[HN Gopher] GM halts funding of robotaxi development by Cruise
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GM halts funding of robotaxi development by Cruise
Author : atomic128
Score : 42 points
Date : 2024-12-10 21:19 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| atomic128 wrote:
| Here's an interesting "lidar gem" from Hacker News a few years
| ago:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33554679
|
| _Lidar obstacle detection algorithm from a Git repo leaked onto
| Tor_
|
| _This is a drivable region mapping (obstacle detection)
| algorithm found in what appears to be a git repo leaked from an
| autonomous vehicle company in 2017. The repo was available
| through one or more Tor hidden services for several years._
|
| _The lidar code appears to be written for the Velodyne HDL-32E.
| It operates in a series of stages, each stage refining the output
| of the previous stage. This algorithm is in the second stage. It
| is the primary obstacle detection method, with the other methods
| making only small improvements._
|
| _The leaked code uses a column-major matrix of points and it
| explicitly handles NaNs (the no-return points). We 've rewritten
| it to use a much more cache-efficient row-major matrix layout and
| a conditional that will ignore the NaN points without explicit
| testing._
|
| _This is an amazingly effective method of obstacle detection,
| considering its simplicity._
| rgovostes wrote:
| > GM said in a statement that "... an increasingly competitive
| robotaxi market" were the reasons for the change.
|
| Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much
| further behind, Tesla Cybertaxi, Amazon/Zoox, and Uber/Yandex?
| Cruise allegedly has one of the most sophisticated autonomous
| driving platforms, and GM's Super Cruise (if they share any tech)
| is comparable to Tesla FSD. Strange that they would bow out.
|
| Small anecdote: I visited a GM dealership this week and the
| salesperson told me Super Cruise was not enabled for test drives.
| The excuse was pretty weak, like the dealership would have to pay
| for the service or something. GM might have the technology but
| they are completely bungling the strategy.
|
| Ford just lowered the cost of its BlueCruise subscription by
| 1/3rd. In an earnings call eight months prior they remarked they
| made a 70% margin on the service. It seems like drivers did not
| find the feature compelling and were not renewing. Interest in
| autonomous driving appears to be cooling across the board.
| com2kid wrote:
| > Small anecdote: I visited a GM dealership this week and the
| salesperson told me Super Cruise was not enabled for test
| drives. The excuse was pretty weak, like the dealership would
| have to pay for the service or something. GM might have the
| technology but they are completely bungling the strategy.
|
| Sadly this is believable, I've asked to check out things like
| remote start and control of heating/cooling, and the sales
| people cannot show those features off because they require an
| app + subscription tied to the car.
| mingus88 wrote:
| Based on my anecdotal experience, another issue is that
| salespeople are not trained on the tech
|
| I worked on a feature for new vehicles and the company failed
| in part because buyers simply didn't know those features were
| part of the vehicle. Dealers never set it up for the buyer
| and it wasn't something many people would think to do on
| their own
|
| A salesperson isn't going to jeopardize an easy sale by
| bungling some fancy new feature they can't control
| rgovostes wrote:
| I don't want to be a jerk but the salesperson couldn't
| pronounce "autonomous" which tells me they aren't being
| trained in selling the feature at all. I can't even
| remember him referring to it by the marketing name.
| schiffern wrote:
| >Google/Waymo ... Amazon/Zoox ... Uber/Yandex ... GM Super
| Cruise ... Ford BluesClues
|
| Conspicuously absent is The Car+AI Company That Shall Not Be
| Named.
|
| That's the one the press release is referring to, I guarantee
| it.
| rgovostes wrote:
| Just edited to add it in. Wikipedia says they're not going
| into production until 2027 though, and unlike the others I
| don't think they're operating in any markets.
| schiffern wrote:
| GM SuperCruise and Ford BluesClues are comparable products,
| so I don't know why you'd exclude Tesla's product as not
| "operating in any markets."
|
| Other companies have neat AV demos (some that they even
| make people pay for), but fundamentally they can't and
| won't scale.
| rgovostes wrote:
| I am not sure I have all the facts straight but: Super
| Cruise and BlueCruise are features available on GM and
| Ford passenger cars, respectively. They aren't taxi
| services. I tried to make the distinction between
| companies participating in the "increasingly competitive
| robotaxi market" versus just the ones that have some
| level of autonomous driving capability; tweaked comment.
|
| GM was majority stakeholder in Cruise, which was gearing
| up to a ride hailing service. Cruise's cars have
| instruments like LiDAR on the roof, unlike Super Cruise-
| equipped cars.
|
| Ford wrote about an "initial launch of a commercial self-
| driving service in 2021" but I don't think it
| materialized. A photo of their robotaxi bears the logo of
| Argo AI, a startup that shut down in 2022.
| schiffern wrote:
| The difference is that GM and Ford have no viable
| strategy for transitioning these features into taxi
| services, whereas Tesla does.
