- 17 hours ago
Never in the history of humanity have so many of us been mobile, never has our demand for fast, efficient and safe transportation been so high, and never have we relied so heavily on technology to deliver.
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00:17We live in an exciting time in human history, a time when the world has never been smaller.
00:24A time when we can drive, sail, and fly to almost anywhere.
00:36We can even leave our planet.
00:45How did this happen?
00:46This is the incredible story of our civilization's ceaseless desire to move.
00:59I'm Sean Riley.
01:00I've always been fascinated by speed.
01:04Come with me on a journey.
01:08To better understand the game-changing engineering, courageous innovators, and the machines that
01:17take us further, higher, and above all, faster.
01:35You haven't noticed something?
01:37Human beings aren't spread evenly across the planet.
01:40We tend to cluster together.
01:41Today, more than half the world's population live in cities.
01:44It's a point that becomes very clear if you view the world from a unique perspective.
01:49Up there.
01:52Orbiting 250 miles above the Earth, a striking pattern of civilization emerges.
02:00Giant hubs of human activity.
02:03Cities and megacities.
02:06Our communities are connected.
02:10Laced together over vast distances by sophisticated transport networks.
02:16Some as old as civilization itself.
02:22How we live has been shaped by speed.
02:26Humanity's relentless desire to move faster.
02:34So what jump-starts this modern pattern of human movement back and forth across the continents?
02:39Well, this is County Cornwall in England.
02:42And a pivotal moment in engineering happens right here over 200 years ago.
02:46It's a moment that changes the way we all move forever.
02:54It's 1801, the age of steam.
02:58Cornish copper mines are booming, thanks to steam-driven water pumps preventing flooding.
03:06Inventor Richard Trevithick, son of a mining manager, can barely read or write.
03:12But he's about to have a radical idea that changes the course of history.
03:17So Trevithick is no stranger to steam engines.
03:20He grows up around them.
03:21Right?
03:22But he's a bit of a rebel and he wants to try something new.
03:24It's something that the people around him are telling him is at best a bad idea and at worst impossible.
03:29But he's about to do it anyway.
03:31He's going to make a steam engine with a difference.
03:36Until now, steam is produced by fires lit under large domed water boilers.
03:42But the design loses a lot of heat, only producing low pressure steam.
03:48Creating higher pressure steam is the challenge.
03:52But it's risky, with engines potentially exploding.
03:59Trevithick is a risk taker.
04:01He designs a cylindrical boiler surrounding the heat source.
04:05He figures his innovation will increase steam pressure without catastrophic failure.
04:12Producing what's called strong steam.
04:18Trevithick has a flash of inspiration.
04:23An entirely novel application for his smaller strong steam engine.
04:29One that lights the fuse for an explosion in speed.
04:36Look at this.
04:37This is great.
04:38There are certain pieces of technology, certain machines that when they show up, they send us off on a new
04:44direction in history.
04:44But often, once they're obsolete, they're forgotten, they're destroyed.
04:47We don't have them around anymore.
04:48That's why it's so cool that we still have this one.
04:51Hello.
04:52I'm Sean Riley.
04:52Hello, Sean.
04:54What am I looking at here?
04:55Well, we're looking at a replica of the world's first successful self-propelled vehicle.
05:01We call it the Puffing Devil.
05:03Trevithick, the Cornish engineer, came up with this fresh concept of how to raise steam.
05:08It's essentially a tube, and then within it, we have another tube, half the diameter.
05:14And within that middle tube is the fire.
05:17Right.
05:17So the fire is totally surrounded by water.
05:20Yeah.
05:20And this was an amazing leap forward.
05:27Trevithick saw a future where you could get more energy out of a smaller package.
05:31And maybe, just maybe, if you could get enough energy from a small enough engine, then the engine could move
05:37itself.
05:38Right?
05:39What?
05:39That's this mind-blowing idea.
05:41And this is where you achieved it.
05:43So, the question is, what's it like to drive?
05:48Ready?
05:49Yeah.
05:49As ready as I'm going to get.
05:50Let's give it a go.
05:51Pull up.
05:54I got you.
05:56Uh-huh.
05:57Oh, God.
05:58It really fights you.
06:00I see.
06:01Yeah.
06:04There we go.
06:05Not exactly precise steering.
06:06You just kind of head in a general direction and, and I hope it goes there.
06:12There we go.
06:13Oh, yeah.
