It's Official: SpaceX Is Building Elon Musk's Hyperloop

As reported by Motherboard: SpaceX is building a hyperloop, Elon Musk's fantastical, futuristic transport tube capable of moving people and freight at speeds of 760 miles per hour.

The company is building a one- to three-mile-long hyperloop test track outside its Hawthorne, California headquarters with plans to test the technology within a year, according to documents obtained by Motherboard (embedded below). It's the first time that Musk, who conceived of the hyperloop, has been involved with any concrete plans to actually build it.

"SpaceX will be constructing a sub-scale test track (inner diameter between 4 and 5 feet; length approximately 1 mile) adjacent to its Hawthorne, California headquarters)," an official SpaceX document, called "SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition," said. "In order to accelerate the development of a functional prototype and to encourage student innovation, SpaceX is moving forward with a competition to design and build a half-scale Hyperloop pod."

"In addition to hosting the competition, SpaceX will likely build a pod for demonstration purposes only," the document said.

Musk offhandedly mentioned that he was working on a "fifth mode of transportation" in the summer of 2012, but said he didn't have the time necessary to work on it, with SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and SolarCity taking up the bulk of his time. But the public reaction to the hyperloop was so positive that, in August 2013, he and some SpaceX engineers drew up a highly detailed white paper describing a hyperloop that would shuttle passengers and cargo between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 35 minutes.

"We are interested in helping to accelerate development of a functional hyperloop prototype"

After Musk released the white paper, he made no indication that SpaceX or any other of his companies was actually working on the fantastical hyperloop. Instead, the paper, plans, and design were open sourced so that any company or engineer could work on the design.

Two companies, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies and Hyperloop Technologies, have started work on commercial hyperloops; Hyperloop Transportation Technologies announced last month that it is planning to build a five-mile test track in California. Neither Musk nor SpaceX has anything to do with those companies, and the SpaceX test track will be the first official project he's been involved with.


The hyperloop would consist of a steel, partially pressurized tube and various "pods" or "capsules" that can carry people, freight, and potentially cars.

“Just as aircraft climb to high altitudes to travel through less dense air, Hyperloop encloses the capsules in a reduced pressure tube,” Musk wrote in the white paper. “The pressure of air in the Hyperloop is about ⅙ the pressure of the atmosphere on Mars … a hard vacuum is avoided as vacuums are expensive and difficult to maintain compared with low pressure solutions.”

Motors on the pods themselves would create a cushion of air that would allow the pods to float within the tube, and they would be pushed along the tube by linear induction motors positioned along the inside of the tubes. These tubes would be powered by solar panels mounted on their outer surface.

Musk has said that for cities less than 900 miles apart, the hyperloop would be faster and cheaper than air travel and better than existing trains in just about every way. It would travel at just under the speed of sound, for passenger comfort and safety.

According to the company, SpaceX has no plans to actually build a commercial hyperloop like the one proposed in the white paper. Instead, the company is trying to spur innovation and attention to the design, and it wants to prove that the concept actually works. SpaceX told me that it's happy two companies are actually trying to design and build commercial hyperloops, and that the company does not want to compete with them. SpaceX's primary focus is still on spaceflight and on eventually sending humans to Mars.

"We are excited that a handful of private companies have chosen to pursue this effort," the company said. "While we are not developing a commercial hyperloop ourselves, we are interested in helping to accelerate development of a functional hyperloop prototype."

In the contest, teams of university students will be tasked with designing passenger pods and presenting them at a meet up with SpaceX officials at Texas A&M University in January, 2016. The best designs will actually be built at half scale and will be tested in June of 2016 at the SpaceX hyperloop test track. These pods will apparently be large enough to put a human inside, but will be tested without passengers.

In the white paper, Musk showed what a pod might look like:





SpaceX says it will release more information about the contest, such as technical details, in August. For now, you can check out the document announcing the contest below.

Spacex Hyperloop Pod Competition

Uber is Using GPS to Punish Drivers in China Who Get Too Close to Protests

As reported by Fusion: Uber is using GPS on drivers’ phones to identify, and threaten, drivers loitering by taxi protests in China, the Wall Street Journal reports.

