For $10,000, your car can drive itself – Cruise (YC W14)

http://theverge.com/2014/6/23/5834604/cruise-trying-to-reinvent-cruise-control-to-steer-brake-and-actually-drive-you

by ajaymehta • 12 years ago

252 159 12 years ago

drKarl• 12 years ago

Mmmm according to the article Cruise is not a driver replacement. It can steer, brake, and avoid objects. I'm sure it can be quite safe on a highway, but what are its limits? Can can and cannot do?

danielweber8• 12 years ago

It's clearly an intermediate product for people who want to get closer to driverless vehicles. I doubt this will make strict business sense for anyone right now.

jonknee3• 12 years ago

It seems more like an acquisition play as all the major car makers are going to end up in this space in the near future.

theklub• 12 years ago

What happens if a leaf or some other obstruction blocks the cameras?

jedberg• 12 years ago

The human takes over until it can be cleared I assume.

This system is not a self driving system -- it's basically a smarter cruise control. You still have to pay attention and be at the wheel. At least for now.

Dewie2• 12 years ago

That just sounds dangerous. A system that takes care of a lot for you, until it doesn't. And then you have to step in at a moments notice, even though you might not be paying enough attention to react fast enough. I think there has been cases of airline pilots' senses being dulled by all the automation, and then them stumbling to fix things when they have to step in and do its job manually.

It seems to me that self-driving cars has to be a all-or-nothing deal.

laurentoget• 12 years ago

so what do they expect will happen the first time someone gets in a serious accident while using one of those?

yarone• 12 years ago

I assume it's an MVP. They're probably hard at work on all of the core challenges of interpreting the road data in real-time and controlling the car. It's technology that I expect a bunch of big industry players want / will need. Lets see where it goes.

flatline• 12 years ago

I interpreted this as a hilariously myopic SV view of the issue. "Move fast and break things" is not exactly a winning motto for the development of automotive tech, unless you're into the demolition derby scene;)

The article states they plan to sell directly to consumers, not "big industry players", so it is a real issue. It also states that this is being released under the aegis of new CA law that goes into effect in the fall. I would imagine this law makes at least some provisions for liability, but the reality will probably be played out in the court systems for the rest of most of our lifetimes.

SomeCallMeTim5• 12 years ago

This is an issue for all self-driving car tech.

A little Googling uncovers the fact that airbags killed some 158 people in a recent year -- in low-speed accidents where the occupants would have been unharmed without the airbags. But airbags continued to grow in popularity (though now they're mandatory in the US, IIRC); automobile manufacturers just consider a certain amount of money paid out in liability a cost of doing business.

To help protect the manufacturers, they should make sure to have a good black-box recording of all the sensor data in the case of an accident. If there was a bug, they need to pay out the damages and fix the bug. If the accident was caused by someone else behaving dangerously, though, they should be protected from liability.

Bad press, however, is likely no matter what. The recent "Teslas can catch on fire!" media storm shows that; as I'm sure most HN readers know, a smaller percentage of Teslas caught fire than gasoline cars, and no Tesla owners were harmed, making the Tesla fires a non-story. Or it should have been a non-story, anyway.

djokkataja• 12 years ago

Not 158 in one year, 158 "to date" as of the year 2000 (source below): http://www.airbag-law.com/index.html "As of April 1, 2000, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's Special Crash Investigation (SCI) has confirmed a total of 158 fatalities induced by airbag deployment. Of that total, 92 were children, 60 were drivers, and 6 were adult passengers."

Wikipedia puts it at 175 fatalities between 1990 and 2000 (source: http://web.archive.org/web/20080226234316/http://www.nsc.org...). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbag#Airbag_fatality_statist...

Also, most of the fatalities occurred from being sitting too close to the airbag or not wearing a safety belt. From the wikipedia source again: "These fatalities have predominantly occurred when the children and adults were positioned precariously close to the compartment where the air bag was housed. Most of the children killed were not secured by safety belts and were thrown forward during pre-crash breaking, placing their heads just inches from the air bag when it deployed. Therefore, the best defense during an air bag deployment is to be wearing a safety belt."

drzaiusapelord• 12 years ago

Its 158 total since 2000 or so. Most of those deaths were children. That was before weight sensors were put in to disable the passenger side airbag and before parents were encourage to always put children in the back seat.

automobile manufacturers just consider a certain amount of money paid out in liability a cost of doing business.

Actually for airbags its federal law and I believe liability issues there are handled by the federal government. I believe the government pre-empts "common law" liability here and can more or less wash its hands of it.

