Transcripts For CSPAN3 Automotive Innovation 20180124

On your screen is senator john thune of south dakota. Theyre holding a field hearing today. Senators are going to learn about automotive innovations, including selfdriving cars. Witnesses include representatives of businesses in the automotive and Autonomous Vehicle field and the head of florida poly tetechnic universi. Theyve just gotten under way. Policymakers must take a careful approach to these new technologies. We must allow innovation to thrive while also ensuring the technology is safe and reliable. We must also refrain from favoring one technology, business model, or type of company over another so as to avoid locking in technology before innovation and market choices can take place. The bipartisan av start act, which senator peters and i introduced, accomplishes these goals by building on the existing Regulatory Framework to prioritize safety through increased reporting and oversight, thus promoting Public Safety and Building Public confidence and trust. At the same time, the av start removes unintentional barriers to innovation and existing law and promotes a level Playing Field so that neither traditional auto makers, tech giants, nor new startups are unfairly advantaged or disadvantaged. If u. S. Regulators are not able to foster safe testing and deployment through modernizations, the rest of the world will not sit by. America currently leads the way in auto innovation but many other countries, particularly china, are catching up. We all want america to remain competitive and see the benefits of new jobs and new economic growth. The av start act is just that, a start. As avs become more widespread, there will be tough questions we need to Work Together to answer. Av start contains formal processes to start answering some of these questions, such as those relating the data and how Law Enforcement will interact with avs. This committee will remain active and will build upon the Strong Foundation established by the av start act. I want to thank senator peters and all the members of the committee for their great work on this landmark piece of legislation and look forward to seeing it pass the full senate soon. While Av Technology is approaching quickly, the Auto Industry is innovating in other areas with immediate benefits. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems such as lane keeping assist and automatic emergency braking are available in an increasing number of vehicles on the road today and are already saving lives. And new developments and few technologies such as hybrid and all electric vehicles and increases use of biofuel boost fuel efficiency and reduce pollution. To explore these issues, we have a great panel of witnesses today, representing organizations that are leading the way in many areas of automative innovation. Mr. Luke snider, president of audi mobility u. S. Mr. Mike, president of robert bosch north america, the ceo and cofounder of zukes inc. And dr. Randy aven. I want to thank you all for being here with us today. I will turn now to senator nelson for his opening remarks. Senator nelson right there. Are you alive . There you go. Thank you, mr. Chairman. There you go. Mr. Chairman, i was almost one of those traffic statistics this morning. Coming down one of the north south streets, going the speed limit, suddenly a car in the right lane to my front suddenly does a uturn in the entire street, right in front of us. To which we commented, if we were an Automated Vehicle, and he was an Automated Vehicle, that wouldnt have happened. So, there was a demonstration, for me, early this morning. I, like the chairman, am very hopeful about the prospect of selfdriving cars. I appreciate the efforts of senator peters, who has made this a signature issue. Its appropriate for him, because of being from michigan, and he has been dogged in his pursuit of this legislation. And i thank you, mr. Chairman, that you have arranged to be down here at the auto show. It seems to have gotten a good bit of interest. I wonder how many here for the hearing and how many are here, really, to go to the auto show. But youre planning was enormously successful. And im very excited about my state of floridas role in the development of autonomous technology. Im pleased that a part of our panel is dr. Advent, who is the president of Polytechnic University in florida. And it is working in partnership with the Florida Department of transportation to develop and operate a 42 million 475acre Autonomous Vehicle testing facility at their campus. And i want to congratulate you for this achievement, dr. Advent, and im confident that your world class facility will, in fact, play a vital role in the Ongoing Research that were going to do. This technology is advancing rapidly, just two weeks ago, at the Electronics Show in las vegas, General Motors announced a plan to put fully Autonomous Vehicles, without driver controls, on the public roads as early as 2019. Now, whether or not that occurs depends on us and our legislation. And General Motors is not alone. Countless other auto makers, technology companies, and suppliers are rolling out innovations that have the potential to completely transform our sense of mobility and as the chairman mentioned, to cut down, and as i experienced, on a lot of traffic accidents. In addition, these vehicles may bring significant environmental benefits through reduced emissions, increased efficiency, productivity, the improved transportation opportunities for underserved communities, and seniors and people with disabilities. While these benefits of selfdriving vehicles are numerous, its crucial that the congress and the federal government exercise responsible oversight to ensure the Safe Development and deployment of these technologies. So, the av start act, which was passed unanimously by this committee in october, its an important step. The bill enhances safety by requiring Autonomous Vehicle manufacturers to submit safety evaluation reports to the department of transportation. And that is to demonstrate how they will address system safety, crash worthiness, and Cyber Security among others. And additionally, this act reinforces the traditional existing roles played by federal, state, and local governments pertaining to vehicle registration. So, i look forward to continuing to work with you and senator peters as this legislation advances. Thank you, senator nelson. There we go. Thank you, senator nelson, and again, we want to welcome our panel. Thank you for being here, well start on my left, your right, with dr. Randy avent whos president of Polytechnic University of florida. And mr. Mike mansuetti. I said that wrong the first time, my apologies. With robert bosch, llc, in michigan and Luke Schneider from audi. If you could confine your oral remarks as closely as possible to five minutes, well make sure that all of your testimony gets included in the written record and will maximize the opportunity that we have for members to ask questions. So, dr. Avent, please proceed. Welcome. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to address you today on this very important topic. As many of you know, the vision of Driverless Cars has been around well over 50 years, but very little progress was made in that area until 2004, which d a arpa created a prize competition called the darpa grand challenge. Since then, theres an exponential growth in the underlying Av Technology that mirrors the Development Trajectories in other markets. Today, id like to briefly touch on three dimensions of connected and Autonomous Vehicles. As you all pointed out, numerous papers abound, outlining the promises of Autonomous Vehicles. If developed correctly, the primary advantage of Autonomous Vehicles centers on significantly lowering driverrelated deaths. As you pointed out, senator, last year alone, there were nearly 40,000 fatalities in the u. S. At a cost of over 410 billion. And more than 90 of those were due to human error. But there are many secondary advantages that are also significantly important. For instance, Autonomous Vehicles can improve access for the elderly, children, and poor and can make Public Transportation more effective by solving the last mile problem. It can significantly increase the utilization of automobiles, which is less than 5 now, and with higher utilization of fewer cars, the capacity of our transportation infrastructure would naturally rise. Beyond the transportation sector impact, Core Technologies underlining autonomy will impact other markets such as agriculture, logistics, National Defense and manufacturing. In fact, it would be hard to find any technology with a more disruptive impact on both the u. S. And Global Economy than connected and Autonomous Vehicles. I often say, pistonpowered vehicles driven by people and built by traditional Car Manufacturers may soon be replaced by computers on wheels, scheduled and controlled by autonomous algorithms and developed by i. T. Companies. U. S. Car manufacturers will need to look more like i. T. Companies as they already are. Insurance markets, Law Enforcement, hotels, real estate, lawyers, auto repair, and health care will all be affected just to name a few. But while the promise of Av Technology is noteworthy, there are still substantial barriers to its widespread adoption. For one, the Av Technology core relies on what i call the sensor and signal process and chain and theres still significant work that needs to be done on the edge cases to improve performance. A strong Regulatory Framework is paramount to safety and consumer acceptance, but an overregulated market is likely to stifle innovation and give our global kpcompetitors an advantage. To this end, we need an approach to creating policies and legislation thats modeled after successful verification or certification approaches and other industries. This framework must integrate the full spectrum of tested approaches, ranging from digital simulation and hardware in the loop emulation to closed circuit and public open road testing in urban areas. Lastly, there will be a rapid shift in Transportation Technologies towards Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and analytics as a sensor and signal processing chain matures and vehicles interact with the civil infrastructure. Both the Transportation Industry and their regulatory partners will need to prepare for this shift. States such as florida have taken a leadership role in enabling this market. The federal government can have a very constructive role in enabling this Transformative Technology through research funding, through safety consortiums that investigate and provide factual data around av accidents, much like the ntsb role in aviation and through creating quad governme creating quasigovernment organizations like the federally funded research and Development Centers and universityaffiliated Research Centers that provide independent, unbiased Technology Expertise to the government. Finally, florida poly is working with its partners to Research Solutions to these challenges. This includes a deep partnership with the florida turnpike, enterprises, world class av test track and a partnership with the Orlando Smart City Initiative that provides open road testing in an urban setting. These two test complex combined with floridas advanced Mobility Institute is focusing on addressing many of these vexing challenges. Thank you for your time today. Thank you, dr. Avent. Mr. Clay. Chairman thune, Ranking Member nelson, senators, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. When i arrived in the u. S. From australia just over three years ago, zukes was but a dream so it is indeed on honor to be here before you. Today i will share with you our vision and our journey, our perspective on the step