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GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

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Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#591

Post by misiti3780 »

norlygfyd wrote: post #476
michaelt wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's consistently and there's consistently . In 2016 Waymo reported their safety drivers intervening once for every 5,100 miles driven [1] - which implies to me that 99% of journeys nobody touched the wheel or pedals. The problem is 99% isn't enough, as there are tremendous numbers of cars out there, and a busy bit of freeway would get a disengagement per minute. [1] https://driverless.wonderhowto.com/news/2…

They Waymo trick is entirely different to FSD. They are travelling pre-mapped streets.

with remote controller drivers on an as needed basis

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#592

Post by s17n »

margalabargala wrote: post #345
schiffern wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a "GM's business model" problem, which is again a GM problem. The top-selling EV maker in the US doesn't have any dealerships, so clearly it's not an insurmountable problem. GM just hasn't prioritized surmounting it.

No, not really. Safeway's advertising and store layout isn't directly a Coca Cola problem business model problem. They care, they have some influence, but if the one seller goes under for being crappy another will pop up to take its place. This is just a car dealership tying its hands behind its back and not competing well. If it isn't widespread it isn't a GM problem.

Safeway's store layout is definitely Coca Cola's problem. That's why they pay for shelf space and in store displays.

The car dealership isn't going to "go under" since they have an exclusive franchise. Presumably, GM isn't incentivizing them to sell super cruise.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#593

Post by zardo »

bayindirh wrote: post #575
_ea1k wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, people act like some Tesla problems are bad, but I've certainly used systems that are worse. Just in a few miles, I've had a Nissan accelerate towards stopped traffic aggressively enough to trigger its own collision warning. It'll also fly try to drive off the road in relatively shallow curves, triggering its own lane departure warnings. The Tesla system isn't perfect, but it is far from unique in being imperfe…

That's true. I took a jab specifically at Tesla, because it's generally framed as the "leader of the pack and problem free to the point that you can sleep in it". FSD is a very hard problem, and the systems deployed are at best alpha level. These things should be "hyped responsibly".

Not paying attention while FSD drives for you ended with a motorcyclist crushed to death under a Tesla, and a manslaughter charge for the driver near me this summer.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#594

Post by Animats »

dilyevsky wrote: post #235
Animats wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruise started as "fake it til you make it", with a drive down the Great Highway in San Francisco. The ideal public road - several miles of straight road with no cross streets. They managed to parlay that into an acquisition by GM and board seats on GM's board. Then they didn't deliver. Waymo hasn't left blood on the pavement. Cruise and Tesla have.

Wildly misleading comment. Like none of this is true. Cruise started as a retrofit kit for audis similar to comma.ai then they pivoted to l4.

Here it is, the original Cruise RP-1 video.[1] There's the car, driving down the Great Highway in the Sunset district of San Francisco. Perfectly straight, no cross streets, great visibility.

[1] https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2016/03/11/70647585...

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#595

Post by goalonetwo »

ethagknight wrote: post #579
Workaccount2 wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my understanding, super cruise only works on pre-approved roads/road sections, whereas FSD works just about anywhere. When I last checked my commute to work, the main highway I take becomes unsupported half way to work, despite it being the same bland typical highway layout. I really don't want to buy a Tesla, but from what I can tell, nobody has anything close to what FSD offers.

SuperCruise and FSD are not comparable. SuperCruise does what it claims to do, keep it up the middle on listed corridors. Most highways and interstates are eligible. I love both systems. FSD is truly almost there for unsupervised, point to point driving. People want to virtue signal and complain about Tesla but it is an amazing piece of hardware being mass produced today. My car is 3 years old.

I worked in this industry. No, FSD is not almost there. Not even close. What matters is the long tails of events.

