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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

#261

Post by thfuran »

nradov wrote: post #87
margalabargala wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the alternative would be a corporation constantly providing -- for free -- updates and even support if your car gets into an accident or stuck. That's one alternative. Another alternative would be that you get what you get at purchase time, and you have to buy a new car to get the newest update. "Continuous development" isn't always a selling point when it's something with your life in its hands. A great example is…

The consumers who mock Tesla (and other auto manufacturers) that deliver continuous updates are rapidly dying off or moving into assisted living facilities. They're not going to be buying many new cars in coming years. Pursuing that market segment seems like literally a "dead" end.

I know a lot of people who work on medical device software and think Teslas approach to updates is insane. A safety critical system simply should not have routine updates that affect UX or major performance characteristics.

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

#262

Post by ActorNightly »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #250
ActorNightly wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>afforadbility This 1000%. Electric cars are supposed to be simple. Give me something in a shape of a Civic, with the engine replaced with a motor and a battery good for 150 miles, and sell it for $10-12k new. Don't even need an entertainment cluster, give me a place to put a tablet or a phone and just have a bluetooth speaker. Instead, we are getting these boutique, expensive vehicles packed full of tech, but in the…

> Don't even need an entertainment cluster, give me a place to put a tablet or a phone and just have a bluetooth speaker. Illegal - backup camera is required. Speakers probably too for alerts. Also you are super naive if you think that's where actual cost is.

Most of the cost is in development and prototyping that the company has to make up for, followed by battery as those have a set $/kwh price.

This is why the rest of the car has to be an already proven platform that is cheap to make.

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

#263

Post by amluto »

WaxProlix wrote: post #38
igor47 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ver…

This sounds nothing like my experience, you should get that vehicle serviced.

Service can’t do anything about the state machine being wrong.

The Rivian app does not permit you to send a command to the car while the app thinks the car is processing a command. Trunk opening? You can’t unlock the door. On top of this, if you try to open the trunk while outside Bluetooth range and then Bluetooth connects, you are still stuck waiting for the pending command to complete.

Oh, and the ridiculous “hey let’s always remind you that you own a Rivian” Live Activity seems to synchronize on a schedule that involves being hours and hours out of date.

The Rivian app sucks.

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

#264

Post by jrnng »

echelon wrote: post #124
bryanlarsen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it seems inevitable that autonomy and insurance are going to be bundled. 1. Courts are finding Tesla partially liable for collisions, so they've already got some of the downsides of insurance (aka the payout) without the upside (the premium). 2. Waymo data shows a significant injury reduction rate. If it's true and not manipulated data, it's natural for the car companies to want to capture some of this upside…

I would pay so much for my own SUV to self-drive as well as Waymo. Keyword: my own SUV. Not a rental. With the possibility for me to take over and drive it myself if service fails or if I want to do so. The significant unlock is that I get to haul gear, packages, family. I don't need to keep it clean. The muddy dogs, the hiking trip, the week-long road trip. If my car could drive me, I'd do way more road trips and sk…

How much would you pay? Why not hire an actual human driver?

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

#265

Post by RivieraKid »

japhyr wrote: post #202
viburnum wrote: post #166

Quite the qualification for self-driving: "as long as there are clearly painted lane lines."

Fully autonomous driving in all conditions in all locations is clearly a hard problem that's still not solved. I'm very happy with any company that clearly spells out the situations where their tech works, and the situations where it doesn't yet work.

I've been saying that it's semi-solved, in the sense that we have a decent idea of how to get there without requiring major breakthroughs. (By "we" I mean Waymo.)

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

#266

Post by jerlam »

nradov wrote: post #87
margalabargala wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the alternative would be a corporation constantly providing -- for free -- updates and even support if your car gets into an accident or stuck. That's one alternative. Another alternative would be that you get what you get at purchase time, and you have to buy a new car to get the newest update. "Continuous development" isn't always a selling point when it's something with your life in its hands. A great example is…

The consumers who mock Tesla (and other auto manufacturers) that deliver continuous updates are rapidly dying off or moving into assisted living facilities. They're not going to be buying many new cars in coming years. Pursuing that market segment seems like literally a "dead" end.

Tesla owners aren't that young.

This site claims the average age of Tesla owners is 48 (updated for 2025):

https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2018/11/tesla-owner-demograph...

Which should not be that surprising. Teslas were priced as premium vehicles initially, and then dropped as competitors appeared and to take advantage of tax credits. Teslas also benefit dramatically from owning a garage and adding a charger to it, which mostly homeowners can do.

A homeowner buying an expensive car is very likely older and richer.

Teslas aren't cool anymore, they are what your parents and your Uber driver has.

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

#267

Post by octorian »

filoleg wrote: post #86
behnamoh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine having a vehicle with +680 hp (or 1000 hp in case of Rivian quad) and then drive it autonomously... sigh where's the fun in that?

There is nothing fun about sitting in traffic on your commute to/from work, and neither there is much fun in doing long-distance driving in a straight line on highway for hours on end (regardless of the horsepower). That's what autonomous driving is for imo. There is a lot of fun in driving a high-hp car on track or offroad or in some not-much-populated area or in plenty of other scenarios. That's where using autonom…

> There is nothing fun about sitting in traffic on your commute to/from work, and neither there is much fun in doing long-distance driving in a straight line on highway for hours on end

And I wish this would be more broadly recognized. Every time there's a story about someone important freaking out about something related to autonomous driving, I'm at least somewhat afraid they'll use it as justification to deny me access to it for those specific use cases.

And honestly, those are the only use cases I really care about or feel comfortable with right now. Of course my car is also too old to support much more than that.

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

#268

Post by fragmede »

ActorNightly wrote: post #127
cyode wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CarPlay and affordability. I was totally smitten last year with the R1S during a test drive. I'm not a car person but felt that spark people must feel when they obsess over their vehicles. But it wasn't pushing-six-figures smitten, which is where you're at when you get a new one with customizations.

>afforadbility This 1000%. Electric cars are supposed to be simple. Give me something in a shape of a Civic, with the engine replaced with a motor and a battery good for 150 miles, and sell it for $10-12k new. Don't even need an entertainment cluster, give me a place to put a tablet or a phone and just have a bluetooth speaker. Instead, we are getting these boutique, expensive vehicles packed full of tech, but in the…

Unfortunately federal standards now require the backup camera, so the entertainment cluster comes along basically for free from that.

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

#269

Post by pksebben »

jrnng wrote: post #264
echelon wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would pay so much for my own SUV to self-drive as well as Waymo. Keyword: my own SUV. Not a rental. With the possibility for me to take over and drive it myself if service fails or if I want to do so. The significant unlock is that I get to haul gear, packages, family. I don't need to keep it clean. The muddy dogs, the hiking trip, the week-long road trip. If my car could drive me, I'd do way more road trips and sk…

How much would you pay? Why not hire an actual human driver?

human drivers are inconvenient. They need sleep, and food, and probably won't be willing to take a 5 month trip south of the border for giggles. They poop. Inevitably they will try to do weird shit like have a conversation.

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

#270

Post by octorian »

viburnum wrote: post #166

Quite the qualification for self-driving: "as long as there are clearly painted lane lines."

The endless list of "exception" cases is why I'm continuous skeptical about any sort of full-self-driving claims.

Sure, you can cover everything they can think of. But there are so many cases you can't predict, or which don't have an obvious solution, and it often comes down to a human judgement call that doesn't always have a programmatically-clear right answer.

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