
VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance - kqr2
https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/12/vw-invests-2-6-billion-in-self-driving-startup-argo-ai-as-part-of-ford-alliance/
======
choppaface
Argo also released a _relatively_ massive 250GB dataset recently:
[https://www.argoverse.org/](https://www.argoverse.org/)

The problem of Perception has a long road ahead at any of these companies and
Argo is taking a very long position with this funding round. The headcount
growth is rather worrisome but other than Aptiv there aren't many fleets that
span multiple continents.

~~~
dasbo
It's best not to think in GB terms when talking about AD datasets. E.g., when
you record raw data of a multisensor setup (lidars, radars, cameras), the data
rate can reach 10+ TB/h. Camera-only datasets are in comparison much smaller.

Taken out of the argoverse dataset description: \- One dataset with 3D
tracking annotations for 113 scenes \- One dataset with 327,793 interesting
vehicle trajectories extracted from over 1000 driving hours \- Two high-
definition (HD) maps with lane centerlines, traffic direction, ground height,
and more

1000 driving hours is ok'ish for research (imho).

~~~
mkagenius
> 1000 driving hours is ok'ish for research

Wouldn't it be better to use a simulated environment first. Maybe something
using pybullet[1] and a script which maps real world to STL or OBJ files[2]

1\. [https://pybullet.org/wordpress/](https://pybullet.org/wordpress/) 2\.
[https://github.com/mkagenius/osm2maya](https://github.com/mkagenius/osm2maya)

~~~
dasbo
Depends on your goals.

Today's virtual worlds are not accurate enought to allow to develop perception
algorithms in simulation. In order to develop sensor fusion, you also need to
simulate the output of all sensors including their specific characteristics.
Apart from the model quality, there is another challenge: Simulation runtime,
which is substantial (!) and - to my best knowledge - not even close to
realtime.

If you want to develop driving algorithms that sit on top of the perception
stack, then this becomes simpler. You can work on the object level (object
being simulated cars, pedestrians, ...) and statistically model perception
errors. This is a lot faster, which is e.g. important, if you want to run
large-scale reinforcement learning to develop your driving strategy.

In any case, in the future, I would say that we will see a lot more simulation
(don't forget, all major players build heavily on simulation - just look into
the numbers on how many miles Waymo simulates every day) and potentially going
down all the way to the sensing level, because it allows you to develop and
especially debug along the whole sense - plan - act stack.

Also, today there exist also hybrid approaches. You take real recordings and
abstract them into a simulatable format that you can then, e.g., use to
variate and derive artificial scenarios for simulation. This can be used to
analyse the influence of different situative paramters on the behavior of a
function to pinpoint which parameter(s) caused certain troublesome behavior
that have been observed in real drives.

~~~
dmix
How would something like Waymo's daily simulation training work? Is it just
feeding it a larger set of random obstacles every day?

Wouldn't it quickly have negligible returns once it optimizes for the current
simulation capabilities? Or are they constantly tweaking both the car model
and the simulation data set?

------
boxcardavin
This is bizarre, I’m in non-car autonomy but I talk daily with car autonomy
folks. Everyone has been expecting a consolidation of companies through
acquisitions but drive.ai showed us that it’s probably not going to happen. At
The Information mobility event last month one of the SoftBank fellas said that
autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else. Looks
like backing up billions with more billions might be the playbook for now.

~~~
nutjob2
I think the corporate types are assuming that throwing money and engineers at
the problem is going to "win" it, but I'm not sure it will. Google has plenty
of both of those things and they seem to be stalling at the moment, or the
very least they're not confident enough to go out and claim the market for
themselves.

I think the engineers have been probably been wildly optimistic as usual, and
the last 5% of car autonomy is going to take as much effort as the first 95%,
or maybe double that.

~~~
threeseed
Not sure how many Data Scientists you know but I've worked with hundreds over
the years and have never met a single one who was irrationally optimistic
about the work they do. In fact generally it is the opposite.

But you know the sort of people who are wildly optimistic and prone to over-
exaggeration. Executives like Musk.

~~~
Hydraulix989
Seems like those types are the ones fetishized here in the Valley (and end up
getting showered with cash accordingly).

~~~
dd36
Musk succeeds.

