I was had planned to do a long post on self-driving cars a quite long time. I was planning to do one this spring, but I might not do that, because it seems that predictions that self-driving cars would be here in 2020 were far too rosy. Five years ago, several companies including Nissan and Toyota promised self-driving cars in 2020. So it may be wise to take any new forecasts with a grain of salt. Hare is a worth to check out article of the current status of self-driving cars:
Surprise! 2020 Is Not the Year for Self-Driving Cars
https://spectrum.ieee.org/transportation/self-driving/surprise-2020-is-not-the-year-for-selfdriving-cars
In March, because of the coronavirus, self-driving car companies, including Argo, Aurora, Cruise, Pony, and Waymo, suspended vehicle testing and operations that involved a human driver. Around the same time, Waymo and Ford released open data sets of information collected during autonomous-vehicle tests and challenged developers to use them to come up with faster and smarter self-driving algorithms.
It seems that the self-driving car industry still hopes to make meaningful progress on autonomous vehicles (AVs) this year, but the industry is slowed by the pandemic and facing a set of very hard problems that have gotten no easier to solve over the years.
1,685 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
EU kieltää diesel- ja bensiiniautot – tätä mieltä meppiehdokkaat ovat
IS:n Eurovaalikoneesta muun muassa selviää, mitä mieltä meppiehdokkaat ovat polttomoottoriautojen kieltämisestä EU:ssa.
https://www.is.fi/politiikka/art-2000010412042.html
UUSIEN bensiini- ja diesel-autojen myynti EU:ssa päättyy 2035. Onko se liian aikaisin?
EU:n polttomoottorikiellon on ollut tarkoitus astua voimaan vuodesta 2035 alkaen. Vanhoilla diesel- ja bensiiniautoilla saisi ajaa vielä lain voimaantulon jälkeenkin, mutta uusia polttomoottoriautoja ei enää myytäisi.
Yllättävää ei ehkä ole, että vihreiden ehdokkaat pitävät aikataulua hyvänä ja ovat täysin eri mieltä, että polttomoottorikielto tulisi liian aikaisin.
– Kielto on silti sinänsä perusteltu signaali valmistajille, ja pitäisi sellaisena ymmärtää. Kenenkään autoa ei tulla pihalta pois hakemaan, ja uudet bensiini- ja diesel-autot ovat näillä näkymin marginaalinen tuote vuonna 2035 joka tapauksessa, Atte Harjanne (vihr) puolusteli vastaustaan.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16196-voiko-tutka-olla-lidaria-parempi
Ruotsalainen, tarkemmin Göteborgista kotoisin oleva Sensrad on kehittänyt tutkan, jota se kehuu valotutkaa eli lidaria paremmaksi ajoneuvokäytössä. Laite on nimeltään Hugin D1, ja sen kuoren alla ruotsalainen tutka- ja antenniosaaminen on yhdistetty israelilaisiin siruihin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16206-robottibussi-syoettaeae-tamperelaisia-ratikkaan
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16205-robottiauton-turvallisuus-ei-voi-nojata-vain-dataan
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16212-tuleviin-polestar-malleihin-oululaisia-aelypaneeleja
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jessica Mathews / Fortune:
How GM is scrambling to save Cruise, which has become a liability after one of its automated vehicles hit and dragged a pedestrian 20 feet in October 2023
In a single night, self-driving startup Cruise went from sizzling startup to cautionary tale. Here’s what really happened—and how GM is scrambling to save its $10B bet
https://fortune.com/2024/05/16/inside-gm-cruise-self-driving-car-accident-san-francisco-what-really-happened/
October 2 was a quiet night on the streets of San Francisco. It was moderately cloudy, and Fleet Week activities had just begun at Sunset Library. But in the Tenderloin neighborhood, at 9:29 p.m., a pedestrian stepped out into the street, crossing Fifth and Market, and was struck by a green Nissan Sentra sedan. What happened next would ripple all the way through one of the largest corporations on earth—GM.
