Well, given how deep its pockets are and its past propensity to try on big projects, I'd say it was surprising.
What's more surprising is that both Apple and Google seem to have ended up in this same place.
What's more surprising is that both Apple and Google seem to have ended up in this same place.
When my car has a problem, I want to talk directly with someone to get it fixed.
Google has ventured in that area though, just take a look at Pixel, their smartphone.
But the scale difference between developing a smartphone and a car is quite a big step. I am not that surprised though, getting into the car market is difficult and unsure. Just doing the technology part seems to make more sense imo.
The sheer drag of maintaining a network of repairers, keeping them stocked with (Sometimes huge) spare parts, managing repair times etc is astonishing. I can see why Google and Apple would want to lean on established players instead of going it alone.
When my Pixel won't start, I am a little less contactable for a while.
When my car won't start, I'm not getting to work.
If comma.ai can (sort of) create an autonomous vehicle with just a couple of employees and Tesla can go fully autonomous with a sensor suite that's 5% of the cost of Google's, how much money is there to be made for Apple and Google? Even if the quality of their self-driving setup is 10x better, they will have a hard time selling it.
Even if I am wrong and the tech breakthrough will not happen, I think the economies of scale that kick in for the large-spread usage of Google's approach would make it competitive enough.
I, personally, believe that Tesla's approach for full autonomy is insufficient.
All the more, I think Tesla's functionality will not lead to Level 4 autonomy within the next decade because fo a false-start approach.
As geohot discovered, cars are sold to consumers only after they are sold to regulators. Tesla understands this, but if someone else builds a safer car, incumbents' experience may be rendered academic.
Keep in mind the NHTSA safety statistics you frequently see quoted are for the entire car population on the road, with a significant portion of 10-15 year old cars which are less safe than new cars. Even 25 year old cars without crumple zones and airbags is something you see on the road every single day.
Those have to do with fatality rates, not accident rates(1 accident per 250,000 miles).
>> statistically significant 10% safety increase For a sample size of a million cars , each year is 15 Billion miles, i.e. 60,000 accidents per year, vs 54000 accidents per year is statistcally significant.
If you switch to measuring "accidents", two big concerns pop up: 1) who defines what an accident is? and 2) if we get autonomous cars that end up in less minor accidents but same or more number of fatalities, is it really worth it?
We could extend it to "fatalities and accidents where someone is left permanently disabled", which is pretty unambiguous and does measure the most important factors. But I'm afraid (or rather, glad) that this won't give you an orders-of-magnitude increase in statistical samples as you get when counting all accidents.