For months, there’s been tension in the country between ride-share companies and taxi drivers, who fear the new companies will make it even harder for them to make a living. Bloomberg View’s Adam Minter pointed out the severity of the situation:

“Drivers have not hesitated to disrupt the public’s daily life. In January, when drivers in at least six major cities decided to strike, they didn’t just stop working; they blocked traffic, and even besieged private cars associated with taxi hailing apps. In at least one instance, riot police were forced to intervene.”

That anger has prompted China to come down especially hard on Uber, says Minter:

“China’s crackdown on Uber, in other words, may have less to do with protecting the owners of politically powerful taxi services than placating the taxi industry’s increasingly volatile labor force.”

So Uber’s been in a shaky place, both with the government and with the taxi-driving community, for a long time now. But the incident that prompted Uber to explicitly warn drivers away from participating in protests, however, happened on Friday. On that day, a local official in Guangzhou reportedly hailed a car driven by one of Uber’s ride-share competitors, Didi Kuaidi. The official tried to arrest the driver, and set another major protest in motion. Quartz describes the scene:

“Dozens of Didi Kuaidi drivers who apparently caught news of the attempted sting surrounded the vehicle, waving signs in support of Didi and demanding the official, who was inside the car, let the driver off the hook. The mass of supporters blocked traffic, and police arrived to break up the crowds, photos posted on Sina Weibo (log-in required) show.”

The next day, Uber told its drivers to keep away from such protests. The Financial Times reports that Uber drivers in Hangzhou received a message imploring them: “Please don’t wreck the good urban environment you have all worked so hard to help build… If you are at the scene, leave immediately.”

More damningly, the message added that there would be consequences for those who didn’t follow instructions, and that Uber would track drivers’ GPS devices (i.e., personal phones) to make sure they comply. These measures, reports the WSJ, are intended to “maintain social order.” Not something you want to hear from an employer.

An Uber spokesperson in Beijing told Quartz that “we firmly oppose any form of gathering or protest, and we encourage a more rational form of communication for solving problems.”

It makes sense for Uber to tread lightly in China, where it is reportedly planning a rapid expansion, with a price tag of more than one billion dollars. Maybe Uber should spend some of that money figuring out how to deal with its (many) privacy issues, first.

Uber did not respond to requests for comment.

China Confirms Test of Hypersonic Glide Vehicle

As reported by Yibada: The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has confirmed reports that it has conducted a fourth test of China's ultra-high-speed hypersonic glide vehicle for nuclear delivery called the WU-14, Bill Gertz, senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon, wrote in an article published on June 11.

According to the article, China conducted the test on June 7, which was the fourth in the series of tests on the WU-14 in the past 18 months.

The WU-14 was believed to be on PLA's high-priority list for development, the U.S. intelligence said.

The first WU-14 test reportedly took place on Jan. 9, 2014, followed by two more tests on Aug. 7 and Dec. 2. The report said that all four tests have been conducted at the same facility in western China.

The article quoted a U.S. intelligence official as saying that the latest test showed the WU-14's ability and "extreme maneuvers" to penetrate U.S. missile defense systems, for the first time.

The official said that the WU-14 was allegedly designed to neutralize U.S. strategic missile defenses and has the unique capability to fly at ultra-high speeds and maneuver to avoid detection and tracking by radar and missile defense interceptors.The Missile Defense Agency of the Pentagon, however, refused to make any comment on the development of the WU-14, although a U.S. congressional report published in November last year said that China's hypersonic glide vehicles cannot only make U.S. missile defense system less effective but also render it obsolete.

Gertz said that in addition to the WU-14, the Chinese government is also developing a second hypersonic weapon using scramjet engine technology.

Precision GPS: On the Road to Driverless

Land-vehicle autonomous navigation requires centimeter-level qualification tools to enable confidence build-up for delivery to open-road traffic insertion. External positioning sensors over a dedicated road section can be replaced with an embedded high-accuracy, highly responsive epoch-by-epoch differential GNSS receiver coupled with an inertial navigation system. The demonstrated absolute accuracy and mobility extends the potential test area and minimizes cost for multi-environment validation. 

