June 19, 2025 • 36 mins
In the good old days of driving, we needed to make sure the mechanical things worked: Things like the engine, of course, the steering and the brakes. We were in charge of driving the car. Now, for better and for worse, technologies are moving in and taking over. Sensors, cameras, on-board computers, software. Those powerful technologies are mostly invisible to the naked eye. They give us directions and infotainment; they help to avoid accidents. The more advanced technologies can now deliver us from Point A to Point B without human intervention. That's quite amazing when you think about it. And more than a little bit scary. How do we know that the sophisticated hardware and software will operate safely every time we get into the car? The reality is that there is no such thing as a perfect system, at least not yet. But there are ways to minimize our risks. That's where QNX comes in. The company, based in Ottawa, Canada, delivers real-time operating systems for safety critical applications. As COO John Wall says, the modern car is becoming a robot on wheels. How can we know for sure that our robot remains our best friend, always looking out for our safety and security? John Wall has answers, today, on the Driving With Dunne podcast.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Where top executives and crazy entrepreneurs gathered to talk about
the future of electric vehicles. This is Driving with Done podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to the Driving with Done podcast. I
am your host, Michael Dunne. Hey, you remember the good
old days of driving. We need to make sure that
the mechanical things worked, the engine, of course, steering in
the brakes. We were in charge of driving the car. Now,
for better or for worse, technologies are moving in and
(00:35):
taking over sensors, cameras, onboard computers, software. Those powerful technologies
are mostly invisible to the naked eye. They give us
directions and infoltament. They help avoid accidents. The more advanced
technologies can now even deliver us from point A to
point B without any human intervention. That's quite amazing when
(00:58):
you think about it, and it's also a little bit scary.
How do we know that the sophisticated hardware and software
will operate safely every single time we get into the car,
And how do we know that our car systems won't
be hacked by someone from the outside, someone with bad intentions.
The reality is that there's no such thing as a
(01:19):
perfect system, at least not yet. But there are ways
to minimize our risks. That's where Q and X comes in.
The company based in Autocanada, delivers real time operating systems
for safety critical applications. As COEO John Wall says, the
modern car is becoming a robot. How can we know
(01:41):
for sure that our robot remains our best friend, always
looking out for our safety and security? What happens when
an intruder breaks in? What then? John Wall has the
answers today on the Driving with Done podcast. John and Ottawa,
(02:05):
Welcome to the Driving with Done podcast. Thank you so
much for making time for us today.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Thank you for having me pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Our topic today is robotics. So let's start at the beginning,
easing into this topic. What are robotics?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, that's a great question and it really spans a
large range of what people think of of robots. I
think when most people think about robots, they think about
humanoid robots, things that look and can move like people.
When I think of robots, I think more of automation
and manufacturing. I think of advances in medical techniques that
(02:42):
are using more and more automated robots to perform surgery.
And again, as we've talked about before autonomous drive. To me,
that's not a smartphone on wheels, that's a robot on wheels.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
That's a full on robot that has hardware components and
software components.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Absolutely, And the reality of it is, if you look
at a robot in a different industry, or more of
a humanoid robot, the properties versus self driving are exactly
the same. They're the same a bunch of sensors feeding
into a centralized perception engine and decisions being made.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
By somebody somewhere, somehow, exactly. All right, talk a little
bit about Q and x's role in the robotics industry.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, again, you know, we've talked about this in the past.
We automotive is a very advanced field. A lot of
people think of automotive as a slow moving industry. Actually,
solving the software challenge within the automotive industry is probably
the most challenging software problem to crack because of the
need for safety, the need for security, multiple systems within
(03:52):
the vehicle. What we believe is what's happening in automotive
high performance compute connectivity automation is going to trickle into
the other industries. And what we're seeing is exactly that
we're seeing in an industrial automation, oil and gas, medical,
and now we're actually have a segment called robotics where
we're seeing exactly the same property as the need for
(04:14):
real time response, functional safety, security, high performance compute. It's
analogous to what we're doing in automotive.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And you guys are bringing in particular deep expertise with
regards to.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Security, security and safety, which has you know, safety was
the very onerous, standards driven way of making sure the
software is safe. We have now have the same thing
in security. There is a security manual how you need
the program to make sure your system is secure, because
without security, you have no safety.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
What's an example of something that can go wrong with
you know, whether it's in the factory or as you say,
the modern.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Car as a robot from a security perspective, yes, absolutely,
I mean we saw it many years in the past
with the geppack, where if you leave vectors open to
the vehicle that allow people to get into the systems.
You know, it can have dramatic effects, especially as the
cars become more drive by wire, you know, accelerators, breaking steering,
(05:19):
all controlled by electronic systems. These systems have to be
locked down and the reality of it is I think
the car makers are doing a great job with that.
They take a lot of time and energy to do
penetration testing on the vehicles, but it's insidious. I mean,
there are so many sensors in the vehicle that can
be exploited. It's a cat and mouse game that you
have to stay on top of.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That's a great way of describing it. There is no
finish line. Yes, okay, so there's risk involved with the benefits.
We get greater efficiency, maybe smarter drive if you or accidents,
but it doesn't come for free.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It doesn't come for free. There's a lot of effort
involved in it. And I would, you know, postulate the
part of the reason we're not seeing more certified autonomous
drive is it's hard. It's a very very hard problem
to solve, and that we are going to continue to
see an evolution of L two. We're starting to see
a little bit of L three from some of the
European makers that are certified, but this is going to
(06:17):
be a very gradual evolution for a couple of reasons.
As I mentioned, it's a hard problem to solve, but
secondly is you have to ease people into this transition.
We can't go from one extreme to the other while
there are still vehicles on the road that have none
of these capabilities.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Right so here on the West Coast, if you're in
La or San Francisco or even Phoenix, WEAIMO is being
very aggressive and running vehicles without drivers in them. What's
your take there? You know, in some people's minds they've arrived.
They're able to pick you up at the stop and
deliver you without any glitches. Are we there? Have we arrived?
(06:59):
Or is WEIMO still have a lot to learn?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
So the way I would position it is WEIMO is
probably pushing the state of the art of collecting data,
understanding the corner cases, and being able to put together
a system largely with no limits of cost. I think
the challenge lies important point. It is a very important
(07:23):
point because I mean, this is why you see a
lot of these robotaxis having some success in these very
small geographical areas, is they can admortize the cost over
a twenty four hour duty cycle of the vehicle being used.
This is not going to work in consumer vehicles. I mean,
consumer vehicles have a sensitivity to the bomb, the bill
(07:44):
of material and the cost though, I think it's the
way I look at WEAIMO is I look at it.
Maybe this will be controversial. I look at them as
pushing the state of the art of actual autonomous drive,
but not necessarily pushing the state of the art of
deployability at scale.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So the distinction being technically they could execute commercially. It's
still a question mark exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
And I also, you know, it's still not go anywhere anytime.
