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cwerdna said:
GaleHawkins said:
cwerdna said:
Waymo self-driving cars rack up 20 million miles on public roads
https://www.autoblog.com/2020/01/07/waymo-self-driving-20-million-miles/
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While they a billion miles behind Tesla that is still impressive. Which companies are shipping vehicles using Waymo today? How much extra is the Waymo option?
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LOL! What Tesla bills as "autopilot" and currently has "working" as part of "full self driving" available to customers is a joke in terms of functionality compared to what Waymo has been testing for years and has deployed to the public as robotaxis in some places (e.g. Phoenix area).
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As you know Waymo is looking for a vehicle maker that will buy their technology since they do not make vehicles. Adding a $100,000 package to a $40,000 vehicle is going to be a hard sale for Waymo but they may pull it off. They have money to burn for their owner.

China is shaping up to own the EV and autonomous driving market. I did not know China interest now owns 10% of Mercedes Benz. Below is a rundown of the industry today.

https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...-google-kill-the-german-car-a-1293415.html

Will Tesla and Google Kill the German Car?
 
From TMC: https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/autopilot-fail.182353/.
"Car accelerates towards car transporter."

And, it crashes into the car transporter truck. Thread links to a tweet that has a video.

I LOLed when I came across this response: "Lucky it wasn't a fire truck".
 
I take it the below is the source for the above posted video? Is Cruise now part of Waymo?

https://medium.com/cruise/the-disengagement-myth-1b5cbdf8e239

I just do not see Waymo going main stream international or even full USA. Geo fencing is not small task that Waymo requires.

Waymo's expense I think will prevent them from finding customers among the car makers. The video below is why I think Tesla is leading in the self driving race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SCj3S3ZoOU

Tesla VS Waymo - Who Will Win the Race to Full Self Driving? + LiDAR VS Computer Vision
 
GaleHawkins said:
I take it the below is the source for the above posted video? Is Cruise now part of Waymo?
Click to expand...
No. Cruise Automation is owned by GM. Waymo is part of Alphabet.

Will have to look at your Medium post later. https://medium.com/cruise/why-testing-self-driving-cars-in-sf-is-challenging-but-necessary-77dbe8345927 was posted over 2 years ago by Cruise.

Have you looked at https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10233&p=561419&hilit=cruise#p561419 and some of the other videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP1rvCYiruh4SDHyPqcxlJw/videos?
GaleHawkins said:
The video below is why I think Tesla is leading in the self driving race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SCj3S3ZoOU

Tesla VS Waymo - Who Will Win the Race to Full Self Driving? + LiDAR VS Computer Vision
Click to expand...
Haven't had time to watch the video yet but LOL. Gotta love Tesla's hype and its ability to mislead people. Leads to results like https://www.autolist.com/news-and-analysis/consumers-trust-tesla-most-for-self-driving-autonomous-cars. :roll: From some of the comments (e.g. from c a 1 and Ricardo (he's probably the same person I recall going to university with)), sounds like the video is a waste of time.

Maybe look at my responses at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/when-will-tesla-release-fsd.116701/page-2#post-2786062 and look at the videos at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/autonomous-car-progress.99413/#post-2350053.

Have you look at the limitations of "autopilot" in Tesla's manuals (e.g. https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/model_3_owners_manual_north_america_en.pdf)? Start on page 76 and look at all the warnings and limitations.

Do take a look at https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2019/02/13/update-disengagement-reports-2018-final-results/ and the disengagement reports for each year for Google, Cruise and Tesla at https://web.archive.org/web/20190223181318/https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testing, considering that Tesla HQ is in Silicon Valley coupled w/the vast amount of software engineering talent being concentrated here.

I've only gotten thru about 10 minutes of the Mobileye video at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/unedited-mobileye%E2%80%99s-autonomous-vehicle-other-ces-2020-self-driving-ride-videos.180947/ (Unedited Ride in Mobileye’s Camera-Driven Autonomous Vehicle), so far. I did see clips of it at Mobileye's booth at CES.

If Tesla had results in the above reports exceeding Waymo and Cruise, had demonstrated success in tough city driving environments (e.g. SF or even tougher) and actually launched a robotaxi service before Waymo did in Phoenix (better yet, an area where it's tougher to drive in than Phoenix) w/demonstrated success then I could more comfortably say that Tesla's ahead. So far, there's been no evidence to support that, as far as I can tell.
 
cwerdna said:
GaleHawkins said:
I take it the below is the source for the above posted video? Is Cruise now part of Waymo?
Click to expand...
No. Cruise Automation is owned by GM. Waymo is part of Alphabet.