06:13Coming back over.
06:14Yeah.
06:17With the Puffing Devil, Trevithick makes steam-powered transport a reality.
06:23And in 1801, that is mind-blowing.
06:29Wow.
06:30Man, that is a beast of a steering.
06:32It's so heavy.
06:44That is not easy to drive, man.
06:46It takes a lot of strength and it's, you can't really tell it what to do.
06:49You kind of have to just keep it within a range and point it down the road and hope it
06:53goes where you want it to.
06:54Whew.
06:54It's a handful.
06:58A few years after rolling out his Puffing Devil, Trevithick builds the world's first steam railway.
07:12And a familiar sight and sound begins to fade into the background of history.
07:19You see, up until this point, if you wanted to get anywhere quicker than you could walk or if you
07:24wanted to haul a heavy load, this is what you used.
07:27A big, beautiful horse.
07:29That's what you used.
07:30That's what your father used.
07:31That's what your father's father before him used as far back as anyone can remember.
07:35That's what makes Trevithick's idea so revolutionary, right?
07:39With his very first test drive, he does away with thousands of years of tradition.
07:44He's swapping horsepower for steam power.
07:50Even so, the legacy of my four-legged friend lives on.
07:57The steam locomotive is dubbed the Iron Horse.
08:05And the standard unit of engine strength is forever more measured as horsepower.
08:20Now that I've had a chance to ride on the Puffing Devil, I have a much better sense of how
08:24this story begins.
08:25You see, Trevithick's innovation ignites a revolution in steam locomotion.
08:29It helps to turn fledgling countries into giant nations with the power to move faster and further.
08:35But there's one nation in particular that really benefits from the full force of the steam locomotive.
08:43America.
08:44America.
08:46In the early 1800s, most of the country is still virgin territory.
08:56Only the brave, the foolish, or the desperate risk the slow trek across this vast, unforgiving land.
09:15But with the arrival of the Iron Horse, America embarks on one of its greatest engineering projects.
09:23Linking east and west by rail.
09:29Between Omaha and Sacramento, thousands of men set to work.
09:36Over flat ground, they lay up to ten miles of track a day.
09:43But crossing the Rocky Mountains proves more formidable.
09:49And progress slows to less than two feet a day.
09:57Finally, in 1869, after six grueling years, almost 2,000 miles of railroad meet at Promontory Summit, Utah.
10:16It's life-changing for 19th century America.
10:19And it allows the Wild West to join the rest of the country.
10:26The railroads move more people than ever before.
10:30Now, crossing America is not only safer, it's much faster.
10:40And the place these life-changing journeys begin will play a defining role in the way we move.
10:52This is Grand Central Terminal.
10:54It's a magnificent piece of architecture, and it's also a testament to the importance of the railroads.
11:00Over 150 years old, it's still the largest railroad station on the planet.
11:08By the mid-20th century, Grand Central is an established starting point for fast, long-distance travel to cities across
11:17America.
11:20Today, its rail network connects over 500 destinations.
11:28With 150,000 miles of track, more than any other nation, it could circle the globe six times.
11:38The growth of the railroads changes the face of America.
11:41They play a pivotal role not just in establishing cities like New York, but in supersizing them into giant urban
11:47centers.
11:52But it's not just America.
11:59This revolution in human motion continues today.
12:04Innovations in rail technology carry more of us further and faster than ever before.
12:12Maybe the best place to experience this is in a nation that's led the world in train engineering.
12:18Japan.
12:24For over 50 years, Japan has been at the cutting edge of speed on rails.
12:29For over 50 years after mi topIrmans.
12:42I need a baby-slip spot.
12:44This Šima next western Lady watches past mi
12:48European subject.
12:51I'm on a Japanese roaring bull train traveling at 175 miles an hour and it is smooth as silk.
13:00The Takaido Shinkansen line connects Tokyo with Osaka, Japan's two biggest cities.
13:07Since its opening on October 1, 1964, this 320-mile-long track alone has shuttled almost
13:16six billion people.
13:20On that morning, the Hikari No. 1 pulls out from Tokyo Station's Platform 19 and arrives
13:28at Shin-Osaka Station exactly on time four hours later.
13:34Just the day before, that same journey would have taken six and a half hours.
13:38It's an amazing increase in speed and efficiency, but it's one that almost didn't happen.
13:48In the 1950s, trains are topping out at almost 70 miles an hour.