I mean, it's not in the Canadian North. It's not
in Ottawa where we have winters with you know, twelve
inch snowfalls. You know, Arizona, California. There's those are different environments.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I would say, well, we're in the south of the
United States. Let's move now to Austin, where Elon Musk
says next month his company will begin to deploy robotaxis.
To hear him talk about it, they will start very safely,
but scale. His thing is all about scale more quickly
than anyone else. What's your view tesla versus way moo,
(08:48):
who's ahead or who comes out on top?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
There? Yeah? Again, I find that a difficult, difficult question
to answer because I think they're potentially apples and oranges. Huh,
so Tesla is making passenger vehicles that are bought by
consumers B two C. I really see Waimo as being
more of a going from the research side to the
(09:11):
commercial side. And so we've heard about proclamations like this
before from car companies. It'll be interesting to see exactly
what they mean starting small and safe. I suspect it'll
be very geographically contained. I don't know what to make
of it. I mean, they're very both, very smart companies,
(09:34):
very capable, so we'll see what the has to say.
But I mean, if I look at you know who
has level three driving systems in the industry, and there's
some very strong requirements. But level three it's hands off
the road or hands off the wheel, eyes off the road,
but you have to be given a ten second warning
that you need to take over to be really certified
(09:55):
level three. And today I only know of two. It's
Mercedes and BMW, and to my knowledge, Tesla's not level three.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Hmm, okay, that's clear. Mercedes, BMW Chinese are they there yet?
Are they still level two plus?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
So that's an interesting question. I mean, I think they're
level two plus. I think what's interesting about the Chinese
is as you know very well, hyper competitive market. Many
OEM's fighting to stay alive. Maybe cutting some corners.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Maybe cutting some cars.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yes, so you know one of the corners they're cutting
is safety in there in the and don't get me wrong,
I mean safety in the development of their software.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
M hm okay.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I have no comment about safety about the vehicles in
any other any other context. But you know to me,
if you've missed the safety part, you can't claim level three.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
We've talked about we're drilling down on cars as robots.
But the story here about robots is, as you said earlier,
much larger. It applies to robots in the in the
operating room, it applies to robots and factory. We see
numbers that the market for robotics will triple from about
fifty billion dollars last year to one hundred and fifty
(11:11):
billion or more by twenty thirty. So this is a
red hot industry. It is where do you see the
fastest growth. I know that you guys have recently surveyed
over a thousand executives in different industries. In what industries
will robots take hold first? And why? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
I think it's it's interesting. There's geographical differences, and again,
you know, the Chinese are are very much ahead in
this area. I think what we see is it's going
to be industrial automation, assembly line type work, and that
could be in any industry. We also see quality inspection
(11:48):
as being a big part of it. And I think
it's important to point out that when we talk about robots,
we're not talking necessarily about humanoid robots. We're talking about
robots in general. You know, I don't want people to
picture that in the operating room you have a robot
operating on somebody, but instead that you have instruments that
(12:08):
are able to do automated tasks, which has been around
for a while. If you look at Lazy at the
eye surgery, it's been a robot doing that for for
quite a long time. So I think that it's not
necessarily in any one industry that we're going to see something.
We're going to see more progress. I think it's more
the type of work, repetitive work, hazardous work. This is
(12:30):
where we're going to see I think the rise of robots.
I also believe that you know, we're going to see
a lot of it in delivery and logistics, so that
that's kind of where we see it at the moment.
The survey seems to bear that out. The survey. For me,
the most interesting thing about the survey was the differences
between the regions.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Talk more about that. What were the major differences.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Well, I think it really surprised me that the level
of acceptance of robots moving forward. You know, China was
so strong in the belief that robots are necessary, the
comfort level with robots, And what surprised me is that
Japan was the lowest of the countries, and which I
would have always thought of Japan as one of the
(13:14):
most mechanized, you know, countries in the world, but they
seem to have more reluctance about going into that direction. Right.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It would seem that Toyota production system is totally aligned
with bringing on robots to make things that efficient.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, and I think you know, if you look at
s if we go back to automotive, you know, if
mister Trump wants to bring back more jobs to the
US manufacturing jobs, then they better get more comfortable with
robots and automation because that's the only way in my
view to be competitive.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
This goes beyond the scope of the survey, perhaps, but
just like to get your opinion. Why do you think
North Americans are reluctant or less enthusiastic about robots than, say,
for example, the Chinese.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
You know? I think I think the Chinese, you know,
and this is just my opinion. I think we gave
the keys of manufacturing to China and they've become very
good at it, and that they're way ahead.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And the extension they would say, yes, the next step
is robots. We're on exactly manufacturing the next exactly robots exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
I mean, that's for me, it's a very simple answer.
They're more advanced, and since they're more advanced, they have
pushed the boundaries of how to be better at it
more so than other regions. I would say, is how
I look at it.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And their willingness to embrace robots too might take some
people by surprise in the sense that when we think
of China, we often think of abundance of labor and
low cost labor. That's their edge, but they're throwing both
of those things at us. They do have up an
abundance of labor still that's going to go away in
the future, but they're not just sitting on their laurels
(14:51):
saying we have low cost labor done.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
No, and that's that's my point about giving them the keys.
They've taken the keys and they've run with them. Whereas
I think North and America the way we address manufacturing
is well, let's just find another low cost center. They
can do it more cheaply, as opposed to how can
we keep the jobs in North America but innovate. And
I think that's what China is doing, is they're saying,
(15:14):
you know, we don't want to let go of manufacturing.
We think manufacturing is very important, so we're going to
improve the way we manufacture.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Is there room for a North American comeback? What would
you advise if the Trump administration or your own Prime minister,
mister Carney calls you tomorrow more closer to home, what
would be that first step to change the game.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah, So, not being an expert in this area, but
if I do look at, you know, the way things
are being done around the world, I think we have
to modernize the way we manufacture. And I don't think
Canada is any different than the US in that respect.
The very high paying jobs. The way I you know,
(15:57):
we cannot manufacture in North America efficiently and cost effectively.
The way we do things today, it's just too costly.
I mean, if you look at you know, moving production
plants from Mexico to the US, something's going to have
to get more efficient or people won't be able to
(16:17):
afford the car that's produced by that factory. And so
my advice would be that you need you need to
increase the automation to reduce the people capital cost. Increase
the automation and make that investment.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Now great the earlier point that we gave them the keys.
