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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

#331

Post by hateselfdriving »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #321
hateselfdriving wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Car and house are usually most expensive persons purchases. It is absurd to not make them smart.

Have you ever stopped to think _why_ cars specifically are so expensive? The manufacturers need to put on a fake show to the market and consumers and pretend they are innovating with new "features" every year. But in reality they stuff so many expensive, fragile, and difficult/ impossible to replace electronics and gadgets into cars because 1) every single piece in that car is marked up from the price they paid. The more (ideally expensive) components, the more they get to mark up as the middleman, the more they get to gouge the customer. 2) The more challenging it is to repair the car, the more likely you _must_ come back to the manufacturer (i.e. dealer) and pay them exorbitant fees to fix problems only they know how and have the parts to fix.

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

#332

Post by loeg »

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?

The existing regulations here might be insufficient. There is definitely risk if the devices are not carefully designed to be safe.

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

#333

Post by mbg721 »

hateselfdriving wrote: post #331
dzhiurgis wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car and house are usually most expensive persons purchases. It is absurd to not make them smart.

Have you ever stopped to think _why_ cars specifically are so expensive? The manufacturers need to put on a fake show to the market and consumers and pretend they are innovating with new "features" every year. But in reality they stuff so many expensive, fragile, and difficult/ impossible to replace electronics and gadgets into cars because 1) every single piece in that car is marked up from the price they paid. The…

I thought it was safety and environmental regulations, primarily. You have to have airbags, and now antilock brakes, and now rearview cameras, etc. If you were allowed to buy a new car built to the standard of the 1970s, it would be cheap.

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

#334

Post by jmtulloss »

red75prime wrote: post #277
japhyr wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 descri…

The current Gen 1s will start beeping at you if they can’t see the lines. If you don’t take over quickly it will start slowing down and beeping very insistently.

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

#335

Post by hateselfdriving »

mbg721 wrote: post #333
hateselfdriving wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever stopped to think _why_ cars specifically are so expensive? The manufacturers need to put on a fake show to the market and consumers and pretend they are innovating with new "features" every year. But in reality they stuff so many expensive, fragile, and difficult/ impossible to replace electronics and gadgets into cars because 1) every single piece in that car is marked up from the price they paid. The…

I thought it was safety and environmental regulations, primarily. You have to have airbags, and now antilock brakes, and now rearview cameras, etc. If you were allowed to buy a new car built to the standard of the 1970s, it would be cheap.

I've been keeping an eye on Slate lately. They _supposedly_ will be selling their trucks for sub $30k late 2026. Presumably they will meet every modern safety standard.

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

#336

Post by squigz »

justinholt wrote: post #188
uberman wrote: post #153

Why do people what self driving cars at all? I certainly hate the thought of having to pay for any of this. Even if the end product is subscription based, all these feature cost money up front making new cars super expensive.

I like approaching it from an accessibility standpoint. I don't need it and I enjoy the act of driving. That said, if I had vision impairment and wanted freedom to travel further from home with no assistance self driving cars make a lot more sense. The product isn't necessarily "for me", but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.

I'm extremely visually impaired. I'd rather see (ha) good public transport. I also sincerely doubt (and hope so) that I'd be legally able to drive a car simply because it has "self-driving" - what if I need to take control of it? What happens if someone gets hurt because of it? Am I liable, even though I don't have a license?

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

#337

Post by jmtulloss »

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.

The reason for this is Rivian and Tesla bet big on software defined platforms… ie every piece of hardware talks to a small number of central computers instead of many independent systems. This gives them a huge leg up in developing software than can actually take all the available input and use it to control all aspects of the vehicle.

Downside is all the buttons are on a screen. But I’ve grudgingly decided it’s worth it for software upgrades.

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

#338

Post by krackers »

loeg wrote: post #332
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?

The existing regulations here might be insufficient. There is definitely risk if the devices are not carefully designed to be safe.

To date I can't think of any existing lasers which you are intended to look at during daily use. Most consumer facing lasers are either class 1 but hidden (CD-ROM), or class 2 but basically not shined into your eye (barcode reader).

There was another discussion a week back https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46126780

The lack of accessible certification/testing docs for the lidars is also worrying. Where is the proof that it was even tested? Was it tested just via simulation, via a dummy eye stand-in, or with a real biological substitute?

What if there are biological concerns other than simply peak power involved with shining NIR into the eye? (For instance, it seems deep red light has some (beneficial) biological effects on mitochondria. How do we know that a pulsed NIR laser won't have similar but negative effects, even if it doesn't burn a hole in your retina.)

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

#339

Post by jen20 »

stavros wrote: post #78
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…

Why would I own a car when I can Waymo one?

Because lugging around two child seats when you get out at the other end fucking sucks.

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

#340

Post by hateselfdriving »

hateselfdriving wrote: post #331
dzhiurgis wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car and house are usually most expensive persons purchases. It is absurd to not make them smart.

Have you ever stopped to think _why_ cars specifically are so expensive? The manufacturers need to put on a fake show to the market and consumers and pretend they are innovating with new "features" every year. But in reality they stuff so many expensive, fragile, and difficult/ impossible to replace electronics and gadgets into cars because 1) every single piece in that car is marked up from the price they paid. The…

3) The "smarter"/ more unnecessarily complex the vehicle, the easier it becomes to enact planned obsolescence, forcing you to forever buy a new vehicle every 5-7 years, if not more frequent.

4) The "smarter" the vehicle, the more they get to track you and sell your data. You'd think "oh in that case I'm sure it'll be like google where I'd pay a reduced price that's offset by the ad money". No, they will obviously happily rip you off on the vehicle itself AND by selling your data. edit: Because guess what? It's working! People are more than happy to fall for this stuff apparently. I mean hell, it's worked for the phone market too, as one other example.

I'd be ecstatic to see the entire industry wiped out by a newcomer on the scene.

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