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Volvo Promises Uber Fleet of 24,000 Self-Driving Taxis by 2019
- reformatt 9y agoHidden behind a paywall, is it possible to get a mirror? I'm curious to see if it will be self-drive or assisted driving. Volvo thinks they can create the tech and mass produce 24,000 in the next 2 years, so how's their progress so far?
- stevenj 9y agoBy William Boston Updated Nov. 20, 2017 12:22 p.m. ET 71 COMMENTS Volvo Cars said it has agreed to supply Uber Technologies Inc. with a fleet of 24,000 self-driving taxis beginning in 2019—one of the first and biggest commercial orders for such vehicles. The deal between Volvo, owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., and Uber was disclosed Monday as a framework agreement without financial terms. Such an order, though, would account for about 4.5% of Volvo’s current total sales, based on 2016 figures, and is estimated to be worth just over $1 billion, a person familiar with the situation said. The automobile industry and many big tech firms have promised broad deployment of robot cars in the near future, but all of the technology, regulation and legal framework needed for the practical use of such vehicles aren’t yet in place. Still, industry executives have predicted with more and more confidence that companies could have such cars on the road in a matter of years, not decades. Other car makers have inked smaller, less specific deals to develop and produce autonomous cars, but Monday’s agreement represents one of the most concrete deals between two big players in the field for the production of a large number of real cars. The promised delivery date--as little as two years away--is also one of the first hard, deadlines that a significant automaker has set for rolling out a working model. Volvo has had a long-running partnership with Uber to develop self-driving cars, though it hit a setback earlier this year. Pilot projects around the U.S. were temporarily halted after an early version of a Volvo-Uber-developed vehicle flipped on its side after an accident in Tempe, Arizona. Police said the incident was caused by a human driver of another vehicle, not the Uber self-driving car. “We believe this is a new segment, a new business,” said Volvo Cars Chief Executive Hakan Samuelsson. Jeff Miller, Uber’s head of auto alliances, said the agreement “puts us on a path towards mass produced self-driving vehicles at scale.” Under the agreement, Volvo will supply Uber with what Mr. Samuelsson called a “base car,” based on Volvo’s popular XC90, a luxury sport-utility vehicle that seats up to seven passengers. Delivery of the vehicles is set to begin in 2019, with Uber calling up vehicles each month through 2021. “The base vehicles incorporate all necessary safety, redundancy and core autonomous driving technologies that are required for Uber to add its own self-driving technology,” Mr. Samuelsson said. “Uber will adapt the software to make it ride-hailing.” The first taxis from the deal will be built in Volvo’s factory in Sweden. But the company plans to produce the vehicles in the U.S. as well, where Volvo is building a new factory just outside Charleston, South Carolina. The current version of the XC90, which is available for sale today, already includes advance autonomous features, such as systems to keep the car in its lane and maintain the proper distance to another vehicle traveling ahead. It also features collision avoidance that helps prevent low-speed fender benders in stop-and-go traffic. Other car manufacturers are racing to develop their own models of self-driving vehicles, often in ventures with parts suppliers and big technology companies. Why Your Next Car May Look Like a Living Room With driverless cars moving closer to reality, car makers and designers are imagining a future where car interiors look more like a high-tech living room. Photo: Morgan Anderson/Yanfeng Daimler AG, which makes Mercedes-Benz luxury cars, and auto supplier Bosch GmbH, for instance, said in April that they would jointly develop their own robot taxi. Daimler has said the vehicle would become available at the beginning of the next decade. Daimler and Uber said in January they would join forces, with the German company agreeing to introduce self-driving cars compatible with Uber. Waymo, the self-driving tech unit of Google-parent Alphabet Inc., has agreed to take several hundred minivans from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, part of its autonomous driving program. Nutonomy Inc., a Cambridge, Mass. startup, has said it wants to put a fleet of robot taxis on the street by next year. It first began testing Renault and Mitsubishi vehicles, in Singapore. In May, it agreed to work with Peugeot maker Groupe PSA of France, to integrate its software into a Peugeot SUV. Volvo and Uber agreed in 2016 to jointly develop more advanced self-driving car systems. The accident in Arizona was a blow to public perception of the pace of development of the program and such vehicles generally. But police said at the time that the Volvo-Uber car was not at fault. The accident occurred when the driver of another vehicle committed a moving violation, ramming the self-driving car and causing it to flip on its side. There were no injuries, but Uber temporarily halted its three robot taxi tests in San Francisco, Tempe, and Pittsburgh. Those pilot programs have resumed. —Tim Higgins in San Francisco contributed to this article. Write to William Boston at william.boston@wsj.com
- blahman2 9y agodoes that mean that if your software is 'hidden behind a paywall' i am allowed to distribute it freely once i get to it?
