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

investor.lyft.com

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

#321

Post by _____bee »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #193
alonmower wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*Most ride-hailing companies that needed a narrative ahead of their IPO for why they had a defensible long term moat and leaned heavily on 'self driving' as their answer to that are now getting pressure from investors on why they keep sinking more money into a problem it doesn't seem they'll ever be able to solve

It truly is the issue of not knowing if it will ever be solved. The uncertainty of progress and uncertainty of a timeline is what really irks investors (who are right to question the investment given it is dragging down the not-quite-profitable main business)

I wonder what is the general feeling towards startups that take a different approach such https://comma.ai/ and https://wayve.ai/?. These startups take the approach of building "Android version" of self-driving cars, a technology that can be used as add-on in the existing cars.

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

#322

Post by misiti3780 »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #51
misiti3780 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Tesla will have L5 in 2021, but the FSD videos on youtube are pretty impressive no ?

They're impressive when they're on a straight road. But I think it's very concerning just how noisy and low resolution the data the cameras are working with is. You can watch some of the videos and the car won't recognise other traffic until it's literally within 20 meters of the car. The 3D positions of the cars are jumping around constantly. It will get the speed of traffic wrong and try to turn straight in front o…

I agree with most of this. I would be happy of Tesla (or anyone else) could just achieve L5 on highways so I could read a book on long drives on say the I90 in NY or I95 going to Florida.

That seems like a problem that could be solved with their current sensors.

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

#323

Post by misiti3780 »

dawnerd wrote: post #71
misiti3780 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Tesla will have L5 in 2021, but the FSD videos on youtube are pretty impressive no ?

Yes, they are but also a lot are sped up. The videos that are raw show the car still struggling to see around corners since the cameras are just not in a good enough spot. They really should have put cameras on the very front corners. But TBH I'm not really THAT impressed it can take corners and follow more lines. It still doesn't handle very important edge cases, and the people testing and uploading videos are natur…

I agree, I would not loan my car out to be a robo taxi. As it currently stands, the people that can afford Teslas probably would not take the risk of damage to their cars for the extra income.

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

#324

Post by admax88q »

okareaman wrote: post #90
admax88q wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bar is "better than someone talking on cell phone while crossing a railroad crossing without looking," I'll stick to manual driving. Self driving needs to be better than me, not better than average.

How many people on Hacker News think self-driving cars will be a better driver than themselves in the near future?

I'm sure almost nobody even outside HN thinks that self driving cars will be better than themselves. Everybody thinks they're above average drivers.

That's a psychological problem that self-driving cars will have to overcome. They need to be so obviously better than any human driver for people to actually consider them. A handful of fatal accidents that people think they could have avoided as a driver and they won't want to get on board.

People are bad at risk assessment, but that's a fact of life. As a result, self driving has to be better than what people _perceive_ as their risk of being in an accident while driving, not what the actual risk may be.

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

#325

Post by tristor »

okareaman wrote: post #90
admax88q wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bar is "better than someone talking on cell phone while crossing a railroad crossing without looking," I'll stick to manual driving. Self driving needs to be better than me, not better than average.

How many people on Hacker News think self-driving cars will be a better driver than themselves in the near future?

Honestly, I don't think self-driving cars will /ever/ be a better driver than I am. But that also hinges on what you mean by "better". There may reach a point in time when self-driving cars have a lower statistical likelihood of being in an accident than I am, but I doubt that they will ever do that while getting me to my destination more quickly than I do.

Both of those things relate to the fact that I have significantly better situational awareness and driver training than the vast majority of people, including significant time on track racing cars. To match my situational awareness it will not be enough for self-driving cars to rely on their own sensors, but they will need to communicate with one another and act in concert, otherwise my reading of traffic patterns and looking far ahead in the distance will always beat it out for the quickest path through traffic, or the safest response.

To me, where I see a benefit for myself personally, is that self-driving cars don't necessarily need to be better than me, they just need to be better than most, and turn driving from an active to a passive activity. It means I can be engaged in other things. But, that's also the rub. I /like/ driving, so I don't want to exist in a world where I am /forced/ to have a self-driving car to use the roads, as I still want the ability to go out and enjoy myself from time to time. But for a daily commute, turning driving into a passive activity would make me a happier and more productive person (other people are horrendous drivers and it frustrates me observing their unsafe and careless behaviors).

