GM Scraps Cruise Robotaxi Program

https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/general-motors-scraps-cruise-robotaxi-program-ea3298a8?mod=hp_lead_pos2

{{ General Motors GM 0.06%increase; green up pointing triangle

has scrapped its Cruise robotaxi program, citing the time and costs needed to scale the business and rising competition from other autonomous driving competitors.

GM on Tuesday said it plans to realign its autonomous driving strategy and give priority to development of advanced driver assistance systems.

The automaker said it would pursue a path for fully autonomous personal vehicles, and build on the progress of its Super Cruise hands-off, eyes-on driving feature. }}

If I have to keep my eyes on the road, I may as well be driving myself.

intercst

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So the car company focuses on car related things, while the AI company develops it’s AI systems, using Tesla owners as it’s beta testers.

Steve

Huh? As far as I am aware, there is exactly one competitor, and has only been one competitor, for quite a long time … Waymo. Sounds like a nonsense statement to me. Why can’t they be crystal clear? The statement should be “We have decided to not invest in Cruise anymore because we believe it will not be able to produce an adequate profit for us.”

Some people think they will license FSD someday from Tesla for their vehicles. I have my doubts about that.

Not true in my experience. I allow my Tesla cars to drive me pretty much everywhere, and while I have to continue paying attention at all times, I find it to be MUCH more relaxing than driving myself. And as I told my family a few days ago, at this point, 99+% of the time, it is a better driver than I am.

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I have stopped believing that truly autonomously driving is going to happen. But I also don’t agree with that sentiment. Do you want to go back to the 60’s and 70’s before simple cruise control? Or go back just a decade before we had adaptive cruise control? Do you get any benefit from lane-keep-assist (I do)?

I was all excited in 2018 when Leon kept promising “end of this year”. Now I’ve given up. Sure, advanced driver assistance is really nice and I like it. But I’ve begun to think full autonomy is too tough a nut to crack. Worse, it’s a solution that only a small part of the population actually wants solved.

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Are you mocking TFG? LOL. How about the Vice “J P Mandel”?

Steve

Cruise control is fine. My right foot would go asleep on a long Texas drive where you had it in one single position to maintain the speed limit on a straight ,flat highway.

But if I have to respond to the occasional “blip” in the FSD software that might kill someone or run me off the road, it’s much safer to just drive myself.

I don’t see FSD as a benefit until it’s reliable enough so that I can recline the driver’s seat, and sleep for a couple of hours while traveling down the Interstate.

intercst

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Your job is beta tester. When the system is debugged, mostly, it can then be sold to DoD.

Steve

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Not to mention running over a woman and dragging her 20 feet.

DB2

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