GM's Cruise tweets cryptic message, plans announcement on January 21

[Daniel in SD]

I didn't think I could be disappointed and I am.
What is the point of this vehicle if you don't even have the software to run it?
"We’re on track to crack the superhuman threshold in urban environments, and expect to be well past that threshold by the time the Cruise Origin enters production."
We'll see...

 

[willow_hiller]

I didn't think I could be disappointed and I am.
What is the point of this vehicle if you don't even have the software to run it?

This is part of the problem with just live-tweeting. We have no clue if they're still presenting... I'm assuming they'll end with something like "Oh, and one more thing. You can hail a Cruise Origin via the Origin App starting tonight in these select cities!"

 

[Daniel in SD]

This is part of the problem with just live-tweeting. We have no clue if they're still presenting... I'm assuming they'll end with "Oh, and one more thing. You can hail a Cruise Origin via the Original App starting tonight in these select cities!"

I updated my post, they expect to have the software done before it enters production.

 

[willow_hiller]

Anyone spot any timelines on production yet? I'm curious how quickly they think they can get these on the road.

 

[diplomat33]

I updated my post, they expect to have the software done before it enters production.

Just to be clear, they are talking about the software for the ride sharing app that still needs to done.

 

[Eno Deb]

Anyone spot any timelines on production yet? I'm curious how quickly they think they can get these on the road.

Maybe they'll say something (it's not over yet). I don't expect it very soon though. I saw what I now know is a prototype of it a while back, but it didn't look like something they'd announce soon then.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Just to be clear, they are talking about the software for the ride sharing app that still needs to done.

From the blog post:

We’re on track to crack the superhuman threshold in urban environments, and expect to be well past that threshold by the time the Cruise Origin enters production.

Google could have said the same thing in 2009.

 

[diplomat33]

From the blog post:

Google could have said the same thing in 2009.

Yes, but that is just saying that they expect to crack superhuman safety. They already have autonomous driving. They just expect to increase the safety even further by the time it enters production.

 

[Daniel in SD]

Yes, but that is just saying that they expect to crack superhuman safety. They already have autonomous driving. They just expect to increase the safety even further by the time it enters production.

They are not currently safer than a human is what they're saying. Tesla is also "on track to crack the superhuman threshold". Obviously they're way closer than Tesla but they're not saying how close. They're not close enough to start testing without safety drivers, we know that.

 

[diplomat33]

They are not currently safer than a human is what they're saying. Tesla is also "on track to crack the superhuman threshold". Obviously they're way closer than Tesla but they're not saying how close. They're not close enough to start testing without safety drivers, we know that.

They say that their cars operate "exceptionally well" now. And "on track to crack the superhuman threshold" means that they are very close to achieving "better than human" safety. They follow up by saying "expect to be well past that threshold" by the time the Origin enters production, meaning that when the Origin, they don't just expect to be safer than humans but to be safer by a lot.

"Already, our self-driving cars handle urban driving — which is notoriously chaotic and unpredictable — exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that they would be able to drive across the entire country without incident, even if the country’s highways were the toughest San Francisco streets.

We’re on track to crack the superhuman threshold in urban environments, and expect to be well past that threshold by the time the Cruise Origin enters production
"

 

[willow_hiller]

Interesting detail. Evidently it was a collaboration with Honda: Cruise on Twitter

 

[MorrisonHiker]

I'm really underwhelmed after all the hype. Google image search for "autonomous shuttle":

View attachment 502985

This announcement better end with them announcing a pilot robotaxi program in a few cities, otherwise it's just another shuttle concept...

We had similar looking autonomous shuttles at my previous employer last year. But yes, they only ran on fixed routes.

 

[willow_hiller]

The Verge just published a short video about the Origin:

 

[bedoig]

So, absolutely nothing of consequence to actually report? In line with 99.99999% of this sub-forum, lol.

 

[Cheburashka]

they would be able to drive across the entire country without incident, even if the country’s highways were the toughest San Francisco streets.



"

So what's stopping them?

 

[Daniel in SD]

So what's stopping them?

Every state has different rules for autonomous vehicle testing. Seems like a pain in the ass for a stunt. Driving 3000 miles without an accident is a couple orders of magnitude less than what’s required. Also their business model is robotaxis.

 

[cwerdna]

I was quite disappointing in the announcement too, given the potential hype.

Medium blog post: The Cruise Origin Story

A particular quote that stood out was:

At this very moment, we’re running fleets of our third-generation vehicles on the roads of San Francisco, operating a rideshare service that any Cruise employee can use, 24/7. Last year alone, we accumulated nearly a million miles as we autonomously drove nearly every road in San Francisco.

I guess the geo-fence got larger. Will be interesting to see the 2019 disengagement data they report.

 

[emmz0r]

 

[diplomat33]

So what's stopping them?

Nothing is stopping them. But Cruise has already driven enough autonomous miles to prove that they have achieved enough safety and reliability to remove the driver. Last year alone, they drove nearly 1 million autonomous miles on almost every street in SF. They don't need to do a coast to coast demo.

 

[CarlK]

What it says is the most GM would do in the next decade is to put a few vehicles like this into inter-terminal, inter-campus transportation and call its self driving program a success.