Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives • Hacker News Board

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#41

Post by trhway » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 11:00 PM UTC

edshiro wrote: post #28

> The first car from Lyft’s Level 5 self-driving initiative will be the Ford Fusion Hybrid. Lyft’s use of a Ford Fusion apparently isn’t associated with the partnership the two announced last year. Other AV companies have used the Ford Fusion as a platform for integrating self-driving technologies Why are we still talking about Level 5 autonomous driving when we can't even get Level 4 working properly? I believe this…

>Why are we still talking about Level 5 autonomous driving when we can't even get Level 4 working properly? I believe this is sending the wrong message.

i think it is capability gap between tech companies and car companies. Car companies can't even get cameras around all the body to avoid accidental scratches during parking. Where is tech companies, while could easily do a lot of car tech, have no business case doing anything less than Level 5 - the Level 5 is a tech platform where is anything less is an advanced car, and the tech companies are in the platform business, not car business.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#42

Post by skywhopper » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 11:09 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #39

lolc wrote: post #30

> In effect, every Lyft vehicle in operation today, with a smartphone on the dashboard, could be commandeered to become a “camera” watching, surveying and mapping the roads that those cars drive on, and how humans behave on them, using that to help Lyft’s autonomous vehicle (AV) platform learn more about driving overall. Another instance of the "more data is better" fallacy. Humans can drive cars safely after only fi…

> Another instance of the "more data is better" fallacy. More data is better. The fact that humans have better algorithms that need less data does absolutely nothing to negate this.

Depends on whether it’s the right data, or meaningful data. The idea that Lyft needs this acquisition in order to implement video capture from its drivers’ cell phones is laughable so something else is going on with this acquisition. But to your point, the assumption that this is even a problem of “not enough data” is questionable at this point. How to turn that data into results is something no one has come close to figuring out yet.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#43

Post by skywhopper » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 11:15 PM UTC

yalogin wrote: post #8

Bear with me here, trying to come at this from the other end. Why do Uber and Lyft have to develop their own self driving tech? If what they sell is their routing algorithm for drivers, they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly and run them on their network. The car companies would be happy to get a cut of the profits. What advantage would they get by developing their own tech? They have to…

This is a silly game. If self driving tech can even work (questionable in the next few decades), it’ll immediately become a commodity. No such tech could be protected for long. There’s not going to be huge profits to be made once multiple players have self driving fleets on the road. And since unattended cars will inevitably become trashed, individuals will just buy their own self driving cars, and traffic will get that much worse.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#44

Post by ghaff » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 11:39 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #26

yalogin wrote: post #8

Bear with me here, trying to come at this from the other end. Why do Uber and Lyft have to develop their own self driving tech? If what they sell is their routing algorithm for drivers, they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly and run them on their network. The car companies would be happy to get a cut of the profits. What advantage would they get by developing their own tech? They have to…

What incentive does a car company have to lend them the technology vs running self driving taxis themselves?

By that logic why not run their own taxi and car rental companies today? Vertical integration can make sense but it also often doesn’t.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#45

Post by spiritcat » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 12:06 AM UTC

adrianmonk wrote: post #25

yalogin wrote: post #8

Bear with me here, trying to come at this from the other end. Why do Uber and Lyft have to develop their own self driving tech? If what they sell is their routing algorithm for drivers, they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly and run them on their network. The car companies would be happy to get a cut of the profits. What advantage would they get by developing their own tech? They have to…

> they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly Nobody really knows what company will develop truly practical SDC tech first. Therefore nobody really knows what revenue model that company will have. If a vehicle manufacturer does it first, then probably their main goal is still to sell equipment, so they would probably be open to selling/leasing it to anyone and everyone. If a tech company gets…

"Nobody really knows what company will develop truly practical SDC tech first."

No, bu the ones with all the patents will be Waymo, Uber, GM.. Lyft?

How does this work? Seems like Waymo would have been able to pick up enough of the obvious ones to kill competition for 20 years. Or just MAD between the big players?

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#46

Post by darawk » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 12:09 AM UTC

skywhopper wrote: post #42

darawk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another instance of the "more data is better" fallacy. More data is better. The fact that humans have better algorithms that need less data does absolutely nothing to negate this.

