10 ms·

German car makers putting out of the self driving AI-race

29 points by winReInstall 4y ago

jqpabc123 4y ago
So they finally figured out that "self driving" was really just a divisionary/marketing tactic with lots of legal liability? When a "self driving" car kills someone, guess who shares legal responsibility?
- michaelt 4y ago
  Insurance companies exist, so it's clearly possible for a corporation to take responsibility for liabilities arising from car crashes, and collect enough money from car owners to cover those liabilities.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    This depends on whether the liabilities in a jurisdiction are civil or criminal...
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Surely that is true. The legal landscape will have to be settled before self-driving becomes common. E.g. should a self-driving car leave the road to avoid sudden accident? What if it then hits a pedestrian? One advantage to software-driven decision making is, we can make a rule and they will all follow it. I.e. the law can decide no self-driving car should leave the road.
  - joxel 4y ago
    Well, they could try not to leave the road. Just like humans the software can and will have errors. Then you still have the issue of who to charge for breaking the leaving the road law.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    > One advantage to software-driven decision making is, we can make a rule and they will all follow it. I.e. the law can decide no self-driving car should leave the road. Rigid adherence to a law like that is a pretty major disadvantage to saving lives though...
    - digitallyfree 4y ago
      It's one of those things where it's not ideal, but it's the only way to prevent legal liability. Basically if the AI acts in accordance to the law governing such behavior then the manufacturers are not at fault. Else you'll have different vehicle manufacturers doing what they believe is right (think of all the debate over the "trolley" problem), and each case will have to go through the courts.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        There are all sorts of subtle ways you need to "break the law" while driving though. Right now, one sees tons of delivery vehicles pulled over to make deliveries and you have to carefully go over the double yellow line in the middle to get around.
  - tiahura 4y ago
    The law dealt with these issues a long time ago. McPherson v Buick was 100 years ago and 402A is from the 60s.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      It's logical that the manufacturer would bear the liability--assuming the car has been properly maintained, software is current, etc. The driver (passenger really) doesn't have any real agency while the vehicle is driving itself. It's also a sort of unusual situation in that we can reasonably expect an AI that is a far safer driver than humans will still kill people. That's not a normal expectation for products sold to consumers and used/maintained as directed.
- Closi 4y ago
  > So they finally figured out that "self driving" was really just a divisionary/marketing tactic with lots of legal liability? > When a "self driving" car kills someone, guess who shares legal responsibility? When a rollercoaster crashes who takes legal responsibility? (Answer in UK law: The rollercoaster owners are responsible for negligence if they do not maintain the rollercoaster adequately or follow safety rules. The rollercoaster's builders are responsible for negligence if there was a design fault or if the rollercoaster was fundamentally unsafe. The rollercoaster operators can be responsible if they do not follow operating procedures which they would be reasonably able and could be reasonably expected to follow and have been trained in). Similar ideas have been established in self driving cars already with Mercedes taking legal responsibility in Germany if it's cars crash while in Level 3 driving mode (assuming operators are following the safety rules, for instance making sure that they are sober and able to take over driving if required).
  - jqpabc123 4y ago
    When a rollercoaster crashes who takes legal responsibility? Typically not the manufacturer. Because a roller coaster operates in a fixed and controlled environment within which it's design can usually be shown to be inherently safe. The same can not be said for a "self driving" auto. Given the current state of technology, one could make a convincing legal argument in many jurisdictions that just marketing an auto as "self driving" is itself a deceptive and inherently negligent act.
    - Closi 4y ago
      I don't buy the idea that in a world where self-driving cars are safer, we should have 'less safe' human drivers just because we can blame them when they kill someone. Car manufacturers shouldn't have to show something is perfectly safe, and IMO they should just have to show that something is reasonably safe (e.g. as safe or safer than a human driver in the same condition). There isn't a requirement that someone has to take legal responsibility for every accident that happens in the world, just that people act with reasonable care and attention within the law.
      - 4y ago
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  > So they finally figured out that "self driving" was really just a divisionary tactic with lots of legal liability? I don't think people get how utterly behind and unsafe the legacy carmakers products are. I've rented current-year Cadillacs, Audis, BMWs, and it's all a terrible gimmick. They can't keep the vehicle in the center of the lane, "adaptive cruise control" repeatedly tries to kill you by accelerating into semi-trucks and trailers, the autonomous systems repeatedly disengage, and they certainly can't navigate around on city streets, can't change lanes, basically need 100% of your attention to operate in a remotely safe way. Tesla may have their QC issues and their Elon issues, but the technology is a decade ahead. You can punch in an address and FSD Beta literally navigates you through the city with pedestrians, traffic, and so on to your destination in a fairly predictable manner. The adaptive cruise control, lane changing, and highway functions are predictable and reliable enough to handle a regular commute. It's easy to stand on the sidelines and be a critic but if you go out into the real world and actually drive all these vehicles it's obvious who is innovating and who is desperately playing catch-up.
