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The market is worth trillions... not Google's solution. One thing tech reporters seem to have failed at recognizing is that this research has been taking place

The market is worth trillions... not Google's solution. One thing tech reporters seem to have failed at recognizing is that this research has been taking place at every major car company out there - many many others are legitimately in the race. Ultimately its the manufacturers that get to pull the trigger on how driverless cars will become driverless.

mc32 14y ago
Not only car companies either. Lots of state DoTs like CalTrans (in conjunction with UCBerkeley) have been working on self driving cars. The Caltrans-UCB PATH prgram was begun way back in '86 and demoed self driving cars back in '97! http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/the-future-is-in-the-past/Content?oid=1077926 http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/the-future-is-in-the-past/...
- jey 14y ago
  The PATH stuff isn't even in the same ballpark. It only worked for specially-outfitted express lanes that had magnets embedded in the road.
  - mc32 14y ago
    Yes, it's true the roadbeds had to have embedded mags but it was a beginning. It was exploratory and they got it to work back then. It was different tech, for sure. My point is that people were looking at solutions more than two decades ago. We don't expect solutions to follow the same path to resolution.
coopdog 14y ago
Still, I can't help but feel that maybe Google have the final piece of the puzzle. We've had computers and sensors powerful enough for decades, only Google have all of that maps data, polished again and again by android users using maps (and now Ingress) to make it more reliable. Google almost specialise at crunching massive data into useful products, and building reliable supersystems from millions of unreliable subsystems. Car companies might have some software knowledge these days but they really are a long way from the capabilities Google has. They solve car problems, but it might turn out that this is an information system problem.
- warfangle 14y ago
  The quick compare, of course, is Android / Google Maps turn-by-turn directions and Garmin.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- millstone 14y ago
  Can you elaborate on how you think that map data is important? I would expect that mapping data at best gives you a route - something the user could supply. Naively, I would think that the hard problems are responding to obstacles in the road, cross walks, stop lights, etc., where map data won't help much.
  - mtgx 14y ago
    Even Google's own data isn't perfect. A couple of years ago someone even tried to sue Google for "getting her on a highway" and then having an accident. I think she was walking, and obviously she can't blame Google for not noticing the highway! But with self-driving cars, it's different. A car landing on a highway, when it's not supposed to be there, and then getting into an accident, is not good news. So that's why I think accurate map data will be very important for this.
    - Someone 14y ago
      Mapping data will be important, but not to prevent accidents. Maps will not be 100% accurate, so even with perfect maps, cars will end up on roads they think aren't highways while in fact, they are. There also will be newly one-way streets that aren't in the mapping database yet, roads closed due to construction or accidents, etc. Yes, both will be rare, but multiplied by millions of cars (necessary to get the 'worth trillions' part)? Not so. So, let's say you are driving a vehicle that isn't allowed on the highway but incorrectly takes one. How do you think maps will help with the "and then getting into an accident" part?
  - coopdog 14y ago
    My (admittedly limited) knowledge of the cars is that they 'cheat' a lot, in that they don't just look at sensors to make decisions rather they look at a map of data to determine ie approach this corner at maximum 40mph, pot holes on left side of road at this point, always stop at this intersection as it's tricky to see, etc. So the parallel between improving maps data with phones will be improving the car detail map data with cars.
malandrew 14y ago
Plus, it's a good thing that there are others in this race. It creates diversity of solutions, which should end up being safer, more robust and less likely to suffer cascading failures.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mtgx 14y ago
There are other companies, but I think I've mostly seen this kind of tech from small companies and start-ups, rather than big auto-makers. Sure most of them have been working on "automization" of the car, but only for certain specific technologies, not "self-driving car" technologies. The best Audi could show at CES was self-parking, and even that needed infrastructure put in place in the parking lot for it to work, so it's not even in the same class as Google's self-driving tech. Also as others have said, Google might have the most accurate data in the future for such technology, which means cars using Google's self-driving tech will be the safest out there.
- stock_toaster 14y ago
  Wikipedia says Mercedes has been working on it since 1980[1]. I read a claim[2] a while back that the coming S-Class could drive itself, but they chose to not sell it because of concerns about lawsuits, etc. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#History [2]: http://www.businessinsider.com/mercedes-benz-2014-s-class-self-driving-2012-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/mercedes-benz-2014-s-class-se...
- stevenrace 14y ago
  Additionally, Volkswagen/Audi autonomous efforts go far beyond 'self parking. They partnered with Stanford AI Lab , won the Darpa Grand Challenge, climbed Pikes Peak, etc. The key issue being overlooked in these discussions of 'Autonomous vehicles at scale' is that all of these projects revolve around Lidar - and I'm unsure how well that scales with multiple laser sources throwing off 'point cloud' data. :shrug: [1] Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) http://www.vwerl.com/ http://www.vwerl.com/
rmc 14y ago
Sometimes a new company can come in and shake things up. Just look at Apple and the iPhone.
Geee 14y ago
You forget that Google has driven almost every road on the planet for exactly this reason. They have collected much more data than just those images you see on the street view app, and it's not just "mapping data". The street view images are merely a by-product. Basically Google has recorded all the driver's reactions to whatever is happening on the road, and this allows them to teach the bot to drive. Using this data the bot can virtually drive the roads again and again, until it doesn't make mistakes. There's no way car companies can compete with them.

