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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

#271

Post by zx8080 »

ekianjo wrote: post #251
malnourish wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one opinion. My opinion is public transport is phenomenal. It's relatively reliable (very in some places), generally clean and safe, low cost, encourages urban/high efficiency development, protects greenspace, and employees people.

What are you talking about? In most cities public transport sucks, hardly goes anywhere, gets more expensive year after year, makes housing prices go up, and is slow and inflexible enough that people still end up needing cars to go around

It's interesting to read such an opposite opinions on public transport from Americans and Europeans.

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

#272

Post by wat10000 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #253
wat10000 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving can be annoying. I like it in some cases, but it's no fun when there's a ton of traffic, lots of stop lights, etc. I'd love to be able to push a button and let it handle the grunt work in those cases. Sometimes I want to do something else. Maybe adjust my music, or send a text. If the car can keep me going while I do that, it would be nice. I live with two people who can't drive. Often I have to take them to…

Anecdotally, whenever I have to tote someone around who cannot drive, it is nearly universally true that they also cannot get in and out of the car without help, too. So that has to be arranged, a self-driving car won't be able to solve it.

There are reasons other than physical disability for people to be unable to drive. For example, the person I’m driving tonight can’t drive themselves because they’re too young to have a license.

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

#273

Post by fragmede »

stoneman24 wrote: post #80
dllu wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the wavelength of lidar. Near IR lidars (850 nm to 940 nm, like Ouster, Waymo, Hesai) will be focused to your retina whereas 1550 nm lidars (like Luminar, Seyond) will not be focused and have trouble penetrating water, but they are a lot more powerful so they instead heat up your cornea. To quote my other comment [1]: > If you have many lidars around, the beams from each 905 nm lidar will be focused to a d…

Do you if there has been any work how lasers affect other animals and insects? Am I being catastrophically pessimistic to think that in addition to swatting insects as it moves forward, the cars lidar is blinding insects in a several hundred meter path ? I’m very optimistic about automated cars being better than most humans but wonder about side effects.

If we have automated anti-mosquito vehicles just roaming around, the world would be a better place. There might be some second order effects from removing mosquitoes that we haven't predicted, but fuck mosquitoes.

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

#274

Post by stephen_g »

hcurtiss wrote: post #224
llbeansandrice wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be an absolute energy and efficiency nightmare. I hope to god this never ever happens. > No sharing space with people on public transit. If people really want their own private suites they should be paying thru the nose and ears for it. Cars are a worse version of this and the car-centric lifestyle is heavily subsidized by everything from taxes to people's lives (air pollution from ICEs yes, but tire pollu…

Public transit is a dream turned nightmare consistently for seventy-five years. Autonomy will be less efficient -- but not that much less efficient given closer car spacing, speed, and remote parking -- but it will be spectacularly more convenient and comfortable. I'm all for it. You'll survive the tire pollution.

> Public transit is a dream turned nightmare consistently for seventy-five years

*In the United States. For reasons we have avoided in much of the rest of the world...

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

#275

Post by beeflet »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #18

Autonomy subscriptions are how things are going to go, I called this a long time ago. It makes too much sense in terms of continuous development and operations/support to not have a subscription -- and subscriptions will likely double as insurance at some point in the future (once the car is driving itself 100% of the time, and liability is always with the self driving stack anyway). Of course, people won't like this…

yeah but what if comma.ai or something cannibalizes this with open source tech?

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

#276

Post by octorian »

nicksergeant wrote: post #11

Meanwhile, the only thing people really want from Rivian is CarPlay / Android Auto support, lol.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I'll take a car infotainment system that doesn't need CarPlay/AndroidAuto to be usable (and lacks it) over one that requires a phone attached via CarPlay/AndroidAuto to be usable.

I use Android Auto on rental cars all the time.

My daily driver is a Tesla (Model S /w MCU v2) that doesn't have it. And doesn't need it to provide a usable experience.

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

#277

Post by red75prime »

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 can't find how it will operate. Will it detect a situation where lines are not painted sufficiently clearly, warn you, and disengage? Or will you need to detect where it begins to operate wonky because lines aren't painted sufficiently clearly and to take over? I guess it's the second. It's hands-off, not eyes-off.

Also, I would like to see a car company that is further down the road of full autonomy clearly describing all the long tail scenarios. It's just impossible.

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

#278

Post by iambateman »

it seems like car-makers themselves feel burdened to make their own self-driving tech, as opposed to outsourcing the software to a third party.

Dell and HP don’t make operating systems…it seems like having a handful of companies focused on getting the self-driving part right without the need to also specialize in manufacturing would be beneficial.

My first inclination was to be bullish on Rivian, and there’s no question that their vehicles are beautiful. But is there anything to suggest they have an advantage over Tesla or other automakers when it comes to self-driving?

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

#279

Post by AlotOfReading »

pstuart wrote: post #190
typewithrhythm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NVIDIA orin series is the big one for tensor horsepower. Horizon robotics and Qualcomm also have competitive automotive packages. They are all expensive, but less than the risk adjusted cost of developing a chip.

Isn't that risk balanced by a healthy reward of controlling their verticals and possible secret sauce? And their chips give "1600 sparse INT8 TOPS" vs the Orin's "more than 1,000 INT8 TOPS" -- so comparable enough? And going forward they can tailor it to exactly what they want?

Orin is Nvidia's last generation. Current gen is Thor at 1k TOPS. Rivian's announcement specifies TOPS at the module level. The actual chip is more like 800 and probably doubled. Throw two Thors on a similar board and you're looking at 2000 sparse int8 TOPS.

I've been involved with similar efforts on both sides before. Making your own hardware is not a clear cut win even if you hit timelines and performance. I wish them luck (not least because I might need a new job someday), but this is an incredibly difficult space.

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

#280

Post by Zee2 »

viburnum wrote: post #166

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

That was specifically for their existing Gen2 highway assist expansion. Not the Gen3 custom silicon full autonomy that they were discussing for the rest of the presentation.
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