Feds ease rules to expedite deployment of robotaxis

This week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast features another conversation with Joann Muller, who writes the Axios Future of Mobility newsletter. 

Muller talks about her recent reporting on Amazon’s Zoox (pronounced "zooks") robotaxis. The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) granted a temporary exemption to commercially deploy up to 2,500 robotaxis annually for two years. 

All of this comes as Waymo, Uber and other companies make investments in the rapidly evolving automated vehicle (AV) industry and encounter hiccups along the way. 

Muller also talks about a recent road trip she made through Wisconsin in a Rivian R2. She was pleased to find a robust charging network eliminating any range anxiety. She was also impressed with Rivian’s use of adaptive driving beam (ADB) headlights and talked about why the technology has been developed more slowly in the U.S. 

From the newsletter: 

A decade after shape-shifting headlights changed nighttime driving in Europe, the technology remains remarkably scarce in North America - a case study in how U.S. regulations can slow the arrival of proven safety innovations.

 Photo by Remy Gieling on Unsplash

Transcript

Welcome And What We Cover

Jeff Cranson 0:07

Hello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson. This week I had a chance to catch up again with Joanne Muller, the Detroit-based author of the Axios Future Mobility Newsletter. She's been covering the automotive industry for some time and evolved into an expert on all things going on with technology and changes in mobility. She's always interesting. This week we talked about some reporting that she's done on Amazon's Zooks robotaxis and how the federal government has granted them some temporary exemptions to commercially deploy up to 2,500 more of those robotaxis annually for two years. And we'll also talk about her latest road trip to Wisconsin in Rivian and what she found out about the technology and whether range anxiety is becoming less of a concern in driving electric vehicles. We'll also talk about other things related to the federal government and U.S. DOT Secretary Sean Duffy's uh his initiative to expedite the deployment of automated vehicles of all kinds by uh looking at streamlining

Zoox And The New Robotaxi Players

Jeff Cranson 1:20

the rules and regulations and a few other things that we touch base on that she's been reporting on recently and that you can read about in her newsletter. So I hope you enjoyed the conversation. So again, I'm with Joanne Muller. A couple things I wanted to really catch up on lately. You've been writing a lot of stories about Zux, which is Amazon's Robo Taxi venture. Um, it kind of feels like between what Amazon's doing and what uh what Tesla is doing with Elon Musk and obviously Waymo and Google. It's like, are are those the new big three?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Well, actually, yeah, it's funny. I I uh I didn't put Zooks in the big three. Uh I I recently wrote a story that said the new big three are um Waymo, Tesla, and Uber. Uh and the reason I said Uber is because they're partnering with everybody on autonomous vehicles, uh, because they kind of see them as a threat to their traditional business. Um but in any case, Zooks is a is an important player. Uh they were a startup Amazon bottom because they saw the the possibilities there. And they are different from any other company right now because they designed a purpose-built uh robo taxi, has no steering wheel, no pedals, no human at all. And so it's been a little bit harder to get approval to deploy that, but they just got the green light, uh, at least for a limited fleet from the federal government.

Jeff Cranson 2:53

Yeah, talk a little bit more about that. Sean Duffy, who's the secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, has uh made this a point for more than a year now that he's gonna push for expediting these kinds of approvals. And some would say easing regulations, and maybe that's not a term that they like, or maybe they do if you think all regulations are red tape. But could you talk more about that?

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Yeah,

DOT Moves To Rewrite AV Rules

SPEAKER_02 3:15

sure. I mean, so yes, the the transportation secretary is a big believer in autonomous vehicles, uh, not only from a safety standpoint, but also like, you know, he wants to make sure the U.S. industry is strong from a national security standpoint. So what the Trump administration is doing, and particularly Secretary Duffy and the NHSA uh administrator, uh Jonathan Morrison, they are trying to very rapidly clear out a lot of rules that were written years, decades ago about motor vehicle safety that refer to cars with steering wheels and pedals. Um and the idea here is if you are having a car that uh doesn't have a human in it, why do you need side view mirrors? Why do you need windshield wipers? Why do you need a steering wheel or brake pedals? And so they're like basically modernizing the rule book for um for the modern car, which doesn't have a driver. They're still requiring that the stopping distance still has to be the same. If you're stopping a vehicle with a computer, you got to show that it can perform as well as uh a human hitting the brake. And so they're trying to be careful and thoughtful about this, but they also are removing these obstacles to innovation.

