Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - November 2022 - 2

Editorial
When ODDs and business cases collide
I'm getting mixed messages about
" last-mile " mobility these days. And
I'm not sure whether I should be interchangeably
using the terms last-mile
and micromobility, but as is the case
with the broad sector of driving automation,
it looks like micromobility, lastmile
- and the big Kahuna, SAE Level
4 driving - are working through a bit
of reality check. More critical sources
might call it a fall from grace.
Editor-in-chief Lindsay Brooke's
entertaining coverage of Brooklyn
Pizza's mostly positive experience with
food delivery by robot (see our cover
story beginning on pg. 6) seems to
demonstrate that last-mile automation
such as bot-delivered pizza and other
automated-delivery services can work
in certain environments. But I think the
realities - and limitations - injected by
operational design domain (ODD) are
beginning to become more obvious.
Just prior to publishing Brooklyn's
story came a report from Bloomberg
that delivery colossus Amazon was
backing off the development program
for its wheeled delivery 'bot Scout,
which since 2019 was being tested in a
handful of major metro areas, including
Seattle and Atlanta. Amazon's opaque
spin: the company worked to " create a
unique delivery experience, " but " there
were aspects of the program that
weren't meeting customers' needs. "
Last-mile/micromobility's luster
took another hit in mid-October when
word got out that prominent electric
scooter company Bird is abandoning
several European countries and a
number of small to mid-size U.S. cities
in an effort to get its finances in order
as its stock price plunged and executives
fled. Once valued at nearly $3
billion, Bird's market cap in October had
plunged to barely $100 million. Bird's
contorted statement explaining the
market drawback bizarrely cited lack of
regulatory structure to control scooter
oversupply and foster a " competitive
micromobility industry. " Huh?
Bird's chief rival, Uber- and Googlebacked
Lime, is in better straits, but I've
used scooters in several major U.S. cities
and insist the experience, while it can
be liberating, is fraught with negatives
- many of them ODD-related. Forget it
if it's raining or bitterly cold. Five bucks
to go 15 blocks ain't exactly a screaming
transportation bargain. Maybe most frustrating
of all, some rides came afoul of
cryptic geofencing rules that can stop
you dead with no warning, leaving you
paying for the privilege of pushing your
last mile " solution. "
Former Bloomberg reporter Eric
Newcomer summarized in a Substack
post: " I'm not saying scooters are
actually dead. But I feel confident in
declaring - after catching up with
former scooter employees - that this
is not a venture-style business that's
going to reap venture-sized returns. "
Similar questions are coming
harder and faster about SAE Level 4
driving automation. Our story on pg.
16 about The Autonomous'
recent
Level 4-focused conference in Europe
effectively synopsizes the heightening
debate about whether Level 4
is genuinely viable for a usefully wide
spectrum of ODDs.
It could be that micromobility and
high-level driving automation have
arrived in the well-known Hype Cycle's
" trough of disillusionment, " which separates
the good ideas from the bad. It's
proven that last-mile and Level 4 can
work. But just because we can do it
doesn't mean we should - or maybe
more importantly, that it'll pay off.
Bill Visnic, Editorial Director
EDITORIAL
Bill Visnic
Editorial Director
Bill.Visnic@sae.org
Lindsay Brooke
Editor-in-Chief
Lindsay.Brooke@sae.org
Ryan Gehm
Associate Editor
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2 November 2022
AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE ENGINEERING
Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - November 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Autonomous Vehicle Engineering - November 2022