There's this great scene in Silicon Valley where one the characters gulps nervously before entering a self-driving car. I think there's going to be an element of fear here that's undeniable. I can't imagine riding in one at expressway speeds. Frankly, I think considering all the issues like weather, accidents, etc the self-driving car might be our generation's jetpack. Sure, sounds great on paper, but in reality its horrifying.

CamperBob22• 12 years ago

I don't want my car to steer itself, at least not just yet, but I do want to add a radar-based aftermarket active cruise control system to it that can maintain a preset following distance to the car ahead by controlling the accelerator and brakes.

This was actually available as a factory option in my car, but I didn't order it because I thought (incorrectly) that it didn't work in stop-and-go traffic. I've been kicking myself for that ever since.

Perhaps Cruise could consider developing an ACC system for the benefit of customers who would welcome some automation but who aren't quite ready to surrender the steering wheel yet.

ah-3• 12 years ago

These systems have been available for several years now, so I don't really see how many people would buy a retrofit option. People don't even upgrade their car stereo systems anymore.

caw• 12 years ago

That's because the manufacturers tie so much stuff into them. It's been 3 years since I looked into it, but it was my understanding that if I upgraded my stereo I'd lose the nice display just below the windshield line. I think I'd also lose either the steering wheel music controls, or the bluetooth controls for my phone.

songgao• 12 years ago

IIRC, you have to have an ACC (Adaptive/Active Cruise Control) enabled vehicle in order to control the speed over the standard OBD-II port. This is because the vehicle has to have the capability to control the speed already, in order for Cruise to interface with it and adjust the speed. In other words, any car that Cruise can work on, should already have ACC built-in, or at least have optional ACC in that model.

Since Cruise works on any Audi A4/S4, I'm guessing Audi uses the same base control component for all 4 series, so that even for a vehicle that does not have ACC or Auto Parking enabled, Cruise can still interface with the vehicle and adjust steering wheel and speed. This suggests that upgrading your car to support ACC might be feasible?

bri3d2• 12 years ago

Elsewhere in the thread, Cruise's co-founder indicates that they're using the old-school mechanical automation method: actuators on the brake, wheel, and throttle.

Most cars with active cruise control don't comply with any standard - while the commands to accelerate, decelerate, or steer may be available over a CANbus which is exposed on the OBD-II port, there's no standard like there is for OBD-II diagnostic information and the protocols are often obfuscated or encrypted (either for "security" or manufacturer protectionism).

ah-3• 12 years ago

I wonder what the long term goal is? Getting acquired by some auto manufacturer?

I don't see many people that own modern enough cars (having the required electronics/mechanics already installed so all that's needed is a sensor and some data processing to send out control signals) investing into a retrofit device instead of just buying the next model which comes with the same thing out of the box.

But I have to say that I'm impressed that they have made it this far, and almost certainly without any support from Audi.

kvogt7• 12 years ago

We use our own actuators to control your steering wheel, gas pedal, and brake pedal. It's designed to work on any car, regardless of whether it has any drive-by-wire capabilities.

WalterSear3• 12 years ago

My blood runs cold.

ah-3• 12 years ago

Very interesting, how do you control the steering wheel? Most solutions I've seen for that were either really clunky (and unsafe, as they obstructed the airbag etc.) or used/replaced the power steering. I just assumed you would have used the existing interfaces, I know for a fact that at least the current A6 has all the necessary hardware on board, and am pretty certain that the A4 has the same for park assist.

Have you thought about selling your system directly to manufacturers for integration? I'm certain that there are chances if you're able to deliver a working component that can simply be integrated into existing models. Most of the current assistance systems aren't developed in-house but come from one of the big third party suppliers.

gregpilling• 12 years ago

That is a curious choice. Why not use existing sensors on the vehicle?

matthewowen• 12 years ago

I understand why this sort of progress is interesting... but I feel like in this form, this is of minimal value. If I have to pay attention anyway (because of the risk of failure or situations it can't understand), then it isn't that helpful. I mean, it isn't like I can just zone out and read a book: I still have to pay just as much information.

Actually, to be more concrete, I definitely see the utility of this as an extra line of safety (a fallback if/when the driver does lose focus). But as something that is "between cruise control and self driving cars"... nope, not convinced. I wish it were pitched more conservatively.

netcan2• 12 years ago

It's useful in the same way cruise control is.

sukuriant• 12 years ago

managing one's speed so as not to get pulled over for speeding?

jonknee3• 12 years ago

I probably wouldn't drill holes into my brand new car's roof and spend $10k just to get something like cruise control.

