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Nine financial quarters. Yeah, not happening. The gulf between "testing fully driverless systems" on desert interstates and "deploying a useful autonomous vehi

Nine financial quarters. Yeah, not happening. The gulf between "testing fully driverless systems" on desert interstates and "deploying a useful autonomous vehicle" is wiiiide. My tongue-in-cheek prediction: we'll have commercially viable self-driving cars one year after Amazon warehouses are fully automated.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Is anyone actually testing self driving cars on desert interstates yet? From what I understand, most of the testing happens on residential streets in the Bay Area. Testing on desert interstates would be a huge step up.
- jvm_ 7y ago
  https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/15/20805994/ups-self-driving-trucks-autonomous-delivery-tusimple https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/15/20805994/ups-self-driving... There's a video out there of the UPS truck driving 90 minutes end-to-end without interruption by the driver or engineer who are along for the ride.
- a_t48 7y ago
  Desert interstates are actually easier than residential streets. No pedestrians, no snow, little rain, no intersections.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    High speeds, winding roads that go up and down mountains. It actually isn’t that easy out here.
    - a_t48 7y ago
      It should be predictable difficulty though, right? What's the actual difficulty for a robot driver? Typically in residential driving it comes down to perception(/prediction) difficulty and planning difficulty.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Interstate highways have minimum curve radii and maximum grades and a whole host of other requirements that make them easy by definition.
- asteli 7y ago
  It's not hard to do. Google has been able to do it for some years. It's difficult to build a service around cars that are only autonomous on the highway, so the autonomy companies pivoted to in-city driving as a natural next step toward having no safety driver. [edit: it's hard to do, but has been done a couple times over by a couple of companies]
- protomyth 7y ago
  I've been waiting for someone to try Montana in the winter. I'll believe the self driving thing when that works. Might be able to save some lives and keep the number of roadside crosses down.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Having done SLC I15 to Spokane I90 (the route that takes you into Idaho twice, and crosses the inter continental divide a few hundred times) in the winter before, I’m not even sure human-driving works well across those passes. Was in first gear going down while locals were passing me at 80 MPH.
  - pj_mukh 7y ago
    Canadians[1]! A whole country, full of innovation north of Montana and frighteningly aware of snow and ice :). [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zaf4pSe4v4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zaf4pSe4v4
    - protomyth 7y ago
      Yeah, but Montana is, well, Montana. I'm in North Dakota and we have some really scary driving weather including the ice rink known as I-94 near Fargo. But, Montana has such a variety of driving conditions including mountain passes from heck, and a tradition of driving a bit fast to make life difficult for any automated system.
  - thrwer23424 7y ago
    Also rain. LIDARs don't work in the rain, and driving in rain is quite challenging in urban areas.
  - myself248 7y ago
    Hello from Michigan, and ditto. I've been dodging potholes that could eat an entire motorcycle, and I have yet to see a so-called "self-driving" car that even understood the concept of a pothole. Or random road construction that just closes an entire lane on a 1-lane road, so you have to divert into the turn lane. No arrows, just cones, figure it out. This is obvious and natural for human drivers... Or flagmen at a construction site, with the "stop/slow" sign....
melling 7y ago
9 financial quarters plus all the prior years of work. Aptiv appears to have been working on self-driving for quite some time. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/05/31/self-driving-in-sin-city-aptiv-lyft-notch-50000-robo-taxi-rides-in-las-vegas-pilot/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/05/31/self-dri... https://www.aptiv.com/media/article/aptiv-launches-fleet-of-autonomous-vehicles-on-the-lyft-network https://www.aptiv.com/media/article/aptiv-launches-fleet-of-... In fact the self-driving part goes back several years: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joecornell/2017/12/06/delphi-automotive-splits-into-two/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/joecornell/2017/12/06/delphi-au... https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/24/16533534/delphi-nutonomy-acquisition-450-million-self-driving https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/24/16533534/delphi-nutonomy...
- Isamu 7y ago
  Yes, Ottomatika (self-driving car CMU spinoff) was purchased in 2015 and NuTonomy (MIT spinoff) in 2017. They have been busy.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

