Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 204 posts

Re: Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

#71

Post by visarga »

suhastech wrote: post #68
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #61

We'll all be dead from toxic smog before Google's driverless cars get anywhere. I think the idea is extremely shortsighted. It's a technological feat but not a creative one. It just produces more cars, more fuel-burning and more roads. It's more cars and that will produce more pollution. Ultimately, it solves nothing. You want to stop deadly car crashes? Help save wildlife from excessive roads and urban sprawl? Stop…

Yes, I agree that the world is moving more toward virtual commuting. Somehow, I feel there is still no alterative to real world communication. Until that is fixed, this is still amazing. Self driving cars will have a metro train like experience with very good reach thanks to the existing infrastructure (roads).

I feel Skype + VNC form a good enough solution for many situations. I am working with my brother on a project like this and it is just as good as physically being at the same desk. The mouse and desktop apps seem almost as responsive as on a local computer. The sound is just as good as in person.

Re: Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

#72

Post by jlgreco »

logn wrote: post #37
jlgreco wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those other car companies? They are the ones with the brands and the cars people want. They are the iphones in this situation. Sure, if you're pushing a new powertrain you can do okay making one or two of your own cars (which will take years ) and you can shortcut the time to build up a brandname to a degree by being exclusive, but none of that effort is warranted because this technology does not require that sor…

Google has loads of money. They can buy a car company. Tesla has a $4B market cap. Or they could invest significantly in a car company. Or they can strike exclusive agreements.

Google can buy a lot of different companies. But why would they want to?

Re: Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

#73

Post by stevenrace »

mtgx wrote: post #38
moocow01 wrote: post #4

The market is worth trillions... not Google's solution. One thing tech reporters seem to have failed at recognizing is that this research has been taking place at every major car company out there - many many others are legitimately in the race. Ultimately its the manufacturers that get to pull the trigger on how driverless cars will become driverless.

There are other companies, but I think I've mostly seen this kind of tech from small companies and start-ups, rather than big auto-makers. Sure most of them have been working on "automization" of the car, but only for certain specific technologies, not "self-driving car" technologies. The best Audi could show at CES was self-parking, and even that needed infrastructure put in place in the parking lot for it to work,…

Additionally, Volkswagen/Audi autonomous efforts go far beyond 'self parking.

They partnered with Stanford AI Lab , won the Darpa Grand Challenge, climbed Pikes Peak, etc.

The key issue being overlooked in these discussions of 'Autonomous vehicles at scale' is that all of these projects revolve around Lidar - and I'm unsure how well that scales with multiple laser sources throwing off 'point cloud' data. :shrug:

[1] Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) http://www.vwerl.com/

Re: Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

#74

Post by chimpinee »

Combine driverless cars with electric motors. Add a few driver-free high speed tunnels which connect to the existing road network (I assume tunnelling will eventually be cheaper than building new roads). Then we'll have a growing, backwards-compatible high speed freight distribution system which delivers to the doorstep. And as cars get quieter and pollution free (locally) our cities will suddenly become civilised places to walk around in, breathing freely. Maybe we'll hang out like philosophers in the market squares of Athens or Florence :-)

Re: Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

#75

Post by defrost »

gfodor wrote: post #54

I'm going to disagree with other posters that Google is not going to own this market. It's hard to think of another company that is even close to being able to execute on this. It's the ultimate big data problem. The in-house experience of Google at running computing infrastructure is a must-have for this type of system to work.

Rio Tinto.

Not for general public driving, of course, but for fleets of trucks and excavators that operate globally 24/7.

At various sites they are already operating driverless equipment using tech developed in house.

For what it's worth, oil & gas & mineral exploration work drove a large part of the civilian development of tools like Google Earth / Google Maps in the decades prior to the first public offerings by Google (who acquired their tech from others (the chaps from Sydney for Maps, Keyhole for Earth)).

Re: Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

#76

Post by bcoates »

jmspring wrote: post #17

The next several years should prove "interesting" for the car market. Driverless cars and assorted state DOT departments pushing for black boxes in cars on the basis of tracking milage are both going to see pushback from the general public. I've bought two new cars (and 1 used) in the last 15 years. The oldest lasted 11 years and 256000 miles. The used was a truck when I bought my house. The newest is a diesel wagon…

Why would the DOT want a black box? They already have reliable and difficult to circumvent revenue streams from gas taxes and registration fees. Congestion charges only make sense in extremely rare places like London, and even there they just use plate recognition.

Re: Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

#77

Post by bambax »

Cushman wrote: post #50

I've been saying this to anyone who will listen for years. I really believe this technology will touch everything . Real estate markets will shift dramatically as the average commute time halves or quarters. Transport costs will plummet, making every single physical object cheaper. Public transit will be dirt cheap, always punctual, and take you absolutely anywhere. Tens of thousands of people each year will escape d…

I can't wait to see driverless cars available everywhere, but I'm afraid of the pushback, especially from governments who will inevitably come up with stupid regulations that will make it as cumbersome to use as possible.

Also, given that I live in France, I'm sure there won't be any Google car allowed anywhere before the French automakers are able to make one -- which is to say, probably never.

Re: Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

#78

Post by thoughtcriminal »

jaggederest wrote: post #63
thoughtcriminal wrote: post #61

We'll all be dead from toxic smog before Google's driverless cars get anywhere. I think the idea is extremely shortsighted. It's a technological feat but not a creative one. It just produces more cars, more fuel-burning and more roads. It's more cars and that will produce more pollution. Ultimately, it solves nothing. You want to stop deadly car crashes? Help save wildlife from excessive roads and urban sprawl? Stop…

> We will need more roads, more cars and that will produce more pollution. Nope. Less. Cars-per-person will nosedive from almost 1:1 in the US right now to maybe 1:5 - that means the embodied energy wasted on cars will go down. Per-mile energy costs will go down too, if cars are driven efficiently. It also enables the large-scale conversion of the US car fleet to electric propulsion. Cars can recharge themselves and…

That's a lot of ifs, and making a lot of assumptions. We don't have this kind of time.

For God sakes, please snap out of your delusion.

Re: Google's Driverless Car Is Worth Trillions

#80

Post by cynwoody »

Joeri wrote: post #53
Cushman wrote: post #50

I've been saying this to anyone who will listen for years. I really believe this technology will touch everything . Real estate markets will shift dramatically as the average commute time halves or quarters. Transport costs will plummet, making every single physical object cheaper. Public transit will be dirt cheap, always punctual, and take you absolutely anywhere. Tens of thousands of people each year will escape d…

90 percent of those in the transportation sector will lose their jobs. Car companies will go broke when demand plummets. Pizza delivery will not be an entrylevel job. I think the net effect will be hugely positive, but like all paradigm shifts this is going to cause immense social upheaval and initially look like it only makes things worse.

> Car companies will go broke when demand plummets.

Just because it doesn't have a driver doesn't mean it doesn't need to be manufactured. Car companies will do fine.

> Pizza delivery will not be an entrylevel job.

Nope. But pizza making still will be. Sebastian, are you listening?

> I think the net effect will be hugely positive

You got that right.

> but like all paradigm shifts this is going to cause immense social upheaval and initially look like it only makes things worse.

So, what? You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

The key is to forbid the government from breaking eggs. Egg breaking should be strictly a private sector activity, judged solely by consumer demand.

Post reply on HN