------
RaceWon
God I wish I could be alive 436 years from today; when the self-driving cars
might actually be able to give me a run for my money.

~~~
dasloop
Someone in the year 1583: God I wish I could be alive 436 years from today to
write a post in HN about self-driving cars :)

~~~
dmix
From a self driving car _

~~~
RaceWon
> From a self driving car

Cue up the [0] Porsche 919 vid to show what a human can do in a car...

[0] [https://youtu.be/KsLi7HgSuhI](https://youtu.be/KsLi7HgSuhI)

~~~
clouddrover
And the next best, the fully electric Volkswagen ID.R:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCiGABQupA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCiGABQupA)

~~~
Tempest1981
Stanford team: [https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/31/18285824/self-driving-
car...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/31/18285824/self-driving-car-race-car-
stanford-research)

------
InTheArena
If this trend continues, I really expect there to be a massive bidding war for
Tesla before too long. When bears/shorts on tesla Complain about Tesla’s
market cap, they seem to always forget the fact that Tesla is well ahead of
any of these players in terms of both deployed hardware and data collection.
This merger and investment brings Argo’s valuation up to you around $8
billion.

~~~
prklmn
Tesla is ahead in many regards but they are too debt laden for a buyout at
this point. A larger player would be smart to wait until the economy turns and
Tesla can no longer meet debt obligations, then buy them out of bankruptcy.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _they are too debt laden for a buyout at this point_

Enterprise value is indifferent to capital structure. A leverage-sensitive
buyer would buy out the high-yielding debt in addition to the equity.
Purchasing out of bankruptcy is riskier, in many levels, compared with a
negotiated sale.

~~~
prklmn
Why do you say purchasing out of bankruptcy riskier? That's counter-intuitive
for me.

------
ml_basics
"Argo AI’s focus remains on delivering a SAE Level 4-capable SDS to be applied
for ridesharing and goods delivery services in dense urban areas."

Perhaps naive question from an outsider to the AV world: what does "SAE Level
4-capable SDS" mean?

~~~
sschueller
According to Elon [1] Tesla will have this by the end of 2020. At some point
reality has to kick in or not?

[1] [https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-full-self-
drivin...](https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-full-self-
driving-2019-2020-promise/)

~~~
threeseed
Of course. Which is why many of the key members of the Autopilot team have
recently left.

[https://bgr.com/2019/07/09/tesla-autopilot-team-elon-musk-
sh...](https://bgr.com/2019/07/09/tesla-autopilot-team-elon-musk-shakes-up/)

~~~
Hydraulix989
How can you be so sure?

~~~
HeadsUpHigh
Just another Tesla short

------
zerr
Pittsburgh - I guess they are after Uber ATG talent.

~~~
Hydraulix989
You mean Carnegie Mellon University talent.

------
trilila
Given that VW was caught cheating emissions on a global scale, and far worse
than other carmakers, i find it surprising that anyone on hackernews would
consider buying their cars.

~~~
Hydraulix989
"Since the Volkswagen 'Dieselgate' emissions cheating scandal broke in
September 2015, nearly every major automaker including--Daimler, General
Motors, Suzuki and Mitsubishi have all been caught up in falsifying fuel
economy figures or cheating on emissions testing."

I am not justifying VW's actions, but it's pretty obvious to any critical
reader of news articles that VW was just the unlucky one whose head met the
chopping block -- so in terms of a single targeted boycott of VW as a
consumer, I don't think it makes sense. They still make great cars, despite
some bad apples that work there (every company has them -- also see Lenovo /
SuperFish).

~~~
trilila
I don't see an issue boycotting all those which did it.

------
lovelycarboxyl
Unrelated, but does anyone know how many electric cars have an autonomy of
more than 700km, while also charging fully in less than one hour? Is that even
possible with the current technology?

~~~
jillesvangurp
Most of the more expensive EVs come pretty close to that and seem to be
competing on getting the numbers better there. E.g. I think Tesla is planning
to break the 400 mile barrier pretty soon. 300 mile is pretty normal already.
Most EVs charge pretty quickly to about 80%. 20 minutes to half an hour gets
you plenty of range. Mostly EV owners don't charge to 100% unless they are at
home or doing some overnight stop.

I think most normal drivers on a cross country trip need bathroom breaks,
lunch/snacks/drinks, leg stretching etc. every 2-3 hours. Great opportunity to
plug in and recharge enough for another 2-3 hours. Range anxiety is mostly
irrational and mostly a non technical problem as your car probably has more
endurance than you.