- stevenj 9y agoI don't write software. But if I owned the WSJ (or any publication) and a subscriber shared an article here-and-there on a forum I personally wouldn't be mad. Perhaps doing so would even lead to more subscribers.
- e1ven 9y agoI'm not going to weigh in on copy/pasting this specific article, but in more general terms, I like the approach used by LWN - Subscribers get access to articles, and can choose where to share them. https://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#slinks https://lwn.net/op/FAQ.lwn#slinks
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- ghaff 9y agoThere's considerable "weasel wording." >“The base vehicles incorporate all necessary safety, redundancy and core autonomous driving technologies that are required for Uber to add its own self-driving technology,” Mr. Samuelsson said. “Uber will adapt the software to make it ride-hailing.” In other words, it appears the vehicles will have some level of autonomous/assistive driving systems but it will be an exercise for Uber to actually make them fully autonomous. (Which seems highly unlikely in that timeframe.)
- w0m 9y agoThey've been running around for >18mo now 'autonomously', though with an engineer int he driver and passenger seats incase of issues.
- ethagknight 9y agoHere is Volvo's press release, not a whole lot of information provided. https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressreleases/216738/volvo-cars-to-supply-tens-of-thousands-of-autonomous-drive-compatible-cars-to-uber https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/pressrele...
- jerkstate 9y agoThe XC90 comes with a pretty good LKAS and ACC system, having recently test driven every car in that class, I can say it's the best one for under $60k (Highlander is pretty good too). But there's no way that Uber is going to be using the stock system for self-driving.
- w0m 9y agoSpinning lidar on the roof doing live around-corner mapping being primary visible addition at least
- PatientTrades 9y agoThis is why I find it interesting whenever I read an article about Uber drivers fighting for higher pay and better working conditions in the future. Do they not understand that Uber will have no need for them in the next 3-5 years? If anything, they should start positioning for a new job now to be ahead of the curve.
- 1024core 9y agoBeginning in 2019, and not by 2019. Big difference.
- superdude12 9y agoHere's a link that doesn't hit the paywall: https://www.wsj.com/articles/volvo-promises-uber-fleet-of-self-driving-taxis-by-2019-1511184730?shareToken=st3e601f5e2bd046d39f234492ca5ce5c5&reflink=article_email_share https://www.wsj.com/articles/volvo-promises-uber-fleet-of-se... For anyone sharing from the WSJ, you can "email" an article to yourself from the left rail on desktop and use the emailed link to share with friends.
- kp1234321 9y agoFYI I can't read the link above
- tim333 9y agoTry https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fvolvo-promises-uber-fleet-of-self-driving-taxis-by-2019-1511184730%3FshareToken%3Dst3e601f5e2bd046d39f234492ca5ce5c5%26reflink%3Darticle_email_share&h=ATMNIDevY8qlJeHJZw1DZpWqU32sHbVZtgc6xsA-HuU2vtvQmkjAJzR_n3iFpBy0_9FLSlghipuhmAQqI6NvBM5DvXZf-dSxwyLzqqI&_rdr https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.c... (facebook link)
- lukasb 9y agoVolvo is very, very serious about safety. I'm amazed they're this confident.
