“This is particularly important for minority institutions who do not have the resources of top tier institutions,” said Henry Liu, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Michgian and director of both Mcity and the Center for Connnected and Automated Transportation.
The NSF's investment in Mcity to greatly boost testing capabilities for autonomous vehicles comes as the auto industry and government pivots its focus, and money, away from AVs in favor of battery electric vehicles in major push to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. “There's been a lot of headlines lately about lulls in AV technology spending. You hear about tech companies selling off their driverless car units—it's too expensive, that the machines can't learn fast enough,” said Pawl. “The truth is in the last year $12 billion invested in AV companies, $100 billion in the last decade. A lot of that money is still flowing through the system. Why do I tell you all that? Well, there was also a lull in EV technology a few years ago and now ...
Improving the performance of autonomous vehicles is vital on two fronts, said Michigan U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell.