
Volvo Promises Uber Fleet of 24,000 Self-Driving Taxis by 2019 - sethbannon
https://www.wsj.com/articles/volvo-promises-uber-fleet-of-self-driving-taxis-by-2019-1511184730
======
Steeeve
Volvo has promised to sell uber cars. That's pretty much the gist of it.

Uber got a fleet quote, attached the words self-driving car to it, then issued
a press release.

Volvo's part in the self-driving car is that their cars meet the minimum specs
for uber's program, which are probably more stringent than "must have 4
wheels" and yet still falls far short of "must have a lidar system accessible
through an api".

~~~
kp1234321
> falls far short of "must have a lidar system accessible through an api".

Source?

~~~
Steeeve
> which are probably

~~~
oliv__
That probably only applies to the words until _and_.

~~~
Steeeve
I'm friends with the guy who wrote that sentence. He says that my
interpretation is correct.

------
curiousDog
We'll probably see more and more fluff pieces as Uber heads closer to its IPO
date. Last week, there was flying cars

~~~
bduerst
Any bets on the next sharks they'll jump?

\- Uber phone OS

\- Uber IoT platform for cities

\- Uber edge computing on smart cars

~~~
khazhoux
Uber to buy 24,000 self-jumping sharks.

~~~
wunderg
I like that one!

------
1024core
_Beginning_ in 2019, and not _by_ 2019\. Big difference.

------
alkonaut
I'm won't be surprised to see self driving ubers within a few years, however
I'll be amazed if I see _driverless_ Ubers.

This is why I think at launch these will have non-drivers at the drivers seat
smiling and ready to take over if the AI refuses. These drivers will have to
drive less and less, and will eventually be remote operators. How they will
get any economy in that I don't know - I'm cynically thinking they will be
doing telemarketing while idling behind the wheel.

~~~
kbvk
Why not have the passenger be the one in the driver's seat ready to take over
in an emergency?

~~~
johntb86
If you need to have someone with a driver's license in the driver's seat at
all times this seems more like a replacement for zipcar, not uber.

------
Digit-Al
Has anyone considered the possibility that people won't want to trust their
lives to self driving cars? We've had self checkouts at the supermarket for
ages now and they still give problems with unusual situations. When people
think of the infamous "please put your item in the bagging area" might they
not get nervous about trusting their life to soemthing else autonomous?

~~~
ptmcc
Those damn things give me problems in totally usual situations, let alone
unusual ones.

~~~
bsder
Most of those kinds of bagging systems have gotten much better about the whole
"detection of bagging."

However, most of the time, the issue with self-checkout is the _HUMAN_ , not
the machine. Several extremely busy grocery stores near me ripped out self-
checkout systems because it affected throughput too much. They went back to
cashiers because the cashiers are A) faster and B) capable of judging
situations for throughput ("Um, grandma, really, we don't need you to take 5
minutes to find two pennies for that $20.02 grocery bill. Have a nice day.
NEXT!")

Amazon, unusually, has this one right. A self-checkout system _CANNOT_ rely on
the customer doing anything right.

~~~
ghaff
Having a few self-checkout stations in a grocery store is generally OK if
they're effectively for people who have dashed into the store to pick up one
of two barcoded items. They're horrible when the store has used them to
replace most of their cashiers because they're slow to use for a lot of items,
are very slow to use for produce, etc.

I still find detection of bagging is often a pain with self-checkout. I expect
things are set up to err on the side of falsely detecting potentially unpaid
items.

Perhaps, at some point, vision systems will make it easier to not require
cashiers but it doesn't work all that well today for large supermarkets.

------
jerkstate
The XC90 comes with a pretty good LKAS and ACC system, having recently test
driven every car in that class, I can say it's the best one for under $60k
(Highlander is pretty good too). But there's no way that Uber is going to be
using the stock system for self-driving.

~~~
w0m
Spinning lidar on the roof doing live around-corner mapping being primary
visible addition at least

------
dsfyu404ed
tl;dr:

Volvo :"We'll be happy to sell you 24,000 of this particular model that
happens to be drive by wire"

Uber: "thank you for selling us 24,000 self driving capable cars"

------
superdude12
Here's a link that doesn't hit the paywall:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/volvo-promises-uber-fleet-of-
se...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/volvo-promises-uber-fleet-of-self-driving-
taxis-
by-2019-1511184730?shareToken=st3e601f5e2bd046d39f234492ca5ce5c5&reflink=article_email_share)

For anyone sharing from the WSJ, you can "email" an article to yourself from
the left rail on desktop and use the emailed link to share with friends.