Because after the woman was struck the first time, “Panini”—one of the self-driving robo-taxis in Cruise’s fleet that had been out on the streets for about a year and a half—ran over her, stopped, and then dragged the woman for 20 feet as it tried to pull over.
Within seconds of the initial impact, Cruise’s control room in Scottsdale, Ariz.—where hourly agents monitored Cruise’s fleet 24 hours a day in cubicles fitted with three computer screens—was looped in. By the time a live three-second video of the incident transmitted onto the computer screens in front of Cruise’s remote assistance agents, the car had already incorrectly labeled the incident as a side collision and begun to pull over, unaware it was dragging a person beneath its wheels.
An exhaustive internal investigation reconstructed nearly every detail of the accident, but it couldn’t clear up exactly what Cruise’s remote assistance team saw that evening. One thing is certain: The incident, while not fatal, was the most serious in Cruise’s history, and it immediately thrust the robo-taxi company and its 80% owner, General Motors, into a spiral of federal scrutiny and investigations as well as public outrage and condemnation.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Rebecca Bellan / TechCrunch:
A look at Overland AI, Potential, and other startups developing off-road self-driving systems, including for military operations, underground mining, and more
VCs and the military are fueling self-driving startups that don’t need roads
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/18/vcs-and-the-military-are-fueling-self-driving-startups-that-dont-need-roads/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://autotjaliikenne.fi/autojen-tietojarjestelmien-turvaaminen/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16231-michelin-tuo-rfid-tunnisteet-autonrenkaisiin
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mercedes-Benz tinkii tavoitteestaan siirtyä täyssähköiseksi automerkiksi vuoteen 2030 mennessä. Yhtiö aikoo kehittää polttomoottori- ja sähköautoja rinnakkain pidempään kuin se alun perin suunnitteli, pitkälle 2030-luvulle.
https://www.iltalehti.fi/sahkoautot/a/c6e8a8d0-6166-4471-91f9-aa35a0ddc9c6
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/31/fisker-collapse-investigation-ev-ocean-suv-henrik-geeta/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hybridi- ja sähköautojen kysyntä räjähti
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16297-hybridi-ja-saehkoeautojen-kysyntae-raejaehti
Käytettyjä autoja myyvä Saka kertoo, että hybridiautojen myynti kasvoi tammi-toukokuussa noin 60 prosenttia. Käytettyjen täyssähköisten myynti kasvoi vielä enemmän, sillä niiden myynti lähes kaksinkertaistui.
Toimitusjohtaja Petri Poukkulan mukaan luvut osoittavat, että ostajien kiinnostus on siirtynyt voimakkaasti kohti sähköistettyjä voimalinjoja. Sakan myynnissä suosituimmat hybridimallit ovat olleet ladattavat Volvot, kuten V60 ja XC60 sekä Volkswagen Passat. Täyssähköisissä Tesla Model 3 on kysytyin ja halutuin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Read this paper “Performance Comparison of High-Speed Motors for Electric Vehicle” published in WEVJ. In this research, three motor types, PMSM, SRM, and IM, which targeted the output power of 85 kW and the maximum speed of 52,000 min−1, are designed for use with EV traction motors, and the study clarifies which the type of motor is most suitable for application in high-speed motors of EVs in terms of their mechanical and electrical characteristics.
https://bit.ly/3xp7FkN
Tomi Engdahl says:
Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge:
Waymo issues a software update to its 672 vehicles after one collided with a telephone pole in Phoenix on May 21, marking Waymo’s second recall ever
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/12/24175489/waymo-recall-telephone-poll-crash-phoenix-software-map
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kiinalaiset yllättävät: Euroopassa valmistettu sähköauto alle 20 000 eurolla
Kiinan ja EU:n välinen kinastelu autojen tulleista on johtanut siihen, että Volvo siirtää tuotantoaan Kiinasta EU:hun. Myös muut kiinalaisvalmistajat ovat tekemässä samaa.
https://www.iltalehti.fi/sahkoautot/a/06e807c9-1614-4cc1-a408-b9adb7baf988
Kiinalaiset autovalmistajat siirtävät tuotantoaan EU:hun. Times kertoo, että kiinalaisen Geelyn omistaman Volvon EX30 ja EX90 -mallien tuotanto siirretään Belgiaan. Ydinsyynä tuotannon siirtämiselle on EU:n korottamien tullimaksujen välttäminen.