Let's be honest, so much of many China last year
manufacturer one third of all products in the world, and
that may go to fifty percent by thirty It's just
mind blowing just how much is concentrated there in China,
and we need to scramble quickly to find our feed again.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
And I agree, I agree, And that's exactly what I
mean by we gave them the keys and they ran
with them. They didn't. They didn't. China did not say, well, yeah,
we have cheap labor, so we'll just throw a lot
of people at it. They hone the craft, they mechanized it,
they've automated it, they have a substantial.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Lead people out there who are less familiar with robotics
or robots naturally, just like with security in the car,
wonder oh gosh, I heard a story like in the lab,
this robot random mock and did crazy things. What are
the risks of having robots on the rise in the
factories and in our homes and how real are they
(17:33):
in your view?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Yeah, So the risk is when we start talking about
cooperative robots. When we talk about cooperative robots, we're talking
about robots that are working side by side with people,
whether it's in the home, whether it's on you know,
a warehouse floor. I think the risk is there. I
think you do need to be very mindful of the
(17:58):
way you approach security, the way you approach safety. I
think it's exactly the same properties as automotive have to
be taken into account, and I think that's where the
industry is going to go. They're going to require certain
levels of safety, certain levels of security. We've even seen
that there may be a robotic safety standard coming out
(18:18):
based very similarly on the industrial safety and automotive safety
of today. If we're talking about non cooperative robots, I
think and we're just we're looking at automation, I think
the risk is very low low. Yeah, these are robots
that are operating independently. They're they're you know, they're moored
to the ground, they're in a very specific location where
(18:39):
there's no people think of an assembly line for a
car manufacture. So I think the risk is low there.
But I think more and more we're starting to talk
about robots that are performing tasks alongside people.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Right, you can envision in a worst case scenario in
the home or in the factory, say someone wants to
wreck someone else's business, they have into the system and
they have they send these machines or robots just doing
all kinds of crazy things and absolutely, huh, that's real,
that's not fantasy. That could happen.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Oh, that's absolutely real. Or you could have a design
fly in your software that in a certain scenario, the
robot doesn't see you and runs you over or misinterprets right.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I mean that's why safety is so important. Functional safety
and software development is really geared around how do we
know the failure modes and how can we mitigate the
failure modes? And you know that takes time, it takes energy,
it takes a lot of analysis, but that's how you
produce safe systems is when you've considered all the cases.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Let's go a little deeper there on Q and X
products and services. Anytime I venture into the realm of software,
I get a little bit intimidated because it's hard to imagine.
It isn't a cup or a phone and it's something else,
some magic happening behind the scenes. So what would be
a way to think about software's role in assuring security
(20:11):
and safety around robotics?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, you know, I first of all, I'll say probably
it's the most critical piece because it is the piece
that is controlling the robot or controlling the car, or
whatever happens to be the case in layman's terms. You know,
the best I could describe is the products that Cunix
makes that runs within the vehicle or runs within a robot.
(20:35):
Think of it as Windows or Android, but for mission
critical applications, it's our job to provide the interfaces to
the sensors, whether there cameras, whether they're light, our radar,
tactile type sensors within a robot, the controlling of the movement.
(20:55):
We don't control the movement, but we're like Android. We
provide the environment where an application. Think of an accurate
application that maybe uses your camera, uses the gyro within
the phone to create some type of an application. So
we provide that foundational layer that allows the robot maker
(21:15):
or the car company to actually write an application that
controls that robot. So we have to make sure at
that foundational layer that we're accounting for any security risks
and that we are telling the application developer, here's how
you need to develop your application to mitigate safety concerns
(21:37):
and to mitigate.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Oh, to think of that, not only are you providing
that safe environment, so to call it a house things
to flow through, but you also have to educate the
app developer.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Yes, there is a thing called a safety manual and
a security manual, and the safety manual and security manuals
are there for the application developers. They're the dues and
don't if you want to be compliant to the standard,
thou shalt do this, thou shalt not do this, And
so it really it educates the application developer on the
(22:14):
requirements to keep the system safe.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And as you say, regulations around this are still evolving
because the industry is well and technology is evolving. So
there's app developers may have the greatest feature in the world,
but they if they don't meet minimum standard for safety
and security, then they're just not going to play in
the game.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, they're
going to have to conform, and they're going to have
to create their software in such a way that it
does conform if they want to conform to the safety standards.
And you know, the car makers, largely other than maybe
in China, are always following the state of the art
of security and safety because it is so important to
(22:55):
their brands that, you know, if something happens and they're
able to point to, hey, we did everything according to
the standards. We followed the state of the art. You
know what else could we do? We did everything that's
known today is a state of the art, and I
think that's where that will continue in other industries. We
see it in rail, we see it in oil and gas.
(23:18):
You know, people want companies that are building these systems
want to be state of the art, They want to
be compliant, and they want to be safe and secure.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
One of the things I learned from you in earlier
conversations is that there seems to be at least two
dimensions to this challenge. One is to put in place
things that prevent hacking, for example, on the one hand,
and then put in place things that will deliver some
redundancy in the event of can you talk a little
bit about that, So there's two ways for those risks.
(23:48):
Is that accurate?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, I mean, I think again, the more automated you get,
the more you need redundancy. And so you'll see that
in level four driving, for instance, it's no longer possible
to do L four driving or L three plus unless
you have redundancy in the system. And the ultimate redundancy
(24:10):
is to have two systems that are different doing the
same task, so that you.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Are mitigating systems.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Parallel systems, but that are not the same, different silicon architectures,
different software architectures. This way you because I mean, if
you have two exact systems that are duplicating each other. Yes,
if you have a bug in one, you may have
a bug in the other, whether it's a hardware bug
or you know. Ultimately, you know from the highest level
(24:39):
of redundancy systems today is where you have maybe three
redundant systems and a voting system. Two have gave me
this result. One gave me a different result. I'll go
with the two that gave me a common result.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
John, This is mind blowing, and this is all happening instantaneously.
Yeah yeah, yes, Hold on, So I go into your
new vehicle, John's new, brand new vehicle, and I'm able
to hack a level hack into the system. Instantly we go,
It's okay, We've got a backup system that's different from
the one you hacked into.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yeah, I mean, we tried. Hacking introduces a whole new
problems when I when I'm talking about these redundant systems,
I'm thinking more of software bugs or hardware failures.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
All right, so internal to the process.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Yeah, I mean what what what you have to worry
about is do I have a latent bug in the
hardware that I'm not aware of that may you know?
There there there's only so much you can test for.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
There's always going to be corner cases for things that
you can't test for life. Yeah yeah, and you know,
you make a statistical evaluation the system is safe. We've
done all this different. Once you start getting into the
higher levels of autonomy, then you need to have these
failover systems. Two three, parallel systems hopefully different that the hacking.
(26:00):
If somebody, you know, if somebody can get into your
system and start modifying your system, all bets are off.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Okay, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
That that we we cannot let people get into the system.
That's so that's why I say security is as important
as safety, because safety does not contemplate bad actors.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Ie.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Safety contemplates defects, hardware problems, software bugs. So that's why
you know, we say, and you know, the Germans don't
have a different word for security and safety. It's one word.
And so we say there is no safety with a security,
but for the security really has to be to keep
people out.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Speaking of that, it's a sensitive topic. But the United
States Coverment Department of Commerce Gina Romando, just before leaving
office earlier this year, put through regulations saying that Chinese
cars that feature Chinese software or hardware around autonomy would
not be permitted for registration in the United States. So
then I traveled to Mexico or UK or Australian I
(26:57):
see Chinese cars all over the place. Is real? Even so,
is it paranoia on the part of the United States
or are we a little bit smarter than the rest
of the world in terms of risk.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
That's a difficult question to answer. We let's just say
that we take that, we take that regulation seriously.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
There's a reason. There's a reason they put it in.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I would I would say, yes, all right, clear and
you know, but but I mean, whether you believe the regulation.
