Automotive

April 5, 2018

Tesla Driver Died Using Autopilot, With Hands Off Steering Wheel ⁰

by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: Arizona, Automotive, california, family, hyperdrive, law, NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAF, National Transportation Safety Board, South Carolina, technology, TESLA INC, UBER TECHNOLOGIES INC

A week after crash, company says it recovered computer logs
Driver received several visual, one audible ‘hands-on’ warning

Tesla Inc. confirmed the Model X driver who died in a gruesome crash a week ago was using Autopilot and defended the safety record of its driver-assistance system that’s back under scrutiny following a fatality.

Computer logs recovered from the Tesla driven by Wei Huang, 38, show he didn’t have his hands on the steering wheel for six seconds before the sport utility vehicle collided with a highway barrier in California and caught fire on March 23, according to a blog post the company published late Friday.

“The driver had received several visual and one audible hands-on warning earlier in the drive,” Tesla said in the post. The driver had “about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view” of the concrete highway divider and an already-crushed crash cushion that his Model X collided with, according to the company. “But the vehicle logs show that no action was taken.”

The collision occurred days after an Uber Technologies Inc. self-driving test vehicle killed a pedestrian in Arizona, the most significant incident involving autonomous-driving technology since a Tesla driver’s death in May 2016 touched off months of finger-pointing and set back the company’s Autopilot program. A U.S. transportation safety regulator said Tuesday it would investigate the Model X crash, contributing to Tesla’s loss of more than $5 billion in market value this week.

‘Mushy Middle’

“This is another potential illustration of the mushy middle of automation,” Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies self-driving cars, said in an email. Partial automation systems such as Tesla’s Autopilot “work unless and until they don’t,” and there will be speculation and research about their safety, he said.

Tesla defended Autopilot in the blog post, saying a vehicle equipped with the system is 3.7 times less likely to be involved in a fatal accident. U.S. statistics show one automotive fatality every 86 million miles driven by all vehicles, compared with 320 million miles in vehicles equipped with Autopilot, according to the company.

Devastating Event

“None of this changes how devastating an event like this is or how much we feel for our customer’s family and friends,” Tesla wrote, pushing back against criticism that it has lacked empathy by bringing up safety statistics to counter past scrutiny of Autopilot. “We must also care about people now and in the future whose lives may be saved if they know that Autopilot improves safety.”

Tesla has introduced driver-assistance features through Autopilot that the company continuously improves via over-the-air software updates. While the company said as of October 2016 that it was building all of its cars with hardware needed for full self-driving capability, it hasn’t said when its vehicles will clear testing and regulatory hurdles necessary to drive without human involvement.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board sent investigators to look into the crash. The agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also are examining a Jan. 22 collision in Los Angeles involving a Tesla Model S using Autopilot and a fire truck parked on the freeway.

NTSB Findings

The NTSB concluded in September that Autopilot’s design was a contributing factor in the 2016 fatal crash in Florida involving a Model S driver who’d been using the system and collided with a semi-trailer truck. The agency criticized Autopilot for giving “far too much leeway to the driver to divert his attention to something other than driving.”

In the wake of that crash, Tesla updated Autopilot to stop allowing drivers to ignore repeated warnings to keep their hands on the wheel.

While the NTSB also criticized partially autonomous-driving systems that only monitor steering wheel movement and don’t measure whether drivers are looking at the road, Tesla hasn’t adopted or enabled scanners that can track whether drivers’ eyes are looking ahead toward the road.

April 3, 2018

Tesla Asks for Model 3 Factory Volunteers to Prove Haters Wrong ⁰

by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: Automotive, Bonds, business, Credit Rating, Doug Field, Elon Reeve Musk, Engineering, hyperdrive, MOODY'S CORP, New York, technology, TESLA INC, US Dollar Spot

Some Model S and X workers may switch to Model 3 line Friday
Reaching goal would be ‘incredible victory,’ executive says

Tesla Inc. exhorted its factory workers to prove wrong the “haters” betting against the company and is letting a small number of volunteers join the effort to ramp up output of the crucial Model 3 line.

In a pair of internal memos last week, the heads of engineering and production spelled out measures to free up workers for the Model 3 line and challenged them to reach production goals. Doug Field, the engineering chief, told staff that if they can exceed 300 Model 3s a day, it would be an “incredible victory” at a time when short-sellers and critics are increasingly doubting the company’s ability to fulfill CEO Elon Musk’s vision of building a mass-production electric-vehicle manufacturer.

