Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#361

Post by stevenwoo » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 4:30 PM UTC

Eridrus wrote: post #346

stevenwoo wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the Bay Area, there is periodically bad to less than perfect weather - we had 30+ straight days of rain about 15 years ago in one of the El Nino years, and that would have killed Waymo's steering wheel-less cars' useability. It's almost like none of the people who made that decision were here when that happened.

The Bay Area only has a lot of self-driving cars because the engineers are there, note that WayMo is letting people take rides in Phoenix, not the Bay.

Thanks for the clarification. I see them on San Antonio and in out of the way neighborhoods in Los Altos all the time but I guess from this article they are simulating more novel situations for the self driving AI and doing real world regression testing. It was only last year I saw one Waymo slow at every pedestrian crosswalk on San Antonio and there were no pedestrians nearby and the crosswalk lights were not blinking so definitely a necessary step.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/insid...

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#362

Post by bluGill » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 4:31 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #121

So anyone who has been around for even a few years has witnessed probably more than AI hype cycle. This has been going on since probably the 1960s. While there have been (I'm sure) advances over the years, some no doubt substantial, what's clear is that the big thing that was and is needed is a truly massive amount of computing power. Now I believe that self-driving cars will ultimately be transformative for society…

Lawsuits are a double edges sword. If someone else makes a car where the drunk driver could not kill other people and you don't, then when the drunk driver gets in your car and kills someone you will be sued for not having that in your car.

All the major car makers are working on self driving cars because they know one someone has it they dare not be more than a couple years behind. If their defense to the above lawsuit is we were working hard on it, but it was 2 years away when that car was built they will win. If their defense is anything else they lose a few million dollars.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#363

Post by ars » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #316

Superleroy wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But does that even make sense? That would mean they redesigned something that they are not able to build in realistically at least the next 5-10 years. Or to go even further, they tried to make something better that does not exist yet. Wouldn't it make more sense to just go for the self driving car first and then, after you are sure that you can build that, creating teams which make it better?

> That would mean they redesigned something that they are not able to build in realistically at least the next 5-10 years. Or to go even further, they tried to make something better that does not exist yet. At Apple don't do basic research and leave it at that. They are trying to build a commercial product. In that sense, it makes sense to try to solve the problem of self-driving along with how an Apple car should be…

> In that sense, it makes sense to try to solve the problem of self-driving along with how an Apple car should be like (besides self driving).

No it doesn't. Self driving takes decades to solve, designing pretty cars takes a year or two. There is an order of magnitude difference there.

They were seriously trying to constrain the location of the LIDAR before actually knowing what types and numbers of LIDAR a self driving car actually needs! That is utterly backwards.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#364

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 4:47 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #342

jacquesm wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely fine to re-engineer something from the ground up once you have a working example in your hand. But before then you are simply wasting your time. the iPod was not the first music player, the iPhone not the first smartphone. Re-engineering those was the only way to get them to market in a way that might drive mass adoption. As for the spherical wheels, yes, however such a development is totally tangent…

> But before then you are simply wasting your time. I disagree. You seem to be discounting the learning aspect. Building an institutional knowledge base of the pile of systems that make up a car is a large task by itself. Different shops approach it differently. One may obsessively reverse engineer the competition, another might tinker with longtime designs. I fully expect the managers in question saw the spherical w…

2%? How about 0.0002%.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#365

Post by drusepth » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 4:47 PM UTC

Jyaif wrote: post #356

nradov wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's not how it works. Look at a regular car tire. It's basically flat perpendicular to the direction of travel so the entire width of the tire is in contact with the ground. With a spherical tire the sides bend up away from the ground and only a single point is in contact. In order to get a larger contact patch you would have to run much lower tire pressure leading to worse handling, higher fuel consumption, an…

The surface contact of perfect cylinder (a regular car tire), and a perfect sphere (the iTire) is the same: 0 cm^2. From that fact, you are saying that "obviously" the deformation of a cylinder (with some diameter/width ratio) filled with gaz at a certain pressure against a flat surface will lead to a higher surface than a sphere with the same pressure? It's not obvious at all. Give me math+physics proof or GTFO.

>The surface contact of perfect cylinder (a regular car tire), and a perfect sphere (the iTire) is the same: 0 cm^2.

A perfect cylinder has a line of contact with the road: the width of the wheel. A perfect sphere has a point of contact.