~~~
kp1234321
FYI I can't read the link above

~~~
tim333
Try
[https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.c...](https://www.facebook.com/flx/warn/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsj.com%2Farticles%2Fvolvo-
promises-uber-fleet-of-self-driving-taxis-
by-2019-1511184730%3FshareToken%3Dst3e601f5e2bd046d39f234492ca5ce5c5%26reflink%3Darticle_email_share&h=ATMNIDevY8qlJeHJZw1DZpWqU32sHbVZtgc6xsA-
HuU2vtvQmkjAJzR_n3iFpBy0_9FLSlghipuhmAQqI6NvBM5DvXZf-dSxwyLzqqI&_rdr)

(facebook link)

------
siffland
Wonder how well they will do with flooded roads. Will they turn around and not
drown.

My significant other is a lyft driver, the other night she had a drunk rider
and he became unresponsive. And fell on the flood of the van. She had to stop
and check him. Get back back into his seat and at his destination go knock on
the door for people to come get him. Would the driverless car do all that?

How well are the on snow covered roads as well? Anyone road in one is heavy
snow like conditions?

~~~
ralusek
I don't get in an Uber with the assumption that the driver will be able to
tell if I've suddenly died and take me to safety.

~~~
cbhl
Okay, but making that assumption is maybe marginally better than driving
drunk?

------
reformatt
Hidden behind a paywall, is it possible to get a mirror? I'm curious to see if
it will be self-drive or assisted driving. Volvo thinks they can create the
tech and mass produce 24,000 in the next 2 years, so how's their progress so
far?

~~~
stevenj
By William Boston Updated Nov. 20, 2017 12:22 p.m. ET 71 COMMENTS

Volvo Cars said it has agreed to supply Uber Technologies Inc. with a fleet of
24,000 self-driving taxis beginning in 2019—one of the first and biggest
commercial orders for such vehicles.

The deal between Volvo, owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., and
Uber was disclosed Monday as a framework agreement without financial terms.
Such an order, though, would account for about 4.5% of Volvo’s current total
sales, based on 2016 figures, and is estimated to be worth just over $1
billion, a person familiar with the situation said.

The automobile industry and many big tech firms have promised broad deployment
of robot cars in the near future, but all of the technology, regulation and
legal framework needed for the practical use of such vehicles aren’t yet in
place. Still, industry executives have predicted with more and more confidence
that companies could have such cars on the road in a matter of years, not
decades.

Other car makers have inked smaller, less specific deals to develop and
produce autonomous cars, but Monday’s agreement represents one of the most
concrete deals between two big players in the field for the production of a
large number of real cars. The promised delivery date--as little as two years
away--is also one of the first hard, deadlines that a significant automaker
has set for rolling out a working model.

Volvo has had a long-running partnership with Uber to develop self-driving
cars, though it hit a setback earlier this year. Pilot projects around the
U.S. were temporarily halted after an early version of a Volvo-Uber-developed
vehicle flipped on its side after an accident in Tempe, Arizona. Police said
the incident was caused by a human driver of another vehicle, not the Uber
self-driving car.

“We believe this is a new segment, a new business,” said Volvo Cars Chief
Executive Hakan Samuelsson. Jeff Miller, Uber’s head of auto alliances, said
the agreement “puts us on a path towards mass produced self-driving vehicles
at scale.”

Under the agreement, Volvo will supply Uber with what Mr. Samuelsson called a
“base car,” based on Volvo’s popular XC90, a luxury sport-utility vehicle that
seats up to seven passengers. Delivery of the vehicles is set to begin in
2019, with Uber calling up vehicles each month through 2021.

“The base vehicles incorporate all necessary safety, redundancy and core
autonomous driving technologies that are required for Uber to add its own
self-driving technology,” Mr. Samuelsson said. “Uber will adapt the software
to make it ride-hailing.”

The first taxis from the deal will be built in Volvo’s factory in Sweden. But
the company plans to produce the vehicles in the U.S. as well, where Volvo is
building a new factory just outside Charleston, South Carolina.

The current version of the XC90, which is available for sale today, already
includes advance autonomous features, such as systems to keep the car in its
lane and maintain the proper distance to another vehicle traveling ahead. It
also features collision avoidance that helps prevent low-speed fender benders
in stop-and-go traffic.