mc32 14y ago

Not only car companies either. Lots of state DoTs like CalTrans (in conjunction with UCBerkeley) have been working on self driving cars. The Caltrans-UCB PATH prgram was begun way back in '86 and demoed self driving cars back in '97! http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/the-future-is-in-the-past/Content?oid=1077926 http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/the-future-is-in-the-past/...

jey 14y ago
The PATH stuff isn't even in the same ballpark. It only worked for specially-outfitted express lanes that had magnets embedded in the road.
- mc32 14y ago
  Yes, it's true the roadbeds had to have embedded mags but it was a beginning. It was exploratory and they got it to work back then. It was different tech, for sure. My point is that people were looking at solutions more than two decades ago. We don't expect solutions to follow the same path to resolution.

coopdog 14y ago

Still, I can't help but feel that maybe Google have the final piece of the puzzle. We've had computers and sensors powerful enough for decades, only Google have all of that maps data, polished again and again by android users using maps (and now Ingress) to make it more reliable. Google almost specialise at crunching massive data into useful products, and building reliable supersystems from millions of unreliable subsystems. Car companies might have some software knowledge these days but they really are a long way from the capabilities Google has. They solve car problems, but it might turn out that this is an information system problem.

warfangle 14y ago
The quick compare, of course, is Android / Google Maps turn-by-turn directions and Garmin.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
millstone 14y ago
Can you elaborate on how you think that map data is important? I would expect that mapping data at best gives you a route - something the user could supply. Naively, I would think that the hard problems are responding to obstacles in the road, cross walks, stop lights, etc., where map data won't help much.
- mtgx 14y ago
  Even Google's own data isn't perfect. A couple of years ago someone even tried to sue Google for "getting her on a highway" and then having an accident. I think she was walking, and obviously she can't blame Google for not noticing the highway! But with self-driving cars, it's different. A car landing on a highway, when it's not supposed to be there, and then getting into an accident, is not good news. So that's why I think accurate map data will be very important for this.
  - Someone 14y ago
    Mapping data will be important, but not to prevent accidents. Maps will not be 100% accurate, so even with perfect maps, cars will end up on roads they think aren't highways while in fact, they are. There also will be newly one-way streets that aren't in the mapping database yet, roads closed due to construction or accidents, etc. Yes, both will be rare, but multiplied by millions of cars (necessary to get the 'worth trillions' part)? Not so. So, let's say you are driving a vehicle that isn't allowed on the highway but incorrectly takes one. How do you think maps will help with the "and then getting into an accident" part?
- coopdog 14y ago
  My (admittedly limited) knowledge of the cars is that they 'cheat' a lot, in that they don't just look at sensors to make decisions rather they look at a map of data to determine ie approach this corner at maximum 40mph, pot holes on left side of road at this point, always stop at this intersection as it's tricky to see, etc. So the parallel between improving maps data with phones will be improving the car detail map data with cars.

malandrew 14y ago

Plus, it's a good thing that there are others in this race. It creates diversity of solutions, which should end up being safer, more robust and less likely to suffer cascading failures.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

mtgx 14y ago

There are other companies, but I think I've mostly seen this kind of tech from small companies and start-ups, rather than big auto-makers. Sure most of them have been working on "automization" of the car, but only for certain specific technologies, not "self-driving car" technologies. The best Audi could show at CES was self-parking, and even that needed infrastructure put in place in the parking lot for it to work, so it's not even in the same class as Google's self-driving tech. Also as others have said, Google might have the most accurate data in the future for such technology, which means cars using Google's self-driving tech will be the safest out there.

stock_toaster 14y ago
Wikipedia says Mercedes has been working on it since 1980[1]. I read a claim[2] a while back that the coming S-Class could drive itself, but they chose to not sell it because of concerns about lawsuits, etc. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_car#History [2]: http://www.businessinsider.com/mercedes-benz-2014-s-class-self-driving-2012-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/mercedes-benz-2014-s-class-se...
stevenrace 14y ago
Additionally, Volkswagen/Audi autonomous efforts go far beyond 'self parking. They partnered with Stanford AI Lab , won the Darpa Grand Challenge, climbed Pikes Peak, etc. The key issue being overlooked in these discussions of 'Autonomous vehicles at scale' is that all of these projects revolve around Lidar - and I'm unsure how well that scales with multiple laser sources throwing off 'point cloud' data. :shrug: [1] Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) http://www.vwerl.com/ http://www.vwerl.com/

rmc 14y ago

Sometimes a new company can come in and shake things up. Just look at Apple and the iPhone.

Geee 14y ago

You forget that Google has driven almost every road on the planet for exactly this reason. They have collected much more data than just those images you see on the street view app, and it's not just "mapping data". The street view images are merely a by-product. Basically Google has recorded all the driver's reactions to whatever is happening on the road, and this allows them to teach the bot to drive. Using this data the bot can virtually drive the roads again and again, until it doesn't make mistakes. There's no way car companies can compete with them.