  - starfallg 4y ago
    FSD as a product is a gimmick. It is an advanced automation but nevertheless a gimmick because driving and sharing the road with humans requires capabilities that synthetic AI has not yet achieved, and there is no clear roadmap on when and how it's going to be achieved. The way FSD is marketed is borderline misrepresentation.
    - csa 4y ago
      > FSD as a product is a gimmick. > The way FSD is marketed is borderline misrepresentation. Only one of these two statements is correct. FSD is a gross misrepresentation of the function’s capabilities. FSD is not, however, a gimmick. If it was simply renamed “advanced cruise control”, it would be very accurate, and Tesla’s product would be at the high end of quality for advanced cruise control.
  - snehk 4y ago
    My experience here is the opposite. I have an Audi A8 and my girlfriend drives a Tesla Model 3. In my experience, the Audi is way, way more reliable when it comes to the features. The features just work for me. I've never had any problems with the lane assist, for example, and I drive between 1000km and 1500km a week through Germany (not sure if the features are different depending on the location). I'd like if I didn't have to put my hands on the steering wheel that often but that's pretty much it. Tesla's offerings are a real letdown. And they don't work as advertised either, which is why they're not allowed to advertise them in the same way anymore. It's missing way, way too many things that the car should notice. It's kind of like Siri. When it works, it's amazing. It often doesn't so you can't really rely on it. We also had to replace a rim on the right hand side because the car simply didn't turn the wheel back. Girlfriend won't use the feature anymore now because she's kind of scared. The summons feature doesn't work reliably either even when the conditions are perfect. The car just stops and you stand there and don't know why it's not doing anything at all. I can't speak for BMW or Cadillac but calling FSD a decade ahead is ridiculous. It fails at so many simple things and all videos online confirm this and they don't seem to be able to really fix this. Every new Beta shows the exact same problems again and again.
- tdsanchez 4y ago
  "guess who shares legal responsibility" They say this is why it's commmon for Tesla driving system to disingage 1-2 seconds before it knows the vehicle is going to crash. https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-investigation-shutoff-crash/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-invest... The fly in the self-driving ointment is accidents are NOT 100% unavoidable for humans assisted by any technology. People can jump in front of cars or intentionally interfere with said tech, for example. There will be accidents, and the AI systems can predict with great certainty that a crash will occur before the human at the wheel does. In Tesla's case, it disingages before the time of impact to mitigate Tesla's culpability. (seemingly)
mpol 4y ago
Aha, technological solutions for social problems, who could think that would not work :) Driving a car in public traffic is very much a social situation. A wink here, a small hand or head gesture there. Even looking away and avoiding communication alltogether is part of social behaviour and tells something. Even the same gesture in a different context says something else. Parking a car, driving in congested traffic and just keeping a lane is all doable by technology. Beyond that it needs a different and social way of thinking.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  Even without seeing other people's faces, you start to notice car "body language". For example, a car that is sticking close to a lane divider is probably about to try to change lanes. I always wondered to what extent (if any) self-driving AI tries to take this into account and whether, even legal, maneuvers by self-driving AI might be surprising to other drivers looking for these kinds of subtle signals.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    It's incorporated into autonomous vehicles in a few different ways (mainly through ML), but current state of the art isn't perfect. Humans are probably still better at reading those subtle patterns earlier.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      Is it incorporated both ways? That is, are autonomous vehicles trained to express intention through subtle movements?
      - jlund-molfese 4y ago
        Isn’t that what turn signals are for? Car body language is somewhat location-dependent. Rural Missouri has more cautious drivers and downtown NYC more aggressive drivers. Seems complicated to modify the car’s behavior at such a fine level, but perhaps it’ll happen once the bigger issues are worked out. On-board, personalized learning from your commute would be a neat selling point.
mertlx 4y ago
I'm not surprised. People want to drive, the market for those who want to be driven around by an AI chauffeur is minimal. Add the legal liabilities, and it's a fantasy project with hardly any takers like the metaverse.
- simmerup 4y ago
  Plenty of people use VR Chat. Once it gets mainstream it'll be common place. At the moment it's int he same place as IRC was back in the 90s before social media took off
  - nathanaldensr 4y ago
    Well, your opinion is as valuable as mine: I think you're completely wrong and VR will never be mainstream.
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      I'll double your opinion. ;-)
    - scarby2 4y ago
      VR for communication may not be. VR for training will almost certainly be in use by millions of people on a daily basis in the very near future. Anything that requires operation of a machine or performance of a physical procedure and some level of risk/cost will probably involve VR.
    - simmerup 4y ago
