Kozminski Techblog

Nuro is allowed to launch commercial driverless services on public roads in California. What’s more, it is the first company to have such an allowance. Many companies are allowed to test their autonomous technology on public roads with a human driver on board, few can do it without the driver. The so-called Autonomous Vehicle Deployment permit will allow Nuro to operate commercial services in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. Nuro vehicles could go with speeds up to 25MPH on roads with a speed limit lower than 35 MPH

Nuro is a company working on driverless deliveries. Even though they have created 2 generations of driverless delivery vehicles -R1 and R2 – they will start commercial deliveries with Toyota Priuses. Nuro’s chief legal and policy officer David Estrada later added that they will eventually transition to its purpose-built R2 delivery bots for its commercial service as well as add more partners and expand geographically. I’m guessing that it is more expensive to manufacture a few R2s than to adapt a few Priuses. However, as they expand, there will be a possibility to mass manufacture the R2 and I hope we’ll all get to see them on the roads.

We all have seen driverless delivery as part of the future. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we need this now. Up until yesterday, there were only 5 companies that could test their autonomic cars without a backup human driver, they weren’t allowed to earn any money directly using this technology. This indicates how strict the rules are regarding autonomous vehicles. I think the Autonomous Vehicle Deployment permit wouldn’t be granted if it wasn’t for the pandemic. A driverless delivery would make our lives easier (or at least cheaper) even without a pandemic. During one it could literally be a live saver.

Whatever the reason is it is a great piece of information for Nuro. They will no longer pay for the testing, they will earn while doing it. It is just as exciting for the customers as it is for Nuro. We’ll get cheaper deliveries and see the first-ever commercial implementation of fully autonomous driving technology in the world.

I have a believe that Nuro deliveries will be successful, and that their implementation will speed up the implementation of driverless passenger cars. It’s another brilliant improvement that would both make our lives easier at the same time limiting the congestion and pollution. Even though I love driving I look forward to living in a world where we commute in autonomous vehicles. I’ll be more than happy to be limited just to driving on tracks for leisure.

https://nuro.ai/

https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/23/nuro-can-now-operate-and-charge-for-autonomous-delivery-services-in-california/

Reading Time: 3 minutesLucid Motors has just completed the initial phase of its $700 million factory. The first cars should leave the factory this spring. This is the biggest step in becoming a mainstream car manufacturer. It is relatively easy and cheap to create a prototype, even a fully functional one when compared to putting it into production.

The best example of this is Dyson. The company has abandoned its electric car project that racked up $500 million in cost, even though the car got positive feedback from the press. As it turned out $2,7 billion that they’ve planned to spend in order to start producing electric cars wasn’t enough. Maybe in not so distant future, the leap from having a functional prototype to production won’t be as big, thanks to the manufacturing process I have described in my previous post on the Czinger 21C. For now, it’s still big, and Lucid has done it.

So what differs Lucid from Dyson?

There is no denying that Tesla is currently the leader in mainstream EV technology. In order to show why Lucid, in my opinion, is a force to be reckoned with I will compare it to the industry leaders.

Well, firstly there is the range. Lucid Air, Lucid Motors’ first car, promises 517 miles. That’s almost 130% of Tesla Model S’s 402 miles in the long range version they were so proud of. Some of the range comes from the bigger battery. Lucid has a 113kWh battery, while Tesla has 100kWh. The rest of it comes from increases in efficiency, which Tesla was a leader in for many years. This significant development comes from multiple marginal gains created in almost every bit of Lucid’s design. One of the gains was created in the motor. Lucid designed the whole car with a permanent magnet synchronous motor in mind, while Tesla started with induction motors, and only switched to the new technology in all of its cars when Model 3 was released. Lucid’s motor has only 30% of the cogging torque of similarly powerful engines. Cogging torque is the biggest downside of permanent magnet synchronous motors. It basically very quickly slows down the engine once it is not being powered. Other improvements are in the high voltage batteries, cooling, and packaging. All of them add up so that Lucid Air can drive 4.6 miles/kWh while Tesla Model S Long Range 4.1 miles/kWh making it the new efficiency leader in the EV market.

Secondly its experience. Even though Lucid Air is going to be Lucid’s first car the company is the only supplier of battery packs for Formula E. Those racecars are the pinnacle of EV development and the batteries endure truly extreme conditions. What’s more Lucid’s CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson has been Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla and Chief Engineer of the Model S. However it is important to note that Elon Musk tweeted “Rawlinson didn’t design Model S. Prototype was done before he joined & he left us in the lurch just as things got tough, which was not cool. He did make some contributions to body/chassis engineering, but not to powertrain, battery, electronics, or software.”

Is the tweet part of marketing or is it representing the truth? I’ll let you decide.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t look like Rawlinson is going to bail this time and hopefully, first Air’s will hit the road soon. Will it be a Tesla killer? Probably not, but surely it will create a challenge, which can only finish well for us, the customers.

https://www.lucidmotors.com/

https://www.caranddriver.com/lucid-motors/air

Reading Time: 2 minutesI first got to know of InMotion Labs when two electric cars equipped with scanners they have created rolled out to the streets of Warsaw. Those EVs drive around the city’s paid parking zone and check whether the fees have been paid.