Is anyone actually testing self driving cars on desert interstates yet? From what I understand, most of the testing happens on residential streets in the Bay Area. Testing on desert interstates would be a huge step up.

jvm_ 7y ago
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/15/20805994/ups-self-driving-trucks-autonomous-delivery-tusimple https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/15/20805994/ups-self-driving... There's a video out there of the UPS truck driving 90 minutes end-to-end without interruption by the driver or engineer who are along for the ride.
a_t48 7y ago
Desert interstates are actually easier than residential streets. No pedestrians, no snow, little rain, no intersections.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  High speeds, winding roads that go up and down mountains. It actually isn’t that easy out here.
  - a_t48 7y ago
    It should be predictable difficulty though, right? What's the actual difficulty for a robot driver? Typically in residential driving it comes down to perception(/prediction) difficulty and planning difficulty.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Interstate highways have minimum curve radii and maximum grades and a whole host of other requirements that make them easy by definition.
asteli 7y ago
It's not hard to do. Google has been able to do it for some years. It's difficult to build a service around cars that are only autonomous on the highway, so the autonomy companies pivoted to in-city driving as a natural next step toward having no safety driver. [edit: it's hard to do, but has been done a couple times over by a couple of companies]
protomyth 7y ago
I've been waiting for someone to try Montana in the winter. I'll believe the self driving thing when that works. Might be able to save some lives and keep the number of roadside crosses down.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Having done SLC I15 to Spokane I90 (the route that takes you into Idaho twice, and crosses the inter continental divide a few hundred times) in the winter before, I’m not even sure human-driving works well across those passes. Was in first gear going down while locals were passing me at 80 MPH.
- pj_mukh 7y ago
  Canadians[1]! A whole country, full of innovation north of Montana and frighteningly aware of snow and ice :). [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zaf4pSe4v4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zaf4pSe4v4
  - protomyth 7y ago
    Yeah, but Montana is, well, Montana. I'm in North Dakota and we have some really scary driving weather including the ice rink known as I-94 near Fargo. But, Montana has such a variety of driving conditions including mountain passes from heck, and a tradition of driving a bit fast to make life difficult for any automated system.
- thrwer23424 7y ago
  Also rain. LIDARs don't work in the rain, and driving in rain is quite challenging in urban areas.
- myself248 7y ago
  Hello from Michigan, and ditto. I've been dodging potholes that could eat an entire motorcycle, and I have yet to see a so-called "self-driving" car that even understood the concept of a pothole. Or random road construction that just closes an entire lane on a 1-lane road, so you have to divert into the turn lane. No arrows, just cones, figure it out. This is obvious and natural for human drivers... Or flagmen at a construction site, with the "stop/slow" sign....

melling 7y ago

9 financial quarters plus all the prior years of work. Aptiv appears to have been working on self-driving for quite some time. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/05/31/self-driving-in-sin-city-aptiv-lyft-notch-50000-robo-taxi-rides-in-las-vegas-pilot/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/05/31/self-dri... https://www.aptiv.com/media/article/aptiv-launches-fleet-of-autonomous-vehicles-on-the-lyft-network https://www.aptiv.com/media/article/aptiv-launches-fleet-of-... In fact the self-driving part goes back several years: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joecornell/2017/12/06/delphi-automotive-splits-into-two/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/joecornell/2017/12/06/delphi-au... https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/24/16533534/delphi-nutonomy-acquisition-450-million-self-driving https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/24/16533534/delphi-nutonomy...

Isamu 7y ago
Yes, Ottomatika (self-driving car CMU spinoff) was purchased in 2015 and NuTonomy (MIT spinoff) in 2017. They have been busy.