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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

#281

Post by tzs »

pastel8739 wrote: post #172
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…

I very much hope that this doesn't happen. So much wasted energy for so little benefit. What's one to do in this world if they don't have the money to own a car that constantly drives them around? What's one to do if they like becoming familiar with a place, rather than watching place after place whiz by? What's one to do if they want to build relationships with the other humans in the world?

> What's one to do if they like becoming familiar with a place, rather than watching place after place whiz by?

They stop at that place and become familiar with it?

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

#282

Post by michaelt »

harikb wrote: post #206
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…

History suggests it won't be that clean. 1. High-severity accidents might drop, but the industry bleeds money on high-frequency, low-speed incidents (parking lots, neighborhood scrapes). Autonomy has diminishing returns here; it doesn't magically prevent the chaos of mixed-use environments. 2. Insurance is a capital management game. We’ll likely see a tech company try this, fail to cover a catastrophic liability due…

> Insurance is a capital management game. We’ll likely see a tech company try this, fail to cover a catastrophic liability due to lack of reserves, and trigger a massive backlash.

Google, AFAIK the only company with cars that are actually autonomous, has US$98 Billion in cash.

It'd have to be a hell of an accident to put a dent in that.

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

#283

Post by hateselfdriving »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #239
nradov wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's my impression too. You'd need to be 80 years old to be excited by a toyota.

I'm 31 and I'm very excited by the '86 Chevy truck I just got. You know why? It's _not_ "smart". The smartest thing on it is the old-school AM/FM radio. There's no software updates, there's nothing (built-in) tracking my every move. It's just a simple, repairable truck, for, you know, _driving_.

People have this strange obsession with over-complicating everything they possibly can.

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

#284

Post by dymk »

iambateman wrote: post #278

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 quest…

They could have a better driving assistance package than 99% of other cars on the road for 1/10 the price by using OpenPilot as the LKAS, or installing a Comma in the car.

Real shame nobody has taken that approach, not even a fork

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

#285

Post by mbesto »

igor47 wrote: post #22
darth_avocado wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ver…

I own a Rivian too, and previously owned a Tesla. While I too have my gripes about the UX on the Rivian, it still beats the cr*p out of a Tesla.

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

#286

Post by Zee2 »

doctoboggan wrote: post #203
Hovertruck wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot and it's surprising to me. We have three cars in our family (two with carplay and the Rivian) and carplay always feels like such a downgraded experience compared to that of the Rivian.

I have a plex server and use Prologue for audio books. What would my experience on Rivian be like? I am guessing I would have to connect to the infotainment system as a bluetooth speaker? Would I be able to easily skip forward/backward and see the current chapter? I've been using car play for the better part of the past decade and don't know what it looks like in vehicles without it.

I think the revenue source times number of people using Plex for audiobooks as a total market value for Rivian is approximately zero.

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

#287

Post by neodymiumphish »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #83
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…

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 think there will actually be a couple interesting adjustments/market forces acting in the car companies' favor.

First, if the insurance applies to fully autonomous driving only, then I suspect they’ll reach a point where the cost of insurance+automation ends up being less than just insurance through third parties.

Second, cutting into the traditional insurance market share is likely to increase costs for those who remain on traditional insurance, assuming there’s a significant enough number of people jumping ship. Combined, this creates a huge incentive for more users to jump on the self-driving bandwagon.

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

#288

Post by Zee2 »

porphyra wrote: post #48

Rivians have been spotted with giant Velodyne VLS-128 "Alpha Puck"s since several years ago [1]. But from last I checked, Rivian's ADAS is still struggling with ping-ponging in lanes on curved stretches, and it only works on a small set of pre-mapped highways. Highly doubtful that "universal hands free" is coming. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/mqijd2/riv...

The ping-ponging is certainly a Gen1 problem. (My Gen1 does this.) Gen1 was essentially an off-the-shelf Mobileye unit, and the performance was, as expected, not good.

Gen2 autonomy stack is completely unrelated to Gen1, and from what I hear is a completely different level of reliability.

(also - this presentation covered yet another, unrelated, gen3 autonomy stack, which shares none of the hardware or models with the existing gen2 stack, either.)

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

#289

Post by ryan_lane »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #246
lapetitejort wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trains can take you to the beach and away from civilization. Build a station where you want to go. At one point trains were the most practical way to get to national parks. How often are you building treehouses that you need to pay hundreds of dollars extra a month to justify the cost, versus a one-time delivery fee?

If you build train station away from civilization pretty quickly it will be filled with civilization. Trains are ok for mass transit. Rest of world is for cars.

You must be an American, because plenty of trains exist to bring people to nature elsewhere. You know, when you drive a car to a nature place, you put it into a parking lot, then you are no longer in the car, right? Same works for trains.

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

#290

Post by WillPostForFood »

harikb wrote: post #206
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…

History suggests it won't be that clean. 1. High-severity accidents might drop, but the industry bleeds money on high-frequency, low-speed incidents (parking lots, neighborhood scrapes). Autonomy has diminishing returns here; it doesn't magically prevent the chaos of mixed-use environments. 2. Insurance is a capital management game. We’ll likely see a tech company try this, fail to cover a catastrophic liability due…

Auto insurers don't face a "catastrophic liability" bankrupting scenario like home insurers might in the case of a natural disaster or fire.
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