Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car • Hacker News Board

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#101

Post by Symmetry » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:07 PM UTC

MarHoff wrote: post #20

Kiro wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

I think he does. We must let go delusional thinking that with current AI we can safely throw autonomous car in a dense urban area. Using autonomous car to improve mobility in rural area (eg. for elders people) would prove much more applicable as a paid service and complemental to public transportation. But if mainstream geeks and investors keep dreaming about K2000 they will be deceived by current AI.

Google's been safely driving cars around in a dense urban environment for a while now.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#102

Post by CM30 » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:13 PM UTC

I don't think this is all that surprising to be honest. Google is (by and large) a software development and services company, not a car manufacturer. If they make their own autonomous vehicles, that means they then have to handle everything from safety testing to customer support and sales in addition to the self driving car technology itself.

By working with existing car manufacturers, they can focus on their part of the deal (the technology) and let someone who knows about designing, building and selling cars do the rest of the job.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#103

Post by maxerickson » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:21 PM UTC

alrs wrote: post #2

The only way this could have worked was to push cyclists and meat-drivers off the road and hand the bulk of the decision making to something centralized. I'm so thankful this vision appears to be dying.

Cars are a capital intensive, low margin business. Self driving isn't going to change either of those much.

Compare revenue and net income:

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/F/key-statistics https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOOG/key-statistics

Alphabet makes $19.07 billion of net income on $85.54 billion of revenues.

Ford makes $7.25 billion of net income on $153.4 billion of revenues.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#104

Post by shostack » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:25 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #85

aianus wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sharing isn't viable. I don't want my 20 minute taxi/CaaS ride to become 30+ minutes as we drive off my route to pick up another rider I drive for Uber part time and the majority of riders do choose the POOL option so I think you're wrong here.

Uber says Pool is at 20+% of the rides. Huh, I stand partially corrected!

I think most people would prefer no delays and a private ride. But the savings of pooling is too large for many to ignore.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#105

Post by shostack » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:34 PM UTC

emdowling wrote: post #26

finstell wrote: post #23

Everybody is rushing to develop their own self-driving car, then they change their minds in various ways, then team members change who they work for, some of them quit and start their own company, some fail, some got acquihired. They give deadlines and cannot meet them. Everyone is dying to be first in the market or something like it. Feels there is so much greed. I don't get it, what's the big fuss, why must everyon…

Simple: everyone is looking for the next big platform. The smartphone revolution came by surprise to most and it has taken years for companies to catch up. Everyone is racing because they don't want to be caught with their pants down again.

The size and value of cars as a platform can't be emphasised enough.

It goes way beyond hardware. Whoever controls the car as a platform in theory controls the services layer that would be built on top of it (ride sharing, delivery etc.) and also the captive attention of the cars' occupants outside their phone. Then there is the data that comes from a device that takes you wherever you want to go, with tons of internal and external sensors to get data on occupants (unique identification will be trivial for audio ads, etc) and their external environment.

My guess is Google sees the rather low margins of cars and would much rather focus on what is likely substantially higher margins (and far less capital outlay) on the software side which is much more closely aligned their core strength.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#106

Post by shostack » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

usrusr wrote: post #30

Pyxl101 wrote: post #3

Is that surprising? I never assumed that Google was planning to build actual cars with this tech. I suppose I never really thought that deeply about how it would roll out, but if I had, I would have guessed partnerships with others in the industry. If they can nail "self-driving tech" as well as they've nailed search, they'll potentially earn licensing fees from all vehicles, rather than from the slice of vehicles th…

At first glance, Google becoming a car industry supplier like Delphi or Bosch seems just as weird. I kind of was expecting them to eventually go for the robocab business, with the steely bits manufactured by some Chinese OEM or underutilized plants in Detroit, Wolfsburg or wherever. It could be nicely phased in in limited access, limited range, low speed settings like e.g. island resorts. But repeating the Android mo…

With Google's shift to provide answers, not just information, Maps seems like a crutch.

If I'm in a fully autonomous car, I don't want to look at a map. I want to tell my assistant where I want to go and not worry about the rest.

This would be akin to providing the answer (getting you from A to B) without the information (poking at a map).

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#107

Post by slackoverflower » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

So many leeway for Tesla. Uber's only hope for beating Tesla's car sharing feature was working with Google. Uber is not even profitable yet, they can't invest in this category yet. Tesla going to steal the show, already Apple-like cult forming around it.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#108

Post by bzbarsky » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

shostack wrote: post #105

emdowling wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple: everyone is looking for the next big platform. The smartphone revolution came by surprise to most and it has taken years for companies to catch up. Everyone is racing because they don't want to be caught with their pants down again.

The size and value of cars as a platform can't be emphasised enough. It goes way beyond hardware. Whoever controls the car as a platform in theory controls the services layer that would be built on top of it (ride sharing, delivery etc.) and also the captive attention of the cars' occupants outside their phone. Then there is the data that comes from a device that takes you wherever you want to go, with tons of intern…

And thus we continue to build the panopticon around ourselves. It's a 20th century dictator's wet dream, but self-imposed.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#109

Post by dagw » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

slackoverflower wrote: post #107

So many leeway for Tesla. Uber's only hope for beating Tesla's car sharing feature was working with Google. Uber is not even profitable yet, they can't invest in this category yet. Tesla going to steal the show, already Apple-like cult forming around it.

Uber's only hope for beating Tesla's car sharing feature was working with Google.

How do you figure? Uber is currently working with Volvo on autonomous cars, and when it comes to producing safe, reliable cars that people want, in volume, I'd personally bet on Volvo over Google.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#110

Post by PinguTS » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 2:50 PM UTC

throwaway40483 wrote: post #14

ragebol wrote: post #4

But 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.

> 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. Exactly! This part of Google's legacy is severely under appreciated. People were rolling their eyes when Google originally presented their plan. Amazing how quickly it went from science fiction to reality.

I learned about that "science fiction" in 1996 when I was an intern at back then called DASA (Daimler Aerospace), before the merger with Chrysler.

They worked on that science fiction already back then. They developed the basics for the radar back then. Without those developments and vision we had no commodity radar sensor available today.