Welcome back to the latest episode of The Future of Automotive on CBT News, where we put recent automotive and mobility news into the context of the broader themes impacting the industry.
I’m Steve Greenfield from Automotive Ventures, and I’m glad that you could join us.
Behavioral Economics has always fascinated me. In other words, the study of why humans make the decisions we do, and predicting frailties in our decision-making.
One of the areas of study that I find particularly fascinating is how we are often quite bad at anticipating the unintended consequences, or downstream effects, of our actions.
A great example of this is the so-called “Jevons Paradox”, which occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used, but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced.
The widening of roads is a good example. Roads are the most commons example of induced demand. Counterintuitively, widening roads rarely decreases travel times because new roads encourage more people to drive which leads to more traffic that soaks up any benefit the new roads added in the first place.
Some research suggests that people may engage in riskier behaviors when safety measures are put in place, a phenomenon known as the spillover effect. For example, a 2009 study found that NASCAR drivers who used a new head and neck restraint system experienced more accidents and car damage, despite fewer serious injuries. A similar theory suggests that drivers who wear seat belts may feel more secure and drive less carefully, which could lead to more traffic accidents.
A study this week from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (or IIHS) further supports that there are often unintended consequences of our actions. In fact, it seems that drivers are more likely to engage in non-driving activities such as checking their phones when using partial automation systems in this new research.
The IIHS conducted month-long studies in the U.S. with two partial automation systems: Tesla’s Autopilot and Volvo’s Pilot Assist – to examine driver behavior when the technology was in use.
Partial automation—a level of “advanced driver assistance systems”—uses cameras, sensors, and software to regulate the car’s speed and keep it in the center of the lane. Some enable lane changing automatically or when prompted.
Drivers, however, are required to continuously monitor the road and be ready to take over at any time, with most systems needing them to keep their hands on the wheel.
The study with Tesla’s Autopilot used 14 people who drove over 12,000 miles with the system, triggering 3,858 attention-related warnings. On average, drivers responded in about three seconds, usually by nudging the steering wheel, mostly preventing an escalation.
The study with Volvo’s Pilot Assist had 29 volunteers who were found to be distracted for 30% of the time – an amount of time that is “exceedingly high” according to the authors of the study.
Until we get to Level 4 or Level 5 Autonomy, where passengers can quite literally sleep in the back seat while the vehicle safely self-drives to their destination of choice, it seems like the automakers are going to have to continue to force occupants to pay attention through monitoring eye movement, drowsiness and hand position on the steering wheel.
In the meantime, we’re going to have to force humans to pay attention and remain vigilant at all times – ready to take over in those inevitable cases when the car becomes confused.
So, with that, let’s transition to Our Companies to Watch.
Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my weekly Intel Report, we showcase a company to watch, and take the opportunity here on this segment each week to share that company with you.
Today, our new company to watch is WEAV3D.
WEAV3D is an innovator in composite materials, manufacturing processes and processing equipment. Their patent-pending WEAV3D composite forming process enables the production of optimized lattice structures that can be combined with injection molding or thermoforming processes to create lightweight structural composite parts at a fraction of the cost and cycle time associated with traditional composite manufacturing. These innovations enable companies in industries such as automotive, aircraft, wind turbines, and cargo transportation to produce parts that are lighter, stronger and less expensive.
As the automotive industry drives toward more fuel-efficient and electric vehicles, lightweight structural composites will be a key enabling technology. Even a 10% reduction in the weight of a gasoline-powered vehicle can increase its fuel economy by 6 to 8%, or the same weight reduction can produce a 1.5% increase in battery pack efficiency (as measured by miles per KWh). WEAV3D’s patent pending reinforcement materials allow manufacturers to lightweight a wide variety of automotive interior and exterior components—everything from instrument panels to body panels.
The WEAV3D® process is based on a woven composite lattice reinforcement that they describe as Rebar For Plastics®. WEAV3D’s patented and patent pending lattice forming machines produce the lattice structures from a variety of commercially sourced unidirectional fiber-reinforced composite tapes—available in a range of thermoplastic. The WEAV3D composite lattices are then overmolded into a finished structural component using conventional molding processes, such as injection or compression molding.
If you’d like to learn more about WEAV3D you can check them out at www.WEAV3D.com
So that’s it for this week’s Future of Automotive segment.
If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our DealerFund.
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Don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, which is available on Amazon.com. And keep an eye out for my new book, “The Future of Mobility”, which is almost done, and will be out soon.
Thanks (as always) for your ongoing support and for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment. We’ll see you next week!
