The Week in Mobility News — 21 August
Dodgy Wifi and Digital Inequality
Michigan announced this week that it’s teaming with tech and auto companies to attempt to retrofit a 40 mile stretch of roads outside Detroit exclusively for self-driving vehicles. Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners’ subsidiary, Cavnue, will lead the project and be joined by Ford, GM, BMW, Honda, Toyota, Arrival, Argo AI, TuSimple and Waymo.
The 40 miles will be fitted with sensors to improve communication between autonomous vehicles and their environment at a handsome $10 million per mile. Similar moves have already been made in Las Vegas where some traffic lights have been upgraded to alert self-driving vehicles that the lights have changed colour. The success of any connected infrastructure however is dependent on consistent and low latency internet. A self-driving vehicle or city’s traffic management system cannot be vulnerable to the equivalent of a mid-sentence freeze on a video conference.
Behind the glossy veneer of digital communications sits very physical subsea cables and wires that make up the internet’s basic plumbing system responsible for carrying 98% of internet traffic. Technology giants are investing heavily to upgrade and develop new cables. Google is building “Grace Hopper”, a private cable to connect New Jersey to the UK whilst Facebook has set its sights on Africa where the internet industry is predicted to generate $51bn in revenue for telecoms operators by 2025.
The backbone of the world’s internet access could soon be largely owned by a small handful of technology giants whose investments are a clear strategy to extol the market opportunity of improved digital infrastructure. However, the internet is much more than a lucrative industry; universal access to the internet will soon become, if not is already, a basic human right in order to achieve equitable access to goods, services and information. UN Sustainability Goal 9c states “significantly increase access to ICT and strive to provide universal and affordable access to internet in LDCs (least developed countries) by 2020” as part of ambitions to generate resilient infrastructure and innovation.
The quality of education during lockdown was largely determined by the quality of the child’s WiFi, offering us a glimpse into what digital inequality could look like. In a future in which autonomous vehicles really do reduce accidents by the anticipated 90% and prevent thousands of fatalities, access to improved road safety via AVs becomes a human right. To reach this future, tech giants are right to be laying the foundation via new subsea cables. However, if digital infrastructure increases in criticality as an enabler to equality, we also open up the chance for it to be ever more politicised. The question is, how much do we want that power to be privately owned by tech companies and what role governments must play today to prepare for an equitable digital future.
Canoo joins the IPO Club
This year Fisker Inc, Workhorse, Xpeng Motors and Nikola have all revealed intentions to go public whilst Rivian has raised a whopping $2.5 billion. The enthusiasm from investors to propel electric vehicle startups into full scale production via generous cash injections means the EV economic pie seems both plentiful and appetising. It was unsurprising therefore to see Canoo’s announcement this week to go public via a SPAC. The California based company promises to deliver its subscription only lifestyle vehicle from 2022, with multiple other top hat variants also in the pipeline. For a deeper delve into their strategy read the full investor deck here.
Africa’s First Electric Bus Factory
Ugandan company Kiira Motors have created Africa’s first electric bus plant and will have buses on the roads in the highly polluted capital Kampala by 2021. 90% of the materials and components, including banana leaf seats, are made locally. The efforts to localise the supply chain will decrease the area’s dependence on imported vehicles from China whilst generating hundreds of local jobs.
Elsewhere in the industry
- The charging infrastructure market is expected to reach $56.9 billion by 2026
- Gloria Boyland — the former Corporate Vice President of FedEx has joined Aurora, a self driving technology company, suggesting a move into autonomy for logistics
- The UK Government will allow Advanced Lane Keep Assist features on the motorway from next year
- The US Postal Service has come under attack amidst claims mail-in votes may not reach ballots in time to be counted as part of cost cutting initiatives
- Andy Street, the Mayor for West Midlands has called for more decentralisation to allow more regional power over local transportation networks
- Singapore based electric car-sharing service BlueSG hits 1 million rentals after three years of operation
- London startup, Weezy promises groceries can be delivered in 15 minutes using small fulfilment centres in individual postcodes
- Elon Musk isn’t worried about the cybertruck as a conventional truck is Tesla’s fall back strategy
“But I wasn’t super worried about that because if it turns out nobody wants to buy a weird-looking truck, we’ll build a normal truck, no problem.” Elon Musk
Miscellaneous
People are rendered disabled by the design of their environment. In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 mandated curb cuts at all street corners, pointing to the design of the street as a key locus of wheelchair users’ political rights — if the sidewalk is in a public space, it is part of the public sphere.
Shockingly, wheelchair pavement ramps in public spaces are not enforced globally. In Brazil where a meagre 9% of curbs are ramped, NGO Movimento SuperAção started the project “Without Ramps, Sidewalks Are Walls” to bring awareness to this issue.
