
Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF - edward
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/08/cruise-is-running-an-autonomous-ride-hailing-service-for-employees-in-sf/
======
abalone
_> Still, Cruise says those drivers have had to take over manual control of
vehicles engaged in Cruise Anywhere service only on a few occasions_

Not trying to pour cold water on this but.. it's all about those "few
occasions". The difference between level 2 and level 4/5 autonomy is vast.
Those "few occasions" would presumably be accidents without the intervention
of the safety driver. A small corporate shuttle service that "only had a few
accidents" would not be considered a very safe service.

So for a service that really only makes sense at level 4, the reporting really
ought to focus on those "few occasions", the stringent safety standard that
needs to be met to remove drivers, and the actual progress towards it. That's
the real meat of the story.

~~~
Fricken
At the end of 2016 all companies testing autonomous vehicles in California
filed their disengagement reports. Waymo reported 1 unplanned disengagement
every 5000 miles, and GM reported 1 every 180. Nobody else was even in the
running. These metrics are crude, but it's currently the only benchmarking
system we've got, and we'll see in December where Cruise is really at when
they report their 2017 numbers.

Cruise does distinguish itself by driving mostly on busy downtown SF streets,
a challenging environment, and they've released impressive videos showing off
their capabilities.

A few weeks ago Kyle Vogt claimed Cruise would surpass Waymo 'in a few
months', whether they do or not remains to be seen, but they are making
sustained progress and they have the full force of General Motors behind them.

Unlike Waymo, Tesla's Autopilot program, and Uber's autonomous driving
program, Cruise's operation has been drama free, without any lawsuits,
leadership blowouts, or departures of key people. This implies they've got a
solid team under good leadership, and I think it matters a lot with complex
software projects like this.

~~~
Retric
Waymo (Google) is not that far from level IV. Average U.S. driver has one
accident roughly every 165,000 miles and disengagements is not 1:1 with
crashing. I suspect drunk drivers would probably be safer handing over control
which could make a huge difference.

Most interesting is the Disengagements by location. (page 9)
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/946b3502-c959-4e3b...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/946b3502-c959-4e3b-b119-91319c27788f/GoogleAutoWaymo_disengage_report_2016.pdf?MOD=AJPERES)

    
    
      Interstate 0
      Freeway 0
      Highway 12
      Street 112
    

Which might be good or bad depending on the relative amount of driving in each
situation.

PS: Disengagements per 1,000 miles also dropped from 0.8 (2015) to 0.2 (2016)
which suggests very good things.

PPS: Been getting a lot of up and down votes I wander what people agree /
disagree with?

~~~
abalone
Sounds like you're assuming level 4 merely means parity or better with human
error. Lots of problems with that. For instance if it's Google's negligent bug
that kills the family of 4 instead of a driver, Google gets sued. Google has
much deeper pockets than the driver who would typically declare bankruptcy,
effectively capping the damages. No real cap for Google, every time. So that
explodes the cost of autonomous vehicles. And then there's the matter of
potential criminal liability in the case of gross negligence. So there's going
to be a much higher bar for transitioning to level 4.

Also, while there may be fewer of some types of accidents, there will be
lawsuits for a potentially very large set of other types that never used to
get litigated. For example today when a driver causes their own accident,
nobody gets sued.

~~~
zjaffee
Google however does have the ability to hand over the cost of insuring such a
system to the consumer, so even at current accident rates the cost is around
100 dollars a month per car using such a system (driving 12000 miles in a
year). This equates to something like a cent per mile. So let's say they want
incredibly high quality insurance, charging an extra 5 cents per mile won't
make a difference in the scheme of things should they be able to get the
overall cost of commuting 15 miles (the average American commute in one
direction), to something under 5 dollars.

~~~
abalone
This aspect of insurance is widely misunderstood. First of all an extra 4
cents/mile just for insurance is really expensive. But wrongful death and
personal injury lawsuits can result in very large judgements, especially when
we get to punitive damages for a large corporation. Individual offenders
regularly go bankrupt. It may be wishful thinking that this can be easily
solved with "insurance". There is also the criminal negligence aspect to
consider.

