02x03 - Electric Cars

[bunniefuu]

[dramatic music]

As governments around the world,

call time on the internal
combustion engine,

many believe

that if the electric dream
is to become a reality,

we need to not only radically change

the design of our vehicles.

[dramatic music]

But also how we use them.

[dramatic music]
[doors whooshing]

[dramatic music]

And even how and where we make them.

[dramatic music]

[upbeat music]

A global technological
revolution is underway.

We think in the next 10 years,

you'll see more innovation
than we've seen in the past 50.

Driven by passionate,
dedicated individuals,

intent on shaping a new world.

I wanna create something new.

I want to create something

that gives me the sense
of creating new life.

This is why I'm here.

A greener world.

This is the last call to action

that we have to develop the solutions

that are protecting our planet.

A better world.

I have a family

and when I think about
the life I want them to have

and their children to have,

I want them to experience
the world where they can travel

and live without worry

and that gets me up and going every day.

Together, they are pushing engineering

to its limits.

Human creativity is the
most tremendous power

and if you set a target,

things that you never thought
possible, become possible.

Creating extraordinary machines

that can help the planet
and humankind in the future.

[dramatic music]

If we are to stand a chance in our struggle

to limit global warming,

a change in the way we
travel will be essential.

Transportation accounts for


and in the US, that figure is 29%.

The vast majority of it
comes from what we drive

on the road.

Our relationship with the automobile

has been a defining feature of modern life,

but as we make the
transition to electric power,

many experts believe that
the nature of this relationship

is about to undergo a revolution.

[dramatic music]

Without doubt, this presents a challenge,

but it also presents the opportunity

to redefine the way we travel.

No stranger to thinking differently

about how we use vehicles is Robin Chase,

co-founder of Zipcar,

one of the world's leading
car share companies

and Veniam, a data network company

that is helping to support
what's known as the internet

of moving things.

She's worked with
institutions and authorities

around the world,

developing innovative transport strategies.

I think of transportation as
our gateway to opportunity,

whether you wanna be
educated, see friends, have a job,

be healthy, go shopping,

everything resides upon, can you get there?

How much time, how much
effort, how much money?

It is the glue that makes
our entire lives possible,

so the idea that there's
one type of vehicle

or one type of mobility solution

that will service all of
our needs is craziness

and that was what
happened in the last century.

[dramatic music]

When people buy a car,

what happens is they think
about their largest use case.

They think, oh, I need to have it,

so in August I can take
my family on some big trip

with everything in back, but in reality,



and 50% of our trips
are less than three miles

or five kilometers.

So the reality is, it's us
moving alone by ourselves

for the vast majority
of our trips and cars,

whether they're electric or not,

are vastly oversized for
what we're actually doing.

[wind whooshing]

[dramatic music]

This is the Aptera,

soon to be the most aerodynamic
production car in history.

With a potential range over a 1,000 miles

from a single charge, it's
convinced over 15,000 customers

to place an order

before a single vehicle has
rolled off the production line,

but this is not the product
of an automotive giant.

This is what happens when
some engineers from San Diego,

take an uncompromising
approach to efficiency.

[dramatic music]
[seagulls cawing]

The Aptera story started over a decade ago,

when Electrical Engineer, Steve Fambro,

sitting in traffic during his daily commute

became convinced that there
had to be a better alternative

to existing cars, something more efficient

and certainly something more sustainable.

So I started building
this car just as a hobby

and at some point, the
light went on where I thought,

if I could get paid to do
this, I would do this all day.

So I started thinking about, well,

what would that look like?

What is that?

Well, it's a startup car company,

to sell the most efficient
vehicle in the world.

And then, Steve met Chris Anthony,

an entrepreneur who was
building composite wake boats,

who not only shared his passion,

but was also prepared to think differently.

And it was off to the races.

It was really bizarre how
quickly it all happened.

Well, when I first met Steve

and he explained the math equation

for why typical vehicles
use so much energy,

the first thing that he brought up

was a typical Toyota Camry type vehicle.

We use 60% of its fuel just
pushing air out of the way

and it instantly struck a chord with me

because I was a hydrodynamicist

and I'd done lots of simulation work

and worked on how fluids
work and I said, yeah, I get it,

that's a problem and he said,

"I think that we can build a vehicle

that takes that aerodynamic
drag almost down to zero".

