Self-Driving Cars and Unikie | Erkka Niemi | Negotiator 69

Summary

Erkka Niemi, Doctor of Technology and CTO of Unikie, sets out where autonomous driving actually stands. The conversation begins with the DARPA challenges that started the field and runs through the Stanford team that became Google’s robot cars and eventually Waymo, why lidar is regarded as the number-one technology and why Tesla’s camera-only lock-in puzzles the industry, and the five levels of autonomy with the rule of thumb that levels one and two need a human while three, four and five do not. Sami Miettinen brings the liability angle: who answers for a fatal accident, and how a hacking risk to a whole fleet would be handled. Niemi explains Unikie’s approach of moving the sensors into the walls and ceilings of the car park rather than the car, and describes the surprisingly large business case in automating the movement of finished cars inside a factory. It closes on Finland’s cluster and on the gap between hype-curve expectations and the real advances of the coming years.

Chapters

• 00:00 — Highlights from the episode
• 00:33 — Introducing Erkka Niemi of Unikie
• 01:45 — The DARPA challenges launched the whole field
• 02:54 — From Stanford’s victory to Google’s robot cars
• 04:11 — Lidar became the field’s number-one technology
• 05:02 — Unikie’s test track and automated parking
• 05:36 — The sensors go into the car park’s walls
• 07:51 — The five levels of autonomous driving
• 09:00 — Level three gives the car control
• 10:29 — Who is liable for a fatal accident
• 11:32 — In authoritarian countries the trials move faster
• 12:37 — More is demanded of a machine than of a human
• 13:41 — Uber’s profitability requires removing the driver
• 14:27 — Uber sold its development to Aurora
• 15:06 — Musk dismisses lidar, and why
• 16:06 — Waymo, Cruise, Argo and Apollo
• 17:07 — The synergy of electric cars and automation
• 18:19 — Nokia’s HERE sale with hindsight
• 20:07 — Precise maps and infrastructure-based traffic data
• 22:01 — The taxman, congestion charges and hacking risk
• 23:57 — Apple and the rumours of a secret car project
• 26:32 — Consumers expect an explosion in entertainment use
• 27:46 — Android Auto takes over the car’s interface
• 30:54 — The timeline and the slow renewal of the car fleet
• 32:29 — Automating logistics inside a car factory
• 34:34 — Fully automated car parks in large cities
• 35:40 — Finland’s strengths and Valmet Automotive
• 36:35 — Unikie’s growth and funding round
• 38:09 — Sensible 4, VTT, Sandvik and Mevea
• 39:33 — The hype curve and the advances of the coming years
• 40:52 — Closing and future cluster guests

Watch

The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Itseohjautuvat autot ja Unikie | Erkka Niemi | Neuvottelija 69. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.