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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

#21

Post by taurath »

baybal2 wrote: post #5
lovelycarboxyl wrote: post #3

Unrelated, 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

Electric motorcycles aren’t a thing I knew I needed yet (despite scooters existing)... I imagine they’d be quite fun

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#22

Post by threeseed »

nutjob2 wrote: post #12
boxcardavin wrote: post #2

This 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 think the corporate types are assuming that throwing money and engineers at the problem is going to "win" it, but I'm not sure it will. Google has plenty of both of those things and they seem to be stalling at the moment, or the very least they're not confident enough to go out and claim the market for themselves. I think the engineers have been probably been wildly optimistic as usual, and the last 5% of car auton…

Not sure how many Data Scientists you know but I've worked with hundreds over the years and have never met a single one who was irrationally optimistic about the work they do. In fact generally it is the opposite.

But you know the sort of people who are wildly optimistic and prone to over-exaggeration. Executives like Musk.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#23

Post by jfoster »

choppaface wrote: post #14

Argo also released a relatively massive 250GB dataset recently: https://www.argoverse.org/ The problem of Perception has a long road ahead at any of these companies and Argo is taking a very long position with this funding round. The headcount growth is rather worrisome but other than Aptiv there aren't many fleets that span multiple continents.

Is spanning multiple continents a good thing?

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#24

Post by dmix »

dasloop wrote: post #18
RaceWon wrote: post #15

God I wish I could be alive 436 years from today; when the self-driving cars might actually be able to give me a run for my money.

Someone in the year 1583: God I wish I could be alive 436 years from today to write a post in HN about self-driving cars :)

From a self driving car

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#25

Post by threeseed »

sschueller wrote: post #20
ml_basics wrote: post #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?

According to Elon [1] Tesla will have this by the end of 2020. At some point reality has to kick in or not? [1] https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-full-self-drivin...

Of course. Which is why many of the key members of the Autopilot team have recently left.

https://bgr.com/2019/07/09/tesla-autopilot-team-elon-musk-sh...

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#26

Post by pgeorgi »

jfoster wrote: post #23
choppaface wrote: post #14

Argo also released a relatively massive 250GB dataset recently: https://www.argoverse.org/ The problem of Perception has a long road ahead at any of these companies and Argo is taking a very long position with this funding round. The headcount growth is rather worrisome but other than Aptiv there aren't many fleets that span multiple continents.

Is spanning multiple continents a good thing?

It provides awareness to differences in rules, signs and road markings which may help expand.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#27

Post by amelius »

choppaface wrote: post #16
tjoff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have thought that Uber had proved that you can't just throw money at the problem.

Uber proved it's possible to burn a lot of money on a team that is ineffective due to needless infighting and excessive internal competition.

In other words, you can't just throw money at the problem.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#28

Post by dmix »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #13
lovelycarboxyl wrote: post #3

Unrelated, 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?

Most of the more expensive EVs come pretty close to that and seem to be competing on getting the numbers better there. E.g. I think Tesla is planning to break the 400 mile barrier pretty soon. 300 mile is pretty normal already. Most EVs charge pretty quickly to about 80%. 20 minutes to half an hour gets you plenty of range. Mostly EV owners don't charge to 100% unless they are at home or doing some overnight stop. I…

Have EV companies completely abandoned the swappable battery idea?

I always thought thatd be the endgame. Some standardized battery design where you roll up on top of a station and it swaps the battery underneath the car.

Or maybe this is something your car does for you before arriving. Which eliminates the amount of dead time tens of thousands cars will need to spend while using up expensive property in cities while charging.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#29

Post by amelius »

RaceWon wrote: post #15

God I wish I could be alive 436 years from today; when the self-driving cars might actually be able to give me a run for my money.

In that year we'll have teleportation. There will not even be roads for your self driving car.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#30

Post by baybal2 »

taurath wrote: post #21
baybal2 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Electric motorcycles aren’t a thing I knew I needed yet (despite scooters existing)... I imagine they’d be quite fun

I'm pointing to the use of motorcycle because of battery mass ratio.

At some point, you can not improving the range any more by adding more batteries because any gain will be eaten by more rolling resistance.

At some point you will arrive to the point when your vehicle starts to resemble a battery stack with two wheels.

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