Perfect, sign me up,
let's build that vehicle

and we didn't start with a
marketing study or a focus group,

we started with the engineering problem

of how do you make
transportation more efficient?

And then we just ticked through the boxes

on what would make the
most efficient vehicle platform

and what you end up with,

is something that looks
like what I have behind me.

When I first started
looking at low drag shapes,

I thought, well, let's look
at the streamliner hot rods

from the 1950s and 60s.

You had a lot of veterans
who returned after World w*r II

and were taking aircraft
parts and drop tanks

and turning them into hot rods

and then taking 'em to the salt flats

and seeing how fast they could go

and for the amount of horsepower

and the size that they were,

my back of the napkin calculations

said that they should have
been able to achieve much higher

top speeds because of the streamline shape.

What I didn't realize

and I guess maybe what
they didn't realize at the time,

is that a perfectly
symmetrical streamline shape

has very low drag in the
free stream, up high in the air,

but when you bring it close to the ground,

it has a completely different effect.

In ground effect, it becomes
a much higher drag shape

and so to make a streamlined shape,

but that's also low drag and ground effect,

it looks different and as it
turns out, lots of creatures,

fish, catfish, sharks, et cetera,

that swim in the free stream,

when they get down near the surface,

they will change their
body to lower their drag

and the reason they lower their drag

is because nature hates inefficiency,

nature doesn't do anything inefficient.

It's all about saving energy.

So sharks really taught us
a lot about how things work

in ground effect,

so that's why the Aptera
looks a lot like a fish or a shark

swimming close to the sea
floor with a hump in its back.

[upbeat music]

Before we went out fundraising,

we said, we need to have
some third party seal of approval.

Who could we get to
also examine this shape,

maybe put it in their wind
tunnel, give us a thumbs up

that it is low drag

and so we hired NASA,
Langley Low Speed Wind Tunnel

and we had a conference call with 'em

and you could hear all the
scientists on the conference

going like, "This is the
lowest drag road vehicle

we've ever seen.

Like what are you guys doing?

How does this work?"

And we said, we hired
you to tell us how it works,

your NASA.

[guitar music]

What has enabled the team

to fine tune their design

in a way that would've been
impossible a decade ago?

Are the advances in
computational fluid dynamics.

This is a computer tool

that can accurately analyze
complicated aerodynamics

and airflows.

We bought a lot of servers,

this is after we got our funding

and we ran CFD, 24 hours a
day for virtually every shape

that touches the wind in the vehicle.

The processing power

that you can put to these
problems now is just immense.

We can load a full vehicle
model into our simulation deck

and run it on a web server

and have results in four hours now.

Incredibly, the entire Aptera car

has less aerodynamic drag,
than just one side view mirror

that you'd find on an average
American pickup truck.

One aspect of the vehicle's design

that often draws attention

is the fact that it only has three wheels.

We determined that if we
got rid of the rear wheel, one,

we don't really give up any
performance characteristics,

but we gain in aerodynamics,
we lose some weight

from having the structure
to hold that extra wheel

and we have less rolling resistance.

So you have a certain amount of weight

that's deforming the tire constantly

on every revolution that you ever drive,

so if you can decrease
the amount of traction patch

on the road, you get
better overall efficiency.

Our vehicle can go around the track

as comfortably and as securely

as any comparable four wheel vehicle.

And one thing crucial to its stability,

is its center of gravity,

which is greatly helped
by the choice of powertrain.

How we power the vehicles,
actually through the wheels,

the motors are designed into the wheels.

It takes the weight

and puts it out at the
corner of the vehicle,

so you have a better center of gravity,

which gives you more torque,

so you get better zero
to 60, time acceleration

and it gives you more regen capabilities,

so it saves your brakes

and gives you better overall performance.

Weight is crucially
important to our efficiency,

so the more we can
reduce weight, the better.

And one of the heaviest parts

of an electric vehicle is the battery.

Well, batteries are the most expensive part

of the electric vehicle

and so if we can fundamentally
reduce the number

of batteries necessary to
go from point A to point B,

compared to any other electric vehicle,

then we're able to offer
something that costs less

to make and costs less to sell.

The combination of less weight,

reduced rolling resistance
and world leading aerodynamics,

means you need less energy to power it.

With a 100-watt hours
per mile energy usage,

you can do things like charge
with a regular extension cord

from your garage.

The same cable that you
charge your cell phone with,

is a cable that you can
charge the Aptera with,

up to 200 miles overnight.

