Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S. • Hacker News Board

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#61

Post by AlotOfReading » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:52 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #48

AlotOfReading wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dollar or two more expensive than the corresponding Uber (non-shared) fare in my experience, so a bit less after tips. Keep in mind that the "true" price of these services probably isn't the biggest pricing factor right now. The cost is a way to manage demand, get some additional income, and investigate what the market will bear.

I doubt they're profitable though. From Bing: > As of the latest available information, Waymo is not yet profitable. Alphabet’s Q2 2023 earnings report indicated that its “Other Bets” category, which includes Waymo, had revenues of $285 million and an operating loss of $813 million. This was a decrease in operating loss from $1.34 billion in the second quarter of 2022, but still significant. Over the last five years,…

I suspect it's vaguely near gross profit, that is excluding almost all the expensive engineers, marketing, R&D costs, new silicon development costs, etc. It's not remotely operationally profitable though, you're right.

The business model is pretty simple. Robotaxis can operate much cheaper than humans and simultaneously provide a better service. Competing at the same cost as existing services makes them massively profitable. You can unlock additional efficiencies through things like fleet management, not supporting unprofitable cities the way Uber has to, vehicles designed for longer service lives and so on. Most companies plan to use that market (and closely associated ones like food delivery) as a profitable beachhead to scale down the technology to the point where it can be applied more ubiquitously in things like consumer vehicles. Some are more vocal about this than others.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#62

Post by HarHarVeryFunny » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:53 PM UTC

acchow wrote: post #34

harles wrote: post #8

> As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California ... One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California ... Those are pretty small numbers and strike me more as them testing the waters. It's neat to see some potential in the space after what felt like a total collapse with Waymo and Tesla especially not living up to expecta…

I took a Waymo this week, no driver in the car. Working great.

Survivor bias! ;)

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#63

Post by pavlov » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:54 PM UTC

ra7 wrote: post #57

It operates under such specific conditions, it’s not very useful right now. Unless you spend a large part of your commute on clogged California highways, there’s not a big use case. But Mercedes would be hoping to expand that operational design domain (ODD). Ultimately, I don’t think their L3 technology is the groundbreaking part (I think they use Nvidia Drive). It’s that they are willing to take liability inside the…

> “commute on clogged California highways”

It’s embarrassing for Tesla because they pretended they had this solved and practically ready to ship eight years ago, started taking customer money; still take customer money on promises of “Real Soon Now”; and yet it’s a bunch of staid old Germans who actually ship it.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#64

Post by bhauer » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:56 PM UTC

homefree wrote: post #21

harles wrote: post #8

> As of April 11, there were 65 Mercedes autonomous vehicles available for sale in California ... One of those has since been sold, which marks the first sale of an autonomous Mercedes in California ... Those are pretty small numbers and strike me more as them testing the waters. It's neat to see some potential in the space after what felt like a total collapse with Waymo and Tesla especially not living up to expecta…

Waymo is amazing and has fully replaced Uber for me in SF. They're also expanding to the entire peninsula from SF down to Cupertino - you're out of date on this. Waymo driving in SF is way better than human. It's not timid either. This Mercedes post is marketing - it's not really what people consider autonomous given the constraints. > "Drivers can activate Mercedes's technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain cond…

> "Drivers can activate Mercedes's technology. called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. Drivers can focus on other activities until the vehicle alerts them to resume control. The technology does not work on roads that haven't been pre-approved by Mercedes, including on freeways in other states."

It's remarkable how often these significant limitations are ignored.

The difference between SAE Level 3 versus Level 2 is liability, not functionality. Conceptually, it would be relatively simple to create a Level 3 system that only worked in parking lots and never drove over 5 MPH. And yes, such a system would be "Level 3," which naively sounds better than "Level 2" because the number is higher.

But you could compare such a system that works only in parking lots against Tesla's Supervised FSD Level 2 system which controls the vehicle at prevailing speeds on all city streets and highways, executes left and right turns, stops at traffic controls, executes U-turns, parks, and everything else. Tesla doesn't want to assume liability yet because they are still iterating fast. The last few builds have been released about two weeks apart.

The functional domain of a Level 2 system can be significantly greater than a Level 3 system. And that is the case when comparing Tesla Supervised FSD versus Mercedes Drivepilot. It remains commendable for Mercedes to take on liability, but we should not kid ourselves. Doing so is a play for cheap media wins and punchy-sounding milestones like what we see in this article. It's not actually moving autonomy forward in any meaningful way when compared alongside Waymo and Tesla FSD. The scope of the Mercedes system is simply too narrow.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#65

Post by BoorishBears » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:56 PM UTC

ra7 wrote: post #57

It operates under such specific conditions, it’s not very useful right now. Unless you spend a large part of your commute on clogged California highways, there’s not a big use case. But Mercedes would be hoping to expand that operational design domain (ODD). Ultimately, I don’t think their L3 technology is the groundbreaking part (I think they use Nvidia Drive). It’s that they are willing to take liability inside the…

I work on AVs and this is a) incredibly useful b) the future of self-driving

L3 is 100% the groundbreaking part because it's when the manufacturer has to take liability and it's where people can actually afford it.