change safety opportunity offered by Autonomous Mobility and finally the opportunity we have as a country to set the best policy foundation on which to build this technology and get it on the road. My journey with Autonomous Mobility began in 2012. While in melbourne, australia, watching from afar, what google was doing, attempting to drive, develop a selfdriving car. My insight at the time was that such technology is about much more than incremental adaptation to the automobile. This technology correctly understood is going to transform how we move everyone and everything on this planet. The belief we hold at zoox is that ai and mobility will take us from the age of the automobile into the next mobility age. And we think thats the age of robotics, fully automated transportation. Thus, zoox was founded to ask the question, what is the full realization of autonomy and mobility . Can we imagine that . And if we can, lets not build it in ten years. Lets build it now. Another zoox, we have gone to this founding vision to today augmenting cars that work as Autonomous Vehicles, driving in downtown San Francisco. We are driving during the day. We are driving during the night. In heavy rain and fog. We are also driving autonomously on freeways. In short, zoox is driving autonomously a complete set of urban road and weather features as we speak. Beyond this, because we believe the full realization of this technology is not retrofitted cars, we are also creating a vehicle from the ground up without traditional controls thats purpose built for the needs of our cities today and tomorrow. This means shared, on demand, zero emission, safe, and wonderful mobility. This represents a phenomenal effort by a highly interdiscipline interdisciplinely team thats fast growing. Expertise ranges across fields of Artificial Intelligence with over 70 ph. D. S, product design, safety, vehicle engineering. The teams come from organizations such as google, tesla, apple, ferrari, nasa and ntsa. Along with academic institutions such as stanford, m. I. T. , oxford, for instanprinceton and melon university. The very real safety opportunity that Autonomous Mobility will offer drives our work every day at zoox. Autonomous Technology Holds out the promise for a whole new safety paradigm, one that allows us to prevent crashes in the first place. The number of people we lost as a result of car crashes in 2016 went up, despite our best efforts. That number represents nearly 2,000 more loved ones lost. In fact, car crashes are the leading cause of death of young people in this nation. This should be unacceptable to us. It is our view that only Autonomous Mobility offers the opportunity to make irrelevant the safety risks associated with driver impairment and error. We should act on that. Finally, these paradigm shifts in both mobility and safety innovation, what, then, is the policy opportunity . First, it is important to recognize that we are in the midst of a great and global race. Other countries are sprinting to harness and deploy this technology. And i know i certainly could have not started zoox and scaled it as fast as i could with my cofounder and Wonderful Team anywhere else than the United States of america. It welcomed me with open arms. I am grateful for that and keen to maintain our Competitive Edge here. The signals we send to entrepreneurs and innovators through our regulatory system are vitally important to meet that end. To date, the posture of both the administration and congress has been to create a level Playing Field to let the innovators innovate. This must continue. Your av start act as well as the selfdrive act captured these principles and encourage innovation in a Technology Neutral way. Without picking winners. The legislation making its way through congress in our view is the right approach for this moment. Finally, the zoox journey is all about connecting people and places. Safely and in an environmentally conscious way and with a sense of wonder. Autonomous mobility sits on the vanguard of possible. As the innovators, we look forward to working with you, the regulators, to create with verve the next era in mobility. Thank you. Chairman thune, Ranking Member nelson, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. Robert bosch founded the company in 1886 in germany, and we established our first u. S. Office in 1906. The bosch companies in the u. S. Today have now grown to encompass 18,000 associates in 25 states. Of our four business sectors, Mobility Solutions is the largest. The u. S. Remains at the forefront of boschs innovation efforts. We are actively testing Automated Vehicles in michigan and in california, and in 2017, b bosch announced the new center for Artificial Intelligence and Silicon Valley will serve as one of the three global sites for these efforts. I appreciate the opportunity to share our view on the transformation of the Auto Industry. This hearing is taking place at a critical juncture in our history. We are witnessing a revolution in almost every aspect of the vehicle, from how we power our cars to how we handle and transition control of the Overall Vehicle to the future role of the vehicle in the lives of individuals. I deeply appreciate the efforts of chairman thune, senator peters, Ranking Member nelson, and all of the Committee Members and sponsoring and passing the av start act. The Committee Staff took great care to consider the issues that are impacting auto suppliers and to understand the complex role that we play as inc. Youubators developers. We also express our appreciation to senators heller and marky for their ongoing support of crash avoidance technologies. At bosch, we have a vision for accidentfree driving. We see the potential for Automated Vehicles and advanced Driver Assistance Systems to dramatically decrease vehiclerelated injuries and fatalities, making automated a driving a reality calls for a profound understanding of all vehicle systems. Bosch has this expertise, and we manufacture the key components. Automated driving will demand much more than just a fitment of more sensors and cameras. It will require a new vision for the electronic architecture and the safety critical functions of the vehicle. To realize higher levels of automated driving, we need redundancy in safety Critical Systems such as braking and steering. Bosch is actively developing redundant braking solutions to support all levels of automation and this redundancy is a critical element, especially for level four and level five Automated Vehicles. It is also important for level three vehicles where a human driver is Still Necessary but safety critical functions may be handled by the vehicle. As part of navigating this new landscape, bosch is forging alliances. For example, in 2017, we announced a partnership with daimler which will focus on level four and level five Automated Vehicles. Bosch is also cognizant of the tremendous need for public outreach. To bolster public understanding, we have launched an academy to educate the public on how Automated Mobility can improve their quality of life and explain how advanced technologies will make the fully automated future possible. The topic of Cyber Security is tightly intertwined with the increasingly connected vehicles and it is a priority for bosch. We have worked for several years to develop robust and comprehensive solutions for our customers. We support a layered approach to Cyber Security and have espoused this in the development of our own products. Reevaluate our customers requirements in two ways, first by developing systems and technologies that can address risks based on the electronic architecture of the vehicles, and second by investing in future solutions that will be interwoven into Vehicle Design from the onset. Understanding the importance of industry cooperation and addressing potential threats and developing best practices, bosch joined the auto isac in 2016. As we look forward to these events, as we cannot fail to address the demand for trained workers to fulfill the millions of jobs that will be needed to fuel the transformation. We clearly recognize the need to build and shape the manufacturing workforce of the future, to support this, bosch maintains an Apprenticeship Program at several of our u. S. Manufacturing facilities and in addition, our u. S. Foundation, the Bosch Community fund, provides grants to s. T. E. M. Based Educational Programs and professional development for teachers. So, thank you again for the opportunity today. Bosch looks forward to continuing to work with each of you and the committee as we continue to develop technologies that are truly invented for life. Thank you, and i look forward to your questions. Thank you, mr. Mansuetti. Mr. Schneider. Chairman thune, Ranking Member nelson, and members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to testify today and thank you on behalf of the Automotive Industry and developers of Automated Vehicles for your leadership in working to enact the av start act. Theres an urgency for the senate to pass the av start act, because it will create, for innovators, a consistent national Regulatory Framework for Automated Vehicles. Thats necessary to advance Mobility Solutions that will positively transform american cities, provide mobility to the elderly, and the disabled, and ensure greater safety on our roads, a priority we share with your commerce with your committee and the department of transportation. Passage of this legislation will allow us to realize the three transportation revolutions we so often talk about. Shared mobility, electrification, and Automated Vehicles. Enhanced by digitalization, which some consider a fourth. Automation and digitalization are disruptive innovations, especially for auto makers. And were driving this new future as an industry. The clear societal opportunities and what their related technologies can offer is what is motivating us to rethink mobility in the most comprehensive way since the 1890s. As the ceo of silver car, a disrupter in its own right, and the president of audi mobility u. S. , id like to share some insights into where this new frontier of automated, electric, and shared mobility as a service is headed. And while some skeptics fear job dislocation from disruptive innovations, the fact is, disrupterers have created new categories of jobs that didnt exist before. Existing sectors will continue to expand and transform in a range of new jobs will be created for workers across all skill levels. Audi is in the innovation business. Audi perfected all wheel driving on racetracks and then offered that technology across our fleet. We were the first to take google earth mobile in our Navigation System before it was on phones. We implemented l. E. D. Lighting before it became an Industry Standard and as we enter what many call the third wave of the technological reviolution, the Auto Industry finds itself at the center of it all. There will be more Industry Innovation in the next decade than in the last century. The cost of batteries has gone down significantly, while the number of sensors in the average vehicle has increased dramatically. Thank to innovations in everything from capacity to size, the way we want to access transportation through the use and even ownership of vehicles is fundamentally changing, along with the other major consumer categories in our lives. Innovation will continue to be our legacy and our ponlt responsibility, but we wont be innovating just to sell more cars. Well be innovating to reduce fatalities, ease congestion, lessen emissions, and improve mobility for all. The most important benefit of all this innovation is safety. The innovations i mentioned earlier all have one thing in common. Safety. All wheel drive excels in the worst conditions. Navigation systems tell people exactly where to go so they spend less time on the road, even as they keep their eyes on it. Our lighting illuminates that road with the closest thing to daylight. But heres the staggering reality. 