Also FWIW, the Audi in question has adaptive cruise control as an option. That seems to be a much better bang for your buck.

danielweber8• 12 years ago

FYI: http://reserve.getcruise.com/join-the-driverless-revolution

The font here is illegible. Some weird anti-aliases very-thin white-on-black. Highlighting doesn't help.

clarkdave• 12 years ago

I have this too in Chrome 35 on Windows 7.

Here's how it looks: http://imgur.com/SSMV8j6

dutchbrit• 12 years ago

Shame that thong looks ugly on the roof if that car. Who's liable if an accident happens when Cruise is turned on?

jisaacks2• 12 years ago

Being that this is marketed as a sort of cruise control++, I would suspect the same party who is liable when an accident happens while cruise control is engaged.

kylebrown• 12 years ago

Legal costs would be very high, in any case. Look at Toyota's gas-pedal settlement.

mtsmith852• 12 years ago

This "frightens" me a lot more than the Google car does. I trust that automated cars will be safe "enough." I don't think I would necessarily trust an automated car that can find itself in a situation in which a driver needs to intervene. I barely trust other drivers on the road (maybe its the NYC driver in me...). Trusting those drivers' reaction times in a situation where the car needs to disable automation would require a lot of built up good will/trust.

That being said, I think this could be a great idea for more closed environments. Honestly, I'm not really sure where they are. Maybe huge airport parking lots (as "drop offs" at specific locations), or in large corporate parks or something of that nature.

nether• 12 years ago

Aside, but can we drop the scare quotes? If something frightens you, just say it. Or choose a better word.

mtsmith852• 12 years ago

That's probably fair. I, funny enough, used quotes, because I couldn't think of a less serious word than frightens. Concerns is maybe a better word choice.

biot• 12 years ago

It seems like vehicles will have to go through an "unsafe valley"[0] where there's a huge gulf between "does a couple of things really well" and "go to sleep and you'll arrive safely at your destination".

[0] Not the same, but it's a bit analogous to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

sheetjs• 12 years ago

Related technologies that sit somewhere between cruise control and self-driving cars in terms of automation (I only have personal experience with older versions of the BMW and MB systems, and the situation has clearly improved in the last few years):

- BMW active cruise control will automatically adjust if you get too close to the car in front of you

- Infiniti cars will stop themselves if they detect obstructions in the direction of motion (rear and forward)

- Ford cars can perform the motions of parallel parking

- Mercedes-Benz cars warn you when you drift into the next lane

Other car manufacturers have related technologies.

Retric• 12 years ago

I think most of those are a little more capable than that, it's mostly a question of which aspects of automation their playing up.

EX: A high end Acura with adaptive cruse control will also automatically break if it detects an unavoidable collision.

Still, I think we are better off focusing on assistive driving systems like blind spot warning, stability assistance, etc than slightly better forms of cruse control.

marcc2• 12 years ago

The newer Mercedes-Benz system will actually steer the car to keep it following the car in front, while in slow enough traffic (< 37 MPH).

kvogt7• 12 years ago

Mercedes-Benz has a very nice product, but it's not hands-free. There's a huge difference.

curiousphil• 12 years ago

My boss has one of the new Infiniti's and it also automatically stays within your lane if the car starts drifting on its own.

JoshTriplett• 12 years ago

- Infiniti cars will stop themselves if they detect obstructions in the direction of motion (rear and forward)

I wonder if that can be disabled? Otherwise, an Infiniti would be a poor choice of vehicle for escaping a zombie apocalypse, or more realistically for making some types of emergency maneuvers (e.g. "I need to get away from a threat, and to do so I need to go over the median or through a small barrier"). Sure, it's the one-in-a-million case, but nonetheless it'd be ridiculous if there was no way to override it even for emergencies.

mikeash2• 12 years ago

If I were designing such a system, I imagine that I'd only apply it in a certain throttle range that could be described as "cruise" or so, and disable it near full throttle, maybe with a bit of additional input that sees if you're currently adding throttle and takes that as "I don't want to stop right now, really". I have no clue if that's how they really build it....

namdnay3• 12 years ago

In fact this technology exists and is quite common in higher end vehicles. The terms are Adaptive Cruise Control (keep same distance with the vehicle in front) and Lane Assist (keep the car within the white lines, as long as the curve is <Xdeg). All JLR vehicles have it as option, as do the larger Audis. Even Ford offer it as an option on the Kuga (which is their highend SUV in Europe).

