Autonomy in cars is the next big thing. I mean, we've been hearing about it for years, so it must be true. But what's also true is that solving that problem completely is as difficult as it's ever been. And on the path to full autonomy someday, we get a lot of "partial" automated driving features that may end up doing more harm than good.
Welcome back to Critical Materials, your daily roundup for all things EV and automotive tech. Today, we're chatting about partial automation breaking our trust, the payment processor's effect on charger reliability, and CATL's new million-mile battery. Let's jump in.
30%: Surprise! Partial Automation Tech Makes Drivers More Distracted
Ah, automation—it's that thing that's supposed to make our lives on the road easier and safer, right? Well, maybe not. At least not according to a new study that is shining a flashlight on the not-so-bright side of partial automation.
It turns out that drivers are more likely to get distracted when they flip on partial automation features like those found in Tesla's Autopilot, Ford's BlueCruise, GM's Super Cruise, and others. Yes, the very thing that we're using to make us safer on the road is also making us, somehow, less safe by lowering attention levels.
Enter the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The IIHS spent the last few months studying drivers using Tesla's Autopilot and Volvo's Pilot Assist to understand just how drivers behave when the features are engaged. The results are not great.
IIHS found 43 volunteers who were willing to allow the firm to monitor their driving habits with the features engaged. Twenty-nine drivers were put behind the wheel of a 2017 Volvo S90 with Pilot Assist for four weeks, and 14 other drivers—who had never used Tesla's Autopilot before—were put behind the wheel of a 2020 Tesla Model 3 for the same period of time, accruing 12,000 miles. At the time of the test, Tesla was only using steering wheel-based monitoring.
The Tesla drivers triggered 3,858 attention-related warnings (that equates to one every 3 miles or so) and drivers responded within about three seconds by bumping the steering wheel. Volvo's Pilot Assist users were found to be inattentive around 30% of the time. IIHS called this "exceedingly high," so, yikes.
It turns out that when the driver knows that the car is doing some of the work, they're more likely to zone out, or worse, start tapping away on their phones. This shouldn't come as a newsflash, but engaging a partially automated feature isn't an invitation to open up TikTok. Or to wolf down a full-size Italian sub, like in the photo the IIHS included in its report.
From the study:
Drivers were much more likely to check their phones, eat a sandwich or do other visual-manual activities while using Volvo’s Pilot Assist partial automation system than when driving unassisted, a monthlong study of driver behavior that IIHS conducted with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab showed. The tendency to multitask also increased over time for some drivers as they grew more comfortable with the technology, while others were more distracted while using the system from the start.
Meanwhile, many drivers using Tesla’s Autopilot system quickly mastered the timing interval of its attention reminder feature so that they could prevent warnings from escalating to more serious interventions, another IIHS-AgeLab study found. Some people used this skill to continue engaging in distracting behaviors, punctuated by quick moves to stop the alerts.
“In both these studies, drivers adapted their behavior to engage in distracting activities,” Harkey said. “This demonstrates why partial automation systems need more robust safeguards to prevent misuse.”
It's worth stressing that partial automation is just that—partial. They perform a specific set of tasks within their operational design domain (that is, the environment in which they were designed to be operated). That's great for lane centering and navigating stop-and-go traffic, but you, the driver, are to remain in control by paying attention.
So why exactly do people get more distracted when partial automation is engaged? Simple: trust. Drivers feel safer and secure not only because they become comfortable with the features after a few miles, but because they've been sold on this idea that the car can handle a lot of driving on its own. But these vehicles all still require close human supervision.
The study itself is a very interesting read if you're a numbers nerd like me, and can be found over on the IIHS' website.
And while the reasoning is simple to deduce, the fix is not. How do you keep drivers from becoming their own passengers while driving? A simple beep or blue flashing isn't enough—the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration even said so. Is the answer more eye-tracking? Or feature suspension? Or are we just stuck in this weird limbo between partial and full automation?
Either way, the warning here is clear: pay attention when behind the wheel, or you might find yourself in hot water when consequences come a-knockin'.
60%: Charger Reliability Starts At The Card Reader
We've all been there—rolling up to an EV charger, plugging in, and then... nothing. No juice. Nada. Just a message to check an app, or that the charger is offline for any number of reasons. One of them that you probably wouldn't expect is the payment system.
Not every DC Fast Charger can be like Tesla and charge your card on file just by plugging your car in. That's what some companies are looking to fix.
Meet three new companies looking to change the game: Sheeva.AI, EV Connect, and Parkopedia. These companies want to make paying for a fast charge as easy as your Netflix subscription (but without the constant price hikes, am I right?) by moving the payment part of the process inside the cabin.
"The less elements you have in the system to activate and pay for charging, the more reliable it is," said Sheeva.AI's CEO, Evgeny Klochikhin, in a statement to Automotive News.