- ghaff 9y agoThey're not. It appears that they've made a deal (without specific commitments) to sell Uber vehicles that Uber can turn into fully self-driving vehicles if it can. There would still appear to be some reputational risk but Volvo isn't making claims that the cars will be self-driving out of the factory.
- lukasb 9y agoThanks for RTFA for me >.<
- trhway 9y agoautonomous cars will, with time, be safer then the human driven ones, so Volvo may also be playing here their traditional card of an early adopter of a new safety feature.
- mtgx 9y agoSelf-driving of 2019 is the new "4G" of 2011. Don't expect these things to be even as good as Waymo's from day one...or first five years. And I don't even believe the reports that Waymo has gotten good enough for full autonomous driving in all environments.
- tryingagainbro 9y agowas there a showdown with experts rating each company? I get that Google has a much better PR machine
- danblick 9y agoFwiw there was https://www.wired.com/2017/04/detroit-stomping-silicon-valley-self-driving-car-race/ https://www.wired.com/2017/04/detroit-stomping-silicon-valle... But who knows what to make of that
- Cshelton 9y agoTechCrunch article with no paywall: https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/20/uber-orders-24000-volvo-xc90s-for-driverless-fleet/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/20/uber-orders-24000-volvo-xc...
- a1a 9y agoand Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-20/uber-steps-up-driverless-cars-push-with-deal-for-24-000-volvos https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-20/uber-step...
- alkonaut 9y agoI'm won't be surprised to see self driving ubers within a few years, however I'll be amazed if I see driverless Ubers. This is why I think at launch these will have non-drivers at the drivers seat smiling and ready to take over if the AI refuses. These drivers will have to drive less and less, and will eventually be remote operators. How they will get any economy in that I don't know - I'm cynically thinking they will be doing telemarketing while idling behind the wheel.
- kbvk 9y agoWhy not have the passenger be the one in the driver's seat ready to take over in an emergency?
- dpflan 9y agoWould this mean that the "driver" seat is an open seat (intentionally leaving the accessible the controls)? This seems interesting, but legally would this be problematic? Who is at fault when the malfunctions and the user tries to help yet the accidental is most likely unavoidable given the disconnect between being the driver and being the stand-by driver? I would think that your reflexes and lack of actually controlling the car would be harmful to reaction time.
- madamelic 9y agoBecause people taking Ubers typically either aren't licensed or indisposed for some reason (attention, drunk, etc)
- alkonaut 9y agoThat might be another option, but then you risk the car getting stuck on its way to the customer. Also, I want to be able to Uber home from a bar drunk like an idiot, or take an uber because I can't drive. I definitely see a place for share pool cars that deliver themselves to you when you need them and return autonomously when you are done, but maybe not Uber?
- johntb86 9y agoIf you need to have someone with a driver's license in the driver's seat at all times this seems more like a replacement for zipcar, not uber.
- curiousDog 9y agoWe'll probably see more and more fluff pieces as Uber heads closer to its IPO date. Last week, there was flying cars
- bduerst 9y agoAny bets on the next sharks they'll jump? - Uber phone OS - Uber IoT platform for cities - Uber edge computing on smart cars
- khazhoux 9y agoUber to buy 24,000 self-jumping sharks.
- wunderg 9y agoI like that one!
- dsfyu404ed 9y agoMining bitcoin on TMPS sensors
- stephengillie 9y agoUber grocery delivery / Uber Espresso (Why Keurig when you can Starbucks?) Uber analytics (How often do riders get dropped off outside your store? Your competitors?) Uber Mobile Hotspot / Uber Wardriving Analytics Uber Maps / Uber Traffic Uber Music (Starbucks does it, why not Uber?)