13:54One Japanese engineer, Hideo Shima, dreams of a revolutionary high-speed rail network, the
14:01Shinkansen, that will smash the 100-mile-an-hour barrier.
14:08In 1958, a committee led by Shima develops the concept.
14:13His first idea is each carriage should have individual electrified motors to move them,
14:19rather than one locomotive pulling the lot.
14:22Next, he designs the train to use compressed air as shock absorbers to minimize vibrations.
14:29Finally, Shima and his team will engineer rail routes where gradients and bends will be kept
14:34to a minimum to maintain high speeds.
14:42It's a bold engineering vision.
14:45It's one that comes with an estimated price tag that runs into the hundreds of millions.
14:49It turns out, it's a little too bold, and his home country won't risk the funding.
14:58So, Shima travels to Washington DC to ask the World Bank to finance his revolutionary vision.
15:06The bank's policy is not to loan to experimental projects.
15:11But Shima argues that his designs are robust and dependable.
15:17The bank agrees to fund his bold vision.
15:23Six decades on, and today, Shinkansen bullet trains are famed for their speed and their appearance.
15:31They owe both to Hideo Shima's original design.
15:36His determination, his original engineering, lives on in these bullet trains.
15:42It makes them not only remarkably fast, but it also makes them, I think, very beautiful machines.
15:49There you go.
15:49The legacy of Hideo Shima.
15:53The man who saw the future and propelled us into it.
16:02Fast forward to today, and Japanese engineers are developing an even faster form of rail transport.
16:13One which could make wheels a thing of the past.
16:23Now, this is one of a kind.
16:25I'm in the Yamanashi Maglev train station, and here, Japanese engineers are working on perfecting the fastest train on the
16:32planet.
16:33It's designed to carry passengers at up to 300 miles an hour.
16:40This is the L-Zero.
16:43It holds the record as the fastest in the world, an incredible 374 miles an hour.
16:51Whoa.
16:52That thing is booking, man.
16:54It's just flying.
16:55I mean, it's not really flying because it doesn't have wings, but it's going airplane speeds, and I guess, technically,
17:02it's not touching the ground.
17:03The truth is, I don't know what to call it, but it is very cool and very fast.
17:08There's one other thing, too.
17:09Did you hear how the only thing we hear is the wind whooshing past the outside?
17:12That's because there's no engines on board, and that is because of an inspiration that happened in New York in
17:19the 1960s.
17:27Stuck behind the wheel, American physicist James Powell has a thought that we've all had.
17:35What if we could just rise above the traffic?
17:40Powell's idea might sound crazy, but it's actually grounded in very well understood science.
17:46Magnetism.
17:46It's an invisible force of nature that surrounds us.
17:49You can't see it, but if you've ever played with a set of magnets, you might have felt it.
17:53Now, magnetic fields have a polarity, and if you oppose them, plus to minus, minus to plus, they attract.
17:59But if you align them, plus to plus, minus to minus, they repel each other.
18:05It's this idea that gets Powell excited.
18:07He thinks to himself, what if you could scale that up and put it to work?
18:13Powell takes this magnetic principle and thinks big, really big.
18:18He figures by using repelling poles of super powerful magnets, he can levitate the entire weight of a carriage above
18:26the tracks.
18:28But how does he get it to move?
18:32Powell has an answer for that, too.
18:35Use another set of strong magnets built into the track whose polarity alternates, constantly creating forces that push and pull.
18:46The result is magnetic levitation, or MAGLEV for short.
18:50Powell is the first to think of it in terms of motion.
18:52But can magnets really levitate a train?
19:00Enlightened engineers across the globe embrace the concept, developing a range of MAGLEV transport designs, and the Japanese see the
19:14potential for record breaking speed.
19:16The new bullet train.
19:19Yes.
19:20Yes.
19:21Yes.
19:22Yes.
19:24Yes.
19:28I'm interested to know, how far does the train float above the ground?
19:33he could dominate an era around.
19:34I was DSized as an end.
19:36Amazing.
19:38Has this been a difficult technology to develop?طور電動磁石を完成させるためのいろいろな研究開発というのが私どもが今までの50数年間一番苦労してきた内容となり
20:08So I'm about to take my first ride on a maglev train, I'm about to take off, leave the
20:14station, I don't know what to call it but it's pretty cool.
