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Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

getcruise.com

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Re: Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

#51

Post by sremani »

walrus01 wrote: post #8

Based on this image: https://images.ctfassets.net/95kuvdv8zn1v/6h1C7lPC79OLOlddEE... They and their VC backers are clearly betting on the concept that radars + lidar + imaging will be the ultimate successful solution in full self driving cars, as a completely opposite design and engineering philosophy from Tesla attempting to do "full self driving" with camera sensors and categorical rejection of lidar. It is interes…

The question is do the economics of self-driving cars work when you have to add and integrate all these additional equipment. Correct me, if I am wrong but aren't LIDAR cars supposed to cost you $200K+ ?

Tesla is imitating humans in a way that removing LIDAR and relying on the compute to make up for them and build more accurate picture.

Also, isn't Cruise owned by GM - who are the VCs here?

Re: Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

#52

Post by danielrhodes »

gitfan86 wrote: post #32
walrus01 wrote: post #8

Based on this image: https://images.ctfassets.net/95kuvdv8zn1v/6h1C7lPC79OLOlddEE... They and their VC backers are clearly betting on the concept that radars + lidar + imaging will be the ultimate successful solution in full self driving cars, as a completely opposite design and engineering philosophy from Tesla attempting to do "full self driving" with camera sensors and categorical rejection of lidar. It is interes…

What is success? Does 50 miles of geofenced and daily mapped streets mean Cruise won self driving? What if Waymo gets to 20k miles of geofenced roads and monthly mapped? What if Tesla gets to the point of one intervention/crash every 100k miles? 10M Miles?

Cruise is interesting insofar as they are not simply looking to sell their technology, but they also want to monetize it as a service. Not only will they not need a driver, they will also be able to buy the hardware (the car) at cost. If it's successful, their margins will be much higher than Uber and Lyft by a long shot.

Re: Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

#53

Post by Drdrdrq »

soperj wrote: post #9
37ef_ced3 wrote: post #4

What is the benefit of a taxi being driverless, for the passenger? Is it cheaper?

Likely be able to get a taxi anywhere. No discrimination. No 20/25/30% tip suggested. No taking advantage of passengers, no weird routes to tack on extra fees.

> ...no weird routes to tack on extra fees.

At first. They will optimize that later.

Re: Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

#54

Post by enjoylife »

walrus01 wrote: post #8

Based on this image: https://images.ctfassets.net/95kuvdv8zn1v/6h1C7lPC79OLOlddEE... They and their VC backers are clearly betting on the concept that radars + lidar + imaging will be the ultimate successful solution in full self driving cars, as a completely opposite design and engineering philosophy from Tesla attempting to do "full self driving" with camera sensors and categorical rejection of lidar. It is interes…

They are betting that hardware combination is the fastest to market, given the constraints of today software.

When the ml stack is capable of leveraging purely camera sensors, Cruise and others like them, own the fleet and can swap out the hardware. Tesla does not "own" the fleet per se. So perhaps its different bets on which cars will still be on the road when the ML threshold is crossed.

Re: Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

#55

Post by 999900000999 »

polkadotmatrix wrote: post #30

Amazing considering that he said he wasn’t comfortable putting his own kid in them just a few months ago.

18+ is reasonable since it's still a dangerous experiment.

I actually would love an automated version of this that goes at 200 or 300 miles an hour, the ultimate thrill ride. Have it run on something like the Autobahn. While it's impossible for a human being to drive at that speed, computers definitely could .

It would be like sky diving but on land

Re: Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

#56

Post by jeffbee »

walrus01 wrote: post #8

Based on this image: https://images.ctfassets.net/95kuvdv8zn1v/6h1C7lPC79OLOlddEE... They and their VC backers are clearly betting on the concept that radars + lidar + imaging will be the ultimate successful solution in full self driving cars, as a completely opposite design and engineering philosophy from Tesla attempting to do "full self driving" with camera sensors and categorical rejection of lidar. It is interes…

Why do we have to discuss Tesla whenever self-driving comes up? Cruise has this technology. Waymo has it. There are a smattering of niche players out there with various levels of self-driving. Tesla emphatically does not have it. They are not in the race.

Re: Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

#57

Post by kelnos »

dag11 wrote: post #47
kelnos wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That raises another question for me: I thought Uber and Lyft[0] had COVID-related cleaning protocols that require their drivers to disinfect some surfaces of the car after each ride. How can a driverless car do that? [0] https://www.lyft.com/driver/clean

Do they? I've ridden plenty of ubers in the past year and haven't noticed any such disinfecting.

Why would you? Presumably they don't do it while you're there.

Re: Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

#58

Post by adrr »

boredumb wrote: post #7
AuthError wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea, you take the biggest cost of taxi out of equation.

The $250,000 SF taxi medallions?

Let’s assume you get a loan for 30 years on it for 6%. That is $18k a year. What is labor? $50k a year?

Re: Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

#60

Post by comex »

gitfan86 wrote: post #32
walrus01 wrote: post #8

Based on this image: https://images.ctfassets.net/95kuvdv8zn1v/6h1C7lPC79OLOlddEE... They and their VC backers are clearly betting on the concept that radars + lidar + imaging will be the ultimate successful solution in full self driving cars, as a completely opposite design and engineering philosophy from Tesla attempting to do "full self driving" with camera sensors and categorical rejection of lidar. It is interes…

What is success? Does 50 miles of geofenced and daily mapped streets mean Cruise won self driving? What if Waymo gets to 20k miles of geofenced roads and monthly mapped? What if Tesla gets to the point of one intervention/crash every 100k miles? 10M Miles?

The human accident rate is about one per 500K miles, so if they were able to get in that range, then yes, they would have succeeded; drivers would be able to stop paying attention to the road without putting themselves and others in danger.

But the current FSD beta's intervention rate is more like one per 10 miles, judging from some quick googling. I see no particular reason to assume that incremental improvement can take us from 10 to 500K.

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