- FabHK 9y agoMany of you might not know Go-Jek, a pretty neat alternative to Uber in Indonesia (predominantly), cheaper, too, often. GO offers: * GO-CAR: like Uber * GO-RIDE: same, but on a motorbike (cheaper & faster in traffic jams, as you often have eg in Jakarta) * GO-FOOD: delivers food * GO-SEND: courier service, picks up and delivers item, eg correspondence or a forgotten USB charger, etc. * GO-SHOP: buys anything for you * GO-TIX: buys and delivers event tickets * GO-BOX: moving * GO-MASSAGE: well, massage at home * GO-CLEAN: two cleaners will come to clean your apartment * GO-GLAM: home manicure/pedicure/make-up * GO-MED: deliver medicine etc. from licenses pharmacies It's rather amazing, well written set of apps, and works quite well. EDIT to fix description of GO-MED and add: They have 200k+ drivers, and got funding from Sequoia. https://www.go-jek.com https://www.go-jek.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GO-JEK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GO-JEK
- Steeeve 9y agoVolvo has promised to sell uber cars. That's pretty much the gist of it. Uber got a fleet quote, attached the words self-driving car to it, then issued a press release. Volvo's part in the self-driving car is that their cars meet the minimum specs for uber's program, which are probably more stringent than "must have 4 wheels" and yet still falls far short of "must have a lidar system accessible through an api".
- kp1234321 9y ago> falls far short of "must have a lidar system accessible through an api". Source?
- Digit-Al 9y agoHas anyone considered the possibility that people won't want to trust their lives to self driving cars? We've had self checkouts at the supermarket for ages now and they still give problems with unusual situations. When people think of the infamous "please put your item in the bagging area" might they not get nervous about trusting their life to soemthing else autonomous?
- ptmcc 9y agoThose damn things give me problems in totally usual situations, let alone unusual ones.
- w0m 9y agoLike what? Only issue i've seen is they're a bit tentative/slow on 5 way intersections and they (stubbornly) don't speed.
- ams6110 9y ago> they (stubbornly) don't speed Thus causing road rage among drivers unfortunate enough to be following one. I get the same feeling when I'm stuck behind a bicyclist.
- bsder 9y agoMost of those kinds of bagging systems have gotten much better about the whole "detection of bagging." However, most of the time, the issue with self-checkout is the HUMAN, not the machine. Several extremely busy grocery stores near me ripped out self-checkout systems because it affected throughput too much. They went back to cashiers because the cashiers are A) faster and B) capable of judging situations for throughput ("Um, grandma, really, we don't need you to take 5 minutes to find two pennies for that $20.02 grocery bill. Have a nice day. NEXT!") Amazon, unusually, has this one right. A self-checkout system CANNOT rely on the customer doing anything right.
- ghaff 9y ago
- jarjoura 9y agoI am not convinced self driving cars will ever be a thing we see in our lifetimes that just drive around the city unmanned. Sure, I can see a fully custom Uber navigational system built in with systems that make getting passengers and dropping them off much more predictable. However, what should be relatively simple as that fails to address the human component. 1. Some people like talking to a driver, it's one of those small interactions that make getting from point A to point B an experience. Some people don't and that's fine too, not arguing against that. 2. People left alone will be much less careful, graffiti, spillage, throwing-up, drug deals, etc. Fully expect these to become little crime bubbles. 3. Not all cars will be fully utilized all day long, so what is a car sitting around unmanned? Will the insurance to cover vandalism and having the vehicle repaired raise higher than the value of paying someone to sit in the car?
- hawski 9y agoDrug deals? You first have to be authorized - you have to give some payment information. So you are mostly easily identified. Then it will probably be under surveillance.
- lykr0n 9y agoI believe Car2go had an issue with this. Identity theft is alive and well, and it's hard to know if the person who is in the car is the same who signed up for the account.
- ceejayoz 9y agoSo they'll add some sort of biometric - face / iris / thumb. People have better places to do drug deals than a car that can lock the doors and speed to the local police precinct (with photographic/video evidence sent in advance, even!) when it detects misbehavior.