“I find that personally insulting, and you should too,” Field wrote in the March 23 email. “Let’s make them regret ever betting against us. You will prove a bunch of haters wrong.”

Tesla has been routed this month as analysts and investors have questioned the company’s ability to mass-manufacture the sedan it spent billions of dollars on to quickly expand sales. Bottlenecks at Tesla’s battery factory and assembly plant have undermined that effort, limiting the return on that investment and arousing concern that the company may need to raise more cash.

Shares fell 22 percent this month in New York, the biggest one-month drop since the year it went public. The stock rose 3.2 percent Thursday to close at $266.13. The stock then fell in after-market trading after the carmaker said it would voluntarily recall all Model S cars built before April 2016 to retrofit a power-steering component.

Tesla’s bonds maturing in 2025 traded at 87.25 cents on the dollar, down more than 1 cent, according to Trace data compiled by Bloomberg.

Tesla will suspend Model S and Model X production Thursday and Friday because it’s ahead of target on building those this quarter, Peter Hochholdinger, vice president of production, wrote to employees in a March 21 email obtained by Bloomberg News. An unspecified “limited number” of workers who build those vehicles will have the option to work on the Model 3 line on those two days and Saturday, he said.

A Tesla spokesperson said Thursday that the planned shutdown of the Model S and Model X production line is now occurring only on Friday, not both days, and said that the pause is unrelated to Model 3 production targets.

At the time of Field’s email, Tesla was making more than 200 Model 3 sedans a day on every line, he wrote. Field urged workers to quickly break through the 300-cars-a-day barrier and keep going, while keeping quality standards high. Some Model 3 reviewers have criticized inconsistent body panel gaps and glitches with the 15-inch touch screen that controls many of the car’s features.

“The world is watching us very closely, to understand one thing: How many Model 3’s can Tesla build in a week?” Field wrote. “This is a critical moment in Tesla’s history, and there are a number of reasons it’s so important. You should pick the one that hits you in the gut and makes you want to win.”

In addition to the Model 3 issues, Tesla has been working with regulators to investigate a fatal crash involving a Model X last week that prompted the company to defend the record of its driver-assistance system Autopilot. Moody’s Investors Service also downgraded Tesla’s credit rating further into junk on Tuesday.

Tesla Loses Market Cap Crown

GM is once again the most valuable U.S. automaker, amid Tesla's slide in March

Source: Bloomberg

During the temporary shutdown of Model S and Model X production, Hochholdinger said workers who don’t move to the Model 3 line will have to take unpaid time off or can use paid vacation days. His email didn’t specify what the company’s Model S and Model X target was for the quarter.

Estimate Tesla Model 3 Production With Bloomberg’s VIN-Tracker Tool

If Tesla reaches its weekly Model 3 production target, employees will have doubled the size of the company as measured by cars shipped, and output of that vehicle will exceed Model S and Model X combined, Field wrote. He said Model 3 will outsell the battery-electric Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, Audi E-Tron and Chevrolet Bolt and Volt combined.

“We set high goals at Tesla, but I know we can do this,” Field wrote. “If we keep climbing from 300 through the end of the week, it will be an incredible victory. Your friends and family will hear about it in the news.”

March 29, 2018

Human Driver Could Have Avoided Fatal Uber Crash, Experts Say ⁰

by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: Arizona, Automotive, Autonomous Vehicle, business, hyperdrive, law, MORGAN STANLEY, National Transportation Safety Board, Software, Sport Utility Vehicles, technology, UBER TECHNOLOGIES INC, WEXCO INTERNATIONAL CORP

Human driver may have avoided impact: forensic crash analysts
Self-driving sensors should have detected victim, experts say

The pedestrian killed Sunday by a self-driving Uber Technologies Inc. SUV had crossed at least one open lane of road before being hit, according to a video of the crash that raises new questions about autonomous-vehicle technology.

Forensic crash analysts who reviewed the video said a human driver could have responded more quickly to the situation, potentially saving the life of the victim, 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. Other experts said Uber’s self-driving sensors should have detected the pedestrian as she walked a bicycle across the open road at 10 p.m., despite the dark conditions.

Herzberg’s death is the first major test of a nascent autonomous vehicle industry that has presented the technology as safer than humans who often get distracted while driving. For human driving in the U.S., there’s roughly one death every 86 million miles, while autonomous vehicles have driven no more than 15 to 20 million miles in the country so far, according to Morgan Stanley analysts.

