ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Nigel Tunnacliffe and Matt Harvey spent years building a way to retrofit adaptive cruise control into old cars - a Raspberry Pi, a camera, and a turbocharged Miata that accelerated on its own down Carmel Valley Road. Then the customer interviews came back: nineteen out of twenty people would never have anything installed in their vehicle. They killed it. They’re now CEO and CTO of Coastline Academy, which teaches hundreds of in-car lessons a day across many states on a mission to eradicate car crashes. They and Neal get into the smoke test that had strangers offering money within the hour, why every driving school they called turned down free customers, and what it took to become licensed instructors themselves. Plus a Canadian taco and a taqueria in the back of an Encinitas grocery store.
Key topics
* Traffic Tractor: the commute side project that started it
* A Raspberry Pi, a camera, and a self-accelerating Miata
* Training a model to mute TV commercials
* Ripping open the floorboard to find the accelerator wire
* Why 19 of 20 drivers won’t install anything in their car
* Killing a product that worked because the market said no
* The smoke test that drew customers within an hour
* Every driving school they called said they were full
* Becoming licensed instructors - 100 lessons each
* Mesh-network expansion, node by node, across California
* Why crossing a state line broke the entire playbook
* Whether today’s teens are the last to need a license
* A Canadian beaver tail folded like a taco, and El Nopalito in Encinitas
Links & resources
* Newschoolers, Matt’s ski social network
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