- jamiequint 9y ago1. The vast majority of people don't want getting to point A to point B to be an experience, they want it to happen as quickly and conveniently as possible for a good price. This isn't going to be any sort of real barrier to adoption especially when people have the option to pay $15 for a manned car with a driver or $3 for one that is self-driving. 2. Cameras and you sign an agreement on signup that you're liable for the behavior of any passengers on your trip. Hotels are also private spaces, they don't seem to have a problem with graffiti, rooms getting destroyed, etc. To the extent they do it's not an existential problem and is covered by the fact that they have your ID and Credit Card on file. 3. Many hundreds of thousands of people park their cars overnight in parking garages or on streets. Nobody pays people to sit inside inside of their cars overnight as far as I know.
- dsfyu404ed 9y agotl;dr: Volvo :"We'll be happy to sell you 24,000 of this particular model that happens to be drive by wire" Uber: "thank you for selling us 24,000 self driving capable cars"
- siffland 9y agoWonder how well they will do with flooded roads. Will they turn around and not drown. My significant other is a lyft driver, the other night she had a drunk rider and he became unresponsive. And fell on the flood of the van. She had to stop and check him. Get back back into his seat and at his destination go knock on the door for people to come get him. Would the driverless car do all that? How well are the on snow covered roads as well? Anyone road in one is heavy snow like conditions?
- femto113 9y agoWhy Uber's pursuing a driverless model just baffles me. This quote is for 24,000 cars for around $1.4 billion, or around $58,000 per vehicle. Even if we assume 0 financing cost the car would need to earn over $58,000 in its lifetime to be more profitable for Uber to buy one of these than to continue to pay a driver. Current Uber drivers estimate their profit to be around $0.40 per mile[1] which means each driverless vehicle would need to drive about 150,000 miles just to break even. Let's guess driving that much that takes about 2 years[2]--if you assume a conservative 1 technician per 50 vehicles[3] to maintain these you also have 2% of their salary * 2 years (say another $3K). Throw in another $1000 for tabs etc, $1500 for the labor for a couple hundred car washes[4], $1000+ for losses related to crashes[5], $500 for parts and maintenance[6] and we're easily at another $7K+ in costs that have to come out of Uber's existing share. [1] https://therideshareguy.com/how-to-calculate-per-mile-earnings-instead-of-per-hour/ https://therideshareguy.com/how-to-calculate-per-mile-earnin... (This is for a 43MPG Prius, with ~$0.06/mile of depreciation. I exclude the depreciation for the calculation above, but need to add back in a similar amount for the difference in MPG.) [2] https://bizfluent.com/info-8446407-many-cab-driver-drive-yearly.html https://bizfluent.com/info-8446407-many-cab-driver-drive-yea... Estimates of how many miles per year a single taxi gets driven range here from ~40,000 to ~90,000, so 75K/year seems plausible for a fully autonomous vehicle. [3] http://www.government-fleet.com/channel/maintenance/article/story/2011/01/how-to-calculate-technician-to-vehicle-ratios.aspx http://www.government-fleet.com/channel/maintenance/article/... (This seems very conservative to me, consider for example that Hertz has about 1 employee per 13 cars.) [4] https://uberpeople.net/threads/how-often-do-you-have-to-wash-your-uber-car.152854/ https://uberpeople.net/threads/how-often-do-you-have-to-wash... [5] Estimated from average of 1 claim per 18 years per driver and $7500 in cost per accident https://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-many-times-will-you-crash-your-car/#6a1805644e62 https://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-man... http://www.tavss.com/library/va-nc-lawyer-economic-and-comprehensive-auto-accident-costs.cfm http://www.tavss.com/library/va-nc-lawyer-economic-and-compr... [6] https://www.yourmechanic.com/estimates/volvo https://www.yourmechanic.com/estimates/volvo
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