1. 25 Million People die on our roads every year globally. And human error is number one cause. Vehicle automation promises to improve safety on our roads and reduce collisions by as much as 90 . But maybe even more exciting, it can also deliver basic access that tens of millions of people currently dont have. The elderly and those with disabilities will be able to move with far greater freedom and efficiency. In america, nearly 16 Million People 65 and older live in communities where Public Transportation is poor or nonexistent. 6 Million People with a disability have difficulty accessing transportation. For audi, thats why were delivering level three automation as well as working to develop highly Automated Vehicles that need no human driver at the wheel. Automated vehicles have the potential to reduce fuel use and Carbon Emissions since theyre likely to be evs, shared, and drive more efficiently than humans. And fewer crashes means fewer traffic jams. We want to Work Together to address the challenges facing cities and communities, like reducing fatalities, reducing congestion and pollution, maximizing scarce infrastructure dollars, and optimizing transportation flows. The new Mobility Options we are pursuing and the legislation you are working on will help us address this challenge. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Scneider. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your testimony. I find this technology incredibly exciting and i just look at the transformational impact it could have on our economy in terms of safety, first and foremost, but secondly, productivity, providing mobility for, as has been pointed out, communities of people that previously have not had access to it. It just seems some of us up here have had the benefit, too, of being able to ride in some of these vehicles and see whats happening out there, but i have a question for you that id and im going to make this a two or threeprong question so i can try to cover a lot of ground here. But there are skeptics out there and i know that a lot of it has to do with americans like to drive and its a difficult transition to integrate avs into a nl a national fleet, but how do we, one, build Consumer Trust and confidence in this technology. Two, how do you address the concern that people have about negative impacts on the labor market . People who drive vehicles, for example, as a profession. And three, one of the other concerns that i have heard is how do you address the issue of Cyber Security . Which i get, you know, that question comes up with regard to this technology as well. So, if you could speak to how we convince people this is a good thing and well come back and those are those are at least three questions that i hear posed of me and questions id love to have you give an opportunity to answer. So feel free, whoever would like to take a stab at that. Perhaps ill start. Thank you for those questions. Were also very concerned with those issues and have been working a lot to address those. To your first question, regarding building Consumer Trust, that was one of the big things that we see that we need to do and is the job of the Automotive Industry and thats why we started the bosch mobility academy. So, when we talk to people and we talk to consumers about Automated Vehicles and are they ready to let go, many of them are not. Theyre ready to let go of certain functions, for example, parking, and we see parking as an early use case to help speed the adoption of Automated Vehicles because who would like to just get out, push a button, and have their car automatically valet parked or returned and that builds the trust. Wed be happy to talk more and we have this academy helping to educate consumers on that. Regarding the labor impacts, i think we all stated there will be quite a number of new jobs and new opportunities created. So on the manufacturing side, we continue to invest in apprentice programs and reeducating our workforce and i think with the new Business Models that are emerged, were going to see tremendous opportunities as vehicles become more highly utilized that the increased opportunities for maintenance and cleaning and Different Things of this nature will arise from these new Business Models. And Cyber Security is very important to us. So, this all hinges on good, robust Cyber Security measures. We see Cyber Security kind of as a layered approach. If you think about it from an onion, starting at the basic silicon levels and building in technology and Cyber Security in the hardware and the connections and then looking at the entire network from an intrusion detection system. So, those are some of the things that we are working on. I wanted to respond to that question with a few examples and a few instances in my personal experience. The first is one of the great things about the av start act is that it contemplates Consumer Education in the bill itself, that the department of transportation, alongside individual oem and other industry players and Industry Associations all really need to conspire to do this together so that the consuming public can become more comfortable with the concept of a car driving itself. With respect to jobs, you know, i can speak from personal experience there. We started a company, five years ago, created about 200 jobs in a very short period of time, all of which spanned a number of job categories. I think the big difference here is that the people employed in personal transportation are going to be working at some Different Things, not exactly the same things theyre working on today. Thats fundamental to the nature of Technology Changing the way we move around. But were optimistic about it because of the heavy Technology Orientation theyve had in Companies Like silvercar and the last piece of this is really about security. This is always going to be a concern and frankly, i think, from a safety and a security perspective, very few industries are as regulated as the Automotive Industry. What we look at is the ability to separate systems within cars so that we dont impact driving systems or core systems, and we are still able to make use of the data thats generated by the use of these shared mobility systems to provide better and more efficient transportation. Senator thune, thank you for your three questions. To address them briefly, in terms of adoption, theres always a bell curve with a new technology. You have your early adopters, you have the mainstream in the middle, and then you have your laggards at the end that may never kopt adopt the technology. In the case of aviation, some people still refuse to fly. Ironically, though, they drive, even though its much more dangerous. I think the way to do this is you have to build trust with the community. This is happening today as the developers develop this technology. This has been no injury by any developer of Autonomous Vehicle, yet theres been many cases where the vehicles have been hit by human drivers. So i think by limiting the geographic domain of deployment of the vehicles in the first instance, to say downtown areas in lower speeds, in good weather, we can win the Publics Trust and expand the technology over time. In terms of the jobs piece, people talk about this being a disruptive technology. I find that term a little bit myopic. I see us creating a constructive technology, correctly understood, for a new way to come into vogue in the mainstream, i think it has to be materially better than the incumbent and so i think what were actually creating is a new way of doing things better and that will lead to new job creation and this is always the way with technology. If you look in america, 100 years ago today, 40 of the workforce worked in agriculture. Today, its less than 1 , but we dont have, you know, 40 unemployment as a consequence, because its a whole new set of economies and jobs that we have, and just as theres more people and more revenue from the Automobile Industry than the horse and carriage industry, theres going to be more people working and more revenue in the Autonomous Mobility era as well. So we see great opportunity here, and the challenge for society is really how do we reskill people to get the new Job Opportunities that will come from new technology. And finally, in security, that requires perpetual vigilance. Cyber security is always going to be a threat. Its probably not the best to disclose in intimate ways what our countermeasures are at zoox but its something we think a lot about and something we would be happy to chat about offline. But one thing i would say is its important to understand the geometry of how these vehicles would work. In zooxs case, we own and operate the vehicle so a customer cant buy it and reverse engineer it in their garage. To access the vehicle, you need to have a credit card and be part of a system so we know who you are and were tracking the vehicle and we know where you are and what youre doing and the vehicle is limited to the road network. The occupant in the vehicle has no capacity to take it off that road network as a bad actor. And so if you add all that up, i think it means that the technology is actually quite secured, and its really not a good area for a bad actor to try and do something that would be negative for society. Dr. Avent. And mr. Kentleyklay, if you would, paint the picture as a result of Autonomous Vehicles, what the downtown streets of new york city manhattan look like in the future. Just to follow on the conversation previously, i think that theres no magic bullet for Consumer Trust, and its going to have to be built incrementally, and probably is going to lag behind the technology. So i think this technologys going to be adopted maybe a little bit lower slower than what there are many predictions of that. But when it is adopted, i think that youll see, like i said, interconnected computers that are scheduling each other. Theyre optimizing, theyre adaptive so downtown new york city will have vehicles on it. Theyll probably be fewer vehicles are more capacity because of utilization of vehicles now is about 5 . And parking will change significantly. I think that youll see vehicles communicating to each other and interact with the environment, so much safer and much more efficient transportation. So, will there be as much the need to purchase your own vehicle in the future . Mr. Kentleyklay . Senator nelson, thank you for your question. While people love driving cars, people dont like being driving a car in gridlock, right . Its not a good use of our time. Its already clear in cities and manhattans a great example, the average car ownership is 0. 