Also, if you're on a trip

and you go to one of the roadside chargers,

you're charging four or five times faster

than any EV around you.

But the Aptera has one
more energy saving trick

up its sleeve, it's solar
powered charging capability.

All the more pertinent

given the US Department
of Energy's predictions,

that electricity consumption
is set to increase

by as much as 38% by 2050,

in large part, because
of electric vehicles.

We have a 700-watt solar panel on our roof

and that can produce over
four kilowatt hours of power

per day in sunnier places.

That's 40 miles of free driving per day,

just because you parked it out in the sun.

But for most Americans

that drive less than 40 miles
a day, 60 kilometers or so,

you wouldn't have to plug it in

and the reason why it's even feasible,

is because the vehicle is so efficient.

So if you were a big
electric truck manufacturer

or sedan with lots of batteries,

you could cover the whole thing in solar

and you might get five or


whereas if you can account
for the most of the daily miles

from the sun without
taxing the grid at all,

then it makes it much easier
to deploy electric vehicles

across a wide area.

It really is just striving to
build the best production

vehicle we can for the
people that have reservations

out there.

[dramatic music]

Possibly the biggest changes

this automotive revolution
will have on our way of life,

will be felt in our cities.

Michael Hurwitz, understands
the task ahead more than most.

He worked for the British government,

where he was the most senior
official responsible for energy

and transport.

He then spent five years
as Director of Innovation

at Transport for London,

one of the largest transport
authorities in the world,

responsible for managing
the city's public transport

network, which includes 9,300 buses,

an underground system
handling 5 million journeys per day

and main roads with over


He now works for Arrival,

one of the new generation
of automotive companies

that are bringing a fresh perspective

to introducing electric vehicles
into our towns and cities.

It is now absolutely certain
that around the worlds,

cities, regulators, national governments

are going to require an
increasingly rapid shift

to zero emission, mostly electric,

some people an open
mind to things like hydrogen,

but it is happening

and it's happening at an increasing pace.

There's an interesting point

about whether the incumbent industry,

the traditional automakers
can transition fast enough.

Some people aren't as ready,

but we feel that we're kind
of ahead of the curve there.

[dramatic music]

When Denis Sverdlov
decided to found Arrival,

it was because he felt it was
not just the type of vehicles

that needed changing,

but the entire auto manufacturing model.

That is not enough,
because we still get vehicles

which are expensive and
that are not sustainable.

You don't need to have a
compromise between being green

or being efficient and
that's why we started Arrival

in January, 2015,

with idea to reinvent the
way vehicles are made.

But where to start?

Well, for Dennis and his team,

one particular sector above all stood out,

commercial vehicles.

[dramatic music]

The vehicles that are
being driven eight, 10 hours,

day after day after day, if
there are any vehicles in a city

that you'd wanna replace
with zero emission vehicles,

it would be these commercial vehicles.

[dramatic music]

One of the aims of Arrival,

is to be able to work with companies

and create a bespoke vehicle

specifically targeted to their needs,

which is exactly what
they've been doing with UPS,

with whom they have jointly been developing

a new delivery van.

[dramatic music]

But how will this new startup
company compete on price

with established automotive
giants who spent over a century,

mastering the production
line and economies of scale?

[dramatic music]

I think the real
opportunity with a startup,

with a new company,

is you don't have any
of those existing assets.

You can set off in a
completely new direction.

The approach that Arrival has taken,

can in many ways be encapsulated

by the words of the influential


Ernst Friedrich Schumacher.

He wrote something along
the lines of any intelligent fool

can make things bigger
and more complicated,

but it takes a lot of courage

to move in the opposite direction.

I love this quote.

It really captures our
DNA, what we do here,

how we develop things.

[bright piano music]

Large automobile factories
can take years to build

and have a price tag
of over a billion dollars.

Arrival, believe that for just 50 million,

they can take over an existing warehouse

and within six months,

be able to produce 10,000 vehicles a year.

[bright piano music]
[machines whirring]

Able to be built all over the world

in locations where the vehicles are needed,

they will employ local
people, pay local taxes,

require less infrastructure

and be able to provide specific
models suitable to location.

They call it a microfactory,

which instead of housing a
conventional production line,

uses a collection of robotic cells.

And we have a whole array of these cells

that do different operations,

but the key to it is how
we link them together.

We link them together
through mobile robotics.