You might "feel" it is almost there because it gets it right 99.9% of the time but that is still way too many accidents and injuries in the long run. And the work to go from 99.9% to 99.9999% is 1000x more complicated.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#596

Post by goalonetwo »

mlinhares wrote: post #556
ethagknight wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had a Yukon with supercruise for 18 months. It is fantastic for highway driving, particularly, we’ve driven it west from Tennessee to Colorado and Florida. Other comments claiming it’s the same as other standard driver-assist packages are incorrect. Totally hands free, no “ping pong” with the lanes. That said, when trying to BUY a supercruise vehicle, the sales guys were clueless, I had to review the stat sheets…

It’s wild to me anyone would think turning on barrels is an edge case.

This i what is so tricky with Self Driving. People "feel" it is almost there because most of their rides are mostly ok. However to make a system truly driverless you need to master the long tails of difficult events and FSD is nowhere even close to do that.

Going from 99.9% to 99.99999% is what makes a system truly driverless and where most of the work is. Waymo is way way ahead of FSD for this.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#597

Post by standardUser »

sixQuarks wrote: post #482
standardUser wrote: post #19

Waymo needs competition. Who else is even close to being able to provide it? I'd hate to think Tesla is next in line because they haven't even started a commercial pilot program yet.

You have it wrong buddy. Tesla is the one that needs competition, they’re going to have a robotaxi monopoly soon.

Tesla hasn't even launched a pilot program. Cruise has actual commercial road hours logged and Waymo has a fully operational commercial service that keeps expanding. Tesla has a LOT of catching up to do. Cities won't just let them launch a service on a whim. It's going to take years to catch up.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#598

Post by standardUser »

lm28469 wrote: post #559
lm28469 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Waymo's CEO admit self driving cars were a pipe dream a few years ago ?

Can't edit my comment but seeing the number of downvotes I might as well enlighten a few people: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/alphabet-google-waymo-ceo...

That was 6 years ago. I find it odd for a CEO to talk so cautiously (odd but perhaps refreshing), but I'm certainly not holding anyone accountable for what they said in an interview 6 years ago when it relates to a bleeding edge industry.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#599

Post by standardUser »

01100011 wrote: post #349
fixprix wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how Waymo is going to survive the onslaught that is CyberCab. Cheaper to build and operate, more efficient, much faster to build, and deployable across all cities without any manual configuration. The clock is ticking on Waymo, they have 2 years to figure out how to compete otherwise they're cooked. It's very similar to legacy space and internet, the existing players saw SpaceX coming years out, did nothi…

Am I living in a bubble or is much of the excitement behind autonomous cabs just hype? Like, sure, it will be popular, but the way some folks(and not just Tesla zealots) talk about it, it will be 25% of global GDP. Beyond, idk, saving my relatives the task of driving me to the airport, I don't see my family using an autonomous taxi at all. I think I'm like many Americans in that I like my personal vehicle because it'…

if you understand why Uber, Lyft and taxis are such a big industry than you understand why driverless rides will be such a big industry. It's the same industry. But driverless requires a fraction of the labor cost, hence the potential for cheaper rides that will only grow the industry even larger. And I don't have to tip a robot.

Re: GM exits robotaxi market, will bring Cruise operations in house

#600

Post by ketzo »

delabay wrote: post #296
ketzo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it kinda the other way around? I feel like the clock starts the first time a CyberCab gives a paid passenger ride, and that seems like quite a ways out — potentially much more than 2 years. And Waymo has that whole time to bring down their costs of construction, learn how to solve problems of scale, and so on. I agree that a CyberCab would have structural advantages if the service were at parity w/ Waymo, but t…

"Tesla has a software problem, Waymo has a hardware problem" - Andrej Karpathi Is it easier to ramp to 1M vehicles a year and cut BOM costs by 80%, OR, install more GPUs and collect more data?

You pose your comment like the answer is obvious, but I don’t know that it is.

If Tesla can solve FSD with only cameras, then yes, their ability to scale is much better than Waymo’s.

But that is a stupendously large “if”!

I’ve seen the Karpathy quote before, and I think it’s kind of hilarious to compare one company which does X0,000 robotaxi rides per day, to another company which has a robotaxi maybe entering production in two years, and say, “well look, they both have problems!”

Bit of a misleading simplification, no? Tesla boosters assume they will crack FSD, it’s just a matter of time. That seems like a big leap to me.

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