You know, they they've got carve outs around the regulation.
For instance, one of the carve outs is open source
is exempt. And that's important because Linux has contributions I
think eleven percent contributions from whawi Okay, So that would
(27:45):
eliminate Linux in the US in the US, and I
don't think that's possible. You can't can't just get rid
of Linux. So the carveat that they have around this
is open source is exempt.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
All right. The Chinese will be like water. They'll find that.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah, I mean, and source your code and you should
be flying.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, okay, good. Can we come back to subject you
mentioned earlier. I think is really important to a lot
of people in North America, and that is how do
we get competitive again with regards to robots. So one
of the realities is that we have these things called
unions in North America. AW and is it the c
AW forgive me. Yes, c AW that enjoy today pretty
(28:26):
decent living standards and wages and benefits, and so there
would be naturally a fear, well, we don't want robots
coming in here. That means we lose our jobs. What
what advice, if any, would you offer to the leaders
of the U a W or c a W and say, hey, guys,
we don't really have a choice here. If we don't
(28:47):
go there, we're just gonna run out of business by
the Chinese. If we do go there, Yes, it means
some trade offs. That is that the way forward.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
It's inevitable in my view. I mean, this is not
going to be popular, but the days of these types
of jobs I think are really coming to an end.
I mean, I don't know that moving forward you're going
to enjoy the standard of living that you have as
a factory worker. I think that it's very you know,
(29:15):
I often I've when I've talked to our government here
in Canada. You know, I've made it very clear the
days of metal bending as the premiere as the premiere.
You know, thing that the government wants to support in
automotive is in the past, and that you need to
be supporting. What's coming, so basically skating where the puck
(29:38):
is going now where the puck has been, and that's software,
and that's you know, knowledge and electronics, and you know
where the car is going. Continuing to pour money into
manufacturing as we have done it for the last forty years,
to me is it's a losing proposition. And I know
(29:59):
it's it's it's hard to hear.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
And it's hard to hear. Yes, we would love to
hold on to that past, ye come to more familiar
It's worked. Why can't we just hold on a little
bit longer. Maybe it'll all work out, but history tells
us that's not really it won't.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Then, like I said earlier, is that if the US
wants to bring and Canada wants to bring manufacturing back home,
you better figure out how to do it more efficiently.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Let's talk now about this year in the future a
little bit. What's your top priorities as a company for
twenty twenty five and what do you think is the
most exciting thing happening in the arena of robotics.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
So the most important thing for us this year is,
as I mentioned earlier, we're starting to see in other
industries what we've seen an automotive and I'll take a
step back towards automotive and kind of lead into robotics.
What we've seen in automotive is struggles with software. We've
seen delays, we've seen layoffs, We've seen lots of money spent,
(30:57):
lots of money wasted. And what that's led to is
for a lot of automotive organizations to ask us to
do more, to provide more of a platform, have the
car makers focus on their applications, get out of the
weeds of trying to do low level software. So I
think for us, that's happening in automotive. We're having a
lot of success with that, a lot of interest, especially
(31:19):
as car companies struggle. You see Ford canceling their FMV
four program, which was going to be their next generation,
some layoffs. I think what we're doing in robotics now
is we're working with our silicon partners to learn what
the challenges are and to be proactive in creating more
of foundational software for robotics. And that means knowing what
(31:42):
the ecosystem looks like, knowing who some of the middleware
players are, and to start to work with them to
integrate them into our platform to create something that allows
the companies are working on robotics to go much faster
and to be very focused on the applications and the
differential creators of their products as opposed to struggling with
(32:03):
the low level software that you know that their users
will never see. And so what we're taking a lesson
from automotive and we're kind of spinning it and reimagining
it in different industries, and robotics is one of the
first ones that we're aiming at. The good news is
exactly the point you made, is that the market is
red hot. It's going to grow very quickly. And the
(32:24):
good news is a lot of the silicon partners that
we work with in automotive see the same thing and
they're like, hey, how can we take what we've done
in automotive and start to revector this towards robotics. So
that's we're in that phase now of what would a
platform look like, how can we help the robotic industry
move more quickly, and how can we make sure they
do that in a safe and secure manner.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
It makes a lot of sense. The automaker has heard
about this thing called robotics and software in particular and
oh software, Yes, we need to do software, and they
decided to do a to z everything in and then
they realize, oh, that's not the smartest way forward. Let's
focus on differentiation, just as you said exactly. Last question
for you, John, let's go big picture with regards to
(33:09):
AI robotics, Tesla Waymo. How long how soon before we
see what you would consider go anywhere robotic AI car
that just drives itself?
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Jo? Interesting. I was asked that question in twenty fourteen,
with all the hype around autonomous drive, and you know Ford,
we're making the comments that Ford CEO said by twenty
twenty the car won't have I remember that.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
You're right, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I thought, you know, I'd been interviewed and at that time,
I said, twenty thirty five, I think it's even further out. Okay,
I mean I at scale, at scale, I'm talking about
at scale. I mean I think there's lots of reasons
for it. I mean, what motivates a Mercedes to create
a fully autonomous drive car? No, yeah, I mean I
(34:00):
like to drive a motion.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I want to do that. Yes, right, Mercedes Benz, I'm
killing myself exactly.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
So you know, I think it's a long way off
a car that go anywhere anytime, fully autonomous. I think
it's a it's now. My estimate is twenty fifty.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Two zero five zero way.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
We might might not be around, No, might not be around.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Okay. I love that reality check because read the headlines
and it's just around the corner. No one does it
better than Elon Musk in terms of generating excitement, and
he's delivered on so many fronts that people think he's.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
An amazing guy. He's an amazing guy. I mean, no debate. Yeah,
very smart guy. Tesla's very smart company. I still think
we'll be disappointed.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Okay, John Wall, coeo Q, and X, thank you very
much for joining me in what is yet another really
riveting conversation about a super hot topic, robotics.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Thank you, Michael, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
All right, we see you around. Every time I talk
to John Wall, I learn new things. Here are three
takeaways from our conversation today. One on the future of cars,
John says we should think of modern cars as robots
(35:17):
that just happen to ride on a set of tires.
There's a lot going on at hyper speed that is
simply beyond our comprehension two on safety and security. There
are no perfect systems. The best we can do is
to keep working to reduce or eliminate the errors inside
(35:38):
the system and then put in place blockers that keep
the bad guys out. And three on competition and manufacturing.
Very interesting comments from John today. He says, we gave
the keys to the Chinese, they ran with them. To
regain our edge, North America must embrace automation and robotics
(35:58):
as much or more than China does. They're in the
lead where the underdogs, which leads us to questions for
all of us, how much do we trust our cars
and what do we think it takes to compete with China.