I believe in the technology "trickling up" for L3 much more than I believe tech in our million dollar robotaxis trickling down to consumer vehicles.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#66

Post by herewego » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:56 PM UTC

ra7 wrote: post #43

matsemann wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically if Tesla decided to self-insure when autopilot is engaged, it would be the same. So it's not the same as Tesla. Reading Reddit now that FSD has been available to not just those having bought into the hype has been interesting. It seems more stressful to use than just driving yourself.

Can confirm Tesla FSD is more stressful than driving yourself. I’ve been using it for a few weeks since they offered everyone free trial. Seems to be improved from the previous version, but still requires a ton of interventions every single drive. It’s cool to experience for people who are tech savvy, but nowhere near the realm of being useful and replacing your driving needs.

Agreed. Every time I’ve used it or been in a Tesla as a passenger with FSD engaged, human intervention has been required several times each trip to avoid accidents, harm to pedestrians, or moving violations. It’s frankly embarrassing to use and terrifying to imagine the masses relying on it in any way in its current form.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#67

Post by ra7 » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:56 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #53

So I have to be ready to react to a mistake the car is making, not having any insight into the thought process of the car. I have to be a constantly vigilant backseat driver. Am I on the hook for accidents?

This is L3, so you don’t have to constantly supervise like you do a Tesla with FSD (L2). Mercedes even says you can watch movies or read books. They will achieve a minimum safety condition on their own, which for this system is stopping in the lane with hazard lights on. They also say they will take liability provided you haven’t misused the system or failed to properly maintain the car.

But L3 has this grey area where you can be notified to take over with sufficient time. IMO, It’s the most ambiguous level of automation. How this will work in practice, I have no idea.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#68

Post by dageshi » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:57 PM UTC

perryizgr8 wrote: post #55

bko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is Waymo pricing compared to Uber or other ride share? I originally thought autonomous cars would greatly reduce costs but considering the tens of billions dumped into these companies, they can't charge lower prices as they have to recoup investments.

> originally thought autonomous cars would greatly reduce costs In general, it's a mistake to think that selling price has anything to do with the costs. The price is simply what the market will bear. If people are paying Uber $x for a service, waymo would be stupid to price the same service much lower than that. If their costs are much lower, they would rather make that much more profit. If the rider wants a small p…

I think more realistically google right now does not want to undercut uber and by extension real drivers who're doing it for a living.

They don't need that kind of bad publicity when potentially the licenses they operate under could be pulled given enough political pressure.

I wouldn't consider current pricing indicative of what it might ultimately be, consider that if aggressive enough google could divert a big portion of the countries car spend to themselves.

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#69

Post by thibran » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

qeternity wrote: post #41

electrondood wrote: post #19

> Drivers can activate Mercedes’s technology, called Drive Pilot, when certain conditions are met, including in heavy traffic jams, during the daytime, on specific California and Nevada freeways, and when the car is traveling less than 40 mph. So this isn't any more of an advancement than Tesla's autopilot, which has been standard in every car for years. Basically if Tesla decided to self-insure when autopilot is eng…

No, this is all wrong. Mercedes is offering L3. Tesla FSD is partial L2. The fact that Tesla doesn't self insure tells you everything you need to know. Writing that off as some footnote is missing the forest for the trees.

Tesla FSD capabilities far exceeds all other car manufacture systems by a wide margin. Mercedes has Level 3, but that's only a legal thing, it says nothing about what the car can actually do.

Right now hundreds of thousands American Tesla owners are in their one month free trial FSD month and drive around with it on all kind of streets and weather conditions. There is no one else beside Tesla that is capable of doing this (no, not even Waymo).

Re: Mercedes becomes the first automaker to sell autonomous cars in the U.S.

#70

Post by BoorishBears » Sat, Apr 20, 2024, 5:58 PM UTC

gitfan86 wrote: post #50

loeg wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important distinction is that the Mercedes does not demand the driver be paying attention and ready to take over immediately if the car decides to pop out of self-driving mode. Tesla does not offer that.

Are you sure about that? If it starts raining or the sun goes down, the system isn't going to alert the driver to take over?

You are guaranteed 12 or so seconds to take over. That means the system can handle anything, from moving over from emergency vehicles to unexpected debris while you take over