20:25So whenever the train's at rest or at lower speeds we're actually riding on wheels sitting
20:29on top of the track and right now we're just starting to speed up and the wheels are still
20:33underneath us, we're rolling along on the ground, when we get to a certain speed we'll
20:37actually engage the superconducting magnets, levitate up off the ground and disengage the
20:41wheels and that should happen any minute, here we go.
20:57You can feel the whole thing lift off, starting to levitate now, floating along, cushioned
21:02by superconducting magnets.
21:10Nice way to travel.
21:21Everything outside is just whizzing along, it's just zipping by so quick you can't see anything.
21:26This really is like flying on the ground.
21:38490, she's telling us we're coming up to a maximum of 498, 500 kilometers an hour.
21:43That's over 300 miles an hour, that is a personal record for me.
21:46That's as fast as I have ever gone over the land.
21:49And I'll tell you what, I can guarantee it's a personal record for all of them too because
21:52that's as fast as anyone can go on the ground.
21:56Here we go, this is it man, this is the height of technology.
22:00The real question is, in the future, can we go faster?
22:27What's inside this steel tube is straight out of science fiction and it could take us
22:32into a future of moving at incredible speed.
22:38This sealed cylinder is over 10 feet wide and 500 yards long.
22:46Inside is a unique piece of engineering.
22:50A test track in a tube with almost all of the air extracted.
23:00Virgin's Hyperloop One promises to carry us faster than ever before.
23:08What are we about to see?
23:10So this is it right here.
23:12This is the pod, the star of all of our testing.
23:18This test pod is a prototype.
23:21It can't carry people yet.
23:23But soon, larger versions could whisk up to 15 of us across entire continents.
23:30And this is the one and only?
23:32Yep.
23:33Nothing else like it.
23:35It kind of looks like an airplane fuselage without wings.
23:38Yeah, exactly.
23:44Like normal maglevs, the Hyperloop One uses a powerful series of magnets to accelerate.
23:55As it picks up speed, the wheels retract.
24:01And magnetism levitates the pod over a central aluminum track.
24:08But cocooned in its vacuum-sealed tube, the Hyperloop One has a distinct advantage when it comes to speed.
24:21So we have no resistance from wheels, we have no resistance from air.
24:24You've got no friction, nothing to slow you down.
24:26We get ourselves up to speed, we're levitating, we're sailing along.
24:30Yeah.
24:30We don't need to constantly feed energy to the system.
24:33Even on this short track, the test pod accelerates to almost 250 miles an hour.
24:39But the real thing will be much, much faster.
24:43What kind of speeds are we talking about?
24:44We're talking 700 miles an hour.
24:46700 miles an hour.
24:48Oh yeah, super fast.
24:49So we're going faster than a jet plane.
24:50Yeah, faster than any commercial transportation that's out there right now.
24:53Cool.
24:54Yeah.
24:55So you're riding along inside, you've got air in there, you have power, you're charging your cell phone, you're having
24:59a drink.
25:00What do you think it's going to feel like to ride this?
25:02As comfortable as an airplane.
25:03So although we can accelerate and decelerate very quickly, and we can move you around with crazy turns, we're not
25:09going to.
25:10It's not a roller coaster, it's something you take every day.
25:12So it's a very comfortable ride, and a very smooth ride.
25:16Any chance for a roller coaster version?
25:18Probably not, but nice try.
25:20All right, moving on.
25:24This offers a new and exciting era in human speed.
25:30In Hyperloop One, traveling the two and a half thousand miles between New York and Los Angeles could take just
25:38three and a half hours.
25:41Faster, cleaner, and more efficient than a jet plane.
25:45And you can forget about turbulence.
25:50The Hyperloop really is engineering out on the bleeding edge.
25:54It uses some technologies borrowed from other applications mixed with some fresh innovations.
25:58And all of it put together in a brand new way.
26:01This really is a new form of transportation.
26:13Railroads have transformed the way we travel.
26:18But in our quest to speed across continents, one invention has driven us further than any other.
26:35It's the early 1880s.
26:39The son of a train driver wrestles with a lifelong obsession.
26:44The audacious dream of Carl Benz is to build a powered, moving machine that doesn't use steam or run on
26:52tracks.
26:54An automobile.
26:57But his engineering challenges are daunting.
27:02Benz has no precedent or prototypes.
27:05How many wheels?
27:06How can he steer it?
27:08How will the engine be attached to the carriage?
27:10The list goes on.
27:13Against the odds and against great criticism, in 1885, Carl Benz unveils his masterpiece.