Send me a DM via socials or a note to
me at Michael at duninsights dot com. I'd really look
(36:20):
forward to learning your point of view. I hope you
enjoyed this episode. This is the Driving with Done.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Podcast where you meet the experts creating the technologies that
will power tomorrow's cars electric autonomous software to find This
is a Driving with Done podcast. Thank you for joining
this episode of the Driving with Done podcast. To connect
with Michael Donn, visit doneinsights dot com or find Michael
(36:49):
on x or LinkedIn. This is a Driving With Done
podcast
Where top executives and crazy entrepreneurs gathered to talk about
the future of electric vehicles. This is Driving with Done podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to the Driving with Done podcast. I
am your host, Michael Dunne. Hey, you remember the good
old days of driving. We need to make sure that
the mechanical things worked, the engine, of course, steering in
the brakes. We were in charge of driving the car. Now,
for better or for worse, technologies are moving in and
(00:35):
taking over sensors, cameras, onboard computers, software. Those powerful technologies
are mostly invisible to the naked eye. They give us
directions and infoltament. They help avoid accidents. The more advanced
technologies can now even deliver us from point A to
point B without any human intervention. That's quite amazing when
(00:58):
you think about it, and it's also a little bit scary.
How do we know that the sophisticated hardware and software
will operate safely every single time we get into the car,
And how do we know that our car systems won't
be hacked by someone from the outside, someone with bad intentions.
The reality is that there's no such thing as a
(01:19):
perfect system, at least not yet. But there are ways
to minimize our risks. That's where Q and X comes in.
The company based in Autocanada, delivers real time operating systems
for safety critical applications. As COEO John Wall says, the
modern car is becoming a robot. How can we know
(01:41):
for sure that our robot remains our best friend, always
looking out for our safety and security? What happens when
an intruder breaks in? What then? John Wall has the
answers today on the Driving with Done podcast. John and Ottawa,
(02:05):
Welcome to the Driving with Done podcast. Thank you so
much for making time for us today.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Thank you for having me pleasure to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Our topic today is robotics. So let's start at the beginning,
easing into this topic. What are robotics?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, that's a great question and it really spans a
large range of what people think of of robots. I
think when most people think about robots, they think about
humanoid robots, things that look and can move like people.
When I think of robots, I think more of automation
and manufacturing. I think of advances in medical techniques that
(02:42):
are using more and more automated robots to perform surgery.
And again, as we've talked about before autonomous drive. To me,
that's not a smartphone on wheels, that's a robot on wheels.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
That's a full on robot that has hardware components and
software components.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Absolutely, And the reality of it is, if you look
at a robot in a different industry, or more of
a humanoid robot, the properties versus self driving are exactly
the same. They're the same a bunch of sensors feeding
into a centralized perception engine and decisions being made.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
By somebody somewhere, somehow, exactly. All right, talk a little
bit about Q and x's role in the robotics industry.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah, again, you know, we've talked about this in the past.
We automotive is a very advanced field. A lot of
people think of automotive as a slow moving industry. Actually,
solving the software challenge within the automotive industry is probably
the most challenging software problem to crack because of the
need for safety, the need for security, multiple systems within
(03:52):
the vehicle. What we believe is what's happening in automotive
high performance compute connectivity automation is going to trickle into
the other industries. And what we're seeing is exactly that
we're seeing in an industrial automation, oil and gas, medical,
and now we're actually have a segment called robotics where
we're seeing exactly the same property as the need for
(04:14):
real time response, functional safety, security, high performance compute. It's
analogous to what we're doing in automotive.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
And you guys are bringing in particular deep expertise with
regards to.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Security, security and safety, which has you know, safety was
the very onerous, standards driven way of making sure the
software is safe. We have now have the same thing
in security. There is a security manual how you need
the program to make sure your system is secure, because
without security, you have no safety.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
What's an example of something that can go wrong with
you know, whether it's in the factory or as you say,
the modern.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Car as a robot from a security perspective, yes, absolutely,
I mean we saw it many years in the past
with the geppack, where if you leave vectors open to
the vehicle that allow people to get into the systems.
You know, it can have dramatic effects, especially as the
cars become more drive by wire, you know, accelerators, breaking steering,
(05:19):
all controlled by electronic systems. These systems have to be
locked down and the reality of it is I think
the car makers are doing a great job with that.
They take a lot of time and energy to do
penetration testing on the vehicles, but it's insidious. I mean,
there are so many sensors in the vehicle that can
be exploited. It's a cat and mouse game that you
have to stay on top of.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That's a great way of describing it. There is no
finish line. Yes, okay, so there's risk involved with the benefits.
We get greater efficiency, maybe smarter drive if you or accidents,
but it doesn't come for free.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It doesn't come for free. There's a lot of effort
involved in it. And I would, you know, postulate the
part of the reason we're not seeing more certified autonomous
drive is it's hard. It's a very very hard problem
to solve, and that we are going to continue to
see an evolution of L two. We're starting to see
a little bit of L three from some of the
European makers that are certified, but this is going to
(06:17):
be a very gradual evolution for a couple of reasons.
As I mentioned, it's a hard problem to solve, but
secondly is you have to ease people into this transition.
We can't go from one extreme to the other while
there are still vehicles on the road that have none
of these capabilities.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Right so here on the West Coast, if you're in
La or San Francisco or even Phoenix, WEAIMO is being
very aggressive and running vehicles without drivers in them. What's
your take there? You know, in some people's minds they've arrived.
They're able to pick you up at the stop and
deliver you without any glitches. Are we there? Have we arrived?
(06:59):
Or is WEIMO still have a lot to learn?
Speaker 3 (07:01):
So the way I would position it is WEIMO is
probably pushing the state of the art of collecting data,
understanding the corner cases, and being able to put together
a system largely with no limits of cost. I think
the challenge lies important point. It is a very important
(07:23):
point because I mean, this is why you see a
lot of these robotaxis having some success in these very
small geographical areas, is they can admortize the cost over
a twenty four hour duty cycle of the vehicle being used.
This is not going to work in consumer vehicles. I mean,
consumer vehicles have a sensitivity to the bomb, the bill
(07:44):
of material and the cost though, I think it's the
way I look at WEAIMO is I look at it.
Maybe this will be controversial. I look at them as
pushing the state of the art of actual autonomous drive,
but not necessarily pushing the state of the art of
deployability at scale.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So the distinction being technically they could execute commercially. It's
still a question mark exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
And I also, you know, it's still not go anywhere anytime.
I mean, it's not in the Canadian North. It's not
in Ottawa where we have winters with you know, twelve
inch snowfalls. You know, Arizona, California. There's those are different environments.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I would say, well, we're in the south of the
United States. Let's move now to Austin, where Elon Musk
says next month his company will begin to deploy robotaxis.
