Exploring the Future of Connected Vehicles (Part 1)

In this episode of the Reminger Report Podcast on Emerging Technologies, Zachary B. Pyers, Esq. is joined by Nick Rhoads, a law student at Capital University Law School, to dive into the world of connected vehicles. Nick shares his passion for transportation, from his love of muscle cars to his academic focus on connected vehicle technology and its privacy implications. They explore the evolving landscape of vehicle connectivity, from simple sensors to groundbreaking "vehicle-to-everything" technology that links cars with their environment. 

The discussion also touches on the safety, environmental, and economic benefits of connected vehicles, such as crash prevention and route optimization. While Nick is optimistic about the future, they also highlight the challenges of data privacy and the barriers to widespread adoption of these technologies. Join us for an in-depth look at the future of driving and how it could transform our roads and lives.

Transcript

ZBP      Zachary B. Pyers, Esq.
NR        Nick Rhoads

 | ZBP | Welcome to the next episode of the Reminger Report Podcast on Emerging Technologies. I’m excited today to have Nick Rhoads with us who is going to be talking about connected vehicles. So, Nick I will say this, he is a law student currently at Capital University Law School. He is working on a research project/paper hopefully to be published on connected vehicles. And I know that our podcast has talked a lot over the last few years about autonomous vehicles and ride sharing, the implications of some of those and I’m really excited because this is a technology – or an aspect and implication that we necessarily haven’t really explored or talked about on the podcast today or to date, and so I’m happy to be talking about it today. So welcome Nick and if you could just introduce yourself to our listeners and viewers.
| NR | Well first Zach, thank you for having me, really appreciate it. As Zach said, my name is Nick Rhoads, I am a 3L law student at Capital University Law School. My background is actually kind of – well how I became interested in this topic is when I was growing up, me and my dad always built muscle cars so, I’m a huge gear head, I’m very, just kind of interested in it in the transportation area originally, and then I went to University of Dayton and got my mechanical engineering degree. Originally planning on going into the vehicle industry, the car manufacturing industry. I was always mechanically inclined and with the, you know, kind of movement toward electric vehicles, a lot of those car manufacturers are moving to electrical engineers and at that time, I didn’t really have the desire to go into electrical engineering so I kind of pivoted, did some construction work for a little while, and then I randomly found myself in politics as one does and I actually kind of got the political bug and for the past two and a half years I’m in a new role now, but I covered transportation policy for the Ohio House of Representatives, so I’ve kind of been able to be involved in the transportation industry or interested in this connected vehicle thing kind of a multifaceted way and you know, whether personally, whether in law school or whether in my job, so I kinda come at this from a love of it and you know, when I joined law review last year at Capital, I kind of just was like woah, you know. Every part of my life has kind of revolved around this transportation aspect and I’ve always been interested in connected vehicle technology. So that’s kind of where I came to this as Zach said, I kind of wrote my law review article around connected vehicle data and mainly on the privacy law concern. Not promised yet, but very hopeful to get published. But yeah, so that’s my background.
| ZBP | So, while I want to talk about connected vehicles, I do have to ask because muscle cars – what were – what did you restore or how many of them and what were they?
| NR | Yeah, so well I’m a Ford guy, so I’ll just preface that -
| ZBP | Oh.
| NR | Yes, so my dad and I – and I haven’t built in a while – so I work during the day, and I do night law school so, you know, my ability to build cars has kind of subsided with my schedule recently. When I was a kid, you know, we would flip cars, we’d buy – were a fox body family, so kind of in that late 70s and then to the early 2000s arena of Mustangs, but we normally get kind of like a junker or even, you know, a standard – a base vehicle and then we just kind of build it up. And I actually – a fun story so, my grandpa in 1991 bought a brand-new Mustang off the lot. A 1991 Mustang LX Convertible, it was white with red interior, beautiful car.
| ZBP | I actually think I know – I can picture it in my head, so I’m with you.
| NR | Vanilla Ice, have you ever seen that music video of Vanilla Ice, it’s literally that same car but with red interior, so I’ll just kind of paint that picture because it’s got the white with the red lining and long story short, it kind of - when I was turning 16, my grandpa hadn’t driven the car in a while, he still owned it, but it kind of was sitting in the garage, kind of collecting dust and he told me when I was – I think I just turned 15, he said, “if you build it - if you rebuild it and you restore it’s yours when you turn 16” and so, I rebuilt the car. I put a – we put a new block – a 302 block, I think we boarded it out to a 309, bigger heads, kind of, muscle-carred it up and yeah, so I still have that car to this day. That was almost 10 years ago now, but you know, that car’s my baby, but we’ve kind of – I actually also started racing, drag racing, my dad and I drag raced cars a little while. We don’t have a drag car right now, but we’ve kind of circled in and out of various box body Mustangs, so, yeah.
