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Inside Honda's ghost town for testing autonomous cars

On the edge of the San Francisco suburb of Concord, California sits a ghost town. Dilapidated buildings and cracked roads are framed by overgrowth and slightly askew street signs. The decommissioned five acre portion of the Concord Naval Weapons Station that once housed military personnel and their families is now home to squirrels, jack rabbits, wild turkeys and Honda's mysterious testing lab for autonomous vehicles. This former town within a Naval base – now dubbed "GoMentum Station" – is the perfect testing ground for Honda's self-driving cars. An almost turn-key solution to the problem of finding somewhere to experiment with autonomous vehicle inside an urban area. Thanks to the GoMentum Station, the automaker has access to 20 miles of various road types, intersections and infrastructure exactly like those found in the real world. Just, you know, without all the people getting in the way. While the faded lane markers and cracked asphalt might initially make it difficult for the car to figure out what's going on around it, that's exactly what you want when training a self-driving system. Many roads in the real world are also in dire need of upkeep. Just because autonomous vehicles are hitting the streets doesn't mean the funding needed to fix all the potholes and faded lane markers will magically appear. The real world doesn't work that way and the robot cars that will eventually make our commutes less of a headache will need to be aware of that. Plus, it's tougher to train a car to drive downtown than to barrel down the highway at 80 miles per hour. A company is going to want to get as much practice as possible. While semi-autonomous driving on the everyone-going-the-same-way-at-a-constant-speed freeway is already a reality, navigating in an urban environment is far more complex. If you've driven on the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago or Seattle you know that driving downtown takes far more concentration than cruising down the interstate. With all that in mind, Honda's tricked out Acura RLX did a good job during an (admittedly very controlled) hands-free demo. It didn't hit either of the pedestrians walking across its path. It stopped at stop signs and even maneuvered around a mannequin situated in the middle of the road. The reality is, watching a car drive around the block and safely avoid stuff is boring. Not to metion, Google has been doing this for a while in the real world.

Weekly Recap: Car-pedestrian crashes remained elevated in 2014

The death of American Horror Story: Freak Show star Ben Woolf served as a reminder this week that car crashes involving pedestrians remain a problem, and a new study issued on Thursday reinforced that the situation isn't really getting better. The Governors Highway Safety Association found a slight decline, 2.8 percent, in the number of pedestrian deaths in the first six months of 2014. Fatalities dropped from 2,141 to 2,125 compared with the same period in 2013, though the association says it's a statistical wash when factoring in undercounting. Deaths are still 15-percent higher than in 2009. "The number of deaths remains relatively high and is cause for concern," wrote Allan Williams, who compiled the report and is the former chief scientist at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. This is the first look at data from last year, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will issue its full-year results later. The GHSA found some progress on the roadways, as 24 states and the District of Columbia reported drops in pedestrian deaths. In some states, the problem isn't even a problem at all: Nebraska and Wyoming reported one fatality apiece, though large population centers in urban areas are where most accidents occur. "This is a clearly a good news, bad news scenario," Jonathan Adkins, GHSA executive director, said in a statement. "While we're encouraged that pedestrian fatalities haven't increased over the past two years, progress has been slow." Other News & Notes Cadillac previews CT6 during Oscars Cadillac previewed its upcoming flagship sedan, the CT6, in commercials that aired Sunday during the Oscars. As expected, the creased sedan carries on Cadillac's recent design language, and the car in the commercial looks like a larger version of the CTS and ATS sedans. The CT6 will be revealed this spring at the New York Auto Show and launch late this year. It will be assembled at General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck factory on a rear-wheel-drive chassis, and the CT6 is the first car to use Cadillac's revised alpha-numeric naming scheme. The commercials also kicked off Cadillac's "Dare Greatly" campaign, which is the first with its new advertising agency, Publicis Worldwide. Honda unexpectedly changes CEOs Honda unexpectedly announced this week that it will change CEOs. Current chief Takanobu Ito will step down in June and be replaced by company veteran Takahiro Hachigo.

Honda MC-? will use solar-powered chargers in 'micro' EV tests

Honda is envisioning what it calls a CO2-free society and, not surprisingly, it's a rather sunny one, in one Japanese city, at least. The Japanese automaker is kicking off a test program with the micro-electric-vehicle that will use power generated via photovoltaic energy collected and stored at EV charging stations. Yes, the big old sun will power those little-bitty MC-? cars. MC-? is shorthand for "Micro Computer Beta" and the car is certainly an appropriate vehicle for these tests. The car is 98 inches long (about eight inches shorter than a Smart ForTwo) and has a 43-mile-per-hour top speed as well as an electric motor that delivers a meager eight horsepower. The car is designed to meet Europe's quadricycle regulations and has a 50-mile single-charge range. No word on if or when it'll go into production, of course, but Honda and Toshiba are working with Japan's Miyakojima City on the project, with Toshiba responsible for building three solar-powered EV-charging stations. The Japanese automaker unveiled the latest incarnation of the 1+1 tandem-seating-arrangement MC-? last fall. You can see our "Quick Spin" impressions of the model here and read Honda's press release below. Honda Begins Experimental Test-driving of MC-? Micro-sized EV Using Renewable Energy TOKYO, Japan, January 28, 2014 - Jointly with Miyakojima City and Toshiba Corporation, Honda Motor Co., Ltd. began experimental test-driving of the MC-?, Honda's micro-sized EV, using photovoltaic (PV) energy as part of the Miyakojima City Small-sized Electromotive Mobility Project*1. Through this experimental program, Honda will operate an environmentally-responsible micro-sized EV using renewable energy, and work together with the local community to explore the possibility of a CO2-free society. In November 2013, Honda began separate field tests jointly conducted with Kumamoto Prefecture, Saitama City and Miyakojima City using the MC-?. For the field tests in Miyakojima City, as a part of the initiative as an environmentally-responsible model city, the feasibility of the introduction and utilization of small-sized electromotive mobility products and electricity supply facilities are being verified. For this particular driving experiment in the city using renewable energy, the MC-? will be charged from three new PV recharging stations newly built by Toshiba.