Shift Magazine - July 22, 2019 - 4

logging on

N

ot sure if high schools do this
anymore, but when I was taking
driver's ed, we used simulators
before actually venturing out on

the road.
From the safety of the classroom, we
sat behind a steering wheel, fastened our
seat belts, and "drove" as a road scene
unfolded on a big screen at the front of
the room.
The technology was old-school
(I suspected those simulators dated back to the '60s), but watching
and interacting with those training films helped teach me as a
teenager to expect the unexpected while driving: a kid darting out
into the street while chasing a ball, for instance.
Next came lessons in a real car on a real road, with an instructor
at the ready who could hit the brakes if I didn't. There were also
weekend excursions in my mom's old Ford Maverick, my surprisingly
calm stepdad riding shotgun.
It took those experiences, and all kinds of accumulated knowledge,
to build a driver: Me. It took two tries, but I managed to pass my road
test and get my license.
Building a driver is also the mission at Waymo, says John Krafcik,
CEO of the Google self-driving unit.
"We're not a car company. We're not a self-driving car company. We're
a technology company that's building the world's most experienced
driver. That's what Waymo is," Krafcik told the audience at a Shift
conference in June at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
But developing that driving ace has not been easy, Krafcik admits.
"We've been at this for 10 years. Ten years. We have a service up
and running, but it's unbelievably challenging. We're going to succeed
completely. I am sure of this. But I'm telling you it's hard. It's harder
than you think. But we're making great progress."
In this issue of Shift, we examine where the self-driving car movement
is heading, and how far it has progressed in the decade since Google
began secretly testing a robot-controlled Toyota Prius on the streets
of Silicon Valley, using a small team of experts picked largely from the
DARPA challenges, a series of autonomous-vehicle races staged by
the U.S. government's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
We found that myriad challenges remain, from a shortage of
engineers to a need for longer-range sensors. Then there's the
question of how far to safely push the technology: Should humans be
relied on to take command when needed - and if so, how? We also
get status reports on automated vehicles in the military, trucking and
farming sectors.
So keep some enthusiasm in check: The new "drivers" are still quite
young, and they have to stay in school awhile. But they're learning -
and fast.
Sincerely,

Leslie J. Allen
Editor
lallen@crain.com

4

shift * july 2019

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Leslie J. Allen
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Shift Magazine - July 22, 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shift Magazine - July 22, 2019