~~~
spikels
4 cents/mile is roughly in line with rates for traditional auto insurance
today. And as these rapid improvements are likely to continue, these costs
will quickly come down.

Sure you can imagine some class action / criminal legal disaster but the auto
industry has survived repeated scandals. Corporate criminal negligence is
extremely rare.

In five or ten years this technology could be saving 100,000 lives every year.
I hope we are not so risk adverse that these benefits are needlessly delayed.

[http://www.insurance.com/auto-insurance/auto-insurance-
basic...](http://www.insurance.com/auto-insurance/auto-insurance-basics/pay-
per-mile-auto-insurance.aspx)

------
adrianmacneil
Hi HN, engineer at Cruise here. I just wanted to point out that most people
are surprised when I tell them we're hiring a ton of backend/full
stack/android engineering positions (mostly go/node/react), and you don't need
prior robotics or machine learning experience to apply (although we like those
too).

So, if you're interested in working on AVs or the systems that support them,
please take a look at our careers page:
[https://getcruise.com/careers](https://getcruise.com/careers) (or feel free
to reach out to me via HN profile).

~~~
denvercoder904
Hi,

I applied on the website. I have a solid background in embedded systems and
C++ but I immediately received a rejection email. I wish I could have chatted
with an engineer first :-(

~~~
hobls
Sounds like there was some disqualifying factor you're not aware of.
(Citizenship, willingness to relocate, whatever.) No one sends out immediate
rejection emails to experienced engineers unless they really have to.

~~~
denvercoder904
I was open to all those things.

~~~
hobls
Just giving examples; I have no idea what the actual reason was. My overall
point is that you shouldn't take it as an indication for your engineering
ability; an instant rejection means that wasn't the thing.

------
headmelted
That they are dogfooding a private beta makes me think that this has
leapfrogged what Google had been shooting for previously, and where Uber is
now. I don't know what other options there are on the ground as I'm not based
there.

It does seem though that there's a real opportunity for GM to sneak past Uber
and Google into a first-mover advantage with this.

I'd no idea they were anywhere near this close to a working AV fleet.

~~~
a9a
Waymo is doing this with real, public customers (albeit hand-selected ones) in
Phoenix[0]. Uber has been doing this for months with customers in
Pittsburgh[1]. This is certainly a sign that Cruise is making good progress,
but I wouldn't say it means they've leapfrogged the competition by any means.

[0] [https://waymo.com/apply/](https://waymo.com/apply/) [1]
[https://www.uber.com/blog/pittsburgh/pittsburgh-self-
driving...](https://www.uber.com/blog/pittsburgh/pittsburgh-self-driving-
uber/)

~~~
graphitezepp
The Uber car's are absolutely everywhere in Pittsburgh. See probably an
average of two one way on my daily commute.

~~~
akgerber
And Pittsburgh is a far more challenging driving environment than either San
Francisco or Phoenix, with far more diversity of weather and a lot messier
infrastructure due to terrain and freeze-thaw cycles and reduced maintenance
after population decline— think 20% grade on cobbles after a snowstorm.

e.g.
[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4763879,-80.0106331,3a,75y,2...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4763879,-80.0106331,3a,75y,224.22h,86.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1srBg7L8iAtThUewPqsuCMGw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

~~~
skywhopper
Does Uber's autonomous service go to such locations?

~~~
akgerber
Good question— their office is at the end of a crumbling backstreet, at least:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4627591,-79.9701442,3a,75y,3...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.4627591,-79.9701442,3a,75y,300.16h,86.6t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s5UDRoCRGl2n7UhEWI3wqvA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

------
mabbo
For those nay-sayers pointing out the incidents where the cars had to have
manual control taken, I think you're missing the forest for the trees.

When there's an incident of a car needing a human to take control, what
happens next? Cruise will record the incident, and add it to the training data
set. Now, the system will learn what it should have done instead and that same
kind of incident becomes less likely to occur.

I think this isn't about beta testing the product. I think this is primarily
about gathering those failure data points. More cars driving means more miles
driven, more data collected, leading to a consumer ready product faster.

And if it happens to give the employees a neat benefit, all the better.