Jeff Cranson 4:42

It seems like a little bit of a needle to thread because Sean Duffy and the Federal Highway Administration have put so much emphasis on safety and that they want, you know, everything, they want roads and all mobility to be safer. And obviously, anybody that believes in this knows that AVs ultimately are gonna be safer for all the reasons that we talk about all the time. They don't have road rage, they don't get drunk, they don't fall asleep. Um, and nobody likes to think that a computer can drive better than they can, but I firmly believe that. But is it, you know, a little bit of backsliding first? Because there's gonna be things that happen as you deploy these rapidly and as you do ease the regulations. So, I mean, is that a bit of a contradiction that ultimately we're trying to get to a safer environment?

SPEAKER_02 5:25

You know, I I wouldn't necessarily call it a a backslide uh or a contradiction. I think that the technology itself uh is remarkable and will in fact make

Waymo Incidents Test Public Trust

SPEAKER_02 5:40

the roads safer. But what as they're scaling now, and we're seeing this in particular with Waymo because they're far ahead of everyone else, there's a lot of stuff that keeps coming up that nobody seemed to anticipate. Uh-oh, a robotaxi just drove into a flood zone. Uh-oh, robotaxi didn't uh there was a big power outage in San Francisco, and a bunch of cars got stuck, and then every human car got stuck behind them.

Jeff Cranson 6:09

And drove over fireworks, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Drive over fireworks. These are problems for sure. Not minimizing that these are problems, but the you know, they're working through them. It's a bit of scary. Let's deploy them and and then find the problems, you know. This is how Silicon Valley works. But overall, you look at the data that's come in so far. Waymo has been very transparent with their own research. Um, and you know, generally speaking, there's a lot of good signs about how this uh excuse me, how this technology will um will actually be safer. But you know, the jury's still out, the consumer has to be convinced. And so, you know, uh headlines about driving over fireworks are not good for building public trust.

Jeff Cranson 7:05

Yeah, let me just read this because it's one of the more intriguing leads I've read in a while. It was in a New York Times story that you linked in Axias Mobility and said it. On July 4th, more than 100,000 people packed San Francisco's waterfront for a foggy fireworks show over the Golden Gate Bridge. When they tried to go home, Waymo got in the way. With crowds milling around, Waymo's driverless cars blocked intersections and choked traffic. Some drivers were stuck behind the electric robotaxis for more than three hours. Several Waymo's had to be towed after their batteries died in the gridlock. At least two drove over exploding fireworks with one catching fire. So how do you not read that whole story?

Remote Human Support Behind Robotaxis

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Well, and what one of the things that I think is uh coming to light that is underappreciated is the importance of the human remote monitors for these vehicles. So these are people who are sitting in an office somewhere, and when a robotaxi gets into trouble, it pings this office and says, Hey, there's a there's a big crowd of people here at this uh fireworks exhibit or show, or the lights, the traffic lights just went out, or there's a police situation. I'm not sure what is the right thing to do. And at that point, the human gets engaged with uh through cameras and through other technology to figure out what's happening, and they sort of lay breadcrumbs to say, all right, here's the route you should take. They are not taking control of the vehicle remotely. Um, that is definitely not happening. But these humans, I think we're not appreciating how important they are and how many of them we probably need to oversee these fleets as they grow. And in the case, in many of these cases, anyways, where the Waymo's have ended up blocking traffic, it's because there weren't enough humans who could come to their rescue fast enough remotely and tell them what to do. And so the system got overwhelmed. And that is a problem that yeah, the back office got overwhelmed. And this is a problem that needs to be solved. And there's a lot of attention to the fact that some of Waymo's people are located in the Philippines. So this is a big concern, and I think there's a big movement to try to make sure all those people are are in the United States. In fact, the other big location, they have some in Phoenix, some in the Philippines, and some in Metro Detroit.