So literally a little wheeled
robot that carries parts

and vehicles from cell to cell.

[dramatic music]

I've been building robots

since I was a kid.

Right from toys, I was
fascinated with robots.

I was fascinated with spacecraft,

so all my studies over
the years were focused

on this space inspiration, robotics and AI.

I met Denis after having
worked on a space mission

for European Space Agency.

We discussed about how to use technology

to have a positive impact on
people and we liked each other

and I jumped on board.

I left the space program
and I joined Arrival.

Where once in the
traditional automotive industry,

it was tool makers who were
crucial for the implementation

of mass production.

Today, a different type of engineer

is at the heart of this new
way of building vehicles.

More than half of our people
are software engineers.

We are strongly software people.

What this means is that
we spread intelligence

in every robotic asset that
we have on the shop floor.

These robots sense and
perceive the environment.

They gather the data,
they process it in real-time

and they use this data to
execute operations in real-time.

If something changes in
the environment, they react

and then we have an
operation control system.

You may think about it

as the overload of the factory, right?

The AI that runs it

and this system gathers
continuously information

from all the children,
from all the robotic assets

on the shop floor.

We have done a lot of
work on computer vision

and we've developed something quite unique

and our systems are
capable of understanding

the position of an object,
classifying that object,

understanding the position
in six degrees of freedom.

So in space, in any location,
a sub millimeter accuracy.

These are robots that
can navigate autonomously

in the environment, can avoid obstacles,

can detect any anomalies in the environment

and can react dynamically
and also work together.

These robots can connect to each other

to create a larger platform
that can transfer bigger

and larger pilots.

But as clever and sophisticated

as the system is, if the
microfactory concept

is going to work, it'll
need the right materials

to work with.

I'm gonna be a bit biased here.

[Rob giggles]

I think materials are like
foundational to a lot of this.

If you are gonna make manufacture something

anywhere in the world, then
you can go one of two routes.

You can either source in
one place and transport it

or you source close to where you're making

and our strategy is very
much to try and source

as close as we can to the factories,

to support local
communities, local economies

and to build relationships in those areas.

So if we wanna be able to
build a microfactory anywhere,

on a high street, in a warehouse,

you have to start asking questions

about the kind of materials

that are gonna go into the factories.

They also have to be recyclable,

'cause you need to be
able to reprocess them

wherever you are.

If a Van's built in one part of the world,

it should be recycled wherever it ends up

and that drives a certain
type up of materials logic.

In order to meet all these criteria,

it was decided to use an aluminum chassis

onto which would be put a body

made from thermoplastic composites.

Able to be molded into shapes when heated,

thermoplastic composites differ

to many other forms of composites,

because it's a process that can be reversed

and repeated many times,
making it perfect for recycling

and giving the product an
almost indefinite shelf life.

[dramatic music]

It's where there is a
huge amount of innovation

in the industry and we can
process that by 3D printing,

so we can make prototypes,

we can turn it into injection
molded components,

we can process it into
compression molded or extruded

or you can make garments
from thermoplastic materials.

Like the amount of
opportunity of thermoplastics

is just immense.

The company have developed
their own composites,

tailor made for their requirements.

Those destined for body
panels arrive at the factory

in the form of roles of fabric.

These are cut to size, layered and molded

into a variety of different shapes

and all done autonomously,

using far less machinery and energy

than a conventional automotive plant

and once more, waste is eliminated

because the properties of
the material allow any off cuts

to be recycled and made
into other components.

Like that's so fundamentally different

from the conventional way of working.

I mean, when people join the company

and they often are like
it's quite mind blowing.

We are weaving fabrics and
knitting and there is no paint.

The color is throughout the panel

and you can recycle the
whole panel at the end it's life.

Panels are also able to withstand impacts

in a way that no steel
equivalent ever could,

all of which is of considerable appeal

to commercial fleet operators.

Their vehicles are their brand

that's rolling around in those
communities day after day.

So they always want their
vehicles to look their best.

They spend an enormous
amount of money every year

per vehicle to keep their
vehicles looking so good.

This combination of versatile materials

and a highly agile production process

is also changing the way the
company approaches its research

and development.

So in regular RND, I'm
used to working on projects

that are two to four years long

and here we are expected to
turn around proof of concepts

in a matter of weeks, so if
it takes longer than a month,

then it gives us pause for thought.

The point is to prove your
idea as quickly as you can

and that means that you
can cycle through ideas

much quicker.

