Slashdot Mirror
Report: Google Partners With Ford To Make Self-Driving Cars (yahoo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A new report from Yahoo Autos says Google and Ford plan to announce a partnership to build self-driving cars. "By pairing with Google, Ford gets a massive boost in self-driving software development; while the automaker has been experimenting with its own systems for years, it only revealed plans this month to begin testing on public streets in California. Google has 53 test vehicles on the road in California and Texas, with 1.3 million miles logged in autonomous driving. By pairing with Ford, the search-engine giant avoids spending billions of dollars and several years that building its own automotive manufacturing expertise would require. Earlier this year, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said the company was looking for manufacturing partners that would use the company's self-driving system, which it believes could someday eliminate the roughly 33,000 annual deaths on U.S. roads." Automotive News reported on the same plans independently, saying, "It isn't clear whether Ford would design a purpose-built vehicle for Google or supply a standard production car fitted with the sensors and computers that the car needs to guide itself down the road."
You forgot "First On Race Day"!
Karma: Bad
- Political clout. Ford has plants in many states, and a network of dealerships in every state. And many loyal truck and car owners who vote.
Anything else? Well I did mention the network of dealerships, right.
1. There was no way Google was ramping up a manufacturing line. That would have been too risky and costly. It's always been about selling the software IP, just like Microsoft knew the money was in software licensing not the commodity hardware. Vehicles will be defined by software in the future. Expect Apple to jump into this game as well.
2. The pod car (sans steering wheel) Google has been testing would never have been marketed to consumers; it was a service vehicle for the taxi and delivery industries.
3. Autonomous vehicles will mostly be electric and aimed at urban areas where short travel distances don't require exceptionally high-capacity batteries and high-concentrations of pollution can best be targeted for reduction.
Just what we need, the Google Pinto!
I still don't understand, why we don't have self-driving trains already
We already do. You could have found that out in under 20 seconds on google. It's being implemented on normal railways too.
the task is so much simpler with one-dimensional roads, no size/weight restrictions on the necessary equipment, and full control of the signs and signals
I think you may be underestimating the complexity of train operations. Nevertheless the cost of a person to operate the train is much smaller in comparison to a car. Trains already do have a lot of automation and are getting more all the time but the financial potential of automation isn't nearly as large as with automobiles.
I am guessing that it is the "one-dimensional" nature that holds the answer to your question.
How much does it cost to employ 1 engineer to operate (speed up, slow down, etc) 1 train?
How much would it cost to develop, test, implement and support a computer system for 1 train? More than it costs to employ 1 person for that train? There you go.
Now... self driving tractors on the highway... that would be huge...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Presumably the self-driving car will have a built-in computer and cellular data connectivity, so that it can call it's own tow truck.
"it's understood the venture would be legally separate from Ford, in part to shield the automaker from liability concerns"...because it may eliminate 33,000 deaths/year "someday".
This is not showing a whole lot of confidence for the short term, however. If there was a high confidence that the cars actually were safer, and that the financial risks were manageable, then Ford would just build the cars without a liability shield.
Ford and Google will take the profits, and the public can assume the risks.
I have a Mazda 6 with a Ford 3.0 Duratec engine (that's what they used to put in the V6 version). I have abused this vehicle and the engine is still going strong after 300 000 km.
We do. The elevated trains in Chicago went from four employees to three to two down to one, who is basically just there for emergencies.
They won't do unmanned self-driving trains because people would freak out if they didn't think there was at least one human manning the train. Not everyone is enlightened as we few, we happy delusional few, we band of nerds who actually believe we're all going to be riding in self-driving cars in our lifetime.
It's the same with airplanes. There's no need for pilots and co-pilots on commercial passenger airlines any more. But take the pilot out of the cockpit and a lot of people ain't gonna fly anywhere.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Did you have to negotiate for sick days on your job? No? Do you know why? Because a standard was set - by unions.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"I still don't understand, why we don't have self-driving trains already — the task is so much simpler with one-dimensional roads, no size/weight restrictions on the necessary equipment, and full control of the signs and signals — without having to teach the computer to understand, what's meant for humans..."
We have all that already, even backwards countries have at least automatic slowdowns, automatic braking when a pre-signal is ignored, automatic speed control and so on, only there has to be someone on board to dictate the written orders on what to do when there's a problem or works being done.
I've been a dispatcher for 40 years and I wrote such orders every day, since there are always some morons who walk their dogs along the rails, not knowing that almost everything has to be halted or at least all the trains get a written order to drive at walking speed until the police has caught the moron an his dog or a train has controlled the whole distance that's there's no more danger.
Also there is almost no day without some idiot hitting a closed railroad crossing, needing the same thing.
And I don't even mention kids, sheep or cows.
An average taxi driver will rack up 70,000 miles a year, so any individual taxi driver who has been in work for 20 years has more miles under his belt than Google's entire project.
Backwards, it's Driver Returned On Foot
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
If it's Ford, I hope they're self-repairing as well.
Dark Reflection
But would not a computer be cheaper and better still?
Not necessarily and the reasons are usually based in economics. I run a manufacturing plant for my day job. Much of what we make in our plant can be substantially automated. The technology already exists and I could write a check to buy it tomorrow. But I don't most of the time. Why? No return on investment. For automation to make sense a few things have to happen. 1) The automation has to do a job with adequate or better competence than the people it is replacing. 2) The automation has to deliver unit costs lower than the wages that would be paid for the lifetime of the project. This has to include the opportunity cost of tying up that capital, the cost of financing, the loss of flexibility, and the risk of the project. It doesn't matter if you are producing widgets or passenger-miles or transporting cargo. You have to be able to recoup the cost of the automation. If you can't then there is no point in even developing it, much less buying it.
Generally speaking any kind of automation requires a relatively large amount of production volume to justify the higher up front costs and loss of flexibility. It's trivial to show cases where it does and doesn't make economic sense, both for manufacturing and for automated transportation. Computers are demonstrably not always cheaper. Full disclosure, I'm a certified cost accountant. I do these sort of calculations for a living. Computers are NOT necessarily cheaper or better.
They've been working on automation for Amtrak for quite a while, but dragging their feet. As a result, some moron operator killed a bunch of people less than a year ago near Philly when he went around a turn way too fast.
Self driving cars are not being demanded
Yes they are. I will buy one as soon as they are available, because I would much rather read, sleep, or just daydream, rather than stare at the back bumper of the car ahead of me. So will many others, including millions of elderly, blind, and handicapped people.
I'll let you know that Ford in the last 10 years has had vehicles make the top 3 most reliable vehicles over some of the top 10 most reliable auto makers. If you think that Ford is behind other manufacturers you need to go and align your facts. $$$ for $$$ Ford has some of the most reliable vehicle. The yearly study for JDP is also questionable since it doesn't take vehicle value or longevity into consideration. Its like comparing MacBook with an Acer Laptop or equivalent spec. Last I checked the Ford F-250 had the #1 spot for vehicle longevity in the US with 3 other products in the top 20.
Most manufacturers are neck in neck when it comes to reliability. If you turn that in $$$ / Failure, the top 10 list quickly becomes the bottom 10 list.
But I wouldn't expect a bigot to look at facts.