Jeff Cranson 9:40

Yeah, I guess I knew there was a presence in Metro Detroit, but I didn't know how. So you think it it could be growing as as they realize that they need to be more based more domestically? Is that what you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Well, there's a big call for more remote people to jump in or or at least a better system to have the remote uh supervision. Um, whether that turns into more jobs for Michigan, I don't know.

Scaling AVs Takes Depots And People

SPEAKER_02 10:05

I have not heard anything like that, but it's possible.

Jeff Cranson 10:08

So this didn't really get on my radar until um I came to the department in 2011. Um, and and our director at the time, Kirk Steidel, was very interested. He was an early pioneer on this technology, testifying before Congress. In fact, I wrote some testimony for him in 2016, and we talked then about uh one of the things I emphasized was not having to take the keys away from an elderly parent or grandparent someday. That the the freedom of mobility that AVs promise us. Um, do you think we proceeded at about the rate you would have guessed, or do you think it's taking longer to get there than you might have thought?

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Well, I think it took a long time to get to here. Um now it's really seems to be starting to accelerate. Um I think the technology is maturing. I don't know I would call it mature yet, but I think there's still a lot of, you know, really, this is a very tiny segment of the total cars on the road. So we got to keep that in perspective. Um, but there's a there's a lot of uh sort of old-fashioned infrastructure stuff that has to happen to support autonomous vehicles, you know. You need the the depots uh where these cars are gonna get charged and cleaned and maintained. There that takes a lot of human effort, right? And um, you know, someday some of that may be automated. There are charging companies out there now that can take the cable and actually use a robot to plug it into the car. So, you know, uh, but but who is a robot gonna clean up the vomit or the dirty diaper on the floor? I don't know.

Jeff Cranson 11:46

Well, not to mention the repairs that go on, and this and this this is not something that your average auto mechanic is trained for. And Washington Community College was early in on a program to train the workforce to work on these kinds of cars and the sensors. Of course, it's hard to keep up with that because things keep changing so quickly. So I'm guessing that's a big challenge for them. But I think you raise you raise a really good point that um there's still gonna be humans involved all the way around. Um, I I'm I'm still a big believer that ultimately this is gonna be safer. I wonder if you think people, as as the adoption grows and usually it's at a higher end, like most new technology, just like it was with EVs and will be with AVs, are those people gonna be willing to pay, you know, fees or or tolls to have a dedicated lane to drive their AV?

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Um, that's possible. Um right now we're not seeing a lot of dedicated, you know, the the business model isn't for dedicated lanes just yet. Uh, you know, we do have this uh this connected car lane and uh through uh uh western Wayne County um that cavenue is doing. Yeah. Um you know, whether that someday becomes only for autonomous vehicles, I don't know. I'm I'm not sure exactly how it's going to right right now robo taxis make the most sense in a dense urban city, which is you know where taxis and rideshare are are most important too. And so if you can keep them moving around, you know, in theory that could be efficient. There's a lot of questions about how they impact cities, and and we'll find that out as time goes on. Um but I uh, you know, I think what's what we need to think about is how can AVs serve neighborhoods and communities that don't have a lot of money, you know, like can it become a transportation option for people, let's say in the city of Detroit that aren't served by a bus line? You know?

Jeff Cranson 13:50

No, I think you're you're there's a real economic imperative here. I think I agree completely. Please stay tuned. We'll be back with more talking Michigan transportation right after this.

MDOT Message 14:00

Avoid the wait and remember the Mackinac Bridge is closed to traffic Labor Day for the annual bridge walk starting at 6 30 a.m. Spend some extra time in the UP or take your time heading north since the bridge won't reopen to traffic until noon to allow walkers to clear the bridge. For more information, head to Mackinacbridge.org slash walk.