Will have to look at your Medium post later. https://medium.com/cruise/why-testing-self-driving-cars-in-sf-is-challenging-but-necessary-77dbe8345927 was posted over 2 years ago by Cruise.

Have you looked at https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10233&p=561419&hilit=cruise#p561419 and some of the other videos at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP1rvCYiruh4SDHyPqcxlJw/videos?
GaleHawkins said:
The video below is why I think Tesla is leading in the self driving race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SCj3S3ZoOU

Tesla VS Waymo - Who Will Win the Race to Full Self Driving? + LiDAR VS Computer Vision
Click to expand...
Haven't had time to watch the video yet but LOL. Gotta love Tesla's hype and its ability to mislead people. Leads to results like https://www.autolist.com/news-and-analysis/consumers-trust-tesla-most-for-self-driving-autonomous-cars. :roll:

From some of the comments (e.g. from c a 1 and Ricardo (he's probably the same person I recall going to university with)), sounds like the video is a waste of time.

Maybe look at my responses at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/when-will-tesla-release-fsd.116701/page-2#post-2786062 and look at the videos at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/autonomous-car-progress.99413/#post-2350053.

Have you look at the limitations of "autopilot" in Tesla's manuals (e.g. https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/model_3_owners_manual_north_america_en.pdf)? Start on page 76 and look at all the warnings and limitations.

Do take a look at https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2019/02/13/update-disengagement-reports-2018-final-results/ and the disengagement reports for each year for Google, Cruise and Tesla at https://web.archive.org/web/20190223181318/https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testing, considering that Tesla HQ is in Silicon Valley coupled w/the vast amount of software engineering talent being concentrated here.

I've only gotten thru about 10 minutes of the Mobileye video at https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/unedited-mobileye%E2%80%99s-autonomous-vehicle-other-ces-2020-self-driving-ride-videos.180947/ (Unedited Ride in Mobileye’s Camera-Driven Autonomous Vehicle). I did see clips of it at Mobileye's booth at CES.

If Tesla had results in the above reports exceeding Waymo and Cruise, had demonstrated success in tough city driving environments (e.g. SF or even tougher) and actually launched a robotaxi service before Waymo did in Phoenix (better yet, an area where it's tougher to drive in than Phoenix) w/demonstrated success then I could more comfortably say that Tesla's ahead. So far, there's been no evidence to support that, as far as I can tell.
Click to expand...

There is no open road fully autonomous driving today as far as I know so we just don't know who's leading. In a business sense I think Waymo is too expensive plus makers like Ford, Tesla, BMW, MB, etc are doing their thing. I just think the odds are low Waymo investors will exit at a profit.

It seems many took the rocket scientist to be a fool and now they know the odds are low they will catch up in quality and price point with Elon Musk's team.
 
GaleHawkins said:
There is no open road fully autonomous driving today as far as I know so we just don't know who's leading.
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You can take a look at the rankings at https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/mark-phelan/2019/03/13/waymo-ford-chrysler-apple-tesla-autonomous-car/3142974002/. I'm not saying I agree with them (esp. w/the opaqueness of what Apple was doing at the time of its publication) and I honestly don't know results from a bunch of players in there.
GaleHawkins said:
I just think the odds are low Waymo investors will exit at a profit.
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Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet. I guess you can invest in them by buying GOOG or GOOGL stock.

But yes, the cost of the equipment needed on vehicles for autonomous driving will need to come down.
GaleHawkins said:
It seems many took the rocket scientist to be a fool and now they know the odds are low they will catch up in quality and price point with Elon Musk's team.
Click to expand...
If you're talking about Tesla's self-driving efforts: quality and price point? Let's see, they seem to have no demonstrated success equivalent or beyond what we've seen from leaders in the space (e.g. Waymo and Cruise). Navigate on autopilot seems to be a joke. Their system deployed to customers can't reliably detect stopped vehicles (hence all the crashes into stopped vehicles like fire trucks and police cars), can't respond to traffic lights, can't execute left turns in urban environments, can veer into gore points (https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/model-x-crash-on-us-101-mountain-view-ca.111505/page-149#post-4399028 (I used to work near where that fatal AP accident happened), https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/near-freeway-divider-collision-on-autopilot.158604/#post-3810174, https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/navigate-on-ap-update-2019-12-1-2.152319/#post-3650008) has warnings to not use it in city environments and not depend it to detect and respond to pedestrians and cyclists, and so on. Look at some of the comical and disastrous results of "smart summon". Read all the limitations and warnings I pointed you to.