|
| Not sure how it's suddenly so controversial to realize
| that Detroit is terrible at software strategy. This has
| been the conventional wisdom (and with good reason) for
| quite some time.
| rgovostes wrote:
| I briefly owned a Chevy Volt with the worst infotainment
| UX imaginable. I found a quote from a Chevy spokesperson
| describing it as an "Apple-like experience," presumably
| because the graphic designer on Fiverr found the Gradient
| tool in their pirated copy of Illustrator CS6.
| xnx wrote:
| > Isn't there basically Google/Waymo and then, seemingly much
| further behind
|
| Yes. I think GM leadership has finally learned enough to
| realize how far behind they are.
| chrchr wrote:
| It makes you wonder how much more effective U.S. auto makers
| might be without the regulation that requires them to sell
| through dealerships.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Dealerships have massively consolidated too, they have larger
| profits than automakers. It's absurd.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| There is still interest in autonomous driving, just not
| assisted driving where the marketing did not match the reality.
| cyrux004 wrote:
| Going to leave this here
|
| https://blog.comma.ai/a-100x-investment-part-1/
| https://blog.comma.ai/a-100x-investment-part-2/
| aanet wrote:
| Archive
| https://archive.is/20241210211353/https://www.bloomberg.com/...
|
| QUOTE: Cruise and GM's technical teams will be combined into a
| single effort focused on developing autonomous technology to
| offer in future models sold by GM, according to a statement
| Tuesday. GM said it will no longer fund robotaxi development work
| "given the considerable time and resources that would be needed
| to scale the business, along with an increasingly competitive
| robotaxi market."
|
| It's a big retrench for GM and Cruise, which survived a shakeout
| among autonomous-driving companies and restarted operations after
| one of its cars dragged a pedestrian last year. ...
|
| The move has significant implications for GM. Chief Executive
| Officer Mary Barra wanted to transform the automaker into a
| transportation technology company and double GM's revenue by 2030
| in part by generating $50 billion from Cruise. Without a robotaxi
| business to bring in fares, that goal looks remote. /QUOTE
|
| The business of robotaxis has always been a bit suspect, given
| the unit economics of running 1000s of taxis, each with ~$100K of
| equipment (even as the COGS were coming down each generation).
|
| My 2c: the only reason Waymo is succeeding (so far) is that its
| parent Alphabet has deeep pockets, it has a a 6th gen (?)
| technology of its AV driver, and they already exited the _other_
| AV trucking segment... implying they _need_ to succeed in
| robotaxis, so it 's all hands on deck. It also helps that they
| have, so far, NOT blundered their way (=> a significant
| pedestrian collision) the way Uber ATG did or Cruise did.
|
| This is a loong game to win, far longer than anything the tech
| bros have promised their their investors... We are still in the
| initial innings
| ra7 wrote:
| GM believed Kyle Vogt when he was hyping up their tech by having
| small, meaningless deployments in a dozen cities and promising
| $1B revenue by 2025. Then they had that incident and GM found out
| exactly how far behind Waymo they are. Waymo is now giving 175k
| rides every week and expanding to new markets every year. No
| other robotaxi company in the entire country giving rides to the
| public.
|
| Now they've gone back to what I think GM's original plan was for
| acquiring Cruise -- using their tech for passenger cars. Selling
| cars is GM's bread and butter. This wasn't going to end any other
| way.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| So stupid. If something has proved to be possible then you as
| number 2 can hire people from 1 to replicate it. China is built
| on this principle.
| Wytwwww wrote:
| What Waymo is doing is very localized and really only
| suitable for self-driving taxis and not normal cars. Not
| clear if that would help GM to sell more cars in the short to
| medium term (and obviously their execs have no reason to care
| about anything else).
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| A taxi is a car. The taxi industry is by itself profitable.
| GM should be in thr business of making money, with or
| without cars.
| jamiequint wrote:
| Your entire post history is anti-Tesla/Cruise/etc and pro-
| Waymo. Do you work at Waymo?
| ra7 wrote:
| Nope. But feel free to add something substantial to what I
| said.
| atomic128 wrote:
| A quick search of Hacker News brings up many warnings,
| presumably from engineers inside the company.
|
| For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=reTensor
|
| It was well-known and well-leaked that something was wrong with
| Cruise.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Related:
| https://bsky.app/profile/niedermeyer.io/post/3kdca25huko2e ->
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-02/safety-nu...
| (2018)
|
| https://safeautonomy.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-snapshot-of-crui...
| (2023)
| standardUser wrote:
| Waymo needs competition. Who else is even close to being able to
| provide it? I'd hate to think Tesla is next in line because they
| haven't even started a commercial pilot program yet.
| mfkhalil wrote:
| Zoox (Amazon Subsidiary) should be rolling out soon. They've
| already done successful test rides and should be launching in
| Las Vegas next year.
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