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Autonomous Car Progress
- Thread starter stopcrazypp
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- Autonomous Vehicles
I am trying to remind myself and everyone here that robotaxi have huge opportunities to make life better, not just be a potential revenue source for Tesla. As bad as cruise is at times they are much better than a licensed but not fit to drive operator. I think Tesla’s $will come not from RT income but from monthly subscription fees to get chauffeur like service. It seems to me that rt will be low profit and others will be in the lucrative areas long before Tesla.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Cruise and Waymo see surge in the downloads of their ride-hailing apps:
techcrunch.com
Cruise and Waymo see a surge in robotaxi app downloads | TechCrunch
Cruise and Waymo have experienced a surge in robotaxi app downloads following last week's final permit approval by California regulators.
techcrunch.com
Yes. An alert human would see that scenario at an early stage and have no issue responding to it. As is, FSD has no chance of anticipating it or responding in time. And unfortunately these scenarios are common on busy freeways. Having said that Joe should've been able to respond in time. Heck both FSD and Joe should at least have responded to the Buick's turn signal.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Overhead lines are all over SF. We have trolleybuses and light rail here. As such I highly doubt those overhead lines would interfere with it.
Rather Cruise have frequently been confused by construction zones, and this case was a construction zone also. So most likely that is a much bigger contributing factor.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Cruise involved in 2 accidents:
Narratives don't agree. From the damage of the grey car, it seems it was traveling at high speed. The Cruise narrative that the grey car ran a red light at high speed seems to fit the facts. If true then I don't blame Cruise as it seems there might have been no way for the Cruise to avoid the crash.
Second accident, Cruise seems to have hit a fire truck. This one does seem like it might be Cruise's fault
Here is Cruise response of what happened:
I would note that even if the Cruise version is true, the Cruise failed to yield to an emergency vehicle. So Cruise narrative tries to spin things in Cruise's favor but Cruise would still be at-fault IMO.
Narratives don't agree. From the damage of the grey car, it seems it was traveling at high speed. The Cruise narrative that the grey car ran a red light at high speed seems to fit the facts. If true then I don't blame Cruise as it seems there might have been no way for the Cruise to avoid the crash.
Second accident, Cruise seems to have hit a fire truck. This one does seem like it might be Cruise's fault
Here is Cruise response of what happened:
I would note that even if the Cruise version is true, the Cruise failed to yield to an emergency vehicle. So Cruise narrative tries to spin things in Cruise's favor but Cruise would still be at-fault IMO.
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diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
I don't think there will be any affect short term. Waymo and Cruise adding a few more cities in say the next year is not going to affect Tesla sales. And Tesla makes money from selling the FSD package not from robotaxis. Tesla is not doing any robotaxi service. So there is no direct competition between Tesla and Waymo and Cruise in terms of a robotaxi service. And Waymo and Cruise scaling so far and getting their CPUC permit has not shaken the TSLA bulls premise that Tesla will win autonomy. They firmly believe in Tesla's FSD approach and believe that even if Waymo and Cruise do scale robotaxis in more cities, that Tesla still has the more generalized approach. I doubt Waymo and Cruise scaling to more cities will shake that. It is possible some of the big investment firms might lower their price target if they feel that the Tesla robotaxi is becoming less likely but the TSLA bulls will still hold no matter what.
I think there are two ways that Waymo and Cruise could affect the TSLA share price long term:
1) If Waymo and Cruise were able to displace personal car ownership, that would obviously hurt Tesla vehicle sales which would hurt the TSLA share price. But to displace personal car ownership, Waymo and Cruise would need to deploy a significantly higher number of robotaxis (we are talking probably millions of robotaxis) that would have to work in virtually all US cities. This would certainly not happen any time soon. That is why I say it would be a long term trend if it happens.
