GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
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Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
#2Here's an interesting "lidar gem" from Hacker News a few years ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33554679
Lidar obstacle detection algorithm from a Git repo leaked onto Tor
This is a drivable region mapping (obstacle detection) algorithm found in what appears to be a git repo leaked from an autonomous vehicle company in 2017. The repo was available through one or more Tor hidden services for several years.
The lidar code appears to be written for the Velodyne HDL-32E. It operates in a series of stages, each stage refining the output of the previous stage. This algorithm is in the second stage. It is the primary obstacle detection method, with the other methods making only small improvements.
The leaked code uses a column-major matrix of points and it explicitly handles NaNs (the no-return points). We've rewritten it to use a much more cache-efficient row-major matrix layout and a conditional that will ignore the NaN points without explicit testing.
This is an amazingly effective method of obstacle detection, considering its simplicity.
Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
#3> GM said in a statement that “... an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” were the reasons for the change.
Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex? Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech) is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow out.
Small anecdote: I visited a GM dealership this week and the salesperson told me Super Cruise was not enabled for test drives. The excuse was pretty weak, like the dealership would have to pay for the service or something. GM might have the technology but they are completely bungling the strategy.
Ford just lowered the cost of its BlueCruise subscription by 1/3rd. In an earnings call eight months prior they remarked they made a 70% margin on the service. It seems like drivers did not find the feature compelling and were not renewing. Interest in autonomous driving appears to be cooling across the board.
Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
#4Going to leave this here
https://blog.comma.ai/a-100x-investment-part-1/ https://blog.comma.ai/a-100x-investment-part-2/
Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
#5Archive https://archive.is/20241210211353/https://www.bloomberg.com/...
QUOTE: Cruise and GM’s technical teams will be combined into a single effort focused on developing autonomous technology to offer in future models sold by GM, according to a statement Tuesday. GM said it will no longer fund robotaxi development work “given the considerable time and resources that would be needed to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive robotaxi market.”
It’s a big retrench for GM and Cruise, which survived a shakeout among autonomous-driving companies and restarted operations after one of its cars dragged a pedestrian last year. ...
The move has significant implications for GM. Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra wanted to transform the automaker into a transportation technology company and double GM’s revenue by 2030 in part by generating $50 billion from Cruise. Without a robotaxi business to bring in fares, that goal looks remote. /QUOTE
The business of robotaxis has always been a bit suspect, given the unit economics of running 1000s of taxis, each with ~$100K of equipment (even as the COGS were coming down each generation).
My 2c: the only reason Waymo is succeeding (so far) is that its parent Alphabet has deeep pockets, it has a a 6th gen (?) technology of its AV driver, and they already exited the other AV trucking segment... implying they need to succeed in robotaxis, so it's all hands on deck. It also helps that they have, so far, NOT blundered their way (=> a significant pedestrian collision) the way Uber ATG did or Cruise did.
This is a loong game to win, far longer than anything the tech bros have promised their their investors... We are still in the initial innings
Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
#6> GM said in a statement that “... an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” were the reasons for the change. Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex? Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech) is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow…
> Small anecdote: I visited a GM dealership this week and the salesperson told me Super Cruise was not enabled for test drives. The excuse was pretty weak, like the dealership would have to pay for the service or something. GM might have the technology but they are completely bungling the strategy.
Sadly this is believable, I've asked to check out things like remote start and control of heating/cooling, and the sales people cannot show those features off because they require an app + subscription tied to the car.
Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
#7> GM said in a statement that “... an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” were the reasons for the change. Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex? Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech) is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow…
>Google/Waymo ... Amazon/Zoox ... Uber/Yandex ... GM Super Cruise ... Ford BluesClues
That's the one the press release is referring to, I guarantee it.
Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
#8> GM said in a statement that “... an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” were the reasons for the change. Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex? Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech) is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow…
>Google/Waymo ... Amazon/Zoox ... Uber/Yandex ... GM Super Cruise ... Ford BluesClues Conspicuously absent is The Car+AI Company That Shall Not Be Named. That's the one the press release is referring to, I guarantee it.
Just edited to add it in. Wikipedia says they're not going into production until 2027 though, and unlike the others I don't think they're operating in any markets.
Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
#9> GM said in a statement that “... an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” were the reasons for the change. Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex? Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech) is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow…
> Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind
Yes. I think GM leadership has finally learned enough to realize how far behind they are.
Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house
#10> GM said in a statement that “... an increasingly competitive robotaxi market” were the reasons for the change. Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex? Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech) is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow…
> Small anecdote: I visited a GM dealership this week and the salesperson told me Super Cruise was not enabled for test drives. The excuse was pretty weak, like the dealership would have to pay for the service or something. GM might have the technology but they are completely bungling the strategy. Sadly this is believable, I've asked to check out things like remote start and control of heating/cooling, and the sales…
Based on my anecdotal experience, another issue is that salespeople are not trained on the tech
I worked on a feature for new vehicles and the company failed in part because buyers simply didn’t know those features were part of the vehicle. Dealers never set it up for the buyer and it wasn’t something many people would think to do on their own
A salesperson isn’t going to jeopardize an easy sale by bungling some fancy new feature they can’t control