Is GM Building A Roadblock for Self-Driving Cars?

General Motors is trying to do something about self-driving cars, otherwise known as autonomous vehicles.  Besides their technical R&D efforts, a recent Associated Press report revealed that GM lobbyists have been busy in numerous U. S. states trying to get a particular bill passed that allegedly would protect the public from self-driving-car hazards.  But what it's really supposed to do is to protect GM from having to compete with other self-driving car makers and experimenters.

This is a big deal, because decisions made at the state legislative level today could have profound implications for the development of the infant autonomous vehicle business in the U. S. for decades.  I won't quite say the bill would strangle the infant in its crib, but it comes close.

What GM proposes is to allow mainly fleets of automaker-leased autonomous vehicles on the road.  These would be fully self-driving machines—no operator standing by—and in targeting centrally-owned fleets, GM has singled out what is the most likely initial application of these vehicles.  The first commercially deployed autonomous vehicles are operating in just such a fleet-style mode in a densely-populated section of Singapore, for example.  But the kicker is that the law would require that the maker of the cars retain ownership of them, even if they were deployed only for testing purposes.

Other autonomous-vehicle promoters, including major car companies such as Ford, Volvo, and Audi, oppose the bill, saying it's an attempt to slant the playing field in favor of GM.  It's also opposed by Uber, Lyft, and other organizations such as Google that don't make cars but are still interested in autonomous vehicles for various reasons. 

I have to hand it to GM for their political insight, however.  State legislatures tend to be pushovers for corporate-friendly laws, a tradition going back at least to the early twentieth century.  For example, it's a fact that Tesla Motors cannot sell its cars directly to Texas consumers.  Why not?  Because way back when the first car dealerships were being established in the 1910s and 1920s, they banded together in most states and got laws passed that prohibited large, powerful auto companies from selling cars directly to consumers.  In this way, a specific group of businesses got a law passed that was nominally for consumer protection but in fact was a special favor to the group.  Ties between car dealers and state legislatures have been close ever since, and GM is using this continuing closeness to try to get its law passed. 

The AP article cites numerous legislators who have received contributions from GM and also favor GM's legislation.  It's an open secret, at least in Texas, that quid-pro-quo legislation in response to contributions (or less legal kinds of influence) goes on all the time, and so it's not surprising that GM has made considerable progress with its attempts to get its legislation passed.  But now that we know about it, a consideration of the parties involved can show just how bad an idea it could be.

The groups significantly affected by this matter are:  (1) the Big Three U. S. automakers (Ford, Chrysler, and GM), (2)  other organizations that don't make cars but are interested in autonomous vehicles for various reasons (Google, Uber, and other experimenters and inventors), (3)  state legislatures, who hold the main responsibility for laws regulating driving and drivers, (4) the federal government, which has so far mostly stayed out of the way of this matter, at least with regard to formal legislation, and (5) the car-driving or car-riding public.  From the public's point of view, it makes sense to have the widest safe variety of options available for self-driving cars:  partially self-driving vehicles owned by the driver/rider, wholly self-driving cars owned and operated by a fleet manager, leased self-driving cars, retrofitted self-driving cars, and whatever else can safely be done in this area to see which usage models work economically and which don't. 

While the focus up to now has been mostly on the technology, astute observers have pointed out the possibility that self-driving cars could revolutionize the whole economic makeup of the auto industry.  Car ownership in the future might be as quaint or peculiar-looking now as ownership of a private electric-power plant looks today, but that's the way many privately-owned homes of the rich were provided with electricity in the very early days of electric lighting.  Some forecasters see visions of autonomous vehicles, like mini-buses or cabs, showing up on command at your doorstep, with everybody living in apartments without garages or parking lots.  Nobody has satisfactorily explained to me where all these garageless vehicles will go at night when demand is down, but I suppose there must go someplace.  At the minimum, they could park themselves in dense ranks instead of regular lots, which have to allow any-time access for any vehicle and consequently are at least 70% or so open space.

