Uber Wasted $2.5B on Self-Driving Cars

The Information sometimes unlocks articles for HN readers, but for those that don't have access the biggest takeaway to me is that Uber has made relatively little progress towards fully autonomous cars despite a huge amount of investment.

The most shocking detail:

> Uber’s vehicles had also been having what the company refers to as a bad experience—such as a sudden jerk or a potentially dangerous movement—every one-third of a mile on average.

That's really bad. While there are no uniform standards for what a "bad experience" entails, my general sense is that Waymo and Cruise (widely considered first and second) are doing 10-100x better by that metric.

Another damning bit:

> Uber couldn’t even get the prototype to drive a one-mile stretch between the unit’s two Pittsburgh offices, with the goal of shuttling employees back and forth

I don't even know what to say to that. If you can't make your cars work reliably on a known, one-mile stretch of road, what have you been doing for so many years?

[Disclaimer: I work for Lyft, but not on the self-driving car program.]

At they now have manager reporting the truth and not what the board want them to say.

There's more real money (hint: lobbying money) backing electric cars right now than there is backing autonomy since everyone in the industry knows it's at least 5 years before we get borderline level 4/99.99% reliable level 3 driving and a good 30 years before we get the 8+ nines that are needed to truly go to level 5 autonomy; most local laws are already well equipped to handle people using level 4 autonomy, so it isn't a priority thing to address.

Edit: I realize that level 4 doesn't ask you to take over, so I've edited my comments to reflect that.

No one can read this article yet it is instantly upvoted to the very top of HN. Goes to show how discussion forums like this one just serve to amplify people's existing biases rather than actually educate them on anything new.

There's just no way self-driving cars can meet the challenge with today's technology. These days the tests they are doing involve burying a wire in the road that the car can ride upon, which to me seems like covert recognition that computer vision and sensor data feeding AI is not equipped to handle the rigors of road travel quite yet.

The theoretical arguments about how self-driving cars are better than human drivers remain theoretical.