Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 151 posts

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#91

Post by woah »

aresant wrote: post #3

Why a dongle? The chffr app (video / nav data) + panda dongle (sensor data) is a simple way to let anybody participate in data collection, and for comma.ai to build enterprise value by accruing and organizing a gigantic data set that's critical to them or any third party executing the ML at core of self driving. Now pair this with a tweet they posted in June: "Just realized something. You are really going to be happy…

There's absolutely no point in having this be a cryptocurrency, unless there is some way that all the driving data will be posted to the blockchain and verified not to be fake by the blockchain. And blockchains definitely don't have the storage or computation to do any of that, plus who wants their driving data to be public?

Otherwise, it's just sending data to Comma in exchange for points. If you have one master account minting tokens (throughout the life of the currency), it's not really decentralized. They could have a SQL database with the same decentralization and security profile.

My guess is that the only use of blockchains here is to jump on the current ICO hype.

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#92

Post by gehwartzen »

As others have pointed out there are a TON of OBDII loggers on the market with price points down to It seems the real value for comma.ai is just collecting a huge amount of driver data and then selling it to Autonomous car makers or generating algorithms based or the data themselves. Either way, if that's the case why sell it for $88??? sell it at cost ($5) or even give it away for free and just quickly build a huge user base. Am I way off here?

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#93

Post by Merad »

ktta wrote: post #78
mikeash wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the guy who was supposedly just a few weeks away from shipping a bolt-on smart cruise control module, then immediately canceled the entire thing when the NHTSA asked him some questions about its safety. He seems pretty sharp when it comes to technology, but I'm not sure if he's prepared to make actual products sold to regular people.

On the contrary, he seems to the the kind of person that knows about the bureaucratic nature of NHTSA and cut his losses.

The questions he was asked were pretty darn reasonable, IMO. If he's unwilling or unable to answer those questions I have no problem at all with him being prohibited from selling a product that his customers would literally be trusting with their lives.

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#94

Post by syntaxing »

Slightly off topic, but can someone here explain what in OpenPilot that makes it so technically superior? Or is the (partial?) open source part of it the most seductive part?

I only quickly looked over the source code so I am not sure if I missed something. But looking at the top level code, it seems like something anyone can accomplish after taking the Udacity SDC class (minus the CAN interfacing, but that shouldn't be all that hard?)?

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#95

Post by sailingparrot »

ktta wrote: post #82
mikeash wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he knew about it then why would he have even started the project? It's obvious that regulators would be involved in a project like this. I don't see how he didn't anticipate this from the start.

As they say: Hindsight is 20/20

Come on. Do you honestly not assume that the device you are producing that will be responsible for driving cars will get a least inspected by NHTSA?

Do you also need to be warned that if you create a plane autopilot, the FAA might get involved?

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#96

Post by Oletros »

devy wrote: post #86
josephpmay wrote: post #8

Hotz is quoted as saying in the article, "there are only three real competitors: Waymo, Tesla and us." That's total bullshit. There are so many companies seriously working on autonomous vehicles, such as GM Cruise, Auroa Innovation, Drive.ai, Zoox, Nuro.ai, nuTonomy, Varden Labs, AImotive, Ford, and Nvidia Edit, because George is on here: George, I want to like you, because I think your tech is really good (the stree…

I doubt Geohotz didn't do his homework before he made this conclusion. He went to CMU, Google and Facebook and had worked with the smartest professors/scientists/engineers in the field of AI before he founded Comma.ai. He's pretty much single-handed built a level 3 drive assist prototype within a year where other companies spent billions and many years R&D but not even came close to what he was originally intended to…

I have a bridge to sell.

Looking at the github repository code, comma is a joke.

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#97

Post by fenwick67 »

ex3ndr wrote: post #49
fenwick67 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OBD2 is the connector and the protocols used on that connector. The vehicle CAN bus is on the OBD2 port, and the "K-line", which is diagnostic only, is also there.

Not the full CAN bus, only very small subset of it, isn't it?

The connector has at least 1 CAN bus on it, some pins are "manufacturer discretion" meaning the manufacturer may put CAN or other signals on the connector.

Nowadays most vehicles have several CAN and LIN buses and it's unlikely that all traffic gets routed to the OBD2 connector, but some stuff is. Again, it depends on the manufacturer.

There are lots of standardized signals defined that a OBD device can request: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#98

Post by elmar »

syntaxing wrote: post #94

Slightly off topic, but can someone here explain what in OpenPilot that makes it so technically superior? Or is the (partial?) open source part of it the most seductive part? I only quickly looked over the source code so I am not sure if I missed something. But looking at the top level code, it seems like something anyone can accomplish after taking the Udacity SDC class (minus the CAN interfacing, but that shouldn't…

you have a closed source, big binary that is the predictive model, it is the result of crunching all the data they have.

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#99

Post by devy »

Oletros wrote: post #96
devy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt Geohotz didn't do his homework before he made this conclusion. He went to CMU, Google and Facebook and had worked with the smartest professors/scientists/engineers in the field of AI before he founded Comma.ai. He's pretty much single-handed built a level 3 drive assist prototype within a year where other companies spent billions and many years R&D but not even came close to what he was originally intended to…

I have a bridge to sell. Looking at the github repository code, comma is a joke.

> I have a bridge to sell.

Sorry what's a bridge? I don't get the reference.

Re: Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

#100

Post by CWuestefeld »

en4bz wrote: post #12
brad0 wrote: post #5

TL;DR: it's a device that gathers metrics from the car sensors. The product is aimed at hackers and car enthusiasts. You want to know your top speed, 0 - 60 etc? This might be the device for you. Afaik there's already products out there that do the same thing. This could be at a lower price point though.

ODB2 Bluetooth readers for Smartphones can be had for $10 [1]. I guess the hard part is writing the software that logs all the data. Currently most Android apps simply display the data and don't log it. The logging/software aspect of this is certainly where the value is added. [1] https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_9?url=search-alias...

I've been using Torque[1] for about three years now. It's got a pretty nice UI to show just about anything your car outputs via OBD-II, and lots of things that can be derived from that, as well as integrating GPS and accelerometer data. You can log the data to your phone, as well has have it uploaded to the cloud.

The only time I've really used that data was the time some jerk stopped me, cursing at me for driving like a maniac and endangering his children (who he'd been allowing to play in the street). With the logged data, I was able to show that from the time I turned onto his street, I had been going no faster than 10mph below the limit.

The OBD-II error-reading software is very useful. It showed me that the Hyundai mechanics were completely incompetent. After holding my car in the shop for a week, they finally concluded that the problem is exactly what these diagnostics told me they were (plus 10 minutes of googling).

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torq...

Post reply on HN