Christopher Reardon | The Verge

Disabled passengers were promised autonomous vehicles — they’re still waiting

2021-12-20T10:00:00-05:00

For years, people with disabilities have been promised that autonomous vehicles are right around the corner. Self-driving cars will open up new possibilities for people with vision, hearing, and mobility impairments. Help was on the way.

But Haben Girma is tired of waiting.

“People with disabilities stand to benefit the most from self-driving cars, but developers are not making accessibility enough of a priority,” said the author and deafblind disability justice lawyer. “Waiting until a product is ‘finished’ to start thinking about accessibility is like completing construction of a skyscraper and then tearing part of it down to install an elevator.”

“People with disabilities stand to benefit the most from self-driving cars, but developers are not making accessibility enough of a priority”

Over 25 million Americans have disabilities that make traveling outside the home difficult. Historically, car companies have provided little relief, producing vehicles that are either inaccessible or cost thousands of dollars to retrofit for a driver with disabilities. Autonomous vehicles (AVs) present a tantalizing solution to millions of frustrated people. But the industry’s well-publicized struggles, as well as the broken promises of tech companies in the past, are forcing many in the disabled community to wonder whether AVs are the salvation they’ve been waiting for.

The skepticism among the disabled toward tech companies is warranted. Uber and Lyft initially claimed that their ride-hail fleets would be a boon for disabled customers, but wheelchair-accessible vehicles are largely absent from both companies’ platforms. And over the past decade, the ride-hailing industry has routinely resisted efforts by regulators to force them to deploy more accessible vehicles.

Whether it is a broken foot, an unforeseen traumatic event, or just getting old — we are all likely to have a disability at some point. Currently, a disabled individual might not have the means to modify a vehicle, they may not be able to drive, or it may be too difficult to navigate public buses and trains. The more accessible AVs are from the beginning, the more everyone will benefit.

One of the biggest automakers in the world, Volkswagen, is already taking steps to ensure its AVs are designed to serve a broad range of people. By talking to groups like the American Association of People with Disabilities, Volkswagen said it is well aware of the engineering challenges they face.

“The more accessible AVs are from the beginning, the more everyone will benefit”

The automaker’s Inclusive Mobility team, based in Santa Clara, California, is working on how an autonomous vehicle could communicate on multiple levels with users who are d/Deaf or have low vision. The team is working on a software interface with an accessible screen reader and on interior concepts with visual, text, and tactile notifications for d/Deaf passengers, as well as external vehicle speakers and microphones, to support locating and boarding for those with low vision.

VW isn’t alone in thinking about how its AVs should be designed to serve the disabled community. Toyota, Cruise, and Waymo are also working on solutions for how to transport riders with different bodies and accessibility needs. And they find themselves encountering the same design hurdles as the VW team.

Besides making its AV software accessible, VW is also examining seating concepts like seats facing each other for better face-to-face communication among d/Deaf passengers. This would also help passengers read the lips of someone with a speech impairment that might be difficult to understand. But it’s also a seating arrangement that may cause motion sickness.

“Having empathy for the challenges faced by disabled communities in mobility is only the starting point,” said Chandrika Jayant, UX researcher and design manager at Volkswagen Group of America. “We need to understand the specific needs. We need to be involved in continuous dialogue with the people who are underserved to hear from them their experiences and not simply imagine what those experiences might be. It’s a complex process that demands that we have a deep understanding… and that our ideas are future-proofed to some degree.”

“we need to be involved in continuous dialogue with the people who are underserved to hear from them their experiences”

One of the most complex challenges Jayant faces is the lack of industry-wide standards for how wheelchairs can be secured in a vehicle. Jayant says that this issue requires collaboration between wheelchair makers, insurance companies, users, and governments. Even with the design obstacles, Jayant remains enthusiastic: “[Inclusive design] is very exciting to work on,” she said. “This is really groundbreaking design research.”

Christian Lorenz, senior director of intelligent cockpit and body at VW, points out a fact so obvious that it’s easy to forget: “It is important to consider that many policies drafted to assist disabled Americans were written long before anyone seriously dreamed that self-driving mobility could happen — and, quite often, even before computers were part of our everyday lives.”

Many of those policies came from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was signed into law 31 years ago. Lopez notes that insurers define wheelchair coverage as a necessity in the home, but the role of wheelchairs in AVs has never been on the radar. Precautions like crash safety and self-securement often get treated like beyond-the-scope upgrades.