So the other core concept for us

is that failure is not a bad thing.

We encourage my team
to fail as often as they can,

because it's only when you fail

that you either discard an idea or move on

or you keep learning.

This ability to utilize the AI software

to transpose concepts into production,

has enabled the team, not
only to develop commercial vans,

but also buses and rideshare vehicles.

With a growing list of customers,

Arrival has already set up
one microfactory in the UK

and others in the US, with
more planned for other countries

in the pipeline.

In hindsight, some of the
most revolutionary ideas

seem obvious

and I wonder if people
will talk about microfactories

that way in a few years, for instance.

I can't explain exactly why
nobody's thought of it before,

but it is clear that bringing
together the right group

of people on the right mission,

with the right set of objectives
was an important part

of developing this very different approach.

[dramatic music]

There are still many challenges

that need to be overcome to
successfully make the transition

to full use of electric vehicles.

Today, over half the world's
population live in urban areas.

In Europe, it's almost three
quarters and in North America,

it's higher still, at 82%

and these figures are only set to increase.

Many towns and cities have road layouts

that are hundreds of years
old, meaning space for charging

is at a premium.

It's sobering to consider
that 40% of Americans

do not live in a home where
they can use a personal charger,

so whilst some have been tackling the issue

of electric vehicles themselves,

others have been wrestling with the problem

of how to charge them.

[dramatic music]

Back in 2012, the founders of Electreon,

a Tel Aviv-based company,

decided to investigate the possibility

of creating a viable wireless system

known as induction charging.

So we have one coil that
we put under the asphalt,

and we have another coil

that we install at the
bottom of the vehicle

and actually we have a transformer.

This is something that was
found by Tesla, 100 years ago

and we are using this phenomena.

To fully understand how the system works,

one needs to travel even further back

to Michael Faraday's
work on electromotive force.

He discovered

that in the presence of an
alternating magnetic field,

an electromotive force could be produced

across an electric conductor.

Nikola Tesla, took this a stage further.

He deduced that if an alternating current

was passed through a coil,

it would generate an
alternating magnetic field.

If a receiver coil was then placed nearby,

this alternating magnetic field

would induce an electrical
current in the receiver coil

and if you have an electric current,

it can be used to charge a battery.

It was a brilliant concept,
but sadly at the time,

there were no commercial applications.

It would take another century

for the principle to be
adopted by charging devices

in our homes, but for
the system to be viable

for large scale vehicle use,

it would need to be
made much more efficient.

When they started,

it was estimated that
almost half the electricity

would be lost during the wireless transfer,

but the team were confident

that by fine tuning all
the various components,

as well as the power levels
and oscillation frequency,

this could be dramatically improved.

So first, when we establish the company,

we focus on dynamic wireless charging

or electric road system.

It means that we electrify the road

and we charge the vehicle
while the vehicle is in motion.

So this device is part of the RND work.

You can see here that
this simulates actual vehicle

driving on the road and
being a charge while driving.

So, those are the coils
that are under the asphalt

and this is the receiver
that is our under the vehicle.

Those coils are deployed under the asphalt,

about eight to 10 centimeters.

The coils emit energy to those receivers

only when there's an authorized receiver

that communicates with a coil

and then the energy is being delivered,

otherwise those coils are totally passive.

So as a general world,

our wireless charging technology

charges at approximately the same speed

as any standard
conductive charging solution

that you can buy and use at home.

Having developed the theory,

they built a 300-meter test track,

where they spent three years
testing a variety of vehicles

and perfecting the system

to a point where it achieves
an energy transfer efficiency

of up to 91% in test conditions.

They also perfected the
system to charge static

and parked vehicles.

It can be installed in
locations where conductive

or plugin charging cannot be.

So locations like bus stations and garages,

inside city centers,
underneath taxi cues or stands,

directly under the loading
docks at commercial facilities

and of course, roads and
street parking, for example,

because there's no
interference with the pavement

or with the road, everything
can be underground.

With the ability to charge both moving

and stationary vehicles,

the next step was to put it
into practice in the real world.

In Tel Aviv and in Calshot, in Germany,

we have a public pilot on the roads there

with the public bus operator in the city

and in both instances, we are demonstrating

that with a combination
of stationary charging

at the terminal or at the
bus station for a few minutes,

while the vehicle is parked,

plus some small stretch of
dynamic wireless charging

along the route of the bus, is
enough to power the vehicles

so that they can run 24/7

and we can simultaneously
reduce the size of the battery

or the capacity of the batteries.