To hear him talk about it, they will start very safely,
but scale. His thing is all about scale more quickly
than anyone else. What's your view tesla versus way moo,
(08:48):
who's ahead or who comes out on top?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
There? Yeah? Again, I find that a difficult, difficult question
to answer because I think they're potentially apples and oranges. Huh,
so Tesla is making passenger vehicles that are bought by
consumers B two C. I really see Waimo as being
more of a going from the research side to the
(09:11):
commercial side. And so we've heard about proclamations like this
before from car companies. It'll be interesting to see exactly
what they mean starting small and safe. I suspect it'll
be very geographically contained. I don't know what to make
of it. I mean, they're very both, very smart companies,
(09:34):
very capable, so we'll see what the has to say.
But I mean, if I look at you know who
has level three driving systems in the industry, and there's
some very strong requirements. But level three it's hands off
the road or hands off the wheel, eyes off the road,
but you have to be given a ten second warning
that you need to take over to be really certified
(09:55):
level three. And today I only know of two. It's
Mercedes and BMW, and to my knowledge, Tesla's not level three.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Hmm, okay, that's clear. Mercedes, BMW Chinese are they there yet?
Are they still level two plus?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
So that's an interesting question. I mean, I think they're
level two plus. I think what's interesting about the Chinese
is as you know very well, hyper competitive market. Many
OEM's fighting to stay alive. Maybe cutting some corners.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Maybe cutting some cars.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yes, so you know one of the corners they're cutting
is safety in there in the and don't get me wrong,
I mean safety in the development of their software.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
M hm okay.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I have no comment about safety about the vehicles in
any other any other context. But you know to me,
if you've missed the safety part, you can't claim level three.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
We've talked about we're drilling down on cars as robots.
But the story here about robots is, as you said earlier,
much larger. It applies to robots in the in the
operating room, it applies to robots and factory. We see
numbers that the market for robotics will triple from about
fifty billion dollars last year to one hundred and fifty
(11:11):
billion or more by twenty thirty. So this is a
red hot industry. It is where do you see the
fastest growth. I know that you guys have recently surveyed
over a thousand executives in different industries. In what industries
will robots take hold first? And why? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
I think it's it's interesting. There's geographical differences, and again,
you know, the Chinese are are very much ahead in
this area. I think what we see is it's going
to be industrial automation, assembly line type work, and that
could be in any industry. We also see quality inspection
(11:48):
as being a big part of it. And I think
it's important to point out that when we talk about robots,
we're not talking necessarily about humanoid robots. We're talking about
robots in general. You know, I don't want people to
picture that in the operating room you have a robot
operating on somebody, but instead that you have instruments that
(12:08):
are able to do automated tasks, which has been around
for a while. If you look at Lazy at the
eye surgery, it's been a robot doing that for for
quite a long time. So I think that it's not
necessarily in any one industry that we're going to see something.
We're going to see more progress. I think it's more
the type of work, repetitive work, hazardous work. This is
(12:30):
where we're going to see I think the rise of robots.
I also believe that you know, we're going to see
a lot of it in delivery and logistics, so that
that's kind of where we see it at the moment.
The survey seems to bear that out. The survey. For me,
the most interesting thing about the survey was the differences
between the regions.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Talk more about that. What were the major differences.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Well, I think it really surprised me that the level
of acceptance of robots moving forward. You know, China was
so strong in the belief that robots are necessary, the
comfort level with robots, And what surprised me is that
Japan was the lowest of the countries, and which I
would have always thought of Japan as one of the
(13:14):
most mechanized, you know, countries in the world, but they
seem to have more reluctance about going into that direction. Right.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It would seem that Toyota production system is totally aligned
with bringing on robots to make things that efficient.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, and I think you know, if you look at
s if we go back to automotive, you know, if
mister Trump wants to bring back more jobs to the
US manufacturing jobs, then they better get more comfortable with
robots and automation because that's the only way in my
view to be competitive.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
This goes beyond the scope of the survey, perhaps, but
just like to get your opinion. Why do you think
North Americans are reluctant or less enthusiastic about robots than, say,
for example, the Chinese.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
You know? I think I think the Chinese, you know,
and this is just my opinion. I think we gave
the keys of manufacturing to China and they've become very
good at it, and that they're way ahead.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
And the extension they would say, yes, the next step
is robots. We're on exactly manufacturing the next exactly robots exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
I mean, that's for me, it's a very simple answer.
They're more advanced, and since they're more advanced, they have
pushed the boundaries of how to be better at it
more so than other regions. I would say, is how
I look at it.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
And their willingness to embrace robots too might take some
people by surprise in the sense that when we think
of China, we often think of abundance of labor and
low cost labor. That's their edge, but they're throwing both
of those things at us. They do have up an
abundance of labor still that's going to go away in
the future, but they're not just sitting on their laurels
(14:51):
saying we have low cost labor done.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
No, and that's that's my point about giving them the keys.
They've taken the keys and they've run with them. Whereas
I think North and America the way we address manufacturing
is well, let's just find another low cost center. They
can do it more cheaply, as opposed to how can
we keep the jobs in North America but innovate. And
I think that's what China is doing, is they're saying,
(15:14):
you know, we don't want to let go of manufacturing.
We think manufacturing is very important, so we're going to
improve the way we manufacture.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Is there room for a North American comeback? What would
you advise if the Trump administration or your own Prime minister,
mister Carney calls you tomorrow more closer to home, what
would be that first step to change the game.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah, So, not being an expert in this area, but
if I do look at, you know, the way things
are being done around the world, I think we have
to modernize the way we manufacture. And I don't think
Canada is any different than the US in that respect.
The very high paying jobs. The way I you know,
(15:57):
we cannot manufacture in North America efficiently and cost effectively.
The way we do things today, it's just too costly.
I mean, if you look at you know, moving production
plants from Mexico to the US, something's going to have
to get more efficient or people won't be able to
(16:17):
afford the car that's produced by that factory. And so
my advice would be that you need you need to
increase the automation to reduce the people capital cost. Increase
the automation and make that investment.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Now great the earlier point that we gave them the keys.
Let's be honest, so much of many China last year
manufacturer one third of all products in the world, and
that may go to fifty percent by thirty It's just
mind blowing just how much is concentrated there in China,
and we need to scramble quickly to find our feed again.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
And I agree, I agree, And that's exactly what I
mean by we gave them the keys and they ran
with them. They didn't. They didn't. China did not say, well, yeah,
we have cheap labor, so we'll just throw a lot
of people at it. They hone the craft, they mechanized it,
they've automated it, they have a substantial.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Lead people out there who are less familiar with robotics
or robots naturally, just like with security in the car,
wonder oh gosh, I heard a story like in the lab,
this robot random mock and did crazy things. What are
the risks of having robots on the rise in the
factories and in our homes and how real are they
(17:33):
in your view?
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Yeah, So the risk is when we start talking about
cooperative robots. When we talk about cooperative robots, we're talking
about robots that are working side by side with people,
whether it's in the home, whether it's on you know,
a warehouse floor. I think the risk is there. I
think you do need to be very mindful of the
(17:58):
way you approach security, the way you approach safety. I
think it's exactly the same properties as automotive have to
be taken into account, and I think that's where the
industry is going to go. They're going to require certain
levels of safety, certain levels of security. We've even seen
that there may be a robotic safety standard coming out
(18:18):
based very similarly on the industrial safety and automotive safety
of today. If we're talking about non cooperative robots, I
think and we're just we're looking at automation, I think
the risk is very low low. Yeah, these are robots
that are operating independently. They're they're you know, they're moored
to the ground, they're in a very specific location where
(18:39):
there's no people think of an assembly line for a
car manufacture. So I think the risk is low there.