~~~
navigatesol
> _I think most normal drivers on a cross country trip need bathroom breaks,
> lunch /snacks/drinks, leg stretching etc. every 2-3 hours. Great opportunity
> to plug in and recharge enough for another 2-3 hours._

Everytime I hear this I wonder if the people saying it have ever taken a road
trip. Stopping every 2-3 hours for a half hour on a long road trip seems
downright crazy to me.

This is beside the point that during the busy season of summer travel there
are sometimes extensive lines at _gas stations_ on popular routes. Imagine if
every car took 15-45 minutes to fuel up?

Range anxiety is real. EVs are the ultimate commuting cars: known distance,
charge at home over night. But for the immediate future, over long distance,
gasoline cars are hard to beat.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Stopping every 2-3 hours for a half hour on a long road trip seems
> downright crazy to me._

It seems crazy to you because you haven't done it. It seems perfectly normal
and acceptable to people who drive Teslas over long distances. I see people
going for lunch, shopping, sightseeing at Superchargers. If you know you'll
have to wait 20+ minutes, you just find something to do instead of biting your
fingernails.

~~~
Fins
SO basically, if you adjust your behavior to match the car, it will,
eventually, get you where you're going. And if you really want to enjoy lunch
and sightseeing at such beautiful places as the Supercharger station in
Kettleman City. Not everyone is willing to make these tradeoffs, especially
for a car that costs twice as much as a comparable ICE one.

~~~
lazyjones
This is going nowhere really. When I had an ICE car, I never drove 12+
hours/day because it was too exhausting. Now I've done 5 such trips in the
past 8 months alone and it was no issue because the breaks and AP keep me
refreshed. And there's no comparable ICE car because they are all noisy,
smelly and uncomfortable, while most are much slower too (acceleration). Also,
there's Sentry Mode:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRGarDcUELE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRGarDcUELE)

You'll find out eventually.

~~~
Fins
LOL. Seriously. Can we please stop with this asinine assumption that only
people who did not try a Tesla can possibly dislike them? It got old 5 years
ago.

Sure, Tesla has pretty good acceleration (other than the roadster, nothing you
couldn't get with an ICE). When I was 20 years younger, I might have even
cared. Now I am somehow more interested in meaningful comforts and
conveniences, and outside of the SV gaggle of kids who thing that being a
computer on wheels, with a big screen means that Tesla is a "luxury" car,
presenting even Model S as somehow competing with any of the big name luxury
brands is just laughable. Hell, even my wife's Hyundai plug-in has things that
you can't get in any Tesla. For half the price. Well, but Tesla has fart
jokes. I'll take colled seats, thank you very much.

I wouldn't even start with the AP, it's not any better than anybody else's
driver assist systems. Except when it drives you into a fire truck or median
barrier, of course. Then it could be considered a natural selection tool, I
guess /s

FWIW, in the same period I did 2 2000+ mile drives, and a few in 300-500
range, and in all of them I needed to actually get where I was going in some
reasonable time. Maybe with stops at some vista points, but those generally do
not have superchargers anywhere near. Could I make it in a Tesla? Sure. I
could make it in a Leaf probably, too. It would just take significantly more
time, and I would need to spend much more time at places that have chargers,
and those (just like places with gas stations on the Interstate) usually
aren't all that exiting.

For Tesla's target market, people with more money than actual need for a car
as a tool, it actually all makes sense and works quite well. But I somehow
doubt that this market is large enough to "drive German automakers out of
business in 2 years" as some claim here, or even to make a significant dent in
ICE car sales, absent some drastic legal or tax pressure.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Can we please stop with this asinine assumption that only people who did
> not try a Tesla can possibly dislike them? It got old 5 years ago._

Still works with everyone I tried. Do you know what really got old something
like 7 years ago? The claim that you can't drive long distances in a Tesla.
Hansjörg Gemmingen just reported hitting 900000 Km in his Model S (from 2015 I
believe) after driving ~50000 Km in 2 months.

> _Tesla has pretty good acceleration (other than the roadster, nothing you
> couldn 't get with an ICE)_

OK, how much is an ICE that gets the 2.6s 0-100 Km/h of the Model S
Performance? And what comfort does it offer?

> _FWIW, in the same period I did 2 2000+ mile drives_

In 1 day? Impressive. Or we are talking about completely different things.

> _But I somehow doubt that this market is large enough to "drive German
> automakers out of business in 2 years" as some claim here, or even to make a
> significant dent in ICE car sales, absent some drastic legal or tax
> pressure._

German newspapers already reported on recent losses by Daimer, BMW and
explicitly mentioned EV (and their failing transition) as one reason.

