
Waymo teams up with Jaguar to intro a new, premium self-driving car - kaboro
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/27/waymo-teams-up-with-jaguar-to-intro-a-new-premium-self-driving-car/
======
r00fus
For those who are interested in specs of the I-PACE, I had to do a bit of
seperate searching [1] for those. Hopefully the specs are somewhat similar.
300mi range isn't too shabby and it looks decent.

"As standard the car comes with a 90kWH battery pack which produces a total
system output of 400PS and 696 NM.

It is powered by two electric motors which produce 200PS and 348Nm each and
are mounted to both the front and rear axles, enabling four-wheel drive.

Due to the instant torque of an electric powertrain the car will be able to
sprint from 0-60mph in just 4.5 seconds and on to a top speed of 124 mph.

The car will be able to travel up to 298 miles of range on a single charge."

[1] [https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/937715/Jaguar-
Waym...](https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/937715/Jaguar-Waymo-self-
driving-I-Pace-car-deal)

(edit: link)

~~~
gervase
Were you able to determine if the car is capable of being manually driven as
well? Or is it self-driving only?

I chuckled a bit trying to imagine a situation where the SDC logic would
conclude that it was necessary to floor the accelerator up to 124MPH.

~~~
r00fus
The I-PACE is being by Jaguar sold to consumers (at 64k quid a pop, not cheap)
so the answer must be yes, manually driven. It's in the article.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
> not cheap

Well, if every Tom, Dick and Rajiv thinks it's being driven by a computer and
they can cut it off ...

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Ajedi32
Here's Waymo's official blog post on the subject:
[https://medium.com/waymo/meet-our-newest-self-driving-
vehicl...](https://medium.com/waymo/meet-our-newest-self-driving-vehicle-the-
all-electric-jaguar-i-pace-375cecc70eb8)

~~~
Gustomaximus
> We’ll add up to 20,000 I-PACEs to Waymo’s fleet in the next few years —
> that’s enough to drive about a million trips in a typical day.

This sentence feels marketing more than informing. Whats the initial release
volume? Where etc. Up to 20k cars doesn't mean much and they think it will
average 50 trips per car per day - seems hopeful.

A little disappointed in this announcement.

~~~
adrianmonk
I wouldn't be surprised if "up to 20,000" just means Jaguar said they can't
build more than that because it would interrupt their ability to meet their
regular orders and/or it would require too much investment / hiring to expand
their factories.

Although, if 10,000 were definitely enough, they might not have made an
agreement for 20,000, so maybe it does sort of tell you something.

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coding123
Probably should have waited a little longer - I know they're trying to catch
the glow around Waymo's supposed safety in light of the Uber incident, but
probably should hold off - the general public isn't on top of this like HN is.

I mean - I think all this talk of going live in 2018 should be stopped by
officials until they create a TEST for SDVs. Also, it wouldn't be a bad thing
for SDVs to run an internal offline unit test given a fake lidar scenario and
make sure it doesn't kill people (every time before the car leaves the parking
spot).

~~~
treis
The problem is that as soon as you define a test then these companies will put
an emphasis on making sure their cars work for the test instead of the real
world. Then, when something happens in the real world they say well it passed
the driving test.

It's one of the perpetual problems of regulation. As soon as you define a test
or requirement companies will start gaming the system to meet them instead of
addressing the purpose behind the regulation.

~~~
coding123
It still makes sense to have a test. We put every citizen through a driving
test. Those are gamed too, but at least they learned a lot of basics... and
they are probably better drivers than people not required to take a test.
After that, market forces will hopefully go the rest of the mile.

I mean heck, this latest incident wouldn't have passed the original Darpa
challenge that got us here.

~~~
s17n
Pretty sure that driving tests for humans do absolutely nothing - if you
eliminated the whole process (and replaced it with a simple age requirement)
it wouldn't show up in safety stats at all

On the other hand, any self driving company is running an extremely
complicated and extensive test suite on their code. Developing these tests is
a core engineering challenge to making a sdv and any test developed by a
regulator will be a joke by comparison (unless we give the regulator billions
of dollars to essentially replicate the work.)

~~~
galdosdi
I agree that the USA driving test system is insanely weak, but they definitely
do something. I failed my driving test twice before passing it when I was a
college kid in Arkansas. One thing I noticed is the examiners seemed to
intentionally try to yell and stress me out. In retrospect, that was a smart
way to ensure only someone who has become comfortable enough with driving that
they have extra processing power left to handle dealing with passengers is
able to become an unsupervised driver. It's a low bar, but it's still higher
than "that's the brake pedal to stop, that's the gas pedal to go, have fun"

------
Fricken
20,000 robtotaxis, a _million trips a day_ , my oh my. Go big or go home. Uber
and Lyft do an estimated 170,000 trips a day in San Francisco, so if Waymo
dumps just 1/5th of their fleet on SF, the rideshare companies may as well
pack their bags and go home.

~~~
notheguyouthink
If prices decrease for AI drivers too, I could totally see myself selling my
car entirely too. Granted, I live in a smaller city in Washington, ie not
Seattle/etc, so it'll be a while for me I'm sure.

I'd be curious to see if a lot of people did a similar thing (giving up their
cars). Price is the kicker here though. When I own a car, I can pretty much
drive as frequently or infrequently as I want. Where as with Taxi's/etc, the
cost would quickly rack up. So these AIs are going to have to be _cheap_ by
comparison.

Man, the future of this tech is so exciting for me.

