New Products, New Test Track, A New Obsession

Welcome back to The Stack, Argo AI ’s monthly newsletter covering our latest autonomous vehicle news, the occasional technology explainer, job opportunities, and whatever else I can sneak into this.

Let’s get started!

— Alex Roy, Director of Special Operations

Argo Unveils Autonomy Product Ecosystem

For all the hype around autonomous vehicles (AVs), there’s been virtually NO hype around the actual products and services required to deploy them. If you’re a business that wants to add AVs to your fleet, or build a fleet for the first time, you’ll need more than a self-driving system. You’ll need scalable autonomous vehicle and fleet management solutions, and hardcore data and analytics.

Good news: Argo offers them out of the gate. Welcome to the Argo Product Ecosystem .

Why does this matter? Businesses are highly motivated and interested in autonomous vehicles to address a lot of different pain points, like increased consumer demand for speedy and predictable delivery, supply chain disruptions, and driver shortages. This product ecosystem offers companies of any size, in any industry, all the puzzle pieces to integrate AVs into existing operations.

Argo’s New South Carolina Test Track To Focus On Highway Testing

Autonomous vehicles need to be tested and retested, and the safe path from virtual world simulation to public roads runs through an essential buffer: the controlled environment of a test track. Argo’s test tracks in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Munich, Germany have so far focused on city-speed urban environments, but our newest test track in Greenville, South Carolina will greatly expand our system’s highway-speed capabilities. Adding highways means Argo can link together urban areas with high-demand locations such as airports and warehouses outside the city.

Located at the International Transportation Innovation Center on the campus of the SC Technology and Aviation Center , Argo’s new test track infrastructure and one-mile-long straightaway will enable testing up to 70 miles per hour.Read more …

Argo AI Safety Report: German Edition

I think Argo’s 2021 Safety Report is by far the most detailed, comprehensive and honest of any autonomous driving technology company. This may not seem like news, but if you care about safety, it really is, because developers aren’t required to publish anything at all. Those that have published vary greatly in transparency, so I’m really proud to be at the company on the optimal end of that spectrum :-)

Our English-language version is so popular, we decided to publish it in German . Now that Argo has operations in Munich and Hamburg, we want our safety report to be accessible to everyone we share the road with.

(For those who don’t want to read all 55 pages: Here’s the Top 10 Things A ‘Self-Driving Vehicle Must Do to Actually Be Self-Driving by our Chief Technology Officer, Brett Browning)

We’re Obsessed With Vintage Bicycle Ads

It’s absolutely fascinating how modern car ads have co-opted the messaging of old bike ads. How will autonomous technology be marketed? Or to phrase it a little differently, how will autonomous technology be successfully marketed? It’s still early days, but in the meantime check out this amazing selection of vintage cycling posters for sale . (H/T Andy Boenau )

On Our Radar (and Lidar)

• Knight Rider Turns 40! In what universe would a company with infinite resources, capable of building a fully autonomous general AI, put it in only one vehicle, and give it to David Hasselhoff to solve these marginal crimes? The Knight Rider universe, which just turned 40, which begs the question…how well did Knight Rider predict the future of autonomous vehicles ?
• If You Build It, They Will Come: Mayor Steve Adler of Austin, Texas just got a ride in an Argo AV , and so did Munich Mayor Katrin Habenschaden .
• The Jetsons, Now 60 Years Old, is Iconic. That’s A Problem (Slate ): It’s funny how often The Jetsons are cited in conversations around new technologies, and yet I hadn’t watched since I was a kid. So I did, and WOW did I have conflicting thoughts about it. Thoughts that were just starting to coalesce as I was assembling this newsletter, when Slate dropped this veeeery comprehensive Jetsons analysis , which saves me from having to put any more thought into it.
• My Elevator Obsession Continues: Last month I promised not to talk about my obsession with elevators , but rereading Otis: Giving Rise To The Modern City I found yet another fascinating nugget: the Otis brothers — satisfied with “safe and reliable” hydraulic power — weren’t entirely sure about electric propulsion until fairly late in the game, co-investing with Thomas Edison in Rudolf Eickmeyer’s electric motor company in 1888, eight years after Seimens built the first electric elevator. This is a great book , highly recommended not just for elevator nerds, but any fan of the history of technology.
• Not Autonomous But Very Cool (FoT ): I’d never heard of this until this week, but Park4Night is an app used by 6M people driving campers. (H/T Reilly Brennan , who unearths amazing things every week.)

Advice? Comments? Suggestions? Email us …or me directly

Until next time :-) Alex