| ZBP | So I grew up in a Ford family and I don’t want to get too far afield off our topic, but I grew up in a Ford family as well but much earlier and so the first car I learned to drive was actually a 1913 model T and my parents still own them but that was the first car I learned to drive in and they – my first car that I actually drove in high school was a 1964 Ford Falcon Sprint Convertible and it was baby blue -
| NR | Oh.
| ZBP | And my parents still have it. It’s tucked in the garage, but it was a gorgeous car.
| NR | Yeah, that’s awesome.
| ZBP | And of course, nobody else had one at my high school.
| NR | Yeah.
| ZBP | So everybody knew, they were like “oh that’s Zach’s car” and frankly, I enjoyed it a little too much so sometimes people would say “I saw your son driving he was going a little too fast in my neighborhood”, but I get it.
| NR | Yeah, I kind of have a similar thing in high school, I didn’t drive obviously a convertible, I’m very hesitant to take it out a lot, you know, I only take it out when it’s clear outside or you know, it’s sunny and no rain in the forecast, like 0%. Like even if it’s 5% I won’t drive it. My kind of claim to fame was you could always hear where I was. You always heard me before you saw me and you know, if I drove that car to school it – it wouldn’t – the school windows, I don’t want to exaggerate but, the principal always knew when I got to school when I drove the Mustang, so.
| ZBP | Yeah, I get it. I get it. Now, so tell me – we’re talking about connective vehicles, give us the 30,000-foot overview. When we think of like the traditional vehicles, like that ’91 Mustang you’re talking about or my ’64 Ford Falcon Sprint Convertible, give us a contrast when we think of traditional vehicles verses connected vehicles, what are they and what technologies are we kind of talking about?
| NR | Yeah, in connected vehicles, there’s – just broadly speaking is just a way that the car connects to the internet or car connects to something other than just a mechanical nature itself but also is integrated into the mechanical portions of the car as well. But I think a simple example of the thing that almost every car nowadays has that is technically connected vehicle technology would be sensors. Mirror sensors, you know, blind spot, cruise control is kind of a feature of a connected vehicle. We don’t really consider that part of like, a car being connected, that’s kind of the breakdown of what a connected vehicle is. Is a way or data transmission – or car vehicle data that is collected to transmit to other portions of car whether that’s exterior with the car auto manufacturer or within the car vehicle diagnostics, which that’s another great point. A very simple one is when your check engine light comes on. That is a way of your car reading its own diagnostics and telling you something is not working right and that is a version of a connected vehicle. Now of course, those are very simplistic but you know, as we see technology advancing and in modern cars nowadays, almost every model of car – we’re seeing a lot more features that are kind of, you know, I think understand what a connected vehicle is whether it’s dynamic cruise control, whether it’s lane assist, and even in like apple car play, that’s another modern example of kind of what connected vehicles can do; connecting to your device or your music. And really, and I know Zach, we had talked about prior that you had previously talked in this podcast about autonomous vehicles, and I think -
| ZBP | Yeah.
| NR | There are so many differences – they are very close together but the main difference between what a connected vehicle is and then what an autonomous vehicle is, is the autonomous vehicle’s ability to make independent decisions. So a lot of what a vehicle – the data that it collects is what makes the car connected but the ability to make the independent decisions is what makes it autonomous. So all autonomous cars are connected to some extent but not all connected vehicles are autonomous if that distinction makes some sense.
| ZBP | It does, it definitely does, I mean and I think – so I mean I have a car, I have a Honda that’s five years old now that my wife primarily drives, but I know that there are times where it has to kick ‘updates’ and it has to be connected to my home Wi-Fi in order to download the updates and I think as I’m thinking about myself and you’re talking about the vehicle being connected to the internet, the first thing that came to mind was ‘oh, have I updated my wife’s car recently?’. Now, and I know this sounds kind of a weird thought to pop in my head, but I’m thinking yeah that’s probably exactly what Nick’s talking about.