~~~
notatoad
>Price is the kicker here though. When I own a car, I can pretty much drive as
frequently or infrequently as I want.

if you've ever actually sat down and priced out how much each usage of your
car costs you, it's not that good of a deal. Personal vehicles seem cheap
because people treat them as a non-optional fixed cost, but between the cost
of the vehicle itself, insurance, fuel, maintenance, and your time spent
driving you can price a car service fairly high and still have it compare
favourably to owning a car.

The trick will just be to convince people to start thinking about a car
service the same way they currently think about their car payments or fuel
costs. I'd be curious to see what a per-month subscription service would look
like instead of a per-ride fee structure like taxis or ubers currently use.
$300-400/mo for unlimited rides would be, for me, a better deal than owning a
car. I'm curious if that could be profitable.

~~~
notheguyouthink
I have priced it out, as I don't like driving, and it was cost me _insanely_
more to taxi/etc. I didn't even get done pricing, tbh heh.

It's roughly a $50-$70 ride for me _every morning to work_. That already puts
me over triple my car payment. The other random trips to the store/etc would
be far cheaper, thankfully, but depending on usage I can't imagine it being
less than my gas costs in a month (roughly $50/m). There's still
repairs/insurance/licensing/etc, but I doubt they're costing me the $700 extra
that just driving to work would be costing me via taxi.

The problem is I don't live in the city, so my distances are greater, and tend
to be very anti-taxi.

I actually _want_ to take an uber to town on the weekends so I can drink/etc
at dinner, but I usually don't because of how expensive it is.

Mind you, I don't think it's unfairly priced currently - but that still
doesn't make it as cheap as I'd need it to be to use all the time.

~~~
ironjunkie
Agree completely with you.

That being said, owning a car is still a must if you have anything close to an
outdoor lifestyle. For example:

Leaving the car at the trailhead several hundred miles from home for the whole
weekend.

With Uber and Lyft, I already see my friends living an Urban lifestyle
completely dumping their car. When this will become automated, another portion
will likely dump their car.

But for now at least, I cannot see the outdoor crowd, or the ones living in a
real rural area (think opposite of the SF hipster) dumping their car.

~~~
prawn
I actually think rentable self-driving cars would be useful for the trailhead
problem. For non-spur trails especially, organising a shuttle service is a bit
of a pain and relatively expensive.

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angel_j
Why would you choose an auto maker known to produce vehicles with high
maintenance costs?

~~~
galdosdi
Because the target market is luxury customers who are not price sensitive and
are willing to pay a bunch for what they perceive as the cool feeling of being
in a cool car?

Listen, I don't understand why Gatorade comes in flavors other than orange,
but if I was Gatorade, I wouldn't discontinue all the other flavors. Some
people seem to like them for some reason.

~~~
lulmerchant
I own an F-Pace, and it's all for the luxury, not the coolness. Riding in it
and driving it is simply a luxury experience. I'd consider buying one of
these, except it's quite ugly and has the same dumb wheel aesthetic that BMW
put on their even uglier electric cars.

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nepotism2018
Premium title is misleading, self-driving car capability isn't something
"already" available on a "budget" fiat 500

~~~
dragonwriter
Waymo has several SDCs in its fleet, this is premium relative to those.

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ungzd
Isn't Jaguar considered "racing" car? How about not just automatic driving,
but automatic _racing_?

~~~
khalilravanna
Not really. It's really a luxury car brand. They have sporty fast cars (I'd
kill for a manual F type) but they're by no means a race car company. They had
an F1 team but it wasn't very successful and it looks like they only dabble in
motorsports a little bit as of recent according to wikipedia. If I'm looking
for really performance-focused cars I'm not looking at Jaguars. I'm looking at
Porsches, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLarens, AMG Mercedes, M BMWs, etc. With
Jags you're really spending a lot of $$$ for comparable performance from
something like an M3 or a Z06 Corvette (an admittedly difficult to compete
with package).

I think the primary allure of the Jaguar brand is that dignified, beautiful,
English car exemplified by the old XJ (the car from Shaun of the Dead is an
XJ). It's allure is not "I'm gonna hoon in this thing and hit 0-60mph in under
4 seconds."

~~~
spitfire
Well they had a history of dominating at le mans in the 1950's. Then they had
the E-type in the 1960's and 1970's which Enzo Ferrari called the most
beautiful car in the world - it was also tough competition for a Ferrari at
1/5th the price.

