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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

#61

Post by [deleted] »

igor47 wrote: post #22
darth_avocado wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rivian has a huge interest in being the outsourcer for legacy automakers. They’re not able to sell $100k cars enough and even with the promised R2, they probably will only be a small-ish player in the EV market. Their CEO recognizes how crazy good Chinese EVs are and currently they’re not even a competitor for Tesla. But, VW is willing to pay $5B for their software platform. I think they want to extend that to being…

Which honestly is crazy to me. I have a Rivian, and to say the software is disappointing would be an understatement. There are heisenbugs galore; some examples: * Doors refuse to open * Lose the ability to control media playback using any controls * Any button in the UI just opens and closes the windows Granted, I'm a server side/backend engineer mostly, and I don't know much about writing software/firmware for a ver…

[deleted]

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

#62

Post by beanjuice »

legitster wrote: post #57
nicksergeant wrote: post #11

Meanwhile, the only thing people really want from Rivian is CarPlay / Android Auto support, lol.

I get where carmakers are coming from though. Cars used to compete on distinctions between driving experience/fuel economy/reliability/etc. In comparison, differences between electric cars is mostly superfluous. They're very interchangeable. For the next generation of car buyers, infotainment and features are going to be the main features. And if you are handing all of that away to the tech companies, your entire com…

... So the answer is to make a series of worse products?

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

#64

Post by dllu »

tennysont wrote: post #45
filoleg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your eyes will be fine (assuming that we are talking about automotive LiDAR specifically). Automotive LiDAR is designed to meet Class-1 laser eye-safety standard, which means "safe under normal conditions." It isn't some subjective/marketing thing, it is an official laser safety classification that is very regulated. However, if you try to break that "normal conditions" rule by pressing your eyeball directly against…

Why wouldn’t your eye lens focus LIDAR photons from the same source onto a small region of your retina in the same way that a phone camera lens focuses same-origin photos to a few pixels? Sorry if this is a silly question, I honestly don’t have the greatest understanding of EM.

Depends on the wavelength of lidar. Near IR lidars (850 nm to 940 nm, like Ouster, Waymo, Hesai) will be focused to your retina whereas 1550 nm lidars (like Luminar, Seyond) will not be focused and have trouble penetrating water, but they are a lot more powerful so they instead heat up your cornea. To quote my other comment [1]:

> If you have many lidars around, the beams from each 905 nm lidar will be focused to a different spot on your retina, and you are no worse off than if there was a single lidar. But if there are many 1550 nm lidars around, their beams will have a cumulative effect at heating up your cornea, potentially exceeding the safety threshold.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46127479

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

#65

Post by jedberg »

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 coupling is more with cost than drive train, but consumers most likely to pay extra for autonomy are the same ones willing to pay extra for electric.

Which is why you see it on the Mercedes ICE vehicle. Because it's a high cost vehicle to start with.

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

#66

Post by ssl-3 »

spankalee wrote: post #26
idontwantthis wrote: post #10

Can anyone explain why RIVN is down 8% after this announcement? Were investors expecting hands free handjobs or something?

I hold some RIVN and I'm wondering why they're spending resources on custom silicon instead of using something off-the-shelf. What is their advantage here? Can they hire the right people? Can they ship enough units to pay for it? Those are my bearish questions. On the bullish side, the VW deal shows that they're willing and able to license part of their platform, so possibly have a big chance to recoup costs and mayb…

If their idea is both novel and useful, and if it actually works, and they can actually produce it, then: They can sell it to other automakers.

(GM has made a lot of cars with their own transmissions. And at various times, they've supplied -lots- of them to other automakers all over the world. They've made a lot of money doing this.

Someone's gotta build the machine vision/control systems for all of these self-driving cars; that someone may well be Rivian.

It's not as sexy as something like a new convertible might be, or a $40k self-driving electric car, and a consumer might not even know that the new car in their driveway has expensive Rivian parts buried inside, but that future can be very profitable for them.)

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

#67

Post by margalabargala »

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…

> 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 Tesla. There are plenty of people who are thrilled with the continuous updates and changes to everything, and there are plenty of people that mock Tesla for it. Both groups are large markets that will have companies cater to them.

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

#68

Post by AlotOfReading »

slashdave wrote: post #39
bickfordb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same question. It makes sense that they might need bespoke software, but how could they possibly be more efficient at creating chips than an AMD/Nvidia?

Well, if AMD and/or Nvidia were to invest on a chip for an auto, maybe you might have a point.

Both AMD and Nvidia have strong automotive offerings.
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