Other car manufacturers are racing to develop their own models of self-driving
vehicles, often in ventures with parts suppliers and big technology companies.

Why Your Next Car May Look Like a Living Room With driverless cars moving
closer to reality, car makers and designers are imagining a future where car
interiors look more like a high-tech living room. Photo: Morgan
Anderson/Yanfeng Daimler AG, which makes Mercedes-Benz luxury cars, and auto
supplier Bosch GmbH, for instance, said in April that they would jointly
develop their own robot taxi. Daimler has said the vehicle would become
available at the beginning of the next decade.

Daimler and Uber said in January they would join forces, with the German
company agreeing to introduce self-driving cars compatible with Uber. Waymo,
the self-driving tech unit of Google-parent Alphabet Inc., has agreed to take
several hundred minivans from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, part of its
autonomous driving program.

Nutonomy Inc., a Cambridge, Mass. startup, has said it wants to put a fleet of
robot taxis on the street by next year. It first began testing Renault and
Mitsubishi vehicles, in Singapore. In May, it agreed to work with Peugeot
maker Groupe PSA of France, to integrate its software into a Peugeot SUV.

Volvo and Uber agreed in 2016 to jointly develop more advanced self-driving
car systems. The accident in Arizona was a blow to public perception of the
pace of development of the program and such vehicles generally. But police
said at the time that the Volvo-Uber car was not at fault. The accident
occurred when the driver of another vehicle committed a moving violation,
ramming the self-driving car and causing it to flip on its side.

There were no injuries, but Uber temporarily halted its three robot taxi tests
in San Francisco, Tempe, and Pittsburgh. Those pilot programs have resumed.

—Tim Higgins in San Francisco contributed to this article.

Write to William Boston at william.boston@wsj.com

~~~
blahman2
does that mean that if your software is 'hidden behind a paywall' i am allowed
to distribute it freely once i get to it?

~~~
stevenj
I don't write software.

But if I owned the WSJ (or any publication) and a subscriber shared an article
here-and-there on a forum I personally wouldn't be mad. Perhaps doing so would
even lead to more subscribers.

~~~
olavk
That is probably why you don't own WSJ.

~~~
stevenj
You can disagree with my stance, but your comment here is pretty rude in my
opinion.

~~~
thomnific
Maybe they were a little rude, but they have a point ... you just went and
infringed on the WSJ's copyright just to score internet points.

Just my own opinion, but I wish mods would delete posts that did such things.

------
lukasb
Volvo is very, very serious about safety. I'm amazed they're this confident.

~~~
ghaff
They're not. It appears that they've made a deal (without specific
commitments) to sell Uber vehicles that Uber can turn into fully self-driving
vehicles if it can. There would still appear to be some reputational risk but
Volvo isn't making claims that the cars will be self-driving out of the
factory.

~~~
lukasb
Thanks for RTFA for me >.<

------
mtgx
Self-driving of 2019 is the new "4G" of 2011.

Don't expect these things to be even as good as Waymo's from day one...or
first five years. And I don't even believe the reports that Waymo has gotten
good enough for full autonomous driving in all environments.

~~~
tryingagainbro
was there a showdown with experts rating each company? I get that Google has a
much better PR machine

~~~
danblick
Fwiw there was [https://www.wired.com/2017/04/detroit-stomping-silicon-
valle...](https://www.wired.com/2017/04/detroit-stomping-silicon-valley-self-
driving-car-race/)

But who knows what to make of that

------
Cshelton
TechCrunch article with no paywall: [https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/20/uber-
orders-24000-volvo-xc...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/20/uber-
orders-24000-volvo-xc90s-for-driverless-fleet/)

~~~
a1a
and Bloomberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-20/uber-
step...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-20/uber-steps-up-
driverless-cars-push-with-deal-for-24-000-volvos)

------
femto113
Why Uber's pursuing a driverless model just baffles me. This quote is for
24,000 cars for around $1.4 billion, or around $58,000 per vehicle. Even if we
assume 0 financing cost the car would need to earn over $58,000 in its
lifetime to be more profitable for Uber to buy one of these than to continue
to pay a driver. Current Uber drivers estimate their profit to be around $0.40
per mile[1] which means each driverless vehicle would need to drive about
150,000 miles just to break even.

Let's guess driving that much that takes about 2 years[2]--if you assume a
conservative 1 technician per 50 vehicles[3] to maintain these you also have
2% of their salary * 2 years (say another $3K). Throw in another $1000 for
tabs etc, $1500 for the labor for a couple hundred car washes[4], $1000+ for
losses related to crashes[5], $500 for parts and maintenance[6] and we're
easily at another $7K+ in costs that have to come out of Uber's existing
share.