6 per household. Nationally in america, its a little bit under 2. And the demographics are quite clear that young people see car ownership as a hassle. They have to park it. They have to do insurance. They have to do maintenance. They would much rather just have an ondemand model where they can pay for what they use and when theyre not using it, someone else is, which is a wonderful use of that product. Its getting high utilization. To address your question before in terms of how does this change manhattan . I mean, manhattan is the crown jewel for this technology in many ways. Theres actually 13,000 ubers and lyfts and taxis operating on the island at any one time. In the opening stanzas of the technology, i think were developing our technology to work in a mixed mode environment, but beyond the launch of the technology, i think, in the space of sort of five to ten years, i think youll see cities creating disincentives for cars that pollute and that are human driven to come into the most congested areas and just to have Autonomous Mobility. And that will be transformational for those cities. Youll reduce congestion. Youll enhance the air quality within the city. Youll be able to clean up the urban landscape. Theres a lot of visual pollution from traffic lights, sign posts, car parking. You open up more lanes so i think from an urban planning point of view, the Technology Actually holds great promise to actually refresh and reinvent our most dense urban areas to be safer and more enjoyable. So, paint the picture of the future of travel from new york to chicago. From washington to philadelphia. What is it going to look like . Any one of you. And then i want to ask you, mrmr. Mr. Schneider, i want to find out, since youre one of the auto companies, i want you to tell me why is this not threatening the purchase of your automobiles. Go ahead. Paint the picture of this Long Distance travel. Well, i think its going to be wonderful, you know, imagine the difference between a horse and carriage and the model t ford. Thats an incredible transformation, and its our belief that were about to go through the same transformation in terms of the products that the general public will be able to access to enhance their ability to move across the country. And so so, is it were going to have highspeed dedicated lanes that youre going to punch in that i want to go to philadelphia . Or i want to go to baltimore . Or new york or boston . Is that what the future of Long Distance travel is . Anybody . I think youll see mixed mode transportation. People will still fly, take trains, and theyll drive cars. I think the technology will start in a more dense urban areas first, but as it matures, it will lead to intercity travel and it will be wonderful for people because its going to be safe and will work in a mixed mode environment. Okay, mr. Schneider, why are you not dealing yourself out of business . Well, this is a great question, and this is sort of at the heart of the matter. So, whats great about this is that we, as an industry, are beginning to speak in terms that are typically more associated with the technology in the hightech sectors. And that is in the form of use cases. So, mixed mode, multiple use cases, whether youre trying to get from point to point in a city or from city to city, interurban, suburban, there are so many different use cases for personal transportation that to think that a 10 trillion Global Industry is going to be solved by a single solution is really not probably realistic from our view. The way we look at this and the reason why we, as an auto maker, are excited about the future, is that in pretty much every other category that we consume, food, music, media, lodging, the consumer models either are changing or have changed. We buy things differently. We buy what we want. We pay for what we use and we do it on our own. And from our perspective, that concept of a consumer model, where youre consuming this category of personal transportation, is an entirely unexplored area. One that really marks the transformation of our industry. So, whether you use Public Transportation, which we believe will still be, you know, an available option to go from place to place, whether you use a private conveyance, which is automated or in some other wait even highly automated is an option. The point is that getting from place to place will become more efficient and a lower cost per passenger mile opportunity. Youll unlock, you know, demand for mobility. People view mobility and moving around as a as a basic need today, not a luxury or Something Like that. And thats exciting, because if you really believe that, and youre looking at the people who can create the assets that move people from place to place, well, fundamentally, thats what we do. And so, if the way we we offer those up to the consuming public is different, just a different consumer model, well, then, thats our obligation to figure out how to serve them, you know, what they need. Them they need. Mr. Kentley klay, you said the a. V. Start act and the drive act are the right approaches. You said there is an emergency to starting the a. V. Start act. Let me ask you, have you looked at this legislation and do you advocate the passage of it . Yes, we support it. We appreciate the work thats been done. It provides clear and certain framework moving forward. We support it and look forward to the pass annal. What do you think about this legislation . Is there an urgency to getting this done. If we get it done, how soon will we see the fruits of it . I havent read it in its entirety. Ill pass on that question. Who wants to talk about hot cars. Three of you have advocated the passage of this legislation. The a. V. Bill contains the hot car provision, which i helped cosponsor. There were approximately 755 child vehicular heat stroke fatalities in the United States between 1990 and 2015. We have heard concerns about the costs of this but also weve heard that with the development of krsensors to detect the presence of other vehicles, we might as well go ahead and spend the extra 30 to 50 to do the heat censors. Let me start with you, mr. Schneider. You already have the audi mmi connect app for cell phones. With this level of precise sensing and mobile connectivity, can that jumpstart the provisions and save the lives of chirp children in the back seats. Others might want to comment on this. I appreciate the opportunity to respond to that. The ability to save lives in vehicles, regardless of how the lives are lost, is apriority for audi. To use Smartphone Technology or wireless or anything to improve the safety of vehicles is in our best interest. This is yet one other example of how we have shown a commitment to safety and how we believe that the passage of this bill and the ability to greater connect cars is important. How close is audi to this capability . I cant speak to that directly but i can give you a response after the hearing. Anybody else want to comment . Mr. Kentley klay . Senator, i thank you for your question. I think it is important to understand there are two directions this technology will develop. The first is automobiles that are sold to customers. They have increasingly automated functions. I cant speak to hot cars in that category. The category that zooks is developing, we dont sell the car but own and operate the car in the city and customers pay per minute, per mile. It is designed to be deployed for up to 16 hours. We expect a utilization for up to 50 to 60 . We would condition the cabin. It is never parked for a long period of time getting hot. The ability for that issue to be eradicated, i would say, is complete. As we develop centers for interior occupancy sensing and driver monitoring, these technologies can be used to do that. Those are things we are looking at activity. We have heard questions about infrastructure and we have heard questions about crosscountry trips. We Hope Congress is about to get a recommendation from the administration about an infrastructure bill. What do we need to include in infrastructure legislation that could facilitate the development of Autonomous Vehicles . Thats another great question and one where we have to take this initiative in the right perspective. While many would like to think that tomorrow we are going to see Autonomous Vehicles connected and taking us where we want to go, the reality is that this will be a longer term, more of an evolution than a revolution. Specifically, what do we need in an infrastructure bill today is not something i dont think anybody can comment on specifically. What we do need is the ability to put more vehicles on the road, to test them and understand where the pinch points are, where the safety compromises might be and to be able to very accurately and clearly communicate that to an administration and a legislature that has the ability to enact and improve those conditions. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank chairman thune and Ranking Member nelson for hosting this meeting. This is the best attended Committee Meeting i have been to since i have been a member of this committee. Maybe we need to have more meetings at the auto show or more hearings about an incredibly exciting topic. It is a pleasure to be here with the industry. Senator thune, thank you so much for your leadership on this bill. I think we all saw his passion in his opening comments. The fact that i enjoy working with him, because he is a nononsense senator. You can tell that by the fact that he asked the three Big Questions out of the box, no nonsense, but lets get right to the core of this. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator nelson, thank you for being there every step of the way and working with all of us to make this a reality. I agree, this technology is transformative. You could call it disruptive or creative. It is all of those things. In fact, i believe it is the biggest thing to happen to the Auto Industry sips the first car came off of the Assembly Line. We although that was a pretty big deal for the Auto Industry to have an Assembly Line. This will be equally as big and happening faster than i think the public realizes, given the fact that General Motors, as senator nelson mentioned, has already announced by 2019 to have these cars. Ford Motor Company is going to have a selfdriving car off of their Assembly Line by 2021. Other companies are making similar claims. I was just at the Detroit Auto Show earlier or last week, which is an incredible show. They were featuring a number of selfdriving cars, including the ford motor selfdriving car that they are working on and testing in ann arbor, michigan. That delivers pizzas, dominos pizzas to your door, which is innovative and one example of all the things that are going to happen as a result of this. In order for that to happen, and this topic has already been brought up about Consumer Trust. We are certainly aware of that. You have to win trust. This is a new thing for consumers. Th consumers. They have to feel comfortable. The legislation requires a requirement that the department of transportation work with industry and other Government Agencies to advance responsible Consumer Education. Sentra to th central to that is important to make sure consumers understand what these cars can and cannot do. Before we get to level five, there is also an issue the car may not do everything you think it is and expect it can and something bad will happen as a result of that. If those kind of accidents occur, we can expect to have extreme consumer pushback on this. My question to you, this is required in the legislation, as to how will we accomplish that to make sure before anybody gets in that car they understand what this car can and cannot do . How will you react to it given that requirement . I may differ a little from some of the other panelists. I think that open city testing alone is not the right option. It is only one piece of a very thorough and integrated approach to testing. The problem with open city testing is that your events are controllable. The real world, which is a great thing, and something that needs to be done, you cant control the events. It is hard sometimes to absorb them and certainly hard to repeat them. I think you need a holistic and integrated record to testing to build the trust. It includes simulation and immu lation whe immulation. You can focus on the edge cases. Senator nelson says, when someone makes a uturn in the middle of the road, that doesnt just happen once in a million times unfortunately. The tesla that was in the Automobile Accident where a white truck pulled out and the sun sensor couldnt see it and it ran into it. There will be a vehicle that is going on a road to