As reported by GPSWorld:  Personal cars and commercial trucks are continuously improving the driver experience and safety thanks to integration of more significant and machine-assisted control systems. Advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) are now integrated in all luxury cars and moving into mainstream products. Technologies covered by ADAS are specific for each car integrator, but increasingly they include now involving more safety features, such as driver assistance and partial delegation to autonomous control for small maneuvers such as lane control. The generation of ADAS systems introduced in early 2015 on high-end models are engaging more intelligence from the control system such as:

• Lane departure warning system
• Speed assistance and control
• Driver assistance and control
• Autonomous emergency braking.

It is not only individual drivers who want this technology, but also governments that are getting involved to prevent accidents and minimize the economic impact associated with them. In the European Union, the general safety regulation 2009/661 was the first step to engage member-states to act as a regulator to mandate car safety improvements. The European Transport Safety Council, a non-profit private association, released in March 2015 a position paper titled “Revision of the General Safety Regulation 2009/661.” It promotes the introduction of lifesaving technologies like intelligent speed assistance, autonomous emergency technology including all speed and pedestrian detection, and lane-departure warning systems as the next step of regulation.

Car manufacturers are not far behind. They understand their customers’ expectation of minimized risk and enhanced driving experience. Telematics is also a path to convert a single vehicle into a fully intelligent, connected and entertainment object with an associated high value. So every car manufacturer is willing to be seen as a technology master.

Toyota, for example, plans to integrate collision-prevention technology in all its mainstream and luxury cars by 2017. The ADAS new generation focuses on radar-activated cruise control technology for the collision-prevention system. The control system maintains distance from a vehicle ahead and can stop the car if driver doesn’t react. The next step is to monitor driver attention with sensors like cameras focusing on the driver’s eyes, and the pressure of the hand on the steering wheel.

However, no fully driverless car is expected in the next 10 years. This technology is limited by legal issues and the lack of reliable nationwide mapping data.

Since the technology must be fully proven to prevent any lethal threat on the user and other drivers, most car and truck companies are working actively on qualifying driverless technology today. Nissan began testing driver-assist technology on open-road traffic in Japan in late 2013. It enables highly advanced systems such as lane-keeping, automatic lane change, automatic exit, automatic overtaking of slower or stopped vehicles, automatic deceleration during congestion on freeways, and automatic stopping at red lights. This is a step towards attaining fully automatic driving, targeted for 2020 by Nissan.

Some European manufacturers such as Daimler Benz are also early adopters. Daimler/Mercedes uses the Bertha Benz prototype car to test autonomous driving technologies. It merged multiple vision, radar and GPS sensor with digital map to monitor an open-road 100-kilometer trip in August 2013 (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Bertha Benz test car, left, running fully autonomous 103-kilometer trip in open road including 27 percent narrow urban roads. Right, networked sensor systems of the S 500 Intelligent Drive research vehicle.

All manufacturers are building driverless capability into their technology demonstration concept cars:

• Mercedes with F 015 Luxury presented at the Consumer Electronic Show, early 2015;
• Audi with Prologue, an extrapolation of test car RS7 concept equipped with SuperFast driverless pilot;
• BMW’s electric i3 car is integrating ActiveAssist technology that enables portions of drive to be without any manual intervention, such as car parking and autonomous rally to a meeting point;
• Google’s self-driving vehicle that conforms to California license requirements for driverless tests in open traffic;
• Tesla model SD autonomous test car.

Although most market leaders agree that this is not a technology for mainstream production in the next few years, they all work very efficiently to master the technologies. It is a big challenge to integrate all the sensors and the navigation functions to autonomously and accurately position the vehicle on a map. The whole system must be certified to prevent any liability in case of a crash, a case that would engage the solution provider and the vehicle manufacturer.

