Olli hits the road in the Washington, D.C. area and later this year in Miami-Dade County and Las Vegas.
Local Motors CEO and co-founder John B. Rogers, Jr. with "Olli" & IBM, June 15, 2016.Rich Riggins/Feature Photo Service for IBM
IBM, along with the Arizona-based manufacturer Local Motors, debuted the first-ever driverless vehicle to use the Watson cognitive computing platform. Dubbed "Olli," the electric vehicle was unveiled at Local Motors' new facility in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.
Olli, which can carry up to 12 passengers, taps into four Watson APIs (
Speech to Text,
Natural Language Classifier,
Entity Extraction and
Text to Speech
) to interact with its riders. It can answer questions like "Can I bring my children on board?" and respond to basic operational commands like, "Take me to the closest Mexican restaurant." Olli can also give vehicle diagnostics, answering questions like, "Why are you stopping?"
Olli learns from data produced by more than 30 sensors embedded throughout the vehicle, which will added and adjusted to meet passenger needs and local preferences.
While Olli is the first self-driving vehicle to use IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT), this isn't Watson's first foray into the automotive industry. IBM launched its IoT for Automotive unit in September of last year, and in March, IBM and Honda announced a deal for Watson technology and analytics to be used in the automaker's Formula One (F1) cars and pits.
IBM demonstrated its commitment to IoT in March of last year, when it announced it was spending $3B over four years to establish a separate IoT business unit, whch later became the Watson IoT business unit.
IBM says that starting Thursday, Olli will be used on public roads locally in Washington, D.C. and will be used in Miami-Dade County and Las Vegas later this year. Miami-Dade County is exploring a pilot program that would deploy several autonomous vehicles to shuttle people around Miami.
Just when everyone’s getting all excited about electric cars usurping their fossil fuel-guzzling counterparts,Honda has announced that its hydrogen-powered cars will go on sale in Japan as early as March 2016, with launches in Europe and the US to follow.
The five-seated sedan, called the FCV Clarity, can travel 700 km (434 miles) on a single charge. It’s been priced at 7.66 million yen, or US$62,807, which puts it just in the affordability range for the average consumer, the Japanese automaker saying it expects to sell far more than the 72 units it sold of its previous-generation model, the FCX Clarity. "We want this car to be the trigger for the 'hydrogen society'," Honda operating officer, Toshihiro Mibe, told Reutersat the Tokyo Motor Show in Japan this week.
A Honda hydrogen-powered car is nothing new. Back in 2008, the FCX Clarity was leased to a handful of private buyers in California as part of a subsidised trial deal, but things didn’t go so well that time around.
For one thing, the car cost 10 times more than it does now, and on top of that, it was 30 percent less powerful. The hydrogen fuel cell stack was also incredibly bulky, and the last thing you want to do is spend more than half a million dollars on a car you can barely fit into. "Until this point, fuel cells have been so large that they needed to be packaged elsewhere in the vehicle, like in Toyota's Mirai, which has its fuel cell stack in the centre of the vehicle, cutting into interior space," Nick Jaynes writes for Mashable.
The FCV Clarity, on the other hand, features a fuel cell stack that's 33 percent smaller, now taking up the same amount of room under the hood as a typical V-6 engine.
Hydrogen-powered cars work by having the fuel cell stack convert hydrogen into electricity, which powers an electric motor via a lithium-ion battery pack. "Essentially, think of it as an electric vehicle that can be refilled in 3 minutes and emits only water vapour out of its tailpipes," says Jaynes.
And therein lies the biggest hurdle in convincing drivers to join the "hydrogen society" - you’re gonna need at least one hydrogen station in your local area to make buying one of these environmentally friendly vehicles in any way practical. Joann Muller reports at Forbes that companies like First Element and Air Liquide are installing some in Northeastern US and California, supported by government grants and loans from Toyota and Honda, but the rollout has so far been slow.
Not that Honda isn’t aware of the challenges its drivers could face in finding places to charge - it’s now developing a personal-use Smart Hydrogen Station, which is designed to be installed at home so you don’t have to go looking for a re-up. "There’s no word on when that might be available, but if it’s affordable, it could be a huge breakthrough in speeding the adoption of fuel cell vehicles,"says Muller.