Whatever the details, GM has realized that autonomous vehicles are a potential threat to their current business model.  Hence their rather clumsy attempt to get ahead of the curve with legislation that would favor automakers to the exclusion of nearly everyone else.  Needless to say, if GM's proposals turn into law in every state, it will severely hamper all the other models of large-scale deployment of autonomous vehicles, but we might just be stuck with it, like we're stuck with locally-owned car dealerships to this day, whether it makes sense to sell cars that way or not. 

I don't know if this matter merits a citizens' letter-writing campaign, but at the very least we should be aware that GM is trying to throw up a big legislative roadblock in the path of self-driving cars.  Let's hope that state legislators all across the country do the statesman-like thing and resist the temptation to give in to one special interest at the price of inconvenience, or worse, for the general public.

Sources:  The Associated Press article by Joan Lowy to which I referred was carried by numerous outlets including ABC News, where it was titled "INFLUENCE GAME:  GM bill is self-driving and self-interested."  It was posted on Feb. 23, 2017 at http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/gm-pushing-driving-car-rules-undercut-competitors-45680319.  I also referred to a Washington Post article on auto dealership laws at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/14/auto-dealers-and-state-legislatures-conspire-to-make-cars-more-expensive-can-tesla-change-that/.

"The Switch From Hell": GM's Barra and the Ignition-Switch Debacle

Back in April, GM CEO Mary Barra testified to Congress about a massive recall involving GM's Cobalts, many of which carried a defective ignition switch that could be accidentally turned off by a driver's heavy keyring.  This defect has led to numerous fatal crashes and lawsuits.  In a public address to GM employees worldwide on June 5, Barra released a 315-page report detailing the results of an internal investigation into the switch problem, and used some of the harshest language in memory by a CEO of a major corporation about the performance of his or her own employees.  Thanks to the release of this report, we now know more about exactly how such a serious defect was allowed in thousands of cars produced in the mid-2000s, and also why it was so dangerous.

The report gives fascinating insight into how a large, bureaucratic operation such as GM goes about developing such a complicated thing as a modern automobile.  One way is specialization.  Engineer Ray DeGiorgio, for example, joined the firm around 1991 and became an ignition-switch specialist.  When a new design was called for around 2000, he eventually became the Design Release Engineer on the project that would make a new design of switch for product lines that eventually became known as Saturn's Ion and Cobalt. 

           

The switch's early development did not go smoothly.  Electrical problems plagued both the prototypes that were lab tested and units that made it into test vehicles.  As the deadline for releasing the switch to production approached, DeGiorgio came under pressure to make decisions about whether to address a low-torque issue in a design that had already manifested numerous other problems.  Because the thing was finally working, mostly, when the switch's supplier, Delphi, asked if they should try fixing the torque issue, DeGiorgio replied "maintain present course."  He feared that increasing the torque to meet specifications in all cases would cause further electrical problems, and manifested his frustration by signing the email "Ray (tired of the switch from hell) DeGiorgio." 

People tend to be able to deal with only one thing at a time effectively.  While DeGiorgio knew that a low-torque switch could cause problems such as stalling while in motion, having a car stall while running once in a while didn't seem as serious as not being able to start the car at all, which was the result of some of the electrical problems.  It is not clear that DeGiorgio realized what few other engineers at GM realized either:  that when the switch accidentally slipped from Run to Accessory while the car was in motion due to the low-torque problem, this movement would also disable the airbag and the ABS (anti-lock braking) systems.  Therefore, not only would a driver suddenly find that he or she had lost power and most of the steering (power steering dies when the engine dies)—the protection from collisions provided by ABS and airbags also disappeared.  As subsequent accidents proved, the failure of these safety features was a contributing cause to several of the fatalities that have been ascribed to the ignition-switch problem.

DeGiorgio was not acting maliciously.  He was simply trying to do a difficult job in a timely manner.  As far as we know, he didn't falsify any records.  He was even responsible for fixing the switch-torque problem in 2006, but he did it in a way that violated established GM policy:  he made a silent supplier-specification change that did not change the part number or notify the rest of the organization that the new switch was significantly different.  As a result, GM and outside investigators spent several years tracking down the mysterious ignition-switch failures, and trying to figure out why they disappeared in models built after the hidden 2006 change.