– Kiinalaiset autovalmistajat tietävät, että heidän täytyy saada tuotantoaan Euroopan alueelle, jotta he herättäisivät eurooppalaisissa asiakkaissa kiinnostusta, konsulttifirma Bain & Companyn edustaja Gianluca DI Loreto kertoi Reutersille.
Volvo ei ole ainut kiinalaismerkki, joka lisää tuotantoaan Euroopassa. Myös Kiinan sähköautojättiläinen BYD kertoi viime joulukuussa avaavansa ensimmäisen Euroopan tehtaansa Unkarin Szegediin vuoden 2025 aikana.
Unkarin tuotanto keskittyy Kiinassakin edulliseen Seagull-mallin tuotantoon. Kiinassa Seagull maksaa noin 10 000 euroa.
– Seagullin eurooppalainen versio tulee maksamaan alle 20 000 euroa, BYD:n Euroopan johtaja Michael Shu julisti.
Uusia merkkejä pian myös Suomeen?
Suomessa vähemmän tunnetut kiinalaisvalmistajat Leapmotor ja Chery asettuvat myös Eurooppaan. Voikin olla, että kyseiset merkit rantautuvat pian myös Suomeen.
Chery kertoi käynnistävänsä tuotantoa entisessä Nissanin tehtaassa Espanjan Barcelonassa. Reutersin saamien sisäpiiritietojen mukaan Chery suunnittelee myös toisen tehtaan avaamista.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/16333-tekoaely-ohjaa-kilpa-autoa-paeaen-liikkeiden-perusteella
Tomi Engdahl says:
Konkurssi! Automerkin tarina päättyi eilen
Pitkään löyhässä hirressä roikkuneen autonvalmistaja Fiskerin konkurssi vahvistettin kesäkuun 17. päivänä.
https://www.iltalehti.fi/autouutiset/a/7fc51d79-e4ec-4ea3-82c6-b8d7f7178e23
Tomi Engdahl says:
Autonomous Vehicles Are Great at Driving Straight But humans still do better at turns and in the twilight
https://spectrum.ieee.org/autonomous-vehicles-great-at-straights
Tomi Engdahl says:
Have we been overthinking EV sounds? / EVs are required to emit a sound at low speeds to alert pedestrians. So far, most sounds could best be described as “flying saucer hums.” But are there better options?
https://www.theverge.com/24182348/ev-sounds-low-speed-survey-non-tonal-white-noise
Tomi Engdahl says:
$4000 Electric Car Inverter Teardown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PBREuJ2S7U
I disassembled the inverter of Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, an EV known for its low price of 500,000 yen.
00:00 Overview of Inverter
02:06 Looking Inside & Control Board Explained
04:21 Electrolytic Capacitors, Gate Drives
08:25 Inverter Board Explained
12:45 Why So Similar to Forklift Inverter?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toyota Prius Inverter Teardown!!! [Japanese amazing technology]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw3JqkI6VO4
I disassembled the third-generation Prius inverter that sold very well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Replace a Hybrid Battery in a Prius (Upgraded Battery)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAHaYXBFnJo
Tomi Engdahl says:
100 car batteries wired in parallel!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywaTX-nLm6Y
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sähköautovalmistajan osake pomppasi yhdessä yössä 50 prosenttia – Ratkaisiko Volkswagen ongelmansa rahalla?
Volkswagen teki valtavan sijoituksen yhdysvaltalaiseen sähköautovalmistajaan Rivianiin.
https://www.iltalehti.fi/sahkoautot/a/bc1536a4-87f1-44b1-94c4-e50b57170c4e
Saksalainen Volkswagen-konserni kertoi myöhään keskiviikkona sijoittavansa viisi miljardia dollaria sähköautoyhtiö Rivianiin. Samalla yhtiöt aloittavat yhteisesti johdetun yhteistyön sähköautoarkkitehtuurin ja ohjelmistojen saralla.