He's right. The more complicated you make a charging system, the more likely it is to break somewhere along the line. And it turns out that payment systems are, unsurprisingly, complicated.
Just think about it: you tap your phone and the card data transmits wirelessly from a secure chip on your to the card reader. Then, it has to transmit that data over the internet to a payment processor. The payment processor then has to talk to your bank, which can check your account to make you can pay for the electricity, and then finally give the all-clear to the charger in reverse order. Phew. We take it for granted.
Even J.D. Power's data shows that complications are taking a toll on drivers, especially since nearly 1 in 5 charging attempts failed in late 2023. That might not seem like a lot on paper, but imagine if you pulled up to a gas station and 20% of the pumps just displayed "PLEASE SEE CASHIER" but there was nobody at the counter to take your money.
"The only thing that is consistent across all charging scenarios (home, work, public, on the go) is that the car is involved, and connected either physically or digitally," said Parkopedia spokesperson, Christofer Lloyd.
So for consistency's sake, why not move the payment inside the car? I mean, a Parkopedia study shows that 65% of EV drivers in the U.S. want in-car payments. And on top of the complexity, drivers can have as many as eight apps on their phones to find and user chargers.
I just checked mine—I have six.
One of the biggest challenges in the charge towards EVs (and software-defined vehicles in general) has been getting software to play nice. The payment system needs to work, the charger status needs to be accurate, and, of course, it should be a seamless experience from the time you plug in until the time you drive off.
"That's the biggest challenge: How do you make sure that it's a seamless experience at all kinds of chargers?" said PwC Strategy partner, Akshay Singh.
That's the multi-billion-dollar question. And these companies believe they have the answer.
90%: CATL Has A New Million-Mile Battery—And Yes, That's Bonkers
Have you ever heard about those folks who show up at the dealership with a literal million miles on the odometer and walk out with a free car? Sure, the laundry list of maintenance items could have probably paid for one, but the fact that any ol' Joe Shmoe-mobile can make it that far is pretty impressive.
As the era of combustion is ushered towards the end, electric powertrains will be in some of the next million-mile vehicles to make the news. Although they might be on their 14th motor and 4th battery packs—that is, unless some battery makers are able to perfect battery longevity.
That's what Chinese battery giant CATL wants to do. Its new EV battery, which is specifically targeted at electric buses, is called the Tianxing Bus and CATL says that it'll power these mass transit machines for an impressive 1.5 million kilometers (930,000) miles over its 15-year service lifespan.
To put this number into perspective, the average U.S. driver putts around for about 14,500 miles each year. That means it would take the average person around 65 years to hit that distance. Or, you could drive to the moon and back and still have some juice left over. Your choice.
CATL says its new battery pack is 22% more energy-dense than its last generation at 175 watt-hours per kilogram, which, if you compare it to one of Tesla's 4680s, isn't that great. But can Tesla's cylindrical cells last as long? Time will tell.
Speaking of time, a long-lasting battery capable of an umpteen number of charge cycles gets you thinking: what's going to last longer, the battery or the vehicle it's in?
This particular case is for public transit. The average age of articulated public buses is about 7.25 years, whereas school buses can approach 20 years old before being retired (don't worry, they only do about 12,000 miles of stop-and-go each year). Seems like that's a perfect use case.
But the tech will likely trickle down to consumer vehicles, eventually, and hopefully with more energy density. But then consumers—and automakers, really—will start to wonder: "Do I really want to drive the same car for the next 30 years?"
Maybe commercial products really are the perfect use case for CATL's million-mile tech.
In case you were wondering, businesses are pretty stoked about this tech. CATL says that 13 companies are already waiting in line for their chance to buy it once the battery enters mass production (which is "soon"). At least 80 buses will be powered by the new cells.
100%: Do You Really Want To Drive The Same Car For 30 Years?
Some EVs are getting pretty old. I know a lot of people buy a car (especially an EV) with the intention of having a low-cost, drive-it-until-the-wheels-fall-off ride. But when approaching electric cars almost like mirroring a kitchen appliance, they can start to feel old quickly.
There's no getting around it. Tech changes. It's a fact, and sometimes it hurts to think about the cars of yesteryear that, while game-changing, are clunkers compared to what you can buy today.
For example, could you imagine being one of the original 400 or so owners of the 40-kilowatt-hour value special Model S? You could buy it for $50,000 in 2012—that's nearly $70,000 in 2024 bucks—and still only get 100 miles of charge before accounting for degradation.
Not having a car note to pay is nice, that's for sure. But living in the electric Stone Age, especially amongst new software-defined vehicles, is different than firing up your old drift missile with no power steering and automatic seatbelts that only work sometimes.
So, I'll ask you: do you really want to drive the same car for 30 years? Let me know in the comments.
