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I could imagine NHTSA was pressing him too early for his taste. I don't know Hotz personally, so I can just guess his motives, but if it was me I might react in

I could imagine NHTSA was pressing him too early for his taste. I don't know Hotz personally, so I can just guess his motives, but if it was me I might react in the same way. After all, this is basically still a hobby project (although announced like a product and made by a very clever guy). Who knows if he even has the money and time to implement NHTSA's demands?

akerl_ 10y ago
It doesn't seem like a hobby project given he accepted VC funding for it.
Jarwain 10y ago
The NHTSA seemed to only request for comma.ai to push back a release date until further testing happened. As for the money >Well, we have Andreesen Horowitz [the VC firm], which provided $3.1 million, and we spent under $1 million to do all of this.
- trymas 10y ago
  I am interested where's the profit behind this funding, if it's given away? Or the funding is just to buy the person/people/team to make some innovative products or work in some other self driving car research teams?
  - usrusr 10y ago
    The experience won while writing that code could be a lot more valuable than the code itself. If ever a car company was interested in building on top of what comma.ai has done so far, they would hire (or acqui-hire, that's the VC bet) the heads and have them rewrite the code together with more formal engineers. But when nobody is buying comma.ai, nothing of that will happen. The (little, given the domain) money invested will only have been sponsorship of a romanticized take on hacker culture. Which may actually have been a contributing factor in the investment decision here, this a frugal garage operation, not a fast-burning startup with fancy offices. Open sourcing some code can create visibility, without it we would not be talking about this today. From the investment perspective, opening this code is clearly a hail-mary-pass. There are situations when those are the best course of action and I think this is one of them.
- captainmuon 10y ago
  Whoa, I didn't know about that money. I wonder if the investors aren't angry, VC money doesn't come without obligations. I could imagine the technology ends up in some kind of portfolio and gets reused by somebody else later. OTOH, this still seems a bit like a hobby project to me. If I can believe the other comments, the code is not too spectacular, and the biggest asset is likely Hotz' name.
pjc50 10y ago
Moderators, please can we flag discussion of NHTSA as "politics"? It is after all a government agency.
tatoalo 10y ago
Yeah...an hobby project with 3.1M $ in funding. To be honest though I've looked into the github repo and from what I've seen I don't really think that's enough to get that amount of money.
mannykannot 10y ago
The NHTSA should not be guided by Hotz' taste in this matter. Do you see anything wrong with a hobby project steering cars around at high speed? Hotz is clearly a very clever guy, but his judgement is the issue here.
mikeash 10y ago
They had intended to start shipping units by the end of this year. If the NHTSA was pressing him too early, I can't imagine what would have been the appropriate time.

akerl_ 10y ago

It doesn't seem like a hobby project given he accepted VC funding for it.

Jarwain 10y ago

The NHTSA seemed to only request for comma.ai to push back a release date until further testing happened. As for the money >Well, we have Andreesen Horowitz [the VC firm], which provided $3.1 million, and we spent under $1 million to do all of this.

trymas 10y ago
I am interested where's the profit behind this funding, if it's given away? Or the funding is just to buy the person/people/team to make some innovative products or work in some other self driving car research teams?
- usrusr 10y ago
  The experience won while writing that code could be a lot more valuable than the code itself. If ever a car company was interested in building on top of what comma.ai has done so far, they would hire (or acqui-hire, that's the VC bet) the heads and have them rewrite the code together with more formal engineers. But when nobody is buying comma.ai, nothing of that will happen. The (little, given the domain) money invested will only have been sponsorship of a romanticized take on hacker culture. Which may actually have been a contributing factor in the investment decision here, this a frugal garage operation, not a fast-burning startup with fancy offices. Open sourcing some code can create visibility, without it we would not be talking about this today. From the investment perspective, opening this code is clearly a hail-mary-pass. There are situations when those are the best course of action and I think this is one of them.
captainmuon 10y ago
Whoa, I didn't know about that money. I wonder if the investors aren't angry, VC money doesn't come without obligations. I could imagine the technology ends up in some kind of portfolio and gets reused by somebody else later. OTOH, this still seems a bit like a hobby project to me. If I can believe the other comments, the code is not too spectacular, and the biggest asset is likely Hotz' name.

pjc50 10y ago

Moderators, please can we flag discussion of NHTSA as "politics"? It is after all a government agency.

tatoalo 10y ago

Yeah...an hobby project with 3.1M $ in funding. To be honest though I've looked into the github repo and from what I've seen I don't really think that's enough to get that amount of money.

mannykannot 10y ago

The NHTSA should not be guided by Hotz' taste in this matter. Do you see anything wrong with a hobby project steering cars around at high speed? Hotz is clearly a very clever guy, but his judgement is the issue here.

mikeash 10y ago

They had intended to start shipping units by the end of this year. If the NHTSA was pressing him too early, I can't imagine what would have been the appropriate time.