A large part of the qualification task will benefit from simulations and integration testing platforms in realistic conditions. At the very least, a very robust final open-space validation test must take place. Car manufacturers/integrators are using private test facilities in open air to perform serious trials before proceeding to real traffic conditions. Renault uses a 10-square-kilometer facility in France (Figure 2) to perform private tests in a protected area.

Figure 2. Renault outdoor test center at Aubevoye, France.

New autonomous car drive tests have mandated equipment enabling measurement of the car’s position on the track with an extremely high precision and repeatability. There are two competing technologies to do this:

• Install many location sensors on the test track;
• Use a general absolute positioning system.

Here we focus on an absolute positioning system that is affordable, easy to install and low maintenance. It is based on two main assertions:

• The autonomous pilot can position accurately on the test track;
• The test track is accurately referenced to the absolute positioning system.

We focus more closely in this article on the first assertion; the second one can be covered with a specific calibration trial where equipment, as discussed further, can be used in quasi-static mode and experience consistent accuracy. Let us have a deeper look at the candidate position technologies to verify autonomous pilot accuracy.

Positioning Technologies

Many technologies have been proposed to obtain vehicle position on the course. However, they all must be compatible with a reliable mapping database. Given the lack of consistent road infrastructure equipment with alternative capabilities, GNSS positioning is the sole enabling method to fit to a map every place around the world. That is why driverless systems always include a GNSS sensor to help other data matching with the map. The versatility and low cost of GNSS positioning makes it a candidate for open-air validation as well.

Standalone Standard Positioning Service GPS. The SPS single-frequency GPS receivers are included in so many nomadic appliances today that they are a commodity. Since their introduction 20 years ago, their performance is well understood. Some trials were performed in different area profiles with satellite constellation position dilution of precision (PDOP) < 2. Worse results were obtained from deep urban canyons in downtown Seattle, Wash.

For every technology, the relevant performance for the test course is the lateral error to the expected center of the lane in the two horizontal dimensions, referred to as 2D or N/E for orientation north and east.

For standalone SPS GPS, the lateral error standard deviation in 2D can be as high as 46 meters and have peak errors up to 660 meters. Lateral error in 3D can be as high as 20 meters with peak errors up to 175 meters.

Such performances are out of range for any positioning verification. It can only deliver a rough estimate of the point on the map, but would not provide tight correlation with other sensors for the navigation system.

Hybridized IMU and SPS GPS. Coupling of an absolute navigation GPS receiver with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) can mitigate corruption of the navigation solution when intermittent GPS signal outage is encountered. The hybrid approach is beneficial on any difficult signal transmission path from the satellite that is not line-of-sight: in urban canyons, deep foliage, under bridges, tunnels and in any multipath area. It also yields benefits in the very short term (less than a few seconds) for dispersion on the position computed from the sky.

Over the last 10 years, the combined benefits of micro-electro-mechanical sensors (MEMS) and tight coupling algorithms have raised the bar of positioning accuracy. It enables smoothed position along track and dead reckoning (DR) in case of GNSS signal outage.

Lateral error standard deviation in 2D is lowered to 2.3 meters and peak error up to 10 meters. However, this performance is still too poor to validate a vehicle position in the lane.

Hybrid Differential Single Frequency and IMU. The next step to mitigate systematic errors of the GNSS system is to use a set of multiple reference receivers in the vicinity of the area covering the test course. The reference receivers are static. The position of the reference is determined using long-term averages to mitigate constellation errors. A minimum for a position fix of 20 minutes is commonly reported. Then the position error standard deviation in 2D is less than 2 centimeters for baselines shorter than 100 kilometers.

For a MEMS integrated with a standard SPS GPS single-frequency receiver with DGPS correction on a mobile platform moving at less than 70 km/hour with HDOP < 1.4, Table 1 compares performance in a 2013 test.

Table 1.IMU performance grades.

Table 2. Horizontal error performance.

Hybrid Differential Dual-Frequency Carrier Phase and IMU. The GNSS solution can be further improved, taking into account both L1 and L2 frequencies to mitigate propagation error and carrier phase to achieve ultimate signal accuracy. The combination of both helps solve ambiguities associated with the carrier-phase technique. When combined with a MEMS IMU, accuracy confirmed with HDOP < 1.6 is:

• Lateral error standard deviation down to 0.18 meters;
• Peak error of 0.6 meter.

