interview – Silicon Valley Mobility

Book event at the Stanford Research Park – April 13, 2023

Posted on March 14, 2023March 14, 2023 by SiliconValleyMobility

Mark your calendars – we are having a networking event to discuss my book The Mobility Diaries on April 13, 5pm at Stanford Research Park. This is an in-person event open to the public.

Here’s the program (or visit event page):
5:00 Reception, early guests will get a free book
5:30 “The Mobility Diaries” – A conversation with Dr. Sven Beiker
6:15 Book signing and networking

The Mobility Diaries, published by SAE International, tell my view of how autonomous, connected, electric, and shared vehicles have come about. Now I look forward to a good discussion and am eager to get your take on the matter.

Registration is now open at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/author-event-with-dr-sven-beiker-tickets-575687134717

See you there!

Click here to register for the event on Apr 13

SAE International Blog about The Mobility Diaries

Posted on February 22, 2023March 14, 2023 by SiliconValleyMobility

Thank you SAE International for blogging about my new book, The Mobility Diaries: https://www.sae.org/blog/meet-the-author-sven-beiker

It summarizes the interview we did not too long ago when I shared how the idea for the book came about, why it is important to me to connect the past – present – future of mobility, and how Detroit and Silicon Valley need one another.

Read more in the blog, or better yet, buy the book!
http://themobilitydiaries.com

The Mobility Diaries – Podcast Interview with the SAE Publishers

Posted on October 12, 2022March 14, 2023 by SiliconValleyMobility

Meet the Author: The Mobility Diaries: Connecting the Milestones of Innovation Leading to ACES

Watch the Sep 2022 interview featuring Shane Bialowas, Angela Kenner, and & Sven Beiker, discussing his new book. In The Mobility Diaries he opens up his personal diary regarding his take on 50 years of mobility innovation and history interwoven with his experiences in the automotive and mobility industries including autonomous driving, connectivity, electrification, and shared mobility.

New book coming out – Meet the Author event with SAE Publishers

Posted on September 16, 2022September 20, 2022 by SiliconValleyMobility

So we are getting real: My book “The Mobility Diaries” is now finally coming out. Join us on September 21 for a “Meet the Author” online session hosted by SAE International, my publisher.

Here’s a bit more about the book:
Sven Beiker is specializing in future trends for the automotive and mobility industries including autonomous driving, connectivity, electrification, and shared mobility. In “The Mobility Diaries: Connecting the Milestones of Innovation Leading to ACES”, he opens up his personal diary regarding his take on 50 years of mobility innovation and history interwoven with his experiences from 1978 to 2018.

From the Foreword by Reilly Brennan: “Understanding how transportation itself evolved requires a unique prism. The core components of vehicles today have stories and engineering journeys worth their own telling, and that is what is so exciting about the way we can learn about them in this text. Dr. Beiker’s curriculum vitae, from BMW to Stanford University to McKinsey, are a compendium of experiences that created this unique historical and biographical book.”

“Sven and I are kindred spirits in the mobility world. His view on the evolution of mobility and technology illustrates why Detroit and Silicon Valley need one another.” Carla Bailo, Former President and CEO, Center for Automotive Research

The book can be purchased at SAE International right away and soon everywhere where you can buy books.

Click here to register for the webcast on Sep 2 1

Smart Sensors – Interview with Sensors Converge

Posted on September 1, 2022September 1, 2022 by SiliconValleyMobility

This was already in June but it still makes for a good discussion of smart sensors: my interview at the Sensors Converge 2022.

People are putting more and more intelligence into sensors – which we call smart sensors. Traditionally, sensors used to be a device to measure exactly one thing. But now much more intelligence is going into it and it’s going to become more and more miniaturized, which is pretty incredible. They are talking about what used to be a system on a chip (SOC) is now a system in a sensor…

SAE’s Sven Beiker to chair the session on smart sensors and sensor fusion at Sensors Converge 2022

Posted on June 13, 2022 by SiliconValleyMobility

(originally published by SAE International on June 13, 2022 at https://www.sae.org/blog/sensors-converge-beiker)

Dr. Sven Beiker, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Mobility and External Advisor for SAE International, will chair a session at the upcoming Sensors Converge conference June 27-29 in San Jose, California.

The session, called Smart Sensors & Sensor Fusion, will provide a day-long insights for to understand new developments in the sensors space. Speakers on the track will cover sensor market growth, testing, software trends, safety requirements and more.

The conference got its start 37 years ago with a focus on sensor technology and has grown and diversified throughout the years to include the electronics technologies and embedded systems that work together with sensors as well as emerging application areas.

“The conference has an excellent reputation in the industry for bringing key players together to discuss important technologies that drive innovation,” Dr. Beiker said. “I’m looking forward to the conversations that will happen at this year’s event.”

PAVE Panel on ODD – The Question is Where not When!

Posted on March 25, 2022March 25, 2022 by SiliconValleyMobility

Carter Stern of Cruise and I had a great discussion on Operational Design Domains (ODDs) for automated vehicles at the Partners for Automated Vehicle Education (PAVE) panel.

Our overarching theme was “Where, Not When: Why Domains Matter” and it was nice that Carter and I could build off of one another’s perspectives from the tech and auto industries.