So they _had_ a sporting history which like other car companies they're now
resting on.

They _also_ had a history as being the car for the self made man. The MkII was
_the_ car for bank and train robberies at the time. You'd meet a lot of Jag
owners in jail...

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dingo_bat
I wish Uber hadn't failed like they did. Right now it seems waymo will be the
only player in robo taxis for some time to come. Not good for me as a
consumer.

~~~
on_and_off
Other companies that Uber and Waymo are working on this, and most don't have
Uber's toxic culture.

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boxcardavin
The big signal will be whether or not they launch this in a city that
experiences a lot of rain, and what they do during bad weather.

~~~
xeromal
The first gas car only had one gas station to use. Progress is made in small
steps. We don't have to have the whole framework ready before anyone can use
it.

~~~
boxcardavin
I wasn't commenting on feasibility or logistics, more on the state of their
progress and if they can fully replace current services in cities or if it
will augment them. If, for example, they don't work during heavy rain, then
they cannot replace Uber/Lyft in most East Coast or Northern US cities.

~~~
ramses0
Actually, interestingly, perhaps that is "right-sizing" the cost of Taxi
service?

Humans only at the beck and call of self-driving cars who cannot see well in
the rain. Instead of "surge pricing" for high demand, it would be "human
pricing" to pay for the "skilled" driver in the rain and snow.

ie: $1/mi during sunny days, $10/mi during snow days, instead of $7/mi every
day of the year. Very interesting to consider, and honestly a bit scary
thinking of so many people I've met who are using Uber to make a living. :-S

~~~
mertd
Labor is probably not fluid enough. I expect people to value steady income
very highly. That might change if basic income was a thing though.

~~~
ramses0
Very fair point and counterpoint! $100/day guaranteed is worth more than
(rand()*200)/day. Consistency is worth more than variability.

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amelius
This seems silly. With self-driving cars, it doesn't make sense to own a car.
Instead, transportation will become a service. And a luxury product doesn't
fit in this space.

Unless, of course, they want to serve rich people first.

~~~
adrianmonk
Their blog post says "built for Waymo’s transportation service". To me that
sounds like they won't be available for regular people to buy.

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a9a
This is a bit of a let down and suggests to me that either they are not
confident in the tech arriving at scale any time soon or they are not serious
about directly challenging Uber. These are expensive vehicles and not custom-
designed for a self-driving transportation service. I would be surprised if
they were much cheaper per ride than Uber in cheap markets.

If they were serious about taking on Uber/Lyft soon I would expect them to be
willing to make a bet on a long-life, extremely cost-focused custom vehicle.
Maybe this is a stop gap to keep proving the tech until someone else (Uber?)
gets impatient, licenses their tech, and spends the vehicle capital.

~~~
jonknee
The cost of the kit Waymo will add to the cars is surely more than enough to
make any vehicle choice quite expensive by conventional standards.

It shouldn't matter too much though, drivers are very expensive compared to
cars. Not paying a hypothetical Uber driver $100 a day could easily finance a
supercar, let alone a Jaguar. And the autonomous car can work triple shifts.

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sparrish
Jaguar doesn't say "premium" to me. With all their electrical issues in the
past, I'll be staying far away from an electric Jaguar.

~~~
_ph_
You cannot compare Jaguar back then with today. Both Jaguar and Land Rover
have been owned by Tata for a while now and today both companies produce state
of the art vehicles with proper electrics. They mostly carry the name and a
bit of the company tradition over from the past, but little else.

~~~
kylec
Tata's not exactly premium either

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

~~~
_ph_
They are an industry giant (e.g. large steel production). Since they took
control over Jaguar and Land Rover, both companies have produced quite high
quality cars.

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givinguflac
“A self-driving car that _won’t_ make you sick and kill you.”

Edit: ok I’m sorry I made one joke comment referencing arrested development.
Sue me.

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gwern
Compared to the rumors yesterday that the big Waymo announcement was going to
be announcing expansion to NYC, this is a big letdown. Who cares what
manufacturer they use? The only interesting part is the 20k number.

~~~
Alex3917
> Who cares what manufacturer they use?

The fact that they're trying to market premium self-driving cars is
interesting, because as you say there is no obvious reason to care. After all
if they're all going to be driven exactly the same way and have an almost
identical safety profile, what difference does it make?

~~~
wcarron
Potentially, high class events (e.g. the Academy Awards). I can certainly see
the massive value of having a luxury self-driving car shuttle celebrities to
an event millions of Americans watch every year.

It's marketing for Jaguar and Waymo. And also, Uber has premium categories,
too. Its got virtue signaling potential for the users.

And, to be fair, people have aesthetic preferences. I do. If you said to me,
"this cardboard box will autonomously take you anywhere you want to go without
ever crashing. Or you can take this Audi S7 will do the same but there's a 5%
chance you'll crash", I'd take the Audi. Personal preferences can't just be
ignored, especially in the auto industry.