I worked on the systems for both JLR and Ford, the former even have an option where cameras read signposts to adapt the speed (falling back on GPS info if none were visible).

hawkharris2• 12 years ago

This reminds me of a Kickstarter campaign I saw a few months ago. The campaign's goal was to build low-cost bouncing balls that cleared mine fields. You could roll the ball into a dangerous, abandoned area and it would cause dormant mines to explode.

The problem with that campaign is that it instilled a false sense of confidence. The technology was "an in-between": certainly better than nothing, but not as effective or safe as traditional mine-clearing methods.

Cruise is in a similar position. They have a chance to improve people's lives and prevent serious injuries. At the same time, they're toeing a delicate line between improving drivers' safety and causing them to become complacent.

kvogt7• 12 years ago

There is a fatal virus in the US that claims 3,000 people every month. And it's a nasty one. It's the #1 cause of death for teenagers. That virus is called a car accident, and the fact we're complacent with that is what scares me.

We understand the delicate balance you describe and it's our top priority to make sure our product actually does improve drivers' safety. That's why we're using independent third party testing by the same companies who test products for the major automakers, even though there is no law or regulation requiring us to do so.

d232• 12 years ago

even though there is no law or regulation requiring us to do so.

Are you honestly saying there's no laws around safety requirements in vehicles?

Also, there's the fear of lawsuits.

adamgravitis• 12 years ago

And in what way, exactly, is that a virus? Epidemic, at a stretch.

(I'm not typically this pedantic... I just think viruses have particularly interesting information dynamics and it's really weird to me when applied as a metaphor outside of where that would make sense.)

hawkharris2• 12 years ago

I appreciate your comment and what you're trying to do. I guess I still can't picture how Cruise will achieve the balance between convenience and awareness.

Let's say you're a teenager using Cruise to keep your car within the white lines on a 5-hour, highway road trip. The device is capable of steering the car this way on your behalf.

In that situation, do you stare at the white lines for 5 hours without touching the steering wheel? Or do you text and talk to your friends? What compels you to be just as vigilant about steering and being aware of your surroundings?

rmason• 12 years ago

I think the biggest immediate payback from this technology is for trucks. A trucking company with a large fleet can more easily afford the cost if it cuts full consumption and reduces accidents.

jacquesm2• 12 years ago

The way to improve drivers safety is by insisting on better schooling. Compared to the kind of testing I had to go through to get a driving license in NL the American (and the Canadian, for that matter) license test is way too simple.

If you lower the bar to entry then you get more accidents, technology alone will not help with that unless you cut the driver out of the loop completely.

droopyEyelids2• 12 years ago

So are you saying we should suspend our skepticism, and think of the children?

I'm kidding but also serious. This seems like it'd be incredibly difficult to test, and also like that testing would make an incredibly interesting series of articles/blog posts.

tim3334• 12 years ago

Well done for having a go at this. Given the global rate of car deaths at over 1m/yr you can definitely make an argument for developing cheap, slightly hackish systems now in rather than just the Google approach of developing very good but unavailable $100k systems. If this kind of approach can bring development forward a year or two that's a lot of lives saved.

harry• 12 years ago

Kyle, toootally dig what you're up to with this. Completely badass. If anyone can handle it, it's you.

Nothing but the best wishes!

-harry

drewblay• 12 years ago

There is a fatal virus in the US that claims 3,000 people every month. And it's a nasty one. It's the #1 cause of death for teenagers. That virus is called a car accident, and the fact we're complacent with that is what scares me.

I don't think you understand the word "virus".

So you want me to pay you $10,000 to loose my freedom to drive my own car? Not a chance in hell. Look, I am sorry that 3,000 people die everyone month, but I would rather live in a world where 3,000 die in car accidents and people have the freedom to drive then live in world where computers drive everyone around.

GuiA• 12 years ago

The project I believe `hawkharris is talking about: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/massoudhassani/mine-kaf...

d232• 12 years ago

My first thought is that it potentially could have a warning system stating whether the system guaged its ability to drive as "safe", "be careful", or "hey I can't do this, you should drive." A noise or color system could be used to alert the driver. Perhaps on a freeway with little traffic that the Cruise has seen plenty of times, it could be fully safe. But on some backroad that it hasn't seen before, or during bad weather conditions, it would go into fully manual mode.

droopyEyelids2• 12 years ago

Spitballing here, but let's imagine a common impaired driving situation- being very sleepy and needing to get somewhere on a time-schedule.

I don't know if you've ever been in that situation, but it's possible to fall all the way asleep while driving. It's such a common thing that they carve rumble strips into the sides of highways.