~~~
Fins
Didn't work with me, and I like shiny new things as much as anyone. But being
old and cynical I want that shiny to be actually useful for something.

I've never heard anyone say that you _can 't_ drive long distance in an
electric car. The difference is how long will it take you.

Isn't 2.6 sec 0-60 something you only get with the "ludicrous" upgrade, where
it counts how often you actually use it? There are faster ICE cars.

Good God, no, I don't think you can even do 2000 miles in a day (if you ever
sleep) while staying even remotely legal. But I did quite a few San Jose to
Las Vegas drives in 8 hours. 2000+ were when I first drove my wife's car from
San Jose to Austin, which took me 2 days. Bloody thing goes 600+ miles on a
tank, which is more than I can take. Could that be done in a Tesla? Sure, but
it would take longer and involve planning the trip around chargers even if
they were everywhere. Second time I was moving my car, which is technically
faster, but has more reasonable mileage, and made two long stops, but only
because instead of morning, as planned, left in the evening (apparently if an
SV apartment complex says that the rental office is open on a Saturday, it
does not mean that anyone will actually be there to give the keys to). It was
still much faster than would be possible in anything you need to charge. And
somehow all the interesting little spots where I felt like stopping and taking
pictures didn't have any Superchargers anywhere near. Nor, often, any gas
stations.

Automakers were regularly having losses long before there were any Tesla to
blame.

It's pretty clear that ICE will be replaced by something, quite possibly
electric, at some point in the future, and they need to prepare for it, but
pretending that in 2 years electric cars will be anything but a statistical
error in the number of cars sold, let alone that anyone is going out of
business over it, is just a load of wishful thinking SV BS.

Then, of course, I just don't understand how anyone can, in a good
consciousness, give Elon even a red cent.

------
NoblePublius
Where is the anti trust investigation into these two ICE competitors teaming
up to compete against Tesla?

~~~
asaph
What aspect of two competitors cooperating to compete against a third in a
market where there are no clear winners yet, merits an antitrust
investigation?

~~~
Hydraulix989
There are already several other big SDC alliances like Honda / GM Cruise,
Toyota / Uber, and even the three-way Nissan-Renault / Jaguar Landrover /
Waymo.

~~~
NoblePublius
It’s almost as if the regulators are captive to the these interests at the
expense of the consumer .

------
pmorici
Incumbent car companies seem to have recently realized they are about ~2 years
away from being put out of business by Tesla. In the past two weeks we've seen
the CEO of BMW step down with speculation it was over BMW's botched EV
strategy. Now the VW / Ford alliance on electric and self driving.

~~~
hodder
They clearly are at no risk of being put out of business by Tesla. All
electric car sales are still only a fraction of ICE and given Tesla’s stagnant
sales nuns it looks like it will remain that way for a while.

Tech early adopters have bought and most others aren’t interested until the
price falls significantly and the reliability becomes something like a civic.

~~~
pmorici
Tesla's sales and sales of EV's in general look like they are in the early
days of an exponential growth curve. They have been at around 100% or better
YOY sales growth for the past 3 quarters. At that rate it will only take a few
years to go from niche to dominating the market. Car sales in general are flat
or in slight decline and Tesla is seeing 100% YOY growth. It doesn't take a
rocket scientist to see that if that trend continues for a couple more years
some of the traditional auto makers are going to go out of business. The real
nail in the coffin though will be if Tesla crack full self driving by 2021
which is what they stated they think they will do.