~~~
JetSpiegel
Paraphrasing Tolstoi, every accident is different in its own way. I see that
approach as unscalable as current antivirus companies. Making a blacklist of
every possible accident condition is as foolish as making a blacklist of every
possible harmful Turing-complete program.

~~~
hikarudo
On the contrary, there are more common types of accidents and learning from
those will prevent future incidents with some probability.

------
keeptrying
One big difference between Cruise and the rest is that the CEO has built a
self driving car from scratch.

Because of the inherent path dependency in Hybrid systems (i.e. Software
written for one car will most certainly not work on other hardware
configurations), I believe having technical knowledge in the leadership makes
a huge difference in the long run.

The Presence of "old world" tech managers is going to hurt any AV project
because building ML systems is so very different because of the implicit
empiricism and randomness inherent in the process and the systems.

~~~
CardenB
What self driving car companies does this out cruise ahead of? (Which
companies have CEOs that don't have experience building self driving cars?)

~~~
linkregister
The Waymo CEO's experience is from Hyundai and a company called True Car.

Uber doesn't lack a CEO without self-driving car experience. It lacks a CEO
period.

The Volvo CEO's experience is in sales.

------
jakelarkin
my unpopular personal opinion (strictly as a casual observer): self-driving
will only be commercially viable as an augmented safety technology in single-
owner vehicles (collision avoidance, lane keeping etc.) for ~20 years before
we come close to reaching full-autonomy.

What we have currently; maybe four or five 9s of reliability in perfect
conditions is not nearly good enough for autonomous car sharing. If the car
breaks down or is in a collision what is the passenger going to do? drive it
themselves to the shoulder and get out? How far are we from autonomous systems
harmoniously and safely coexisting with the most erratic human
drivers/bikers/pedestrians? How far from adverse weather conditions? How will
we finance 100 million $80,000 autonomous vehicles.

Automated collision mitigation is already in many new cars and the data on
accident rates is just materializing. Toyota preemptively put it's
radar/camera based system in ALL of their cars for 2017. Its rumored that the
NHTSA will mandate it for all manufacturers in the near future. The gradual
progression of these developments is that these systems will add features
incrementally and gain economies-of-scale until one day in the far far future
driver input will be minimal. Only then will autonomous ride sharing become
viable.

~~~
richardwhiuk
Human drivers are pretty terrible. I'd imagine if it breaks down, then the
same breakdown cover everyone has at the moment will kick in.

~~~
vkou
> Human drivers are pretty terrible.

I beg to differ. The average sober human driver has 1 fatal accident in
120-300 million miles traveled, depending on where they live in North America.

Given that we are bags of meat and water, have reaction times measured in
hundreds of milliseconds, were never designed to operate heavy machinery, and
manage to achieve all that on a mere 100 watts, that's pretty amazing.

~~~
kelnos
Where are you getting that data? [1] claims that the rate was 1.27 deaths per
billion miles in 2008, and 1.25 in 2016.

What do you consider the threshold for human drivers being good or bad? Even
if we could get to 1 death per billion miles (with human drivers), I'd
consider that pretty bad.