Being so sleepy is a tricky thing. You can fall asleep even with the radio going full blast. I can't imagine any alarm system that would stop someone being lulled to sleep by the engine and movement of a car doing 90% of the driving.

debt• 12 years ago

I thought this was going to be some sort of one-time monthly fee for an actual human driver.

jisaacks2• 12 years ago

monthly fee for an actual human driver.

I can find someone to drive me around for a month for way less than 10K

dave_sullivan• 12 years ago

There's going to be a big business in self driving car retrofits -- convert non-self driving to self driving. But it's going to need to be fully automated for people to bother.

pdenya• 12 years ago

Has there ever been big business in retrofitting cars? More likely a small number of hobbyists will retrofit and for the rest it'll gradually roll out from manufacturers. Cruise might be hoping for a partnership with Audi or something.

agumonkey• 12 years ago

Self driving cars have to deal with a human centric analog world. Why not add a layer of information to help them ? smart paint to help align, smart milestones and road signs broadcasting local driving constraints. Your car will read these and plan accordingly, instead of relying on heavy computer vision to be interpreted ?

danielweber8• 12 years ago

Chicken-and-egg. It's expensive to add a bunch of stuff to the road for computer cars to read, and if there are no computer cars to read them, what's the point?

Computer cars will lower the bar on what's valuable to put into the road. I can see the point in 30 years where computer driven cars are even simpler than today, because it made so much sense to add the automatic road markers, which made automating cars easier, which make all cars automatic, which led to roads being updated only electronically, which is now a simpler problem than today (driving on roads with only other computer-driven cars actively broadcasting beacons of their location and position, and road markers/signs/lights being trivial for computers to read).

jqm2• 12 years ago

And....for $1.50 you can put a brick on the gas pedal.

Now, this is missing many of the features of autonomous cars like the ones Google is developing and the driver will need to remain at the wheel and ready to take over in case of emergency...

(ok, let the down votes commence. I couldn't resist. It's great people are working on things, and I hope something comes of it but this seems like a case of all or nothing to me).

abruzzi• 12 years ago

I think its the other way. Taking the plunge to 100% self driving is going to take a very long time. Google's systems seems to require elaborate 3d mapping of the entire road. In the poor states like where I live and where many people live on dirt roads that streetview has never seen (and some that don't even show up on Google maps), it is going to be a long time before fully automated driving is a proper 50 state solution.

This on the other hand is something that could show up in cars in 5 years, and provide meaningful benefits far before Google is ready.

jqm2• 12 years ago

I suppose maybe incremental progress is the way autonomous driving will happen, so maybe you are right. And, all progress is progress and it is good.

At the same time, I simply don't see much benefit and substantial risk in the system as presented. It works on one kind of car in one state. It only works under certain conditions. And it doesn't really do that much. Oh... and it seems a bit risky. I do understand the need to raise capital though, so if they sell some of these and it funds future development, great! I won't be buying one but hopefully someone does.

Incidentally, I saw a device similar to the "brick" for sale in a truck-stop once. It was an adjustable pole that pushed down on the gas pedal and locked into place so the truck driver didn't have to use his foot (big trucks don't have cruise control I guess?). It seemed a little iffy to me to and I can't believe it would be legal.

msane• 12 years ago

Please go public soon so I can buy shares.

akgerber• 12 years ago

When I lived in San Diego, my route for my bike commute to work included Interstate 5[0], because bikes can legally take the interstate shoulder in California where there's no practical alternative route. Y'all handling that edge case?

[0] Here: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.886728,-117.225045,3a,25.3y,... (note the bottom of the Bike Route sign says 'use I-5 shoulder')

jzwinck• 12 years ago

It is illegal to drive on the shoulder, so they need to handle this case for a lot of reasons (another being that substantial debris from collisions usually ends up on the shoulder). I do wonder how much space this thing will give cyclists when it passes them if they are near the white line, or if it understands to stay behind sometimes.

Making the computer react to a cyclist ahead who is indicating a lane change or turn with his arm will be extra tricky.

tempestn3• 12 years ago

This video shows how the Google self-driving cars react to cyclists, as well as obstacles on the road and such: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk3oc1Hr62g

No idea how Cruise deals with this, but it does appear to be possible anyway.

ameister14• 12 years ago

I've been thinking about the applications of auto-driving cars a lot over the last year or so, and I think this kind of consumer use is not likely to be that successful.