You'd think if their system was up to snuff and them being HQed in California (again, software engineering talent concentration in the Bay Area) would mean that they would actually participate in https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testing and submit something meaningful for the last few years. Remember, Tesla’s about hype. The only report they've submitted that wasn't a big fat 0 so far is https://web.archive.org/web/20181202020148/https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/f1873c87-4f21-4beb-b665-050cada6db7a/Tesla_disengage_report_2016.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID= which was for their 2016 publicity stunt video.

Since https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/80d97b76-1026-449d-8097-4beb856573f1/19avin03.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID= talks about a Jan 1, 2020 deadline, I hope we can see the 2019 results soon.

And, Tesla's missed Elon's predicted Tesla autonomously driven coast to coast dates for several years now. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/coast-to-coast-drive-happening-this-year-for-all-fsd-teslas.152135/page-15#post-4404422 surfaced a tweet that I guess I forgot about. From https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1126611407984779264:
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Replying to @elonmusk @WhatsupFranks and @flcnhvy
We could have gamed an LA/NY Autopilot journey last year, but when we do it this year, everyone with Tesla Full Self-Driving will be able to do it too
3:14 PM · May 9, 2019·Twitter for iPhone
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As a reminder, https://electrek.co/2018/09/18/tesla-fully-self-driving-cross-country-road-trip-version-10-alpha-elon-musk/ from Sept 2018 had the headline "Tesla’s fully self-driving cross-country road trip to ‘probably’ happen with version 10 ‘alpha build’, says Elon Musk". Well, version 10 came out in non-alpha in late Sept 2019: https://www.tesla.com/blog/introducing-software-version-10-0. Per https://ev-fw.com/reports.php, I guess they're at 10.2 now.

I believe most if not all the dates at the bottom of https://www.inverse.com/article/55141-elon-musk-autonomous-driving are correct.
 
GM unveils Cruise Origin driverless shuttle
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/21/gm-subsidiary-cruise-unveils-its-first-purpose-built-autonomous-vehicle.html
 
ABG:
Cruise calls for a new way to determine commercial readiness of self-driving cars
Focusing on disengagement numbers is 'woefully inadequate for most uses'
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https://www.autoblog.com/2020/01/20/cruise-autonomous-cars-disengagement-myth/


Cruise co-founder and CTO Kyle Vogt said Friday that disengagement reports released annually by California regulators are not a proxy for the commercial readiness or safety of self-driving cars.

Vogt, in a lengthy post on Medium, called for a new metric to determine whether an autonomous vehicle is ready for commercial deployment. The post suggests that the autonomous vehicle company, which had a valuation of $19 billion as of May, is already developing more comprehensive metrics. . . .

"It’s woefully inadequate for most uses beyond those of the DMV," Vogt wrote. "The idea that disengagements give a meaningful signal about whether an AV is ready for commercial deployment is a myth."

These disengagement reports will be released in a few weeks. Cruise did share some of its disengagement data, specifically the number of miles driven per disengagement event, between 2017 and 2019.

The so-called race to commercialize autonomous vehicles has involved a fair amount of theater, including demos. This lack of data has made it nearly impossible to determine if a company's self-driving cars are safe enough or ready for the big and very real stage of shuttling people from Point A to Point B on city streets. Disengagement reports as flawed as they might be have been one of the only pieces of data that the public, and the media, have access to.

How safe is safe enough?

While that data might provide some insights, it doesn't help answer the fundamental question for every AV developer planning to deploy robotaxis for the public: 'how safe is safe enough?'

Vogt's comments signal Cruise's efforts to find a practical means of answering that question.


  • "But if we can’t use the disengagement rate to gauge commercial readiness, what can we use? Ultimately, I believe that in order for an AV operator to deploy AVs at scale in a ridesharing fleet, the general public and regulators deserve hard, empirical evidence that an AV has performance that is super-human (better than the average human driver) so that the deployment of the AV technology has a positive overall impact on automotive safety and public health.

    This requires a) data on the true performance of human drivers and AVs in a given environment and b) an objective, apples-to-apples comparison with statistically significant results. We will deliver exactly that once our AVs are validated and ready for deployment.     Expect to hear more from us about this very important topic soon    . . . ."
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There's a bar chart showing monthly miles drive/disengagement.
 