Here’s one of my key points:
“An Operational Design Domain can be anything. It can be what is sometimes called the ‘Four Ws’ – wherever, whenever, whatever the weather. And that is what is called ‘level 5’ or all ODDs you can imagine. But level 5 driving is similar to infinity in math: it is important to prove your concept, but you never get there.”

Tabitha Colter did a fantastic job moderating the discussion and putting thoughtful questions in front of us. Thanks very much!

Webcast with SAE on the mobility topics of 2021

Posted on December 21, 2021December 21, 2021 by SiliconValleyMobility

I had a very nice conversation with Angela Kenner at SAE International when we discussed the trends in automated driving and electric mobility of 2021 and where things might be going next year.

We started out with some observations in China and then moved to Silicon Valley.

Certainly, much has been accomplished with AVs and EVs, especially where strong partnerships between the traditional automotive industry, tech players, and startups thrive.

An easy listening, I hope you like it.

Happy holidays everyone, we’ll reconnect in 2022…

Realities of traffic make automated driving a challenge

Posted on October 16, 2021October 16, 2021 by SiliconValleyMobility

Nice interview here with SAE International for their monthly magazine “Update“. My piece is titled “Realities of traffic make automated driving a challenge”.

It is a conversation around what is missing to bring autonomous vehicles (automated driving to use the right SAE term) to the real world. I am glad that SAE asked as I have been discussing a lot over the years what is holding us back: technology, regulation, trust…? My view is that we have solutions for all of those, as long as we choose the ODD wisely. However, real-world traffic still poses the biggest challenge.

Along those lines, I created the following chart at some point. On the right you see the graphic of climbing a mountain, which I typically use as a prompt in my talks to say the following.

– If you want to get on top of the world, Mount Everest, you might get on a plane in San Francisco, make a connection in Heathrow, and get to Kathmandu.
– From the airport you travel to the basecamp at 5,300m altitude of Mount Everest
– At that point you have traveled well over 99% or so of the distance, but this is where it begins to get interesting…

Future of Mobility – virtual fireside chat w/ Mario Herger

Posted on June 11, 2020June 11, 2020 by SiliconValleyMobility

Mario Herger and Sven Beiker discussed different viewpoints on the combined effect of autonomous driving, electric vehicles, and the sharing economy.

We are on the verge of changing our life as we know it. The way people get around today won’t be recognizable by 2030 – and the impact will be huge. Vehicles will increasingly drive themselves, powered by renewable electric energy, connected via ultra-fast data networks, and shared via mobility platforms. While many agree that those are the directions into the future of mobility, there is still some disagreement regarding the speed at which we are moving in those directions.

Some say that the driver’s license will soon be a thing of the past, others point out that things take time given inertia in the industry, market, and regulation. Those different viewpoints make for a great discussion among the two experts for a virtual fireside chat hosted by GABA – German American Business Association on May 26, 2020.

Silicon Valley Mobility Chart of the Month, Jan 2020

Posted on January 30, 2020February 17, 2020 by SiliconValleyMobility

Here we are in 2020 and where are the flying cars and where are the self-driving automobiles? At the beginning of a new decade I review my own forecasts from the past 10+ years and highlight things I got right and those that were a bit off. I also recommend that “forecasting” should rather be done as “projections”, i.e. one is at some point in time now and projects into the future. This should be done in different categories, such as events / innovations that are “certain”, “probable”, or simply just “possible” to happen. Either way, this makes for a interesting self-reflection that I can only recommend to everyone in the field of new mobility and future thinking. It is always good to look back “… what was I thinking?!” I hope you agree this deserves a 7:42 min video. Let me know what you think…

Mobility Outlook 2020 – Interview w/ Mario Herger

Posted on January 13, 2020February 17, 2020 by SiliconValleyMobility

Sven Beiker of Silicon Valley Mobility and Mario Herger met again for a short mobility talk at the beginning of 2020 and analyzed the current situation.

Topics we discussed included:

Autonomous driving in 2020
Tesla share: still just a hype?
Tesla Gigafactory 3 & 4
Future of traditional car makers

Chart of the Month 2018/01 – Interview w/ Mario Herger

Posted on February 22, 2018February 17, 2020 by SiliconValleyMobility

Chart of the Month by Silicon Valley Mobility for January 2018 – infrastructure requirements for advanced mobility and funding gap

The last half year of the chart of the month (07-12/2017) covered the individual trends autonomous, connected, electrified, and shared mobility. The question was often asked, what is missing to move forward in those categories toward a scenario of self-driving, fully connected, all-electric, and conveniently shared vehicles.

The answer is “infrastructure!”, which this month’s chart summarizes. There are 3 categories of infrastructure needed in mobility:
(1) the cvil or built infrastructure with roads, traffic signs
(2) the tech infrastructure with communication and charge networks
(3) the legal infrastructure with permits, standards, taxation

The challenge however is that infrastructure is largely underfunded in many countries; in the U.S. less than half of the existing needs (mostly building and repairing the current roads and bridges…) are covered. That poses big challenges and public-private partnerships are needed to move forward on the agenda for advanced mobility.