      Just so.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    I'd be very interested to see some data here. What's "plenty"? But the big difference between the 1990s and now is that everybody already has perfectly good text chat. Plus free voice calls and video calls. Plus regular social media for non-synchronous interaction. I can believe VR Chat is better for some niche of people. But I don't see much reason to think it's going to be enough better than all the other options that people will don special gear for it.
jebronie 4y ago
its a capitulation, the german car makers will be gone in 20 years
JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago
Now we only need them to pull out from the EV race to focus on what they do best: Surround the paying customers with gasoline powered opulence to enable them to enjoy the AutoBahn at 250 km/h. A video of a 2021 S-Klasse on the AutoBahn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4F9n7sjIXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4F9n7sjIXU
coliveira 4y ago
Five years ago, car companies were saying around the world that in five years, their cars would be 100% self driving. I said it was bonkers, unless they create a new infrastructure for self driving cars (new roads that can be used only by these types of cars).
- MengerSponge 4y ago
  Five years ago nobody could fully automate driving in a warehouse. It's honestly hilarious that so many people believed public roads were so close.
  - Jensson 4y ago
    Google has been running self driving cars on public roads since 2010. There were driver interventions back then, but I doubt they would have any trouble running those cars in a warehouse after driving 7 years on public roads. That tech probably wouldn't be economical to use in a warehouse though.
    - MengerSponge 4y ago
      Driver interventions, on a few streets, with highly instrumented cars. But compared to public roads warehouses are easy. There isn't fog or rain or snow. There aren't potholes. The light doesn't change. And to prove my point: look at all these self-driving cars on the streets today. It's a peculiar case of Bay Area Tech brain. "We very rarely kill pedestrians in SF and Arizona. I'm sure this tech will work fine in Ohio."
- fluxinflex 4y ago
  I also said this, self-driving will only become a thing if the roads are modified. Then I realised that this has already happened. The changes made to urban environments when cars first became a thing aren't to be underestimated. Curbs are a result of cars. Traffic lights. Pedestrian lights. Footpaths. Back in the day, no one even considered these changes to be bad. Today if politican came up with the idea that we need to remove pedestrians (and bikes) from the streets so that self-driving cars could be safe, there would be an uproar.
karaterobot 4y ago
Is there a translation link, or should I just pretend to have read the article so I can give my thoughts about self-driving cars? Fine either way.
- affgrff2 4y ago
  Na, no one read that so please just give your thoughts.
rob74 4y ago
Shouldn't it be "pulling out", rather than "putting out"? Also, they already pulled out in October, this article is about their efforts to retain the developers that were working on the AI solution. And it's not "(all) german car makers", just VW and Ford (Ford apparently means Ford as a whole, not just Ford Germany?) - no idea how the self-driving plans of the others are doing...
- matzab 4y ago
  And it's not even VW pulling out as a whole since Audi and others have similar programs. This whole thread is weird.
affgrff2 4y ago
I cannot read the full article, but it mainly deals with Ford (obviously not German) and VW pulling out of a startup I never heard of. Where the headline comes from, I don't know ... The original is roughly: VW annoys Argo AI ...
xnx 4y ago
In related news, I'd like to announce that I am ending my training for the 2024 Olympics. That car companies are giving up on this doesn't change the story at all because they were never real competitors. It never made any sense that manufactures of cars thought they could make self driving systems. Experience with supply chains, manufacturing, and marketing have zero translation to the problem space of self driving: sensing, interpreting, and decision making.
guax 4y ago
It's kinda funny that we'll try to invent advanced ai that can perform a near miracle of technological advancement before investing in proper public transit.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  As an American that works in the industry and advocates for improvements in public transit, I suspect the near-miracle of technological advancement is faster and cheaper than funding new public transit. Look at transit projects in the bay area for example. The 5 station BART extension to Santa Clara (planned since 1981!) will cost somewhere north of $9B and be complete by 2030 if everything goes to plan. The proposed Livermore extension would have cost $1B+. Compare that with autonomous vehicles. Several billion has been spent on development since 2010, but test fleets are already deployed in multiple cities globally. They also don't have to deal with the excruciating approvals process for further deployment that new public infrastructure has to, so there's a reasonable chance they'll actually exist before the heat death of the universe. Would fixing the entire political system be great? Sure, but I'm tired of getting screamed at in public meetings.
  - guax 4y ago
    My comment is mostly because I believe self driving will not solve the mobility problem at all. "in the future, all traffic congestions will be of self driving electric cars" is a way of thinking it.
    - AlotOfReading 4y ago
      It's a decent last-mile solution rather than a replacement for things like trains. Think about the Livermore BART extension I mentioned that will never be built. That route is currently served by a 40m bus that runs twice an hour and sees approx. 860 riders / day (latest numbers I could find, covid ridership) across its 27 stops. Most of those buses are functionally empty. An autonomous vehicle could do the same route in 15m (so people might actually use it) and it wouldn't be empty.
dang 4y ago
We have deep respect for the German language, but HN is an English-language site, so articles here need to be in English. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20german%20english%20language%20site&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