27:19The world's first practical motor car.
27:24Now, to really understand how bold Benz's vision is, I've got to drive it for myself, right?
27:29So I've come here to Somerset, England, to the Haynes International Motor Museum,
27:32because they have an exact replica of the original.
27:35And they tell me it even runs.
27:38Matt, is it?
27:39It is.
27:40Hi, Sean.
27:40Nice to meet you.
27:42This is it.
27:43Ah, look at this beauty.
27:44It doesn't seem like much, but this is really the start of something very important, right?
27:48Yeah.
27:48It was the start of motoring as we know it, because there is a bloodline from this car to every
27:54other car that you see on the road through motoring history.
27:57They are all related.
27:58I mean, up until now, too, a lot of the road-going vehicles have been steam-powered or they've been
28:03designed around these, like, basically a horseless cart.
28:06Giant wood frames and big static wood wheels, right?
28:09Yeah.
28:09And here we're starting to see bicycle technology?
28:11Uh, we are indeed, because Benz was a fan of the bicycle and he was riding one at the time.
28:16So, yes, you do see that kind of technology creeping in.
28:20Sure.
28:21So, give me the quick tour front to back.
28:23Starting with a wheel.
28:24Yeah, one wheel.
28:25One wheel.
28:26Unsprung.
28:27Uh-huh.
28:27And the steering is very basic.
28:29You operate just by turning this lever here.
28:33Which might seem funny, but you've got to think about it.
28:35It's way easier to make mechanical linkage for one-wheel steering than it is to try to build two wheels
28:40that steer together, right?
28:41Yeah.
28:41So, this is just a quick, down-and-dirty way of doing it.
28:43Well, exactly, yes.
28:46And then you have the single-cylinder engine at the back, giving a top speed of around 10 miles an
28:53hour.
28:53And the capacity of the engine, um, is just under one liter.
28:57One liter.
28:57And what's the horsepower?
28:59Yeah.
28:59Um, just under one.
29:00One liter horsepower.
29:01Yes, yes.
29:02Just under.
29:03Yeah.
29:04Yeah.
29:04Wow.
29:04So, to put it in some context, the car that I drove to work in this morning has a two
29:09liter engine with about 150 brake horsepower.
29:12And good for probably about 135 miles an hour.
29:16Yeah.
29:16Yeah, so clearly we've come a long way, but this is where it starts.
29:20Absolutely.
29:20It does indeed.
29:22Amazing.
29:29In 1886, Benz obtains a patent for his invention.
29:33Woo!
29:34Look at that.
29:37All right.
29:37The original car is ready to roll.
29:43Well, as far as vintage cars go, it doesn't get much more vintage than this.
29:47But it's pretty exciting to think that this is what it was like to really try this whole technology out
29:53for the first time.
29:53I mean, it's all unprecedented.
29:57Not sure if it's going to work.
29:59Just put it down and go.
30:11Yes.
30:18Man, whoever took the first test drive on this, they were brave.
30:24Oh, this is amazing.
30:27I mean, once you get it going, it just purrs along.
30:29Of course, there's no brakes, so you've got to keep feathering the throttle if you want to turn.
30:39Oh, yeah.
30:41Now I'm starting to get the hang of this thing.
30:50So the Benz car works, but the whole world doesn't really take notice until one brave, audacious woman gets behind
30:57the wheel.
31:06Critics of the car believe it's a novelty item, incapable of long journeys.
31:11But Benz's wife, Bertha, thinks otherwise.
31:15On August 5th, 1888, without her husband's knowledge, she and her two sons set off in the automobile to visit
31:23her mother in Forzheim, over 50 miles away.
31:29But it's no easy ride.
31:31The car doesn't have gears.
31:34So whenever they encounter a hill, they push.
31:38And then a belt fails.
31:41So Bertha takes off her garter and uses it as an impromptu replacement.
31:51Bertha's initiative to take that first trip proves the potential of the motor car.
32:01Bertha makes it to her destination, and she telegrams home to say that she's arrived safely.
32:06Now, with that first test drive, she silences all the critics, right?
32:11Because of her determination to drive to her mother's house, she changes the course of human history.
32:15It is perhaps the single biggest revolution in transportation ever.
32:22But motoring doesn't come cheap.
32:26A Benz car costs $1,000.
32:30About twice the annual income of the average American at the time.
32:37Only the very rich can afford one.
