Slashdot Mirror
Ford Just Invested $1 Billion In Self-Driving Cars (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader quote USA Today:
Ford Motor is betting $1 billion on the world's self-driving car future. The Detroit automaker announced Friday that it would allocate that sum over five years to a new autonomous car startup called Argo AI, which is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa., and will have offices in Michigan and California. Ford's financial outlay is part of a continuing investment strategy anchored to transforming the car and truck seller into a mobility company with a hand in ride-hailing, ride-sharing and even bicycle rentals.
Lucas123 writes: Argo AI founders CEO Bryan Salesky, and COO Peter Rander are alumni of Carnegie Mellon National Robotics Engineering Center and former leaders on the self-driving car teams of Google and Uber, respectively. Argo AI's team will include roboticists and engineers from inside and outside of Ford working to develop a new software platform for Ford's fully autonomous vehicle, expected in 2021. Ford said it could also license the software to other carmakers.
Lucas123 writes: Argo AI founders CEO Bryan Salesky, and COO Peter Rander are alumni of Carnegie Mellon National Robotics Engineering Center and former leaders on the self-driving car teams of Google and Uber, respectively. Argo AI's team will include roboticists and engineers from inside and outside of Ford working to develop a new software platform for Ford's fully autonomous vehicle, expected in 2021. Ford said it could also license the software to other carmakers.
And this is why. Several companies are set to invade their space.
And now Ford is wasting it as well.
$1 billion in 5 years isn't all that much, though.
As I recall it, Liu says that the instrument package for a fully autonomous self-driving car—in the not too-distant past—costs around $100,000 and requires 3000 W
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
Because we're not talking about a flaw in a human, we're talking about a flaw in a piece of technology that is supposed to be designed to be safe. Insurance companies cover human error, not technical error. If a car's accelerator pedal fails and sticks on and someone dies, insurance companies don't pay for that the car company does for faulty design and issues a huge recall. The same will be for automated driving, it is just a far more complicated technical error.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You can get another order of magnitude by moving those algorithms to ASICs and FPGAs. 300 watts is within reasonable bounds for a vehicle electrical bus. I would be willing to bet that the prototype algorithms are running on less power efficient but more programmer friendly GPUs and CPUs mainly.
The 100k figure is mostly driven by the LIDAR. There are cheap LIDARS for this.
A $10k price tag plus a $1k a year license fee is achievable, and this would make self driving taxis readily feasible. Most people probably won't own the first self driving cars in widespread use.
Agreed!!!
Let's just stop making the cars and do whatever is possible to kill the enthusiasm that has convinced Ford to make a huge investment in this technology. I think we should just give up and all become naysayers and just keep doing it the same way we always have.
I have driven in many European cities and I think the point you're missing is related to the attitude behind the driving.
Mediterranean bordering countries are a special exception to... well every rule ever made. Ask them, they believe it too.
If you're talking about Amsterdam, self driving cars will never work, but I give it less than 5 years before cars are simply illegal within the main city. They just passed that rule in Oslo, Norway. After June, it will be illegal to drive within the inside ring of the city except for deliveries. If you consider someplace like Enschede or Tilburg, it will work perfectly. This has to do with organized management of pedestrian and bicycle traffic. You'll also see more effort placed on providing pedestrian tunnels for crossing main roads which has been very successful for safety in many places. Of course that's really not an option in Amsterdam.
It won't work anywhere in France or Italy. These are countries where you drive like a frigging mad man and ram yourself into traffic and just pray you make it. I am still shaking in fear 5 years later from the last time I drove in Paris. I have never encountered more mean spirited drivers anywhere in the world. I honestly think the drivers in Paris believe that they are on earth purely to punish each other.
I think Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, well... pretty much anywhere you have civilized people, self-driving cars will be faster than human driven ones... especially when they consider queue management and we can merge lanes at 70km/h instead of 1km/h. Also when the cars have proper traffic information and can make better choices for driving and directions. Traffic lights can talk with cars and change based on actual queue information.
It's not about just the immediate area surrounding the car, it's about the overall traffic environment. Queue management functions substantially better when viewed as a big picture than if every car manages itself.
But would people actually want to OWN a self-driving car? It seems to me that they would be perfect for public transport: when you need to go somewhere, you attract one with your phone app, pay what amounts to a bus ticket, and go to your destination. No more buses running empty of with just one passenger, no car in your driveway taking up space and costing money. It would be great, IMO.