29 points by winReInstall 4y ago

So they finally figured out that "self driving" was really just a divisionary/marketing tactic with lots of legal liability? When a "self driving" car kills someone, guess who shares legal responsibility?

michaelt 4y ago
Insurance companies exist, so it's clearly possible for a corporation to take responsibility for liabilities arising from car crashes, and collect enough money from car owners to cover those liabilities.
- notahacker 4y ago
  This depends on whether the liabilities in a jurisdiction are civil or criminal...
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
Surely that is true. The legal landscape will have to be settled before self-driving becomes common. E.g. should a self-driving car leave the road to avoid sudden accident? What if it then hits a pedestrian? One advantage to software-driven decision making is, we can make a rule and they will all follow it. I.e. the law can decide no self-driving car should leave the road.
- joxel 4y ago
  Well, they could try not to leave the road. Just like humans the software can and will have errors. Then you still have the issue of who to charge for breaking the leaving the road law.
- notahacker 4y ago
  > One advantage to software-driven decision making is, we can make a rule and they will all follow it. I.e. the law can decide no self-driving car should leave the road. Rigid adherence to a law like that is a pretty major disadvantage to saving lives though...
  - digitallyfree 4y ago
    It's one of those things where it's not ideal, but it's the only way to prevent legal liability. Basically if the AI acts in accordance to the law governing such behavior then the manufacturers are not at fault. Else you'll have different vehicle manufacturers doing what they believe is right (think of all the debate over the "trolley" problem), and each case will have to go through the courts.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      There are all sorts of subtle ways you need to "break the law" while driving though. Right now, one sees tons of delivery vehicles pulled over to make deliveries and you have to carefully go over the double yellow line in the middle to get around.
- tiahura 4y ago
  The law dealt with these issues a long time ago. McPherson v Buick was 100 years ago and 402A is from the 60s.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    It's logical that the manufacturer would bear the liability--assuming the car has been properly maintained, software is current, etc. The driver (passenger really) doesn't have any real agency while the vehicle is driving itself. It's also a sort of unusual situation in that we can reasonably expect an AI that is a far safer driver than humans will still kill people. That's not a normal expectation for products sold to consumers and used/maintained as directed.
Closi 4y ago
> So they finally figured out that "self driving" was really just a divisionary/marketing tactic with lots of legal liability? > When a "self driving" car kills someone, guess who shares legal responsibility? When a rollercoaster crashes who takes legal responsibility? (Answer in UK law: The rollercoaster owners are responsible for negligence if they do not maintain the rollercoaster adequately or follow safety rules. The rollercoaster's builders are responsible for negligence if there was a design fault or if the rollercoaster was fundamentally unsafe. The rollercoaster operators can be responsible if they do not follow operating procedures which they would be reasonably able and could be reasonably expected to follow and have been trained in). Similar ideas have been established in self driving cars already with Mercedes taking legal responsibility in Germany if it's cars crash while in Level 3 driving mode (assuming operators are following the safety rules, for instance making sure that they are sober and able to take over driving if required).
- jqpabc123 4y ago
  When a rollercoaster crashes who takes legal responsibility? Typically not the manufacturer. Because a roller coaster operates in a fixed and controlled environment within which it's design can usually be shown to be inherently safe. The same can not be said for a "self driving" auto. Given the current state of technology, one could make a convincing legal argument in many jurisdictions that just marketing an auto as "self driving" is itself a deceptive and inherently negligent act.
  - Closi 4y ago