The technology is quite simple. Car with a scanner on its roof drives on the streets of the paid parking zones and scans the license plates. If the fee wasn’t paid it sends a location of the car to an on-foot team that can doublecheck and gives the ticket. The efficiency skyrockets. In the first month, there were 100 000 cars scanned, 12% got a ticket.

However, the company wants to widen the uses of that very same technology by fitting some of the city buses with the scanners so they can not only check whether the fee was paid, but also inform drivers of free parking spots. That could not only help with finding spots but also limit the congestion and therefore pollution.

Those scanners aren’t InMotion Labs’ main product. Their main product is called Car Scanner and instead of scanning multiple cars at a pace, it scans just one at a time. It isn’t sluggish though. It can fully scan a car in 2 minutes.
The idea was born when the CEO, Sławek Potasz, almost missed a flight due to the long process of checking a car before the return at the rental shop.

“I knew there must be a way to automate processes to save clients their frustration and the rental salon their money,” he said

During the process the rig that automatically moves around the car taking up to 100 HQ pictures. Those pictures are then analyzed by software accompanied by technicians.
I was surprised when I read that it only takes pictures. I thought it’d have a lidar. I may underestimate the amount of information that can be extracted from the pictures, especially that I don’t know what metadata is being collected. 
I believe that with further development of the scanner and the constantly growing numbers of scanned cars in their database the analysis will more and more automatic. Those scanners aren’t only used by car rental shops, but also car dealerships and even car producers.

Currently, the company is working on a fully automated robot supporting medics in the fight with coronavirus and on automating some repetitive medical procedures.

I like this company because they provide simple reliable solutions that boost human effectiveness. I’m particularly fond of the first project. I really can’t find a downside to it. It effectively uses the infrastructure that is already there, city buses, and add to them whole another functionality.

https://businessinsider.com.pl/motoryzacja/to-rozwiazanie-polskiego-startupu-moze-zrewolucjonizowac-branze-motoryzacyjna/6yw38sc
https://www.kpt.krakow.pl/en/success-stories/a-breakthrough-solution-in-controlling-vehicles/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_nPpFbzy1g&fbclid=IwAR2U3fUIb3Ukl69RhpLYZF5uI3TmMv4jVw603n1Vuz9MteCK1JZMRiJysvA&ab_channel=Imponderabilia

Power: 1250 HP
Torque: 850 Nm
Weight: 1250 kg
Acceleration: 0-100 km/h in 1,9 s
Top speed: 432km/h
Price: $1,7 million

Grabs attention, doesn’t it? That’s exactly what’s supposed to do. This, as Czinger website states, “Dominating performance” puts 21C among the world’s greatest hypercars. But it’s so much more than that.

21C stands for the 21st century. It represents a whole new approach to car design and manufacturing process. The new approach could be defined with 4 words: artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing.

The design process is a cooperation between humans and ai. The designers set certain parameters for a part, such as mounting point, size, strength, etc. and the ai using its database of materials creates the most efficient structure. “Meaning you reduce the mass to the max, still meeting a performance set of requirements” explains Kevin Czinger, founder and CEO. However, the optimization of the design isn’t limited to a single part. Using ai enables us to get a more holistic approach to designing the car, rather than dividing the process into teams.

The parts designed that way cannot be manufactured by the machines being currently used in car production. So, let’s now focus on additive manufacturing. You’ve probably heard about it, as it’s also known as 3D printing. It allows those weirdly shaped parts to be made. It’s not that new of technology, however, the breakthrough here is the speed. The parts can be manufactured at the same rate as they would be if they had used the aluminum casting process, which means price parity. Another upside to additive manufacturing in comparison to subtractive manufacturing is material saving, as the 3D printers only use the material they need, rather than cutting a small part out of a bigger chunk of material.

The assembly process is also improved. It is done by an automated unit that is a set of robotic arms that work in complete harmony and take up just a 15m by 15m square. Not only does it save a lot of space when compared to a full assembly line, but it can be easily reprogrammed to assemble a different car. So can the 3D printers. Because of that, those machines don’t become obsolete once a car stops being manufactured.

I believe that this technology will have a significant impact on the market. I don’t think all cars will be produced that way, but as of right now there is no automation solution for small-to-medium car production. The manufacturing patented by Divergent 3D may just bridge that gap. I’m really hopeful, as many good projects cannot make it as the cost of setting up the production process are too high. I never expected to be more excited by the assembly process of a hypercar rather than the car itself, but here I am. 

https://www.divergent3d.com/

https://www.czinger.com/

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/geneva-motor-show-2020/czinger-21c-1233bhp-3d-printed-hypercar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdG4gUTowXc&ab_channel=DonutMedia