Volkswagen isn’t the only automaker with a team working on AV accessibility. We Will Ride, a coalition of advocates dedicated to ensuring a future with accessible AVs, released its annual scorecard in July on the companies doing the best job of making their AVs disability-friendly.

Toyota, long a leader among automakers in robotics and technology, got high marks from the group. This includes the creation of a fifth R&D department solely for AV accessibility, a $1 million contract from the US Department of Transporation to help study the impact of AVs on people with disabilities, and a slew of disability-focused programs.

Jade Hill, Toyota’s program manager of crash avoidance and advanced technologies, is an important voice in Toyota’s inclusivity push. The company has partnered with May Mobility out of Ann Arbor, Michigan, to launch an accessible AV shuttle in Indianapolis. May Mobility also has accessible shuttle services in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Arlington, Texas, and Hiroshima, Japan.

Toyota pulled its AVs from the Tokyo Paralympics after hitting a visually impaired athlete

But Toyota still has work to do to ensure its AVs are safe for riders as well as pedestrians. The company recently pulled its e-Palette AVs from the Tokyo Paralympics after hitting a visually impaired athlete. A day later, it reinstated the vehicles, saying that the accident occurred due to human error.

Cruise, which is a majority-owned subsidiary of General Motors, highlighted accessibility in its most recent investor call and offered renderings as proof. Cruise has also hired a full-time accessibility program manager who can boast that part of their fleet offers driverless rides to disabled individuals around San Francisco. Cruise built its AV, the Origin, with modularity in mind. From the low floor and high roof to the double-wide doors and removable seats, Cruise views the Origin as a blank canvas that it can modify with customer feedback. The Origin is scheduled for release in 2023 alongside an accessible variant.

But the Origin is still years away from service, and Cruise is facing challenges around its lack of accessibility right now. The company was recently accused by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority and several other government agencies of failing to offer service in low-income and minority areas or accommodate people using wheelchairs. The company defended itself by arguing that it was following the law.

Zoox, a California-based company recently acquired by Amazon, has engaged with major disability advocacy groups. Zoox has Braille on its vehicles’ internal emergency button, innovative uses of light and sound to communicate with riders and road users, and large visual displays inside the vehicle.

AV operators aren’t only thinking about the people who use their vehicles. A major concern among disabled people is getting hit by a car, and people like Anne Marie Lewis, AV safety regulatory lead at Argo, are making sure those accidents never happen. Argo, which is backed by Ford and VW, believes that geographical diversity will prepare its technology for complex scenarios. The company’s 3D maps are so detailed that Argo not only knows the locations of avenues but also where crosswalks are, abandoned signs, and even local regulations and the differences in pedestrian behavior depending on the city. And the maps will continue to stay current and detailed the more its software is used.

One of the problems faced by disabled people is an AI that identifies different body types and shapes. Argo has answers for that, too: “This [diverse] learning includes training our perception system with a wide array of people and their movement, including those using wheelchairs, so that we’re able to identify, classify, track and predict their behavior,” a spokesperson told The Verge. “If the self-driving system observes a three-headed monster (on Halloween, for example), it may not know what it is, but the perception system can still report that it sees an unknown object at a particular position and moving at a particular speed in a particular direction.”

One of the problems faced by disabled people is an AI that identifies different body types and shapes

Waymo released a video nearly a decade ago of one of its cars ferrying a man that lost 95 percent of his sight. The company followed that up with a 2015 video of the same man by himself in a Waymo AV — before many inclusive teams even started. The company’s ride-hailing service has conducted driverless rides since October 2020 in Phoenix, Arizona, including those with different accessibility needs. However, the company does not keep track of how many disabled riders it has served.

With all that feedback, as well as help from Google’s accessibility team, Waymo has created an app that follows WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), supporting screen readers and high contrast modes. The app can minimize your walking time to your ride, remotely honk the vehicle’s horn for low vision riders, and there is an option to choose what side of the street you get picked up on for those with mobility issues. While in the car, low vision riders can listen to detailed audio of key events on their trip. And through the DOT’s Inclusive Design Challenge, Waymo plans to integrate more inclusive features to its app, like haptic cues to navigate to your ride, headlight flashes to locate a vehicle, and more.