However, this is still insufficient accuracy when compared to 0.1 meter required for verification testing.

With such low-cost IMU, GPS outages produce a rapidly increasing lateral error over elapsed time. The lower the speed, the poorer the position result.

Another limitation common to many differential solutions is the turn-on delay for the solution. It is also a repetitive issue in case of disruption of the GNSS solution. It extends the delay to recover from DR situation.

Geodetics’ Epoch-by-Epoch

Geodetics Inc. has developed a new class of instantaneous, real-time precise GPS positioning and navigation algorithms, referred to as Epoch-by-Epoch (EBE) and employing hybridized dual-frequency differential GPS with a high-performance IMU.

Compared to conventional real-time kinematic (RTK), integer-cycle phase ambiguities are independently estimated for each and every observation epoch. Therefore, complications due to cycle slips, receiver loss-of-lock, power and communications outages, and constellation changes are minimized. There is no need for the initialization period (several seconds to several minutes) required by conventional RTK methods.

More importantly, there is no need for re-initialization immediately following loss-of-lock problems such as those that occur when a mobile GPS receiver passes under a bridge or other obstruction, or when it loses satellite visibility during a shaded portion of road. In addition, EBE provides precise positioning estimates over longer reference-receiver-to-user-receiver baselines than conventional RTK.

This feature supports testing for long-range operations, for example, such as positioning a vehicle on a lane. The reference receiver is set in the vicinity of the test center track.

EBE requires the use of a minimum of two receivers, each of which is tracking a common set of five or more satellites and providing simultaneous dual-frequency phase data. Typically, one of the receivers is stationary, but this is not a requirement.

EBE has been proven utilizing dual-frequency receivers and operating at distances of up to 50 kilometers from the nearest base station in unaided mode. Additionally, the EBE algorithms operate in a network environment and make optimal use of all GPS measurement data at each epoch, gracefully degrading the position accuracies when some measurement data are not available. Furthermore, the system will make use of an IMU system, compensating for outages when line-of-sight to the satellites is blocked. This produces a robust and more reliable system.

Epoch-by-Epoch can deliver several benefits including:

• Computationally efficient algorithms that provide a position estimate based on a single epoch in several milliseconds. This allows the real-time position estimate to be computed on the user platform (assuming reference station data is sent to the user platform).
• An initialization period is not required. Since RTK requires some period of time (that can be measured in seconds to minutes) to perform ambiguity resolution, this is an important capability for platforms that:
  • require high accuracy (for example, for end-game scoring);
  • cannot see the satellites until launch;
  • have short flight or test course duration;
• A re-initialization period following loss-of-lock is not required, unlike RTK, which needs to restart the integer-cycle phase ambiguity resolution process. This is another important capability because vehicle monitoring is considering EBE for dynamic applications where loss-of-lock and loss-of-data are likely.

However, it must be mentioned that many of the GPS receivers in use by the test (and training) community today do not support this dual-frequency requirement. Hence, those systems could not realize the maximum benefit.

This technology is implemented in a rugged modular platform (Figure 3) with three main units:

• A dual-frequency GPS antenna,
• An integrated INS coupling GPS receiver with either an internal MEMS IMU or external IMU,
• An external fiber-optic gyroscope (FOG) IMU for high-end accuracy and reliability. The external IMU is optional and dedicated to increasing the DR capability.

Figure 3. Dual-frequency differential navigation unit hybridized with external fiber-optic gyro.

Performance. Tests have been performed in conditions close to the land-vehicle navigation validation. It is based on measurements on-the-fly with no post-processing except for evaluation of the error.

The first case is a static position of the rover 4.8 kilometers away from the reference receiver. Positions are updated once per second. The system includes a FOG IMU. the lateral error peak is less than 4 centimeters. Bias error is less than 1 centimeter. See Figure 4.

Figure 4. Single point error when rover is static.

