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Secretive Startup Zoox Is Building a Bidirectional Autonomous Car From the Ground Up (bloomberg.com)
A secretive Australian startup called Zoox (an abbreviation of zooxanthellae, the algae that helps fuel coral reef growth) is working on an autonomous vehicle that is unlike any other. Theirs is all-electric and bidirectional, meaning it can cruise into a parking spot traveling one way and cruise out the other. It can make noises to communicate with pedestrians. It even has displays on the windows for passengers to interact with. Bloomberg sheds some light on this company, reporting on their ambitions to build the safest and most inventive autonomous vehicle on the road: Zoox founders Tim Kentley-Klay and Jesse Levinson say everyone else involved in the race to build a self-driving car is doing it wrong. Both founders sound quite serious as they argue that Zoox is obvious, almost inevitable. The world will eventually move to perfectly engineered robotic vehicles, so why waste time trying to incorporate self-driving technology into yesteryear's cars? Levinson, whose father, Arthur, ran Genentech Inc., chairs Apple Inc., and mentored Steve Jobs, comes from Silicon Valley royalty. Together, they've raised an impressive pile of venture capital: about $800 million to date, including $500 million in early July at a valuation of $3.2 billion. Even with all that cash, Zoox will be lucky to make it to 2020, when it expects to put its first vehicles on the road.
it has reverse???! Truly we are privileged to live in these amazing times
If this company had the actual autonomous driving bit of the problem sorted, it wouldn't matter whether their vision for the product involved climbing into a 20 year old corolla through the sunroof. They don't seem to be offering any new breakthrough with regards to delivering a reliable and affordable self-driving solution.
I always wondered what it would have been like to live through the first dot com bubble. Now I realise that is involves real engineering getting pushed aside to make way for the hype merchants.
Yet another startup promising yet another car of the future while producing yet again nothing.
The spot for loudmouth marketeer in the car industry is taken. Musk has solidly cornered that position. And even he has more to show than some frames on wheels.
If you want to produce the car of the future, great. Absolutely. But don't call before it's done. We have had so many stories of so many startups pipe dreaming up what could be, I think it's about time we move on to actually, you know, making something that can be sold. Anything else just ain't interesting anymore.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Still trying to figure out what problem autonomous driving is trying to solve.
If a startup starts up in America then it's an American startup regardless of the nationality of its founders. Seriously guys.
Caster Angle
So basically, a rich kid from "Silicon Valley royalty" and his buddy got $800 million dollars to build a "perfectly engineered robotic vehicle", yet they don't understand basics like suspension and alignment. Good luck getting stable handling when your caster angle is tilted the wrong way in backwards mode. Unless they plan to have mechanical systems to change pretty much the entire suspension geometry on a whim?
"We don't care about the laws of physics, we have an app!"
Secretive Startup Zoox Is Building a Bidirectional *Penis*
Seems to be this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjDLwnTyybo
So much of this screams VC scam to me, but make up your own mind.
"The pair have mastered the hyperbolic vernacular of the Silicon Valley startup scene. Text running around the wheel wells of the Zoox vehicles reads, “Infinity is enough,” a phrase the company has trademarked. Kentley-Klay’s own name is another invention. He was born Tim Kentley and adopted the Klay."
"After getting a degree in communication design, Kentley-Klay went into the ad business and became an industry-leading animator and video producer. ....In 2012, Kentley-Klay stumbled on a blog post about Google’s self-driving car project, then pretty much the only one in the field. He saw the company’s prototypes as unsightly half-measures, with their bulbous sensors mounted on some other company’s car like robot taxidermy...."
There are only two videos I can find, one looks like Tensorflow output recognising cars and people and traffic lights, and the other showing the actual cars is professionally made and is all aspirational rather than substantive.
These "Silicon Valley royalty" will crash and burn as soon as they realize whiz bang naming and useless technology don't solve the legal and political problems that keep self-driving cars "doing it wrong". From the looks of TFA's photo, they also haven't managed to account for passengers or cargo. Sure, there is probably a subset of car users who have no passengers or cargo and desperately need to avoid backing out of parking spots. But since that subset can also use any other car, there isn't much of a market for this product.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Not even Elon was dumb enough to totally reinvent the wheel. He used existing chassis to build his cars.
You can put a "bidirectional" body on any chassis. Why bother literally reinventing the wheel when the only "component" that you truly lack is the self driving capability?
Reinventing frames, chassis, suspension, drive trains... is an epic waste of money when the problem you truly need to solve is self driving capability, software processing, sensing. These guys are well on the road to epic failure.
At east it's not my money.
Sadly, the vehicle will only be purchasable with Flooz.
Those of you holding Beenz will take a bath on the exchange rate.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I'm so confused. It says "Instead of retro-fitting existing cars with fancy sensors and smart software, they want to make an autonomous vehicle from the ground up." but then they show a Toyota SUV equipped with fancy sensors and smart software driving around. Then they talk about autonomous driving, but the models in the garage have steering wheels. I know I am stupid, but please explain it to me.
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2000!
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Bidirectional vehicles make good sense for deliveries, I've posted about that here before. But do they make any sense for transporting passengers? I don't think that they do. The majority of people want to be seated facing forwards. Even though I don't generally get carsick, so do I. I just prefer to see where I'm going.
An automated delivery vehicle ought to have roll-up doors on all sides (so you don't have to step into it to get things out of it) and move bidirectionally, so that it never has to even think about how it will turn around. It just doesn't! This solves whole classes of problem. But I don't think it makes enough sense if you're transporting passengers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Bidirectional is neat and all but it's going to add significant cost and weight to the car and you only gain marginally in tight city traffic where reversing the car may be difficult and having that "crab mode" could help a bit.