Regardless, if an autonomous driving system can do better, that's all that
really matters. We're not there yet, but it's not inconceivable that we could
be before _too_ long.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_U...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States#Introduction)

~~~
vkou
The death rate varies widely from region to region. The article you linked
cites Ontario, with its 3 deaths/1 billion miles. Denmark has 1 death/1
billion miles. South Carolina is a graveyard, with 12 deaths/1 billion miles.

Also, ~40% of driving deaths (Again, with significant regional variation) are
due to alcohol use.

I'd consider 1 death per billion miles pretty good. That's one fatal mistake
in 25 million hours of driving. That's a lot of hours.

> Regardless, if an autonomous driving system can do better, that's all that
> really matters. We're not there yet, but it's not inconceivable that we
> could be before too long.

Agreed.

------
miheermunjal
Can't believe I'm saying this... but what an acquisition for GM. Masterful
potential future pivot

~~~
aphextron
GM is killing it right now. Bolt is the first truly great EV ever built at an
"affordable" price. Model 3 is getting all the hype now, but when it's all
said and done GM will have beaten them to market by a year with an equally
comparable or better product at the same price point.

~~~
bogomipz
>"Bolt is the first truly great EV ever built at an "affordable" price."

I would curious to hear your opinion on what things specifically makes the
Bolt a great EV - features, comparative specs etc.

~~~
aphextron
>I would curious to hear your opinion on what things specifically makes the
Bolt a great EV - features, comparative specs etc.

It's the first mass produced, purpose designed, non-luxury EV available in the
US with:

\- Greater than 200 miles range

\- Active thermal management for the battery (essential for battery longevity
and extended use with quick charging).

\- Full seating for 5

\- Top IIHS safety rating

\- Standard level 2 autonomy

\- Cargo capacity comparable to a regular hatchback

At a price that _just barely_ starts to make sense for the average driver when
you factor in fuel savings and tax subsidies.

~~~
bogomipz
Thanks, that certainly is impressive. I didn't understand your last comment:

>"At a price that just barely starts to make sense for the average driver when
you factor in fuel savings and tax subsidies."

At $36K and just using $5K as an arbitrary tax subsidy number isn't it the
same price as most US mini SUV style cars?

~~~
vkou
Hatchbacks are not mini-SUVs, and many people can't afford to own a mini-SUV.
$36,000 with no trims is pricy for a new car.

I've been adamant that owning an EV would be a non-starter for me, but having
seen the Bolt, if I were shopping for a new car, I'd buy one in a heartbeat.

~~~
bogomipz
I didn't say that hatchbacks were SUVs, it was simply a comp as the sedan
market is giving way to the compact SUV in the US.

$36K is pretty close to average car price in the US now:

[https://www.edmunds.com/about/press/average-vehicle-
transact...](https://www.edmunds.com/about/press/average-vehicle-transaction-
price-hits-all-time-high-in-2016-according-to-edmundscom.html)

I think you are right that there are many people who can't afford a $35K car
which is why leasing is seeing such an uptick:

[https://www.edmunds.com/about/press/automotive-lease-
volume-...](https://www.edmunds.com/about/press/automotive-lease-volume-
reaches-record-high-in-2016-according-to-new-edmunds-report.html)

A compact SUV is one of the best selling card this year in the US and at ~20K
its not actually that pricey compared the average car price in the USA of
$34K.

And the compact SUV is looking like it it will dislodge the sedan's long
dominance. See:

[https://seekingalpha.com/article/4064632-new-u-s-car-
sales-k...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4064632-new-u-s-car-sales-king-
nissan-rogue)

and

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/05/01/why-
nis...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2017/05/01/why-nissan-may-
top-suv-sales-charts-2017/101143592/)

~~~
aphextron
>$36K is pretty close to average car price in the US now:

You have to keep in mind that $36k 'average' number is highly inflated by
luxury purchases. Most people end up spending closer to $20k. I think when
they hit below that magical $19,995 number we will see massive adoption.

~~~
dragonwriter
Yeah, that's a mean not a median, and is therefore the wrong average to use
for this purpose, which calls for median (or even mode in preference to mean.)

------
aluminussoma
I am skeptical. It sounds way too perfect, like a story manufactured for PR.
If it really is that way, then great.

What is the reputation of Cruise in the self-driving community?