And it's this ability
to reduce battery size,

that could be hugely significant

as the number of electric
vehicles on our roads increases.

[dramatic music]

There are about 1.4 billion
vehicles on our roads today,

globally, we just haven't
found all of the resources

that we require in order
to shift to electric mobility

on a global scale.

There are issues around
destroying habitats, for example,

from mining, for cobalt or for lithium ion

and so anything that we could
do to minimize the impacts

and to minimize the size of the batteries

is probably going to be a good thing.

In theory, we can reduce
battery capacity by up to 90%,

as long as we have this
wireless charging in convenient

and accessible locations.

In Gotland, Sweden,

they're already successfully operating

the world's longest
continuous electric road system,

stretching over 1.6 kilometers.

It charges not only a
public bus at the moment,

but also a 40-ton truck.

What's so significant about this trial,

is that it demonstrates the ability

to simultaneously charge
different size vehicles

with different energy requirements.

The system is totally automatic.

So the driver actually
doesn't need to do anything,

you just need to drive.

We have a metering
device inside the vehicles,

so this is how we know
exactly how much energy

every vehicle consumes.

Each 100-meter section
contains 60 charging units,

each able to charge an individual vehicle,

meaning that volume of
traffic will not be an issue.

It is hoped that in Europe alone,

there could be at least


by 2030,

but what sort of disruption

would installing such a network cause?

Of course, we're not suggesting

that we would come into any
city and tear up all the roads

in the city.

We're looking at
finding strategic locations

where it makes sense to deploy

because you have enough heavy traffic.

So if you looked at a
city grid, for example,

you'd be looking at deploying
somewhere between 15 to 30%

of the main roads.

If deployed at scale,

the team estimate the
costs to be around $650,000

per kilometer.

When we established the company,

we had a mission to deploy
one kilometer within one day

and actually, it was a joke nine years ago,

but today, we can
show that we did it twice,

in Tel Aviv and in Sweden.

Our goal is to pave a
whole city in few weeks

and we are talking about a
huge infrastructure project

and to do it in few weeks,
it's a huge challenge,

but I believe that we will reach that goal.

[dramatic music]

I think everyone has to
accept a bit of change.

It's a deep seated connection
to a personal vehicle

that many people have.

Many of us are gonna have to let that go.

Without question, our
relationship with the car

and car ownership is about to change,

but will it necessarily be a bad thing?

In the United States,

the country most synonymous with a car,

over 10 million households
already don't have access to one

and when combustion
engines are finally phased out,

will there be enough used
electric vehicles available

at a price people can afford?

Who is buying new cars?

Who can afford new cars?

Around the world, the
average age of the car

has been going up.

It used to be around nine
years and now, it crept to 10, 11,

now it's up to 12.

The average age of new
car owner is 52 to 54 years old

around the world.

Also, the economic
burden on us is phenomenal.

On average and I was
looking at these numbers

in countries around the world,

on average, is about 15%
of a household's budget

is spent on their car

and that means when you go to work,

the first hour and a half
of your work is paying off

how you get to and from work.

Poorest 20% of us, it's 33%
of their household budgets

go to their car and I was
just seeing a study of the US

that had counties highlighted
and there were some counties

in which 80% of a person's
income paid for their car.

It's mind boggling.

So when I was at Transport for London,

you get to see day to day,

what was required to keep a city moving

and that's from the
coordination of traffic, buses,

the underground, ticketing, the cycle hire,

overground rails, but one of
the most fundamental questions

is how do you make what you
provide work for everybody?

Many believe that by engineering our cities

to work differently, we can
create a sustainable, flexible,

affordable and convenient
way to move about.

It's called a multimodal model,

which includes improving public transport,

creating a safe environment
in which to walk and cycle

and where the new electric micro vehicles

can fulfill those short solar journeys

we now make in our cars.

[dramatic music]

How do you want your city to feel?

How do you want it to look?

How do you want it to sound?

And from that, derive how
you should behave in a city.

In many European
cities today and in the US,

increasingly, there's been
this idea of the 15-minute city,

which means that in my
daily life, I will be able to walk

or bike or go by subway in 15 minutes

to get everything I need in my daily life.

But what about those times

when only a car will do?

We do need cars sometimes.