kentucky that has potholes and no lanes and a horse will run out in front of it. Those are the rare events that you are not going to be able to get in the city exclusively. You have to build an infrastructure na allows y infrastructure that allows you to test those cases. For those cases where it doesnt work, what can we do to improve that . That will take a little bit of time to improve that. Anyone else . Thank you, senator peters. I would say as i mentioned before, this awareness and education of the consumer, we have a duty as an industry to do this. I would liken it as to when we introduced electronic stability control. We were early inknow va tonovat abs. This was a foundational level of automated driving that we understood to educate the public of how to use this particular Safety System and what is happening when it is in use. I think we have to continue to demonstrate through good use cases. I mentioned before an example of parking. People can become familiar in a safe environment and trust the overall technology. I think that is happening as we introduce some of these safety features in the vehicles today like automatic emergency braking or lane Departure Warning or Adaptive Cruise control. People will become more familiar as more technology is available on the road, we will continue to build that Consumer Trust. If i may ask a quick question, you brought up the point of asking testing in city and other environments, including proving grounds. You are one of the Automated Vehicle proving grounds that has been designated. I see mr. Maddox from the American Center for mobility. We have one in michigan. How are these proving grounds operating . How important are they . What can we do in congress to make your work and the proofivi grounds work more efficiently . One of the great advantages is that you can control the events and you can take the fringe test cases and experiment around them and really understand when and where this Technology Works. As you mentioned, there are ten sites across the nation that have been chosen as testing grounds. All of them are going to have a little bit different expertise. I dont think there is a winner take all approach. You need multiple people doing Different Things and integrating it all together. I think these test grounds can provide a valuable interface to the government to help with regulations. It can provide data and a sciencebased approach to what truly regulations need to be and what ones dont need to be. Many of them are taxed to universities, which is a great thing. Universities are independent. They dont have anything in this market and can provide real, true advice. Thank you. Thank you, senator peters. Thanks for your great work and continued work trying to get this cleared through the senate. Mr. Chairman, thank you for this work. Clearly with the size of the crowd we have here today there is a tremendous amount of interest in this technology. Im kind of proud that nevada has been one of the leaders in driverless technology. We were the first state to pass Autonomous Vehicle legislation in 2011 that paved the way for testing. Last year, nevada also passed a full implementation of Autonomous Vehicles for personal and commercial use. We now have autonomous trucks and buses that are testing on our roads. So in nevada we have nearly a half million seniors. We have about 275,000 disabled individuals. We also have 300,000 veterans. I think my father in law and my father fall into all three of those categories. Needless to say, for these individuals, this technology will bring them greater independence and greater mobility. Having said all that, my experience in this is without telling you my age, everybody younger than me loves this technology. Everybody thats older, they are a little worried about this technology. We have a lot of work to do. I do believe that there is a real opportunity. I know most people on that panel have probably at one time or another had an opportunity to be in an Autonomous Vehicle. I did. About 20 years ago, i was where they had a Hydrogen Vehicle that could go 60 miles an hour on a tank of gas and cost 1 million. Here, tesla has model 3 and it is 35,000 and will go 500 miles and 80 miles an hour. It is amazing how much things have changed in the last 20 years. Last year, i was in an audi with Delphi Technology and able to drive seven miles on the freeway and get off in an Autonomous Vehicle. There was somebody in the driver seat. Their hands were off the wheel, brakes, and gas pedal. Mr. Kentley klay, you talked a little bit about the future. I know senator nelson talked about 20 years from now. It sound like to me that the equipment and the technology you are offering, sounds like 20 years from now, no one will own a vehicle. Senator heller, thank you for your question. I think it was in 1908 that the mod modelt ford shipped. How long did it take before the Coach Builders were out of business . If you look at historically, it was around two decades. I think with the technology, well within two decades everyone will be driving Automated Vehicles or using shared Automated Mobility. Thats what we need to do to make the roads safe. Talking rural areas, im part of that 1 of those foarmers yo were mentioning. We had 303 vehicular deaths last year in nevada. More than half were done in the rural portions, happened in the rural portions of the state. What kind of testing is being done out in the rural portions . Even though it is less than 20 of the population, it still has an above average vehicular death rate. What are we going to do for that . Dr. Avent, you talked about animals and how would we ensure in the rural portions where these accidents happen that they are being tested . I am reminding that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. To people in rural areas, it might look like magic. To developers, this is technology. We understand how it works and what we are building. We dont have to understand it is a horse or a quisquirrel or person to know there is something there and we need to stop. We can engineer the vehicles that understand abstractly to understand geometrically to get the requisite safety we need. What we really need to do, take the public, everyone in america, on the journey of how this works, so they can understand and get the assurance they need that it is safe. Let me ask you one more question. Why was it advantageous for you to go from australia to the United States to do are work here as opposed to your own home country . Thank you for the question. I think the intersection of creativity, capital, and Computer Science in america is unprecedented. To create the technology we do, we need the engineering depth of talent thats in this country that we can access to scale. We need investors that are brave enough to invest in such an advanced technology. We need the connections that are in this country, because it is integrated to bring the right set of peoples together, even working with you today to make this technology a reality. Thank you, senator heller. Next up is senator hasan. Thank you for all of the witnesses for being here and for the work that you are doing. This is, indeed, very Exciting Technology and really represents the potential for enormous innovation in all aspects of American Life and global life, actually. So thank you for the work you are doing. I wanted to drill down on a couple of things. I happen to be the mom of a 29yearold young man with very severe disabilities. Much of what you talk about is very exciting for those of us who live in a world in which we have a Family Member with a disability. It is also a reminder that people who dont have disabilities often think they know what solutions are for people that experience disabilities and forget to talk to people that experience disabilities. Example being, yes, mrs. Hassan, the entryway is accessible for your son in a wheelchair, to find out there is a little tiny lift without the adequate turning radius to get a particular type of wheelchair in and out. Can you all talk to me about what interactions you are having with people who might represent the Disability Community to really understand and drill down on what the different populations within that community will need . This is an immensely important topic. It is one in a very recent personal experience i came to understand in a much more profound way of someone with a disability and the challenges associated with getting into and out of a vehicle to do some very simple things. The reality is that Automated Vehicles hold the potential for greater selfsufficiency and the ability to provide a basic level of mobility for persons with disabilities. It doesnt exist there today. The way we think about that is really the way we think about engineering almost any system, which is to understand that customers journey, to try to think through the very specific moments that matter and the points of considerable duress that are undergone and to really factor those into our engineering model and to understand what are the differences for somebody. Disabilities arent all the same. There is a wide, wide variety of them. Our work with ada compliance and other pieces of regulation has i have been go us as iven us resp provide mobility and transportation for all. This is yet another case where it is a very exciting moment in time. Thank you. Anybody else just briefly . I do have a couple other questions. The second question shifting to some of the concerns i hear from consumers and constituents is because of the Technological Innovations that drive a. V. , yall will have an awful lot of consumer Data Available to you. So the question is, what information will be collected on consumers who purchase a. V. S, whats the industry doing to protect the data from being sold and shared without the consumers consent and how easy can consumers access and changed what data is collected and shared about them. Anybody . Maybe i will start. Consumer data, security and privacy is very important. So we believe that first and foremost, we need to protect this data. We also need to have consent to use the data. As to the extent of what data will be collected and how it will be shared and used, i think that continues to develop as these Business Models develop. For us, in developing the technology for its first and foremost how we protect this data and data security. Last question which we probably cant handle in 48 second. Im a former governor. I am sitting here listening to all of the things that state and local governments are going to need to be thinking about to accommodate and help launch this technology, everything from what kind of roads do we build, where do we build them, how do we deal with the reality that there are bad actors out there who would like to try to infiltrate the systems, Software Systems that run this technology. This becomes critical infrastructure. How are we going to partner and deal with that . How are we going to deal with job training for the next generation and for the people who are today going to be displaced by this technology . Lastly, there is always that question in rural america, which is how do we get out this new technology and infrastructure to that last mile where population, or, in my case, in new hampshire, the last twothirds of my state. It isnt the last. It is the first. Twothirds of my state is populated by 52,000 people. How are we going to leverage what we need to leverage and get this technology out to the least densely populated places in our country so that everybody has the freedom and the economic advantage that this Technology Poses . Well submit that in writing and i look forward to working with you on that. Thank you, senator hassan. Senator imhoff is up next. First of all, every time you ask for a yes or