2) If Waymo and Cruise licensed their tech to personal cars that could directly take aim at Tesla's FSD business model. So that could affect the TSLA share price. But it requires an automaker to offer a nice EV that is competitive with a Tesla. So if another automaker offered a nice EV, competitive with a Tesla, that also had the Cruise or Waymo Driver on it, I could see that hurting Tesla vehicle sales. But so far, we've not seen another EV really hurt Tesla sales too much. And so far, neither Cruise nor Waymo have expressed any real plans to license their tech. And Cruise and Waymo would need to adapt their tech to consumer cars, work with an automaker to fit the tech, and the automaker would need to design the EV and then produce it. So it would take many years. That is why I say this would be a long term trend if it happens.
The other big unknown is Tesla's FSD. If Tesla fails to reach L4 for years to come, I think that could hurt the TSLA share price, more than anything Waymo or Cruise do. But if Tesla does reach L4 in the next year then that could change everything. It could dramatically increase the TSLA share price.
Could also be a stale green (on either side). Also, this is unrelated to legal blame, but it's also possible the Cruise could have avoided it if it didn't stop.
To be fair, emergency vehicles also have a duty to check if intersection is clear before crossing, so the circumstances and details still matter.
I think this is a virtual certainty. The question, when it comes to share price, is will Tesla throw in the towel first or will the TSLA FSD bulls realize it first.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
The Aug 17th fire truck incident made the news:
www.cnbc.com
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24858823/1556779089.jpg)
www.theverge.com
Cruise robotaxi gets in accident with San Francisco fire truck, one injured
The Cruise self-driving car struck a fire truck around 10 p.m. One passenger was taken to a hospital.
www.cnbc.com
Cruise robotaxi collides with fire truck in San Francisco, leaving one injured
Are robotaxis yielding to emergency vehicles?
www.theverge.com
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
CA DMV is asking Cruise to reduce their robotaxi fleet in SF by 50%. Cruise says they will comply with CA DMV request.
Cruise also posted a blog about the collision with the fire truck. They say that the vehicle did detect the fire truck but it was a difficult intersection with occlusions. The Cruise did brake but was not able to avoid the collision:
getcruise.com
Cruise also posted a blog about the collision with the fire truck. They say that the vehicle did detect the fire truck but it was a difficult intersection with occlusions. The Cruise did brake but was not able to avoid the collision:
An update on recent collision
Learn more about a recent collision with an emergency vehicle
getcruise.com
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Interesting that CA DMV saw the need to step in, even though CPUC didn't.
A video would make it much easier for people to judge for themselves, instead of a text description that no doubt Cruise will spin (similar to the Prius accident).Cruise also posted a blog about the collision with the fire truck. They say that the vehicle did detect the fire truck but it was a difficult intersection with occlusions. The Cruise did brake but was not able to avoid the collision:
An update on recent collision
Learn more about a recent collision with an emergency vehicle
Doggydogworld
Active Member
Safety is DMV's turf. CPUC is supposed to deal with rates, effects on the community, disability access, etc.
It would be good to see the video, but I agree they won't show it. Maybe if NHTSA does a report some day.
CPUC is the one that issues the AV operational permits however, and they can revoke, limit, or outright refuse to approve them based on potential safety issues. They recently chose to approve them with no limits.
Autonomous Vehicle Program Permits Issued
Part of the reasoning cited was the safety statistics were not enough for them to deny the expansion (and that they would not wait for further statistics before lifting restrictions) and that it was not proper to extrapolate (I believe this point even you brought up). The recent accidents doesn't change that statistical argument in a significant way (would still need to extrapolate to claim it is unsafe statistically). So CA DMV is being much more cautious than CPUC.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
A video with the FSD visualizations would clear things up and show what really happened. I suspect Cruise won't release the video because it would make Cruise look bad. The Cruise text descriptions do spin things in Cruise's favor.
This line in the Cruise statement is a bit puzzling:
"The AV’s ability to successfully chart the emergency vehicle’s path was complicated by the fact that the emergency vehicle was in the oncoming lane of traffic, which it had moved into to bypass the red light."
What was complicated about the fire truck being in the oncoming lane? For me it implies that the Cruise prediction stack assumes a certain direction of travel based on lane occupancy and therefore assumed the fire truck was going the opposite direction since it was in the oncoming lane. As a result, the Cruise prediction stack did not correctly predict the collision. If true, then it would show a weakness in the Cruise prediction stack.
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