
GM to launch autonomous cars in big cities sometime in 2019 - danblick
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/30/gm-to-launch-autonomous-cars-in-big-cities-sometime-in-2019.html
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Fricken
GM is full steam ahead on Robotaxis. Here's a PDF of the slides used during
GM's investor presentation:

[https://www.gm.com/content/dam/gm/events/docs/5265893-685163...](https://www.gm.com/content/dam/gm/events/docs/5265893-685163-Chartset-11-30-2017)

Some fun facts from the presentation:

> Cruise has 1,200 employees, up from 90 at acquisition in early 2016. (Vogt
> just specified only 400 are full-time at Cruise) Planning to have ~2100 by
> the end of 2018.

> They intend to get up to 1 million miles/month of testing in 2018.

> Their 3 simulators run 150 simulations per minute. Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt
> repeatedly emphasizes Cruise's high rate of improvement.

> Their test map of SF shows they're staying off the freeways, but they're
> pretty much everywhere else.

> Cruise is focused on an initial deployment in SF, but sees value on testing
> in other cities to prevent overfitting for the SF driving environment. They
> also test in Phoenix, and are planning to launch in NYC.

> Cruise projects It will take about 6 months to map and prepare for scaled
> deployment in a new city.

> They expect to get Lidar costs down to ~$300 (either per vehicle or per
> unit, not specified) with their recent acquisition of Solid state Lidar
> startup Strobe.

> Their vehicles currently have 14 cameras, 3 articulating radars, 8 regular
> radars, 5 lidar units, and 10 ulrasonic proximity sensors.

> They're projecting they can get the cost of an AV to under $1.00 per mile in
> 2025.

> They project 20-30% margins after 2025.

