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TLDR: It's not self driving. It's data collecting cars for now. I know a little bit about this. It's not "self-driving" car per se. You know with current techn

by msoad 11y ago

TLDR: It's not self driving. It's data collecting cars for now. I know a little bit about this. It's not "self-driving" car per se. You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars. But to get there we need a lot of data. Uber and Lyft saw all the rides on their systems and thought if we had a lot of sensors in cars and recored all of that we could have the winning factor for self driving cars which is data. In order to record that data they need customized cars. They also need to own the car to own the data associated with it (this is my assumption).

ghaff 11y ago
Interesting from a couple of angles. First, there's this widespread handwaving around getting the very detailed map data that is at least useful for even limited autonomy. At one level, it's a solved problem that that doesn't mean it won't take a huge investment to collect all this data. The second is the idea that this mapping data may be a source of competitive advantage for individual firms working on improved assistive driving systems followed by autonomy--initially under limited circumstances. On the one hand this makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, it means that a lot of work probably ends up getting duplicated.
akavel 11y ago
Do you write this based on the article (where?), or on information from some different sources (private?)? I couldn't find such information in the article, while it mentions that e.g. "In August 2013, Mercedes-Benz [...] drove [103 km] between the German towns of Mannheim and Pforzheim without any driver input", which seems to have happened indeed (https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/innovation/autonomous-long-distance-drive/ https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/innovation/au...)
- msoad 11y ago
  I meant my comment's TLDR. Sorry for confusion -----
abalone 11y ago
That's not the TLDR.. that's not in the article at all. You are correct however that it's unlikely that Uber would commit a large order for a car that doesn't exist yet. It would make more sense if they were ordering their own fleet of standardized, sensor-laden, optimized UI cars. But that's not what this (dubious) news report is about.
- msoad 11y ago
  I meant my comment's TLDR. Sorry for confusion
  - dumbguy 11y ago
    Strangely, it seems the etiquette would be that a TL;DR at the beginning of a post suggests a summary of the article. TL;DR at the end summarizes your comment.
gaur 11y ago
> You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars. Why not? Doesn't the Google car have a near-spotless record with minimal human intervention?
- ghaff 11y ago
  Under a very limited set of conditions. Anyone who believes that this translates into door-to-door general driving without a human even present anytime remotely soon is... optimistic.
  - RealCasually 11y ago
    Living in Mountain View and driving with Google's self driving cars every day, I have to say I think they are quite a bit further than you give them credit and those conditions appear to be less limited than you are letting on here.
    - datawrangler 11y ago
      Something I've long wondered: howwell do they deal with inclement weather?
      - agildehaus 11y ago
        They do well in rain but snow remains a problem, not due to icy roads (at SXSW Chris Urmson said they do well on slick roads) but that the "better than GPS" LIDAR-based location tracking stops working when snow is on the ground. The car simply cannot figure out where it is when there's a significant layer of snow on the ground because the reference maps stop looking like what the car is seeing. https://youtu.be/Uj-rK8V-rik?t=46m22s https://youtu.be/Uj-rK8V-rik?t=46m22s
    - datawrangler 11y ago
      Something I've long wondered: howwell do they deal with inclement weather?
- 11y ago
shpx 11y ago
Or, if you're Tesla, people pay you for the privilege of collecting data for you. [0] [0] https://backchannel.com/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-to-stop-computers-from-taking-over-17e0e27dd02a#.y218ncvbm https://backchannel.com/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-... "Probably Tesla will have more real world data than any other company in the world."

by msoad 11y ago

ghaff 11y ago

Interesting from a couple of angles. First, there's this widespread handwaving around getting the very detailed map data that is at least useful for even limited autonomy. At one level, it's a solved problem that that doesn't mean it won't take a huge investment to collect all this data. The second is the idea that this mapping data may be a source of competitive advantage for individual firms working on improved assistive driving systems followed by autonomy--initially under limited circumstances. On the one hand this makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, it means that a lot of work probably ends up getting duplicated.

akavel 11y ago

Do you write this based on the article (where?), or on information from some different sources (private?)? I couldn't find such information in the article, while it mentions that e.g. "In August 2013, Mercedes-Benz [...] drove [103 km] between the German towns of Mannheim and Pforzheim without any driver input", which seems to have happened indeed (https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/innovation/autonomous-long-distance-drive/ https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/mercedes-benz/innovation/au...)

msoad 11y ago
I meant my comment's TLDR. Sorry for confusion -----

abalone 11y ago

That's not the TLDR.. that's not in the article at all. You are correct however that it's unlikely that Uber would commit a large order for a car that doesn't exist yet. It would make more sense if they were ordering their own fleet of standardized, sensor-laden, optimized UI cars. But that's not what this (dubious) news report is about.

msoad 11y ago
I meant my comment's TLDR. Sorry for confusion
- dumbguy 11y ago
  Strangely, it seems the etiquette would be that a TL;DR at the beginning of a post suggests a summary of the article. TL;DR at the end summarizes your comment.

gaur 11y ago

> You know with current technology we can't have completely driver-less cars. Why not? Doesn't the Google car have a near-spotless record with minimal human intervention?

ghaff 11y ago
Under a very limited set of conditions. Anyone who believes that this translates into door-to-door general driving without a human even present anytime remotely soon is... optimistic.
- RealCasually 11y ago
  Living in Mountain View and driving with Google's self driving cars every day, I have to say I think they are quite a bit further than you give them credit and those conditions appear to be less limited than you are letting on here.
  - datawrangler 11y ago
    Something I've long wondered: howwell do they deal with inclement weather?
    - agildehaus 11y ago
      They do well in rain but snow remains a problem, not due to icy roads (at SXSW Chris Urmson said they do well on slick roads) but that the "better than GPS" LIDAR-based location tracking stops working when snow is on the ground. The car simply cannot figure out where it is when there's a significant layer of snow on the ground because the reference maps stop looking like what the car is seeing. https://youtu.be/Uj-rK8V-rik?t=46m22s https://youtu.be/Uj-rK8V-rik?t=46m22s
  - datawrangler 11y ago
    Something I've long wondered: howwell do they deal with inclement weather?
11y ago

shpx 11y ago

Or, if you're Tesla, people pay you for the privilege of collecting data for you. [0] [0] https://backchannel.com/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-to-stop-computers-from-taking-over-17e0e27dd02a#.y218ncvbm https://backchannel.com/how-elon-musk-and-y-combinator-plan-... "Probably Tesla will have more real world data than any other company in the world."