It seems more likely to me that this kind of highway driving system would be installed and work on tractor-trailers. It's a good compromise; drivers keep their jobs but get less stress, and when these are legalized with less issues, the next stage where driverless trucks are introduced can come into play easier legislatively.

Legislation will likely be the biggest issue with these things in the United States. Taxi drivers already oppose Uber and Lyft; what do you think they'd do with an invention that removes their profession entirely? And their legislative pull pales in comparison to the teamsters'.

So, this kind of staging is a good idea for introduction to driverless vehicles. It just won't work for an Audi.

mangeletti• 12 years ago

tl;dr

Q.A.

The homepage video play button doesn't work in Firefox (latest stable release)...

[imagining RP-1 driving me off a cliff the moment I venture onto an unsupported road]

danielkan• 12 years ago

Unfortunately a slight oversight. I thought mp4 was supported. Fixing now. Thanks!

netcan2• 12 years ago

Comments here are fairly negative. Pointing to downsides, insufficient upsides and such. Gimme fully self driving or go home. Here's my perspective:

I think that self driving cars are coming and that. Even cars that drive on built-for-human roads are just a bridging technology. Eventually roads will be built for robocars. I think it's a big important technology. All transport revolutions are.

To get on that road we need to start getting this tech into consumer land, a beachhead. I don't know if this specific product is it, but it could be. It's got a nice gradual path from cruise control plus to auto-drive for 80% of the ride.

There might be other beachheads. Long haul trucking is often mentioned. This seems like a very similar problem. They both need to deal with highway driving only. Maybe robocar friendly road networks will be extended into built up areas.

I'm happy to see a company take what's working now and put it in a consumer product. We'll see if people like it. If they do, it seems like a good a place to start developing this stuff outside of research labs.

edit: clarity

dxbydt• 12 years ago

Exactly! People fail to factor how yc companies evolve - how fast, and how far. I made this mistake twice in my life. These days I just stfu.

3 years back, I met with the poundpay team. They knew zero about handling fraud, and they said so. They said they'll figure it out over time. The cofounder said he was "reading a bunch of machine learning papers over the weekend" on combating fraud. I found that amateurish & scary.

2 years back, I met with the interviewstreet founder. The founder did not have any technical chops to speak of, and was actually quite misinformed about scalability challenges, algorithms & programming languages. I couldn't see how this guy could take on topcoder.

Today, 3 years hence, Balanced has processed over a half billion in payments, & Hackerrank has signed up a half million developers & both are well on their way towards a billion dollar market cap. Both are great companies to work for - in terms of actual tech & the potential for ipo riches.

What Cruise is right now is a useless datapoint. Think about what it'll be 2 years from now. Use your imagination. There are tons of low hanging features they could iterate on & completely dominate the space. Enough said.

stcredzero2• 12 years ago

The underlying message I'm getting is that HN applicants tend to find the "actual" problem they can tackle to make their fortunes while initially trying to solve a different problem.

henrikschroder2• 12 years ago

To get on that road we need to start getting this tech into consumer land, a beachhead.

But it's been there for years! All of the high-end car manufacturers offer this technology, in their current cars, well-integrated, well-tested, and for less money than what this company charges!

Remember, they're not offering self-driving, they're only offering lane assist and adaptive cruise control.

But the vehicle manufacturers are also working on self-driving, it's not just Google! BMW and Volvo have both committed to having self-driving cars on the roads by 2017.

binxbolling• 12 years ago

I'm not sure what the price point is, but I'd pay non-negligible dollars to add this kind of tech to my '99 Accord. I don't even want the full $10k package with "self-driving," just lane assist, warnings, adaptive cruise control, etc. I think many of us would be onboard if someone can work the value proposition so that buying such a kit/package is a better idea than buying a new-ish car.

Nitramp• 12 years ago

Or, you could just buy the already existing product. Is there anything they want to add beyond these?

http://www.mercedes-benz-intelligent-drive.com/com/en/1_driv...

For Mercedes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSXUApikcOk

For Audi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8sJwuZyVAY

Similarly from other high-end car producers.

callmeed• 12 years ago

Cruise goes on an Audi A4, which is roughly half the cost of an A7 ... so you could get an A4+Cruise and still have money left over

bri3d2• 12 years ago

The A4 absolutely offers "active lane assist" (steering) as well as "adaptive cruise control with stop and go" (automatic throttle and braking, all the way down to stopping in traffic).

http://www.audiusanews.com/newsrelease.do?id=2747

I don't think it's quite as autonomous as Cruise - as noted by others in the thread, Cruise seems to be trying to reach a somewhat scary "good enough that you could read a book but please pay attention because it doesn't work just right yet" plateau, while the Audi system is simply supposed to be a gentle helper of sorts.