Depends on whether it’s the right data, or meaningful data. The idea that Lyft needs this acquisition in order to implement video capture from its drivers’ cell phones is laughable so something else is going on with this acquisition. But to your point, the assumption that this is even a problem of “not enough data” is questionable at this point. How to turn that data into results is something no one has come close to…

> Depends on whether it’s the right data, or meaningful data.

Street level mapping data isn't relevant or meaningful? Basically every company working on this problem seems to pretty strongly disagree with you.

> But to your point, the assumption that this is even a problem of “not enough data” is questionable at this point. How to turn that data into results is something no one has come close to figuring out yet.

This is trivially false. Given infinite data, all possible situations would be represented in the data, and the solutions applied in those situations could be copied exactly, something that existing algorithms are completely capable of doing.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#47

Post by flukus » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 12:16 AM UTC

spiritcat wrote: post #45

adrianmonk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly Nobody really knows what company will develop truly practical SDC tech first. Therefore nobody really knows what revenue model that company will have. If a vehicle manufacturer does it first, then probably their main goal is still to sell equipment, so they would probably be open to selling/leasing it to anyone and everyone. If a tech company gets…

"Nobody really knows what company will develop truly practical SDC tech first." No, bu the ones with all the patents will be Waymo, Uber, GM.. Lyft? How does this work? Seems like Waymo would have been able to pick up enough of the obvious ones to kill competition for 20 years. Or just MAD between the big players?

> No, bu the ones with all the patents will be Waymo, Uber, GM.. Lyft?

Considering it looks like were at least 10 years away from having a self driving car industry those patents aren't going to have a long shelf life.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#48

Post by Animats » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 12:19 AM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #11

yalogin wrote: post #8

Bear with me here, trying to come at this from the other end. Why do Uber and Lyft have to develop their own self driving tech? If what they sell is their routing algorithm for drivers, they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly and run them on their network. The car companies would be happy to get a cut of the profits. What advantage would they get by developing their own tech? They have to…

Uber and Lyft have very little moat to protect them if someone else develops self-driving cars first. They haven't succeeded in their initial goal of exterminating the existing cab companies, and that leaves them in a situation where developing self-driving technology could be a matter of life and death for them. The incumbent cab companies are much better positioned to profit from self-driving cars. They've already…

Waymo has Avis handling their fleet management. The rental car companies are in a good position to take on Uber/Lyft if they get self driving. They're already renting cars; this is just shorter term rentals.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#49

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 12:42 AM UTC

adrianmonk wrote: post #25

yalogin wrote: post #8

Bear with me here, trying to come at this from the other end. Why do Uber and Lyft have to develop their own self driving tech? If what they sell is their routing algorithm for drivers, they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly and run them on their network. The car companies would be happy to get a cut of the profits. What advantage would they get by developing their own tech? They have to…

> they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly Nobody really knows what company will develop truly practical SDC tech first. Therefore nobody really knows what revenue model that company will have. If a vehicle manufacturer does it first, then probably their main goal is still to sell equipment, so they would probably be open to selling/leasing it to anyone and everyone. If a tech company gets…

> SDC is such a killer tech that whoever has it might decide it outweighs everything else and they can build their own app and get the users to come over

I'm skeptical. This involves a tremendous capital outlay. Even if you solve that problem, you have to get the production lines running, logistical networks humming, and marketing gears going. Much simpler to buy or partner with one of the companies who have spent years training consumers to press a button and unquestioningly get into a car.

Re: Lyft speeds ahead with its autonomous initiatives

#50

Post by hcnews » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49

adrianmonk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they can simply lease self driving cars from the companies directly Nobody really knows what company will develop truly practical SDC tech first. Therefore nobody really knows what revenue model that company will have. If a vehicle manufacturer does it first, then probably their main goal is still to sell equipment, so they would probably be open to selling/leasing it to anyone and everyone. If a tech company gets…

> SDC is such a killer tech that whoever has it might decide it outweighs everything else and they can build their own app and get the users to come over I'm skeptical. This involves a tremendous capital outlay. Even if you solve that problem, you have to get the production lines running, logistical networks humming, and marketing gears going. Much simpler to buy or partner with one of the companies who have spent ye…

Masayoshi Son is happy to lend you billions of dollars if you have a working SDC implementation.