Rivian R2 Road Trip Reality Check

Jeff Cranson 14:21

Uh, let's talk about your latest road trip. You took a Rivian to Wisconsin. I don't know. Did you go pretty far north in Wisconsin?

SPEAKER_02 14:29

Yeah, we went up to the Door Peninsula, uh well into the woods up there to uh to a uh some a place that called the Northern Sky Theater, which is up in uh Fish Creek, uh, Wisconsin. Um and uh we took the ferry across uh the the Lake Express ferry from Biskegan to Manitoba. From Bispegan to Milwaukee, yeah, yeah, which was phenomenal. It was very expensive though. I mean, it costs as much as it would have to fly, but uh it was on my bucket list, so I wanted to do it. But the Rivian, uh, this is the brand new R2, which is their new uh sort of mid-sized um electric SUV, super, super important to Rivian's chances for success. And uh truthfully, it was terrific.

Jeff Cranson 15:19

Uh yeah, it sounds like you didn't have any range anxiety.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

No, no, you know, and that's a reflection of the fact that the charging networks out there have improved so much and the opening of the Tesla network to uh other cars. Um Rivian is one of the first uh vehicles to have the the Tesla style port, charging port on it. Um, and

Tesla Charging Standard Eases Range Anxiety

SPEAKER_02 15:45

that is how a lot of um companies are uh are going.

Jeff Cranson 15:50

Yeah, so why did Tesla do that? What what advantage did they finally see in making that uh making that available to other vehicles?

SPEAKER_02 15:58

Well, um, you know, Tesla has always said its goal is to electrify the the entire nationwide fleet of cars. So, you know, you could argue, oh, it's altruistic. Uh they also make money, you know, they're selling access to their charging network, but not all of it. It's only about, I I want to say, it's less than half, whatever it is. But the their network is so reliable and so uh ubiquitous that, you know, other companies were jumping at this chance to have their cars be able to be charged there because it means GM can sell more EVs if they have if their customers can go to the um you know to the to the Tesla charger. And and I was saying that um so Rivian is one of the first companies to have a Knack style uh port on the uh on their car. That's the Tesla style port. And that's like key. Once you have the port on the car matching the the plug on the charger, it becomes very seamless. Right now, because the whole industry is moving toward Tesla's standard, that you have to everybody's has to use adapters, you know, to make A and B talk to each other. And there can be some problems with adapters, as you can imagine. You know, it's not an ideal situation. Um when it is fully uh when it's A to A, it's brilliant and wonderful. And that's what I experienced with the Tesla, uh with the Rivian at a Tesla charger. And by the way, all of GM's new uh EVs uh have that port. Ford is going to that uh technology. Literally everyone in the industry is, and so you know, another year or so uh probably we'll be will be there uh in a way. And the charging companies are also adapting the Tesla standard. So everybody's getting on the same page here very soon, and that will make it very easy.

Jeff Cranson 18:10

It'd be almost like you could charge every phone and tablet and other device with a USB C, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yeah. Although you know how annoying it is that Apple constantly changes, you know, you had uh the C and now you have the whatever they call the new thing. Uh, you know.

Jeff Cranson 18:26

Um exactly. That's uh there's there's obviously an economic reason

NEVI Matters Less Than Private Buildout

Jeff Cranson 18:31

for that. But uh I I want to explore more um what you think is going on from a policy standpoint because the charging network, because again, Sean Duffy and the federal government said uh, you know, we don't like Nevi, but it's too far down the tracks for us to stop it now, so you know they let it go ahead. Um but there's still that uh anti-EV sentiment out there. So do you just see that gradually fading away?

