
Uber ordered to stop self-driving vehicle service in San Francisco - coloneltcb
https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-ordered-to-stop-self-driving-vehicle-service-in-san-francisco/
======
JamilD
I want self-driving cars to happen as quickly as possible, but Uber seems like
they were extremely reckless and negligent here. Why not apply for a permit
and stay on the safe side?

And with at least two reported incidents of these cars running red lights, it
seems like driver training and attentiveness was lacking. If the software
wasn't ready, fine, but you have to be aware of that and train your drivers to
be 100% attentive to their surroundings, especially since it's the first day
of real, commercial trials.

~~~
automatwon
_Uber seems like they were extremely reckless_

YES. I live 10 feet away from the garage. I've noticed over the past few
months that they've been ramping in typical startup fashion: hockey stick
growth.

After reading about Lyft's CEO, a narrative of "nice guys finishing last", I
started realizing how unscrupulous Uber is. Sadly, cut-throat businesses win.

I recently took an Uber ride, where the driver was an un-retired man in his
70s. He recently just abandoned his failing dry clean business. This one hits
close to home for me, because my parents are approaching their 70s, holding on
to a failing dry clean business, too. For me, hardworking people like this,
with arguably bad business acumen, are counter example to the notion of "if
you're poor, it's because you didn't work hard enough." Before the dry clean
business, the Uber driver ran a deli business, but that was a failure, too. No
doubt he possesses an entrepreneurial spirit, albeit he probably shouldn't. I
can't fault him for not being smarter. He proceeded to tell me about his idea
to create a website where people upload images of their face, at different
angle, and can get a custom printed 3d figurine, that he would hand paint
them. I didn't have the heart to tell him that as someone in the top 1% income
bracket of 20-something year olds, who consistently blows money on expensive
toys / gadgets / dinners, I would never spend $300 bucks on a custom painted
figurine. See, he was an artist before coming to America. He said "I want to
be an artist before I die. I was too busy making a living when I came to
America".

Uber gave this man a job. That's good. But he's being paid near minimum wage.
To achieve that, he has to work 12+ hour days to acquire the bonuses that Uber
uses to incentivize their drivers to become addicted. These are the kinds of
risk Uber induces on its drivers, customers, and other people on the road. The
sad reality is, he's going to be displaced from this minimum wage job by
automation, much earlier than people expect. Uber doesn't care. I'm not saying
Uber or any private company MUST care. I'm just illustrating how a company's
values permeates itself, and precipitates to individuals' livelihoods.

I recently read an article about the unit economics of Uber. It doesn't work
out. Uber, in it's current form is based on leveraging free VC money to
subsidize and incentivize somewhat artificial demand. It's predatory
monopolistic tactics. They won't be able to live up to their unicorn IPO
valuation hype. They NEED to expand into other domains. Recently, Uber
acquired an A.I. startup, which I think is an indicator of this.
Alternatively, they can fix the unit economics equation to be profitable.
Autonomous vehicles is the purported answer. This VC and unicorn valuation
environment, I believe, is resulting in this kind of hastiness, at the
increased risk of human lives.

~~~
thetrb
> I recently read an article about the unit economics of Uber. It doesn't work
> out. Uber, in it's current form is based on leveraging free VC money to
> subsidize and incentivize somewhat artificial demand.

I don't buy that argument. By that logic no taxi service could ever work out.
It might not work out at the current price levels, but once they squashed all
competitors they're free to raise their prices (similar to what Amazon does).

~~~
dx034
It's not that hard to set up a business like Uber if you only start with one
city. You don't need a global business. Taxi businesses also always worked per
city. As soon as it'd be lucrative, there will be some competition in the city
where it's worth most.

Sure, you can't just copy uber's app. But building a simple app with basic
functionality isn't that expensive. And people will mainly decide by price.

Their only chance to ever make back the losses is the self driving business.
If it works out they could be very profitable. If it doesn't, I don't believe
that they'll ever make back the investments.

Amazon is actually a good example. They also haven't really made back the
investments. They're still not very profitable. Maybe they never will be, who
knows. As long as enough investors believe in them they can comfortably afford
this style.

~~~
automatwon
_people will mainly decide by price._

They have, they are, and they will.