"As an ever greater number of autonomous vehicles drive an ever greater number of miles, investors must contemplate a legal and ethical landscape that may be difficult to predict," the analysts wrote in a research note following the Sunday collision. "The stock market is likely too aggressive on the pace of adoption."

Zachary Moore, a senior forensic engineer at Wexco International Corp. who has reconstructed vehicle accidents and other incidents for more than a decade, analyzed the video footage and concluded that a typical driver on a dry asphalt road would have perceived, reacted, and activated their brakes in time to stop about eight feet short of Herzberg.

Other experts questioned the technology. The Uber SUV’s "lidar and radar absolutely should have detected her and classified her as something other than a stationary object," Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies self-driving cars, wrote in an email.

Smith said the video doesn’t fully explain the incident but "strongly suggests a failure by Uber’s automated driving system and a lack of due care by Uber’s driver (as well as by the victim)."

The video shows the vehicle driving for about four seconds before ending just as Herzberg is about to be hit by the SUV’s front, right bumper. The woman can be seen taking several steps while visible and appeared to be moving at a normal walking pace as she’s crossing the road outside of a crosswalk and does not look up at the SUV. Police have said the car didn’t slow or swerve to avoid the impact. She later died at a hospital.

Earlier: Picking Out the Pedestrian May Have Foiled Uber’s Robot Ride

"Uber has to explain what happened," said Mike Ramsey, an analyst at researcher Gartner Inc. who focuses on autonomous driving technologies. "There’s only two possibilities: the sensors failed to detect her, or the decision-making software decided that this was not something to stop for."

Uber’s self-driving system includes radar, cameras and lidar, which uses lasers to detect objects. The system is designed to provide a 360-degree virtual view of the environment surrounding the car. Ramsey said it is "mystifying" why the vehicle didn’t react given that lidar systems like the one used on Uber’s SUV have a detection range of at least 100 meters and work better at night than during the daytime.

“The video is disturbing and heartbreaking to watch, and our thoughts continue to be with Elaine’s loved ones,” Uber said in an emailed statement after the video’s release. “Our cars remain grounded, and we’re assisting local, state and federal authorities in any way we can.” The company is cooperating with the investigations. It declined to comment further on Thursday.

Herzberg becomes visible in the car’s headlights as she pushes a bicycle across the road at least two seconds before the impact.

"This is similar to the average reaction time for a driver. That means that, if the video correctly reflects visible conditions, an alert driver may have at least attempted to swerve or brake," Smith said.

The comments contrast with those made by the Tempe police chief, who told multiple media outlets that the pedestrian moved suddenly in front of the car and the crash didn’t seem preventable after reviewing footage of the collision.

"It’s very clear it would have been difficult to avoid this collision in any kind of mode,” Sylvia Moir, the police chief in Tempe, Arizona, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Moore, the forensic engineer at Wexco, said dashcam videos tend to understate what humans drivers can see. While the pedestrian appears from the shadows in the video, a human driver may have had a better view if they’d been watching, he said.

Sean Alexander, of Crash Analysis & Reconstruction LLC, concurred. "Video makes everything in the light pattern brighter and everything out of the beam darker. A human eye sees it much clearer," he said.

Alexander also agreed with Moore’s analysis that a human driver could have avoided hitting Herzberg. "During the time the vehicle should have been braking, the pedestrian would have had additional time and would have cleared without the vehicle actually having to stop," Alexander said.

Tempe police released a statement Tuesday saying that "fault has not been determined in this case" and that a decision on criminal charges would be left to county prosecutors once the investigation is complete.

The video also included footage of the Uber backup driver who monitors the vehicle’s operation from behind the wheel while the computers drive. Out of approximately 13 seconds of that recording, the driver was looking down and away from the road for about 10 seconds. The driver looked up about a second before the recording ends and gasped upon seeing the impending collision.

"Even if the safety driver had been totally paying attention, there’s an awkwardness with the machine if you’re anticipating the machine is going to be able to handle a situation," Ramsey said. "You don’t know when you should jump in."

While it’s too early to say why the car hit the woman, the video doesn’t show the crash was unavoidable, said Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington who specializes in robotics and artificial intelligence.

“The idea that the video absolves Uber is essentially incorrect,” Calo said.

The important question for investigators won’t be whether the woman was visible in the low-definition video, he said. It will be what the car’s sophisticated sensors picked up and how the software interpreted that data.

“Even if the cameras did not perceive her in time, why didn’t the lidar see her and why didn’t the software predict that she would continue on the path she was on?” Calo said.

