Hacker News Reader

Comment by div | Hacker News Reader

Once legislation is updated to allow self-driving cars in most parts of the world, I wonder how profitable self-driving cars could be for Google. About 77 million cars were produced in 2010. With the appropriate licensing, a percentage of that could make a very nice profit. I should buy some Google stock :)

View on HN

I don't see what Google's role is going to be, aside from pushing forward legislation for unknown reasons. The auto manufacturers don't need them for the technology and research... they've all had access to that for just as long. We'd have self-driving cars today if the public (and regulators) were ready for it.

But they're not and aren't going to be overnight; what makes more sense is to gradually introduce the features a little at a time so that the move to complete autonomy is a small step instead of a leap. First, automatic parking. Then, collision detection warnings. Next, lane assist that steers you back into the lane when you drift. In the next few years, you'll start seeing "smart cruise control" that will drive for you on well-marked roads in mapped areas.

"Cadillac To Release Self-Driving Cars By 2015"

http://www.inquisitr.com/227496/cadillac-to-release-self-dri...

Maybe 10-15 years from now we'll be at the complete autonomy point.

According to Urmson, Google doesn't want to be in the car business - just the software business.

I don''t know. It is my impression that traditional companies are not able to produce complex software. I guess there are many paradigms that you have to break to become a software company. It seems to me that is the reason why cell phone companies ended up buying their O.S. from google.

> It is my impression that traditional companies are not able to produce complex software.

What gave you that impression?

What do you define as a non-traditional company?

I think OP defines non-traditional in this instance as software companies.

While I believe there's room for other companies to develop self-driving navigation systems, I think the Android example is pretty apt.

It's interesting to think about when self-driving cars will actually be in stores. By then, all navigation systems will meet strict safety guidelines and some standardised tests.

If all self-drivers are equally safe, the AI's driving style will become a differentiating factor. It seems to me like Google has an advantage in this type of development, although the future can certainly prove me wrong.

I think what he means is that car companies are good at making cars, but they're not as good at making the kind of AI you need for a fully autonomous car.

Spend some time studying what current auto engines are, and how much software they embody. I'm not sure how much of it has been developed by the auto companies themselves, but there's quite a lot of it, and it's pretty robust: how ofter has your car OS crashed lately?

Modern engine control is a collection of lookup tables and feedback loops with some preprogrammed "limp" modes to fall back on if things go pear-shaped.

Robust? yes. Adaptive? yes. Complex? not really. Computer vision, road/object/hazard detection and avoidance and the like much much harder problems to solve.

This assumes that the path to a self driving car is a smooth function that you can incrementally follow, rather than automatic parking and collision warnings just being easy problems compared to the messiness of general driving.

No company is indispensable in the evolution of a market, but I think it is possible that abandoning the incremental approach and starting with the full problem will turn out to be the one to get us all the way there, instead of a car that can correct oversteer and warn us in 90% of situations that we're about to make a mistake. Of course, like with many products, once one group shows the way, the only thing holding everyone else back is patents and data (especially geographic in this case).

If autonomous cars become significantly safer in terms of the number of accidents, you could make a strong argument for lighter and lower-density of structural materials, less passenger safety features, just significantly simpler cars.

Of course that would depend on getting all the cars on the road to be self-driving - you don't want your crashless 500 pound Google car getting smashed by a behemoth human-driven Smart Car.

But if you significantly reduced the materials cost in the car, that opens a big margin for Google to trade in.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com