------
stuckagain
Self-driving Uber car blows red signal at crosswalk in SF:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CdJ4oae8f4)

~~~
JamilD
Updated Uber statement:

"This incident was due to human error. This is why we believe so much in
making the roads safer by building self-driving Ubers. This vehicle was not
part of the pilot and was not carrying customers. The driver involved has been
suspended while we continue to investigate."

[https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-
incident...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/14/uber-looking-into-incident-of-
self-driving-car-running-a-red-light-captured-on-dashcam/)

~~~
Boxbot
I find it telling that they do not actually say whether the car was in
autonomous mode when it ran the red light, only that it was "due to human
error". Was the human error that they didn't assume manual control and stop
the car?

~~~
brazzledazzle
I hope they wouldn't be that shortsighted. If they start suspending employees
because of getting caught on camera not reacting to the car's screw up in time
they're going to create a lot of distrust and encourage concealment of issues
that they'll need to know about to make a safe solution.

------
brilliantcode
This is really worrying for Uber. It's supposedly burning 2 billion dollars a
year. It doesn't own any fleet of vehicles or it's drivers. Neither is there a
sustainable cost savings that doesn't involve lighting pile of cash on fire.
It desperately needs driverless cars before Tesla and Google kills their
business off.

Now Uber has finally hit a regulatory wall which it won't be able to pay off.
It's likely to hit more such obstacles until it realizes it's not really in
the business of taxi but a business of acquiring market share with low
interest rate capital.

We won't see an Uber IPO anytime soon.

~~~
aetherson
It's not clear that Uber has hit a regulatory wall. The DMV wrote them a stern
note, yes. Uber has received various scary-sounding threats of government
sanction and has overcome them in the past (for example, at one point a German
judge threatened to fine them 250k euros per car per day). They have often
been successful in arguing their case or in going above or around
uncooperative regulators.

The California state government is not a monolith, and Uber is an experienced
lobbyist and negotiator. It's certainly possible that the DMV will prevail
here, but not a certainty. And even if the DMV does prevail, Uber can get the
appropriate permits and then resume, or else just pilot the program in one of
the 49 other states.

~~~
dmix
Exactly. Uber is likely already following all of the permit requirements ($5
million insurance and experienced drivers) so they just need to apply for one.
That assumes they don't challenge it in court based on the ambiguous language
of the bill about what determines an autonomous vehicle, which sounds like
their plan. They've demonstrated themselves to not be afraid of some bad press
or the court room.

Hardly a major roadblock at the pre-market testing stage for such a big
company already operating in Pittsburgh. They could easily shift testing to
other people more welcoming states and countries in the meantime.

------
snowmaker
I recommend reading the actual letter from the DMV. It's impressively well-
written, balanced, and thoughtful about autonomous technology. I was not
expecting a response like that from the government.

~~~
user5994461
Link?

Don't even know what DMV is.

~~~
detaro
It's embedded in the article.

------
scarmig
The only thing that might surpass Google's inability to execute on their
autonomous cars is Uber's congenital need to break the law for no reason at
all.

------
knorby
Uber has the garages for both Otto and these cars on Harrison, between 3rd and
4th streets, on the side of the lanes headed to I-80W/101S. When they need to
park either, particularly the semi-trucks, they get people in vests to come
out, stop traffic for pretty much all lanes of traffic, and slowly park their
delicate vehicles.... Glad to see this story.

------
symlinkk
Uber tries to break the law to get a competitive advantage yet again.
Innovation at its finest.

------
tudorw
Can anyone tell me if these things are smart enough to slow down enough
through a puddle to avoid splashing a pedestrian?

------
nodesocket
Does Tesla have this DMV permit for their autopilot feature?

~~~
belovedeagle
Why would they need it, except for testing their feature on public roads in
vehicles operated by Tesla themselves?

------
dsl
Uber is a company built on ignoring laws. Everything they did in the beginning
was against some form of taxi or car hire regulation, in the name of
disruption. (Regardless of what you think of the laws in question, they were
still being broken in the eyes of most regulators)

I don't know how I feel about that type of corporate philosophy (or Facebook's
"move fast break things") in light of projects where people can actually get
killed.

~~~
goalieca
Uber exemplifies the libertarian / anarchist subculture in tech. It seems to
be a winning strategy for them so far.

Edit: to clarify my position. This is why software will never be regarded as
an engineering profession. There is a complete disregard for everything that
would make us a profession. I'm saddened with the way the world has gone in
2016. It's like we rebelled against adulthood on a global scale.

~~~
ijustdontgetit
So I have an off topic question?

I originally got into tech because I hate my life and thought that tech was
this outlet that could actually make some change. I come from a world of
violence and abuse and never really cared for the powers that be. Tech seemed
like the answer.

