Is U2C serious? Help me make it make sense....

[Charles Hunter]

How does this affect their FTA grant that calls for (IIRC) fully autonomous service by a certain date? JTA said NAVI was just a bridge to the fully autonomous Holon vehicles.

[Charles Hunter]

Headline on ActionNews US DOT official praises Jacksonville for its autonomous vehicles

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Transportation Authority unveiled a commemorative bus on Monday honoring the 250th anniversary of America's independence at JTA's Autonomous Innovation Center, or AIC.
In attendance was U.S. Department of Transportation Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology Seval Oz.

Oz credited Jacksonville for its courage in integrating autonomous vehicles into public transit while the rest of the nation is still talking about it.

"Innovation does require courage, it requires boldness, it requires perseverance, and it requires a sense of vision as to where we should be, as opposed to where we are," Oz said. "Navi represents more than autonomous vehicle deployment — It represents proof that the autonomous public transportation can safely and successfully, with the public trust, operate as part of a real ongoing transit system serving customers throughout the region."

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Service, or NAVI. But some say its first year has been less than perfect.

On March 5 of this year, the Florida Department of Transportation saw a demonstration of the vehicles. Reports show that the demonstration required seven manual assists, challenging the idea that the system is truly autonomous.

They also found that NAVIs cannot pull back into traffic and often make hard stops due to misjudging field conditions like flags or pedestrians on the sidewalk.

Still, JTA CEO Nat Ford says our country is in the midst of a transformative period in public transportation.

"Every day that Navi is operating, it demonstrates that autonomous mobility is not a theoretical dream," Ford said. "It's actually operational, it's practical, and is helping to write the next chapter in the evolution of transportation in the United States."

We wanted to ask about Navi's low ridership and high expenses, but neither JTA nor the feds were taking our questions today.

https://www.actionnewsjax.com/news/local/us-dot-official-praises-jacksonville-its-autonomous-vehicles/BFR72M4H2VGQBFL5LGVNSTVKAE/#Echobox=1780357093

[jaxlongtimer]

Credit Holon leaders with being much more candid and transparent than JTA.

JTA would have us believe U2C will be working any day now.

Holon admits to all the current shortcomings to be overcome, that this remains a "developing" technology and that the timeline remains uncertain, perhaps 5 to 10 years out, if ever, not "just around the corner." 

Surely Nat Ford & Co. will be out to pasture by then, removed from the likely conclusion that U2C is a failed concept.  Until then, they remain secure in their well paying positions as they bait their board and politicos with an unlikely outcome.

Read between the Holon quote lines... this is a risky, unproven and not-assured project and U2C is really a test bed for a new technology, not an actual public-serving mass transit project.  So, Jax taxpayers are paying $400+ million to be the testing lab for Holon and nothing more.  Holon admits the "gamble is too hard" which means it is mitigating risk by involving JTA as a "partner."  Thus, JTA's mission as a public transit agency is far from aligning with the U2C project which equates to a technology "start up," more suitable for Silicon Valley than the streets of Downtown Jacksonville. 

Time to clean house... the staff and the out-to-lunch board.

...Holon is not positioning itself as the autonomous driving software company. Liebelt said Benteler's strength is manufacturing, supply chains, vehicle platforms and industrial execution. The company is one of the largest automotive suppliers in the world, with more than 100 factories and roughly 25,000 employees globally.

But the autonomous shuttle business depends on a broader ecosystem: vehicle manufacturing, autonomous technology providers, transit agencies, regulators and operators.

Liebelt said that ecosystem has not developed as quickly as many in the industry expected several years ago.

"We can't make a quick decision by saying, 'OK, let's open the factory, let's hire whatever, 500 people, and then let's see if the tech guys are keeping their promises,'" Liebelt said. "This gamble is too hard for us."

The issue, Liebelt said, is less about a single piece of hardware or software and more about the full safety case for operating purpose-built autonomous transit vehicles on public roads.

That includes how vehicles respond to edge cases, how responsibility is divided among manufacturers, technology providers and transit operators, and how regulators become comfortable with vehicles that do not have a traditional driver.

Liebelt said the industry has also learned from high-profile setbacks in the autonomous vehicle sector, including Cruise, the General Motors-backed company that halted operations after a 2023 pedestrian incident in San Francisco and was later folded into GM.

Safety, reputation and public trust are now inseparable from the production timeline, he said....

...Jacksonville gives Holon and JTA a place to test, learn and refine the model in a major U.S. city without some of the complications of a larger global gateway market.

....Holon needs to get vehicles into the market, work through commissioning and regulatory steps, support JTA's autonomous transit ambitions and demonstrate enough demand to justify larger production....


...Liebelt said success over the next five to 10 years would be Jacksonville becoming a model for how autonomous transit can be integrated into a U.S. city...

https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2026/06/01/autonomous-vehicle-factory-plans-shift-gears.html

[thelakelander]

^Basically doubled down on what's been said here for a good decade now. I'll never understand why JTA and Jax had to blow hundreds of millions in local tax money in something that anyone using logic could see the risk pretty quickly for free.