Comment by rvz
3 years ago
Another decade for prototype self-driving cars to cover another state part of the US? $100BN in funding these gadgets and contraptions that don't work. Not even Tesla FSD can drive itself reliably at night without supervision, because it is not Level 5.
Until LiDAR becomes more cheaper and these cars CAN drive themselves safely at night without supervision in any state at scale and as advertised like a robotaxi, then you're looking into multiple decades of these research prototypes being 'useful'.
So far, that $100BN is a VC scam until proven otherwise.
>Another decade of researching a cancer cure to cover another different type of cancer? $1400BN in funding these cancer treatments that don't work. Not even radiotherapy can fully cure cancer...
Thats how I read it, sorry. We made tremendous leaps in the past decade with improving automated driving, is it fully automatic? No. Does it mean we should somehow stop funding it? No.
LiDAR is finally cheap.
I repeat my comment on LiDAR that I gave a few days ago. The gist is that LiDAR is cheap and you will be able to buy a LiDAR with sufficient resolution for in the next 1-2 years because it will be integrated in normal passenger cars for L2/L3 assistants. These cars are coming out now or in the next year.
LiDAR is finally getting cheap. OEMs (like VW) are very price sensitive. It is estimated the sensors from Valeo cost about 500 dollars. The fact that you see more and more normal passenger cars with higher resolution LiDARs means that LiDARs are getting cheaper.
The Audi A8 used Valeo's (with Ibeo) first generation low resolution LiDAR Scala 1 from the automotive supplier Valeo. Mercedes new models will be using Valeo's second (or third) generation LiDAR. All these are used for L2/L3 assistants. Valeo is a traditional large automotive supplier.
Luminar, a public company from the US, cooperates with Volvo. Some models will come with a LiDAR in the base configuration. These are "new LiDARs" with high resolution.
Innoviz, a 'startup' from Isreal, will supplies LiDARs to VW. Its angular resolution is (in its focus area) about 0.1 (or 0.2) degrees, which is sufficient for higher levels of autonomy and surpasses/equals the resolution of the expensive Velodyne sensors of the past. They will probably be in the same price range. Due to the limited FOV due to the technology, you will need multiply LiDARs.
Many new models from Chinese car brands will also ve equipped with a LiDAR. Most of them with Chinese LiDAR manufacturers like RoboSense or Hesai. Some are equipped by European manufactures like Ibeo/ZF. For example, there is the automotive sensor AT128 by Hesai. It targets normals vehicles (see price range above) and claims a similar performance (except for FOV, so you need multiple) like the Velodyne Ultra Puck (~$50000).
So costs of LiDARs are a not the very expensive obstacle they were in the past. The only problem could be that the new LiDAR manufactures cannot scale up series production. For example, Ibeo just filed for insolvency because they could not close another round after aggressively increasing spending in the past years.
Out of curiosity, why is lidar necessary?
When a human drives a car, their only sensors are eyes, ears, and maybe vibration. Somehow we manage to muddle through it.
Why do L4/L5 cars need anything extra sensors-wise?
> So far, that $100BN is a VC scam until proven otherwise.
A lot of the self driving tech has already made its way into safety systems in cars. Things like automatic breaking seem generally useful. There's a question about if it's worth $100B for research into partially autonomous safety solutions, but I don't think it's useful to attribute zero value to self driving research until we get full self driving (certainly some value is being realized already).