G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft • Hacker News Board

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#311

Post by 6stringmerc » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

mangeletti wrote: post #234

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this: FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school. SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's o…

I think, just like with most predictions that are based on trends, the current set of expectations will be uprooted by an unforeseen technological advancement. I'll even go as far as predicting that this technological advancement will be a personal (or family) aerial vehicle[1] that makes commuting as easy as vehicular travel, but perhaps safer, and definitely faster. In other words, I think the automobile will dimin…

I think your prediction is a good one. I've been tracking certain technologies and have a wing concept for personal transportation that I'd really like to prototype in 2016, at least to show off the idea and run a couple tests. I envision it as needing only a 'driveway' worth of space to get a person airborn. Still contemplating the whole landing bit though haha.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#312

Post by ghaff » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 9:46 PM UTC

beau26 wrote: post #306

wil421 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We went from fliphone to total smartphone domination in 5 years. Smartphones cannot kill multiple people on a highway if the software malfunctions. What happens if I am going 75mph and my self driving car crashes and has to restart? What if one the sensors malfunctions and thinks it needs to swerve to avoid someone merging into my lane? With smartphones you arent putting the lives of whole families in your hand.

40,000 people a year die on American roadways right now. We are horrible drivers and get into hundreds of thousands of accidents per year. No software is perfect, but the bar is pretty low for computers to be better drivers than humans.

The bar might be higher than you think. There are a lot of fatalities true. But the number (which is closer to 30,000) represents about 1 fatality per 100 million miles driven. And a lot of those miles are at night, in snowstorms, etc.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#313

Post by Merad » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 9:56 PM UTC

gdubya wrote: post #254

Merad wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I think this is just totally disconnected from the reality of the average American who lives outside of a major urban center. 1. Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. If they all have a 15-20 minute commute (well below average for many areas) and the destinations for all three aren't in the same immediate vicinity, we're right back to the family needing 2-3 cars. 2. Eh, no.…

1. Ok, maybe 2 cars if the locations are in completely disparate locations, but carpooling is possible. 2. User feedback could be a useful deterrent against messing up someone else's SDC, in the same way that both drivers and passengers can leave feedback with Uber today. 3. True, but one can adapt to this. Or maybe i'm just hopelessly optimistic... :)

People already have the option to carpool, and rarely choose to take it. I don't really see that changing due to SDCs...

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#314

Post by zevyoura » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 10:02 PM UTC

SEJeff wrote: post #279

MajorLOL wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Many, many people already do this on public transport Total fantasy. Virtually nobody uses public transport. 5% of commuters use public transport. Relative to the car-pooling, who sees double the volume of users as public transport, 10%. http://traveltrends.transportation.org/Documents/CA10-4.pdf

Guess that depends on where you live. In cities like NYC, or Chicago (where I live), having a car in the city is common, but the minority.

In the US, only NYC has over half of households without a vehicle [0]. Chicago has only 28% with no vehicle.

[0] http://ns.umich.edu/new/releases/21923-hitchin-a-ride-fewer-...

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#315

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 10:04 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #303

frandroid wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We went from fliphone to total smartphone domination in 5 years. ABS is a sideshow, not a revolution. As soon as self-driven vehicles are market-ready, we'll see a massive car park upgrade within one car-generation, which I guess is 7 years. Droves of people will ditch their old cars just for the purpose of upgrading.

A smartphone doesn't cost more than the average American annual salary.

You don't buy a 747 to fly across the country do you? No, you buy a ticket from Southwest or another carrier.

Kids will one day laugh at how we used to buy vehicles instead of rent them by the miles. "Auto loans?!?" The horror!

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#316

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

karamazov wrote: post #264

spydum wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that trains require far less cognitive load to operate than a tractor trailer (sorry engineers!), and yet still require humans to operate.. I wonder if ever? I'm actually curious why trains haven't been automated at this point (in the US at least). It seems like an ideal first step (no navigational issues, retrofit some collision avoidance mechanisms, remote control, etc, and you are up and running).

My guess: train operators are probably a much lower percentage of the total cost of running a train than drivers are for trucks or cabs, removing the incentive for automation.

They are. It simply doesn't make sense to automate them away considering the amount of liability contained within a freight train traveling at high speeds down a rail corridor.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#317

Post by ergothus » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

Merad wrote: post #313

gdubya wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Ok, maybe 2 cars if the locations are in completely disparate locations, but carpooling is possible. 2. User feedback could be a useful deterrent against messing up someone else's SDC, in the same way that both drivers and passengers can leave feedback with Uber today. 3. True, but one can adapt to this. Or maybe i'm just hopelessly optimistic... :)

People already have the option to carpool, and rarely choose to take it. I don't really see that changing due to SDCs...

I don't carpool* because I hate having to be ready by an exact time each day, can't be done earlier and certainly not later.

If I was using an on-call car service that I could ping 10 minutes before I'm ready to go each day, I can do that without triggering my concerns.

*Note however: I currently commute by bus since I moved to Seattle, and I make up for hating being ready by an exact time by instead choosing a bus route that has a bus every 15 minutes.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#318

Post by toomuchtodo » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

sanderjd wrote: post #194

swax wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't Uber and Lyft middle-men? Why wouldn't car companies themselves offer a subscription service for access to their cars? You don't pay more to own a BMW, but you do pay more for a BMW subscription over a Honda one. Uber would probably be a cheaper subscription service for 'used' autonomous cars.

Because of specialization. Manufacturing cars is a different core competency than running fleets.

Except Tesla is trying to do both (build the cars first, then do the ridesharing).

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#319

Post by skorecky » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

yggydrasily wrote: post #304

Merad wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I think this is just totally disconnected from the reality of the average American who lives outside of a major urban center. 1. Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. If they all have a 15-20 minute commute (well below average for many areas) and the destinations for all three aren't in the same immediate vicinity, we're right back to the family needing 2-3 cars. 2. Eh, no.…

> Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. That's okay, once automation really gets going, Mom & Dad will be out of work, solving that problem.

That's kinda the point. We all work too much right now as it is. http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-...

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#320

Post by Aloha » Mon, Jan 04, 2016, 10:10 PM UTC

sjm-lbm wrote: post #309

karmacondon wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to derail this thread due to a passing mention of Edison's name, but. Edison's major inventions represented a difference in kind, not in degree, that drastically changed things for humanity. Think of how different life is as the result of recorded sound, the concept of an electric company or light bulbs for home use. Job's products were often well designed incremental changes. Apple made computers consum…

For what it's worth, I completely agree with you. My comment wasn't really meant to directly compare the two's accomplishments or contributions, just to point out that a lot of the popular criticism of Edison is somewhat unfair and could be equally applied to figures that (at least in popular history) have been borderline deified.

you hooked in to exactly why I pointed out edisons accomplishments.