains is crucial. Daimler/Mercedes has teamed up with Bosch to develop a self-driving platform for a robot taxi service. Also, Daimler aims to have its self-driving trucks be commercially available by 2020. Cadillac has come up with the “Super Cruise” system. A combination of advanced LiDAR sensors and a driver assistance system provides a hands-free driving experience, although it is still a Level 2 AV system. The system uses data from a map of every mile of limited highway access data in US and Canada and combines it with real time sensor data to provide accurate information on the car’s position on the road. The driver attention system will monitor the driver to check for if the driver’s attention is on the road. If not, the system is equipped to provide driver alerts and if needed, contact emergency services via OnStar. Bishop Ranch in San Ramon is hosting the testing of new small autonomous vehicles as part of a pilot program, which could become operational by year’s end. The vehicle, an EasyMile EZ10 driverless shuttle, can fit 12 people (six sitting and six standing). This project is a collaboration between Bishop Ranch, French technology firm EasyMile, the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA) and the GoMentum Station -- the CCTA's Concord testing ground for autonomous vehicles. A demonstration of the same EZ10 vehicle was also held at the University of Texas in Austin, where some lucky attendees got a chance to ride in the shuttle as part of the demo. Driverless trains, a form of public transportation of the future, are gaining a lot of steam as well. 2getthere, a Dutch tech firm, will employ a fleet of 25 non-rail-guided driverless trains between Dubai’s inner metro system and waterfront developments, Blueaters. Each train is capable of moving 24 passengers at a time and is expected to travel the 2.5 km in 4.5 minutes. In the battle to get ahead in the AV race, the UK is very competitive. A new “Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Hub (CAV Hub)” was recently launched at Loughborough University’s Olympic Park Campus in London last month. It includes facilities for testing AV operations and is funded by the £100 million fund for new connected and autonomous vehicle testing infrastructure announced by the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond last year. Liberty Mutual has come up with a TechSafety Program for its Volvo customers offering them discounts on their auto premiums based on the use of Volvo’s car safety technologies. This is a good example of a partnership being formed between an insurance company and an automaker, which could become common in the future. EasyMile has entered into a partnership with Allianz to develop insurance solutions for EasyMile’s driverless shuttles. Here’s the press release of the news from Allianz's website.   AV Regulations Germany, in its bid to be at the forefront of AVs, is set to legalize driving with eyes off the roads. Some of the manufacturers in the country are closer to developing Level 3 AVs and this announcement, effective September 2017, is surely going to please them. The Auto2xTech article covers this news further and also raises an important point about the need to go from driver-centric regulations to a framework based on automated driving.   Other AV Articles Insurance is definitely getting a lot of attention as we are heading towards a world full of AVs. Insurance premiums are calculated based on how good or bad the driving has been or the driver. And this is the primary reason why people are more and more skeptical of what lies ahead for the insurance industry. In the future, cars will be safer and the driving record of the human driver is going to be taken out of the equation. Warren Buffet himself addressed the concerns. "If the day comes when a significant portion of the cars on the road are autonomous, it will hurt Geico's business very significantly", he was quoted in this NPR article about the future of Geico, the insurance company he owns. This AutoSens article is a nice take on the long history of AVs, starting from the 1920s to the present and future projections. However, we at CAVCOE would add that the first recorded vision for an AV was in fact in 1898 when the great Serbian inventor, Nikola Tesla, wrote a letter proposing a car that "left to itself, would perform a great variety of operations involving something akin to judgment".   Upcoming AV Related Events May 9-12, 2017: Fundica Safety Meets ADAS; Vohlinschloss, Bavaria, Germany. May 15-17, 2017: UITP Global Public Transport Summit; Montreal, Canada. May 16, 2017: Self-driving Cars - Strategic Implications for the Auto Industry and Beyond; Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. May 16-18, 2017: Connected and Autonomous Vehicles; Santa Clara, California, USA. May 22-25, 2017: AutoSens; Detroit, Michigan, USA. Jun 7-8, 2017: TU Automotive Detroit 2017; Detroit, Michigan, USA. Jun 20-22, 2017: Autonomous Vehicle Test & Development Symposium; Stuttgart, Germany. Registrations are now open. Jul 1-2, 2017: IMCreate: Autonomous and Connected Vehicle Hackathon; Milton Keynes, UK. Jul 5-6, 2017: The Future of Transportation World Conference; Cologne, Germany. Jul 5-6, 2017: 4th International VDI Conference Automated Driving 2017; Berlin, Germany. Jul 11-12, 2017: Autonomous Vehicle ADAS Japan 2017; Tokyo, Japan. Jul 11-13, 2017: Automated Vehicles Symposium; San Francisco, California, USA. Sep 19-21, 2017: AutoSens; Brussels, Belgium. Sept 25-28, 2017: IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC); Toronto, Canada Oct 5-6, 2017: Automotive Simulation World Congress; Tokyo, Japan. Oct 24-25, 2017: Autonomous Vehicle Safety Regulation World Congress 2017; Novi, Michigan, USA. Oct 29-Nov 2, 2017: ITS World Congress; Montreal, Canada. Nov 16-17, 2017: Automotive Tech.AD 2017; Detroit, Michigan, USA.

AV Update is a free, monthly roundup of news and analysis in the world of automated vehicles and their impact on all levels of government and the private sector. Chief Editor: Geetansh Kakkar Editors: Barrie Kirk, Paul Godsmark To subscribe, click here.      To unsubscribe, click here. We welcome all comments; please send them here © Canadian Automated Vehicles Centre of Excellence (CAVCOE) CAVCOE is dedicated to helping public and private sector stakeholders plan for the arrival of autonomous vehicles.   300 Earl Grey Drive, Suite 222, Ottawa ON  K2T 1C1, Canada. info@cavcoe.com               www.cavcoe.com