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Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

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Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#81

Post by kilbuz »

bigtones wrote: post #61

Actually these Uber Volvo self driving cars have been picking up passengers using UberX in San Francisco for weeks. They're easy to spot because they have a huge lidar contraption on the roof and a lot of camera's mounted on the roof, rear vision mirrors, and the rear tailgate of the vehicle. The depot they use is on Harrison and 3rd so you see a lot of them driving around the area just south of Market Street, which…

Were there paying passengers in those cars? I've seen the Fords around town, too, but I don't think they were carrying passengers.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#82

Post by Fricken »

dzdt wrote: post #7

They describe this as a third-generation vehicle, but it still requires multiple human-driver interventions over a single journey. How many more generations to reach reliable true autonomy?

It's Uber's 3rd iteration of their prototypes. The first they tested in private for 18 months, the second had those ridiculous 22 camera 6 Lidar sensor suites and was unveiled in May, and this new configuration is brought to you by Anthony Levandowski, Kalanick's new top general, and the only real reason for the Otto acquisition. "My brother from another mother" said Travis.

The Otto deal was set around incentives, it's not actually a flat 600 million dollar deal. If Levandowsky can deliver a Robotaxi OS that carries Uber to greatness, his networth could be astronomical. He's probably the top candidate in the world right now to lead an autonomous driving project to commercialization. He's got a vicious Randian streak and he's been at the bleeding edge of driverless vehicles since the Darpa days.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#83

Post by lojack »

ams6110 wrote: post #37
Globz wrote: post #28

As a Canadian, I wonder how anyone in this industry can create an autonomous vehicle that can safely drive during winter?

The biggest problem human drivers have in winter weather is simply driving too fast. Self-driving cars won't get impatient and will presumably never exceed safe speeds for given conditions.

Just to provide a counter point, in my experience, the biggest problem I face in winter weather is other drivers. I know when I hit a patch of black ice and have difficulty stopping that the oversized van behind me is going to have more difficulty stopping, and I have the instinct to quickly turn instead of waiting on the red light. I also know that cars have difficulty stopping on a steep hill and I may wait before going through an intersection. Both of these experiences have happened in the past year for me.

This may seem like a straw-man argument, I don't intend it to be. I think self-driving cars will be on the whole better drivers, but these are also situations that I see as being extremely difficult for a computer to identify to the level a human driver is capable of.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#84

Post by adrianN »

waterphone wrote: post #80
vivekd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, Uber and Lyft CEOs both said they envision a future where we don't own cars and just call self driving taxi services via app when we need them. They both envision this happening in less than a decade. This seems to be coming true, millennials have the lowest rate of car ownership and it seems to be the best explanation for why both companies are willing to bleed money to expand market-share as quickly a possible…

People in urban environments, maybe. Never going to be the case for the majority of areas.

Luckily the majority of all people live in urban environments and urbanization is expected to continue.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#85

Post by estefan »

cstejerean wrote: post #68
estefan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's the MO of airbnb, uber and other SV startups. We've seen more than once that making a land grab for a new market brings more long-term success than any penalties dished out for not playing by the rules.

Because there is no reason to guess and make baseless claims, the article already addressed this topic. A permit is not required because a safety operator is on board at all times. Skirting regulations and paying fines has nothing to do with it.

That's only because of Uber's interpretation. From the FT article:

> California law defines an autonomous vehicle as one that is able to drive “without the active physical control or monitoring by a human operator”.

> Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer who leads Uber’s driverless car efforts, said the fleet would be “self-driving” but not “autonomous”, making an unusual semantic distinction.

A pretty tenuous way of avoiding regulations if you ask me.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#86

Post by kraftman »

mabramo wrote: post #48
nannal wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does mean I can fine a person I don't know with the click of a button.

The only way I think this can work is if the customer who reports the incident describes exactly what they see in the report. Then the human who receives the dirty car and cleans it verifies that the car is not only dirty but meets the description of the reporter. How else could "dirty car" reports be audited? In another case, a customer could actually throw garbage in the car and then report the car dirty - causing…

You could just have the camera rolling the last X minutes of footage like a dashcam, and auto upload it when the next user reports an issue.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#87

Post by sho »

waterphone wrote: post #80
vivekd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, Uber and Lyft CEOs both said they envision a future where we don't own cars and just call self driving taxi services via app when we need them. They both envision this happening in less than a decade. This seems to be coming true, millennials have the lowest rate of car ownership and it seems to be the best explanation for why both companies are willing to bleed money to expand market-share as quickly a possible…

People in urban environments, maybe. Never going to be the case for the majority of areas.

Yes, just the >80% of the population in urban centres (developed countries), >50% worldwide and increasing rapidly. Tiny market!

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#88

Post by autotune »

amelius wrote: post #21
autotune wrote: post #13

How is this going to combat people who make a mess inside the vehicle after going 100 percent without human drivers/test engineers? If it picks up a drunk person at 3 AM who then throws up inside the car, is it vomit-aware and knows it needs a cleaning before picking up the next passenger?

I imagine that the next user would just tap a button on their smartphone saying that the car is dirty, upon which the car drives back to a service center and the user receives a new car (not the same car).

The problem with this is, as a rider, I personally would not want to have to be constantly expecting a dirty car. If one out of every 3 cars has vomit or syringes in it or feces, I would personally stick with a service that has human drivers at the wheel.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#89

Post by the8472 »

artlogic wrote: post #65
ams6110 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem human drivers have in winter weather is simply driving too fast. Self-driving cars won't get impatient and will presumably never exceed safe speeds for given conditions.

Having lived nearly my whole life in Michigan, I think this grossly oversimplifies the problem. I'm sure my Canadian friends will agree. This assumes there's some clear algorithm for determining a "safe" speed. There's not. Even in highway driving you can lose traction in an instant if you hit a patch of black ice. Autonomous vehicles will need to be able to recover from a complete loss of traction safely. This isn't…

On the other hand a computer-controlled vehicle, possibly electric with 4-wheel drive, would have millisecond control over all those inputs (steering/brakes/acceleration)

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#90

Post by thegranderson »

waterphone wrote: post #80
vivekd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, Uber and Lyft CEOs both said they envision a future where we don't own cars and just call self driving taxi services via app when we need them. They both envision this happening in less than a decade. This seems to be coming true, millennials have the lowest rate of car ownership and it seems to be the best explanation for why both companies are willing to bleed money to expand market-share as quickly a possible…

People in urban environments, maybe. Never going to be the case for the majority of areas.

Well... depending on who you source, the majority of people already live in urban environments. In the US, the most recent figure from the census is 62.7%, which is more narrowly defined at % of population living in cities[1]. If you count "urban areas" which includes towns and villages, it is north of 80% [2]

Worldwide, we are at ~54% living in cities. [3]

This trend seems to be continuing globally as well [4], so pretty soon people in non-urban environments may have no choice (assuming, as I do, that cars will get more expensive as they have more and better technology and are much more highly utilized due to sharing)

[1] http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-33.h... [2] http://www.citylab.com/housing/2012/03/us-urban-population-w... [3] http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-... [4] https://esa.un.org/unpd/wup/publications/files/wup2014-highl... (page 7, Figure 2)

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