| NR | Yeah, yeah and that type of connection you’re talking about right there is called vehicle to cloud connection. And there’s a variety of types of connections and they all kind of culminate into a vehicle to everything. And vehicle to everything is a type of connection point where your vehicle, no matter where it is, is connected to basically everything in the environment around it. Whether that’s a pedestrian walking on a crosswalk, whether that’s a car that’s next to it, whether that’s a stop light that’s a quarter mile down the road, whether that’s the like a database where, you know, its location data is stored. That is the vehicle to everything connection and that technology is – I want to say it’s available now, it’s kind of been created now, but its not readily, you know, market-based now. And not every car you’re buying off the lot is going to be vehicle to everything connected, but that technology’s definitely available it just needs to kind of become more marketable I guess I would say. But there are other types of connections, right. You have to vehicle to vehicle, your car being able to sense another vehicle around it, your car being connected to another vehicle around it and being able to kind of, and this is where autonomous speech would come in, but making decisions based off what’s around you. You know, you have vehicle to pedestrian, which kind of uses like LiDAR technology to like, you know, laser or sensor kind of figuring out if there’s a pedestrian nearby. You have vehicle device, which I kind of mentioned earlier which has to do with, you know, apple car play or Spotify music type stuff. And then you have, you know, vehicle to network as well. So, your vehicle being able to connect to a 5G or Wi-Fi network which a lot of new cars now are offering their own Wi-Fi. Like I know Audi connect, it is a – it has a Wi-Fi based car-based Wi-Fi network, which is kind of a new way – my car is four years old now and it doesn’t have something like that, but I know quite a few car manufacturers are offering that option as well for that vehicle to network connection. And then even, which this is the technology that I have not really looked a lot into but there’s also a vehicle to grid connection, which would be where especially in the electric vehicle circumstance, where your car would be able to supply energy back to the grid. And so this would be through a formal connection whether it’s on a charging station or not, but the car being able to interact with the electric grid around it. So I am not super – I know it exists. I’m not super familiar with that type of technology but all those culminate into what we call vehicle to everything. And that is where your car is connected to everything around it.
| ZBP | You know it’s funny, since your talking about the vehicle to grid, I can’t help but think about old street cars that ran on electric or cable cars that ran on electric cables over head and I’m thinking to myself and I know it’s a little bit different because you’re talking about the vehicles being able to put power back into the grid rather than taking power from the grid but I still can’t help but think whether this is the technology that was used 100 years ago – similar technology that was used 100 years ago that there is now, maybe its not the exact same technology but at least the same theory that it may be coming full circle again.
| NR | Yeah, yeah it is crazy to think about and I think, and you know, I really feel like people don’t truly understand the capabilities of their car, right. And you go to your dealer and you’re like I want all the features, or I want heated seats, I want a heated steering wheel, I want to be able to just have my hand on the wheel and not have to do anything else because it’s convenient and I was the same way. Like, I love my lane assist and my, you know, dynamic cruise control but what that technology actually means and the capabilities of what it does is something that I don’t really think the public has truly understood and that kind of gets into where my article talks about the privacy concerns around this type of technology because it all is data based. It all works on the data that your vehicle collects. And were talking – were not talking oh no your vehicle, you know, the sensor goes off, that data gets sent to the car manufacturer, were not talking about – were talking about a constant monitoring, hundreds of millions of data points. Weekly, daily, monthly, that a car manufacturer or other third-party entity is obtaining from your vehicle that includes not only your, you know, just kind of vehicle diagnostics, but also your location data, your driving behavior data. And even and this is, I know this is going to sound very terminator-like, but your health monitoring data. Like think about, you have – like I have an apple watch on right now, this can monitor your heart rate, stuff like that. This has connectivity features, this, in some instances, can it connect to your vehicle and so were talking about your vehicle realistically being able to connect to your health monitoring data and so, you know, that’s kind of where my article comes from of just how expansive this connection – and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I think this is great and you know, connected vehicles, autonomous vehicles, really help with driver experience. They really do.  But you know, just kind of around – I don’t truly think that people understand how expansive these connected vehicles actually can operate in.
| ZBP  | So let’s, one lets – you said a lot there so I want to break it down just a little bit and I want to get into the data and the security, the regulation, because I know that was a huge thrust of your article.
 | NR | Yeah.
| ZBP | How are we – but you mentioned the benefits of it. So, let’s talk about the benefits first and then I’ll kind of shift into the data aspect of it. The – when you talk about the benefits; what – I know you’ve mentioned lane keep assist dynamic cruise control or adaptive cruise control. Are we seeing these vehicles providing some sort of actual safety benefit to the general public?
| NR | 100% Zach and no, there is actually – I reference and it’s a study, National Highway Transportation Safety Administration study in my article that says, you know, connective vehicle or vehicle to everything technology could prevent up to 80% of crashes. I mean 80% and this, I’ll even say too, connected vehicles are going to create and actually I believe, Anthony Fox, who’s a former U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary, states connected vehicles aren’t going to help people survive crashes, they’re going to help prevent crashes all together and so were moving to an arena of where were not – the safety features in a car aren’t built to help people survive the crash, its gonna be just completely eliminating the crashes all together. Now that’s going to take a lot of, you know, its really kind of a market thing where older vehicles who don’t have this technology are going to have to come out, come off and kind of be retired and then these new connected vehicles come onto the road. Because right now I would say that we are in a situation where connected vehicles do, you know, protect or prevent crashes very well. It’s just the fact that there are other non-connected vehicles on the road that don’t and so we haven’t really hit that kind of like apex to where there’s more connected vehicles verses not but I think that – yeah, I think 100% connected vehicles truly will once they are, you know, universally on the roadway will not necessarily help people survive crashes but just prevent them all together.