It's exciting to see a car company go all-in on a vehicle that completely eliminates the need for toxic emissions. In a world where outdoor air pollution is killing more than 3 million people every year, with automobile exhaust being a significant part of the problem, alternatives like this are crucial. But only time will tell if there's truly a market for hydrogen cars out there.
"Compared to 10 years ago, I think fuel cell vehicles have developed significantly in terms of the technology," Honda president Takahiro Hachigotold Muller. "Ten years ago, we said fuel cells could not be driven in cold weather, for example, and that the hardware was too heavy. Today, fuel cells are equal to gasoline engine cars."
A moped spews more filth into the atmosphere than an 8-cylinder SUV. You didn’t know that? You would if you’ve ever been trapped behind one at a red light. One study found that these tiny vehicles generate amounts of pollution “several orders of magnitude higher than the limit values admissible in Europe and the USA.” As the study authors put it, “Waiting behind a moped in traffic may, therefore, constitute a considerable health risk.” Not good.
To help rush-hour victims breathe easier, Dutch designer Ronald Meijs has created the Motorman, an electric “moped” that’s become the fashionable green machine for daily commuters throughout Europe. Motormans have been spotted on the cobbled streets of Amsterdam, Ibiza, Düsseldorf, Maastricht, Zurich, and Brussels; enough E.U. cities to fill a Jason Bourne itinerary.
The Motorman may fit the legal definition of a moped, but it has no pedals. The drivetrain is fully electric. No human power required. Tech-wise, though, this is no Tesla. The 2kw engine won’t allow you to do burnouts or evade the polizia. There’s no iPhone charger, blind spot detection sensor, or autonomous driving mode. Not even a lousy cup holder for your macchiato.
What you will get, though, is brilliant industrial design. While other moped and scooter companies are striving to make all their models look like Tron light cycles, Mr. Meijs has gone full retro. The Motorman—with its balloon tires, low-slung gas tank, oversized headlight, and spring-mounted leather seat—looks like a cross between a Schwinn cruiser and a 1915 Harley-Davidson.
A student of American culture, Meijs admits he mined inspiration for the design from the early board track racers that zipped around motordromes at the beginning of the last century. “This isn’t some alien machine from space,” he explains. “The antique motorcycle shape is instantly recognizable.” He adds that while his stylish two-wheeler is intended to be environmentally friendly, customers are attracted as much to the classic lines of its beefy tube frame as the zero-emission technology. Maybe more. “People smile when they see the Motorman on the street,” says the Dutch designer. “They love it because it transports them back to a time when life was easier and less complicated.”
The ride isn’t bad either. At just 99 pounds (less than half the weight of a typical moped), the Motorman is easy to balance and maneuver through congested streets. “If you can ride a bike,” says Meijs. “You can ride a Motorman.”
According to Koen Boot, it’s actually easier than riding a bike. “The Motorman is effortless to steer and has a much smoother ride than a bicycle,” says the 25-year-old engineering student. “When you hit cruising speed, it feels like you’re floating on air.” He concedes that the design is a large part of the appeal. “People get so excited that they stop me on the road to take photographs. It’s has those classic Harley and Indian motorcycle lines, but it’s extremely minimalist. Look down, and all you see is a speedometer and two buttons—one for the light, one for the horn. Even the electric plug is concealed beneath the fuel tank.”
That “fuel tank” holds a lithium polymer battery, the ideal choice for light EVs because of its high power density rating. That translates to some respectable specs.
Range: 43 miles.
Top speed: 28 mph.
Charging time: 6 hours.
Not road trip numbers, but ideal for office drones who like the idea of lowering their carbon footprint without breaking a sweat. The Motorman is also maintenance-free and economical to operate: less than two cents per mile. That may help soften the blow of the sticker price: $5,158 for the base model (available in Jet Black or Ruby Red). This being Europe, tack on another 21 percent for the V.A.T. Options, like Bauhaus paint jobs, leather saddlebags and custom logos, will pad the bill further. Which only proves that not every Dutch treat is cheap.
The Motorman is currently available only in European Union countries (+Norway and Switzerland). It will be available in North America within a year.