Waymo plans to integrate more inclusive features to its app

In late August, Waymo opened its ride-sharing service to “Trusted Testers” in San Francisco. Compared to the flat, open, and dry terrain of Arizona, the rides through the hilly, foggy, claustrophobic streets of San Francisco are sure to test the limits of Waymo’s technology. Waymo specifically stated that the Trusted Tester program is a “research-focused” effort with an aim to gather information related to accessibility. Those observations have caveats, though, because Waymo’s fleet consists of Jaguar I-Paces, which are not wheelchair-accessible. A spokesman says the company is working with a partner to provide WAVs to the Trusted Testers and plan to expand as they add riders.

A 2017 report from the Rudderman Family Foundation, an institution focusing on disability issues, concluded that autonomous cars could open up job opportunities for 2 million disabled people. The report also insisted that $19 billion would be saved on health care costs because disabled people would have dependable access to medical care.

Rory Cooper, a Paralympian in 1988 who has written three books and has 25 patents to his name, is the director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Human Engineering and Research Lab and is renowned in the disability community. Right now, he is an advisor for autonomous vehicle company Merlin Mobility and is also leading a study by the University Transportation Center to advise and learn from various AV companies.

For those reasons, Cooper doesn’t share the impatience expressed by disability rights lawyer Haben Girma and others in the disabled community. He thinks the future for disabled people looks brighter with more autonomous technology on the horizon.

“There is still much to be learned and to be done,” he said, “but at least the process seems to have started to move in an inclusive and accessible direction, which is extremely important as transportation is both life-sustaining and enabling for people with disabilities.”

Electric vehicles are the future for everyone — except disabled people

2021-07-02T09:00:00-04:00

In a Super Bowl commercial that aired earlier this year, GM declared that its electric vehicles were designed for everyone. The ad closed with the image of a one-armed surfer to emphasize its point. But sometime later, that surfer was replaced by an able-bodied counterpart, with no explanation for the switch. As a wheelchair user, I was left wondering whether people like me are being left out of the EV revolution?

There’s no doubt that EVs are going to be one of the pillars of our future, yet there are currently none on the market for the disabled. Retrofitting these vehicles with ramps seems close to impossible due to the architecture. And the only EV on the horizon that could be made accessible isn’t coming until 2023 — and even then, it’s unclear that it will be marketed toward disabled drivers.

I don’t drive because treatment for a brain tumor caused swelling that impacted my cranial nerves, corrupting my balance, motor skills, and causing my eyes to bounce. I did own a Dodge minivan with a converted ramp so that others could transport me in my electric wheelchair when I had to travel long distances or on tough terrain. For someone with an active life, these vans are a necessity. I was fortunate in that I had the financial support to purchase one, but for many disabled people who live off Social Security income or low-wage jobs, this option is prohibitive. And the price tag will only go up with new technology.

But price is not the problem at this juncture. Most electric vehicles use a so-called “skateboard architecture,” which includes the battery pack, the electric drivetrain, and the electrical architecture that rests under the floor of the vehicle. This makes an EV harder to get into for those with physical disabilities — if only by a minimal amount — because the floor is placed above the battery pack. For disabled drivers, an untapped consumer base of 61 million with nearly $500 billion of disposable income, that extra inch or two could be the reason for not getting a license or owning a car.

“I do feel that I might have a harder time getting into the driver’s seat if the battery raises the height of the floor.”

Kelly Dawson, a disability advocate and writer based in Los Angeles, has limited mobility due to cerebral palsy that mostly affects her legs. She can’t bend down to fill her tires with air because she can’t crouch and balance at the same time. But even as an ambulatory driver, she is worried about the challenges EVs might present her.

“I do feel that I might have a harder time getting into the driver’s seat if the battery raises the height of the floor,” she said. “With my current fuel-powered car, I can step or slide in, but an EV might be a tighter (potentially unsafe) squeeze.”

Dawson points out that “when cars were first introduced to the public at the beginning of the 20th century, disabled people were in no way a part of public life — they were actively excluded from it. The main difference with this chapter of automotive innovation is that it’s coming 30 years after the passage of the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act].”

Where this barrier for the disabled comes into focus is in the potential conversion of the vehicle. Dropping the floor of a gas-powered vehicle 10–14 inches would typically cost $25,000–35,000 and can be partially paid for with help from the state government or Department of Veterans Affairs. Roughly 20,000 of these conversions are done every year, according to Sam Abuelsamid, principal analyst for e-mobility at Guidehouse. However, vehicle conversion companies like MobilityWorks and Braunability, while being able to add handbrake equipment, can’t convert electric vehicles to have a ramp due to the battery’s position.