[1] [https://therideshareguy.com/how-to-calculate-per-mile-
earnin...](https://therideshareguy.com/how-to-calculate-per-mile-earnings-
instead-of-per-hour/) (This is for a 43MPG Prius, with ~$0.06/mile of
depreciation. I exclude the depreciation for the calculation above, but need
to add back in a similar amount for the difference in MPG.)

[2] [https://bizfluent.com/info-8446407-many-cab-driver-drive-
yea...](https://bizfluent.com/info-8446407-many-cab-driver-drive-yearly.html)
Estimates of how many miles per year a single taxi gets driven range here from
~40,000 to ~90,000, so 75K/year seems plausible for a fully autonomous
vehicle.

[3] [http://www.government-
fleet.com/channel/maintenance/article/...](http://www.government-
fleet.com/channel/maintenance/article/story/2011/01/how-to-calculate-
technician-to-vehicle-ratios.aspx) (This seems very conservative to me,
consider for example that Hertz has about 1 employee per 13 cars.)

[4] [https://uberpeople.net/threads/how-often-do-you-have-to-
wash...](https://uberpeople.net/threads/how-often-do-you-have-to-wash-your-
uber-car.152854/)

[5] Estimated from average of 1 claim per 18 years per driver and $7500 in
cost per accident [https://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-
man...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2011/07/27/how-many-times-
will-you-crash-your-car/#6a1805644e62) [http://www.tavss.com/library/va-nc-
lawyer-economic-and-compr...](http://www.tavss.com/library/va-nc-lawyer-
economic-and-comprehensive-auto-accident-costs.cfm)

[6]
[https://www.yourmechanic.com/estimates/volvo](https://www.yourmechanic.com/estimates/volvo)

~~~
danblick
Nice references! Might be better to start with the cost paid by the customer
to Uber rather than just the driver's cut of it?

"In San Francisco the fare is $2.20 plus $0.26 per minute plus $1.30 per mile.
In New York City the fare is $3 plus $0.40 per minute plus $2.15 per mile."

~~~
femto113
That's not relevant because it doesn't change under a driverless system. Uber
already gets "their" cut. The change is that Uber gains as costs what the
driver would have paid to own, maintain, and operate the vehicle, and gains as
an income what it would have paid the driver. The "driver profit per mile"
nicely factors those things together.

------
jarjoura
I am not convinced self driving cars will ever be a thing we see in our
lifetimes that just drive around the city unmanned. Sure, I can see a fully
custom Uber navigational system built in with systems that make getting
passengers and dropping them off much more predictable.

However, what should be relatively simple as that fails to address the human
component.

1\. Some people like talking to a driver, it's one of those small interactions
that make getting from point A to point B an experience. Some people don't and
that's fine too, not arguing against that.

2\. People left alone will be much less careful, graffiti, spillage, throwing-
up, drug deals, etc. Fully expect these to become little crime bubbles.

3\. Not all cars will be fully utilized all day long, so what is a car sitting
around unmanned? Will the insurance to cover vandalism and having the vehicle
repaired raise higher than the value of paying someone to sit in the car?

~~~
jamiequint
1\. The vast majority of people don't want getting to point A to point B to be
an experience, they want it to happen as quickly and conveniently as possible
for a good price. This isn't going to be any sort of real barrier to adoption
especially when people have the option to pay $15 for a manned car with a
driver or $3 for one that is self-driving.

2\. Cameras and you sign an agreement on signup that you're liable for the
behavior of any passengers on your trip. Hotels are also private spaces, they
don't seem to have a problem with graffiti, rooms getting destroyed, etc. To
the extent they do it's not an existential problem and is covered by the fact
that they have your ID and Credit Card on file.

3\. Many hundreds of thousands of people park their cars overnight in parking
garages or on streets. Nobody pays people to sit inside inside of their cars
overnight as far as I know.

~~~
ghaff
Yeah. It's reasonable to be skeptical about the timeframe for fully-autonomous
general purpose vehicles. IMO, the last 10 percent (or whatever) is tougher
than a lot of people are assuming. Some of the assumptions about the economics
of the vehicles are also overly optimistic.

That said, if people can get driven around for a reasonable price--either in
their own vehicle or one they hail through an app-- _many_ people will forgo
driving themselves.