SPEAKER_02 18:58

You know, I I have come to realize that Nevi is not that important. Um, it was a big signal uh during the Biden administration that EVs are great, let's go for it. We're gonna put these uh we're gonna have this policy where we have to have every state has to have EV uh chargers along the highway. And it was really like um uh a security blanket for consumers, it was a signal for consumers. But the fact of the matter is the vast majority of chargers that are being built today are being built with private capital and not with government money, like the vast majority of them. And the network is so much better because the charging companies are spending the money, they're not spending the government money. Now, one interesting thing that I did see like once a state does spend their government the the Nevi money that you know, this is the federal money program for fast chargers along the highway. Once they're once their highway is well electrified, they can then use that money in uh for charging in other places. And uh, you know, we'll see how states spend that. But in Florida, for instance, they are putting it toward charging for uh electric air taxis. Interesting. And I found that really interesting because Florida says that's where we want to lead, you know. I don't know where Michigan stands right now on spending its NEBI money, but it is not as important as the private capital that's getting spent. That's the point I want your listeners to know.

Jeff Cranson 20:43

Well, and I think that that kind of says that both sides were right, right? You send a signal and you tell the marketplace that that we believe in this and we're gonna support you, and then the marketplace does what it's gonna do, which is uh you know, create the infrastructure and find an incentive for them, which they're they're doing. So it's it's all good, I

Adaptive Headlights Stuck In Red Tape

Jeff Cranson 21:03

think. Um, lastly, just a little bit related to Rivian, um, I want to talk about uh your dispatch on the the headlights. I think that's just really fascinating. Um, sounds like it's great from a safety standpoint, and you know, why did it take so long to get here?

SPEAKER_02 21:18

So Rivian is equipped with uh these adaptive beam headlights. Um what is important to know is that these headlights have been around forever on European cars and in Europe and other parts of the world too. But they came originally on Audi's, BMWs, Mercedes, those kinds of cars. And what they do is they kind of use a matrix layout of LED lights, and they can selectively turn off some of those lights that might be shining in another motorist's eyes. Um, and so what it means is if you're driving a car, you can, with these headlights, you can leave your high beams on all the time and you see everything, but there's a little shadow over the oncoming car. Not it doesn't block it out or anything, it just puts it in a little box, a little shadow box, which means you can still see the car, but the car is not being blinded by your bright headlights. Now, why did it take so long? It's because the US regulations just differ from uh from the rest of the world. And finally, uh the the Congress in in the Infrastructure Act back in 2021 said, all right, U.S. NHTSA, you need to uh authorize these. You need to find a rule that says these these headlights are now uh legal because they're provably safer. And the problem is the law went into effect in 23, but the law is so complex and there's so much red tape around it that uh the car makers say they can't really pass the test. And so Rivian, which is, as you know, a new company, and they said, you know what, we can just start from scratch and design these lights to work with the new rule. And they basically did, and that's why Rivian is first. Uh Tesla has now put it on their newer cars, and the Europeans have gone back and redesigned their system, so they're all bringing it in the next year, too. But it's it's ridiculous that the United States is 10 years behind Europe when it comes to headlights.

Jeff Cranson 23:28

Well, this is gonna have to propel the other automakers to to do it and get on board. I mean, I don't know why NHTSA doesn't just mandate it the way they did with backup cameras. That that seems like the ultimate solution.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Yeah, but they should have written an easier law, like a simpler law that you can abide by, you know. I mean, they they had uh there was an SAE agreement on what it should be, and then somehow they made it more complicated than it needed to be.

Jeff Cranson 23:53

Well, let me just read real quickly, your I thought you painted a wonderful picture of your experience. You said Rivian's headlights lit up a family of raccoons on a pitch black Wisconsin Road, then reshaped their beam around another car to avoid blinding its driver without dimming the road ahead. That's uh really, really well put, and uh I like that. So Joanne, thank you as always for taking time to talk about these things. I always like touching bass with you, and I really appreciate uh your intellectual curiosity about everything going on, and it's uh it's gonna continue at a rapid pace. I think we're just gonna see evolution after evolution.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

Absolutely. Well, thank you for having me, and I appreciate your interest in Axios.

Final Thoughts And Where To Listen

Jeff Cranson 24:34

I'd like to thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation. You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or BuzzSprout. I also want to acknowledge the talented people who helped make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, and Jackie Salinas, who hosts the podcast to various platforms, and transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.