Rivian's gambit for full autonomy • Hacker News Board

Re: Rivian's gambit for full autonomy

#121

Post by elicash » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 2:50 PM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #88

elicash wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think insurance companies might beat the regulators, in terms of incentivizing safer vehicles via discounts. Which would then offset these monthly subscriptions by car companies.

why wouldn't the FSD company itself integrate into insurance? they have the error rate data which is king for insurance. seems like free real estate.

I think that's a smart point and seems likely to be attempted.

It presents interesting questions, though. Right now, insurance companies are incentivized to fight for their customer in court against the other driver because they don't want to pay out.

But if the FSD provider is also the insurer, they aren't a neutral party if the dispute is between whether FSD is to blame or if the driver is to blame. It could become adversarial, let's say if the data in the car shows the driver wasn't looking at the road at the moment of the crash and therefore wasn't ready to take over for self-driving.

There might be ways around this, but it's a challenge to overcome. I'd want my insurance company to protect me against my FSD provider, too.

(My point is complicated by the fact that liability coverage is separate, admittedly. My insurer might not want to pay out if I was driving drunk, for example.)

Re: Rivian's gambit for full autonomy

#122

Post by toss1 » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 3:22 PM UTC

dilap wrote: post #44

Isn't Tesla already there? I took a fully-autonomyous Cybercab to a coffee shop yesterday; it doesn't even have a steering wheel. It was just a short drive, but it handled various complications (a garbage truck, double-parked cars, construction, unpainted speed bumps) with aplomb. The driving felt extremely smooth and human-like (better, in my experience, than Waymo, which can still be a bit jerky).

Do you know how much of the drive and handling those complications was actually fully autonomous vs how much (or what key points) were handled from the remote control room by a human?

I'm not sure how you would tell, but that is a critical question for scaling and true autonomy.

Re: Rivian's gambit for full autonomy

#123

Post by NewJazz » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 3:46 PM UTC

whateveracct wrote: post #87

GMoromisato wrote: post #80

I think this article is underestimating Tesla and very much underestimating how hard Level 4 autonomy is. The long-tail of edge conditions to handle is really long, and Rivian is only at the beginning. What Rivian is going to release at the end of 2026 is what Tesla had 3 years ago. All that time has gone to dealing with edge conditions: bike lanes, emergency vehicles, construction zones, and all the crazy one-off si…

Waymo is first to market by retrofitting a bunch of Jaguars nobody else would buy. They can keep that arbitrage up for a while.

They've already started using other models, both ioniq 5s and I think Zeekrs.

I agree that Waymo doesn't need to ramp up manufacturing themselves until they really start hitting walls with vehicle makers, or want tighter integration with the vehicle.

Re: Rivian's gambit for full autonomy

#124

Post by ghu2 » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 3:52 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #122

dilap wrote: post #44

Isn't Tesla already there? I took a fully-autonomyous Cybercab to a coffee shop yesterday; it doesn't even have a steering wheel. It was just a short drive, but it handled various complications (a garbage truck, double-parked cars, construction, unpainted speed bumps) with aplomb. The driving felt extremely smooth and human-like (better, in my experience, than Waymo, which can still be a bit jerky).

Do you know how much of the drive and handling those complications was actually fully autonomous vs how much (or what key points) were handled from the remote control room by a human? I'm not sure how you would tell, but that is a critical question for scaling and true autonomy.

Yup the question is scale - which reflects economics - and diversity of conditions.

People underestimate how adaptable and efficient humans are.

Re: Rivian's gambit for full autonomy

#125

Post by NewJazz » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

delichon wrote: post #17

xnx wrote: post #13

car company != software company. Building a car gets you approximately 0% closer to knowing how to make a safe software driver . Writing AV software is exceptionally hard. We only have 2 safe functioning drivers presently: humans (debatable) and Waymo. Apple spent $7(?) billion and gave up. Uber and GM have also set billions on fire with nothing to show for it. Tesla might get there, but it could still be 5 years awa…

> Tesla might get there As of August Tesla had 80+ unsupervised taxis in operation with more than 380k miles driven total, and they are required to report incidents to the NHTSA. At the rate at which they are adding miles, if they are not now safer than human drivers, we should know soon.

Unsupervised? They aren't remotely supervised or intervened at all?

Re: Rivian's gambit for full autonomy

#126

Post by moffkalast » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 4:43 PM UTC

GMoromisato wrote: post #114

JMiao wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate why robotaxi success will hinge on manufacturing?

Because once the software gets to an acceptable level, it becomes table-stakes--it's not a differentiator. After that, the only thing that matters is who deploys the most cars, and the unit economics of each car. That depends on manufacturing (e.g., low unit costs, and high throughput).

Zeekr can surely outbuild and undercut any US firm by a wide margin.