
Why testing self-driving cars in SF is challenging but necessary - mdm_312
https://medium.com/@kyle.vogt/why-testing-self-driving-cars-in-sf-is-challenging-but-necessary-77dbe8345927
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Fricken
There was enough hard data out there back in March to see that General Motors,
that creaky old dinosaur of a car company was kicking ass in self-driving, but
all my efforts to point that out to HN have been met with grief. Look at what
their cars can handle, it's amazing!

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BoorishBears
I got a laugh when a post about GM's "Super Cruise" got shot down as inferior
to Autopilot since it's "Just LKA and ACC but it only works on highways and
needs mapping".

Autopilot is actually LKA (w/ LC) and ACC, and AP1 actually used the same
Mobileye sensors most cars with LKA use. GM was shipping cars with similar
sensor suites years ago but only using them to warn the driver, rather than
actively lane center.

Super Cruise on the other hand is the first, hands free, LKA/ACC
implementation that's actually designed with more than the basic features
current LKA/ACC implementations have.

It's also the first one that feels like a step towards full self driving
rather than an OpenCV exercise applied to a real car because of the use of
LIDAR mapping data being used to react more like a human would expect (like
slowing down before curves and not veering at the top of hills, etc.) and the
confidence to allow the user to take their hands off the wheel.

~~~
Fricken
I'm more interested in what Cruise Automation, GM's robotaxi subsidiary is
doing. The in-house Super Cruise efforts are roughly on-par with the various
autonomous features that are trickling out from a bunch of OEM's. The
incremental approach to autonomy is maybe intuitive to Automakers, but you've
got to deal with the vigilance decrement, and the handoff problem, and all the
complicated matters of policy, liability and regulations surrounding these
incomplete systems that still depend on keeping the driver in the loop to one
degree or another. What's the real gain to be had from implementing a bunch of
gimmicky features in the comparatively small luxury car segment?

Robotaxis on the other hand stand to be disruptive in the Clayton Christensen
sense of word, and even if it wasn't, I'm pretty firm in the belief that being
bold and taking on the whole self driving problem as a monolithic entity is in
the long run more efficient than trying to do it piecemeal.

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refulgentis
You dont have to look far, the article is written by Cruise’s CEO. :-)

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Jeremy1026
TL;DR "We choose to test in San Francisco, not because it is easy. But because
it is hard"

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jasonlotito
More like "We choose to test in San Francisco because that is where we are
located."

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Jeremy1026
They also are testing in Phoenix. No reason they couldn't do all their testing
there.

