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Despite that, he's confident in VW's ability to make a Level 4 autonomous vehicle, saying that the upcoming I.D. Buzz electric van will be the first VW to recei

by crusso 7y ago

Despite that, he's confident in VW's ability to make a Level 4 autonomous vehicle, saying that the upcoming I.D. Buzz electric van will be the first VW to receive the technology. He's poo-pooing level 5 autonomous driving and says that they just about have a level 4 autonomous vehicle? This article makes no sense. Honestly, the CEO of my company has very little idea of the details of the technology that we produce. If you picked some cutting-edge technology that isn't key to our market-share yet, he'd have even less of a clue.

lawnchair_larry 7y ago
How does it make no sense? He’s saying we might never get past level 4. And they’re going to offer level 4. That statement is logically coherent.
- drcross 7y ago
  It could quite easily be a ploy to prevent lost sales.
  - Daishiman 7y ago
    Consumers don't give two craps about this terminology. And the barrier between level 4 and level 5 is potentially decades out, if not forever. Nobody's who's contemplating a level 4 is holding out their purchase for a level 5.
desc 7y ago
I think the point here is that going from level 4 to level 5 is a much, much harder problem than going from, say, level 1 to level 4.
- crusso 7y ago
  But it's really not. Level 4 will require the vehicle to take you from door to door without driver intervention in normal driving conditions. Level 4 is mostly what people think of when they think of autonomous driving because you can take a nap, work on your laptop, whatever. You get in your car, tell it where you want to go, and it does everything. Level 5 basically removes the steering wheel so you never drive. But once you're at level 4, almost all of the hard problems have been solved. https://www.sae.org/news/2019/01/sae-updates-j3016-automated-driving-graphic https://www.sae.org/news/2019/01/sae-updates-j3016-automated...
  - smabie 7y ago
    Like making sure the river you are about to ford in the Serengeti is low enough so you won't get stuck?
    - crusso 7y ago
      Is that what the CEO of VW is saying here? Their Serengeti autonomous adventuring vehicles might get stuck? If so, I totally missed that nuance.
dx034 7y ago
He's the CEO of the self driving car division. I'm pretty sure he's well aware of their tech.
- rgbrenner 7y ago
  Here's a summary of his entire background in order: Formula 1 engineer for many years; Technical director for a Le Mans Prototype vehicle; Head of VWs self driving division for the past 1 year. He has no software background... he specializes in making gas cars go fast. He has no idea how to make a self driving car.. and honestly, why would we think he would? He hasn't exactly been pioneering vision systems, or anything else related to the tech.
  - aguyfromnb 7y ago
    >He has no software background... Yeah, because making Formula 1 cars "go fast" involves no software whatsoever, right? I love how you dismiss "Formula 1 engineer for many years". Maybe if he helped build a payment processor we could take him seriously. >He has no idea how to make a self driving car.. and honestly, why would we think he would? Because he's running the autonomous car division of the biggest automaker in the world? I have no idea if he's right or not, but dismissing him as not knowing what he's talking about is hubris. He's trying to build this stuff.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - threeseed 7y ago
    So much ignorance and inaccuracies in one comment. (a) He was the Head of F1 Development and Advanced Technologies which involves significant software exposure. F1 has a ridiculous amount of software both on car and in the factory to process all of the sensor data and design future cars. I've first hand seen their streaming big data stacks and they are on par with anything you will see at a top tier startup. (b) He was the Head of Product Design for Apple's Car and we know they were going to have autonomous capabilities as well as hundreds of ML models powering AR, Maps, facial recognition etc. If you think you can get away without deeply understanding software whilst leading a major Apple project then you really don't understand how that company works. (c) He's the CEO of VW Autonomy. He doesn't even need to be an expert in software. He just needs to be able to listen to his engineers. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-hitzinger-2163a035 https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-hitzinger-2163a035
jayd16 7y ago
Just sounds like normal meaningless sales talk. Everything we don't have is crap you do need. What we do have will solve all your problems.
vidarh 7y ago
Consider the Osborne effect. And consider that this person has a strong vested interest in making sure potential VW customers does not decide to delay their car purchase decision in the hope of getting a more automated solution next year or the year after. Maybe he's right, maybe he's not. But either way it'd be dumb of him to claim level 5 autonomous cars were right around the corner.
- Turing_Machine 7y ago
  > Consider the Osborne effect. Agree completely. It would be suicidal (in a business sense) to say that Level 5 was right around the corner right when you're on the verge of rolling out Level 4.

