I don't know if this is a fair point of view but from an outsider's perspective it seems like any company that isn't Waymo is simply burning money. What companies actually have a reasonable chance at developing a usable autonomous driving system that won't kill me while I cross a street and won't kill the driver while on the highway? Anyone have a list of real contenders free of the marketing bs?
Consider the smartphone revolution. Apple came out with a revolutionary design in the iphone. The Android team was already up and working in that area and were able to pivot quickly to mimic the iphone. Both Apple and Android became huge businesses.
Being prepared as a second mover once a trailblazer demonstrates a good path can be good business. It even has some advantages over trying to lead and possibly wasting lots of R&D money on dead ends.
> any company that isn't Waymo is simply burning money
Waymo/Google is winning and has self-driving vehicles all over Chandler, Tempe and Gilbert Arizona at any given time.
For the most part it is going well, sometimes they act too safe but that isn't a bad idea for now, there have been a few complaints of Waymos going when fire engines or safety vehicles are on the road not slowing and in normal traffic slowing more than needed, or cars partially in a lane and slowing or stopping for them too much. I think the more grandma driving any self-driving is right now is good.
The biggest win of Waymo which is a competitive advantage and huge bonus is that by being Google/Alphabet, they also have access to tons of data and the best maps / map data i.e. speed limits, traffic, routes, dark/light changes to behavior, weather detection, data outside the CV/LIDAR that may be hugely beneficial. Other companies are going to have to pay for that or use Google, which they will collect immensely on in addition to use for free.
Think of that Tesla crash where other Teslas commonly had the same issue by drifting towards the ramp, Waymo/Google could correct that quicker it seems with their access. They need to be autonomous but also a neural network that can learn from other vehicles. They also need to tie into other systems like weather, day/night, emergency vehicles, traffic, routes etc etc. That Uber crash in Tempe, with day/night data and known pedestrian trails nearby + across the road, it may have been more cautious through that area and Waymo has that data with Google. Waymo is leading in multiple ways not just the self-driving part.
Toyota plays closer to their vests, so I'm not sure we even know enough about what they have.
I suppose I should clarify since I was downvoted, Forbes wrote a story "what Ubers crash tells us about Japan's silent strategy for driverless cars"
"it illustrates a very important distinction between how U.S. and Japanese companies are approaching the research and deployment of autonomous vehicles.
Japanese firms have maintained a much lower profile in autonomous vehicles than their American counterparts, and many outside the industry assume this lack of publicity is a sign of lagging technology. Speaking with several industry leaders, however, makes it clear that this is not the case.
"While American firms have been grabbing the headlines, Japanese firms have been making steady progress behind the scenes. The fact that they have been less anxious to promote that progress outside of Japan is more a reflection of go-to-market strategy than the state of the underlying technology.""
Purely from a financial perspective, I think Uber can't possibly admit that. They are gunning for an IPO at a valuation where they are most definitely selling the dream. That dream has to include autonomous vehicles.
I think it's not nearly as exciting a dream if they're just buying the tech like everybody else. Aside from a strong brand and a lot of customer relationships, Uber doesn't have much in the way of assets. Google's got a stronger brand [1] and a lot more customer relationships, as do many others. If Uber is just one of many companies slapping labels on other people's tech, I'm not sure what makes it worth $75-100bn.
Waymo will be first to market and will not likely sell their self-driving software to other would-be rideshare players (or their suppliers) for several years. All other OEMs, Tier 1s and startups in this space will be quick to follow with a comparable self-driving system by 2021. With all the new regulatory hurdles in mobility (as seen with scooter mania), I doubt that Waymo will just be able to throw money to scale fast enough to push out future competitors.
Once those self-driving systems hit around ~99.99% reliability, they will be indistinguishable from each other. Therefore, self-driving systems will be commoditized and sold to any vehicle manufacturer. Generally speaking, existing Tier 1/2 suppliers already plan to do this.
From there, anyone with $25M can probably just lease a bunch of vehicles, software, parking space and routing software to launch a regional TNC. Given a single region focus, these new regional TNCs should be able to outcompete Uber/Lyft. Remember that Uber/Lyft's greatest advantage is their supply of drivers; riders will happily download an app that delivers cheaper rides.
Today, it doesn't make sense to build core self-driving technology unless you have a strong resume to do so. Just wait 4-5 years and you'll be able to buy it off the rack (more or less). I am very happy that Waymo isn't the only one building because otherwise we wouldn't have strong enough market forces to drive down the cost of mobility.
