
As of April 7, 2020, CA DMV has issued two Driverless Vehicle Testing Permits - pengaru
https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/driverlesstestingpermits
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Animats
Interesting. There are permits for "testing with a driver" (about 20 of
those), and "testing without a driver" (only 2), "deployment for public use"
(none so far), and "autonomous delivery trucks" (none listed).

The CA DMV's requirements for testing with a driver read a lot like those for
a learner's permit - must have licensed driver in vehicle, no commercial use,
no large vehicles. Testing without a driver has more requirements, although
it's mostly self-certification. DMV doesn't require a road test.

Here's the form for applying for testing without a driver.[1] It's all pretty
straightforward. If you actually have technology to do the job reliably, it's
not going to be a problem. Uber used to complain that California was too
restrictive for them to test here, until they ran down a pedestrian in
Arizona. DMV seems to be doing a good job of sorting out the working
technology from the fake-it-til-you-make-it crowd.

[1]
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/63d33316-895a-474c...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/wcm/connect/63d33316-895a-474c-a410-8fce83330236/ol318.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=)

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briga
Are there really only 20 permits for self-driving cars with drivers?

I swear there are more than 20 self-driving cars driving around the streets of
Silicon Valley.

~~~
nkingsy
20 permitted companies

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nimbius
In case anyone is interested in a permit, they run a cool $3600, renewed every
2 years.

[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_...](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_content_en/dmv/vehindustry/ol/auton_veh_tester)

you also need to own more than 25 registered motor vehicles and a five million
dollar surety bond.

interesting bits...

> a manufacturer shall report within 10 days after the collision, any
> collision originating from the operation of the autonomous vehicle that
> resulted in property damage, bodily injury or death.

10 days? why not 10 hours? these manufacturers ideally know at all times where
each vehicle is and what its doing, and a police report takes about 20
minutes.

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trollian
10 days is the California standard time limit for reporting accidents:
[https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/forms/sr/sr1](https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/forms/sr/sr1)

This imposes the same rules on machines / manufacturers as humans. Seems right
for this phase of development. If this whole driverless cars thing works out
hopefully the machines can do better than humans. They can sit on hold for
longer at least.

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gkoberger
For those curious:

Waymo is owned by Google (well, Alphabet), and is looking to compete with
Uber/Lyft.

Nuro is backed by Softbank, and is looking to start with food/grocery
deliveries.

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sdan
Waymo has more competition with Cruise, Aurora, and Argo than what Uber/Lyft
is trying.

I've heard that Uber ATG is barely staying afloat and Lyft is just pumping
money just as a desperate attempt (their platform is much more powerful, which
is what they're betting on).

~~~
empath75
I interviewed with one of those companies and it just seems bizarre that
people are investing so many millions of dollars into building a taxi company.
How big _is_ the taxi industry when all is said and done?

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dsl
They aren't replacing _taxis_ , they are replacing _cars_.

Unless you want to own a specific speciality car (Ferrari, Jeep, etc), Waymo
eliminates the need for you to buy one. It's Uber but without the overhead of
paying a person, which means price could normalize so close to the actual
operating expenses of the vehicle that it just doesn't make financial sense to
use anything else.

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jocker12
Studies show something different -
[https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/348138/person...](https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/348138/personal-
vehicle-ownership-extremely-important-t.html)

~~~
gibspaulding
That study doesn't seem terribly relevant. It concludes that owning a vehicle
is important to people _right now_. It doesn't seem unreasonable to assume
that in the future, cheap and ubiquitous ride sharing options could pretty
quickly drive those percentages down.

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enahs-sf
Kind of surprised Tesla isn’t further along. Maybe FSD is further than we
thought.

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Shivetya
Owner here of a TM3 here.

To me the issue is that Tesla seems to be shooting for the moon, trying to do
it all in one shot, rather than its on rails method that we have seen from
other manufacturers. By on rails I mean only on very accurately mapped routes
with no deviation.

I would not trust my car with my eyes closed, I do however trust it with
supervision which still is a major relief from the stress of driving.

One issue that seems being dodged is, my current software and hardware allows
the cars too represent stop signs, traffic lights, cones, and oddly trashcans.
Guess what is missing, speed limit signs. The suspicion is that MobileEye
holds the patent and either Tesla won't pay for it or MobileEye won't license
it. So how you can have a self driving car that cannot recognize speed limit
signs is not evident to me; road data is not complete.

~~~
tln
That can be part of the maps data, right? EG Google maps shows the speed limit
when navigating.

~~~
NovemberWhiskey
What about variable speed limits, construction, etc?

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spike021
Can @dang or someone update the title with "California DMV" to be a bit more
specific here?