The second test case is with a high-dynamic mobile platform, moving at a speed of 200 km/h, with an average distance from the reference to the rover of 6 kilometers. Lateral error standard deviation is 0.5 centimeters, peak error is less than 2.2 centimeters. Bias error is lower than 0.2 centimeters (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Dynamic trial test single point error.

The performance in these test cases meets the expected accuracy for validation of autonomous navigation.

One last method to increase accuracy is to switch to a different class of IMU performance, from tactical grade to advanced. When in the line-of-sight of the GNSS sky-view, the performance is the nearly the same.

Conclusion

A real-time, differential Epoch-by-Epoch, dual-frequency carrier-phase GPS receiver, tightly hybridized with a high-performance IMU can provide absolute error lower than 5 centimeters in the 10-kilometer baseline range of the reference static receiver. This is fully adapted to the qualification of driverless auto-pilot systems for the targeted year of 2020. It can avoid the need to use complex theodolite and vision calibration systems. It provides maximum flexibility  and minimum sustaining costs.

A Dialog of Car and Highway

As reported by BITS: One peek at all the electronics under the hood is proof that today’s car is as much computer as engine. Examine the larger picture, and you’ll see how much the stuff around cars is becoming smarter, too.

Smart roads, toll plazas, traffic lights and signs are all increasingly connected to cars. Connected cars are talking to one another, and to the devices over and around them. Often the reasons for this will involve cost savings and faster-moving traffic. Travel will be safer, too, advocates say.

“Cars won’t be by themselves anymore, they’ll be connected to the road and each other,” said Eric-Mark Huitema, a manager in IBM’s “Smarter Cities” initiative. “Eventually there won’t be many accidents, which means you can reduce the weight of a car by 70 percent, all the metal we put in there to protect people. Cars might be made of glass.”

That is a decade or more away, but already IBM says it has helped reduce traffic by 25 percent in Stockholm, in part by examining traffic patterns and telling people the best times to drive. In Singapore, there is a pilot project to override traffic lights when the roads detect an accident. At IBM buildings in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, the company monitors bicycle use among employees in some locations, giving bonuses to people who forgo autos for bikes on a daily basis.

There does seem to be both money and enthusiasm for more of the same, in the interest of polluting less while managing larger populations. Navigant Research, which looks at clean technology markets, estimates that spending on smart cities will reach $27.5 billion by 2023.

In some ways, the future is already here. According to the management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, by next year some 210 million cars on the world’s roads will be connected wirelessly in some form to the Internet and to services like OnStar, General Motors’ connected-vehicle subsidiary.

The Federal Communications Commission has since 2003 reserved a segment of radio spectrum for communications among cars, and between cars and the surrounding infrastructure. While the spectrum cannot send information far, it can send exceedingly fast signals, so that high-speed traffic can be followed and adjusted.

“This will be amazing,” said Byungkyu Brian Park, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Center for Transportation Studies. “Right now the sensors aren’t two-way, and get used for things like toll tags, but soon you’ll be approaching an intersection and the car will know how long a light will be green. If the driver is elderly, it could lengthen how long the light is yellow.”

But the trade-off could well be the independence long associated with driving a nice car.

The number of connected vehicles goes much higher if you count the smartphones people have in their cars. Behavior can be monitored through driving apps like Automatic from Automatic Labs, which evaluates a person’s safety habits, like braking and acceleration. Sometimes those apps already share information, in making real-time maps of congestion during rush hour. It is an easy thing to increase the amount of data.

“We live in a world where your car is talking about you,” said Rob Ferguson, director of engineering at Automatic Labs. There is also technology inside cars, like adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping assistance, that if it isn’t online already could be made into two-way feedback systems with sensors in pavement and signs to manage traffic.

The goal is steady flow, which works out better and faster for all concerned. Digital signs of congestion ahead could compel drivers to slow down, trading autonomy for a faster commute for all.

The movement from individual vehicles to networked systems is already happening with trucks, ships and trains, and may be further ahead. That is partly because the owners are usually not the ones operating them and have more interest in efficiency than operator autonomy.

