International Leaders and World Debuts Headline AutoMobili-D Day One
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NAIAS officially opened today, kicking off its second annual AutoMobili-D with a pledge from U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to vigorously advance autonomous vehicles while ensuring safety, while Ford revealed the Ranger, Edge and the 50th anniversary version of the Mustang that Steve McQueen drove in the iconic movie “Bullitt.”
This year’s opening day featured an impressive display of politics and new products.
Ray Tanguay, automotive advisor to the governments of Ontario and Canada opened the day, telling the NAIAS crowd how the province and country will maintain key roles in the North American automotive production and are determined to play an even greater role in autonomous vehicle development and deployment.
“Ontario’s goal is to mimic Germany’s decision to embrace artificial-intelligence technologies behind autonomous driving so that the nation and its crucial industrial sector could remain competitive for decades,” said Tanguay. “Germany recognized that to compete they had to do something different. We (in Canada) have to do the same thing. We have to be able to embrace technology and protect (auto) jobs.”
Tanguay stated the Ontario government is working with Uber to “digitize” its streets in cooperation with the University of Waterloo. Ontario and Canada are boosting their autonomous-driving test facilities and the province is cooperating with Michigan to provide standardization across the national border.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao took the Atrium stage, vowing the Trump administration will vigorously advance American’s progress on autonomous vehicle development, while ensuring safety remains the pinnacle concern.
“Autonomous vehicles hold promise not only for improving safety, but also increasing mobility for so many people,” said Chao. “And their capacity for increasing mobility for our elderly and for people with disabilities could provide millions of people with security, freedom, and a better quality of life.”
She stated the federal government’s approach to autonomous driving will be technology neutral, and not top-down or command-and control.
“We won’t pick winners or losers or favor one type of technology over another,” said Chao. “We’d prefer to avoid a patchwork of different approaches by encouraging the interoperability of standards and consistent rules, while respecting the role of state and local governments.”
Keeping with the technology theme, Chao was followed by the Roadshow by CNET panel discussing how exponential improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) are being made and are playing one of the most important roles in advancing autonomous driving.
“What we’re finding is AI is sort of creeping into lots of corners of our lives, and sometimes it isn’t recognizable because it’s seamlessly integrated, such as the AI in smartphones – or in vehicles today,” said panelist Ken Washington, vice president of research and advanced engineering, and chief technology officer for Ford. “It takes advantage of the tsunami that’s available.”
Panelist Samuel Abuelsamid, analyst for Navigant Research, commented that one obstacle to public appreciation of artificial intelligence is fear, stoked by “robot takeover” movies and recent comments.
“People think AI can do everything a human can do at a superhuman level, and think, and take it to unusual places,” said Abuelsamid. “That’s not what we’re doing in the auto industry. That sort of AI doesn’t exist today or isn’t really even close.”
Panelist Danny Shapiro, senior director of automotive for technology supplier NVIDIA, noted AI’s best results are related to specific tasks, such as in health care to help radiologists examine X-rays and scans based on information in neural networks provided by AI. In the transportation sector, he cited how AI helped NVIDIA quickly write software that recognizes every type of street sign in Germany from thousands of photographs, accomplishing in a matter of hours what previously would take years of programming.
Closing the first day, Ford unveiled the new, much anticipated Ranger, as well as the Edge crossover.
The company also introduced a 50th-anniversary version of the Mustang that Steve McQueen drove in the iconic car movie “Bullitt.” Ford went on to say that it will produce the new F-150 Hybrid pickup truck at its Dearborn, Mich., assembly plant beginning in 2020; and, introduce a performance battery-electric vehicle called the Mach 1 in 2020.
“We’re ready to help Ford take our rightful place in the mid-size truck segment (with Ranger),” said Raj Nair, Ford president for North America. “Others have dabbled in this segment. But we’re jumping back in from a different vantage point, one of dominating American trucks since 1977.”
The new Edge ST is Ford’s most-powerful SUV ever, commented Haut Thai-Tang, head of Ford product development and purchasing. It features monochromatic paint, new LED lighting, 335-horsepower, as well as sport-performance features, such as sport suspension and paddle shifters. Driver-assistance features include “post-collision braking” that automatically helps reduce the chances of a second collision.