The video has been obtained by the National Transportation Safety Board and will be examined as part of its probe. The safety board has increasingly used video in its investigations and has a lab in Washington where it examines various recording devices to tease out useful forensic data.

It’s important not to read too much into the video without additional context on how the self-driving system was functioning and the conditions on the road, said Deborah Hersman, president of the National Safety Council.

“Seeing a few seconds of video raises more questions than answers,” said Hersman, who also served as chairman of the NTSB. “We have very little information about the performance of the technology and that needs to be developed in a transparent fashion and shared broadly so everyone can learn from this tragic event.”

Uber said on Monday that it was pausing tests of all its self-driving vehicles on public roads in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Toronto and the greater Phoenix area. In Boston, self-driving startup NuTonomy Inc. halted its tests after city officials requested a pause following the Arizona crash.

March 26, 2018

Uber Autonomous Accident Video Shows Car Just Before Collision ⁰

by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: Americas, Arizona, Automotive, Autonomous Vehicle, business, hyperdrive, infrastructure, National Transportation Safety Board, Ride Sharing, technology, transportation, UBER TECHNOLOGIES INC, United States

Video of the fatal crash involving a self-driving Uber car shows the critical moments just before the vehicle makes contact with a pedestrian walking her bike across a dimly lit road. The release from Tempe, Arizona, police provides a startling piece of evidence in a case that could shape laws and public perceptions around driverless vehicles.

In the video, a woman carries her bike into the middle of a dark street. The vehicle, a Volvo from Uber Technologies Inc. operated in autonomous mode, doesn’t appear to slow down. The video freezes as the car is about to collide with the woman, a 49-year-old named Elaine Herzberg.

Tempe Police Vehicular Crimes Unit is actively investigating
the details of this incident that occurred on March 18th. We will provide updated information regarding the investigation once it is available. pic.twitter.com/2dVP72TziQ

— Tempe Police (@TempePolice) March 21, 2018

The video also shows the view from the inside the vehicle. Uber’s safety driver, Rafael Vasquez, appears to look down at something off-camera in the moments before the collision. Police said they’re reviewing this detail as part of the investigation.

“The video is disturbing and heartbreaking to watch, and our thoughts continue to be with Elaine’s loved ones,” Uber said in an emailed statement. “Our cars remain grounded, and we’re assisting local, state and federal authorities in any way we can.”

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board arrived in Tempe this week to collect evidence on the fatal incident. Tempe police are also investigating and plan to submit the case to the county attorney’s office, which will determine if anyone was at fault.

March 26, 2018

Uber Halts Autonomous Car Tests After Fatal Crash in Arizona ⁰

by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: ALPHABET INC-CL A, Arizona, auto industry, Automotive, Autonomous Vehicle, GENERAL MOTORS CO, hyperdrive, NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAF, National Transportation Safety Board, Phoenix, technology, UBER TECHNOLOGIES INC

First known pedestrian death involving a self-driving vehicle
Incident may raise questions about safety of technology

Uber Technologies Inc. halted autonomous vehicle tests after one of its cars struck and killed a woman in Tempe, Arizona, in what is likely the first pedestrian fatality involving the technology.

The 49-year-old woman, Elaine Herzberg, was crossing the road outside of a crosswalk when the Uber vehicle operating in autonomous mode under the supervision of a human safety driver struck her, according to the Tempe Police Department.

After the incident, which happened at 10 p.m. local time on Sunday, she was transferred to a nearby hospital, where she died from her injuries. "Uber is assisting and this is still an active investigation," Liliana Duran, a Tempe police spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement.

Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona. We’re thinking of the victim’s family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened. https://t.co/cwTCVJjEuz

— dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) March 19, 2018

Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We’re fully cooperating with @TempePolice and local authorities as they investigate this incident.

— Uber Comms (@Uber_Comms) March 19, 2018

Uber said on Monday that it was pausing tests of all its self-driving vehicles on public roads in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Toronto and the greater Phoenix area. “Our hearts go out to the victim’s family," a company spokeswoman said in a statement. "We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident."

Companies including Alphabet Inc., General Motors Co., Uber and Baidu Inc. are investing billions of dollars to develop autonomous-vehicle technology because it has the potential to transform the auto industry, transportation in general and the way cities work. One analyst has estimated Alphabet’s Waymo unit is worth at least $70 billion. The fatality in Tempe could slow testing, delay commercialization and undermine such optimism.