32:41You fast forward to today, and there are about a billion cars driving around the world.
32:46So how does that happen?
32:48Well, this is what happened.
32:52The Ford Model T.
32:54It's the first car to be produced on an assembly line.
32:58Out of standardized parts, and they're built in huge numbers.
33:01That's the genius of Henry Ford.
33:07At the beginning of the 20th century, Henry Ford's assembly line sparks a revolution in car manufacturing.
33:15His streamlined construction method accelerates production.
33:20The time it takes to assemble a single car shrinks from 12 hours to just two and a half.
33:27And as everyone knows, time is money.
33:33The production line slashes the price of a car from $850 down to about $300.
33:39And that puts this revolutionary invention within reach of almost anyone who wants one.
33:44And boy, do they want one.
33:47Within 20 years, there are 15 million Model Ts on the road.
34:03What's amazing to me is the impact of the automobile.
34:08It's profound, right?
34:09It alters landscapes.
34:11It changes cultures.
34:13And it powers mobility in a way that was unimaginable before Benz.
34:17I mean, just look at what happens.
34:22It's the early 1900s, and our Ford Model T is tearing through town at an incredible 40 miles per hour.
34:29Our newfound speed will demand change, like our first stoplight in 1914.
34:37Soon roads reach out of town, but a car can only carry so much gas.
34:42We need some good old American enterprise.
34:46By the 1920s, the U.S. is spending over a billion a year.
34:51Building roads like Route 66, connecting L.A. to Chicago.
34:57Now our car can make the trip, but we're beat.
35:01We need a hotel for motorists.
35:03And in 1925, we get the first of many.
35:08In the 1940s, innovations like the automatic transmission of the Buick Special make driving fun.
35:15So much fun that we don't want to get out of our cars, even to eat or watch a movie.
35:22It's the American dream.
35:24Cars like the Cadillac increase our cruising speeds through the 50s and 60s along the nation's new interstate highways.
35:32Now cars can change how and where we live.
35:36By the 70s and 80s, millions of us are speeding through new commuter belts in satellite towns,
35:43which eventually merge into the metropolises of today.
36:00Along with railroads, cars drive the single greatest movement in human history.
36:08Ah, but, with this many people moving, none of us are going anywhere.
36:16The freedom the car promised is now strangling our towns and cities.
36:24Incredibly, the average speed here in New York City is about 5 miles an hour.
36:28You can almost get out and walk faster.
36:32So, is that the end of the road?
36:34I mean, is there any hope of getting things back on track and getting back up to speed?
36:38Come on.
36:41Come on.
36:52Well, maybe the answer lies with cars designed to be smarter than us.
37:062,000 miles from the congested streets of Manhattan,
37:13engineers are putting the theory of driverless vehicles to the test.
37:26Well, driving this car, here we go.
37:28Now, I mean, I've heard the hike, I've seen all the tech, I know this should work,
37:32but for a control freak like me, it's pretty hard to let go.
37:46It's driving itself.
37:49This is weird, the car is just driving through the parking lot.
37:52I mean, it's seen the fence and the telephone poles, at least I hope it's seen all that.
37:56It seems to be steering itself through.
37:58And I am just riding in the car, letting the computer drive.
38:03I mean, I guess this is the wave of the future, but it feels pretty weird.
38:10So, computers can navigate a slow-moving car around a parking lot perfectly.
38:15But can they cope with rapidly changing speeds on a highway?
38:21Well, I survived my first ride in a robot car.
38:25I don't think I'm ready to let it drive my kids around,
38:27but I do trust it enough to take part in today's experiment.
38:47I'll be riding second from last in a convoy of cars.
38:52All of which have ACC, Adaptive Cruise Control, monitored by an onboard computer.
39:07For the test, I'll be steering.
39:12But the computer will control my speed by adjusting the Adaptive Cruise Control.
39:19And should keep me a safe distance from the car in front.
39:25But can a computer-driven car cope with a sharp braking event?
39:30Everybody should engage your cruise control.
39:3355 miles per hour. Over.
39:36I'm setting our Adaptive Cruise Control at 55 miles an hour.
39:40We'll run up against the car in front of us,
39:42and when the radar detects that car in front of us, it'll just keep us right there.
39:46When the lead car starts to slow down, each subsequent car will have to slow down as well.
39:52The cars drive themselves independently,
39:56with their exact position monitored via GPS.
