“Usually we don’t do this during rush hour,” says Ben Shukman. He’s driving a Lincoln MKZ sedan, trying to exit a gas station driveway and cross four lanes of traffic so he can make a left at the light 20 yards ahead. It’s 5 pm in Palo Alto, and Silicon Valley commuters are crawling home, leaving few gaps between the cars. Finally, the car in the closest lane stops, leaving a space for him. The car in the next lane over does too. Shukman slides in and makes the left.

“Good job, Ben,” says Shai Magzimof, giving a wave of thanks to those gracious humans. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat, while, in a garage miles away, Shukman controls the Lincoln from the kind of setup you’d find in the bedroom of a too-serious fan of racing video games. And he’s showing off the type of remote-control capability that every major player in the nascent world of robotic driving will end up relying on (at least for now) in some form or other.

Picking Up the Remote

Magzimof is the cofounder and CEO of Phantom Auto, a startup betting that this sort of long distance driving will be crucial to anyone looking to deploy (mostly) autonomous vehicles. “We’re not aiming to replace AVs,” he says. He wants to provide the ability to have a human briefly take control of the car whenever the robot encounters what engineering types call “edge cases.” It could be a construction zone, or a cop using hand signals to direct traffic, or the gaping maw of a sinkhole. Anything weird and complex enough to upset a computer system that's happiest when everyone follows the rules.

If a car gets in trouble, a human can use the car’s cameras and microphone to grok what’s going on. Phantom Auto

Phantom’s system is not for emergencies. If a crash seems imminent, it’s up to the car, not the human, to keep everyone safe. This is a backup system for moments when the car isn’t sure what to do, so it comes to a safe stop on its own and calls for help.

To make this work, Magzimof says he found a way to use cellular networks to maintain a strong connection between the human and the car, without the latency that has long bedeviled other teleoperation setups. Phantom Auto plans to establish call centers where a few humans will keep watch over a fleet of someone else’s robocars. If one gets in trouble, a human can use the car’s cameras and microphone to grok what’s going on. Then they can use a steering wheel and pedal combo there in the call center to do whatever needs doing. Once the world around the car is back to normal, the autonomous driving system resumes control. Magzimof says he has been in talks with various autonomy providers and has lined up a few (unnamed) customers. The last thing anybody wants is a robot car that gets stuck, stranding its passenger, blocking traffic, enraging others, after all.