Hypercar Maker Rimac Reveals the Fully Autonomous Verne Robotaxi | Hacker News Reader

Hypercar Maker Rimac Reveals the Fully Autonomous Verne Robotaxi

caranddriver.com

24 pointsbookofjoe25 comments

It reminds me of this, same paint, same sloped windshield: https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.MKizYIQBB1q3jsjNIQoZbAHaE7?dpr...

In 2021 the company received €200 million from the Croatian government and the EU to develop a self-driving car, presumably to compete with US companies. However, they ended up using Mobileye technology. The initial goal was to have the cars on the road by 2024, which everyone knew was unrealistic. Now, the launch is supposedly targeted for 2026 but that's probably unrealistic as well.

During the presentation, they attempted to summon the car twice, but it failed to move. A photo from the event shows an employee holding what appears to be an industrial-grade remote controller.

"I mean, how hard can it be?"

Here's the photo of the supposed remote control: https://www.24sata.hr/tech/p-robotaksi-pa-ne-ide-siri-se-det...

It does look suspiciously like a 'bellybox' remote control.

Sorry Rimac Tesla already took the "We're not a car company we're an autonomous driving company" slot.

More like "we pretend to be an autonomous driving company".

Plenty of space for companies that can actually deliver, especially in Europe.

As much as people dunk on Tesla, they are the only "OEM" car company that actually takes software and self driving seriously. The FSD program is more akin to Waymo (talen-twise, pay-wise, investment-wise, etc.), than it is to Ford, GM, VW, Mercedes, etc.

To me, if you are using an off the shelf solution like MobileEye or Nvidia and you claim to be an "autonomous driving company" its an immediate write off, imo.

Europe has historically not been a leader in software (lack of govt support, brain drain, etc), and especially for something as deep tech as self driving, I find it hard to believe that an European OEM will come out with something compelling.

At this arguably late stage though, a design alone is worthless

How are they planning to put the road hours into legal certification in key jurisdictions?

Further, how should national governments standardise the accreditation process for new autonomous taxis outside the SF - now American - autonomous vehicle bubble?

Self-driving cars would be really cool but it seems like a long way to reach when you could invest that money in public transport and rail. Its not as convenient or sexy but I bet you'd get actual results: people able to... go places without having to drive. Maybe not directly from their door but thats kind of already a solved problem, too. At the risk of perhaps sounding like the "why Dropbox when we have FTP" guy, are SDCs necessary enough to throw this much money at?

It's probably not the winner, but we're now seeing opening moves in a game where technology providers like Mobileye and Waymo will work with vehicle makers to create vehicles that integrate cost-reduced sensors and interior screens that will enable profitable deployment over a vehicle's lifespan.

Non-shared rides seems to be the first target since they're easiest to manage but I'd expect a variety of form factors to emerge.

Designing a car is the easy part though. Rimac makes luxury cars, you don't need mass production to make a profit on those.

They also design and make parts. The Nevera is almost as much a research and promotional tool as it is a money maker.

Ok but mass manufacture of an entire vehicle is quite another matter and those EU funds don't seem like that much to achieve that.

If you're going to design a taxi from scratch, why would you not make it wheelchair accessible? All newer London black cabs are wheelchair accessible. What a missed opportunity.

They use Mobileye technology, owned by Intel. I've not heard of it until now. How does its self-driving performance compare to the likes of Waymo and Tesla?

Wikipedia has a nice overview of how their tech is used:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobileye#Chips

AFAIK they're realistically about at the same level as Tesla, but they're not using real people as beta testers. So the stuff that's in the wild is more Autopilot and less FSD.

MobilEye is the OEM behind Tesla AP1 before FSD, they didn't like Musk not bowing his head after one of high-profile AP crashes and publicly cut ties with them. IIRC there was a bit of uncertainty as to which side cut ties with which.

VW, Ford, GM, BMW, Nio, Zeekr, Honda, Nissan, Toyota, lots of brands uses MobilEye software and/or hardware for L2 self driving. They're the one that originally solved "driving alone in the universe" part of SDC in the first half of 2010s.

Using Mobileeyes stuff is promising - if it wasn't I'd just laugh at it - but has Mobileeye said if they can do enough for a taxi service?

Anyone that claims a fully autonomous car is lying as even the best one Waymo isn’t fully and is very limited to great conditions

How do you figure waymo isn’t fully automated? I rode in one in SF. No driver. It picked me up, drove surface streets, traffic, highway, drop off.

This is a body on frame(!) weighing 2.1 tonnes! That's too much for a two-seater, Tesla Model Y weighs less.

Taxis have to be durable. They don't need high performance. They should be cheap to make and cheap to maintain.

I'm really curious about the drag coefficient of this smooth wedge shape.

Does this semantically look like a 4-seater with front seats removed?

Looks very nice.

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