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> Uber is directly in the fray Do you mean Tesla? Is quite pointless for Uber to have a car that almost drives itself. They are not car makers trying to sell a

by kartan 10y ago

> Uber is directly in the fray Do you mean Tesla? Is quite pointless for Uber to have a car that almost drives itself. They are not car makers trying to sell a better product, they need to get rid of the driver to get any money out of it. If you are going from the airport to downtown you don't want your car to stop working because it is starting to rain and wait until a human driver comes along. I think that in that sense Uber is competing directly against Google and not, for example, Tesla. And it looks like Google's technology is more mature, even that it is still not good enough. For Google is a long time investment, I think that Uber is quite wrong if they think that is a short time investment for them.

stale2002 10y ago
These problems aren't that big of a deal. There are lots of places where it doesn't rain very much. They could also be running only when the weather forecast says that it will definitely not rain. If there are problem locations where it is difficult to drive, simply don't run them in those locations! Also, they could have self driving being opt in for a discount. If there are problems, well you signed HP for it. Don't want to deal with them, then don't take the 90 percent discount!
morgante 10y ago
Tesla and Uber both have their respective advantages. Tesla can sell cars with autopilot even when it doesn't work all the time, but they would have very hard time selling autopilot if it only worked on very specific cities or "tracks." In contrast, Uber can start rolling out autopilot which works very reliably but only on a specific and well-understood "track." They can start phasing it into the market by dispatching autonomous vehicles only when you request a route that they're very confident on. In the medium term, they can dispense with having a driver on such routes at all. One thing that Uber might try is a self-driving car "delivery" service. People might not be confident enough to ride in a self-driving car yet, but you could have an app deliver a car for you to drive to your destination (maybe w/ driver assist). For Tesla, the incremental strategy is partial autonomy "anywhere." For Uber, it's probably full autonomy in specific locations. That's a huge advantage because it can seamlessly mesh with their existing app—they can simply start serving a percentage of Uber rides with autonomous vehicles. Cynically, I think Google is realizing that they need an incremental adoption plan and that's why they're launching their own ridesharing platform.

by kartan 10y ago

stale2002 10y ago

These problems aren't that big of a deal. There are lots of places where it doesn't rain very much. They could also be running only when the weather forecast says that it will definitely not rain. If there are problem locations where it is difficult to drive, simply don't run them in those locations! Also, they could have self driving being opt in for a discount. If there are problems, well you signed HP for it. Don't want to deal with them, then don't take the 90 percent discount!

morgante 10y ago

Tesla and Uber both have their respective advantages. Tesla can sell cars with autopilot even when it doesn't work all the time, but they would have very hard time selling autopilot if it only worked on very specific cities or "tracks." In contrast, Uber can start rolling out autopilot which works very reliably but only on a specific and well-understood "track." They can start phasing it into the market by dispatching autonomous vehicles only when you request a route that they're very confident on. In the medium term, they can dispense with having a driver on such routes at all. One thing that Uber might try is a self-driving car "delivery" service. People might not be confident enough to ride in a self-driving car yet, but you could have an app deliver a car for you to drive to your destination (maybe w/ driver assist). For Tesla, the incremental strategy is partial autonomy "anywhere." For Uber, it's probably full autonomy in specific locations. That's a huge advantage because it can seamlessly mesh with their existing app—they can simply start serving a percentage of Uber rides with autonomous vehicles. Cynically, I think Google is realizing that they need an incremental adoption plan and that's why they're launching their own ridesharing platform.