The theologian and philosopher St. Augustine was among the first to point out that evil is not so much a positive substantial thing in itself, as it is the absence or privation of something good.  DeGiorgio's actions and inactions in the GM ignition-switch saga are an example of this.  Faced with a laundry list of problems, both electrical and mechanical, he decided in 2002 to let the apparently minor torque issue slide, rather than delay the process further by trying to fix it at the risk of upsetting the delicately balanced design further.  And he simply didn't know, or didn't think about, the fact that in the particular vehicles that used the switch, a "moving stall" (as engineers referred to it) could be very dangerous because it disabled the ABS and airbag systems, both of which might be especially needed in negotiating a safe escape from a sudden and surprising loss of power.  And when he did a good thing—issuing the 2006 change that fixed the switch—he also, out of either fear or reluctance, failed to issue notifications that would point to the existence of the problem in the first place.  Again, it was not so much a positive action on his part that was faulty, but inaction, and inaction possibly motivated by fear.

We have not been told whether DeGiorgio was one of the fifteen people fired as a result of the investigation.  Perhaps he made the corporate version of a plea bargain, agreeing to talk in exchange for his job.  Whatever his personal fate, his actions have entered the ranks of engineering ethics cases, and will probably stay there for years to come.  CEO Barra has done a great service to the discipline of engineering by being as forthright and direct as she has been during the course of this issue.  I cannot recall any male CEO who faced a similar problem without blustering, obfuscating, or generally following the advice of lawyers to admit as little as possible.  Listening to Barra, one might almost think that she has told her lawyers to go where the switch came from, and not bother her while she says what she wants to say. 

CEOs can say anything they want, but making significant changes in an organization of 220,000 people is a hard task.  Nevertheless, in airing so much dirty laundry, Barra has made a good start toward fixing the systemic managerial and organizational problems that allowed the defective ignition switches to go unnoticed for so long.  She has also presented a good example for other CEOs of major corporations to follow in 'fessing up to ethical lapses.

Sources:  Mary Barra's "global town hall" meeting remarks were reported in USA Today on June 5 at http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/06/05/gm-ceo-mary-barra-speech-switch-recall-report/10012715/.  I referred to the (redacted for privacy of private individuals) "Report to Board of Directors of General Motors Company Regarding Ignition Switch Recalls" dated May 29, 2014, which is currently available from a news item on the main page of the National Highway and Transportation Safety Board website (www.nhtsa.gov).  I also referred to the Wikipedia article on the Ford Pinto.  I blogged on Barra's testimony to Congress in this space on April 7, 2014.

Self-Driving Cars: More Bumps in the Road

In what is probably the most detailed reporting on Google's self-driving cars to appear so far, New Yorker staff writer Burkhard Bilger shows just how far the technology has advanced since the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held its first Grand Challenge race of autonomous vehicles in the Mojave Desert in 2004.  Nobody came even close to finishing that first race, but only a year later the lessons learned from the inaugural debacles paid off when five vehicles completed the 132-mile course.  Today, Google's fleet of self-driving cars regularly plies roads in California, where the legislature recently passed new licensing laws making it legal to ride in such a vehicle without actually driving it.  But as Bilger briefly points out, a lot remains to be done before you can reasonably expect to own (or at least ride in) a self-driving car yourself.  And in my opinion, technology is not the main stumbling block.

A couple of years ago, I wrote in this blog that I perceived at least two problems which stood in the way of self-driving cars:  unexplored technical problems that might arise if lots of them were on the road all at once, and the reluctance of drivers to hand over the wheel to a robot.  I now think that the first issue has probably been overcome (or easily can be if it arises), and the second issue will take care of itself as the technology becomes more available and peer pressure or necessity (would you rather be told you're too old to drive, or buy a car that can drive itself?) convinces reluctant drivers to hand over the keys to Cyborg. 

But Bilger touches on what I now believe is the single most important obstacle that might slow the spread of autonomous vehicles, at least in the U. S.:  the conservatism of U. S. automotive engineers. 