no answer, you dont get a yes or no answer. Im going to test you guys. I have two questions im going to ask and listening very carefully. First of all, mr. Klay, your are the only one in your Opening Statement that used a couple of phrases that i like to use. One being, level Playing Field, and the other, government without picking winners. So here is the first question. Since we are at an auto show, i want to highlight an issue that is of concern to me and perhaps to others who are here today, which we dont talk much about. The fact that federal policy is stacked against liquid fuels. This year, auto show is debuting the most electric vehicles ever. Electric vehicles dont even make up 1 of the nations auto sales and auto manufacturers are producing more and more of them. Why . Is merrill matthews, a scholar at the institute of policy innovation puts it, carmakers are building cars and trucks the government wants their consumers to have. That means electrical vehicles. In 1975, congress created a law to help with the fuel shortage situation by establishing the corporate average fuel economy or cap a standards. We no longer have a fuel shortage issue. That didnt stop the Obama Administration in california from ensuring standards kept increasing beyond the technology and what they can do to force their electric car fantasies on the rest of us. Consumers want trucks and suvs. They make up twothirds of the vehicles sold. Yet these vehicles dont help automakers meet current d. O. T. And e. P. A. Regulations. So they make more and more electrics to lower the overall mileage at a significant loss. Additionally, taxpayers are on the hook for up to 7,500 for electric and hybrid vehicles. When hong kong dropped their sales credit, the sales dropped. People want to make their decisions. As electric vehicles are forced on to the consumer, the liquid field industries, oil, gas, ethanol, will be wondering why their government abandoned them in pursuit of the california dream. The federal government should not be in the business of dictating to consumers what type of cars they should have for creating winners and losers. This is question number one. Do you believe the federal government should be in the business of dictating to consumers what type of cars they should have in creating winners and losers . Lets start with you, mr. Klay . Yes or no . No. How about you, doctor . No. So the question of the government picking winners and losers, that was your main question . No. Do we have time . Yes, go ahead. On the issue of level Playing Field and the government picking winners and users, we believe the consumers should have the choice. Good for you. All of you, im proud of you. Now, the last question is, the promise of automatic vehicles, technology will impact all of the users of our nations highways and transportation system. This would be to you again, mr. Klay, you highlight in your testimony the strong safety benefits that come with more Autonomous Vehicles on the road. Do you believe that these benefits can be or should be realized by all Motor Vehicles including trucks, which are driving on the roads today . Yes or no . Thank you for the question. I believe this technology will expand to all modes of technology. Yes or in . And transportation. Thats a yes. Go ahead. The rest of you, please . I dont think it has to be but i think it certainly could be an advantage. Your answer, mr. Mansuetti . Yes. Mr. Schneider . I agree. Dr. Avent, why do you think there should be the mike. What is the reason for this . What justifies the exception of not having this apply to trucks in your mind . I dont think there is an exception. I think that, again, it could be market motivated. I think the technology certainly could help that industry tremendously. Good answer. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator inhofe. Senator lee is up next. Thanks very much to each of you for being here and for answering our questions. We are on the precipice of groundbreaking technological revolution, one that combines Computing Power with telecommunications ability, sensing abilities, so as to change the way the American People interact with their mean of transportation. That has the power to make us healthier, safer. One of the things that i worry about in this circumstance, is that the only thing that can stop this technological revolution from taking place and from improving the lives of 330 americans is the government itself. I worry, for example, about the push that some are seeming to desire, to depart from our traditional regulatory processes and to add an additional layer here, specifically for you, for this technology. I shutter at the thought of what the government might have done had premarket approval been a prer p prerequisite for some of the technologies that brought the internet to the American People or premarket approval that stifled any of the number of innovations that make the lives of the American People better from day to date. Mr. Kentley klay, i would like to start with you and ask you a question regarding how regulations like nhtsa premarket approval might stooifstifle innovation . I dont know that nhtsa has a regulation out for premarket approval. Our view is that with the new technology, you dont want to stifle it. At the same time, we need to deploy it in a safe and riskmanaged way. The right way to do that is to have informed conversations so that all stakeholders understand the politics of whats being created and making the right judgment calls about how to bring it into reality. It is not in your interest. It is not your desire to make an unsafe vehicle, correct . Absolutely not. I would say that today, in the state of michigan and florida and, i think, arizona, as well, you legally could drive a vehicle with no one sitting behind the wheel. No developer is doing that, because they are making the judgment themselves that the technology is not ready. Right. If you did make that judgment call and you went for it, people would not drive that vehicle. People wouldnt purchase that vehicle. People wouldnt buy stock in the company or incompetent vest ves company. It would be counterproductive to release the technology prematurely and have people lose confidence. You are not asking for a regulationfree environment. You are not asking for the government to stay out of this and pretend this were the wild west in which there are no rules . We are asked for an informed conversation in a risk managed way to expedite the benefits. Are there some safetyrelated risks that could result in the wake of it precisely because of an overly aggressive federal government Regulatory Regime . Thats a potential outcome, yes. Isnt there a very real risk with an emerging Technology Like this one where the government sets a standard and that could become the floor and the ceiling, thus stifling innovation . I think standards should be set based on data. We dont quite have the data. Until we set standards before we understand what we are creating, we could stifle innovation. Just about two weeks ago, secretary elaine chao, the head of the u. S. Department of transportation, made an announcement that the department of transportation would be seeking public input across the Transportation Industry to, quote, identify barriers to innovation and shape initiatives. I would like to ask each of you in the moment we have remaining with just a few seconds, tell me what you think the Biggest Barriers for innovation are . Well start with you, dr. Avent. I do think the application of all regulatory policies to this industry, because it is completely different and a new frontier and we have to be careful of taking existing policies and regulating based on those. Mr. Kentley klay . I would commend senator thune and nelson on the opening remarks. I think you get into this new era of mobility, the biggest error of innovation would be an incumbent to make it difficult for us to go forward with the technology when we know what we are doing. We must be careful not to overregulate. We are in such strong support of the a. V. Start. I think you are doing the right thing that allows us to continue to innovate and bring them to market as safely and quickly as we can. Well said. I tend to agree. Mr. Schneider . I think you said it in your opening comments. There is a confluence of te technological changes happening. We have to maintain the safety we want to acquire. Senator lee, thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank all of you. It has been very interesting hearing. I wanted to touch on a subject that i think mr. Mansuetti mentioned in his Opening Statement, the workforce issues. I would imagine it is pretty highly technically advanced degrees, engineering, Computer Science types of innovationists that have gotten us to this point. For the workforce of tomorrow to meet the challenge of the a. V. Technology, you mentioned apprenticeship and grants for st stem and professional development for teachers. I am wondering how you think this will impact the jobs of the future. We have heard about it in the negative way in the development and training. I would like to just remind everybody in the s. T. E. M. Field, women and minorities are very underrepresented. It is important we spur that generation into an exciting field. When you look at the current state we are in when we are developing the technology, the technology is very exciting. We are able to attract a lot more of these s. T. E. M. Candidates into areas like autonomous driving. If you look at the Automotive Industry, that has been kind of stigmafying. We are now seeing excitement generated and the ability to attract the can dates to work on the exciting new technology. In the future, the jobs will be changing, the mobility. When we look at just simple case with the automotive itself, whether it is a car we have today, an electrified vehicle or a shared taxi. Well see new opportunities opening up along all these different lines of how the technology is deployed. In these use cases, as we go to a shared mobility. I think the porps importance is continue to train the workforce and educate them and be ready for what will be the new jobs of the future. Dr. Avent, do you have a comment on that . I think the Technology Relevant in this is going to be around new fields, machine intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science based. There are going to be a lot of developments that are going to have to take place. Technologies around s. T. E. M. And particularly the core s. T. E. M. , engineers and mathematics are going to be relevant. It is not just going to be at the high end where it is now on the development portion . The development portion. They are going to have to be maintained, improved. So really all up and down the scales. My second question involves partnerships. We talked about some partnerships. Im curious to know this. It is going to change the face of the highway in terms of road signs and indicators so the car can pick up indicators rather than the human eye picking up indicators. I am wondering what kind of partnerships you have with Road Builders and state d. O. T. S and local transportation authorities . I dont know anybody that would like to address that. Dr. Avent, duffid you have a response . We have a partnership with the florida turnpike interprize, whi and we are working hand in hand with them on those type of things and experimenting on a closed loop track. What kind of coordination do you have with your local transportation authorities, signmakers, all those things . Senator, thank you for your question. This overlaps a little bit with the previous question about infrastructure and spending and should that be deployed in the area of Autonomous Vehicles. Our view is that we are developing the technology to