In Europe, many trains are already equipped with information about which cars have the most available seats. In Shanghai and Rotterdam, incoming ships notify the networks running the docks, and are advised which docks have the most available space. That is coordinated with fleet trucks, which pull up to load cargo.

Research by the University of California, Berkeley, on trucks traveling together found fuel savings of 5 to 20 percent in convoys because the vehicles move at a uniform rate, saving the fuel needed in acceleration, and because of reduced air resistance. In addition, about 40 percent of accidents happen at intersections, and smarter traffic lights could help manage that flow better. Those insights will probably affect what happens to cars.

“Seatbelts, airbags, anti-lock brakes and stabilization systems were all mandated for safety,” said Steven E. Shladover, a researcher at Berkeley’s advanced transportation technology program, who has been studying technology and transport for four decades. “Roadsides will tell you the most efficient speed to use. Traffic lights will choose whether to keep a yellow light on and let a truck through.”

Because trucks weigh much more than cars, they can tear up pavement with hard braking and slow traffic with their gradual acceleration. Traffic lights may be programmed to let large vehicles through. Pavement for convoy trucks could be hardened, leading to less wear on highways.

Rush hour may be faster, but it also may be a lot more dense. In his research, Mr. Park at the University of Virginia has determined there is a minimum delay of about 1.8 seconds between cars, which means 2,000 cars an hour can flow through a single lane of highway, if there’s no congestion. If cars become cooperative and managed, he thinks, that can be decreased to 0.6 second, or 6,000 cars an hour.

“You’ll have cooperative cruise control, more efficient parking, priority at traffic lights to people sharing rides,” Mr. Park said. “It will be a huge change.”

FCC Net Neutrality Rule Goes Into Effect Today

As reported by CNET: The Federal Communications Commission's open Internet rules will take effect today as planned after a federal court rejected requests by opponents to delay the rules pending lawsuits against the agency.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Thursday denied a request filed by wireless and broadband industry groups to delay the FCC's adoption of so-called Net neutrality rules. The court's denial of the request means that the new rules, which reclassify broadband as a public utility and prohibit broadband providers from slowing down or blocking Internet traffic, will go into effect as planned on Friday, June 12.

The ruling by the court comes as a relief to the FCC, which is facing several lawsuits over the rules, which were approved by a 3-2 vote in February.

The Net neutrality regulations are based on a new definition of broadband that lets the government regulate Internet infrastructure as a public utility. The rules prohibit broadband providers from blocking or slowing down traffic on wired and wireless networks. They also ban Internet service providers from offering paid priority services that could allow them to charge content companies, such as Netflix, fees to access Internet "fast lanes" to reach customers more quickly when networks are congested.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler called the ruling on Thursday a huge victory for Internet consumers and innovators.

"Starting Friday, there will be a referee on the field to keep the Internet fast, fair and open," he said. "Blocking, throttling, pay-for-priority fast lanes and other efforts to come between consumers and the Internet are now things of the past. The rules also give broadband providers the certainty and economic incentive to build fast and competitive broadband networks."

The FCC's rules were adopted in February and were published by the government in April. Following a standard 60-day waiting period, the rules go into effect on Friday.

Broadband providers have said they are willing to accept the basic principles outlined in the Net neutrality rules that prevent broadband providers from blocking or degrading traffic on their networks and prevents operators from offering "fast lanes" that deliver some content, like Netflix videos, faster than other content. But they are vehemently opposed to the FCC's reclassification of broadband as a public utility like the old-style telephone network.

Opponents claim this approach will lead to government rate regulation and will stifle investment in networks. Meanwhile, Net neutrality supporters argue that the rules are necessary to prevent operators from acting as gatekeepers to the Internet. They claim that reclassifying broadband was the only way to make sure the rules withstood legal scrutiny.

AT&T, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the U.S. Telecom Association and the CTIA mobile trade group are among a handful of groups that filed suit against the FCC in April accusing the agency of overstepping its authority when it decided to treat broadband like a public utility.

These groups also asked the court to put the rules on temporary hold while the lawsuit against the FCC was ongoing. In a brief statement, the DC Circuit judges stated that the Internet providers "have not satisfied the stringent requirements" to block the rules while their underlying lawsuit is pending.

