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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

#291

Post by RivieraKid »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #110
mrcwinn wrote: post #89

This is really poor execution. You're taking a complex, low margin vehicle and introducing even more cost and supply chain complexity. On top of that, you're essentially making a proxy bet that more expensive hardware (LIDAR) will beat Tesla's software bet. It's absolutely fair to criticize Elon for his ridiculous FSD timeline claims, but here we are now evaluating the market: if you have experienced the latest FSD,…

> if you have experienced the latest FSD, Waymo's and now Rivian's bet is just so obviously the exact wrong bet I have. It’s wild for anyone to say this. Waymo works. FSD mostly works, and I seriously considered getting a Tesla after borrowing one last week. But it needs to be supervised—this is apparent both in its attention requirement and the one time last week it tried to bolt into a red-lit intersection. The sta…

My first instinct is also that Rivian's strategy doesn't make sense. Self-driving is a monumentally hard problem, to be successful you need a world-class engineering and research team, resources and time.

I suspect that when Rivian has an L3 product, Waymo will be already offering an L4 package to car manufacturers.

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

#292

Post by rangestransform »

whimsicalism wrote: post #140
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…

> 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. Doubt that is a politically tenable model. "You're telling me my son Bobby died in a crash that could have been prevented with finished software but they only roll it out to people who have the money for a new car despite no technical limitation?" -- yeah, good luck

Think about how many hoopties are already on the road with broken lights, bad alignment, bald tires, no ABS/ESP/TC, dangerous suspension geometry like semi trailing arms, no oil changes, etc. Why don’t we start handwringing about poor vehicle maintenance?

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

#293

Post by SoftTalker »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #290
harikb wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A bad hail storm comes close. Hail damage can total a car.

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

#294

Post by margalabargala »

whimsicalism wrote: post #167
margalabargala wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that's basically how every car with half-assed barely-functional auto lane keeping sold in the last 7 years has worked.

i think self-driving changes the calculus

Relying on crappy lane keeping and crappy self driving are equally dangerous. If poor software drives you off the road, why does it matter what the feature was named?

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

#295

Post by jmye »

llbeansandrice wrote: post #205
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…

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…

> I hope to god this never ever happens.

Then I'll never buy an autonomous vehicle.

I get that most people just want short trips around a major city, but given we, I'm sure it's shocking, don't all live in places like that, or want to spend our time in places like that, it might behoove y'all to solve for other use cases if you want widespread adoption (or at least accept that it's ok to solve for those use cases).

Or, I guess, you can hope that everyone will suddenly decide that all they want is to live in modern Kowloon City because "roads are awful" or whatever memetic nonsense is trending on TikTok.

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

#296

Post by colordrops »

iknowstuff wrote: post #244
colordrops wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worthless comment. Of course it's not an issue for city driving. It's an issue for long trips and rural driving. No one said EVs don't serve many use cases. I have one myself.

Worthless human. More range is not needed and mark my words, mainstream EVs will not bother going beyond ~300 miles. Even the 400mi in a model s is a lot. More charging stations maybe, though we have plenty here in CA so roadtrips in a Tesla have never been a problem.

appreciate the compliment. I'm one of those Californians with a Tesla, and we keep a gas car for certain trips that would be very difficult with a Tesla. I'm not just making something up here. But whatever you say.

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

#297

Post by whimsicalism »

rangestransform wrote: post #292
whimsicalism wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Doubt that is a politically tenable model. "You're telling me my son Bobby died in a crash that could have been prevented with finished software but they only roll it out to people who have the money for a new car despite no technical limitation?" -- yeah, good luck

Think about how many hoopties are already on the road with broken lights, bad alignment, bald tires, no ABS/ESP/TC, dangerous suspension geometry like semi trailing arms, no oil changes, etc. Why don’t we start handwringing about poor vehicle maintenance?

If it is a self-driving software update that the manufacturer could push but chooses not to (or could trivially port), I think it becomes much more difficult liability-wise and legally for them. I'm not saying that is the correct way, but I think it is how it would work in practice.

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

#298

Post by whimsicalism »

margalabargala wrote: post #294
whimsicalism wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think self-driving changes the calculus

Relying on crappy lane keeping and crappy self driving are equally dangerous. If poor software drives you off the road, why does it matter what the feature was named?

I don't disagree on the practical level, but I think that optically it is significantly different.

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

#299

Post by AlotOfReading »

dymk wrote: post #284
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

Comma had made essentially no efforts to meet the requirements of automotive systems the last time I looked at them. They would be an incredibly risky supplier for systems that could easily come under regulatory scrutiny.

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

#300

Post by hogehoge51 »

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…

Most traditional OEMs in the automotive industry are integrators. They write a specification, and a Tier 1 supplier provides a black box matching that spec. (Tier 1 in turn provides a spec to its suppliers and integrates their parts)

This has several consequences - Tier 1 suppliers are waiting on input/approval from OEM before proceeding with projects - Tier 1 suppliers don't necessarily have the capital to do work "at risk", even if they could build the part without approval/specifications. (TBH - some do) - Each layer of the supply chain lacks context on the whole project and product line and cannot achieve efficiencies outside of the scope of its contract.

These haven't really been a problem for mechanical parts and E/E parts that have well-defined functions and interfaces and have a lot of re-use from previous generations. It works really well with Kaizen (incremental innovation).

To outsource it, a traditional OEM would need to completely specify the behaviour of said self-driving system, baseline the specification, put out the requests for quotation, etc. Tier 1 then needs to analyse the spec, estimate it, break it down in to sub work packages, work with its suppliers, etc. From an optimisation point of view, this is really inefficient partitioning of the problem space. For greenfields development, an emergent specification via experimentation may be better - but that won't fit in traditional V-model sub-contract OEMs/Tier 1s use.

That flow doesn't need to be followed; the suppliers could raise/allocate capital and build the self-driving stack "at risk" - and this seems to be done (Tier IV, Waymo, etc). But as it's new technology, I assume Rivian think they can do better by themselves and can get the capital for the development as part of an integrated solution while they are smaller it might seem they should not waste limited capitial that way - but integration will save a lot of inefficiency in sharing specifications across boundaries, full system integration and deriving emergent specification via experimentation rather than some MBSE folly.

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