work with infrastructure as is. We dont require new signs, new lane markings or anything like that for the technology to be introduced into the market in scale. If we had that, it would cripple our ability to bring the technology into the marketplace. There is various talk of technologies where traffic lights can talk to vehicles or vehicles can talk to other vehicles or pedestrians. They are interesting in theory. The problem is if you are actually depending on them, if there is a fault, the system will fault. When developing our systems, we are trying to make sure they are robust without any changes. Duff awe are doing a lot wit cities around the country with regard to smart City Developments and what they are doing on the mobility front. Thats been very interesting. Thank you. Senator young. Well, thank you, chairman. Gosh, this has been a very interesting hearing. There are a lot of reasons for optimism and outright excitement moving forward as these technologies develop. I think the thing im most excited about are the potential changes to the quality of life of a disabled person, of an elderly person, of someone who happens to be sight impaired. It is going to give them a new sense of independence to be more mobile, improve their quality of life. We can see them integrating into the workforce more. Mr. Kentley klay, you talk about this in your testimony, how there have been previous mobility ages, i think as you referred to them, and how a. I. Is going to bring on a new mobility anyone. Could you unpack this concept of a new mobility age for us, please and just try and paint a picture of how the lives of our disabled and elderly americans might change as this Technology Evolves . Certainly, senator. Thank you for your question. The pace of change is accelerating. The previous mobility anyone was the horse and carriage. It was actually around 4,000 b. C. That we domesticated the horse and put the axle on the wheel and that gave us a coach. That was a huge change. We could move goods as a much faster rate. That was 6,000 years ago. It looks like we are about to leave the automobile age, which has been here for around 130 years. It is a much, much more compressed time span and go into the age of fully automated transportation, which is coming. There is no unobtaining that needs to be created to create this technology. We understand what we need to do. It is now just a lot of elbow grease to make it ready for commercial operation. The change is happening. We are exciting. Many people have commented that this technology will increase access. Our Mission Statement is connecting people and places. Thats people without qualification. Thats what we want to enhance. Does anyone have anything to add. Dr. Avent. If you look at a lot of industries, they start out as a craftsman model and become more efficient over time. In the case of transportation, it still is a craftsman model. We teach a driver how to drive. They get behind the wheel. It is a natural progression of that industry to move over to a much more softwaremanaged industry. They become much more efficient. As part of that, we dont have to teach people how to drive and you improve access to a lot of people that generally dont get that. Mr. Ma mnsuetti, let me touc on the future. From the manufacturing and professional Development Programs to Apprenticeship Programs, continued career and Technical Education we know will be needed to alleviate any shortfall in the workforce and make sure workers have the skillset required to fill the jobs of the future in this space. Could you discuss what role you see moving forward for government, particularly the federal government but maybe government generally, in making sure that Companies Like yours will have access to the Skilled Workforce they need . I think thats going to be very important in the future. As we look today, there is a shortage of skilled workers. So we need to continue to expose and be able to train and qualify the workforce of the future. I think that comes with a very it needs a partnership between state, local, federal officials as well as industry. We need to look at it k through graduate education model and getting those things to Work Together. Many times we see that there are disconnects when you go through certain education systems. We are trying to partner not only with universities but also, for example, where we are working, where we are heavily involved in manufacturing in the southeast working together with states, with the state universities, the technical colleges, universities to ensure that the right training is being applied and that we are training people at the right time in the right skills that we need. We have a very Good Partnership and we need to continue that. From a policymaker standpoint, i see one of the challenges being trying to work with you to determine what skills are generalized, which skills are specifically needed for this emerging sector, if you will, of the economy and which skills are Firm Specific and ought to be invested in by Companies Like bosh, for example . I want to commend those responsible for drafting this legislation and working with all the stakeholders. I understand principle compromises are required and i have high confidence this is going to become law and i will be supportive. I still do lament the fact that we have limited this to Passenger Vehicles and not incorporated trucks into this legislation. I think we could save a lot of lives and improve a lot of lives if we were to broaden the scope of it. With that said, i will end on an optimistic note. Thank you once again for being here. Thanks for holding this hearing. Mr. Chairman . Thank you, senator young. That view you articulated on trucks is one that i share. I hope that at some point we can get that aspect of this important debate addressed. Senator blumenthal. Thanks, mr. Chairman. I want to begin on an optimistic note and thank this excellent panel for giving us a view of the future with this exciting, wondrous technology that will give us a brave new world in automobiles and perhaps beyond automobiles, in transit in general. I want to avoid appearing to be an automotive neanderthal but simply express a couple of reservations about potential, irrational exuberance when safety is at stake. I want to avoid creating another generation of cars that may be unsafe at any speed. We know from our experience that the simplest of devices in automobiles right now, ignition switches, that malfunction, or safety bags that are killers, as a number of my colleagues know, can potentially pose great dangers. Right now, collision avoid aanc technologies, such as automatic emergency braking have been proven, available and offer substantial safety benefits. They have been recommended by the federal government, by safety authorities, by consumer advocates and, in fact, mr. Mansuetti, 73 of audis sold last year had aeb systems. They are doing way better than many of your colleagues because they sell only about 19 according to 2017 model statistics. I assume you would agree that making Collision Avoidance system standard should be a top priority for 2019 . Yes. From a baosh perspective, i agree. Speaking for audi, i dont want to talk for you. I think that is pretty well documented. We do support the further infusion of that technology into our fleet. So that something as simple as a. V. Technology and i know mr. Mansuetti, you produce it, so you would agree, can help save lives. Gm has said it is going to be manufacturing Autonomous Vehicles without steering wheels or pedals by 2019. But nissans rnd chief has said, quote, we will always need a human in the loop. At ces earlier this month, as you know, mr. Kentley klay, phantom auto demonstrated how a car in los angeles can be remotely controlled by a human operator in mountainview, california. I understand your company has a patent on this kind of operation technology. So my question to you is, what kind of fallback system would you envision, perhaps making use of this technology or a Similar Technology in the vehicles that will be under your control . Thank you, senator. Thats a great question. I think the headline is that this Technology Fully realized is going to be incredibly safe to the point that we are going to look back to the age of the automobile and say, wow, we were super reckless allowing that carnage on our roads. I think you will have society having that judgment call within five to ten years. How do we achieve that end point . Not to get too deeply in the technicals but our vehicles are engineered with main computers. There is a main computer, a backup mind that and a backup behind that and they are on different power buses. Whether there is a hardware or software fault, our vehicle is designed to stop itself in its lane and be put in a minimal risk technician, taking techniques used in aero spaspac. I dont think there has been a fatality in aviation in eight years. They are all flown by fly by wire systems. It is partly a Public Education campaign. We are very confident we can engineer these vehicles to be robust and safe. You would shoe teleoperation as having a role in the future of your vehicle . When your model is to have Autonomous Vehicles deployed, you are still going to need a command center in that city that has ryu mhuman in the loop to d with vehicles if they have an issue and customers as well. Thats part of our model. Thank you. My time has ex spirspired. If you want to ask another question, go ahead. We have a little bit of time and if these guys dont mind. If anybody else has any final questions. Thank you, mr. Avent, on this issue of teleoperation, what role do you they that should have in anticipating ordealing wit with unpeexpected events . Do you envision teleoperation as having a role . You mean Remote Control where you have a user somewhere else, not in the vehicle . Exactly. I think thats maybe a wrong path to go. It could be an interim. I think it is more appropriate to go from having a Vehicle Driver in the vehicle to fully autonomous. I think military certainly has experimented and done a lot in teleoperation with uavs and drones and all. They work and they are safe. I think that it doesnt meet the full benefit of going to Autonomous Vehicles. Let me ask all of you having taken gms statement that we will have avs on the roads by 2019, how soon in your view will we have level five, safe, Autonomous Vehicles . Maybe we can go down the line and get a prediction, in terms of years from now. I think there is a common thing that says technology is overrated in the nearterm and underrated in the longterm. I think it is going to be longer than probably many technologists believe. I think a big part is going to be the adoption of it and the trust, more so than the technology, itself. I would say ten years if i was a betting person. Ten years. Mr. Kentley klay . I think there is a shell around for this technology in early adoption and mass adoption. Around 2020 you will see fully Automated Vehicles ondemand working in confined, fenced locations. As the technology is improved, that will expand. Thats a more confined area in three years and then maybe consistently two to three years . Mr. Mansuetti . At bosh, we agree with mr. Clay. By the end of the decade, we will see these use cases emerge in limited areas. In the next decade, increasingly more rollout of the technology. By the end of the next decade, i think you will start to see fully autonomous level five vehicles in all cases. I think in general we would agree with that time frame. Again, just to reiterate, this is going to be an evolution and the benefits and full benefits of Autonomous Vehicles really come from not just a single use case or a handful of use cases, it comes from a preponderance of those use cases. Over the