CTIA President Meredith Attwell Baker acknowledged that the court's ruling was a disappointment, but not unexpected. She vowed to continue the fight.

"While the stay decision is disappointing and a loss for consumers, securing a judicial stay is always a challenge given the extremely high standards," she said in a statement. "The case is just beginning and the stakes are high."

Efforts in Congress to craft legislation that would make basic Net neutrality rules law, but would not treat broadband as a utility, have largely stalled. A win for the Internet providers could have forced a compromise from Democrats. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are attempting to prevent the FCC from enforcing its Net neutrality rules by including amendments in a must-pass budget bill. The provision would have to be passed by both the Senate and House of Representatives and still get President Barack Obama's signature. The president has been a strong supporter of Net neutrality and ahead of the FCC's vote, urged the agency to reclassify broadband.

Tesla CEO Musk: Some Model S Owners to Get Hands-Free Steering

As reported by the LA Times: A small number of Tesla Model S owners will have their cars updated for a test of hands-free driving by the end of the month, Elon Musk, chief executive of the electric car company, said at Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting Tuesday.

Speaking at a standing-room-only meeting at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., Musk outlined how he expects auto-pilot cars will become road ready.

He said the Palo Alto automaker’s efforts to develop a battery-swapping network for its electric cars have faltered and announced that the Model X, Tesla’s long-delayed sport utility vehicle, will reach the market in three to four months.

At the behest of shareholders addressing the company at the meeting, Musk agreed to look into using vegan materials for seating and other surfaces in Tesla cars. He also announced that Deepak Ahuja, the automaker’s veteran chief financial officer, is retiring but will stay on until a replacement is appointed.

Musk spent much of the meeting talking about the potential for robotic cars.

In the first phase of autopilot development, Musk said, drivers will need to remain fully alert and ready to take over the driving.

The feature is designed to alleviate part of the burden of driving from the driver but not replace the person at the controls. He said such a feature will be legal because the driver would remain responsible for control of the car and in the driver's seat.

“This is not an abdication of responsibility for steering,” Musk said.

But Tesla is aiming for a fully autonomous system in about three years.

“There will be a fully operational autopilot with everything that is needed for someone to go to sleep and wake up at their destination,” Musk said. “But this is an extremely difficult engineering project.”

Tesla would want a fully robotic car to be at least 10 times safer than a human driver before rolling it out, he said. Regulators would likely be even harder to convince, he said.

Speaking of the Model X, Musk said it will be the safest sport utility on the road. The electric architecture locates the heavy battery pack on the floor pan of the car, lowering its center of gravity and making the vehicle almost impossible to roll over, he said.

Musk said Tesla engineers are working out the final details of the car before approving it for production.

“Getting those final nuances right for the Model X is what we are focusing on right now,” Musk said.

The auto executive told shareholders that Tesla should do more to emphasize the safety of its cars, which he claimed had lower injury rates than other vehicles.

“As we can show statistics on accidents and so forth, it should translate to lower insurance rates,” Musk said. “We will have to work with insurance companies to make sure they are factoring in the actual accident rates for the Model S and Model X.”

Musk also disclosed that a much publicized effort to allow people to pull into roadside stations and swap a spent battery for a fully charged one has not worked out.

Tesla built such a station on Interstate 5 at the Harris Ranch, a midpoint on the drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but Tesla owners aren’t using it.

The automaker issued sample invitations to a group of about 200 California Model S owners to test out the swap system but only a handful used it, and then only once. A wider roll out also failed.

“We are seeing a very low take rate,” Musk said. “People don’t care about pack swap.”

Instead, they use Tesla’s network of free “superchargers” to recharge the cars. It takes longer, but they time it for a coffee break or a meal, he said.

Tesla doesn’t plan to expand its battery swap system, Musk said.

The swap system was important to Tesla because based on California Air Resources Board rules, it provided an opportunity to generate more valuable zero-emission vehicle credits. Tesla has made more than $500 million selling California and federal environmental credits to other automakers.