    I don't buy the idea that in a world where self-driving cars are safer, we should have 'less safe' human drivers just because we can blame them when they kill someone. Car manufacturers shouldn't have to show something is perfectly safe, and IMO they should just have to show that something is reasonably safe (e.g. as safe or safer than a human driver in the same condition). There isn't a requirement that someone has to take legal responsibility for every accident that happens in the world, just that people act with reasonable care and attention within the law.
    - 4y ago
oceanplexian 4y ago
> So they finally figured out that "self driving" was really just a divisionary tactic with lots of legal liability? I don't think people get how utterly behind and unsafe the legacy carmakers products are. I've rented current-year Cadillacs, Audis, BMWs, and it's all a terrible gimmick. They can't keep the vehicle in the center of the lane, "adaptive cruise control" repeatedly tries to kill you by accelerating into semi-trucks and trailers, the autonomous systems repeatedly disengage, and they certainly can't navigate around on city streets, can't change lanes, basically need 100% of your attention to operate in a remotely safe way. Tesla may have their QC issues and their Elon issues, but the technology is a decade ahead. You can punch in an address and FSD Beta literally navigates you through the city with pedestrians, traffic, and so on to your destination in a fairly predictable manner. The adaptive cruise control, lane changing, and highway functions are predictable and reliable enough to handle a regular commute. It's easy to stand on the sidelines and be a critic but if you go out into the real world and actually drive all these vehicles it's obvious who is innovating and who is desperately playing catch-up.
- starfallg 4y ago
  FSD as a product is a gimmick. It is an advanced automation but nevertheless a gimmick because driving and sharing the road with humans requires capabilities that synthetic AI has not yet achieved, and there is no clear roadmap on when and how it's going to be achieved. The way FSD is marketed is borderline misrepresentation.
  - csa 4y ago
    > FSD as a product is a gimmick. > The way FSD is marketed is borderline misrepresentation. Only one of these two statements is correct. FSD is a gross misrepresentation of the function’s capabilities. FSD is not, however, a gimmick. If it was simply renamed “advanced cruise control”, it would be very accurate, and Tesla’s product would be at the high end of quality for advanced cruise control.
- snehk 4y ago
  My experience here is the opposite. I have an Audi A8 and my girlfriend drives a Tesla Model 3. In my experience, the Audi is way, way more reliable when it comes to the features. The features just work for me. I've never had any problems with the lane assist, for example, and I drive between 1000km and 1500km a week through Germany (not sure if the features are different depending on the location). I'd like if I didn't have to put my hands on the steering wheel that often but that's pretty much it. Tesla's offerings are a real letdown. And they don't work as advertised either, which is why they're not allowed to advertise them in the same way anymore. It's missing way, way too many things that the car should notice. It's kind of like Siri. When it works, it's amazing. It often doesn't so you can't really rely on it. We also had to replace a rim on the right hand side because the car simply didn't turn the wheel back. Girlfriend won't use the feature anymore now because she's kind of scared. The summons feature doesn't work reliably either even when the conditions are perfect. The car just stops and you stand there and don't know why it's not doing anything at all. I can't speak for BMW or Cadillac but calling FSD a decade ahead is ridiculous. It fails at so many simple things and all videos online confirm this and they don't seem to be able to really fix this. Every new Beta shows the exact same problems again and again.
tdsanchez 4y ago
"guess who shares legal responsibility" They say this is why it's commmon for Tesla driving system to disingage 1-2 seconds before it knows the vehicle is going to crash. https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-investigation-shutoff-crash/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/nhtsa-tesla-autopilot-invest... The fly in the self-driving ointment is accidents are NOT 100% unavoidable for humans assisted by any technology. People can jump in front of cars or intentionally interfere with said tech, for example. There will be accidents, and the AI systems can predict with great certainty that a crash will occur before the human at the wheel does. In Tesla's case, it disingages before the time of impact to mitigate Tesla's culpability. (seemingly)

