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Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

reuters.com

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Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#181

Post by gaur »

msoad wrote: post #144

TLDR: It's not self driving. It's data collecting cars for now. I know a little bit about this. It's not "self-driving" car per se. You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars. But to get there we need a lot of data. Uber and Lyft saw all the rides on their systems and thought if we had a lot of sensors in cars and recored all of that we could have the winning factor for self driving ca…

> You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars.

Why not? Doesn't the Google car have a near-spotless record with minimal human intervention?

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#182

Post by ghaff »

gaur wrote: post #181
msoad wrote: post #144

TLDR: It's not self driving. It's data collecting cars for now. I know a little bit about this. It's not "self-driving" car per se. You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars. But to get there we need a lot of data. Uber and Lyft saw all the rides on their systems and thought if we had a lot of sensors in cars and recored all of that we could have the winning factor for self driving ca…

> You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars. Why not? Doesn't the Google car have a near-spotless record with minimal human intervention?

Under a very limited set of conditions. Anyone who believes that this translates into door-to-door general driving without a human even present anytime remotely soon is... optimistic.

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#183

Post by RealCasually »

ghaff wrote: post #182
gaur wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars. Why not? Doesn't the Google car have a near-spotless record with minimal human intervention?

Under a very limited set of conditions. Anyone who believes that this translates into door-to-door general driving without a human even present anytime remotely soon is... optimistic.

Living in Mountain View and driving with Google's self driving cars every day, I have to say I think they are quite a bit further than you give them credit and those conditions appear to be less limited than you are letting on here.

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#184

Post by Someone »

icebraining wrote: post #163
Someone wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 32 rides per day? I would think that's pushing the limit. You will have to buy cars for peak times, so most of them will see only a few hours of use each day. At a guessed 6 hours of busy service a day, that's 5 trips an hour, or 6 minutes to drive to a customer and 6 to drive him where he wants to be. Also, a risk here is that other large parties will make the same calculation, flood the market (anybody with mo…

6 minutes to drive to a customer and 6 to drive him where he wants to be. You're assuming that each ride is independent, but that's already not the case with their Smart Routes - the driver picks up a customer, then picks up another one on the way, then drops off the first and picks up a third, etc. The goal stated by their CEO is "perpetual rides", in which the car is never without a passenger.

Perpetual rides may be their goal, but I don't see how they will not get there. For example, there's no way they are going to find as many people wanting to go to sport stadiums as are wanting to get away from them, just after the end of the game, and stadiums typically are so far out of about every other destination that they cannot make a detour there with a paying passenger on board to pick up a second passenger.

That applies to a lesser extent to such things as theaters and cinemas, and even suburbs (who wants to get picked up there at 1 AM to fill the car that that theater goer took home?)

They will get below 50:50 for "at least one passenger on board", but it would surprise me if they managed to beat a 25:75 ratio.

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#185

Post by datawrangler »

RealCasually wrote: post #183
ghaff wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under a very limited set of conditions. Anyone who believes that this translates into door-to-door general driving without a human even present anytime remotely soon is... optimistic.

Living in Mountain View and driving with Google's self driving cars every day, I have to say I think they are quite a bit further than you give them credit and those conditions appear to be less limited than you are letting on here.

Something I've long wondered: howwell do they deal with inclement weather?

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#186

Post by datawrangler »

RealCasually wrote: post #183
ghaff wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under a very limited set of conditions. Anyone who believes that this translates into door-to-door general driving without a human even present anytime remotely soon is... optimistic.

Living in Mountain View and driving with Google's self driving cars every day, I have to say I think they are quite a bit further than you give them credit and those conditions appear to be less limited than you are letting on here.

Something I've long wondered: howwell do they deal with inclement weather?

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#187

Post by avn2109 »

Someone wrote: post #62
mixedbit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if they expect to use them as self driving cars (which the article mentions), the investment can pay out pretty quickly. Say they can make on average 5$ per ride. To make $60k they need 12k rides. A self driving car should be able to easily make 12k rides in one year (only 32 rides per day).

Only 32 rides per day? I would think that's pushing the limit. You will have to buy cars for peak times, so most of them will see only a few hours of use each day. At a guessed 6 hours of busy service a day, that's 5 trips an hour, or 6 minutes to drive to a customer and 6 to drive him where he wants to be. Also, a risk here is that other large parties will make the same calculation, flood the market (anybody with mo…

>> "...what if other manufacturers turn out to have better or cheaper self-driving cars?"

Cheaper, certainly. Everyone will have cheaper SD cars than Benz, just as everyone has cheaper cabs than an S-class today. But better? If history is any guide, German luxury will be the gold standard of automotive UX for our lifetimes and beyond.

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#188

Post by TimCinel »

throw121211 wrote: post #157
fit2rule wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is what you need to make an auto-driving automobile acceptable to the general public. With Uber spin, Daimler can push on the driver-less car in many markets.. Sci-fi days ahead methinks.

Why would it be in Daimler's interest to push driver-less cars? Their sales would go down in the long run.

Long term, driverless cars are going to happen so they might as well get in early.

If you can't beat them, join them.

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#189

Post by Johnie »

"Loss-making Uber would make drastic savings on its biggest cost -- drivers -- if it were able to incorporate self-driving cars into its fleet."

Umm, don't they get the cars for free now? How many rides will the cars need drive to break even compared to cheap drivers and no capital cost now?

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#190

Post by agildehaus »

datawrangler wrote: post #185
RealCasually wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Mountain View and driving with Google's self driving cars every day, I have to say I think they are quite a bit further than you give them credit and those conditions appear to be less limited than you are letting on here.

Something I've long wondered: howwell do they deal with inclement weather?

They do well in rain but snow remains a problem, not due to icy roads (at SXSW Chris Urmson said they do well on slick roads) but that the "better than GPS" LIDAR-based location tracking stops working when snow is on the ground.

The car simply cannot figure out where it is when there's a significant layer of snow on the ground because the reference maps stop looking like what the car is seeing.

https://youtu.be/Uj-rK8V-rik?t=46m22s

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