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Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

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Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#191

Post by germinalphrase »

sneak wrote: post #171
ricardobayes wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like airbnb, if it was true to its original mission, it would work well, aka people looking to earn some side cash. But if you are working a low-paid driver "0-hour" contract job without health insurance and a self-funded minimum cover insurance and no PTO, sick days or benefits, that kind of sucks.

Nobody is forced to drive for Uber. The only people who do, do so because they believe it is better for them than their other options. Therefore, if you took uber away, they would be worse off, in their own estimation.

I’ve read convincing arguments that while drivers may believe they are better off, the cost/income numbers are such that drivers essentially break even. If true, Uber is merely taking advantage of their drivers lack of sophistication re: vehicle wear/depreciation, and the drivers are not actually better off financially. Even if we find no ethical complaint, a shift in the cost/income value perception by drivers seems like a notable risk.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#192

Post by Maken »

jeff_carr wrote: post #118
Karellen wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was Tesla ever a software company?

Exactly. More like they are selling vaporware. I paid $7500 for the self driving mode _a full year ago_ and it I definitely don't expect it to ever work now. They clearly sold customers something they didn't have.

If you are a Tesla AP owner, I have a question for you that has been bothering me for a while. Would you demand a complete refund if Tesla announced a Level-3-ish model with LiDAR? Because for a while I have been wondering if that's why they are so keen on camera-only self driving.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#193

Post by flohofwoe »

TekMol wrote: post #158
akira2501 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems the majority here thinks the next 20 years will be like the last 20 years, with only minor, gradial improvements. And every idea of a bigger shift is a scam. More like the last 200 years will be like the last 200 years. When has there been some truly "giant shift" that swept the world in less than a decade? The automobile we know today was an outgrowth of the decades of developments of steam engines to far…

I said "20 years", not "less than a decade". When has there been some truly "giant shift" Some examples: Cars replaced horses. Email replaced letters. Phones replaced desktops. Phones replaced cameras. Websites replaced newspapers, TV and radio.

These aren't exactly giant shifts though, just incremental progress. Maybe with the exception of cars vs horses, but this shift took at least half a century and two disruptive world wars happened in that time. For the other things, the enabling technologies were microchips and the internet, and those also took their time to grow.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#194

Post by Maken »

sneak wrote: post #157
ricardobayes wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm picking wrong examples, but lately almost every "distruptor" company or tech either turned to be an outright scam or a net negative social outcome.

The world with Uber is much better than the world we had before Uber.

The only Uber product I have ever used is Uber Eats, and I'm not sure that has made the world any better.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#195

Post by DebtDeflation »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #24
kortilla wrote: post #3

> According to the SAE levels of driving automation, a Level 3-capable vehicle can take over certain driving tasks, but a driver is still required to be present and ready to take control of the car at all times when prompted to intervene. The first part of the article mentions the driver being able to take a meeting or watch a movie. That’s complete horseshit if they need to be ready to take control of the car at all…

The article is correct. The SAE explains this in more detail and makes the distinction between being constantly ready to immediately take over and being asked to resume driving. https://www.sae.org/blog/sae-j3016-update

The graphic in that link is very helpful in describing the feature set by driving automation level. However, the green/blue color coding is misleading IMO. That tiny blue box in Level 3 means that while you are technically not driving and can take your eyes off the road, you must be ready to start driving at any time. 10 seconds warning really is not a lot of time at highway speeds when you must unexpectedly context switch between whatever you were doing and driving. It seems to me that the real leap in ability occurs when going from Level 3 to Level 4, not Level 2 to Level 3. I also have a hunch that if/when we get to Level 4 we will end up with a bunch of sublevels (Level 4.1, 4.2, 4.n) that progressively expand the conditions under which the system will operate over a period of decades as we asymptotically approach Level 5.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#196

Post by [deleted] »

glitchc wrote: post #20
jmole wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying a major car company is buying a whole heap of liabilities and depreciating assets. The major value drivers (contributors to market cap) are brand, patent portfolio, and future revenues from existing capex. Tesla doesn't want to support the supply chain of new and used parts for a legacy car company, they can barely keep up with their own (and they only make 4 models!).

Well, you know, you also get an established luxury brand, a cadre of brand-loyal customers, a significant increase in the manufacturing base and tons of proprietary tech. Are you telling me Mr. Musk would have bothered to create his own brand if he had enough capital to buy an existing brand to start with? The latter is a much safer strategy in bringing a car to market. He took big risks creating his own brand becaus…

[deleted]

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#197

Post by tialaramex »

TekMol wrote: post #71
fragmede wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHbMt6WDhQ8 from Waymo, 6 years ago.

That is a hand-selected collection of seconds long snippets. By the manufacturer. That does not give me any sense of how well this car can drive itself.

I mean, there are a bunch of long form videos on Youtube from people who rode Waymo's service in Phoenix in particular. How long do you want to watch a car drive around ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPZH2PlmzFs is at least in San Francisco which is maybe more interesting than a Phoenix suburb

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#198

Post by dzhiurgis »

oblio wrote: post #95
paxys wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been on Jeff's side of this bet since they announced it. Level 5 is simply too high of a bar to reach in the next few years, and in fact we are going about it the wrong way. We need smart roads more than smart cars. (Note that there's an escape hatch here, which is that the AI falls back to some human in a call center for guidance to get out of sticky situations. In my opinion that still doesn't qualify as lev…

> We need smart roads more than smart cars. Then this is close to impossible :-) The existing road infrastucture maintenance burden is already crushing financially, imagine if we add smart roads to it.

I’d argue it would actually cut costs

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#199

Post by TekMol »

tialaramex wrote: post #197
TekMol wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a hand-selected collection of seconds long snippets. By the manufacturer. That does not give me any sense of how well this car can drive itself.

I mean, there are a bunch of long form videos on Youtube from people who rode Waymo's service in Phoenix in particular. How long do you want to watch a car drive around ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPZH2PlmzFs is at least in San Francisco which is maybe more interesting than a Phoenix suburb

We are talking about how long back in time we can go and still find a Youtube video of a car driving itself as well as they do now.

The video you posted is two weeks old.

Re: Mercedes is the first automaker to offer Level 3 self-driving in the US

#200

Post by dzhiurgis »

winrid wrote: post #116
paxys wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been on Jeff's side of this bet since they announced it. Level 5 is simply too high of a bar to reach in the next few years, and in fact we are going about it the wrong way. We need smart roads more than smart cars. (Note that there's an escape hatch here, which is that the AI falls back to some human in a call center for guidance to get out of sticky situations. In my opinion that still doesn't qualify as lev…

> We need smart roads more than smart cars. Ah yes, trains. :)

Already works well for cargo and sometimes okay for passengers
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