mpol 4y ago

Aha, technological solutions for social problems, who could think that would not work :) Driving a car in public traffic is very much a social situation. A wink here, a small hand or head gesture there. Even looking away and avoiding communication alltogether is part of social behaviour and tells something. Even the same gesture in a different context says something else. Parking a car, driving in congested traffic and just keeping a lane is all doable by technology. Beyond that it needs a different and social way of thinking.

AlexandrB 4y ago
Even without seeing other people's faces, you start to notice car "body language". For example, a car that is sticking close to a lane divider is probably about to try to change lanes. I always wondered to what extent (if any) self-driving AI tries to take this into account and whether, even legal, maneuvers by self-driving AI might be surprising to other drivers looking for these kinds of subtle signals.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  It's incorporated into autonomous vehicles in a few different ways (mainly through ML), but current state of the art isn't perfect. Humans are probably still better at reading those subtle patterns earlier.
  - wpietri 4y ago
    Is it incorporated both ways? That is, are autonomous vehicles trained to express intention through subtle movements?
    - jlund-molfese 4y ago
      Isn’t that what turn signals are for? Car body language is somewhat location-dependent. Rural Missouri has more cautious drivers and downtown NYC more aggressive drivers. Seems complicated to modify the car’s behavior at such a fine level, but perhaps it’ll happen once the bigger issues are worked out. On-board, personalized learning from your commute would be a neat selling point.

mertlx 4y ago

I'm not surprised. People want to drive, the market for those who want to be driven around by an AI chauffeur is minimal. Add the legal liabilities, and it's a fantasy project with hardly any takers like the metaverse.

simmerup 4y ago
Plenty of people use VR Chat. Once it gets mainstream it'll be common place. At the moment it's int he same place as IRC was back in the 90s before social media took off
- nathanaldensr 4y ago
  Well, your opinion is as valuable as mine: I think you're completely wrong and VR will never be mainstream.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    I'll double your opinion. ;-)
  - scarby2 4y ago
    VR for communication may not be. VR for training will almost certainly be in use by millions of people on a daily basis in the very near future. Anything that requires operation of a machine or performance of a physical procedure and some level of risk/cost will probably involve VR.
  - simmerup 4y ago
    Just so.
- wpietri 4y ago
  I'd be very interested to see some data here. What's "plenty"? But the big difference between the 1990s and now is that everybody already has perfectly good text chat. Plus free voice calls and video calls. Plus regular social media for non-synchronous interaction. I can believe VR Chat is better for some niche of people. But I don't see much reason to think it's going to be enough better than all the other options that people will don special gear for it.

jebronie 4y ago

its a capitulation, the german car makers will be gone in 20 years

JumpinJack_Cash 4y ago

Now we only need them to pull out from the EV race to focus on what they do best: Surround the paying customers with gasoline powered opulence to enable them to enjoy the AutoBahn at 250 km/h. A video of a 2021 S-Klasse on the AutoBahn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4F9n7sjIXU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4F9n7sjIXU

coliveira 4y ago

Five years ago, car companies were saying around the world that in five years, their cars would be 100% self driving. I said it was bonkers, unless they create a new infrastructure for self driving cars (new roads that can be used only by these types of cars).