The upside to solving driverless is so huge that companies feel they can't miss out on it. It's still very early in the game. Uber is a great example, everyone assumed with all their VC money that they were serious contenders to Waymo...then the crash happened and we get a (literal) glimpse under the hood and realize things aint so pretty. These operations are opaque by necessity and from an investor perspective, it's not a guarantee that Waymo won't have their own setback which becomes Uber's saving grace (however unlikely that seems at the moment).
I don't see how the market is winner take all and it's certainly big enough for more than one player. Everyone who comes after whoever's first to market will have the advantage of a clear regulatory pathway and an example of what works, simplifying many (though clearly not all) decisions.
A Chinese competitor doesn’t even have to be truly competitive with Waymo to stand a chance.
Also, I don’t think Waymo is guaranteed to be the first to reach fully autonomous driving. What I know of their approach (which is fairly little, but wat does anybody outside Waymo know for sure there?), to me, seems they are building not cars that are autonomous, but networked. That has advantages (if one car notices a bump in the road, one riding the same road 10 minutes later can slow down), but also has the disadvantages that their software may depend too much on always having that network knowledge available. That may leave space for a competitor to grow in regions where roads barely exist.
Waymo also spends a lot on things that, in a few years, autonomous cars may not need not do at all.
For example, countries that want to speed up adoption of autonomous cars may make detecting traffic signs and traffic lights easier (e.g. by superimposing a high-frequency signal on LED traffic lights or by giving cars read access to a city’s traffic light infrastructure), make la e detection easier (e.g. by embedding cat eyes in the center of lanes) or require cars to better signal their intentions. If that happens, a lot of the work Waymo does on detecting all kinds of ‘static’ infrastructure becomes worth less.
> a usable autonomous driving system that won't kill me while I cross a street and won't kill the driver while on the highway?
There are no such systems, even organic ones. I despair that the conventional wisdom here among the "hacker" intelligencia has pushed the burden so far. Autonomous vehicles are worth it if they are safeER than human drivers, not 100% free of accidents.
And it's noisy data anyway. Waymo is notable for the fact that their measured fatal accident rate is still zero, where the others are hovering in the small integers. That's not the same thing as a true safety advantage (though I'll buy that they're way ahead technologically).
Waymo is killing it in the press releases, but what's to say other players aren't doing just as well while not telling the world all about it?
Also, is this really going to be just one "Self Driving Vehicle Systems" market? I can imagine Waymo being great in one segment, and other companies doing well in others.
I am surprised Toyota would want to work with Uber at this point - it seems Uber's ills are piling up faster than their successes. Could this be a desperation play where if Toyota doesn't partner up with somebody, they won't have a part in a driverless future that looks like it will belong to Waymo and friends?
I wish they had invested 500 million into buying a self-driving startup or something instead. Or just opening up a new AI branch for Toyota / Lexus. It's not like people en masse are driving around in self driving cars while asleep at the wheel yet so the race for self-driving is still a turtle race. They have the resources imho to do great things, maybe they're afraid after the software issues where cars would keep accelerating, but that shouldn't stop them from getting in on the game.
Ah well, I'm nobody anyway, just a guy hungry to see tech companies compete and see less of tech being monopolized between a few companies.
What ills do you speak of? The negative media narrative is not a full reflection of reality, rather what will attract the most eyeballs to monetize in this current media cycle.
I think this isn't just about self-driving tech (I believe Toyota already partnered with Waymo on that given the old Google self driving cars were Lexus RX and Prius) - but this is also about car sharing. I think car sharing might be a bigger and sooner threat to car manufacturers than self driving cars. By partnering with Uber Toyota gets to hedge.
A huge fraction of cars driven by Uber drivers are made by Toyota. More often than not, you'll get picked up by a Prius, Corolla, or Camry. So to some extent, this is about maintaining market share.
> As filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on June 25, 2018
> Toyota and Uber Technologies, Inc. have entered into a memorandum of understanding to explore collaboration with respect to ridesharing. As part of the partnership, the companies created new leasing options in which car purchasers can lease vehicles with connected terminals from Toyota Financial Services and cover their payments through earnings generated as Uber drivers
So not their first rodeo, Toyota sells cars after all
Also Toyota Connected is making quite a big splash in Europe at the moment with a London office having been established March 2018 to soak up local talent.
I thought the investment was to open a channel for selling more Toyotas. They're going to offer preferential lease deals that can be paid through Uber earnings.
