Locomotion Video Transcript
Annc1
You know who knows a bit about regulation? It’s Steve Kenner, he’s the VP of Safety at Locomation. They’re another industry now that it’s come up and it’s been talked about bringing some regulation into there. Your team is always fighting against stuff like that but Steve thank you so much for joining us today.
Steve Kenner
Hey thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Annc1
Hey you have an amazing background we were looking through this and you got a wonderful background. The only thing that stuck out to us is a bit of an anomaly was the time at Apple. Were you making that Apple car over there?
Steve Kenner
Well I’m still governed by a non-disclosure agreement, so all I can say is I worked on a special project.
Annc1
Okay, alright well what attracted you to Locomation?
Steve Kenner
Then well I gotta say a couple things for sure one was I think the approach to automation is a more practical and realistic approach. As you’re aware I know you’ve had you know some of my colleagues on your show before so you know our first deployment is actually an autonomous relay convoy, that’s a two truck two driver approach. So the first vehicle will still have a human in the vehicle and then we’ll learn from that over time rather than just trying to jump to a fully automated vehicle with no drivers in. So I really was excited about the approach. The second thing that attracted me was actually the leadership and expertise that’s actually already in the company, right. Carnegie Mellon robotics experts, there’s trucking industry leaders, people that were high-level government officials in the US Department of Transportation. All of those things you know attracted me to Locomation and you know the other ther part is my role itself, you know, the ability to be able to, you know, sort of influence and have a leadership position in a growing company.
That’s excellent stuff. So your growth over the years into this. Your background into Locomation, I think is is important to get into to see what the intelligence is behind Locomation and the people that are there right they’re not just tribal knowledge [yeah yeah tribal knowledge] can you talk to that a little bit, I mean, you come from Kettering all the way up to Locomation.
Steve Kenner
Right yeah so I spent a lot of years in traditional auto companies. I went from General Motors to Chrysler to Ford and I had a series of you know increasingly responsible positions. The last position I held in an auto company I was actually the global head of safety for Ford Motor Company. So it was an exciting position, I learned a lot from it and actually it was from that position that I went to go work for Apple, and then and it’s no secret they were working on autonomous technologies. You can find some of that in the public domain, and then transition to work for Uber ATG, and then Aurora, and then you know finally now to Locomation. So I spent the last six years actually working on, you know, for tech companies on automated technology. So I’m kind of a weird hybrid of a traditional auto person that sort of understands, you know, that environment, what it takes, and then a person that spent a lot of time on a tech company. So I’m, you know, kind of just a weird combination of those two things.
Annc1
So can you talk to us a little bit about the current safety regulations that we’re looking at autonomous vehicles including NHTSA’s new reporting requirements.
Steve Kenner
Sure, sure so first of all let me say there are sort of two categories. Like one is regulations that already exist and you know as a good corporate citizen, of course, we will make sure that we comply with all you know Federal, State, and Local regulations, and any area in which we we operate and those regulations sort of encompass, you know, two basic things like one is there’s regulations concerning, you know, the fitness of and the instructions for the drivers themselves and then, you know, there’s regulations pertaining to the safety of the machines. You know that they’re driving so those, you know, basically existing regulations were put in place because those agencies are charged with saving lives right in protecting all of us. You know in the United States that, you know, that participate, you know, and operate and get exposed to public road use, and then the second ones are ones that are sort of in development. And so we’re not just making sure we understand current regulations, we’re also working on voluntary standards that generally form, you know, a strong basis for future regulations as well.
Annc2
Yeah, so Steve you know when a a Tesla crashes makes huge news right, or when an autonomous vehicle there’s an accident with one of it makes huge huge huge news. Can you can you talk about that a little bit? Even the NHTSAS, you know the requirements after a crash reporting and how important it is to get the facts out there about the safeness of these vehicles but also the facts about a crash that occurs right?
Yeah so great great question. So, so certainly, so NHTSAS reporting requirement, you know, that that was recently, you know, added. To be honest most responsible technology companies if you were involved in a crash would already informally notify NHTSAS and make them aware of the circumstances of the crash. And, then in some of the crashes, as well you know, some of the organizations like NTSB would also perhaps investigate, you know, those kinds of crashes as well. So what NHTSAS was asking for in fact was something that informally people were already doing and in fact the time frame within which they want the reports are you know we’re actually less stringent than some of the states that ask us to report outright. So it seems for sure you know very reasonable to make sure that people understand the circumstances of the crash of course. Within one day you might not know as much as you would as you continue on through an investigation but I think it’s really important for people to know that and for that investigation and the facts surrounding it. To be transparent because it’s going to be really important to convince the motoring public about the safety of autonomous vehicles going forward.
Annc2
When you look at something like hours of service and you look at a human with you know the robot truck that sort of tandem driving does that have any impact on regulations? How is that being looked at now in terms of you know driver fatigue and what that means to have that kind of driver assistance?
Steve Kenner
Yeah, so for sure you know hours of service is an existing requirement and it’s really important when the humans are in the loop. That the human is able to accomplish the driving task that they’re faced with right so so for sure the way we’ve approached it is to make sure that the drivers have as much or more rest than they would if they weren’t involved in an autonomous relay convoy. Where once you’re on the highway we have then the one driver that’s leading the two trucks while the other one is able to get some rest. So that’s super important and we think we’re actually creating a situation where drivers will be more rested and then we’re also going to have you know monitoring technologies that are already existing right to be able to also you know real time understand whether for some reason you know the driver is fatigued and maybe needs to take a break.
Annc1
What’s the next thing we should look for in this space to come up what’s the next hurdle or the next challenge for Locomation insofar as someone from from your seat from a safety perspective?
Steve Kenner
Yeah, so for sure the thing that we need to convince ourselves and everyone else is that it’s acceptably safe for us to operate you know on the roads like and we need to make what we would call sort of you know a safety case, like in what way are we going to be you know safe and good stewards of using the public roads. And so, being able to put that out in a way that’s understandable to to the public and and then also have the evidence behind that is going to be a very important step and you’ve seen a lot of people talk about that but when it comes to actual deployment you know there’s been a lot of a lot of discussions about what it takes to deploy but actually accomplishing that and then being able to do that in a way that you document and then understand so that people understand why they should be confident in how we’re approaching uh the autonomous relay convoy.
Annc1
All makes sense, Steve. Thank you so much. How do people learn more about Locomation?
Steve Kenner
Yeah we do have, you know, a website and so I think you know people can go on there you can just Google our company’s name and then you can \you can get to it. We also have you know some contact information, and emails, and phone numbers if people want to find out about you know more about the company
Annc1
Thank you so much, thank you for your time, have a great weekend and take care.