PinPoints: the best links of the week about MCity

We’ve a special edition of PinPoints this week, focused on the opening of the new MCity test environment for connected and automated vehicles, built on 32 acres of the university campus at Ann Arbor, Michigan, IL.

Regular readers may recall that HERE is very much involved in the project, providing HD maps and real-time data services for auto manufacturers and other participants.

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The Driverless Transportation website tells the story straight and notes that participants in the project include, “such blue-chip autonomous-driving firms as Delphi Automotive, Denso, Honda, Ford, GM, Toyota and Xerox.”

Coverage in Bloomberg Business is detailed, and includes a great quotation from Michigan Senator Gary Peters, comparing the State’s efforts to those on the West Coast:

“The Google folks are kind of strutting their stuff,” Peters said. “They’ve got nothing on us. This is the center of the universe. This is Michigan, it’s not California. We’re not going to let Silicon Valley take this technology.”

Some of the coverage focused on the oddness of the ‘fake town’ that forms one part of the environment, with backless movie-set buildings set up to imitate an urban setting. Here is CityMetric’s take on “this creepy fake city.” In fact, as the story goes on to reveal, the test area is set up to simulate many different kinds of driving environments within its grounds.

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Well known for its snarky take on technology matters, The Register wins the prize for the funniest headline: "Driverless cars banished to fake Michigan 'town' until they learn to read." The subheading continues: “And don't even think of letting them near humans just yet, the uncultured vagabonds.”

The Washington Post earns extra kudos from us for quoting HERE connected car guru Alex Mangan, who told the Post that the possibilities for collaboration offered by the project are among its key strengths: “We strongly believe as an organization that it’s not possible for one player to do this on their own […] And, really, the industry — and I’m talking about players from really every corner of our industry — are going to need to come together with one vision to be able to execute this at scale.”

We’ll be following the news from Michigan closely going forward.