40:01If the test is successful,
40:03each car will brake in a way that keeps the traffic at a constant speed,
40:08and more importantly, avoids a collision.
40:13Right now, I'm changing the setting on the Adaptive Cruise Control down to one bar.
40:17That will keep the least amount of distance between the car in front of us and us.
40:21Sean, can you confirm your set to one bar?
40:25One bar, confirm.
40:28This is more nerve-wracking, right?
40:29I mean, I'm still letting the computer drive, but we are a lot closer,
40:32which means the reaction time is going to be much shorter.
40:35I hope this computer knows what it's doing.
40:39I need to stay alert.
40:42If my car's ACC can't keep me at a safe distance,
40:46I'll have to take control to avoid a crash.
40:51Note to drivers, the cad vehicle will be slowing down abruptly soon.
40:55Okay, you hear that?
40:56Here comes the test event.
41:00All right, here we go.
41:02I see the lights coming.
41:05Come on, car, slow down, slow down, slow down, slow down.
41:0840.
41:10Oh, break, break, break, break, break, break.
41:12Yeah, break, break, break, break, break.
41:16Suddenly, my white car finally breaks, but so quickly it forces the last car behind me to swerve.
41:22Okay, adaptive cruise control slowed us down, but it also disengaged, so I was told that if this happened, I
41:29need to pull over and let the GPS zero out so that the experimenters know that my adaptive cruise control
41:36couldn't handle that much.
41:41And the experiment is over.
41:45So any surprises today?
41:47Yeah, of course there were. You experienced it yourself.
41:49Yeah, the adaptive cruise control kicked out and it gave manual control back to me.
41:57Can we look at that one?
41:58Yeah.
42:01The steep lines indicate each car's drop in speed.
42:05The steeper the line, the harder the braking, as the computer tries to keep distance.
42:12So here you see lead vehicle, five mile an hour slow down event.
42:17Right, saying we're all tracking along together, and the lead vehicle starts to slow down, and then look how steep
42:22they get.
42:23Every one of those cars had to slow down more than the car in front.
42:26That means the small braking event in the front created a complete stop and go traffic jam.
42:32You take it to my car in the orange, and it just drops off like almost as a wall.
42:36It's like a cliff.
42:37That slow down was so extreme, by the time it got to you, your adaptive cruise control kicked out.
42:42So you're still really learning stuff while you're doing these experiments?
42:45This is just the beginning.
42:46We're going to allow these cars to start to talk to each other so they can coordinate and actually smooth
42:51out these traffic jams.
42:54Meaning traffic congestion could become a thing of the past.
43:03Do we have the technology to make driverless cars a reality?
43:06Well, the answer might lie with a discovery made by two NASA engineers back at the beginning of the space
43:12race.
43:18It's 1964.
43:23Incredibly, six years after the launch of the first U.S. satellite, Explorer 1, those on the ground still can't
43:31precisely determine its orbit.
43:37Enter physicist Henry Plotkin.
43:41Plotkin believes that the answer lies with a recent invention, the laser.
43:48What if they fire a laser from the ground, aimed at a satellite covered with mirrors, and measure the time
43:55it takes for the laser to travel up and reflect back to them?
44:00The laser travels at the speed of light.
44:03So if they can precisely measure the time delay of the beam, they can calculate the satellite's distance.
44:12But will it work?
44:15On Halloween night, 1964, Plotkin and his team put their theory into practice.
44:25They aim their laser at a test satellite, Explorer 22.
44:34Timing the delay of the reflection, pinpoints the position of the satellite to within 10 feet.
44:45Plotkin demonstrates light detection and ranging, better known as LIDAR.
44:50At the time, it's a key piece of technology in space exploration.
44:53But today, it might hold the key to autonomous driving.
45:06I'm here in Silicon Valley to look at a key piece of tech that promises to get the driverless cars
45:11of the future up to speed.
45:21Hi, Michael. How are you doing?
45:22Hi, Sean. Welcome to Velodyne.
45:24Thank you so much. This is very cool. What do you have going here?
45:27Let me show you our latest technology.
45:28Please.
45:29On the stand over there is the VLS-128 sensor. It's a LIDAR sensor.
45:34It has 128 lasers inside, a spinning apparatus, able to scan 360 degrees.
45:41Is that what I'm seeing here?
45:42Yes. It's scanning at 5 to 20 times per second, and out to 300 meters.