But I think more and more we're starting to talk
about robots that are performing tasks alongside people.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Right, you can envision in a worst case scenario in
the home or in the factory, say someone wants to
wreck someone else's business, they have into the system and
they have they send these machines or robots just doing
all kinds of crazy things and absolutely, huh, that's real,
that's not fantasy. That could happen.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Oh, that's absolutely real. Or you could have a design
fly in your software that in a certain scenario, the
robot doesn't see you and runs you over or misinterprets right.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Right.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I mean that's why safety is so important. Functional safety
and software development is really geared around how do we
know the failure modes and how can we mitigate the
failure modes? And you know that takes time, it takes energy,
it takes a lot of analysis, but that's how you
produce safe systems is when you've considered all the cases.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Let's go a little deeper there on Q and X
products and services. Anytime I venture into the realm of software,
I get a little bit intimidated because it's hard to imagine.
It isn't a cup or a phone and it's something else,
some magic happening behind the scenes. So what would be
a way to think about software's role in assuring security
(20:11):
and safety around robotics?
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, you know, I first of all, I'll say probably
it's the most critical piece because it is the piece
that is controlling the robot or controlling the car, or
whatever happens to be the case in layman's terms. You know,
the best I could describe is the products that Cunix
makes that runs within the vehicle or runs within a robot.
(20:35):
Think of it as Windows or Android, but for mission
critical applications, it's our job to provide the interfaces to
the sensors, whether there cameras, whether they're light, our radar,
tactile type sensors within a robot, the controlling of the movement.
(20:55):
We don't control the movement, but we're like Android. We
provide the environment where an application. Think of an accurate
application that maybe uses your camera, uses the gyro within
the phone to create some type of an application. So
we provide that foundational layer that allows the robot maker
(21:15):
or the car company to actually write an application that
controls that robot. So we have to make sure at
that foundational layer that we're accounting for any security risks
and that we are telling the application developer, here's how
you need to develop your application to mitigate safety concerns
(21:37):
and to mitigate.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Oh, to think of that, not only are you providing
that safe environment, so to call it a house things
to flow through, but you also have to educate the
app developer.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Yes, there is a thing called a safety manual and
a security manual, and the safety manual and security manuals
are there for the application developers. They're the dues and
don't if you want to be compliant to the standard,
thou shalt do this, thou shalt not do this, And
so it really it educates the application developer on the
(22:14):
requirements to keep the system safe.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
And as you say, regulations around this are still evolving
because the industry is well and technology is evolving. So
there's app developers may have the greatest feature in the world,
but they if they don't meet minimum standard for safety
and security, then they're just not going to play in
the game.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, they're
going to have to conform, and they're going to have
to create their software in such a way that it
does conform if they want to conform to the safety standards.
And you know, the car makers, largely other than maybe
in China, are always following the state of the art
of security and safety because it is so important to
(22:55):
their brands that, you know, if something happens and they're
able to point to, hey, we did everything according to
the standards. We followed the state of the art. You
know what else could we do? We did everything that's
known today is a state of the art, and I
think that's where that will continue in other industries. We
see it in rail, we see it in oil and gas.
(23:18):
You know, people want companies that are building these systems
want to be state of the art, They want to
be compliant, and they want to be safe and secure.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
One of the things I learned from you in earlier
conversations is that there seems to be at least two
dimensions to this challenge. One is to put in place
things that prevent hacking, for example, on the one hand,
and then put in place things that will deliver some
redundancy in the event of can you talk a little
bit about that, So there's two ways for those risks.
(23:48):
Is that accurate?
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, I mean, I think again, the more automated you get,
the more you need redundancy. And so you'll see that
in level four driving, for instance, it's no longer possible
to do L four driving or L three plus unless
you have redundancy in the system. And the ultimate redundancy
(24:10):
is to have two systems that are different doing the
same task, so that you.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Are mitigating systems.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Parallel systems, but that are not the same, different silicon architectures,
different software architectures. This way you because I mean, if
you have two exact systems that are duplicating each other. Yes,
if you have a bug in one, you may have
a bug in the other, whether it's a hardware bug
or you know. Ultimately, you know from the highest level
(24:39):
of redundancy systems today is where you have maybe three
redundant systems and a voting system. Two have gave me
this result. One gave me a different result. I'll go
with the two that gave me a common result.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
John, This is mind blowing, and this is all happening instantaneously.
Yeah yeah, yes, Hold on, So I go into your
new vehicle, John's new, brand new vehicle, and I'm able
to hack a level hack into the system. Instantly we go,
It's okay, We've got a backup system that's different from
the one you hacked into.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yeah, I mean, we tried. Hacking introduces a whole new
problems when I when I'm talking about these redundant systems,
I'm thinking more of software bugs or hardware failures.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
All right, so internal to the process.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Yeah, I mean what what what you have to worry
about is do I have a latent bug in the
hardware that I'm not aware of that may you know?
There there there's only so much you can test for.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Uh huh.
Speaker 3 (25:37):
There's always going to be corner cases for things that
you can't test for life. Yeah yeah, and you know,
you make a statistical evaluation the system is safe. We've
done all this different. Once you start getting into the
higher levels of autonomy, then you need to have these
failover systems. Two three, parallel systems hopefully different that the hacking.
(26:00):
If somebody, you know, if somebody can get into your
system and start modifying your system, all bets are off.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Okay, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
That that we we cannot let people get into the system.
That's so that's why I say security is as important
as safety, because safety does not contemplate bad actors.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Ie.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Safety contemplates defects, hardware problems, software bugs. So that's why
you know, we say, and you know, the Germans don't
have a different word for security and safety. It's one word.
And so we say there is no safety with a security,
but for the security really has to be to keep
people out.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Speaking of that, it's a sensitive topic. But the United
States Coverment Department of Commerce Gina Romando, just before leaving
office earlier this year, put through regulations saying that Chinese
cars that feature Chinese software or hardware around autonomy would
not be permitted for registration in the United States. So
then I traveled to Mexico or UK or Australian I
(26:57):
see Chinese cars all over the place. Is real? Even so,
is it paranoia on the part of the United States
or are we a little bit smarter than the rest
of the world in terms of risk.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
That's a difficult question to answer. We let's just say
that we take that, we take that regulation seriously.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
There's a reason. There's a reason they put it in.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
I would I would say, yes, all right, clear and
you know, but but I mean, whether you believe the regulation.
You know, they they've got carve outs around the regulation.