But the Audi system also works on any highway rather than just pre-mapped areas, and is (for better or for worse) integrated with OEM brake and steering actuators and the car's throttle-by-wire system rather than relying on retrofitted physical systems.

semerda• 12 years ago

This feels like an addition to the future self driving cars more than anything else. Sort of like a adaptive cruise control (ACC) or Active Lane Keeping Assist in Mercedes? I see trust & cost being a major hurdle here. Like trusting a self driving car to take you home.

I believe we need to totally remove the driver to really stop the number of deaths on the roads. As indicated below by others, there are plenty of bad drives in the day.

When I came to the valley few years ago I was shocked to see the number of drivers failing to use indicators (blinkers). As a pedestrian this was alarming. How do you cross the road not knowing intent of so many cars on the road. As a driver it was tough to gauge the intent of drivers around you. The human behind the steering wheel is the problem and that is where most of the disruption should be focused on.

Once we replace the human driver from the machine we will see less deaths on the road, faster commutes and more efficient use of resources.

iandanforth• 12 years ago

Mad props to the Cruise guys for taking this on. This kind of life and death programming is not something I'm willing to do. Just too freakin scary.

fallingmeat• 12 years ago

I'm very curious about the procedures and paradigms followed to develop the safety critical software inside the system, as well as the engineering pedigree of the developers. I don't mean this in a rude, finger pointing way, just proposing that some background and a slightly deeper technical description of the precautions would make a huge difference in confidence level.

For example, are the redundancy systems space and time separated? What kind of methods were used to ensure that? Are there any overall hardware, software, communications development standards used and audited? Does anyone on the team have demonstrated experience in these areas?

If this system were to be audited, what organization would be responsible?

Thanks guys, great work so far and excellent vision!

justin• 12 years ago

No car on the market offers a driving assist at this level (both lane tracking and distance keeping). I personally drive hundreds of freeway miles a week and would pay much more than 10k to avoid doing that.

It has been super impressive to watch the Cruise team of just 4 built a car that can drive down the freeway in just 7 months.

tobithiel• 12 years ago

As far as I understand their technology this is not true. My understanding is that the system keeps a distance to a vehicle in front and corrects the steering should the vehicle leave the lane.

Even Audi themselves offers active lane keeping assist and adaptive cruise control systems. I'm not sure if this is available in the A4, but they offer it in their more expensive models. Mercedes-Benz also has both systems available in the S-Class.

I couldn't find any detailed information on their site as to what they cover, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see their additional value right now.

abstractbill• 12 years ago

I had a drive in one of Cruise's prototypes a few days ago. This technology works.

About a year ago, my family had a car crash that shook up my 3-year-old daughter so much that she still talks about how scary it was. This technology is important.

Congrats to Kyle and the Cruise crew. I'm very impressed, and you guys should be very proud.

sunsu• 12 years ago

My 2010 Lexus had "lane keep assist" and adaptive cruise control (which used radar). It would bring you from 60mph to stop if needed without you ever needing to press the brake.

namdnay3• 12 years ago

Adaptive Cruise Control + Lane Assist is in fact quite common. You can get it on the big Audis, JLR have it as standard and even Ford do it (I worked on it for the Kuga, but it will trickle down eventually)

henrikschroder2• 12 years ago

No car on the market offers a driving assist at this level (both lane tracking and distance keeping).

Yes they do. Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Volvo (and probably many others) offer this technology in their cars, and adding that option is much cheaper than $10k, comes fully integrated, and appears to offer the same benefits.

Meanwhile, this Cruise thing only works on Audi S4/A4, sits on the top of the car, costs more than the manufacturer charges for it, and doesn't appear to be better than that version.

It's really impressive to offer an after-market adaptive cruise-control system, kudos for that, but who is the customer here? Who would buy this thing?

If you have an Audi A4/S4 and $10k, why not trade to one that has the option installed?

kvogt7• 12 years ago

While some automakers have lane keep assist on the market, in most cases it just vibrates your steering wheel or, at best, lets your hand wander away from the wheel for up to 15s and only on mostly straight roads.

