{"501311":{"#nid":"501311","#data":{"type":"news","title":"An inside look at The Driverless Car Revolution with Rutt Bridges","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.coa.gatech.edu\/driverless-revolution\u0022\u003ERutt Bridges will give a talk on his book \u0022The Driverless Car Revolution\u0022 t\u003C\/a\u003Ehis Thursday, from 1:30 - 3:00 p.m. in the John and Joyce Caddell Building. This lecture is cosponsored by the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.coa.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECollege of Architecture\u003C\/a\u003E and the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cos.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECollege of Sciences\u003C\/a\u003E.The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Rutt Bridges.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ: How did you get interested in driverless cars?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA:\u003C\/strong\u003E I\u2019d just sold my startup and I decided to take a deep dive into disruptive technologies because it was a fascinating subject, all about change and the future.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI got very interested in drones, but also genomics, material sciences, nanoparticles, a wide variety of different technologies. Even disruptive business plans and how it\u2019s changing companies.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut I got into driverless cars. The more I looked at them, the more I realized we\u2019re not that far out from seeing it on our streets and highways.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI\u2019m from a venture capital background, so I built a business plan around this idea. What will this cost? The answer is, the cost of a driverless car would be between 30 and 40 cents a mile for the vehicle. That\u2019s half the cost of owning a car, including mileage, depreciation, taxes, all the other things. Not including the cost of parking, a driverless car could be, on a per passenger basis, half that cost.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI started thinking about what that means to people. Instead of owning the car you could just rent your seat in the car. In a two-person car, like with ride sharing, it\u2019s 15 cents a mile. That\u2019s far cheaper than bus fare. You\u2019re looking at a technology that\u2019s going to change a lot of things.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ: So what could some of those changes be?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA:\u003C\/strong\u003E If you\u2019re real estate developer or city planner, instead of having to build parking spaces \u2013 even when the building is residential -- then building costs less. An apartment would cost less anywhere, in cities or suburbs. The cost of living would be lower.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe impact on the disabled community would be huge. Even a blind person could get in a car and go somewhere if there were driverless vehicles. There\u2019s always public transportation, but the biggest issue there for anyone who is handicapped are the first and last miles of the ride.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA lot of public transportation takes you from where you\u2019re not to not quite where you want to be. If you don\u2019t have a door-to-door solution and public transportation is your only option, commutes can often take an hour more than if you drove your own car.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut it\u2019s also tough for a single mom or a low income worker. Look how much time it takes to public transportation; the amount of time it takes to change busses. It also costs more to live near (a subway). Single moms might decide to take a lesser job that\u2019s within walking distance of their home. All that is time away from the kids, helping them do homework or having fun with your family.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor seniors, the moment your kids come to you and say, \u0022Hey dad, hey mom, you can\u2019t drive anymore, and it\u2019s not safe, and we have to come up with another solution.\u0022 When you give up your keys you give up your freedom. Driverless cars could let you maintain your independence, stay in your home and take care of your day to day needs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt has a bigger societal effect \u2013 driverless cars could improve quality of life.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ: You say that the Driverless Revolution is possibly only a few years away. What\u2019s one of the harbingers of autonomous vehicles?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA:\u003C\/strong\u003E I was recently at a fundraiser \u2026 in Washington, D.C. and ran into an old friend. She told me that her son did not want a new car for his 16\u003Csup\u003Eth\u003C\/sup\u003E birthday \u2013 that he asked for an Uber account instead.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen I turned 16, I was right there when that door opened at the driver\u2019s test. I was waiting. And today, there is a stunning statistic on the Department of Transportation website. If you look at 16 to 19 year olds, half of those people do not have drivers\u2019 licenses.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPartially it\u2019s a social change. Driving isn\u2019t as big a deal, they\u2019re just less interested in it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen I was growing up cars were the cool thing. Back in the day we were interested in engines and overhead and exhaust, all that. Millennials are not driving as much.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQ: You\u2019re a Georgia Tech grad with a Bachelor of Science in Physics and a Master of Science in Geophysics. How did that get you into driverless cars?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA:\u003C\/strong\u003E My last startup was (based in) geophysics, big data and analytics, but before that I ran a public policy think tank and did a whole lot of other things. One of the joys in life is being able to shift gears.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen I exited that last startup I decided to take a different direction. I had the science background to think about it in terms of the raw technology. I took Lydar courses at Georgia Tech but I also did software development there for gravity surveys. That software is key to driverless cars. It\u2019s as much a software problem as it is a parts and pieces and science problem.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat\u2019s one of the reasons that Apple, Google and Tesla, the \u201cSilicon bunch,\u201d are the leaders in this next generation of car technologies. Major automakers are looking at this and saying, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna keep super cruise control and make it park itself,\u201d and Google said, \u201cWhat is a car? What will a car be 100 years from now?\u201d They started with a clean sheet of paper.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGoogle\u2019s model is providing mobility. Most people are more interested in how they get from point A to point B than what they\u2019re in when they get there. If they can travel efficiently, inexpensively, and sit in the back and do whatever they want to do -- tomorrow\u2019s PowerPoint presentation or catch up on your email or watch cat videos. I actually found an awful lot of people care more about that than the potential cost of driverless cars, having a free hour a day that you otherwise not have because you were in traffic.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA Georgia Tech alum shares his thoughts on how a near future with autonomous vehicles will change society.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A Georgia Tech alum shares his thoughts on how a near future with autonomous vehicles will change society."}],"uid":"27803","created_gmt":"2016-02-16 18:13:05","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:20:46","author":"Ann Hoevel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-02-16T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2016-02-16T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"501321":{"id":"501321","type":"image","title":"The Driverless Car Revolution talk","body":null,"created":"1455904800","gmt_created":"2016-02-19 18:00:00","changed":"1475895261","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:21","alt":"The Driverless Car Revolution talk","file":{"fid":"204720","name":"driverless.car_.revolution.poster.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/driverless.car_.revolution.poster_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/driverless.car_.revolution.poster_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":649822,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/driverless.car_.revolution.poster_0.jpg?itok=0g_hTP_g"}}},"media_ids":["501321"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.id.gatech.edu\/capstone\/","title":"Imagining the right kind of car"}],"groups":[{"id":"1221","name":"College of Design"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor more information please contact: \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAnn Hoevel\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDirector of Communication for the College of Architecture\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ann.hoevel@coa.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eann.hoevel@coa.gatech.edu \u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003Eor\u003Cstrong\u003E Maureen Rouhi\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDirector of Communication for the College of Sciences\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maureen.rouhi@cos.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaureen.rouhi@cos.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}