| ZBP | You know, and I’ve – so, I’ve spoken a lot about autonomous vehicles over the years and there are statistics out there and I’m afraid if I give you any sort of specific statistic at this point off the top of my head that I’m going to be making it up so I’m not going to say it, but the – when you talk about the lost economic activity from automobile accidents specifically from taking the workers out of the work force whether that’s through an automobile accident that leads to death or just a substantial injury right, because if I get injured and end up in the hospital for a week and I have a broken arm and I’m not working for another two or three weeks, the economic activity related to that, not to mention, the health bills, the insurance costs to the damage of the vehicles and all of that, right? They – you’re talking about, we’re talking about economic activity in the billions, with a B, that you might be able to save because you don’t have these issues, right? And I don’t know anybody who’s ever said you know what, I really wish there were more car accidents. It’s just not something people say, right, because nobody wants more car accidents and so to your point I really do think, you know when you’re talking about reducing these connected vehicles, reduce them, at least when I’ve seen the statistics with the autonomous vehicles and as you’ve indicated I know there’s some overlap. But you’re talking about real, I don’t want to say savings right, because – but you’re talking about insurance premiums increasing, you’re talking about, you know, businesses making more money because workers are more productive. You’re talking about a whole host of benefits, of these potential vehicles, so I mean, I agree I think it’s a wonderful thing, and you know, hopefully we get there sooner rather than later. 
| NR | And I would even say this, this is kind of like futuristic looking but, you know, we talk about a lot of talk – you know, and the conversation changes in Washington all the time. But you know, a lot of companies have environmental goals and a lot of that surrounds, you know, the carbon footprints, stuff like that, you know, there is also environmental benefits of these connected vehicles with route optimization, right? And so, that is another, you know, conserving resources and you know, hitting environmental goals is also apart of these connected vehicle data’s – connected vehicles as well, so that’s also something to think about.
| ZBP | Yeah, you know, I mean so that’s interesting that you mentioned that, because as you mentioned that, I think about certain GPS apps that I use on my phone which is connected to my vehicle and if there is – if there’s construction or there’s a traffic accident, or there’s, you know, heavy congested traffic in a certain area – the GPS’ dynamic not like it used to be – where they’re like this is the route, take it. So it will say, oh, re-routing, get off at this exit all of a sudden and I’m like why am I getting off here? This is not the way to go.
| NR | Yep.
| ZBP | And then all of a sudden, I see the original route is in bright red because it’s saying that there was a traffic crash or something and the highways blocked. But to your point, my car would be sitting there potentially idling on the highway for who knows how long – so not only does it save me time, but to your point – it saves the fuel, the admissions, from sitting there.
| NR | Yep, yep exactly and so we can even look at connected vehicles from that aspect of environmental goals as well. So, a wide range of benefits and I am, you know, I may sound skeptical at points in this podcast about, kind of, some of the aspects of a connected vehicle, but I think their benefits are tremendous, I you know, am really excited to see where the industry goes further. It’s just – we also have to sure that we aren’t sacrificing, you know, whether safety concerns or our data privacy because of these connected vehicles, so, I do want to preface that I am all for connected vehicles and I love the technology and I am supportive of the direction it is going.
| ZBP | Now, you mentioned kind of hitting this, kind of peak where we crest over – are there major obstacles or challenges that we see now, like that’s impeding our ability to kind of implement this technology?
| NR | You know, I don’t really think there’s any hard barriers that we see, I just think it’s a natural market thing. You know, we’re seeing, you know, the more newer connected vehicles that come out, what we call now the older cars, you know, 10-year-old cars now are also now connected still. It’s really just kind of a natural thing of getting these, you know, 20, 25-year-old cars off the road and then people buying what is now gonna be a cheaper connected vehicle. So other than price, and I really think we see the price going down especially as, you know, newer cars come onto the market, it’s really just kind of a natural economic kind of turn we see, right? We just need the cars to become cheaper so that they’re more widely bought is really the only barrier that I see. Now, we can talk about the infrastructure concerns kind of our roadways and whatnot that would help benefit these connected vehicles,  but as far as the connected vehicles themselves the barriers really the price is the only thing that I see and just the natural retirement of non-connected vehicles.
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