So my question to the people who don't feel this way: why are you in tech?
Serious question. Tech only seems interesting because you can move fast. What
value do you find from working in this field if you don't feel this way? If
you have to work inside some system?

This comes from a person who lived in an abusive household most of my life and
still struggling to find something outside of QA while I work on my own
projects, but I don't really get the appeal of this field if all you want is a
house with kids and work within the system. It comes off as mediocre to me. So
as a person reaching almost 30 who hates life the way it is and wants to see a
change, please explain to me what you get out of this.

Thanks for those who answer this seriously.

~~~
judahmeek
I switched from Marketing to Computer Science because I got tired of writing
multiple page essays based on a few sentences out of a textbook and I wanted
to be in a field of study where I was judged by what I could or couldn't do
rather than by how many buzzwords I could fit in an essay.

But there's plenty of other reasons to be in tech: The promise of money is
almost as good as the finance industry; The ability to touch a lot of lives
and improve people's quality of life is another possibility; The desire to
understand technology as it exponentially permeates our lives was another
aspect of my decision.

------
jmelloy
What? There were self-driving vehicles in San Francisco? I'll spend the next
hour of my life getting up to speed with this. Good stuff!

------
edblarney
'Disrupt' is fine, but not when you're potentially putting lives at risk.

------
emp_zealoth
>"Safety is our top priority"

Do they want me to die from laughing?

------
hkon
Can't disrupt these days without breaking some laws.

------
Crito
If these people actually gave a damn about the environment they would embrace
self-driving cars. One-car-per-person is ludicrously wasteful.

------
serge2k
Uber just doesn't get the whole concept of regulations do they?

I understand violating ones that are "dumb" and hurt your business (e.g. taxi
medallions) or those that it's easier to just do it and figure out hte results
later (e.g. insurance) but this is literally "get the permit first".

They should process this nice and sloooooooooooow.

~~~
slowmotiony
I don't know about regulations, but Uber has made traveling around my city a
cheap and pleasurable experience for me, which was certainly not the case
before with the so called "legal and regulated taxis", constantly offering
shit service and outright scamming people. When it seems like the regulations
are not helping consumers, it's only natural that the consumers will not care
if a company follows them.

------
czep
The pedestrian was at fault for not installing Uber's app. This gives new
meaning to the term "god mode"... "Install our app, or DIE!"

------
Overtonwindow
I really hope California isn't overreacting, possibly due to industry pressure
from taxis etc. The state should be doing all it can to support, grow, and
encourage this innovation.

~~~
sp332
There are already 20 companies that have been granted permits. Uber might have
been granted one too, but they didn't even apply.
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testi...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testing)

~~~
Daviey
These are permits for Autonomous vehicles. Uber _couldn 't_ legitimately abide
by a permit as they would need to confirm that the "autonomous vehicle is
operated for testing purposes only"... and they want to use it as part of
their business model straight away.

Without looking into the specific legislation, on the surface it looks like a
reasonable interpretation.

All of the references from Uber state they are doing "self-driving".. which
isn't IMHO Autonomous, as it is only Level 3.
[https://newsroom.uber.com/pittsburgh-self-driving-
uber/](https://newsroom.uber.com/pittsburgh-self-driving-uber/)

I'd expect Uber to obtain a license when they are ready to move towards
driverless autonomous development, such as Level 4/5.

~~~
sundaeofshock
Uber doesn't get to decide if they are in violation of California regulations.

As for the permit, there is no guarantee that Uber will get one if they apply
for it; the state can refuse such an application. If they keep showing callous
disregard for public safety, they may not even be around to get refused by the
State of California.

~~~
Daviey
Uber does get to decide if they follow the _law_ and not the DMV's
_interpretation_ of it.

Providing the vehicle required human monitoring the actions of the car, it
isn't classed as an autonomous vehicle.. or do you disagree with my
interpretation of the below?

    
    
      (1) “Autonomous technology” means technology that has the capability to drive a vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring by a human operator.
      (2) (A) “Autonomous vehicle” means any vehicle equipped with autonomous technology that has been integrated into that vehicle.
    

[http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xh...](http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=VEH&division=16.6.&title=&part=&chapter=&article=)

Providing the vehicle design still requires a human to be monitoring the car,
it by _my_ _interpretation_ not an autonomous vehicle. Obviously, this will
change in the future.. and then they _will_ require a permit.