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

#326

Post by Zhenya »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #311
Zhenya wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So why don't they dominate in Russia and South America then?

They do in south America. Russia because they were only able to import non-soviet cars starting in the 90s. But they are also everywhere there.

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

#327

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

wpietri wrote: post #319
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I remember that many of the commenters here were equally optimistic in 2015-16. It took a lot of arguments and discussion before people realised that it was much harder than it seemed.

Then that raises another interesting possibility: that absolutely nobody at the deranged-optimism companies knew what they were doing. Because there were definitely experts who knew those dates were impossible. Less 18 months after that Lyft prediction, roboticist and AI expert Rodney Brooks said that free-roaming auto-taxis wouldn't be running before 2035: https://rodneybrooks.com/my-dated-predictions/

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his stock price depends on not understanding it.

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

#328

Post by ehnto »

virtue3 wrote: post #287
totetsu wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would we see the same dynamic we are seeing now with "net neutrality" and fast lanes for certain endpoints? Like if you pay for a premium service included in the BMW package, you get to travel at full speed, while the test of the vehicles are artificially slowed down. Or if you are on your way to Disney land with a paid ticket, all the stop lights will change in your favor.

Thankfully BMW doesn't own the roads. They do this in LA already, you can choose to be toll'd more (wireless tolls) or you can stay in the normal lanes. I'm much more ok with the regional infrastructure charging it because you have at least a chance at knowing where the money goes. The car manufacturers would love to have some sort of residual billing for crap like that I'm sure tho.

Plenty of places have privatized toll roads, in which case a private company owns the toll road and there's nothing (currently) stopping the owner from giving a special pass to particular car owners. BMW could partner with the toll road company to give free passage to BMW owners as an example.

The fact that it doesn't currently happen is a good sign, but as corporations grab hold of society in more ways I don't see why a premium car company wouldn't try to differentiate with those kinds of benefits. As cars become more like a service provided than an object you own, it makes sense that those kinds of things would spice up a particular "package deal" for your car service.

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

#329

Post by darkwizard42 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #226
darkwizard42 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Lyft's core ridesharing business will continue to become more profitable in a duopoly setting with Uber. Ridesharing is a network effect business, if the riders are there, the drivers will come, the more drivers you have, the more availability so you get more riders. The US has proven that it is capable of supporting two overlapping players (not all markets can support this and meet regulatory rules)

You’re assuming ridesharing in the way Lyft and Uber do it will last for long.. not a single place I’ve seen anyone confirm that it’s profitable or break even for the drivers. Almost no one drives for years with them, and they’re bound to run out of drivers who haven’t learned the lessons. Or their prices jack up to more than regular cab prices like in nyc. One way or another it’s a non zero possibility these compani…

I don't think this is accurate at all.

1/ It is profitable/break even to the best drivers (this means you have to optimize and consider the external costs of doing the work... which unsurprisingly most people are bad at doing so). There are certainly cases of people who have leased a brand new car, with poor gas mileage, and then drive them into the ground surprised it hasn't paid off. However, using a Prius or all-electric vehicle with high reliability results in lower costs. If you run a business and poorly optimize around your costs you don't make profit...

2/ Drivers do drive for years for them, but the vast majority do not because it is not a great long term career and usually serves as a bridge of full-time work or regular part-time work. You can't get promoted, you can't get paid much more for tenure, and you don't pick up any new marketable skills. Even a career warehouse worker or McDonald's front-line worker has a path upwards...and people do work there for short and long periods of time. Just because everyone isn't a long term employee doesn't make a profession unsustainable...its just the nature of the job.

The last statement is pure conjecture so I'm not sure how to address it outside of the fact that in an urban setting car ownership comes with a lot of costs and these services expand the radius of people's ability to navigate cities. There will be a premium for that and Lyft and Uber are working their way towards providing that service AND generating a profit.

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

#330

Post by utexaspunk »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #100
utexaspunk wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I've seen the Domino's [Nuro]( https://www.nuro.ai/ ) car roaming Houston and it seems to be doing okay and I haven't heard of any issues... If it's good enough for my pizza, it's good enough for me -I'm mostly pizza anyway! :P

I think it's remote-controlled though?

No, fully autonomous! https://www.nuro.ai/technology
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