I think Tesla is highly underrated in this space. All Tesla cars now have sonar and radar capability built in, in addition to the extensive camera system.
As someone who frequently commutes in Teslas, I would say Tesla is closest to actually deploying something close to self-driving to the general population out of all the current self-driving competitors. Furthermore, I imagine they're collecting data on all the Tesla cars currently being driven.
I have seen the model updates substantially improve the auto-pilot capabilities with every update. And as someone who works with lots of quantitative data on a daily basis, I think there is a fundamental difference between training on billions of miles of simulated data vs. actual data. Simulated data may reduce overfitting, but there is still scope to overfit compared to raw data gathered from the field. Simply put, you won't generalize as well to data that's been simulated vs. field-generated data.
No they aren't. Teslas only self drive on the highway, which is great, but wouldn't last a minute in a more urban scenario with crosswalks, lights, tight merges, etc. And radar is not good for these scenarios either, because of the huge amount of false positives with the system.
It doesn't matter if you're not profitable, don't have the technology, or have huge risks - if people with money believe you, you can make the future you want (and get extraordinarily rich in the process). Seems to be the theme of the tech industry lately. At least the end "goal" is a bit more appealing than the Magic Leap.
I must be in the minority here, but the AR future is really compelling to me. The amount of money that Magic Leap was able to raise without a real product is astounding. But I do see wearable computing as the future. Of course we all hope it doesn't become a steady stream of marketing directly into our retinas, but I joined tech because I wanted to help build the future, not just watch it happen.
I'm not saying that Kalanick et all aren't going to be very well off in any event, but all this cash they raise at eye popping valuations is going to have liquidation preference...and that's scary for a company with serious cash flow issues like Uber.
Driving a vehicle is the most dangerous thing most people do regularly. Not just to themselves but in terms of potential of hurting or killing others.
Software is the most unreliable thing that most people use regularly.
Combinging the two is kind of crazy. Especially since no one has even begun to demonstrate a self driving car that can handle inclimate weather (like, say, the 5 months of snow covered pavement for a large part of the USA).
I think people underrate human drivers. When you take into account the massive amount of miles driven each day, the amount of crashes isnt that bad, and currently self driving cars have much more fatalities per mile than humans.
This makes no sense to me. They already have TRI which has billions in funding and poached the former head of the DARPA challenge. Why do they need Uber?
This is quite strange. Toyota has a research center in SC and Boston (TRI) and has invested about 100M in PFN.
This seems to indicate the complete lack of progress on this front. This'd not be surprising. I think Renault Nissan is the only one with a working system.
There are reasons to think that Toyota's automated driving strategy is a good one. Wrote about it here https://www.economist.com/business/2018/05/19/toyota-takes-a.... I'd assume that the Uber partnership is about mobility and ridesharing. One of Toyota's main focuses with autonomy is on making the driving safer and more comfortable. Gil Pratt talks explicitly about improving the experience for ride-hailing drivers
It seems reasonable enough. If driverless happens, Uber would be rushing to acquire a very large number of cars. Regardless of autonomousness, there are paths that Uber could take which would make them a huge consumer and operator of cars.
It's a hard to predict future. There is at least some possibility that driverless will eat a market fast, and the market changes for car makers. They need a hedge.
Overall though... how much money is going in to autonomous r&d? It's also possible that driverless doesn't get to the making money part for a long time. Is the funding sustainable?
Toyota likes their best selling car in America moniker. This is why they sell so many cars to rental car agencies. Honda and others don't aggressively pursue this and have lower "sales" as a result.
So I don't find this "investment" very surprising at all.
Right now there is too much money chasing too few startups. Some startups literally operate with a "we have a bottomless pit of money and it doesn't matter if we never show a dollar of profit, we just need to keep on raising more from investors who think they'll miss the train".
Uber and Cruise kind of feel like that. I'm sure Waymo has a bottomless pit from Google too. I guess that's the reality of moonshot projects.
A lot of them are going to burn billions of dollars throwing lavish office parties and off sites, but one of them will be huge. That's essentially what SoftBank's 100B vision fund is kind of doing.
A lot of investors operate with a "fear of missing out" syndrome and that's probably why Uber gets more funding than 99% of all US startups combined.
My read: Once Waymo has released re-usable tech, Toyota will install that on its cars, and Uber will facilitate the dispatch - And that Uber won't do this with another car vendor for X years (in the deal)
From what I have heard Toyota’s approach is to prefer taking over the driver in difficult situations instead of the other way around. Uber could benefit a lot from this.