by crusso 7y ago

lawnchair_larry 7y ago

How does it make no sense? He’s saying we might never get past level 4. And they’re going to offer level 4. That statement is logically coherent.

drcross 7y ago
It could quite easily be a ploy to prevent lost sales.
- Daishiman 7y ago
  Consumers don't give two craps about this terminology. And the barrier between level 4 and level 5 is potentially decades out, if not forever. Nobody's who's contemplating a level 4 is holding out their purchase for a level 5.

desc 7y ago

I think the point here is that going from level 4 to level 5 is a much, much harder problem than going from, say, level 1 to level 4.

crusso 7y ago
But it's really not. Level 4 will require the vehicle to take you from door to door without driver intervention in normal driving conditions. Level 4 is mostly what people think of when they think of autonomous driving because you can take a nap, work on your laptop, whatever. You get in your car, tell it where you want to go, and it does everything. Level 5 basically removes the steering wheel so you never drive. But once you're at level 4, almost all of the hard problems have been solved. https://www.sae.org/news/2019/01/sae-updates-j3016-automated-driving-graphic https://www.sae.org/news/2019/01/sae-updates-j3016-automated...
- smabie 7y ago
  Like making sure the river you are about to ford in the Serengeti is low enough so you won't get stuck?
  - crusso 7y ago
    Is that what the CEO of VW is saying here? Their Serengeti autonomous adventuring vehicles might get stuck? If so, I totally missed that nuance.

dx034 7y ago

He's the CEO of the self driving car division. I'm pretty sure he's well aware of their tech.

rgbrenner 7y ago
Here's a summary of his entire background in order: Formula 1 engineer for many years; Technical director for a Le Mans Prototype vehicle; Head of VWs self driving division for the past 1 year. He has no software background... he specializes in making gas cars go fast. He has no idea how to make a self driving car.. and honestly, why would we think he would? He hasn't exactly been pioneering vision systems, or anything else related to the tech.
- aguyfromnb 7y ago
  >He has no software background... Yeah, because making Formula 1 cars "go fast" involves no software whatsoever, right? I love how you dismiss "Formula 1 engineer for many years". Maybe if he helped build a payment processor we could take him seriously. >He has no idea how to make a self driving car.. and honestly, why would we think he would? Because he's running the autonomous car division of the biggest automaker in the world? I have no idea if he's right or not, but dismissing him as not knowing what he's talking about is hubris. He's trying to build this stuff.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- threeseed 7y ago
  So much ignorance and inaccuracies in one comment. (a) He was the Head of F1 Development and Advanced Technologies which involves significant software exposure. F1 has a ridiculous amount of software both on car and in the factory to process all of the sensor data and design future cars. I've first hand seen their streaming big data stacks and they are on par with anything you will see at a top tier startup. (b) He was the Head of Product Design for Apple's Car and we know they were going to have autonomous capabilities as well as hundreds of ML models powering AR, Maps, facial recognition etc. If you think you can get away without deeply understanding software whilst leading a major Apple project then you really don't understand how that company works. (c) He's the CEO of VW Autonomy. He doesn't even need to be an expert in software. He just needs to be able to listen to his engineers. https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-hitzinger-2163a035 https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-hitzinger-2163a035

jayd16 7y ago

Just sounds like normal meaningless sales talk. Everything we don't have is crap you do need. What we do have will solve all your problems.

vidarh 7y ago

Consider the Osborne effect. And consider that this person has a strong vested interest in making sure potential VW customers does not decide to delay their car purchase decision in the hope of getting a more automated solution next year or the year after. Maybe he's right, maybe he's not. But either way it'd be dumb of him to claim level 5 autonomous cars were right around the corner.

Turing_Machine 7y ago
> Consider the Osborne effect. Agree completely. It would be suicidal (in a business sense) to say that Level 5 was right around the corner right when you're on the verge of rolling out Level 4.