Testing has expanded to complex urban areas as states like Arizona and Texas take a light-touch regulatory approach and companies race to be first to commercialize the technology. That’s helped improved the systems, but also increased the chance of a pedestrian death. Experts have long worried about the impact deadly crashes could have on the nascent industry.

"We’re within the phase of autonomous vehicles where we’re still learning how good they are. Whenever you release a new technology there’s a whole bunch of unanticipated situations," said Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University’s business school. "Despite the fact that humans are also prone to error, we have as a society many decades of understanding of those errors."

The National Transportation Safety Board is opening an investigation into the death and is sending a small team of investigators to Tempe, about 10 miles east of Phoenix. The Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dispatched a special crash investigation team.

The NTSB opens relatively few highway accident probes each year, but has been closely following incidents involving autonomous or partially autonomous vehicles. Last year, it partially faulted Tesla Inc.’s Autopilot system for a fatal crash in Florida in 2016.

The NTSB’s cautionary tone on the emergence of self-driving technology contrasted with the Department of Transportation, which revised its policy on self-driving vehicles last year in an attempt to remove obstacles to the testing of such vehicles.

"As always we want the facts, but based on what is being reported this is exactly what we have been concerned about and what could happen if you test self-driving vehicles on city streets," said Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington-based advocacy group. "It will set consumer confidence in the technology back years if not decades. We need to slow down."

The Phoenix area is a fertile ground for experiments in the technology. Uber has been testing there with safety drivers behind the wheel. Late last year, Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, which has tested in the Phoenix area for years, began removing the safety drivers to transport a small number of residents. (Waymo staff sit in the back seat.) General Motors Co. is also testing in the Phoenix area. A GM spokesman declined to comment, and a representative from Waymo didn’t return multiple requests for comment.

For more on Uber, check out the podcast:

"Public safety is our top priority, and we are in communication with law enforcement, which is investigating the accident and gathering facts, as well as Uber," a spokesman for Arizona Governor Doug Ducey said.

Uber has had incidents in the past. Last year, Uber suspended its self-driving car program after one of its autonomous vehicles was involved in a high-impact crash in Tempe. The Uber vehicle was not responsible for the incident, and there were no injuries, the police said at the time.

"Tempe has been supportive of autonomous vehicle testing because of the innovation and promise the technology may offer," Tempe Mayor Mark Mitchell said in a statement on Monday. "Testing must occur safely. All indications we have had in the past show that traffic laws are being obeyed by the companies testing here. Our city leadership and Tempe Police will pursue any and all answers to what happened in order to ensure safety moving forward."

February 24, 2018

New Jersey Transits Hidden Danger: Bad Brakes, Bare Wires, Rotten Parts ⁰

by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: Automotive, business, Employment, Hudson River, Manhattan, National Transportation Safety Board, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, politics, Software, U.S. Republicans

Federal inspectors found scores of New Jersey Transit train cars riddled with fire risks, faulty brakes and electrical hazards as they scrutinized the troubled railroad that brings 95,000 workers to Manhattan daily.

One engine was so defective it was declared unsafe, documents obtained under New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act show. In some cases, NJ Transit’s own checks failed to identify faults brought to light a day or two later by Federal Railroad Administration officials. One was a locomotive with seized air valves and misaligned foundation gear that compromised the braking system’s very core. Another had broken equipment that provides traction on slippery tracks.

While federal regulators regularly inspect railroads, safety failures at NJ Transit led them to conduct a deeper audit in 2016. Though the agency appears to have mostly resolved its findings, the inspectors last year tested NJ Transit equipment with unprecedented frequency, uncovering persistent defects that speak to years of budget starvation and routine risks for more than 300,000 daily riders.

Incurious Inspections

“How do you claim it’s OK for service?" said Richard Beall, a retired railroad engineer and Miami-based train-accident consultant. “It needs to be gone over with a fine-tooth comb every day. If the FRA can find a missing brake clip, I can find a missing clip, too.”

The 400 pages of reports validate riders’ social-media gripes about screeching wheels and rickety suspensions. Passengers have little ability to assess their personal safety. Neither the FRA nor NJ Transit makes the findings readily accessible; NJ Transit took more than five months to fulfill Bloomberg’s public-records request.

In 2017, eight recorders were in use beyond their mandated inspection deadlines, according to the FRA.

“If that lead locomotive is missing its event recorder, now you’re missing the most vital stuff on the train — bells, headlights on,” Beall said. “It’s fine to have another recorder on the train, but it’s not duplicative.”