Wait, you mean it can go forwards AND backwards? So revolutionary!
Have we gotten so lazy that we don't want to learn how to back out of a parking space?
> Theirs is all-electric and bidirectional, meaning it can cruise into a parking spot traveling one way and cruise out the other.
Bi-directionality used to be a common feature of 1930s era military armoured cars (e.g. Vickers-Raba Csaba), based on the rationale for rapid retreat during reconnaisance missions. Eventually the complexity (dedicated driver's seat with wheel and pedal at both ends of the superstructure) and extra weight and space penalty were found not worth the effort.
This company will fail. Not because they would lack skill or such, but at the time they are ready, Waymo is already used everywhere.
Only way to beat someone who is first to the market is to have some big advantage over the market leader. Do you think they can come up with better AI than Google? If you do, you don't know much about Deepmind.
Could the car be cheaper? They are building from scratch, so they are competing against car manufacturers, who have been fighting to keep the costs low for centuries. Not so easy task.
Perhaps the car could have more features? Yeah sure, but if they are good and important, competitors can just mimic them.
A secretive Australian startup called Zoox (an abbreviation of zooxanthellae, the algae that helps fuel coral reef growth) is working on an autonomous vehicle that is unlike any other.
So a "secretive" company nobody has ever heard, located in a location not renowned for technology or automobiles, of is allegedly working on a vehicle with features nobody asked for, using technology that isn't ready for public consumption in a market against much better funded and experienced competition? Do I have that right?
I smell someone fishing for gullible investors.
Bidirectional vehicles make good sense for deliveries, I've posted about that here before.
Not unless you change an awful lot of existing infrastructure which was designed for vehicles that don't generally back up. Sure there are cases where it makes sense but a lot more where it doesn't. It's an utterly useless feature on the roads and arguably an unnecessary one when driving up to a loading dock though certainly more useful there. And if you design infrastructure to deal with mostly-forward driving vehicles then it renders the issue moot. Given that virtually all vehicles are going to be designed to not be bi-directional for the foreseeable future the infrastructure is going to be designed with that as the dominant paradigm.
Basically the question to ask is whether this bi-directional capability solves any economically significant problem. I'm not convinced that the economic benefit would be larger than the added cost of making vehicles work in two directions (more sensors, more complicated drive train, etc) and the infrastructure upgrades required.
I mean I get how they could be marginally useful for navigating in tight quarters like crowded parking lots. But when on the road, all I can think of is this video.
..about a startup with a custom designed headquarters and a $16,000 refrigerator
A real engineering startup would have good tools, but an ugly, old building and a Costco refrigerator
This dude is a wannabe Steve Jobs
The world will eventually move to perfectly engineered robotic vehicles
Bullshit, bullshit, BULLSHIT. I make a prediction:
People will NEVER fully accept so-called 'self driving cars' that they cannot directly control themselves with conventional controls
..and I'll stand by that with my last breath, and fuck you if you don't like my opinion, fanbois.
Apparently, the "perfectly engineered robotic vehicle" won't need:
1). Windows;
2). Doors;
3). A drivetrain;
4). A passenger cabin;
5). Safety systems;
6). A fuel system;
7). Cargo space;
8). Ability to drive on existing roads;
9). Climate control;
10). etc.
No, a ground-up redesign is both necessary and inevitable! Gadzooks, these Zoox founders have really caught lightning in a bottle. Why bother even making a product, just announce your concept, do an IPO and cash out. A fortune is there for the taking!
"It even has displays on the windows for passengers to interact with."
So the kids can select 'Wash me' from a menu instead of writing it with the finger in the dust?
Of course they are going to start from the ground up. It's much easier to start from the tires than hanging things off of the roof.
It only drives forward, and the only user control is a loud horn.
GET OUT OF THE WAY!
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
From the description:
Citroën 2CV Bicephale "Cogolin"- 1952
The fire and rescue service in Cogolin, France, used a Citroën 15-6 (you can find one in our French area) as part of their fleet. One night while on patrol, Colonel Hourcastagné found the narrow mountain road blocked. Unable to turn the car around, he was forced to reverse down the road for several miles aided only by a fireman with a small flashlight to guide the way. This incident gave him the idea for the need of a robust vehicle that could be driven forwards or backwards with the same ease. This is how the “two-headed 2CV” came to be. Two front sections were welded together. The two parts function independently; each with its own engine. It remained in service for 20 years with its peculiar appearance causing major distraction when passing other motorists on the road. The first paint scheme of the Cogolin carried the number “60.”
https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/citroen-2cv-bicephale-cogolin-1952
The car is in Nashville, TN, USA.
No schitt sherlock.
"Levinson, whose father, Arthur, ran Genentech Inc., chairs Apple Inc., and mentored Steve Jobs, comes from Silicon Valley royalty"
Because we could have had human controlled ones years ago. The reason we don't is do to concerns over safety and the destabilizing effects of a steering failure decoupling the front and rear wheels leading to uncontrollable driving characteristics. There WERE 'all wheel steering' systems on a few cars in the 1980s-1990s that provided a few degrees of rear wheel adjustment for improved cornering, but the reason they only provided a few degrees max (far less than necessary to help get out of tight spaces) was so that in the event the rear steering system failed, it would not noticably affect vehicle handling due to rear wheel drift, which could send you careening all over the road as you tried to straighten the car out to safely stop.