by John Kaweske | Nov 24, 2015 | Car Services, Car Technology
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has been posting publicly to Twitter lately about the companies urgent plans to get their self-driving car software to achieve full autonomy. Ramping up the Autopilot software team at Tesla to achieve generalized full autonomy. If interested, contact autopilot@teslamotors.com. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2015 Should mention that I will be interviewing people personally and Autopilot reports directly to me. This is a super high priority. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2015 These Tweets and others alluding to the importance of the program and the push to improve it have many speculating that the company is preparing to join the race to launch a self-driving car service able to rival the one being built by the world’s reigning car service: Uber. Tesla just launched its Autopilot feature last month, and currently it enables limited self-driving functions such as allowing the cars to steer themselves on highways. However, the technology has had it’s shortcomings, and response from the public has caused some controversy. Drivers immediately began a trend of posting reckless videos to YouTube that demonstrated things such as the cars’ inability to detect worn lane markers which can cause near-collisions. It should be noted that Musk and Tesla have always stipulated that drivers should remain attentive and ready to grip the wheel at any time. Tesla and Uber aren’t the only companies looking to achieve a vehicle with full driving autonomy. The race has been on in the auto and tech industries for some time. Currently, Google is prototyping vehicles in Mountain View, CA. The University of Michigan has a testing facility open to a number of traditional automakers and tech firms for testing their software. In a previous blog, I discussed...
by John Kaweske | Oct 12, 2015 | Car Services, Ride Sharing
For most people, using a car service like Uber or Lyft is simple—request a car using your smartphone app, wait a couple minutes for the driver to arrive, get in, and arrive at your destination. All that changes the second you either are or are with someone who has a physical handicap that confines them to a wheelchair. Unfortunately, most vehicles used by car services aren’t modified for wheelchair accessibility. One disabled Paris resident got fed up with the lack of accesable transportation and decided it was time for a change. That’s when Charlotte de Vilmorin founded Wheeliz, a new car-sharing service in France that gives people who use wheelchairs easy-access to modified cars at an affordable price. I believe the world of startups and innovation is still disconnected from the needs of disabled people. To me, it is essential to create and build a sustainable sharing community dedicated to the mobility problem,” says de Vilmorin. And Wheeliz doesn’t only benefit those with disabilities, it also benefits the owners of these specialized vehicles. On average, adapted car owners can earn almost $400 a week listing their vehicle on the site. Currently, big players in the car service industry such as Uber and Lyft are facing several lawsuits in the United States for providing inadequate access for handicapped people. Back in July, Uber attempted to address these concerns by creating UberAssist for seniors and people with disabilities who need trained drivers to help them get in and out of the vehicle. The problem is, because Uber drivers are technically independent contractors, the company cannot require them to own a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. This becomes a huge problem as soon as a driver pulls up to a passenger who uses an electric...
by John Kaweske | Sep 15, 2015 | Car Services
Mercedes-Benz is considering expanding its audience beyond drivers who are looking to buy cars– in fact, their newest venture may not include drivers at all. Dieter Zetsche, owner of Mercedes-Benz’ parent company Daimler, told Reuters about possible plans for an on-demand limo service similar to Uber, except for one huge differentiator: the cars would be driverless. Mercedes-Benz already runs a car-sharing service app called “car2go,” in which people use their smartphones to find and rent nearby Daimler-owned cars, but this is much more exciting. It’s sounds futuristic, but it’s all part of the current race for the first autonomous vehicle to hit the market. The race is probably most popularly championed by Google, which promises to have a self-driving car by 2020. That’s not the greatest news for Mercedes-Benz because their prototype of a driverless car won’t be released in showrooms until 2025 due to liability issues, according to Reuters. In the meantime, though, Daimler is already making moves. The company joined Audi and BMW earlier this summer in buying HERE, a high-definition digital mapping service created by Nokia. And Zetsche says that driverless cars are a “concrete development goal.” Other big-name contenders like Audi, Tesla, and Ford are attempting to master the art of self-driving cars as well. But Mercedes-Benz is one of only a few companies that are attempting to combine the concept with a taxi service. Some of their biggest competition? None other than Uber itself. Uber and its many drivers have a love-hate relationship, thanks to ongoing conflict about drivers’ pay and their statuses as employees in general. (Independent contractors or employees entitled to benefits like gas...
by John Kaweske | Aug 26, 2015 | Car Technology
Most modern cars come with a service like OnStar, ready to help out the second your car runs into engine trouble or you get into an accident. Most services these days are capable of sending your phone push notifications on the status of your vehicle before anything even goes wrong. But if it does, help is just a button away. It’s a useful service, and a key selling point for new vehicles. But you’re pretty much out of luck if you drive an older car or one from an automaker who for some reason hasn’t hopped on the connected car bandwagon. While the market of unconnected cars continues to shrink as universal adoption becomes eminent, for the moment it’s still a huge untapped market with approximately 150 million unconnected vehicles still on the road. Verizon recognized this market as a huge opportunity and in doing so decided to launch Hum, a service that taps your car’s on-board diagnostic port and transmits technical information through a Bluetooth-enabled speaker clipped to your visor. It works with most cars (electrics and diesels excluded) and any carrier. It also costs just 15 bucks a month. Sounds pretty sweet, right? The Hum service collects data on a range of information, including fuel economy, battery charge level, transmission coolant temperature, and engine error codes. It relays that info to the cloud where your iPhone or Android app can notify you if anything seems to be out of place. If your car has an error code, the app doesn’t just bring it to your attention. It will explain what it means, recommend repairs, and even provide a cost estimate. If something more complex happens, a hotline will connect...
by John Kaweske | Jul 28, 2015 | Car Services
Uber is undoubtably the most popular private car service in the United States, with service is every major city, and many small towns across the country. Uber has been expanding international due to the demand and opportunities. The success which began in the States appeared to have similar results across Europe. The United Kingdom and many other countries adapted quite well and are using Uber regularly. The next step for Uber was to expand in Asian countries, unfortunately, this seems to be a bigger challenge then expected. The problem with expanding in India is the taxi service industry is already established and competition is stiff. Uber is going up against Asian startups such as GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi have been around for years and have dominated the app market for taxi service. GrabTaxi had initially received $250 million US dollars in venture capital funding to help grow the company with “An ambitious research and development center and a driver recruitment program.” It is important that safety is a top priority in this region due to the number of crimes with taxi drivers, making sure drivers are safe and pass standards is of utmost importance for these services. Another issue Uber is that countries as strict as South Korea are cracking down on private taxi services due to the security reasons. The increasing reports of driver misconduct due to unreliable background checks is leading to bans in certain countries. South Korea is going as far to detain employees of Uber South Korea for just being involved with the organization. In China, all Uber offices and headquarters have been raided by Chinese...
