VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
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Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
#2This is bizarre, I’m in non-car autonomy but I talk daily with car autonomy folks. Everyone has been expecting a consolidation of companies through acquisitions but drive.ai showed us that it’s probably not going to happen. At The Information mobility event last month one of the SoftBank fellas said that autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else. Looks like backing up billions with more billions might be the playbook for now.
Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
#3Unrelated, but does anyone know how many electric cars have an autonomy of more than 700km, while also charging fully in less than one hour? Is that even possible with the current technology?
Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
#4"Argo AI’s focus remains on delivering a SAE Level 4-capable SDS to be applied for ridesharing and goods delivery services in dense urban areas."
Perhaps naive question from an outsider to the AV world: what does "SAE Level 4-capable SDS" mean?
Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
#5Unrelated, but does anyone know how many electric cars have an autonomy of more than 700km, while also charging fully in less than one hour? Is that even possible with the current technology?
Get a motorcycle in the class of Honda Goldwing, convert it to electric power, and replace all of the luxury fuffle on it with batteries.
I don't think this will match your expectations, but this is the best take on what you want I can think of
Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
#6"Argo AI’s focus remains on delivering a SAE Level 4-capable SDS to be applied for ridesharing and goods delivery services in dense urban areas." Perhaps naive question from an outsider to the AV world: what does "SAE Level 4-capable SDS" mean?
Geo-fenced with some limitations (ie unable to drive in severe weather). So it'll only work in some areas, and will likely have further limitations like avoiding alleys, roundabouts, and whatever else it finds difficult but it not necessary to navigate from point A to point B. All of this is fully driverless and you can sleep in the back of the car.
SDS stands for Self-Driving Service. SAE stands for Society of Automotive Engineers.
https://www.sae.org/news/press-room/2018/12/sae-internationa...
Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
#7Unrelated, but does anyone know how many electric cars have an autonomy of more than 700km, while also charging fully in less than one hour? Is that even possible with the current technology?
Currently - none that I know of. Tesla is currently approaching that number with 592km(370 miles) of range.
As for charging _fully_ - that's rarely done in practice, because over 80% li-ion batteries charge much slower. Bjørn Nyland recently beat the record[0] for longest distance travelled in an EV in 24h (2781km) by stopping to charge from 10% to 50%, because only then he could use the full power of superchargers.
Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
#8"Argo AI’s focus remains on delivering a SAE Level 4-capable SDS to be applied for ridesharing and goods delivery services in dense urban areas." Perhaps naive question from an outsider to the AV world: what does "SAE Level 4-capable SDS" mean?
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/12/sae-levels-driving...
It's a fairly high level of automation. One step below total automation. That is, the system controls all aspects of driving, but there are still situations where it will ask the human driver to take over. However, even if the human doesn't actually take over, the system can still handle it. It's basically capable of dealing with an odd situation, but it's not confident about it.
Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
#9"Argo AI’s focus remains on delivering a SAE Level 4-capable SDS to be applied for ridesharing and goods delivery services in dense urban areas." Perhaps naive question from an outsider to the AV world: what does "SAE Level 4-capable SDS" mean?
Geo-fenced with some limitations (ie unable to drive in severe weather). So it'll only work in some areas, and will likely have further limitations like avoiding alleys, roundabouts, and whatever else it finds difficult but it not necessary to navigate from point A to point B. All of this is fully driverless and you can sleep in the back of the car. SDS stands for Self-Driving Service. SAE stands for Society of Autom…
SDS usually stands for self-driving system. Argo provides only the sensors+compute HW+software that can be integrated into different cars from different manufacturers
Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance
#10This is bizarre, I’m in non-car autonomy but I talk daily with car autonomy folks. Everyone has been expecting a consolidation of companies through acquisitions but drive.ai showed us that it’s probably not going to happen. At The Information mobility event last month one of the SoftBank fellas said that autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else. Looks like backing up billions with more bi…
I would have thought that Uber had proved that you can't just throw money at the problem.