[+] [-] drenvuk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dzdt|7 years ago|reply
Being prepared as a second mover once a trailblazer demonstrates a good path can be good business. It even has some advantages over trying to lead and possibly wasting lots of R&D money on dead ends.
[+] [-] drawkbox|7 years ago|reply
Waymo/Google is winning and has self-driving vehicles all over Chandler, Tempe and Gilbert Arizona at any given time.
For the most part it is going well, sometimes they act too safe but that isn't a bad idea for now, there have been a few complaints of Waymos going when fire engines or safety vehicles are on the road not slowing and in normal traffic slowing more than needed, or cars partially in a lane and slowing or stopping for them too much. I think the more grandma driving any self-driving is right now is good.
The biggest win of Waymo which is a competitive advantage and huge bonus is that by being Google/Alphabet, they also have access to tons of data and the best maps / map data i.e. speed limits, traffic, routes, dark/light changes to behavior, weather detection, data outside the CV/LIDAR that may be hugely beneficial. Other companies are going to have to pay for that or use Google, which they will collect immensely on in addition to use for free.
Think of that Tesla crash where other Teslas commonly had the same issue by drifting towards the ramp, Waymo/Google could correct that quicker it seems with their access. They need to be autonomous but also a neural network that can learn from other vehicles. They also need to tie into other systems like weather, day/night, emergency vehicles, traffic, routes etc etc. That Uber crash in Tempe, with day/night data and known pedestrian trails nearby + across the road, it may have been more cautious through that area and Waymo has that data with Google. Waymo is leading in multiple ways not just the self-driving part.
[+] [-] vertline3|7 years ago|reply
I suppose I should clarify since I was downvoted, Forbes wrote a story "what Ubers crash tells us about Japan's silent strategy for driverless cars"
"it illustrates a very important distinction between how U.S. and Japanese companies are approaching the research and deployment of autonomous vehicles.
Japanese firms have maintained a much lower profile in autonomous vehicles than their American counterparts, and many outside the industry assume this lack of publicity is a sign of lagging technology. Speaking with several industry leaders, however, makes it clear that this is not the case.
"While American firms have been grabbing the headlines, Japanese firms have been making steady progress behind the scenes. The fact that they have been less anxious to promote that progress outside of Japan is more a reflection of go-to-market strategy than the state of the underlying technology.""
[+] [-] wpietri|7 years ago|reply
I think it's not nearly as exciting a dream if they're just buying the tech like everybody else. Aside from a strong brand and a lot of customer relationships, Uber doesn't have much in the way of assets. Google's got a stronger brand [1] and a lot more customer relationships, as do many others. If Uber is just one of many companies slapping labels on other people's tech, I'm not sure what makes it worth $75-100bn.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/#tab:rank
[+] [-] martinshen|7 years ago|reply
Once those self-driving systems hit around ~99.99% reliability, they will be indistinguishable from each other. Therefore, self-driving systems will be commoditized and sold to any vehicle manufacturer. Generally speaking, existing Tier 1/2 suppliers already plan to do this.
From there, anyone with $25M can probably just lease a bunch of vehicles, software, parking space and routing software to launch a regional TNC. Given a single region focus, these new regional TNCs should be able to outcompete Uber/Lyft. Remember that Uber/Lyft's greatest advantage is their supply of drivers; riders will happily download an app that delivers cheaper rides.
Today, it doesn't make sense to build core self-driving technology unless you have a strong resume to do so. Just wait 4-5 years and you'll be able to buy it off the rack (more or less). I am very happy that Waymo isn't the only one building because otherwise we wouldn't have strong enough market forces to drive down the cost of mobility.
Disclaimer: Founder of an AV related startup.
[+] [-] qeternity|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cornellwright|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Someone|7 years ago|reply
Also, I don’t think Waymo is guaranteed to be the first to reach fully autonomous driving. What I know of their approach (which is fairly little, but wat does anybody outside Waymo know for sure there?), to me, seems they are building not cars that are autonomous, but networked. That has advantages (if one car notices a bump in the road, one riding the same road 10 minutes later can slow down), but also has the disadvantages that their software may depend too much on always having that network knowledge available. That may leave space for a competitor to grow in regions where roads barely exist.
Waymo also spends a lot on things that, in a few years, autonomous cars may not need not do at all.
For example, countries that want to speed up adoption of autonomous cars may make detecting traffic signs and traffic lights easier (e.g. by superimposing a high-frequency signal on LED traffic lights or by giving cars read access to a city’s traffic light infrastructure), make la e detection easier (e.g. by embedding cat eyes in the center of lanes) or require cars to better signal their intentions. If that happens, a lot of the work Waymo does on detecting all kinds of ‘static’ infrastructure becomes worth less.
