Shift Magazine - Issue 2 2018 - 26

IS THIS
WORKING
FOR YOU?

last mile

Waymo is testing self-driving
Jaguar I-Pace crossovers.

J.D. Power, Harman may
reveal consumer habits
BY ALEXA ST. JOHN

WAYMO'S

WAY FORWARD

Tech company is choosy with its partners
BY SHIRAZ AHMED

ay Area residents are being
treated to a sight straight
out of a James Bond flick:
self-driving Jaguars.
This month, Alphabet's Waymo
started testing its first self-driving
I-Pace crossovers in California in
preparation for wider production of
the autonomous vehicle in 2020. This
year, Waymo and Jaguar Land Rover
struck an agreement to integrate the
technology company's autonomous
system into the luxury carmaker's
vehicles. Waymo plans to add up
to 20,000 self-driving, all-electric
I-Paces to its fleets over several years.
"Our model at Waymo isn't to be a
car company," said CEO John Krafcik
at the New York announcement of the
partnership in March. "Our role is to
build the world's most experienced
driver and to deploy that driver in as
many places as we can to help move
the world to a better place."
Waymo has been methodical with
its partnerships, carefully picking companies to work with that can help both
sides learn and grow. Here are the
major categories of Waymo partners.

CARMAKERS

In addition to Jaguar Land Rover,
Waymo has partnered with Fiat
Chrysler Automobiles to integrate its

shift * july 2018

self-driving software into Chrysler
Pacifica Hybrids being tested in
Chandler, Ariz., and elsewhere.
The minivan fit the tech company's
requirements for an electrified vehicle that can power onboard computers and better facilitate testing of a
ride-hailing service, given how easy it
is to get in and out of minivans.

SERVICE

Waymo and AutoNation struck a deal
in 2017 to service the tech company's
self-driving cars. AutoNation locations will provide vehicle maintenance
and repairs for Waymo's fleet, and
the two companies are collaborating on training service technicians to
handle repairs unique to autonomous
vehicles.

CITIES

Every self-driving car company has
to work with cities and states to
test vehicles on public roads. But
Waymo's relationship with areas it's
operating in has been unusually collaborative. Authorities in Chandler,
the suburb of Phoenix where Waymo
has been testing for over a year, even
have made emergency vehicles available for the tech company to test how
its self-driving vehicles interact with
police cars and fire trucks. ■

f you're a consumer of any mobility product, odds are, you know there are bells and
whistles embedded in the tech that you just
won't use. And other things you'd love to
use, if you only knew how to turn them on. Or
which menu they were hidden in.
The problem of underused and overly complicated technology is part of what a new alliance,
between global market research company J.D.
Power and connected-technology company
Harman International Industries, aims to address.
The partnership will "solve problems and
validate the things that are being used, and the
things that are not being used, in an increasingly
complex world," said Doug Betts, global automotive senior vice president at J.D. Power.
Automaker-designed infotainment systems
tend to be too complicated. Integrated systems,
such as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, were
found to be less distracting, according to research
from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
released last month.
Apple and Google, the maker of Android
Auto, spend an inordinate amount of time
researching how to develop easy-to-use interfaces. Automakers simply aren't experts at that.
To help, J.D. Power and Harman plan to layer
their data together to show automakers what's
working for consumers. J.D. Power gathers
data through consumer surveys, and Harman
collects information on which infotainment buttons get used. This data could reveal parts that
are particularly confusing or specific options
that consumers simply don't use.
Betts also said the alliance offers a good
opportunity for automakers "to see how their
vehicle data can support problem-solving and
more precise offerings to their customers."
The two companies hope to ultimately provide automakers with insight to improve safety,
performance and vehicle experience.
Sanjay Dhawan, Harman chief technology
officer, said it is critical that infotainment systems assist the driver rather than distract. With
this, Dhawan said, Harman wants "to deliver
the experience that consumers expect these
days from their connected devices." ■

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shift Magazine - Issue 2 2018