Bilger spoke with representatives of several car companies:  GM, Ford, Nissan, Toyota, Mercedes, and Volvo, among others.  Ford and GM continue to make incremental "driver-assist" options available, but don't seem enthusiastic about self-driving cars at all. Nissan is the only firm that has made a definite commitment to market a self-driving car, with a target date of 2020.  Mercedes is worried about what the currently-required laser dome on the roof will do to styling, and Volvo is concentrating on safety more than autonomy:  their goal is to make fatal crashes in a Volvo essentially impossible.  But whether a robot or a human drives the car is not their primary concern.  Toyota is still recovering from the controversial accusations that their cars were prone to sudden acceleration, and has paid out millions in legal costs as a result.  That firm is probably not eager to market a product that a few accidents could transform into another huge legal liability.

Here is what I think will happen.  In highly congested non-U. S. cities—Tokyo, Amsterdam, Berlin—auto makers will first market self-driving cars to people for whom car ownership is very expensive in terms of parking and driving aggravation.  Bilger makes the somewhat curious claim that once cars can drive themselves, most people will not feel the need to own one.  I for one fail to see the connection, except in circumstances where it is a positive pain to own a car, such as living in Manhattan. 

Google admits it's not planning to go into the car business.  But if it thinks Ford or GM is going to buy turnkey controls sold by Google and install them in their own products, they have not given sufficient consideration to the power of N. I. H.:  Not Invented Here.  Not only will the U. S. auto engineers be reluctant to hand over critical responsibilities for their products to a bunch of California geeks; the Detroit crowd recognizes that the whole idea of car ownership is tied intimately to the fact that you drive the thing, you don't just ride in it.

Most U. S. automakers sell cars by playing on the emotions of potential car owners.  The idea is "you are what you drive."  Drive a Dodge Ram?  You're a rough, tough guy who can climb mountains while carrying a ton of rocks—in your pickup.  And so on.  The psychological distance between the driver's seat and the passenger seat (even if you're still sitting behind the wheel) is vast.  A car that drives itself isn't a car anymore, it's a one-person bus.  And public transportation in this country is about as sexy as a roomful of old men playing dominoes. 

To sell self-driving cars, the U. S. auto companies would have to retool their whole way of thinking about how cars are sold.  Of course, if buying a car becomes a thing that only really rich people can afford to do (like keeping a chauffeur), and most cars become part of some public transportation network, the marketing job for the auto industry becomes much easier.  They will have to sell only to a few large municipal purchasing agents rather than to millions of individual car owners.  But except in a few quasi-European cities on the U. S. coasts, I simply can't picture this happening to any large extent.  People love their cars too much to let go of them, even if they no longer drive them. 

Perhaps we will go through another U. S. automaker shakeout, like the one that happened in the early 1980s as foreign automotive producers out-manufactured U. S. firms and took over huge tracts of market share.  If lots of people like the idea of not having to drive, but still want to own a car, Nissan will find out when they offer a truly self-driving vehicle.  Legislatures in states where the demand is high will take care of the licensing problem, and if U. S. carmakers ignore or downplay the self-driving car trend after foreign makes start selling, it's their funeral, along with the funerals of those people who die as a result of human-driver error—deaths that Google engineers claim can be reduced drastically once we switch to self-driving vehicles.  And that's another factor that may push U. S. auto manufacturers unwillingly into the self-driving-car business:  insurance companies.  If a large enough database of statistics shows that self-driving cars are, say, four times as safe on average as human-driven ones, insurance rates on the self-driving models will plummet, and people will have to pay more for the privilege of driving rather than letting the computer steer. 

Sooner or later, the sight of driverless cars will no longer attract the attention it does today.  But a lot of things will have to change first, and among the most important are attitudes of engineers, legislatures, and drivers themselves.

Sources:  Burkhard Bilger's article "Auto Correct" appeared on pp. 96-109 of the Nov. 25, 2013 issue of The New Yorker.  I addressed the issue of autonomous vehicles in my blog in this space on August 11, 2011.