I am not anti-car.

I have my 96-year-old mother.

I have been carrying lumber around.

I have places to go that are far away,

but it's not the thing that I wanna own

and use for every trip.

The economic efficiency
of not owning your own car

is profound.

[dramatic music]
[cars whooshing]

With concerns being raised

about the embodied energy
and the carbon footprint

of electric vehicle production,

particularly with regards
to a certain giga-scale

battery manufacturing,

could shared ownership
be part of the solution?

The notion of car
share is well established,

but how do you persuade
people who are weded

to the convenience of having
their own car to use them?

Could autonomous cars that
deliver themselves to your door,

be the answer?

And just how good would
the technology need to be?

Not content with reinventing the factory,

Arrival are also pushing
AI technology in cars

to a whole new level.

[dramatic music]

Hi, my name is Max Kumskoy,

I'm a product lead of
autonomous driving team at Arrival.

Max and his team

are developing what
is known as a full-stack

autonomous driving system.

A system which can operate
without the need for maps

or GPS tracking.

A system that will rely on
what it sees and senses.

[dramatic music]

Autonomous vehicles typically
rely on a range of sensors,

including radar, LiDAR,
which is similar to radar,

but instead of radio waves
detects reflected light,

ultrasound and cameras

to be able to see things like road signs.

From all this information,

onboard computers are
able to generate a 3D model

of the vehicle's environment

and all of this has to happen
and be processed in real-time.

You think, all right, you are good,

but how do you know that you are good?

You need to test yourself

against somebody who is already recognized

as a top performer.

Roborace was a championship

started by Arrival's
founder, Denis Sverdlov,

which allows AI teams from around the world

to compete against each
other to achieve the fastest lap.

[car engine whirs]

But for Max and his colleagues,

this just wasn't challenging enough.

[upbeat music]

In Rome, in 2016, the Arrival team

took on the American
professional dr*fter, Ryan Tuerck.

[upbeat music]

[tires screeching]
[car whooshing]

[upbeat music]

[upbeat music]
[car engine whirs]

[upbeat music]
[computer chimes]

I saw the time and it was just a disaster.

The gap was just unbelievable.

We were like, we can do better,

'cause actually computer
has a lot of advantages

over human and we were
like, why are we not using it?

[dramatic music]

What was just a fun bet,

now it turned into a massive development

of vehicle stabilization
algorithms for autonomous cars.

[car whooshing]
[dramatic music]

They developed a series of algorithms

to perform different roles.

One, to perceive the
surrounding environment,

including other potential road users.

Another to determine
which route or path to take.

One for what speed to go

and one to actually control the car.

But that's not it.

So you start driving, you
are in motion, you're driving

and then life happens.

There can be a sharp corner,

so your car can get out control.

So you need to have another algorithm

that will actually detect
that you are about to crash

or about to do something
dangerous and prevent

or save the car from the situation.

When it came to testing
their improved AI system,

they decided to take
things to a whole new level.

[dramatic music]

Lucas di Grassi has been
racing since he was 10 years old.

Having graduated from Formula One,

he went on to become one of
the co-founders of Formula E

and is now the most successful
driver on the Formula E grid.

[dramatic music]

I think the year the team has a big chance

of performing really well.

I hope I can still beat it,

but like deeply I want the
team to be very, very fast.

[dramatic music]
[car engine whirs]

[computer chimes]

The car was doing its best,

but it wasn't changing its
performance from lap to lap

and we saw that the gap with
Lucas, with Ryan was huge

and we thought, all right, what
is he doing that we are not?

And we realized that
he's actually learning.

He's learning and adjusting from lap to lap

and that's when we implemented
like an additional algorithm

that was learning

and that's when the
car started to be faster

from lap to lap.

So it was taking into
account everything it knew

about the track from lap one to lap two,

where can it go faster?

Where can it go slower?

That was like a major point
in our like racing career.

The car started to learn
and it was getting closer

and closer to human driver.

[upbeat music]

By analyzing all the performance data,

the AI system can work
out what it does differently

each time and if it makes it go faster.

It then changes its driving behavior

to reflect what it believes
is the most efficient method

and over time, it's able to perfect this.

[dramatic music]

By mid 2020, there was a palpable sense

within the motor racing world,

that racing drivers were
about to suffer the same fate

as chess grandmasters.

