Sending Our Self-Driving Cars on an Extended Playdate
tl;dr Laws are going to be coming down the pipeline soon that will force the zillion self-driving car manufacturers to build cars that talk to each other. Expect these manufacturers to self-organize to influence legislation and self-govern as much as possible.
Back in December 2016 Apple confirmed that it was throwing its hat into the self-driving car ring and this week Bloomberg captured one of those cars in the wild. Apple is, of course, joining the chorus of players in this space including but not limited to [:deep breath:]… Tesla, Alphabet/Waymo (feels weird that neither of those words is actually “Google”), Baidu, Bosch, Faraday Future, LeEco, Uber, Toyota, BMW, Volvo, Nissan, Ford, GM, Daimler, Audi, Honda, Hyundai, aaaaaand PSA Groupe. They’re not all working on building cars, per say, but they’re all looking to be at the front of the pack to have their technology dominate the autonomous vehicle space.
Yea, but… does it play well with others?
The crowding of this space does bring up an interesting question though, and that is one of interoperability. Right now, it seems to be the case that these cars use a whole lot of sensors to… sense the world around them, which gives them the ability to drive alongside not only other autonomous vehicles but also those ancient human-driven vehicles as well. The really interesting stuff though, is when all of the cars on the road are autonomous and can talk to each other. It’s that inter-vehicle communication that will enable things like traffic patterns to move more quickly or to, say, enable cars to know if it is safe to pass on a two-lane highway curving around a corner when oncoming cars may be out of sight.
Interoperability can be a difficult thing to achieve when any given company isn’t necessarily incentivized to play nicely with others (see: the 30-pin connector for earlier Apple products, which means that you have no other options but to buy Apple’s 30-pin connector, but it also means that the new Apple device you buy can also use that 30-pin connector… why buy not Apple and purchase another not-30-pin connector when you can just buy Apple?).
Ok, but… how do I make it play well with others?
Usually it comes only after one of two things happens:
- The government says, “enough is enough, tech children. Play nicely together, or we’re going to make laws that force you to play nicely together.” And voila, now your phones in Europe all use the same micro USB charger.
- A consortium of interested parties all get together and say “you know what, having 12 different standards on 12 different systems actually slows all of us down, so let’s agree on something on our own, before the government agrees on it for us.” And voila, your USB port is born.
To the government’s great credit, I’m surprisingly impressed with how on top of their game the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) under the Department of Transportation has been about pushing for standards that will enable all of these self-driving car efforts to work together. As part of its efforts around vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) standards, in December 2016 it gave formal notice of a proposal to establish new requirements for how self-driving vehicles will talk to each other. The organization will also be giving guidance on vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) guidelines for how vehicles will talk to the roads and stop lights and traffic command centers themselves. Way to be on your game, NHTSA!
What’s next?
These aren’t legal requirements yet, but it is definitely heading that way. As is the case with most tech regulation, you can bet that the Apples, Ubers, and Fords of the world will be as involved in this process as they possibly can be. We’re also going to start seeing more self-association into trade groups that will create self-governing standards, lest the government come in and tell these companies how to do things in a way that is potentially sub-optimal for them and society. The Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets is only made up of five of these industry players right now, but expect its numbers to grow a lot bigger very soon.
