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Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco

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

#161

Post by babyshake »

danielrhodes wrote: post #52
gitfan86 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the other hand, Uber and Lyft externalize many costs including liability.

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

#162

Post by thomastu »

kvogt wrote: post #93
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…

Cruise CEO here. Our strategy has been to solve the challenges needed to operate driverless robotaxis on a well-equipped vehicle, then aggressively drive the cost down. Many OEMs are doing this in reverse order. They're trying to squeeze orders of magnitude of performance gains out of really low-cost hardware. Today it's unclear what strategy will win. In a few years our next generation of low-cost compute and sensin…

Will Cruise eventually be available on existing TNCs and other MaaS platforms? Or is the play here to create a new vertically integrated taxi service?

If you've read Dan Sperling's Three Revolutions, any thoughts on what kind of [transportation future](https://www.planningreport.com/2018/03/21/dan-sperling-three...) you foresee Cruise contributing to building ?

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

#163

Post by mlindner »

I'm not interested in cars I can't own. This idea that we'll turn cars into some kind of service and convert roads into places filled with company-owned vehicles is completely foreign. At that point it'd be cheaper to have self-driving buses and subways. I can only think this viewpoint comes from people who have only ever lived in cities where car ownership is inconvenient given the lack of personal garages. At the moment the only company working towards this idea is Tesla, which is unfortunate. I'd like to see more companies working towards selling self-driving vehicles to customers.

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

#164

Post by jonny_eh »

ironmagma wrote: post #119
georgeburdell wrote: post #72

I’m concerned about the timing of this. Former CEO Dan Ammann, fired in December, was a big champion of the robotaxi business model. It is speculated he was fired because GM CEO Mary Barra disagrees with this strategy and wants them to focus more on integration with existing GM vehicles. I am afraid that the robotaxi timeline was pulled in so that the rest of the believers inside Cruise can get supporting data to pro…

I wouldn't read too much into firings at Cruise. Working there was like a company-sized game of "The Weakest Link". Anyone worth their salt gets fired eventually, it's just the way they operate.

> Anyone worth their salt gets fired eventually,

Isn't The Weakest Link about firing the worst performers?

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

#165

Post by desertraven »

jefftk wrote: post #157
desertraven wrote: post #139

The Cruise CEO is here, along with many grand stories of how good/safe their vehicles are. I can’t help but think this thread may be a marketing ploy. If this were the case, is it allowed on HN? Edit: In addition, any negative/challenging/sceptical comment is quickly downvoted.

As someone unaffiliated, I really like that their CEO is here answering questions.

I do like that too! As long as the CEO isn't being shielded by an army of supporters.

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

#166

Post by lern_too_spel »

judge2020 wrote: post #125
more_corn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason camera only won’t happen is because it won’t work. Elon has been fighting reality for years.

How does a human identify obstacles, VRUs [0], and other cars? 0: vulnerable road users, eg pedestrians and bicyclists

The human visual system works more like a high resolution event camera than a frame-based camera. Event cameras can deal well with glare and other problems that would otherwise require high dynamic range per frame.

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

#167

Post by schrep »

kvogt wrote: post #93
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…

Cruise CEO here. Our strategy has been to solve the challenges needed to operate driverless robotaxis on a well-equipped vehicle, then aggressively drive the cost down. Many OEMs are doing this in reverse order. They're trying to squeeze orders of magnitude of performance gains out of really low-cost hardware. Today it's unclear what strategy will win. In a few years our next generation of low-cost compute and sensin…

Congrats on this huge milestone!

So refreshing to see a leader in this field say “we are not sure which one will work out” rather than just hyping their stuff.

Can I get a test ride soon!

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

#168

Post by e4e78a06 »

mygoodaccount wrote: post #151
polkadotmatrix wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://youtu.be/dmvZBiWYkFQ?t=242 “I want to bring my little son along on this ride, but obviously that’s not where we’re at today.” edit: Fixed link

Either you posted the wrong link, or your link was taken down within the last 20 minutes... Lots of Cruise employees in this thread.

Yep, it was definitely taken down. I watched it only half an hour ago.

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

#169

Post by paxys »

37ef_ced3 wrote: post #4

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

For the passenger – unless the cars drive significantly better there's really no difference. Rides may get cheaper but the overall market will decide that.

The benefits to the company who runs the service is, of course, huge.

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

#170

Post by chx »

bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #154
kvogt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruise CEO here. Our strategy has been to solve the challenges needed to operate driverless robotaxis on a well-equipped vehicle, then aggressively drive the cost down. Many OEMs are doing this in reverse order. They're trying to squeeze orders of magnitude of performance gains out of really low-cost hardware. Today it's unclear what strategy will win. In a few years our next generation of low-cost compute and sensin…

It's good to hear a CEO say "we don't know the answer, but we're making a bet" rather than the typical Elizabeth Holmes style "We are absolutely correct and first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you get convicted of three counts of wire fraud and go to prison".

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