[dramatic music]

First of all, I have 25 years of experience

while the AI have only
like two or three years,

so that's a bit unfair, but we
are both controlling the car

in the same fashion, so you
have only access to steering,

throttle, brake and you have
to combine these three inputs

to create the best lap
time around the track.

It was time to test the
new learning algorithm.

Would it provide the extra edge
needed to outperform Lucas?

[dramatic music]

[tires screeching]
[dramatic music]

[dramatic music]
[car engine whirs]

But just when it looked like
a breakthrough was possible,

mother nature intervened.

[dramatic music]
[car engine whirs]

[computer chimes]

So I had a lot of fun out there.

The problem is that there
are patches of dry and wet,

so some corners, the optimal line

is where it's a little bit more dry.

Launching in three, two, one.

[dramatic music]

The conditions haven't improved

and the autonomous car's
new systems will be tested

to the limit.

[dramatic music]

Whoa!

[dramatic music]

And now it starts the rain again,

so it's very hard to compare now.

[dramatic music]
[car engine whirs]



Yes, great effort.

That was amazing.

[dramatic music]

I've never seen it
correct like that before.

The autonomous car is definitely improving,

but has it done enough to beat Lucas?

[computer chimes]

Who knows whether the car
could have won without the rain?

But the team believe
it's just a matter of time.

[upbeat music]

The ultimate challenge for Arrival

and for their Roborace team,

is to make the autonomous
car smarter than a human.

You can spend a lot of
time to teach how one human

how to drive fast and safe.

You can spend a lot of money
on his entire racing career,

that would be one guy.

How do you copy that
knowledge to the rest of us?

You can't, right?

But the computer application is different,

you take all the bits, all the
knowledge from those guys,

you put it to the code and
then you copy this code

to all the cars.

That's essentially what we are doing.

We're learning from
them, putting into the code,

put the code to car and copy.

This is so important.

This is so breakthrough from
Arrival and from Roborace.

In a couple of years,
the world will look back

at what we are doing today,

as something that pushes technology

that eventually change a
little bit the world for a better,

safer place in the future.

[dramatic music]

Autonomous vehicles
are currently being trialed

all over the world.

Companies such as Zoox,
have created rideshare versions,

taxis and buses are also
being intensively tested

and in certain cities,
they're even being integrated

into the public transport network.

Looking into the future,
some envisage AI technology

being used on a grand scale

to coordinate citywide traffic flow

with technology optimizing speeds

and the changing of traffic signals.

Done well?

I think autonomous vehicles
are a spectacular addition

to a multimodal lifestyle,

but we have to make sure that
we do not own those vehicles.

The concerns over privately owned vehicles

is centered around their potential

to actually make congestion worse.

With an autonomous
vehicle, I don't need to park.

Please, let me out, you just keep circling.

I don't care what you do, doesn't bother me

'cause it's gonna cost me nothing.

I'll have my tea.

I'll chat with my friend for an extra hour

and you come back when I call you.

So that's hell, heaven.

So this transition to autonomous vehicles

also comes with fitting
into our multimodal lifestyle

where I can now have shared cars

everywhere, even for
people who live in rural places.

[dramatic music]

And then there's the issue of how us humans

will react to seeing empty vehicles

driving along on their
way to pick up passengers.

Will normal driving
courtesy still be observed?

Yeah, that's a really big,

so far unanswered question, right?

And are people gonna be kind to them?

I think there's gonna have
to be a lot of work done

to make people
comfortable with the concept.

[dramatic music]

Our roadmap for
achieving the electric dream

may not yet be fully formed,
but it is without question,

a journey full of opportunities,

provided we have the courage to grasp them.

So when I was in central government,

we were really challenging
the industry to transform,

to reduce emissions levels
actually across Europe

and there was a lot of
pushback from the auto industry

and a wise old civil servant actually,

who I was taking over from in that role,

took me to one side and says,

"Don't worry, because
engineers are brilliant

and human ingenuity and human creativity

is the most tremendous
power and if you set a target

and a goal, things that
you never thought possible,

become possible"

and it's great now to be
involved in an environment

where there's all of those
brilliant engineering types

and we're gonna see how
far we can push it together.

Like no other are time in history

have we been at a moment
where we can make such a clean

and delightful break from
poor choices of the past

and I think we have to
focus on that and say,

I'm willing to make the shift

and if we don't address climate change,

we know what our destiny is.

This one earth that we have is it.

This is it.

[upbeat music]

[dramatic music]