[+] [-] ajross|7 years ago|reply
There are no such systems, even organic ones. I despair that the conventional wisdom here among the "hacker" intelligencia has pushed the burden so far. Autonomous vehicles are worth it if they are safeER than human drivers, not 100% free of accidents.
And it's noisy data anyway. Waymo is notable for the fact that their measured fatal accident rate is still zero, where the others are hovering in the small integers. That's not the same thing as a true safety advantage (though I'll buy that they're way ahead technologically).
[+] [-] ForHackernews|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] BurningFrog|7 years ago|reply
Also, is this really going to be just one "Self Driving Vehicle Systems" market? I can imagine Waymo being great in one segment, and other companies doing well in others.
[+] [-] newfocogi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|7 years ago|reply
Ah well, I'm nobody anyway, just a guy hungry to see tech companies compete and see less of tech being monopolized between a few companies.
[+] [-] sebleon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mvpu|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rightbyte|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sdgfd33fasdf22|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] karthikb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evadne|7 years ago|reply
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1094517/000119312518...
> As filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on June 25, 2018
> Toyota and Uber Technologies, Inc. have entered into a memorandum of understanding to explore collaboration with respect to ridesharing. As part of the partnership, the companies created new leasing options in which car purchasers can lease vehicles with connected terminals from Toyota Financial Services and cover their payments through earnings generated as Uber drivers
So not their first rodeo, Toyota sells cars after all
Also Toyota Connected is making quite a big splash in Europe at the moment with a London office having been established March 2018 to soak up local talent.
[+] [-] ghaff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] az123zaz|7 years ago|reply
This is a Toyota self-driving vehicle in 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5Qey8ksE18
I think Uber self-driving initiative got serious around 2015.
[+] [-] nissimk|7 years ago|reply
https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2016/05/24/toyota-inv...
[+] [-] uptownfunk|7 years ago|reply
As someone who frequently commutes in Teslas, I would say Tesla is closest to actually deploying something close to self-driving to the general population out of all the current self-driving competitors. Furthermore, I imagine they're collecting data on all the Tesla cars currently being driven.
I have seen the model updates substantially improve the auto-pilot capabilities with every update. And as someone who works with lots of quantitative data on a daily basis, I think there is a fundamental difference between training on billions of miles of simulated data vs. actual data. Simulated data may reduce overfitting, but there is still scope to overfit compared to raw data gathered from the field. Simply put, you won't generalize as well to data that's been simulated vs. field-generated data.
[+] [-] michaelt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kart23|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taurath|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newfocogi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qeternity|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] naveen99|7 years ago|reply
Uber is a thing that should exist. Profitable or not.
[+] [-] maxxxxx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rasz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superkuh|7 years ago|reply
Software is the most unreliable thing that most people use regularly.
Combinging the two is kind of crazy. Especially since no one has even begun to demonstrate a self driving car that can handle inclimate weather (like, say, the 5 months of snow covered pavement for a large part of the USA).
[+] [-] kart23|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clu1590|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] debt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samirparikh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jpm_sd|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrwjddi893|7 years ago|reply
This seems to indicate the complete lack of progress on this front. This'd not be surprising. I think Renault Nissan is the only one with a working system.
[+] [-] halhod|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dalbasal|7 years ago|reply
It's a hard to predict future. There is at least some possibility that driverless will eat a market fast, and the market changes for car makers. They need a hedge.
Overall though... how much money is going in to autonomous r&d? It's also possible that driverless doesn't get to the making money part for a long time. Is the funding sustainable?
[+] [-] ectospheno|7 years ago|reply
So I don't find this "investment" very surprising at all.
[+] [-] nojvek|7 years ago|reply
Uber and Cruise kind of feel like that. I'm sure Waymo has a bottomless pit from Google too. I guess that's the reality of moonshot projects.
A lot of them are going to burn billions of dollars throwing lavish office parties and off sites, but one of them will be huge. That's essentially what SoftBank's 100B vision fund is kind of doing.
A lot of investors operate with a "fear of missing out" syndrome and that's probably why Uber gets more funding than 99% of all US startups combined.
[+] [-] neonate|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] selimthegrim|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cityzen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephengillie|7 years ago|reply
[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17849364
[+] [-] rhacker|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ingenieroariel|7 years ago|reply