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Abuelsamid said that Braunability does offer a conversion for the Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrid, which has drop-down ramp access through the rear, but there are no fully electric minivans like that on the market today. Some larger electric vans will appear later this year in the Ford E-Transit and Brightdrop EV600 from GM, but those are prioritized for commercial fleets. The first real electric minivan expected to arrive is the VW ID Buzz in 2023.

Kevin Frayne worked for 34 years at GM before joining Braunability as its quasi-futurist. He recently spoke on behalf of the US Access Board at the Department of Transportation’s forum on equity. And he works closely with companies to consult on designs. He said this task will be a difficult one. “It’s not insurmountable, but companies have to start working with us now,” Frayne said.

“In this case, everything has to do with geometry and triangles.”

“In this case, everything has to do with geometry and triangles,” he said. Frayne has to think about things like roof height because the ADA requires door openings to be 56 inches tall, which makes it a problematic crunch when the floor is raised. If he has two inches to fit an ultra-thin ramp between the floor and the battery, he has to devise a blueprint for the ADA-mandated slope ratio of one inch of rise for every four inches of ramp — though Frayne and others think it should be 1:6. And that doesn’t even take into account automated tie-down systems to secure a wheelchair once inside a vehicle.

But conversions are not the only potential barriers for the disabled community. A four-year study by Zap-Map and Motability in the UK found that one-third of drivers with disabilities had difficulty finding a charge station they could use. The survey only included 2,200 people, and 176 of those considered themselves disabled, but that might have something to do with EV ownership among the disabled being so low due to income and access.

According to that survey, one reason for inaccessibility at charging stations is the heavy weight of charging cables. Like cellphone and laptop batteries, high-power charging generates a lot of heat in the cable, which is why they are typically insulated and liquid-cooled. This makes them heavier and harder to maneuver. Adding to the difficulty, the charging connectors need to be precisely aligned in order to slide in.

Other issues include the force required to connect the cables to the EV, the lack of curb-cuts to access the charging station, and parking spaces bunched too closely together. Hopefully, as electric vehicles become cheaper and more popular, charging station operators will abandon the current side-by-side setup to support disabled drivers as well as trucks, buses, and vehicles pulling trailers.

“It seems that disabled drivers and passengers are, at the moment, something of an afterthought”

In 2014, the Department of Energy released a report with measurements and images depicting a layout for charging stations. While it would be easy to install charging stations in old or unused parking spaces, by law, every lot must have four accessible spaces, and 1 in 6 must be van accessible. As EV expert Dan Caesar from Fully Charged says, “It seems that disabled drivers and passengers are, at the moment, something of an afterthought for the nascent electric vehicle/charging sector.”

I asked Henry Claypool, technology policy consultant for the American Association of People with Disabilities, about the obstacle of EV batteries in the floor of the vehicle. He was optimistic, recalling how in 2019, Volkswagen convened a meeting with a range of stakeholder groups to discuss building a purpose-built wheelchair-accessible vehicle as part of the company’s Inclusive Mobility initiative.

“At the end of this meeting, a few VW engineers came down to the parking garage to look at my aftermarket modified van,” Claypool told The Verge. “They observed the kneeling and ramp system and didn’t seem troubled by creating something like an electric vehicle with a battery in the floor. They seemed really committed.”

Claypool said Toyota is another company that is really advanced in accessibility. “It will be exciting to see them unveil an accessible AV at the Paralympics in Tokyo, Japan,” he said. “And the thing is, when one OEM successfully does this, everyone’s going to follow.”

What remains frustrating, though, is how disabled people are being used to sell products while being left out of the engineering decisions. The disabled community doesn’t want to drive gas-burning cars while everyone else zips around in zero-emission vehicles. Automakers shouldn’t put off the disabled community’s concerns because if we’re not included on a foundational level, it’s going to be more complex and expensive for everyone going forward.

“Disabled people are arguably the most innovative cohort of Americans,” says Dawson. “We shouldn’t just be behind the wheel of electric cars, we should also be calling the shots on how to build them.”

Update July 6th 9:26PM ET: An earlier version of this story claimed that disabled people have a disposable income of $500 million. In fact, their disposable income is $500 billion.