Cruise is meant to operate hands-free for nearly the entire highway segment of your trip and over a speed range of 0-80 mph. No product on the market does anything close to this.

tempestn3• 12 years ago

The problem I see is, if you still have to be fully attentive, supervising the computer and ready to take over, but not actually do anything... driving will be mind-numbingly boring. (That's assuming people are even capable of maintaining that attention, which many other comments address.) I mean, driving is usually already kind of boring, but at least the task keeps some part of your mind occupied. If the computer can take over completely - Google style - then you can do something else entirely. But this sounds like some kind of intermediate purgatory.

saraid216• 12 years ago

It's also worth noting that Google hires test drivers specifically for ability to maintain full attention during mind-numbing boredom.

userbinator• 12 years ago

Reading through all the safety concerns reminds me of this:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/automated-to-dea...

prawn3• 12 years ago

What about exterior cameras combined with interior projection to provide an AR experience? Show optimum trailing distance, highlight hazards, display useful information in the field of view. Is that illegal to do, perhaps?

Datsundere• 12 years ago

For $10k I'd get either e46 m3, s2k, rx8, or mx5 or a cobra.

tim3334• 12 years ago

My mx5's worth about $2000 so for $12k you could have a self driving one. Though there's not much roof space to bolt the thing on in an mx5.

aidenn03• 12 years ago

Self-driving cars will not be able to catch on without legislation limiting damages to manufacturers.

Proponents of self-driving cars predict ~90% reduction in fatalities. What this means is that over 3000 people per year will be killed by self-driving cars. This is way better than what we have now, but in fatal car crashes, often the driver at fault is killed, and juries tend to assess much lower damages against dead people than against large corporations.

Combine that with the fact that there typically aren't any damages at all awarded for single-occupant single-car collisions where the driver is at fault, and it seems entirely possible that the total damages awarded for traffic fatalities could stay at the current level, or even go up, leaving the manufacturers of self-driving cars to foot the bill.

Now, I generally think that laws to cap damages are not good policy, as it does make it harder to discourage negligence or even malfeasance.

tim3334• 12 years ago

Although the limited self driving systems we have already on Audis and the like are catching on already. I guess the driver has overall control so it's treated legally like a cruise control or similar. I think the main barrier at the moment to the adoption of the current limited systems is cost. If it became a $500 option I think basically all new cars would have it.

danielweber8• 12 years ago

What this means is that over 3000 people per year will be killed by self-driving cars

I appreciate this point, but there are two big assumptions hidden in there.

1. That number turns 30,000 accidents into 3,000 accidents, but that's assuming all cars are self-driving.

2. It assumes that in those 3,000 accidents, the self-driving cars are "at fault." But those last 10% of accidents are things in which driver error is not a factor. If a cinderblock falls off a bridge onto my self-driving car, it would take an incredibly aggressive jury[1] to blame that on the car.

What is the cause of those last 10% of accidents? Is it things like manufacturing faults, in which case the manufacturer is already absorbing the risk? (And a computer-driven car could handle a blowout better than a human could.)

Oh, I found an NHTSA paper[2] that gives that "90% due to human error" figure, and puts 4 to 13% on "vehicle factors (brake failure, tire problems, etc.)." So I think my point in the preceding paragraph holds: a big company is already on the line, the automatic car could do better health checks to prevent them, and it could have a better way of dealing with mechanical failure.

[1] Not that such a thing is impossible.

[2] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0B5GzBW...

scott_s• 12 years ago

I think you missed the poster's overall point: how people perceive accidents matters. This is independent of what the actual causes are, and if there are less of them. When automation is involved, people may perceive that someone did something wrong, even though that automatic thing outperformed what a human could achieve.

things• 12 years ago

Can this be removed easily? It looks like it would be a beacon for vandalism unless you spent your time in secure parking.

mellisarob• 12 years ago

seems like a fairly good bargain, life is far more precious than money. Spending on it will be worthwhile if it ensures safety

Marcus10110• 12 years ago

This is exactly the sort of thing I want to do next. Good luck guys!

It's perfect. A real world problem with world changing impact. It's hard. Its orders of magnitude harder than anything else startups are doing around here! The opportunity is almost infinite, and there are potentially billions of dollars to be made. I wish I was working on it!

I really hope these guys go all the way – although I'm sure there will be a ton of offers along the road. I wouldn't be surprised if Google X hadn't already made an offer, but if it comes down to it, I hope they go with Tesla over Google X. I got an inside look at their autopilot project a few months ago, and I'm really excited about it!

Honestly though, there are probably a lot of other big players who could be interested – Amazon especially. Again though, I really hope they take this all the way to a mass market consumer product, preferably with multiple iterations, while expanding the capabilities toward what Elon described as the 99% Autonomous autopilot.

For $10,000, your car can drive itself – Cruise (YC W14)

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