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Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

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Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#101

Post by nxzero »

johnward wrote: post #45
nxzero wrote: post #6

As someone that follows lots of tech "trying to see the future" - to me Uber has the greatest hope of bring driving to the mainstream due to a number of factors. First, they have a lot of experience with litigation and working with local laws. They need to replace drivers, but unlike truck drivers - Uber will drive anywhere. Unlike trucks, there's the potential to allow the passenger to drive the car. Many more key r…

> bring driving to the mainstream Did you mean self-driving ?

Yes, that's correct.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#102

Post by technofiend »

dilap wrote: post #79
technofiend wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ubiquitous comment, as a person within the industry: there's a big difference between cars that have a hands-free driving mode, and cars that do not have a driver. Surely the pay is far less for the passive driver? If not I assume it will be soon.

Hmm, I'm not so sure. First, Uber drivers are already not making much. Drivers I've talked to here in SF say they are near $15/hour (though they can more in the form of bonuses if they hit certain hours-driven targets). Second, the job of a passive driver will actually be both more boring and harder -- you have to pay attention while doing nothing, but be ready to take over in a second. It's like being a passenger, e…

Your example of San Francisco is an outlier - there's too much upward pressure on wages there to let driving compensation fall too low.

Let's have the same conversation about Minneapolis, Dallas, St. Paul, Austin, Kansas City, etc. Austin is a great example of a city with a lot of unemployement and underemployment due to the massive student population. Can't you imagine a college student riding around listening to lectures on the radio (assuming they're actually trying to do their job) for $8/hr? I can. And I can see the next student saying "I'll do it for $7.50".

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#103

Post by ones_and_zeros »

meggar wrote: post #54
theandrewbailey wrote: post #28

I saw one of these a month ago when I was biking around the North Shore (downtown Pittsburgh). Its cameras on top were far more conspicuous than the renders in the article, though. This article said it would pick people up downtown, but how far would they go to drop off? The golden triangle is mostly grid-based, but go elsewhere in the city and the road topology gets jacked up fast (like Boston), especially in the so…

I wonder how it will handle the stop sign on the 376 on ramp in Squirrel Hill.

I'd imagine that'd be the easiest thing to automate.

if (currentLocation == Squirrel Hill on ramp){ car.Stop(); } car.merge()

and then it can communicate with the other autonomous vehicles anticipating a difficult merge in this location to allow the safest merge possible.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#104

Post by efuquen »

speleding wrote: post #84
nkoren wrote: post #15

Ubiquitous comment, as a person within the industry: there's a big difference between cars that have a hands-free driving mode, and cars that do not have a driver. The latter will be an absolute game-changer; the former can yield some marginal gains in safety and congestion, but does not really shatter any paradigms. This is the former. The latter will certainly happen eventually, but is orders of magnitude more chal…

We don't need to jump to completely driverless right away, there is a convenient intermediate step: The passenger can be the passive driver, and the car would drive to the pickup location empty. As soon as regulation allows, that step already gets you the major benefit of not having to "pay for the other dude in the car".

> the car would drive to the pickup location empty.

It would seem full driverless with nobody in the car is the big deal here. It doesn't really matter is someone will be behind the wheel later, you already had the thing driving around with no human to intervene in case it does something crazy. Don't see how that's an intermediary step.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#105

Post by potatolicious »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44
Retric wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could drive down every road in the US for under 10 million dollars. So as long as you can keep them updated I don't think highly detailed maps are a problem. Especially if this is supposed to be a backup for GPS.

There were 4 million miles of road in the USA in 2013. Sure you could drive them - but drive them in a special sensor-equipped vehicle? In a fleet of such vehicles? In a reasonable time? Its a big job, and $2.50 a mile seems pretty low.

> "Sure you could drive them - but drive them in a special sensor-equipped vehicle?"

Street view already did it... Not 100% coverage to be sure, but pretty darned close.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#106

Post by qyv »

speleding wrote: post #84
nkoren wrote: post #15

Ubiquitous comment, as a person within the industry: there's a big difference between cars that have a hands-free driving mode, and cars that do not have a driver. The latter will be an absolute game-changer; the former can yield some marginal gains in safety and congestion, but does not really shatter any paradigms. This is the former. The latter will certainly happen eventually, but is orders of magnitude more chal…

We don't need to jump to completely driverless right away, there is a convenient intermediate step: The passenger can be the passive driver, and the car would drive to the pickup location empty. As soon as regulation allows, that step already gets you the major benefit of not having to "pay for the other dude in the car".

Driving without anyone in the car is still completely driverless. That human-free car will still need to navigate through the environment with hitting anyone or anything with zero possibility of intervention.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#107

Post by johnward »

ap22213 wrote: post #75

It's interesting that they chose Pittsburgh. Having grown up there and they having lived in many different places since, I have learned to appreciate having learned to drive on those roads, especially during winter. Many roads in Pittsburgh, and western PA in general, can be very curvy and have tight-radius. They're also often steep. The on-ramps are peculiar because merging traffic must yield, visibility can be poor…

I imagine navigating 376 coming into Downtown out the of Fort Pitt tunnel to be insane. I can barely do it as a human. Everyone is entering and trying to cross the 4 lanes to exit on the opposite side with in about 100 yards of roadway.

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#108

Post by bodmd »

jdietrich wrote: post #100
bodmd wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need to verify that users have a valid driver's license. The problem is, how do you verify that the rider's identity is the same as the user who ordered the ride? Facial recognition?

No you wouldn't. Car sharing clubs like Zipcar deal with the same issue - they hire out cars on a completely unattended basis. If a customer chooses to pick up one of their cars and drive drunk or lend it to their cousin with a suspended license, the customer is liable.

Good point, don't know why I didn't think of Zipcar when I used a similar service last year.

Looks like the bigger problem might be people suing over accidents where they were distracted and forced to make a split second decision, when they 'reasonably' expected the car to be able to handle the conditions. (Not trying to shift the goal posts, just sharing a separate concern).

Re: Uber’s First Self-Driving Fleet Arrives in Pittsburgh This Month

#109

Post by JoeAltmaier »

potatolicious wrote: post #105
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were 4 million miles of road in the USA in 2013. Sure you could drive them - but drive them in a special sensor-equipped vehicle? In a fleet of such vehicles? In a reasonable time? Its a big job, and $2.50 a mile seems pretty low.

> "Sure you could drive them - but drive them in a special sensor-equipped vehicle?" Street view already did it... Not 100% coverage to be sure, but pretty darned close.

Any idea what that cost them?
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