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Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

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Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#21

Post by colechristensen »

suprnurd wrote: post #6

Where I live I am often surrounded by Waymo vehicles... is Lidar 100% safe for people to be around? I ask because I read an article about how Lidar on one of the new Volvos could destroy your phone camera if you pointed it at it? If Lidar can do that to a phone camera, can it hurt your eyes?

There are two kinds of safe. Safe when it's working as intended, and safe when it breaks.

But yes there are lidar sensors out there where if broken in the right way could burn out your retinas permanently.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#22

Post by igor47 »

darth_avocado wrote: post #7
bjord wrote: post #2

is everyone designing their own silicon getting so much additional them-specific utility out of it that it's actually worth it?

Rivian has a huge interest in being the outsourcer for legacy automakers. They’re not able to sell $100k cars enough and even with the promised R2, they probably will only be a small-ish player in the EV market. Their CEO recognizes how crazy good Chinese EVs are and currently they’re not even a competitor for Tesla. But, VW is willing to pay $5B for their software platform. I think they want to extend that to being…

Which honestly is crazy to me. I have a Rivian, and to say the software is disappointing would be an understatement. There are heisenbugs galore; some examples:

* Doors refuse to open

* Lose the ability to control media playback using any controls

* Any button in the UI just opens and closes the windows

Granted, I'm a server side/backend engineer mostly, and I don't know much about writing software/firmware for a very hostile emf environment. But if any project I worked on had bugs like this, fixed at the rate they're fixed on Rivian, I would assume a badly flawed architecture or non existent technical leadership

Yet VW paid billions for this very software. I can't imagine how bad it must've been on their own stack that they gave up and bought this other seemingly broken stack

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#23

Post by filoleg »

suprnurd wrote: post #6

Where I live I am often surrounded by Waymo vehicles... is Lidar 100% safe for people to be around? I ask because I read an article about how Lidar on one of the new Volvos could destroy your phone camera if you pointed it at it? If Lidar can do that to a phone camera, can it hurt your eyes?

Your eyes will be fine (assuming that we are talking about automotive LiDAR specifically).

Automotive LiDAR is designed to meet Class-1 laser eye-safety standard, which means "safe under normal conditions." It isn't some subjective/marketing thing, it is an official laser safety classification that is very regulated.

However, if you try to break that "normal conditions" rule by pressing your eyeball directly against an automotive LiDAR sensor for a very long period of time while it is blasting, you might cause yourself some damage.

The reason for why your phone camera would get damaged, but not your eyes, is due to the nature of how camera lenses work. They are designed to gather as much light as possible from a direction and focus it onto a flat, tiny sensor. The same LiDAR beam that is spread out for a large retina can become hyper-concentrated onto a handful of pixels through the camera optics.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#24

Post by bickfordb »

bjord wrote: post #2

is everyone designing their own silicon getting so much additional them-specific utility out of it that it's actually worth it?

I have the same question. It makes sense that they might need bespoke software, but how could they possibly be more efficient at creating chips than an AMD/Nvidia?

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#25

Post by frankfrank13 »

Is there some tight coupling on autonomy + electric cars? Seems the only 2 viable hands-free car companies are Tesla and Rivian. I don't see myself ever getting an electric car, but it doesn't seem like the big car companies are anywhere near this.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#26

Post by spankalee »

idontwantthis wrote: post #10

Can anyone explain why RIVN is down 8% after this announcement? Were investors expecting hands free handjobs or something?

I hold some RIVN and I'm wondering why they're spending resources on custom silicon instead of using something off-the-shelf. What is their advantage here? Can they hire the right people? Can they ship enough units to pay for it?

Those are my bearish questions. On the bullish side, the VW deal shows that they're willing and able to license part of their platform, so possibly have a big chance to recoup costs and maybe turn a profit just on that side, which justifies a big software + autonomy investment.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#27

Post by TulliusCicero »

7e wrote: post #3

No, Waymo is just going to license their tech to normal automakers, like Toyota, and those licensees will win. Rivian is run by a Musk-wannabe but even this stock pump isn’t going to help with his sociopath, multibillion dollar compensation package.

Incendiary language aside, this does seem pretty likely to me. Waymo has already talked about wanting to license their driver for personally owned cars eventually; it just doesn't make sense for them to do so until they can cover more of the country (or countries). The more areas they cover, and especially when they can cover various popular freeways connecting different metro areas, the more it'll make sense for them to start partnering with automakers to sell the technology to consumers.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#30

Post by hartator »

frankfrank13 wrote: post #25

Is there some tight coupling on autonomy + electric cars? Seems the only 2 viable hands-free car companies are Tesla and Rivian. I don't see myself ever getting an electric car, but it doesn't seem like the big car companies are anywhere near this.

I think the shift to EV is inevitable.
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