Nancy Snyder, an NJ Transit spokeswoman, said all recorders now are inspected daily.

Hand in Hand

Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, the acting New Jersey transportation commissioner and NJ Transit chairwoman, said agency and federal regulators are cooperating closely.

“They’re our partner in this, not our punisher,” she said at a news conference in Trenton on Feb. 15.

NJ Transit says it’s addressed many flaws identified by inspectors. The resting engineer in Hoboken wasn’t violating rules because he was on break, according to Snyder. Still, the episode was raised as a cause for concern by the railroad administration, which recommended a fine because all the train’s brakes weren’t applied.

NJ Transit appears to have mostly tackled worn track parts, misaligned switches and unsecured trains discovered in 2016 and 2015, when inspectors recommended fines totaling at least $262,000. In Hoboken, Dover and Little Falls, inspectors in June 2017 found NJ Transit following rules on switches, personal protective equipment, warning bells and hand brakes, problem areas in the past.

Fire Hazards

Staff “has exceeded my expectations in their drive” to fine-tune a safety program in Hoboken, Inspector Douglas E. Johnson wrote on June 28.

In the first nine months of 2017, inspectors documented 140 hazards just on train floors or passageways. Unlocked high-voltage electrical panels were widespread, and 18 contained ticket collectors’ paper seat checks — some touching bare wires. New Jersey Transit conducted an internal investigation, though it wasn’t able to identify who was responsible. Inspectors recommended a fine.

“Detailed instructions have been given to crews and the issue has been resolved,” Snyder said. No more seat checks have been found stashed in the panels, she said.

In a Morrisville, Pennsylvania, yard on March 13, Locomotive 6044 was “not in proper condition and safe to operate,” with complete air-brake reservoir failure. An inspector that day documented 24 defects on 14 vehicles, including missing exit signs and emergency glow-in-the-dark evacuation routes, wheel disc pads that lacked retaining clips and seized air-brake cocks.

Snyder wrote in an email that “all these components/parts are routinely replaced as they get damaged from wear and tear.”

Neglected Engines

Elsewhere, electrical grounding was non-existent on 23 cars, and 60 had suspension problems. Nine locomotives were in use beyond their mandated inspection dates. Eleven had either reduced or no capacity to spread slip-reducing grit on rails.

Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, who took office Jan. 16, has pledged to turn around a model operation that he said became “a national disgrace.” Under his predecessor, two-term Republican Chris Christie, NJ Transit’s annual state subsidy was cut as much as 90 percent, and $3.44 billion of its capital budget was diverted to cover daily expenses.

NJ Transit's Shaky Subsidy

Christie administration cut transit aid by 90 percent.

Source: New Jersey budgets

“If you use capital funds for day-to-day operations, it’s a snowball-type of effect, and it will be severe,” said Robert Halstead, a Syracuse, New York, accident analyst who investigated the Hoboken crash. “You’ve got to spend money or the tougher it gets to ever get back on top. Some railroads never do.”

Pressing Deadline

NJ Transit, a driver of the state’s employment and high property values, faces tremendous pressure to regain efficiency.

Despite a December 2018 federal deadline to install emergency-braking technology, software bugs led the agency to suspend installations on 400 locomotives. The sole rail link to Manhattan, a century-old Amtrak tunnel beneath the Hudson River, is crumbling and President Donald Trump has balked at a federal cost-share to construct a second crossing.

NJ Transit has the nation’s second-highest number of train breakdowns, and operates a fleet that includes 50-year-old locomotives and more than 300 passenger cars built in the 1970s and 1980s. In 2017, inspectors repeatedly cited missing or broken latches that allowed heavy cabinet doors to swing free. One car’s bathroom door was secured with duct tape.

“It is taking us longer to get parts,” Robert Lavell, the NJ Transit rail operations director who’s retiring in March, told lawmakers last month. In earlier testimony before that committee, which is investigating the railroad’s finances and slipping service, NJ Transit management said it was short-staffed throughout the system.

On Feb. 15, a week after Bloomberg obtained the inspection reports, Murphy told reporters that NJ Transit is meeting with suppliers to get more inventory and hiring technicians to step up repairs and inspections.

“The thousands of rank-and-file workers who show up every day at NJ Transit, some of whom are with us today, are not to blame,” Murphy said at the Trenton rail station. “In many ways they are the ones who have kept this system running and safe in the absence of real leadership and vision.”