45:48Right. So, this sensor is sending out laser pulses bouncing off of all the objects in this room here,
45:53including us, including the back wall, and it's then measuring how long it takes those pulses to come back to
45:59the sensor,
45:59and then it gets not only just a picture of the room, but also a measurement for where everything is.
46:04Pretty precise?
46:04Yes. 2.4 million times per second.
46:09These computer screens visualize how the sensor interprets its environment.
46:15They allow you to enter LIDAR's world.
46:19This is so cool. So, I can really navigate within this 3D world that's built by the sensor.
46:24In real time.
46:25In real time.
46:27There's someone walking by.
46:28I can see the lasers hitting them and the information that's bouncing back to the sensor from those lasers.
46:35How is the LIDAR sensor better than the human eye?
46:39The human eye relies on the available light.
46:42Right.
46:42Our LIDAR sensors provide their own light. It doesn't rely on visible light. This is infrared.
46:48Right. So, it can see 360 degrees, it never blinks, it knows exactly how far things are away, and it
46:55can see in the dark.
46:56Those are four things we can't do.
47:00In a brightly lit office environment, LIDAR is impressive.
47:03But is it really practical out on the road?
47:09Drivers and pedestrians are most vulnerable at night.
47:14There's less traffic, but hazards like dazzling headlights and pitch black backgrounds means a high percentage of fatal accidents occur
47:25in the dark.
47:28This car has a human driver, but on the roof is a LIDAR sensor.
47:34And Michael has set up an experiment to show me how we might be safer if a LIDAR-linked computer
47:40is in control.
47:42Right, now look at this.
47:45Now this is amazing. With this bird's eye view, you can actually see 360 degrees all around the car, and
47:50I can see all through the neighborhood.
47:52I mean, I see the parked cars, I see the tops of the houses, the roofs, the landscaping, the trees.
47:57It's amazing. Look at this intersection. I'm seeing way down the street in both directions, deep into the pitch black.
48:02I can see what's down there. It's open, it's clear.
48:05Can we zoom down now into the car?
48:07Sure.
48:09Whoa!
48:14Feeling like I'm center stage in a sci-fi movie is a lot of fun.
48:19But LIDAR could be a lifesaver.
48:30Whoa!
48:33What is that?
48:34Look at that guy. He's wearing all black. Couldn't see him at all in the nighttime.
48:38He just jumped out.
48:39Yeah.
48:40And you could see him clearly on the LIDAR display.
48:43As soon as he came out from between the parked cars, he just jumped out on the screen.
48:46Here in the darkness, I couldn't see him for real at all.
48:54It's a situation just like this where you have a person walking in the dark wearing all black.
48:58This is when you want LIDAR on board.
49:00Both to keep the people in the car safe and to keep the pedestrians safe.
49:12This is a phenomenal technology, and it's only getting better every day.
49:18Clearly, self-driving cars are coming.
49:20But will they solve the problems of congestion?
49:23Do they really hold the key to the future of how we move?
49:26I don't know.
49:27There are some who say the ultimate answer is to rise above it all.
49:56So, what does the vehicle of the future look like?
50:03Well, it could look something like this.
50:05It's kind of a cross between a family SUV and a helicopter.
50:12It's VTOL, Vertical Takeoff and Landing.
50:15It means it can come and go in a small footprint, right?
50:17It can land in a parking space, on top of a building, in your backyard.
50:22It's got multiple rotors on it.
50:24It gives it precision and stability.
50:25But it also means that it has redundancy, so it's safer.
50:28It can afford to lose a motor or two and still fly just fine.
50:35VTOLs are coming sooner than you might think.
50:39Unmanned test flights are already underway.
50:45Refining the technology needed to lift us into the skies above our congested cities.
50:56Is this the answer to the traffic jam?
50:58Is this the way we get everybody moving again?
51:01Is this the way we get back up to speed?
51:03Maybe.
51:04And the truth is, you probably won't be flying it.
51:07It'll be autonomous, flying via robot.
51:12Getting across town will be a breeze, soaring above all the stoplights, gridlock, and stop-and-go traffic of the
51:22past.
51:26It's easy to imagine a future with swarms of VTOLs flying through highways in the sky, taking us anywhere we
51:35want to go.
51:38Looking back at where we've been, and looking ahead to where we're going.
51:46I can be sure of this.
51:49Revolutionary technology will accelerate our next leap in speed.
52:35Revolutionary technology is now...