For instance, one of the carve outs is open source
is exempt. And that's important because Linux has contributions I
think eleven percent contributions from whawi Okay, So that would
(27:45):
eliminate Linux in the US in the US, and I
don't think that's possible. You can't can't just get rid
of Linux. So the carveat that they have around this
is open source is exempt.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
All right. The Chinese will be like water. They'll find that.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah, I mean, and source your code and you should
be flying.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, okay, good. Can we come back to subject you
mentioned earlier. I think is really important to a lot
of people in North America, and that is how do
we get competitive again with regards to robots. So one
of the realities is that we have these things called
unions in North America. AW and is it the c
AW forgive me. Yes, c AW that enjoy today pretty
(28:26):
decent living standards and wages and benefits, and so there
would be naturally a fear, well, we don't want robots
coming in here. That means we lose our jobs. What
what advice, if any, would you offer to the leaders
of the U a W or c a W and say, hey, guys,
we don't really have a choice here. If we don't
(28:47):
go there, we're just gonna run out of business by
the Chinese. If we do go there, Yes, it means
some trade offs. That is that the way forward.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
It's inevitable in my view. I mean, this is not
going to be popular, but the days of these types
of jobs I think are really coming to an end.
I mean, I don't know that moving forward you're going
to enjoy the standard of living that you have as
a factory worker. I think that it's very you know,
(29:15):
I often I've when I've talked to our government here
in Canada. You know, I've made it very clear the
days of metal bending as the premiere as the premiere.
You know, thing that the government wants to support in
automotive is in the past, and that you need to
be supporting. What's coming, so basically skating where the puck
(29:38):
is going now where the puck has been, and that's software,
and that's you know, knowledge and electronics, and you know
where the car is going. Continuing to pour money into
manufacturing as we have done it for the last forty years,
to me is it's a losing proposition. And I know
(29:59):
it's it's it's hard to hear.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
And it's hard to hear. Yes, we would love to
hold on to that past, ye come to more familiar
It's worked. Why can't we just hold on a little
bit longer. Maybe it'll all work out, but history tells
us that's not really it won't.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Then, like I said earlier, is that if the US
wants to bring and Canada wants to bring manufacturing back home,
you better figure out how to do it more efficiently.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Let's talk now about this year in the future a
little bit. What's your top priorities as a company for
twenty twenty five and what do you think is the
most exciting thing happening in the arena of robotics.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
So the most important thing for us this year is,
as I mentioned earlier, we're starting to see in other
industries what we've seen an automotive and I'll take a
step back towards automotive and kind of lead into robotics.
What we've seen in automotive is struggles with software. We've
seen delays, we've seen layoffs, We've seen lots of money spent,
(30:57):
lots of money wasted. And what that's led to is
for a lot of automotive organizations to ask us to
do more, to provide more of a platform, have the
car makers focus on their applications, get out of the
weeds of trying to do low level software. So I
think for us, that's happening in automotive. We're having a
lot of success with that, a lot of interest, especially
(31:19):
as car companies struggle. You see Ford canceling their FMV
four program, which was going to be their next generation,
some layoffs. I think what we're doing in robotics now
is we're working with our silicon partners to learn what
the challenges are and to be proactive in creating more
of foundational software for robotics. And that means knowing what
(31:42):
the ecosystem looks like, knowing who some of the middleware
players are, and to start to work with them to
integrate them into our platform to create something that allows
the companies are working on robotics to go much faster
and to be very focused on the applications and the
differential creators of their products as opposed to struggling with
(32:03):
the low level software that you know that their users
will never see. And so what we're taking a lesson
from automotive and we're kind of spinning it and reimagining
it in different industries, and robotics is one of the
first ones that we're aiming at. The good news is
exactly the point you made, is that the market is
red hot. It's going to grow very quickly. And the
(32:24):
good news is a lot of the silicon partners that
we work with in automotive see the same thing and
they're like, hey, how can we take what we've done
in automotive and start to revector this towards robotics. So
that's we're in that phase now of what would a
platform look like, how can we help the robotic industry
move more quickly, and how can we make sure they
do that in a safe and secure manner.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
It makes a lot of sense. The automaker has heard
about this thing called robotics and software in particular and
oh software, Yes, we need to do software, and they
decided to do a to z everything in and then
they realize, oh, that's not the smartest way forward. Let's
focus on differentiation, just as you said exactly. Last question
for you, John, let's go big picture with regards to
(33:09):
AI robotics, Tesla Waymo. How long how soon before we
see what you would consider go anywhere robotic AI car
that just drives itself?
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Jo? Interesting. I was asked that question in twenty fourteen,
with all the hype around autonomous drive, and you know Ford,
we're making the comments that Ford CEO said by twenty
twenty the car won't have I remember that.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
You're right, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
I thought, you know, I'd been interviewed and at that time,
I said, twenty thirty five, I think it's even further out. Okay,
I mean I at scale, at scale, I'm talking about
at scale. I mean I think there's lots of reasons
for it. I mean, what motivates a Mercedes to create
a fully autonomous drive car? No, yeah, I mean I
(34:00):
like to drive a motion.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I want to do that. Yes, right, Mercedes Benz, I'm
killing myself exactly.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
So you know, I think it's a long way off
a car that go anywhere anytime, fully autonomous. I think
it's a it's now. My estimate is twenty fifty.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Two zero five zero way.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
We might might not be around, No, might not be around.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Okay. I love that reality check because read the headlines
and it's just around the corner. No one does it
better than Elon Musk in terms of generating excitement, and
he's delivered on so many fronts that people think he's.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
An amazing guy. He's an amazing guy. I mean, no debate. Yeah,
very smart guy. Tesla's very smart company. I still think
we'll be disappointed.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Okay, John Wall, coeo Q, and X, thank you very
much for joining me in what is yet another really
riveting conversation about a super hot topic, robotics.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Thank you, Michael, my pleasure.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
All right, we see you around. Every time I talk
to John Wall, I learn new things. Here are three
takeaways from our conversation today. One on the future of cars,
John says we should think of modern cars as robots
(35:17):
that just happen to ride on a set of tires.
There's a lot going on at hyper speed that is
simply beyond our comprehension two on safety and security. There
are no perfect systems. The best we can do is
to keep working to reduce or eliminate the errors inside
(35:38):
the system and then put in place blockers that keep
the bad guys out. And three on competition and manufacturing.
Very interesting comments from John today. He says, we gave
the keys to the Chinese, they ran with them. To
regain our edge, North America must embrace automation and robotics
(35:58):
as much or more than China does. They're in the
lead where the underdogs, which leads us to questions for
all of us, how much do we trust our cars
and what do we think it takes to compete with China.
Send me a DM via socials or a note to
me at Michael at duninsights dot com. I'd really look
(36:20):
forward to learning your point of view. I hope you
enjoyed this episode. This is the Driving with Done.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Podcast where you meet the experts creating the technologies that
will power tomorrow's cars electric autonomous software to find This
is a Driving with Done podcast. Thank you for joining
this episode of the Driving with Done podcast. To connect
with Michael Donn, visit doneinsights dot com or find Michael
(36:49):
on x or LinkedIn. This is a Driving With Done
podcast
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com