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Self-Driving Car Company Zoox Is Now Allowed to Carry Passengers (usnews.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the taken-for-a-ride dept.

The AP reports that self-driving cars have reached a new milestone in California: The Public Utilities Commission granted Zoox the first permit to ferry riders in autonomous vehicles under a pilot program. But Zoox can't charge for the service and a backup driver must be in the car. Under the program, Zoox will submit information to the commission on the number of passenger miles traveled in the test cars and any incidents that occur, along with pollution and safety data.

There was no immediate word on when Silicon Valley-based Zoox would start its service, which would likely be confined to the San Francisco Bay Area. More than 60 companies have California permits to test autonomous vehicles. But so far they can only carry employees and researchers.

9 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Progress by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

    This self-driving car only needs one driver. Uber self-driving cars require two drivers. I'm going to start a self driving car company, but it will need three drivers.

  2. Cool visualization on Zoox home page by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Curious about what angle Zoox had, I visited the Zoox home page, it has a very nice visualization showing what self driving cars actually "see"...

    What do they actually mean to do? That I'm still not sure about. :-)

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  3. P.S. Possible fail in traffic light detection? by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Looking through the Zoox video more carefully, there's one point where it does a good job of turning, but slowing down to avoid a pedestrian crossing against the light....

    Or are they? Because looking at the light that is flagged green, I see only a lower right turn arrow on - even though the car is turning left into that street, the actual green light is not on (but then neither are any of the other light colors, odd).

    Looking at a screen capture I'm not sure who that light is really for.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re: P.S. Possible fail in traffic light detection? by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      They are using the Unreal game engine, holy fuck! As if a game engine which is designed from the ground up to only handle the bare minimum necessary to play shooter games is appropriate for the real world of not getting people killed.

      So they are admitting their hardware will not run Crysis?

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  4. Why do you care about visualization rendering by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    They are using the Unreal game engine!

    Ahh, you do realize the visualization is only for humans, to illustrate the raw data the car is collecting, right?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  5. and uber killed an person by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    and uber killed an person.

  6. Re: P.S. Possible fail in traffic light detection by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    It only yelling out your score (death race 2000 system)

  7. Can they see and avoid small animals? by TzTerri · · Score: 1

    This article talks about the difficulty of getting robots to recognize cats. https://www.builtinchicago.org... So what happens when a dog or cat runs out in front of the car? For that matter how well do these cars deal with snow, ice, fog, or anything other than good weather?

    1. Re: Can they see and avoid small animals? by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      Reports are they don't deal well with bad weather at all.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."