ABG:
Lyft’s autonomous vehicle partner Magna is done with self-driving tech
The auto parts maker plans to focus on assisted driving
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https://www.autoblog.com/2020/01/20/lyft-magna-autonomous/


Two years after teaming up with Lyft to collaborate on self-driving technology, Magna said that partnership's coming to an end. The auto parts maker plans to focus on assisted driving products, instead of fully autonomous tech.

Magna isn't fully severing ties with Lyft, in which it invested $200 million in 2018, but the self-driving partnership seems to have been impacting its bottom line. They'll keep working together on other autonomy-related software and hardware. Lyft has also collaborated with Waymo on autonomous cars.

Ultimately, Magna doesn't think there's big enough potential in autonomous vehicles in the medium term. It sees more opportunities for growth in the assisted driving market (up to Level 3 autonomy) over the next five years. . . .
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The Cruise Origin Story
https://medium.com/cruise/the-cruise-origin-story-b6e9ad4b47e5
At this very moment, we’re running fleets of our third-generation vehicles on the roads of San Francisco, operating a rideshare service that any Cruise employee can use, 24/7. Last year alone, we accumulated nearly a million miles as we autonomously drove nearly every road in San Francisco.
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LeftieBiker said:
So they got their superpowers by being exposed to...San Francisco?
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Take a look at the Medium post at https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10233&p=576953&hilit=medium#p576953 and some of the YouTube videos posted by them on their channel along w/the 2018 CA autonomous testing disengagement stats.

I pointed 2 to videos at https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=10233&p=561419&hilit=cruise#p561419.

I've seen Waymo's vans driving in/around Mountain View. I can't tell if they're being driven autonomously or a safety driver since there's no indicator but I've seen them obey traffic lights, make turns, merge onto the highway, etc. Where I've seen them operate is MUCH easier than driving in the city of SF. That said, there are numerous other tough to drive cities in the US and plenty around the world.

Some where horn use is constant (and can convey many meanings), lanes and rules aren't followed and roads are shared with oxen, pedicabs, scooters, etc. might much further out in terms of autonomous driving. Example video I quickly found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnPiP9PkLAs. I've not been to India but some of my colleagues are from there and some (non-Indians) had to go on business. The latter described the traffic there.
 
Back to SF, there are some places with really steep hills (e.g. 0:51 into https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjkN0mgDInE), lots of pedestrians, Muni street cars, cable cars and lots of bicyclists besides parked cars and narrow streets. And, as one of the earlier Medium posts mentions, some weird intersections. In Chinatown, there are trucks double and triple-parked unloading.

There was this famous car chase (I hear the route doesn't make sense) w/cars doing jumps starting around 2:38 of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzUtXMNizVo.
 
I normally don't read https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/ but in skimming it, it is semi-amusing for numerous posts to be spottings of unidentified autonomous test vehicles. Usually, they're identified later.

Too bad I don't live nor work around Mountain View. I'd be seeing a lot more of them up there.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Waymo expands its autonomous big rig tests to Texas and New Mexico
Its Chrysler Pacifica minivans will also hit the road in those states.
https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/23/waymo-autonomous-truck-tests-texas-new-mexico/
----------------------------------------------------------------
GM/Cruise Leaks Show Them Ridiculously Behind Waymo. It's Time For Better, More Public Metrics
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2019/06/10/gmcruise-leaks-show-them-ridiculously-behind-waymo-its-time-for-better-more-public-metrics/
----------------------------------------------------------------
I finally read the below.
GaleHawkins said:
https://medium.com/cruise/the-disengagement-myth-1b5cbdf8e239
Click to expand...
https://news.yahoo.com/cruise-calls-way-determine-commercial-205916453.html (Cruise calls for a new way to determine commercial readiness of self-driving cars) pointed to the above.
GaleHawkins said:
I just do not see Waymo going main stream international or even full USA. Geo fencing is not small task that Waymo requires.
Click to expand...
Waymo and Cruise both currently operate within geo-fenced areas. I'm not sure what your last sentence is supposed to mean.
 
UPS teams up with Waymo to test self-driving delivery vans
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/tech/ups-waymo-self-driving-package-delivery/index.html
 
LeftieBiker said:
How are they going to ring your doorbell once, drop the banged-up package on your porch, and run away...?
Click to expand...
LOL!

They won't be doing that. From the story:
Waymo, the self-driving arm of Google's (GOOG) parent company Alphabet, will use its autonomous Chrysler Pacifica minivans to bring packages from UPS stores in the Phoenix area to a UPS sorting facility in Tempe, Arizona. (It will not be delivering packages to customers' doorsteps.)
Click to expand...
 

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