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I wanted to ask the same thing: did they quit because they didn't get enough money/stocks at the companies that they were at, or were not working on important e
by xiphias 10y ago
I wanted to ask the same thing: did they quit because they didn't get enough money/stocks at the companies that they were at, or were not working on important enough stuff, or just wanted more risk for the sake of getting into more risk? Or do they think that their business model is so much better than Google's? (facilitating drivers to drive even longer without sleeping)
The salary of a truck driver is about $50000, I guess he costs at least $80000 for the employer. Buying a new self-driving truck for $200000 should pay for itself in at most 3 years. Retrofitting may work, but it's quite short term business.
- spacecowboy_lon 10y agoI would imagine the first self driving trucks would be for opencast mines and similar sites not on the public highway uses. Milatery supply trucks would be another area and as Google seem to have the vapours over anything milatery or dual use - this maybe why they are doing this.
- lumberjack 10y agoPretty sure those have already been deployed. http://uk.businessinsider.com/rio-tinto-using-self-driving-trucks-to-transport-ore-2015-10 http://uk.businessinsider.com/rio-tinto-using-self-driving-t...
- luma 10y agoYou're forgetting that one driver can only drive 70 hours a week (with rules around breaks in the middle), while presumably the AI could run the truck much closer to 24/7. In this case, installing a $200k system would allow the company to replace ~3 drivers with no interruptions in service.
- icefox 10y agoMore valuable than replacing three drivers is the fact that because the AI can drive all of the time the total time to deliver goods goes down which means it is more valuable and a higher price can be charged for the delivery.