next decade, we are going to see these enter the fold one by one. In the near term, we will have some pretty serious progress. I want to close with a final question recognizing the reservations that have been expressed about the overinvolvement of government and premarket approval. Nobody is for overregulation or overinvolvement by government but sometimes standard are necessary and enforcement of those standards are critically important to saving lives and mr. Kentley klay you say in your testimony you would all agree that standard should be databased, driven by real facts from the real world. So my question, i think, finally to the panel is how do we make sure that the government is receiving the kind of data it needs to make smart decisions about how to protect consumers . Anybody who wants to volunteer is welcome. With Automated Vehicles, no one can do it alone. It takes a coalition, a partnership. That includes the government. We will continue to collaborate openly so we make good, sound decisions an we dont overregulate and provide framework that allows us to move forward in the future to bring this technology to life which Everyone Wants as quickly an as safely as possible. Mr. Avent . I agree with that. There is not going to be one industry or one type of person that is going to solve this problem. It is going to take a collection of lots of people. I think consortiums, everyone working together to develop the technology is very important. You would all agree, i assume, that government does have a role to play in protecting safety . In fact, in developing this technology, the reference was made earlier to the internet. In fact, the internet was the result of a partnership, a continuing partnership over many decades of private industry, academia and the government, the military, as is demonstrated very dramatically and powerfully by a book called the innovators written by walter isaacson. Anybody who has a question about that partnership should read the and provides a useful template for this new technology. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator blumenthal. And we have in our bill safety requirements that address a lot of those concerns that youve voiced today. And im hoping that the panel has been influential in getting you to vote for the bil billy eventually when the bill comes. I think senator peters has a question. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And you are right we have thought long and hard safety is foremost, making sure we find the middle ground being careful about making sure these vehicles meet standards. Proving grounds as you talked about as well which we need to have more government involvement as well to make sure you have the resources to test these vehicles. And well collect the data as time goes on. And a lot of Data Collected and better and better. But the question for me is we have to get to the point, mr. Klay where we deal with hundreds of deaths on the highways and debilitating injuries. We are on the verge of making major progress to eliminate all of those when you take out of the human error factor. So thats a major motivator for me and i think most of the folks on the committee to get to that point. The question that i had, and you can comment as you like, the question that came up dealt with the power plant. We talked about factors related to this technology. But one thing that i have heard and i want the panel to comment on, does this mean we are moving to electric power plant . My understanding is that this Technology Works best with electric power plant as opposed to internal combustion engine. Are we seeing that change as well . And you may be first with your company. And if thats the case weve had a number of questions related to infrastructure, that will lead to a lot of other issues how do we make sure we have the infrastructure to support those electric vehicles on the road. Sir . Certainly, thats an outstanding question. And one of those things that we think of as one of three major technological changes driving the industry. In addition to mobility and Autonomous Vehicles is electrify cages. So power plants are moving to the electric variety. Whether battery operated or other technologies to use that is i think industry question in the longer term. However, the infrastructure of a vehicle is moving to an electrical one as a whole. As a guy who started his career as a power train engineering designing engines at ford, i can tell you it has moved and accelerated over the past decade. So i would expect it to continue. As for us, we see the future the mobility electrified. So it will play a large role in future of Autonomous Vehicles. And to your specific question, yes, some of the things are more easily realized in this architecture for this new technology. Getting around cities on roads kind of sucks today. This technology is going to make it awesome. So we should all Work Together to make it happen. Zoox is pure electric. On top of the fatalities in america alone in 2016 and millions going to the hospitals, there is a study from the mit that came out that sid around 50,000 people in the u. S. Died up to a decade early because of pollution from mobility. Right. So as our nations forecasted in 2050 most people will live in mega city environments. So we want to get this in our most dense environments. Ill defer to panelists because they are developing this technology. But as an academic, i dont think that the couple of the technology is neither necessary or sufficient condition. I think you can do autonomous but i do think electrify cages is Incredible Opportunity we should take advantage of. Senator peters, thank you. Senator nelson. Mr. Chairman, for the record id like to insert a statement of advocates for highway and auto safety as part of our record. Without objection. And i would like to conclude my remarks and questions by asking dr. Avent, what is going to be the impact of this new kind of quickly developing technology upon our educational system . And i ask the question since my experience is informed by what happened to the whole educational system as a result of the Space Program. Going to the moon in the apollo program, it created a whole generation of engineers, mathematicians, scientists, technology gists. What do we see Going Forward here . Thats a good point, sir. Once i had erred that the amount of money we spent on the entire Space Program we saved in communications within six months. And this was, when i was fwh college, which was a long, long, time ago and im sure the statistics are much more compelling now. Certainly this is a big market as we talked about its going to be disruptive market. Be changing and far reaching into a lot of industries and a lot of in applications. As i pointed out in my testimony, not just agriculture and persuasive. And the technology will be new technology that needs to be developed. Artificial intelligence has been around for many years, but it still needs to be evolve a lot. And to grow. So i this i that nk we will see generation of engineers. I think well see much more focus on Electrical Engineering and Data Analytics and that type of technology. And i think the market will pull from the universities and have much more people going into those areas. Thank you, senator nelson. One last sort of quick question. One is, and because lots have been talked about today, and as we have looked at this issue, stake Holder Community highlights emphasizes the fact this is going to save a lot of lives. And my question, very directly is, do you think the safety in terms of lives saves as a result of Automated Vehicles as advertised by the industry will be realized . I mean, the lives saved as a result of this technology consistent with what the reality is . I can say that i am more than optimistic that we will realize the benefits that we are even just laying out today. I dont think that there has ever been a moment in the history of the industry where we were on the verge of such a profound improvement both in safety, lost productivity, and just the benefits of living in our cities and the quality of our air and everything that goes with it. So from that perspective, i think that, you know, i am absolutely optimistic that this is going to happen. Thanks. We share that feeling as well. This is a revolutionary technology that will dramatically improve the quality of all of our lives. And with safety, absolutely, we will make tremendous progress in this technology. Okay. Beyond that, these vehicles have persuasive 360 perception with no blind spots and always watching. Having developing this technology now three years full time we are convinced it will deliver on safety promise and then some. Even when you account for the once in a million events, its pretty close to zero. So, yes, i do agree its going to make incredible impact. One quick followup question. I agree with that, when you get out into the future and predictive quality of those predictions in terms of lives saved, i think will be realized. But i think for a lt ot of peop looking at this transitional period, and ill use as an example senator nelson example this morning the car that made a u turn in front of him. And in a perfectly autonomous world they would have react toded to that. But what happens when you have one person in an Autonomous Vehicle and another car, and in that transition period when we have drivers and Autonomous Vehicles on the road, what happens in those types of situations . Im curious what your thoughts are what the safety features might be if a human reacts the wrong way to Autonomous Vehicle. Senator, anyone on the panel, you are welcome to come visit zoox in San Francisco and see how respondent the situations are. Driving in downtown environments we face those every hour. And now is not the time to go into technical reasons how we solve that but we have the methods in place to handle those situations. Okay. All right. One more. Senator blumenthal. Now you really have to vote for the bill. [ laughter ] i withdraw my question. [ laughter ] i expect ill vote for a bill. In the meantime, in the time that we are waiting, whether its three years or ten years for the deployment of this technology on a widespread perhaps universal scale, would everyone here agree that safety mechanisms like Collision Avoidance technology, automatic braking systems should be fully deployed, and that his example should be followed by the rest of the industry . I will spare you an answer, mr. Snyder. Absolutely. Absolutely. Back to the one question. One word answer. As a developing 100 Autonomous Vehicle, we already have those systems in place in our architecture. You do . Yes. Thank you all. Thank you. Before we close out, i want to ask consent to place in the record testimony from nxp semi conductors as well as testimony submitted from honda innovation changing Automotive Industry. So i would like to say to the members of our panel, if our members could get questions in, we would like to get those responded to and complete the record in two weeks. So if there are written questions that come in response to this hearing, do your best to get those back to us. The answers back to us as quickly as possible. It would be greatly appreciated. And i want to thank the crowd for being here today. Its good participation from our audience. And how about we give all these folks a hand. [ applause ] thanks again to our panel. Thanks to all of you for being here. And this meeting is adjourned. Auto show in washington getting dunner w getting under way on friday. You can see that online at cspan. Org. Well take you under way National Winter meeting in washington d. C. With the mayors. We have been passing 250 billion of infrastructure, a number larger than what theyll start with we understand, in our