Ilmoitus tehtiin Yhdysvaltojen pörssien sulkeuduttua ja jälkikaupankäynnissä Rivianin osake pomppasi noin 50 prosentilla. Markkina-arvon kannalta nousu oli kuusi miljardia dollaria.
VW-yhteistyön avulla yhtiö saa riittävästi pääomaa kehittääkseen pienemmän, halvemman ja kurssin toivon mukaan kääntävän keskikokoisen R2-katumaasturin ja sen jälkeen R3-crossoverin, joista ainakin R2-mallia on tarkoitus myydä myös Euroopassa.
Diilin myötä Volkswagen saa oikeudet Rivianin teknologiaan ja ohjelmistoon. Uutistoimisto Reutersin analyytikko- ja sijoittajalähteiden mukaan tämä on VW:n kannalta merkittävää erityisesti ohjelmistopuolella, sillä yhtiöllä on ollut vaikeuksia saada softaansa kuntoon. Viimeisimpänä tämä näkyi siinä, että Porsche Macanin ja Audi Q6 e-tronin julkistukset viivästyivät.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Halpojen kiinalaisautojen aika ohi? EU iski ankarilla tullimaksuilla
Valtionyhtiö SAIC ja yhtiöt, jotka eivät tehneet yhteistyötä, saavat kaikkein rajuimman kohtelun.
https://www.iltalehti.fi/sahkoautot/a/2d2a26dd-c4fc-4442-9c57-23d3c636087b
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://makeameme.org/meme/with-the-rise-3cc892948d
https://youtu.be/mxhcQgvBD2Y?si=vC8kquRLYSka-ZjC
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sähköautojen karmeat vaikutukset asfaltille selvisivät – Tutkimus: tuplasti pahempia kuin bensiiniautot
Leedsin yliopiston julkaiseman tutkimuksen mukaan sähköautot saattavat pahentaa sikäläisten teiden korjausvelkaa.
https://www.iltalehti.fi/autouutiset/a/cb1b46e9-2062-4fb3-8b9f-741b6bdb666b
Leedsin yliopiston julkaiseman tutkimuksen mukaan sähköautot kuluttavat tiestöä hurjasti: tarkkaan ottaen ne rasittavat tieverkkoa 2,24 kertaa enemmän kuin bensiinikäyttöiset autot ja 1,95 kertaa enemmän kuin dieselautot.
Isokokoisilla, painavilla sähköautoilla vaikutus voi yliopiston tutkimuksen mukaan olla vielä hurjempi, sillä ne kuluttavat tietä jopa 2,32 kertaa bensiiniautoa enemmän. Asiasta ovat uutisoineet lukuisat brittiläiset tiedotusvälineet, mukaan luettuna The Telegraph.
Keskimääräinen painoero vertailussa sähkö- ja polttomoottoriautojen välillä oli 312 kiloa, mikä selittää suurimman osan erosta tien kulutuksessa.
Painavat ja tehokkaat sähköautot aiheuttavat tutkimuksen mukaan myös asvaltin liikkumista, mikä puolestaan johtaa pieniin murtumiin jotka saattavat sääolosuhteiden johdosta kasvaa suuremmiksi aukoiksi asvaltissa.
Pothole damage from electric cars is double that of petrol, Telegraph data show
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/26/pothole-electric-cars-damage-roads-double-petrol-telegraph/
Excessive weight could exacerbate problem on already damaged residential roads that are not designed to cope
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2024/07/09/making-ev-motors-and-breaking-up-with-rare-earth-elements/
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Build EV Motors Without Rare Earth Elements
Experimental motors use exotic materials and clever configurations
https://spectrum.ieee.org/amp/ev-motor-2668595108
The dilemma is easy to describe. Global efforts to combat climate change hinge on pivoting sharply away from fossil fuels. To do that will require electrifying transportation, primarily by shifting from vehicles with combustion engines to ones with electric drive trains. Such a massive shift will inevitably mean far greater use of electric traction motors, nearly all of which rely on magnets that contain rare earth elements, which cause substantial environmental degradation when their ores are extracted and then processed into industrially useful forms. And for automakers outside of China, there is an additional deterrent: Roughly 90 percent of processed rare earth elements now come from China, so for these companies, increasing dependence on rare earths means growing vulnerability in critical supply chains.