~~~
lucidrains
The only reason I paid any attention was because of an impressive demo they
put out a few months back.
[https://youtu.be/6tA_VvHP0-s](https://youtu.be/6tA_VvHP0-s) Still, who knows
at this point.

~~~
yourapostasy
Neat, but I've yet to see a demo of a self-driving vehicle in rain so hard
drivers slow down from 65 mph to 45 mph, the wipers at their fastest setting
are struggling to keep up, and when you drive through a puddle, the splash
from the water obscures the windshield for a couple seconds. Conditions with
such low visibility from the rain coming down so hard that you wish you had a
clear view screen (also called spin window) [1], usually found on ships and
machine tools that use lots of liquid. Humans regularly drive through this
kind of rain, though not well. If a self-driving platform relies exclusively
upon LIDAR, my understanding is seeing through this much rain requires a lot
more processing.

The rain demos I've seen [2] [3] [4] are all in wet weather, but not this kind
of heavy rain, where a promise of self-driving technology saving lives and
property can be more assuredly realized. If anyone in the field knows of one
of the contenders already working on training in such poor conditions, then
please post a link to a demo if one is available.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_view_screen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_view_screen)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs9Gr9V2mOE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs9Gr9V2mOE)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlazzsroCA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlazzsroCA)

[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMvgtPN2IBU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMvgtPN2IBU)

~~~
mikepurvis
IMO, the real answer is that no one should be driving in that kind of weather,
and autonomous systems which refuse to do so are simply doing what humans
should be doing.

I'd be very content with an autonomous vehicle that would detect these
conditions and pull to the side of the road to wait for things to improve
before proceeding.

~~~
quicklyfrozen
These conditions can come on very quickly, so even if your solution is to pull
over and stop, you'll still need to find a way to do it safely.

And if you're somewhere this is common (e.g. Florida), and there are still
human drivers, you'll have to account for them not slowing down at all.

If you're in an area where flash flooding can happen, waiting may be a more
dangerous option. Or you could be in a place where there is no place to stop.

------
delegate
Self-driving cars will slowly (or quickly) make car ownership redundant.

Why own a car (pay taxes, insurance, parking), when you can have one at your
door in a couple of minutes ? When you arrive at the destination, just exit
the car - no need to look for parking or anything like that, let the car
figure it out.

If technology can do that, then owning a car becomes more of a hobby than
necessity. I hope GM's strategy is aligned with this, as the profits will not
come from selling cars, but from providing the service.

~~~
mFixman
You can still do that with Uber. Why own a car today?

~~~
sourceless
You have to pay a human to take you. Humans are expensive.

~~~
aianus
The human part is pretty cheap compared to the other parts at least here in
Toronto:

Car insurance $220 (20h at minimum wage)

Car payment $780 (70h at minimum wage)

Gas $200 (18h at minimum wage)

Parking $250 (22h at minimum wage)

If I didn't enjoy driving and having a nice car, it would already be cheaper
to Uber everywhere.

~~~
smm2000
$780/m lease is payment for 6 years pays for 60k car. More realistic lease
payment is $200-$250/m.

Average insurance in US is ~$100/m

------
chubot
_It’s available across all of the mapped area of San Francisco where the test
fleet operates, and the app works like any ride-sharing experience, mapping
ride requesters with available cars._

What area is that? Isn't all of San Francisco "mapped" 100 times over by this
point?

If the "mapped area" isn't all of San Francisco, does this speak to a
limitation of their tech or a regulatory/deployment issue?

~~~
maxerickson
They may be creating their own highly detailed maps. In that case it would be
a limitation of how much effort they have invested in generating the maps.

~~~
chubot
I'm not an expert, but the more detailed your maps, the higher chance that
they are inaccurate. Details of SF streets change regularly.

If they don't have good coverage of SF now, it's not just a fixed effort to
make it more detailed. It's a continuous effort.

Also there is no map of detours, etc. I had thought that many self-driving
algorithms were not relying as much on maps for this reason, but I could be
wrong.

At least Elon Musk said that humans don't need a global map to drive. They
just need two cameras pointing out the front windshield. Global maps help to
navigate, but they don't necessarily help you drive.

