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Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

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Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#231

Post by nradov »

lettergram wrote: post #162
filmgirlcw wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving cars are perennially five years away. Putting aside the question of whether the tech is there or not (and I would argue it isn’t there for commercial consumer use), the infrastructure and the laws will take years to catch up. This isn’t an overnight problem and many of the barriers are things that tech can’t just design around.

Not to mention there’s a huge voting block that’ll be against automation. I think the best first bet is just localized (robots in factories). I’m personally of the opinion we are 10 years away or more technically. Main issue is weather and the risk threshold people can tolerate. All the tests thus far are in environments are high sun, no rain environments. If we are already localizing to southern cities, we may as we…

The CDC's best estimate of COVID-19 infection fatality rate for people under 45 is more like 0.05%.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena...

Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#232

Post by nradov »

thathndude wrote: post #126
minimaxir wrote: post #2

Funny in hindsight from 2016: "Lyft's president says 'majority' of rides will be in self-driving cars by 2021" https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/18/12944506/lyft-self-drivin... https://medium.com/@johnzimmer/the-third-transportation-revo...

Hard not to feel like we’re seeing a swoon in self driving like we saw in crypto back in 2017 and 2018. They hype got ahead of the tech.

This is just the typical Gartner hype cycle. It applies to most new technologies, although the time scales differ.

https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3887767

Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#233

Post by ericmay »

kgin wrote: post #228
ericmay wrote: post #207

Waymo is next. Off to Chrysler it’ll go.

Why do you say this?

I believe the only path to self-driving cars is through full-stack integration of hardware and software. Waymo doesn’t fit the bill and is progressing far too slowly, in my opinion. It’s more of a proof of concept than a serious effort. It’s great, but I don’t see a viable path forward for them that doesn’t involve their software and sensors on another manufacturer’s cars. Fine, but Google is allergic to anything not search related, and not with very good profit margins. At some point someone is going to say hey we are spending billions of dollars on this, and we have no near-term launch plans, let’s sell this thing and call it quits.

Tons of people disagree I’m sure but IMO the writing is on the wall here, it’s just a matter of time.

Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#234

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #216
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised how many good things come out of "Made in Mexico"... the biggest issues are always out of spec components and starting at a new factory and having people be scared of reporting QC problems. I'd expect the Toyota methodology to trickle down.

If we were talking about VW or Ford making stuff in Mexico people would be shitting all over made in Mexico. "Hurr durr side stepping muh UAW and muh OSHA" and stuff like that But brands that start with T and end with A can do no wrong on the white collar parts of the internet so Toyota gets a pass.

I mean, you're not wrong, but the history has shown that Japanese manufacturing is good. I don't know whether Toyota will pull it off, but if they do, they'll save some cash.

Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#235

Post by netrus »

jogjayr wrote: post #182
joe_the_user wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A human being can drive a million miles without a serious accident. 2018 saw 1.1 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles driven[1]. Human beings are extremely good at driving safely overall. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

> A human being can drive a million miles without a serious accident A million miles sounds like a lot, but it isn't. The average American drives 12,000 miles annually. Assuming a driving career of 52 years (from age 18 to 70), the average American will drive 624k miles. So the lifetime chances of getting into a serious accident are not exactly small. (I don't know how to calculate the probability here, actually. Is…

Just to comment on the math (not the actual numbers):

624k/1M is the expected number of serious accidents.

The probability of getting into at least one serious accident is 1 - (999999/1000000)^624000 = 46% (Every mile, you have a 99,9999% chance of no serious accident. You want that 624k times in a row).

Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#236

Post by jogjayr »

netrus wrote: post #235
jogjayr wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A human being can drive a million miles without a serious accident A million miles sounds like a lot, but it isn't. The average American drives 12,000 miles annually. Assuming a driving career of 52 years (from age 18 to 70), the average American will drive 624k miles. So the lifetime chances of getting into a serious accident are not exactly small. (I don't know how to calculate the probability here, actually. Is…

Just to comment on the math (not the actual numbers): 624k/1M is the expected number of serious accidents. The probability of getting into at least one serious accident is 1 - (999999/1000000)^624000 = 46% (Every mile, you have a 99,9999% chance of no serious accident. You want that 624k times in a row).

Neat, thanks! So nearly a 1 in 2 chance of getting into a serious accident in a lifetime. Not great odds IMO.

Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#237

Post by nradov »

wombatpm wrote: post #196
ghaff wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urbanites have self-driving. They just need to pay a sub-minimum wage driver to do it. Oh, real self-driving you say. That's going to be on a subset of highways in a subset of weather conditions.

And it will happen with trucks first. Either a lead truck running a convoy or remote piloting via drone technology. Why? Because a truck does 500 miles per day. A self driving truck can do 1000. Amazon cannot exist without long haul trucking

Many long haul trucks carry two drivers and can do more than 500 miles per day.

Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#238

Post by Zhenya »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #222
argonaut wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The average age of a car on the road today is 11 years. Toyota's reliability really makes a difference for secondhand owners, and therefore used Toyotas command a premium, and you get more for your car when you sell it or trade it in. Otherwise, it's true that new cars from many different brands are reliable enough nowadays, even brands that used to be bad like Hyundai (unless you want to buy a car and keep it foreve…

Used Toyotas command a premium because relatively none of them find their hands in the "oil changes, lol I can barely afford gas" crowd that wears stuff out and doesn't maintain stuff. You never see a Sienna getting loaded with bags of concrete at Home Depot. Can't say that about a Town and Country. You never see a family of 5 pile out of a (newish) Corrla. Can't say that about an Altima. You never see a 4Runner towi…

This is patently false. Check Australia and Africa where Land Cruisers rule and survive like roaches (as do old Mercedes).

It's because they are well engineered.

Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#239

Post by fgonzag »

brandmeyer wrote: post #214
smoe wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know much about the space, but always found it interesting that most of the conversation is about autonomous driving for individuals, which to me seems to be the last step after e.g cargo outside cities and public transportation has been automated. I reckon because the latter are less sexy, lead to job losses and maybe require more public acceptance? I know there is a lot of work being done in this areas as w…

Profit margin. The driver just isn't an expensive or limiting part of cargo transport. To be clear, the conversation also isn't about autonomous driving for individually-owned cars. Tesla's disasters aside, its about autonomous taxi services.

Are you in the freight industry? Because drivers are exactly what is expensive and limits growth right now. there is a humongous supply of trucking jobs, and they are paying really high rates right now (up to 70-80 cents per mile)

Re: Subsidiary of Toyota to acquire Lyft’s self-driving car division

#240

Post by gpm »

XorNot wrote: post #227
azinman2 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human drivers still do meaningfully cost money to employ, and they do annoying things like needing to sleep or take rest room breaks. Autonomous trucking would completely revolutionize the industry.

Sure, but when you load 20 people onto a vehicle, if you don't have a driver you still need a security guard.

Subways the world over do without just fine.
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