Against this backdrop, massive efforts are underway to design and test advanced electric-vehicle (EV) motors that do not use rare earth elements (or use relatively little of them). Government agencies, companies, and universities are working on this challenge, oftentimes in collaborative efforts, in virtually all industrialized countries. In the United States, these initiatives include long-standing efforts at the country’s national laboratories to develop permanent magnets and motor designs that do not use rare earth elements. Also, in a collaboration announced last November, General Motors and Stellantis are working with a startup company, Niron Magnetics, to develop EV motors based on Niron’s rare earth–free permanent magnet. Another automaker, Tesla, shocked observers in March of last year when a senior official declared that the company’s “next drive unit,” which would be based on a permanent magnet, would nevertheless use no “rare earth elements at all.” In Europe, a consortium called Passenger includes 20 partners from industry and academia working on rare earth–free permanent magnets for EVs.
Why rare earths make the most powerful electric motors
Rare earth elements (which people in our line of work often refer to as REEs) have unique properties that make them indispensable to many forms of modern technology. Some of these elements, such as neodymium, samarium, dysprosium, and terbium, can be combined with ferromagnetic elements such as iron and cobalt to produce crystals that are not only highly magnetic but also strongly resist demagnetization. The metric typically used to gauge these important qualities of a magnet is called the maximum energy product, measured in megagauss-oersteds (MGOe). The strongest and most commercially successful permanent magnets yet invented, neodymium iron boron, have energy products in the range of 30 to 55 MGOe.
For an electric motor based on permanent magnets, the stronger its magnets, the more efficient, compact, and lightweight the motor can be. So the highest-performing EV motors today all use neodymium iron boron magnets. Nevertheless, clever motor design can reduce the performance gap between motors based on rare earth permanent magnets and ones based on other types of magnets.
There are two basic types of electric motors: synchronous and induction. Most modern electric vehicles use a type of synchronous motor that has a rotor equipped with permanent magnets. Induction motors use only electromagnets and are therefore inherently rare earth–free. But they are not used today in most EV models because their performance is generally not on a par with permanent-magnet synchronous motors, although several R&D projects in the United States, Europe, and Asia are trying to improve induction motors.
Synchronous motors, too, fall into several categories. Two important types are surface-mount permanent-magnet synchronous motors and synchronous reluctance motors.
Wringing the most out of permanent magnets without rare earths
But what about getting rid of REEs entirely? Here, there are two possibilities: Use REE-free permanent magnets in a motor designed to make the most of them, or use a motor that dispenses with permanent magnets entirely, in favor of electromagnets.
Motor engineers can minimize the difference by designing a motor that exploits both permanent magnets and reluctance. But even with a highly optimized design, a motor based on ferrite magnets will be considerably heavier—perhaps a third or more—if it is to achieve the same performance as a motor with rare earth magnets.
One technique used to wring maximum performance out of ferrite magnets is to concentrate the flux from those magnets to the maximum extent possible. I
Three parameters—maximum energy product, remanence, and coercivity—largely indicate how a permanent magnet material will perform in an electric motor.
Lately, there’s been a lot of attention focused on a new type of permanent-magnet material, iron nitride (FeN). This magnet, produced by Niron Magnetics, has high remanence, equivalent to that of REE-magnets, but like alnico has low coercivity— about a fifth of a comparable neodymium iron boron magnet. Because of these fundamentally different properties, FeN magnets require the development of new rotor designs, which will probably resemble those of past alnico motors. Niron is now developing such designs with automotive partners, including General Motors.