January 26, 2018

Japans Exports Grow 9% in December to Close Out Strong Year

by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: Automotive, business, Capital Investment, china, Currency, Exports, Hiroaki Muto, Imports, Japan, Japanese Yen Spot, Trade Balance

Japan closed out its best year for exports since the financial crisis with solid growth again in December, as the global economic recovery looks set to continue well into 2018.

Key Takeaways

Japan’s exports recovered throughout 2017 thanks to solid global demand and a weaker currency. Confidence among large and small manufacturers is on the rise, and large firms plan to increase their capital investment in the first quarter. But increasing domestic demand remains key to Japan’s economic recovery becoming self-sustaining. Better retail sales and household spending data have offered signs for optimism, and continued growth in imports would offer another indication that demand is rising.

Economist Takeaways

"What’s important is how much exports have risen on a volume basis, and we’re not seeing any signs of a slowdown at the moment," said Hiroaki Muto, chief economist at Tokai Tokyo Research Center.
"The trade balance will keep shrinking as energy import costs rise, but we’ve seen this before, and it’s nothing to be too worried about," Muto said.
"I expect exports will continue to be robust for at least the first half of this year and will remain a driver of Japan’s recovery," said Masaki Kuwahara, senior economist at Nomura Securities Co., citing solid demand for semiconductors, cars and general machinery.

Other Details

Japan’s adjusted trade balance showed surplus of 86.8 billion yen (forecast 276.7 billion yen).
Exports to China, Japan’s largest trading partner, rose 15.8 percent in December from a year earlier to a monthly record.
Exports to China rose 20.5 percent in 2017, to a record 14.89 trillion yen.
Shipments to the U.S. increased 3 percent in December.
Shipments to the EU rose 11.4 percent in December.

Highlights

The value of exports rose 9.3 percent in December from a year earlier (forecast +10 percent).
Exports for the full year 2017 grew 11.8 percent, the most since 2010, to the highest level since 2008.
Imports increased 14.9 percent in December (forecast +12.4 percent).
The December trade surplus was 359 billion yen ($3.3 billion) versus a forecast 535 billion yen.
Export volumes rose 4.5 percent in December, and 5.2 percent in 2017.

December 24, 2017

Hauling a Christmas Tree in a Ferrari Is Totally Normal

by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: Automotive, business, Christmas, infrastructure, Luxury, New York City, pursuits, sports, transportation

Don’t ever let anyone tell you the GTC4Lusso isn’t a “real” Ferrari.

The Ferrari GTC4Lusso is a special car.

The four-seat hatchback combines sophisticated all-wheel-drive systems with spacious seating for four, plus a large trunk and 680-horsepower performance on a par with anything from Lamborghini and McLaren. This odd-ball hatchback can do zero to 62 mph in 3.4 seconds; top speed is 208 mph. It’s the type of car where you look down and realize you’ve been doing 115 mph the past five miles without knowing it. (Yes, that happened.)

I wrote about it when it first came out last year (as the follow-up to the famous FF), and when Ferrari introduced the 2018 turbocharged version.

I also took it two hours out of New York City to get a Christmas tree. Really.

Because why not? Compared with many other cars that cost the nearly $300,000 (or more), it’ll take to buy a GTC4Lusso, this is a shockingly drivable contraption.

That elaborate traction and stability apparatus is called “thrust-vectoring” and smooths out the car’s response to unstable conditions such as snow and ice. Better yet, it also has the advantage of something very simple, something immensely helpful when you’re lugging around Christmas trees on upstate farms: ride height. It’s higher off the ground than a standard sports car which makes it far less finicky over city pot holes and torn-up streets.

Inside feels like a very luxurious cockpit. Which makes sense—after all, the word “Lusso” means luxury in Italian.

The front passenger seat even has a computerized and interactive LED screen that creates a second cockpit all its own. Ferrari calls the new invention a “dual cockpit” configuration—it’s divided by a central console where all the car's comfort and entertainment controls are shared between both the driver and passenger.

It makes sense. Nice things are meant to be shared, right?

Click here to watch the video.

September 15, 2017

Samsung launches $300M autonomous driving fund, puts $90M into TTTech

by MeDaryl • Cars • Tags: Audi, Automotive, autonomous cars, cars, harman, Samsung, self-driving cars, tttech

Not to be outpaced in the connected car market by other tech giants, today the world’s largest smartphone maker, Samsung, announced two major pieces of news to take its automotive strategy up a gear. It has launched the Samsung Automotive Innovation Fund, a $300 million fund to back startups and other interesting bets in the automotive market. And as a first investment out of that fund, Samsung has put €75 million (nearly $90 million) into TTTech, an Austria-based developer of platforms and safety software for connected cars, alongside a corresponding investment from Audi.