Obviously you wouldn't see perfect eithers when talking about real-world tire implementations, but the perfect examples here are indicative of cylinders having more surface area with higher air pressure, whereas higher air pressure is the preferred state due to wheel wear and tear and handling issues that occur at low pressures.

Not to mention cylindrical wheels inherently resist lateral motion, have lower unsprung weights/volumes, and don't have the unnecessary engineering struggles of turning a spherical object into a pneumatic device.

I'm all for trying new things and testing wacky designs, but lots of people have looked at spherical wheels over the past few decades (Goodyear's implementation is a personal favorite[1]) and concluded they're pretty much just good looking, rather than an improvement in engineering over current wheels.

Given how good they look though, I'd love for someone to find a way to make them actually work.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSFYwDDVgac

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#366

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #314

jacquesm wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then there is stronger braking to be considered, which almost always is some kind of disk brake which you can't do if there is no shaft to mount one on. Which means the spherical wheel system would have to be oversized to compensate for lack of such a shaft even if it would work to drive the car. Magnetic wheels have other interesting problems that would need to be solved such as when two cars get close to each o…

Could you just use standard wheels, but let all four of them turn 90 degrees? Then the car could move laterally.

You only need one wheel to turn very tightly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlLZE23EJKs

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#367

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 4:55 PM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #344

pedroaraujo wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Visionary"? Hardly. His self driving technology was basically a big giant hack. He is a good hacker but calling him "visionary" is a bit of a stretch.

A giant hack that works and already out on the streets. I think commaai has a very bright future.

Supernova's have a bright future too. But a very short one.

Comma one has been canceled and the new offering is more along the lines of a kit for DIY car hackers than for serious deployment and at a guess if you would be involved in an accident while deploying one of these kits your insurance would be void.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#368

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 4:56 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #318

jacquesm wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The degree to which globular wheels would complicate such a design is such that it would leave you being passed by your competitors right out of the gate, on top of that it would complicate all kinds of things such as certification and potentially reliability and safety as well as supply chain issues after delivery. Solving too much is a fantastic way to crash a project.

> The degree to which globular wheels would complicate such a design is such that it would leave you being passed by your competitors right out of the gate We don't know that. We just know that we're not familiar with them. If anything, globular wheels could make some kind of automated steering easier. And of course, it's obviously not like Apple only tried that design: they tried globular wheels, fat wheels, thinner…

> tried globular wheels, fat wheels, thinner wheels, wooden wheels, and what have you to see what works better

Yes, and 'standard wheels' would have saved them time, money and other resources and would have increased the chances of bringing a self driving car to market.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#369

Post by nradov » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 5:07 PM UTC

Jyaif wrote: post #356

nradov wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No that's not how it works. Look at a regular car tire. It's basically flat perpendicular to the direction of travel so the entire width of the tire is in contact with the ground. With a spherical tire the sides bend up away from the ground and only a single point is in contact. In order to get a larger contact patch you would have to run much lower tire pressure leading to worse handling, higher fuel consumption, an…

The surface contact of perfect cylinder (a regular car tire), and a perfect sphere (the iTire) is the same: 0 cm^2. From that fact, you are saying that "obviously" the deformation of a cylinder (with some diameter/width ratio) filled with gaz at a certain pressure against a flat surface will lead to a higher surface than a sphere with the same pressure? It's not obvious at all. Give me math+physics proof or GTFO.

Assume a spherical cow?

Instead of wasting our time with ridiculous demands maybe just GTFOutside and look at some real tires.

Re: Apple Scales Back Its Ambitions for a Self-Driving Car

#370

Post by RivieraKid » Wed, Aug 23, 2017, 5:30 PM UTC

froo wrote: post #243

hueving wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla's are not self-driving cars in the sense of revolutionizing any driving. You still have to pay attention and be ready to take over all of the time. That means you can't sleep, read emails, etc. on your commute. It's a fancy lane assist that reduces mundane movements you have to make and it improves safety, but it's not resulting in super cheap automated taxis or overnight road trips.

Did you not watch the video? I call a car that is cornering, accelerating/braking, actively dealing with traffic and finally parking itself a self driving vehicle.

In that case we had self-driving five years ago, I guess OP meant mind-off self-driving. That's the hard part, it could even be an AI-hard problem. Because if you have to pay attention with hands on a wheel, it's not a huge convenience improvement. And there's also the problem that human-take-over situations will be increasingly dangerous as the self-driving software improves.

And by the way, the auto-pilot video is underwhelming. Several companies have more advanced self-driving tech than Tesla, e.g. Waymo is at least 3 years ahead.