Yet another REE-free permanent-magnet material that comes up in discussions of future motors is manganese bismuth (MnBi), which has been the subject of collaborative research at the University of Pittsburgh, Iowa State University, and Powdermet Inc. Together these engineers designed a surface-mount permanent-magnet synchronous motor using MnBi magnets. T
Another strategy for reducing rare earth content in motors involves eliminating just the heavy rare earth elements used in some of these magnets. NdFeB magnets, for example, typically contain small amounts of the heavy rare earth element dysprosium, used to increase their coercivity at high temperatures.
We faced several fundamental challenges in keeping the magnets from getting too hot. You see, permanent magnets are good conductors. And when an electrical conductor moves in a magnetic field, which is what rotor magnets do while the motor is operating, currents are induced in it. These currents, which do not contribute to the torque, heat up the magnets and can demagnetize them. One way to reduce this heating is to break up the path of the circulating currents by making the magnets from thin segments that are electrically insulated from one another. In our motor, each of these segments was only 1 millimeter thick.
We chose to use a grade of NdFeB magnets called N50 that can operate at temperatures up to 80 °C. Also, we needed to use a carbon-fiber-and-epoxy system to reinforce the outer diameter of the rotor to let it spin at speeds as high as 20,000 rpm.
How engineers will navigate the transition to REE-free motors
The transition toward rare earth–free motors for EVs is a major and pivotal engineering endeavor. It will be difficult, but research is beginning to yield intriguing and encouraging results. There will soon be multiple designs available—with, alas, a complex array of trade-offs. Motor weight, power density, cost, manufacturability, and overall performance dynamics will all be important considerations. And success in the marketplace will no doubt depend on an equally complex set of economic factors, so it’s very hard to predict which designs will dominate.
What’s becoming clear, though, is that it’s perfectly feasible that REE-free motors will one day become mainstream. That outcome will require continued and concerted effort
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rachyl Jones / Fortune:
Self-driving cars from WeRide, AutoX, Didi, and other Chinese companies have driven 1.8M miles on California roads, collecting data while facing little scrutiny — ON FEB. 1 LAST YEAR, Montana residents gawked upwards at a large white object hovering in the sky that looked to be another moon.
Chinese self-driving cars have quietly traveled 1.8 million miles on U.S. roads, collecting detailed data with cameras and lasers
https://fortune.com/2024/07/08/chinese-self-driving-cars-us-roads-data-collection-surveillance-national-security-concerns-investigation/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.yolegroup.com/press-release/lidar-rides-chinas-wave/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teslan tulos romahti: voittoa 45 prosenttia vähemmän
Tulos laski tuntuvasti muun muassa koventuvan kilpailun vuoksi tehtyjen hinnanalennusten myötä.
Teslan tulos romahti: voittoa 45 prosenttia vähemmän
https://www.is.fi/taloussanomat/art-2000010583417.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
TESLA’S MARKET SHARE OF ELECTRIC CARS IS COLLAPSING
https://futurism.com/the-byte/tesla-market-share-electric-cars-collapsing?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3C_e5nPIR8U0575v10jsPIlQD3ilnEi6LSKKHDbHMBdVEvr2zP0-zcvvo_aem_ZiinlakD2LsCnzyWdyvVWw
Tesla used to maintain an iron grip over electric car sales in the US, forging a new path for environmentally friendly alternatives to gas-guzzling consumer vehicles.
But even as sales for EVs are reaching record highs, Tesla’s control over the market is starting to seriously wane, slipping below 50 percent in the second quarter of this year, the New York Times reports. Tesla represented 49.7 percent of EV sales over that period, down from 59.3 percent in Q2 of last year.
However, demand for electric vehicles is still growing, with sales increasing 11.3 percent year over year, according to vehicle marketing firm Cox Automotive.
In other words, Tesla is finally starting to succumb to its growing competition, undermining its long-held authoritative positioning in the industry — a fate that has long been predicted by experts and accelerated by the behavior of its highly polarizing CEO Elon Musk.