I was starting to get the feeling, looking at Google's lidar-on-the-roof design, that they were getting a bit obsolete before even making it to market, having suffered from the curse of being first and having to build on older tech.
Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
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Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
#52I'm wondering what this pivot will do the morale in the Chauffeur team. There has been so much turbulence in the team with several key members leaving to form their own company because they were so frustrated with the pace. I can't imagine partnering with a traditional automaker will increase the pace.
> I can't imagine partnering with a traditional automaker will increase the pace. Right? I was thinking exactly the same. One would think that having a car built in-house enabled them to iterate that much quicker. Then again, Google is full of smart people, so there surely is a reason behind this decision.
One would think that having a car built in-house
enabled them to iterate that much quicker.
As long as you're willing to have some sensors and actuators visible (i.e. you're working on a prototype rather than a consumer-ready product) there's not much technical value added from building a custom car vs modifying an existing one. Indeed, it can easily slow you down as now you have a bunch of work to do developing a new car.
The car that won the DARPA grand challenge was fairly close how it came off the production line - except for an off-the-shelf electrical actuator system developed for disabled drivers, an off-the-shelf secondary alternator to power all the sensors and computers, and a bunch of sensors bolted to the roof rack.
The reasons to build your own are business/PR rather than technical/development speed. For example they can make it look cute and unaggressive which might be good PR; or insist on a public transport style vandal proof design for an on-demand business model. These might be good reasons, but they're business reasons not technical reasons.
Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
#53This was known and expected.
Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
#54But they are working with other car makers. Regardless, Google kick-started a lot of other car makers to start developing self-driving cars or made it OK for other car makers to be more public about their efforts. Similarly to Tesla in pushing EV's in other car makers.
Which tells me there's something fundamentally wrong with the automotive (for these specific examples, but there are others) industry. Edit: typo.
Eh, other companies were heading towards the same goal in smaller increments (and more slowly). First it was cruise control, then emergency auto-braking, then assisted cruise control, then lane assist, then lane change assist, then object identification with cameras, etc... It's just that they didn't publicise their goal of 'the car will do all the driving'. It was the same logical endpoint though.
Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
If Google develop the car, they need to do all the end user support. This is not in the DNA of Google. If they provide the technology to a car manufacturer, they can extract a fair amount of money from them and they do not have to deal with direct end user support. When my car has a problem, I want to talk directly with someone to get it fixed.
> This is not in the DNA of Google. Google has ventured in that area though, just take a look at Pixel, their smartphone. But the scale difference between developing a smartphone and a car is quite a big step. I am not that surprised though, getting into the car market is difficult and unsure. Just doing the technology part seems to make more sense imo.
I would be excited to see acquisitions or serious partnerships from both Google and Apple. By partnerships, I expect something like what Google did with its Nexus devices. For example, a google car, manufactured by and advertised with Volvo, but with its own brand, logo, etc.
Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
#56See, "Everything other than the highway is really hard, and Tesla already beat us all to market there."
Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is not in the DNA of Google. Google has ventured in that area though, just take a look at Pixel, their smartphone. But the scale difference between developing a smartphone and a car is quite a big step. I am not that surprised though, getting into the car market is difficult and unsure. Just doing the technology part seems to make more sense imo.
Yes: and just take a look at how many people are unhappy with the support they get on their Pixel[1]. The number of people who would be able to tolerate Google's level of hands-off with a car, where the expectation is typically "for the first couple years if anything is even slightly weird you can drive it to your local dealer and someone's job is to try to make you super happy", is going to be much much much lower t…
This may be a level of service you expect, but isn't something traditionally handled by the manufacturers.
Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
#58My guess is existing auto (and other) manufacturers have all but locked up world's supply chain of raw materials necessary to make it feasible to manufacture automobiles at large enough scale.
If I were Google (if they seriously want to consider getting into manufacturing their own products) I would look into starting a chain of junk yards and refineries.
Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
#59Death by pivot
Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car
#60I just want to mention that I think Google's partnership with Fiat-Chrysler is badly picked. The engineering of FCA is unimpressive and their process pretty much kills innovation within their company. I may be wrong but I see FCA surfing the google hype train.
Perhaps that's on purpose. If they partnered with an automaker known for great engineering, they might butt heads with their counterparts.