In addition to this, Samsung also announced a strategic initiative to develop connected-car technology with Harman, the auto and audio product maker that it acquired last November for $8 billion.

“During this period of extraordinary transformation in the automotive industry, we are excited to play a leadership role in supporting and shaping the future of smarter, more connected vehicles,” said Young Sohn, President and Chief Strategy Officer of Samsung Electronics and Chairman of the Board of HARMAN, in a statement. “The Autonomous/ADAS Strategic Business Unit and automotive fund reflect the company’s commitment to the values of open innovation and collaboration. In partnership with OEMs and startups, we will make the driver and passenger experience safer, more convenient, and more enjoyable.”

While giants like GM, Volkswagen and Toyota (among others) have traditionally dominated the automotive industry, the next wave of innovations that will shape how we (and other things) get from A to B is fast coming around the bend. This leaves everything to play for, as car ownership, in-car systems, and how cars will be operated are all getting disrupted and updated through technology.

That’s driving a large wave of investment. Car companies like GM, Volkswagen, Daimler and many others are putting billions of dollars towards backing a range of startups that are building technology and services for that brave new automotive future (a small handful of examples: GM investing $1 billion in Lyft, Volkswagen investing $180 million in smart car tech maker Mobvoi, and Ford pumping $1 billion into Argo AI for self-driving tech). Car makers are also investing internally in their own R&D to complement that.

Then there are the tech companies: Apple, Google and Baidu are also making large bets here, building autonomous cars of their own and also investing in and buying up talent to enhance those strategies (not without hiccups, of course).

Samsung is among those who are hoping to be at the forefront of these developments, looking at the car as the latest “hardware” that it can build and help control.

At the end of August, the company received a permit to run self-driving car tests in California, alongside an earlier permit that it got in Korea, and announcements like today’s will make sure that they will have not just their own tech, but that of partners, to put into those vehicles.

This is not Samsung’s first move to invest in automotive tech. Previous investments have included automated driving startups AImotive, Renovo; Quanergy, TetraVue, and Oculii for sensors; Autotalks and Valens for connectivity; and Graphcore for high-performance computing, the company noted.

It doesn’t look like there has been a full round amount disclosed for Samsung’s investment TTTech but we are trying to find out. Prior to today, the startup had raised around $54 million, with backers including Audi, General Electric and Infineon — another sign of the players that are hoping to have a seat at the table (or behind the wheel, if we’re looking for a relevant metaphor) in the next generation of automotive solutions.

TTTech works on road, air and aerospace systems — its systems are used in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and NASA’s Orion — but it said that Samsung’s investment will be used specifically to augment the work it has been doing with Audi on self-driving car systems for the Volkswagen Group (which owns Audi). This is about getting Samsung chips and other equipment into cars, and the companies are already showing off how the results will look:

TTTech specialises across a range of services like “functional safety, deterministic networking, real-time systems, and complex software integration” for autonomous and other automated systems, and its safety tech powers the piloting program on the Audi 8.

“Automotive advances like autonomous controls and advanced driver assistance systems will have a profound impact on society—from transforming urban spaces to bringing mobility to aging populations. At Samsung, we see it as our responsibility to invest in the technologies that will revolutionize the way we live, work, and connect with one another,” said Samsung’s Sohn. “TTTech has demonstrated a remarkable ability to innovate and build world-class technologies and platforms. This is a seminal moment for Samsung and our Automotive Innovation Fund, and we look forward to working with leading OEMs like Audi and the entire TTTech team to set a new standard for automotive-safety technology.”

“There is already a high demand for ADAS solutions, and that demand is rapidly growing with the advancements in connected cars and autonomous driving,” said Dinesh Paliwal, President and CEO of HARMAN, in a statement. “This strategic business unit demonstrates Samsung’s and HARMAN’s commitment to answer that call – to be the definitive partner for seamless and integrated technologies. It also reflects the incredible power that Samsung and HARMAN, as a collective force, will bring to our OEM customers as we combine Samsung’s scale and resources with HARMAN’s deep automotive experience and networks. Together, we are driving the future of automotive.”

HARMAN has named John Absmeier Senior Vice President of the unit, alongside his current position as VP of smart machines.