MengerSponge 4y ago
Five years ago nobody could fully automate driving in a warehouse. It's honestly hilarious that so many people believed public roads were so close.
- Jensson 4y ago
  Google has been running self driving cars on public roads since 2010. There were driver interventions back then, but I doubt they would have any trouble running those cars in a warehouse after driving 7 years on public roads. That tech probably wouldn't be economical to use in a warehouse though.
  - MengerSponge 4y ago
    Driver interventions, on a few streets, with highly instrumented cars. But compared to public roads warehouses are easy. There isn't fog or rain or snow. There aren't potholes. The light doesn't change. And to prove my point: look at all these self-driving cars on the streets today. It's a peculiar case of Bay Area Tech brain. "We very rarely kill pedestrians in SF and Arizona. I'm sure this tech will work fine in Ohio."
fluxinflex 4y ago
I also said this, self-driving will only become a thing if the roads are modified. Then I realised that this has already happened. The changes made to urban environments when cars first became a thing aren't to be underestimated. Curbs are a result of cars. Traffic lights. Pedestrian lights. Footpaths. Back in the day, no one even considered these changes to be bad. Today if politican came up with the idea that we need to remove pedestrians (and bikes) from the streets so that self-driving cars could be safe, there would be an uproar.

karaterobot 4y ago

Is there a translation link, or should I just pretend to have read the article so I can give my thoughts about self-driving cars? Fine either way.

affgrff2 4y ago
Na, no one read that so please just give your thoughts.

rob74 4y ago

Shouldn't it be "pulling out", rather than "putting out"? Also, they already pulled out in October, this article is about their efforts to retain the developers that were working on the AI solution. And it's not "(all) german car makers", just VW and Ford (Ford apparently means Ford as a whole, not just Ford Germany?) - no idea how the self-driving plans of the others are doing...

matzab 4y ago
And it's not even VW pulling out as a whole since Audi and others have similar programs. This whole thread is weird.

affgrff2 4y ago

I cannot read the full article, but it mainly deals with Ford (obviously not German) and VW pulling out of a startup I never heard of. Where the headline comes from, I don't know ... The original is roughly: VW annoys Argo AI ...

xnx 4y ago

In related news, I'd like to announce that I am ending my training for the 2024 Olympics. That car companies are giving up on this doesn't change the story at all because they were never real competitors. It never made any sense that manufactures of cars thought they could make self driving systems. Experience with supply chains, manufacturing, and marketing have zero translation to the problem space of self driving: sensing, interpreting, and decision making.

guax 4y ago

It's kinda funny that we'll try to invent advanced ai that can perform a near miracle of technological advancement before investing in proper public transit.

AlotOfReading 4y ago
As an American that works in the industry and advocates for improvements in public transit, I suspect the near-miracle of technological advancement is faster and cheaper than funding new public transit. Look at transit projects in the bay area for example. The 5 station BART extension to Santa Clara (planned since 1981!) will cost somewhere north of $9B and be complete by 2030 if everything goes to plan. The proposed Livermore extension would have cost $1B+. Compare that with autonomous vehicles. Several billion has been spent on development since 2010, but test fleets are already deployed in multiple cities globally. They also don't have to deal with the excruciating approvals process for further deployment that new public infrastructure has to, so there's a reasonable chance they'll actually exist before the heat death of the universe. Would fixing the entire political system be great? Sure, but I'm tired of getting screamed at in public meetings.
- guax 4y ago
  My comment is mostly because I believe self driving will not solve the mobility problem at all. "in the future, all traffic congestions will be of self driving electric cars" is a way of thinking it.
  - AlotOfReading 4y ago
    It's a decent last-mile solution rather than a replacement for things like trains. Think about the Livermore BART extension I mentioned that will never be built. That route is currently served by a 40m bus that runs twice an hour and sees approx. 860 riders / day (latest numbers I could find, covid ridership) across its 27 stops. Most of those buses are functionally empty. An autonomous vehicle could do the same route in 15m (so people might actually use it) and it wouldn't be empty.

dang 4y ago

We have deep respect for the German language, but HN is an English-language site, so articles here need to be in English. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20german%20english%20language%20site&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

deleted 4y ago

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