~~~
maxerickson
Yeah, they are all pretty tight lipped about exactly how map dependent they
are. But anytime they start talking about limited operating areas it is an
obvious question to ask.

And it is even possible that operating in areas with detailed maps is simply
more valuable (if the map improves their ability to evaluate the performance
of other systems).

------
guyfawkes303
This makes me so excited. I can't wait until the interiors of cars can change
completely due to the safety brought by self driving cars. If all cars were
self driving and communicated with each other, the risk of crash would be
almost nonexistent (obviously there would still be wildlife and other issues).
Given a near 0% chance of crash however, we could remove many of the annoying
'features' of a current car, like seat belts and having all the seats in the
car face forward. Maybe you can even order specific types of cars for what you
want. Tired? Order a bed car. Just a door and inside is a bunch of mattresses
and pillows with windows that can be blacked out. Late for work? Order a work
car. Has desks with swiveling chairs etc. Just getting groceries or going
shopping? Order a hauler car, etc.

~~~
sloppycee
A public 'bed car' sounds gross.

~~~
spikels
Think of hotels or airline/train sleeper seats not public transit.

~~~
lmm
Sleeper trains usually have an attendant in every carriage. Doing that would
seem to defeat the point of a self-driving car.

------
woofyman
>each also has a safety driver in place behind the wheel for testing and as
required by law. Still, Cruise says those drivers have had to take over manual
control of vehicles engaged in Cruise Anywhere service only on a few
occasions, with the vast majority of the driving done autonomously.

------
drawnwren
I've seen these driving around SF, they're still using the standard engineer
in the driver's seat model. One almost hit me when I did the standard SF,
'drive around the person waiting to turn left in your lane' thing on 16th.

~~~
JshWright
Did you have the right of way in that situation?

~~~
drawnwren
I think so? I don't know the law, but I do know if I'm turning left and
someone else is turning left in the other lane - in sf, I need to make sure
the cars behind them aren't going around them in the same lane.

~~~
JshWright
I guess I'm not understanding the scenario. A car was stopped in your lane
waiting to turn. Presumably you should wait until they have turned, or make a
safe lane change to another lane to move around them?

~~~
drawnwren
Yeah, I don't know if you're in SF - but on the one lane roads, traffic
doesn't stop for people turning left at lights. Again, I don't know the
legality - but I've seen police and government workers do it as well. Because
the streets are made w/ enough space for vehicles to park next to the lanes of
traffic - there is enough room to pass on the right in an intersection.

~~~
mtourne
I understand that part. But not the one about the cruise car almost hitting
you.

So: one lane street, person in front of you turning left, you pass them to the
right in the space where there might be street parking which extends into the
intersection. During that time, the car trying to turn left is finally able to
do so and the car immediately behind it is the cruise car. Cruise-car is now
able to go straight and almost hits you as you're both competing for that one
lane?

~~~
drawnwren
Nope, cruise car was in the other lane turning left. It turned into my lane
just after I passed the car turning left and the cruise car made a sudden stop
in the wrong (my) lane. Had it continued, it would've collided with my rear
wheel - so I'm like 75% sure I wouldn't have been at fault.

~~~
JshWright
So, by the sounds of things, everything worked as designed. In many similar
situations with a human behind the wheel, that would have been a collision.

Based on personal experience (as a firefighter/paramedic), I wouldn't be
surprised if a not-insignificant percentage of collisions (both car/car and
car/bike) in SF are caused by that very scenario.

Personally, that sounds like an anecdote very much in favor of automated cars.

~~~
drawnwren
You're completely off base here. I'd say I do this 10-15 times a day. So ~100
times a week, and there is never an issue. I am infrequently the first car to
do it. I put it in quotes because it is a very common practice in SF. You
would have to wait through every light twice to get anywhere in the Mission if
you didn't do this. It's mostly single lane with no turn light. I noted that
it was odd because I very rarely have problems doing this.

------
Dirlewanger
So GM bought this, but I thought they also had their partnership with Lyft?
Are GM just betting on different horses and seeing which properties turn out
to be the most fruitful?

