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Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

techcrunch.com

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Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#151

Post by toomuchtodo »

SilasX wrote: post #135
CM30 wrote: post #102

I don't think this is all that surprising to be honest. Google is (by and large) a software development and services company, not a car manufacturer. If they make their own autonomous vehicles, that means they then have to handle everything from safety testing to customer support and sales in addition to the self driving car technology itself. By working with existing car manufacturers, they can focus on their part o…

I have the same response to people who claim Tesla will take over ridehsaring once they have a self-driving car (as opposed to just selling to existing ones that have already built a customer base and worked out the domain specific problems).

Because clearly Uber would succeed over a manufacturer who actually makes self driving car. Aren't there already almost 8-10 ridesharing options available in Austin after Uber and Lyft vacated?

Uber and Lyft are the WebVan of this decade.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#153

Post by ajmurmann »

ch4s3 wrote: post #121
ajmurmann wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see that during a relatively short transition period but hope it won't remain that way. Once all cars are autonomous we can do incredible things. For example traffic lights to regulate traffic between cars will be obsolete. Cars can just adjust their speed way before the intersection so that they just miss each other at the intersection. Likewise we can avoid congestion by cars registering for their route in ad…

Sometimes stop lights are there so that people can walk across the street.

That's why I said "traffic lights to regulate traffic between cars"

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#154

Post by ajmurmann »

daturkel wrote: post #144
pacman128 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description of how things would work with no traffic lights would scare me to death. One errant car (mechanical failure, software bug or hacked) could cause multiple fatalities. Systems need to be resistant to disaster from perturbations like these.

Not to mention the fact that non-autonomous cars will continue to exist en-masse. People value the experience of driving a car (especially sports cars or classic cars, but even just the every day sedan) and I don't think that the advent of autonomous cars will eliminate that for a very, very long time.

Unfortunately you are probably right with that, especially in the US where people value individual freedom over pretty much anything else. I expect Japan and China to be first with having meat driven cars and the US and Germany to ban them last. Not banning them will come with a tremendous economic cost.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#155

Post by nradov »

dx034 wrote: post #34
emdowling wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple: everyone is looking for the next big platform. The smartphone revolution came by surprise to most and it has taken years for companies to catch up. Everyone is racing because they don't want to be caught with their pants down again.

Exactly that. If one company (especially one with high production capacity) would now release a fully functional self driving car, they could dominate the car market for the next decade. Orders for trucks, delivery vehicles, uber etc would alone max out production for several years. If done by a major player (e.g. Toyota, GM, VW), they could probably get legislation in some states changed quickly if they can proof th…

No, all of the major auto manufacturers have pared down their spare capacity (and dealership networks) to save costs. So even if Toyota, GM, or VW invented an affordable fully functional self driving car tomorrow they wouldn't be able to dominate the market. It would take years to build up additional factory capacity, giving competitors a chance to catch up.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#156

Post by stocktech »

jandrese wrote: post #149
CM30 wrote: post #102

I don't think this is all that surprising to be honest. Google is (by and large) a software development and services company, not a car manufacturer. If they make their own autonomous vehicles, that means they then have to handle everything from safety testing to customer support and sales in addition to the self driving car technology itself. By working with existing car manufacturers, they can focus on their part o…

I suspect Google got cold feet when they started considering the liability issues once this goes mainstream. Even their millions of miles road tests were done at low speeds near their campus.

They're focused on moonshots. They would have managed the liability like any other company for the prospect of transforming transportation as we know it.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#157

Post by chrisdbaldwin »

baggachipz wrote: post #130
CM30 wrote: post #102

I don't think this is all that surprising to be honest. Google is (by and large) a software development and services company, not a car manufacturer. If they make their own autonomous vehicles, that means they then have to handle everything from safety testing to customer support and sales in addition to the self driving car technology itself. By working with existing car manufacturers, they can focus on their part o…

Yes, perhaps, but the counter to this is that they could "benefit from the closed system of vertical integration" that seems to be all the rage these days. I could envision a scenario where they partner with existing manufacturers for a couple years, then "courageously" break off and produce their own vehicle in order to "control the process".

Google will want ad revenue from the captive audience in the self driving car. Control the self driving car ecosystem in the long term and avoid the cost of manufacturing and compliance in the short. I like the assumption that they will "come back" into the space, because it's a great play.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#158

Post by semi-extrinsic »

petra wrote: post #69
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this scenario is that modern cars are already safe enough that it will literally take decades to gather enough data to prove a statistically significant 10% safety increase from autonomous cars, even if you sell millions of them. Keep in mind the NHTSA safety statistics you frequently see quoted are for the entire car population on the road, with a significant portion of 10-15 year old cars which are…

>> crumple zones and airbags .. Those have to do with fatality rates, not accident rates(1 accident per 250,000 miles). >> statistically significant 10% safety increase For a sample size of a million cars , each year is 15 Billion miles, i.e. 60,000 accidents per year, vs 54000 accidents per year is statistcally significant.

Fatality rates are what's recently been discussed, e.g. related to the Tesla AutoPilot crash.

If you switch to measuring "accidents", two big concerns pop up: 1) who defines what an accident is? and 2) if we get autonomous cars that end up in less minor accidents but same or more number of fatalities, is it really worth it?

We could extend it to "fatalities and accidents where someone is left permanently disabled", which is pretty unambiguous and does measure the most important factors. But I'm afraid (or rather, glad) that this won't give you an orders-of-magnitude increase in statistical samples as you get when counting all accidents.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#159

Post by aianus »

0x6c6f6c wrote: post #126
shostack wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people would prefer no delays and a private ride. But the savings of pooling is too large for many to ignore.

So you mean, most people absolutely do prefer no delays and a private ride, since the other ~80% of Uber riders don't do the POOL option. The market exists for both though. It's a smart move to offer this option. It's more energy economical and fiscally responsible. There's certainly even people who have the time but not the money.

Pool is not an option everywhere (even in the same city). In areas where it is available it represents a majority of my trip requests.

Re: Google has reportedly stopped developing its own self-driving car

#160

Post by mtgx »

CM30 wrote: post #102

I don't think this is all that surprising to be honest. Google is (by and large) a software development and services company, not a car manufacturer. If they make their own autonomous vehicles, that means they then have to handle everything from safety testing to customer support and sales in addition to the self driving car technology itself. By working with existing car manufacturers, they can focus on their part o…

The problem is few car companies want to partner with Google because Google asks to collect too much data from all of their customers - not that I blame the car makers.
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