~~~
farco
GM purchased Cruise for access to its self-driving technology and software
engineering talent. GM invested $500 million in Lyft to leverage the ride
sharing platform with its future fleet of autonomous vehicles.

These two horses aren't competing against each other.

~~~
nharada
but then why build a ride sharing service for Cruise if Lyft has already done
it?

------
ilaksh
I think if Cruise or Waymo want to take the next step in promotion they will
take the gags out of the testers mouths and let them tell us how well it
actually works.

------
dude3
Just an observation. There's this tricky corner in the Marina
Fillmore/NorthPoint. It took the corner pretty fast and I was surprised (could
have been under manual control). People cross there indiscriminately without
looking and I have been caught in a few close situations in my car. A creeping
system around corners blocked by cars could be helpful.

~~~
inferiorhuman
Their cars have trouble with left turns as well. I was walking to Rainbow a
few weeks ago and heard a bunch of honking. Turns out the car wouldn't make a
left on a green light (Folsom at 13th).

Fast forward a few days and the same thing happened, this time at Mission and
18th. Only at this intersection there's a no left turn restriction and the
driver overrode it and made the left.

If one of Cruise's autonomous cars is doing something aggressive I'd assume
it's under human control. Hopefully the cars won't pick up too many bad
habits.

~~~
ghaff
Left hand turns are one of the tricky things (as experts like John Leonard
have also pointed out). The appropriate behavior is VERY context-dependent.
Ordinary prudent and conservative behavior in some circumstances is you're-
never-going-to-make-a-turn and you'll cause road rage in other drivers under
other circumstances.

~~~
inferiorhuman
Sure, the first time the driver intervened there was no oncoming traffic. The
second time there was traffic and a "no left turn" sign.

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tyingq
Sounds like the tech itself is in pretty good shape, but was surprised at the
haphazard looking way it's grafted onto the car. Pretty sure I'm seeing zip
ties and generic aluminum t-slot, with the front sensors sticking quite a ways
out from the overall profile of the car. Pretty sure that's hitting someone's
shin/knee as they exit the car at some point.

Not trying to make too big a deal of that, but now that they are offering
something public facing, seems like a good time to address that. It doesn't
convey a strong message of ready-for-prime-time. It's certainly less polished
than the competition.

~~~
deckar01
They stick out about the same amount as the side mirrors, which I assume is
not a coincidence. I suspect that molded body parts to hide the extra hardware
won't make much of a difference to the majority of consumers. Do you want a
ride in the cheap, safe, ugly car or the expensive, glitchy, sexy car?

~~~
tyingq
>Do you want a ride in the cheap, safe, ugly car or the expensive, glitchy,
sexy car?

Consumers tend to perceive things a certain way that's not always grounded in
common sense.

Also, obstacles close to the ground are easier to miss visually.

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hattie
Is it currently free for employees?

I wonder what the premium would be for the psychological anxiety of taking a
self driving car. If I pay $5 for a Uber ride, I'd need a significant discount
for the equivalent autonomous ride at this stage.

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asah
FYI I see cruise cars all the time in SF. Natural next step.

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fiatjaf
I thought this was about Tom Cruise.

Who the hell is "Cruise"? That title is not the way to present the company.

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whipoodle
Now that's a perk. Way better than free kale chips.

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hammock
Why does the photo show a lady getting in the back seat? There is no
driver(?), and the front seat has an airbag...

~~~
r0fl
Back seat behind the driver is statistically the safest. In case of a
collision a driver will instinctively try to save himself and therefore crash
with the passenger side. Being behind the driver therefore puts you at less
risk

~~~
moonka
In an autonomous ride would this still hold true?

~~~
ugh123
I can't tell if thats a joke or if you're serious :)

