by callmecrude
For anyone unaware, as of last week Cruise has indefinitely halted all of their driverless robotaxis nationwide after a slew of issues (accidents, blocking emergency service workers, parking in front of fire hydrants, unsafe driving near pedestrians) culminated in one of their cars running over a woman and dragging her body for 20 feet before stopping.
www.wired.com/story/gms-cruise-halts-self-driving-operations-regulator-safety-fears/
This comes on the heels of their promise for rapid expansion across the US from the apparent “success” of their pilot programs.
Now that investigators are involved, we’re seeing how deep of a scam they were running to convince people they were market leaders in autonomous driving.
www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html
Half of Cruise’s 400 cars were in San Francisco when the driverless operations were stopped. Those vehicles were supported by a vast operations staff, with 1.5 workers per vehicle. The workers intervened to assist the company’s vehicles every 2.5 to five miles, according to two people familiar with is operations. In other words, they frequently had to do something to remotely control a car after receiving a cellular signal that it was having problems.
In essence, Cruise’s “autonomous vehicles” required remote assistance from a human to take control every 2-5 miles. On average, that means human pilots were required multiple times per passenger trip. That’s a fairly stark difference from what they were reporting a few years ago, where they claimed each car could drive 12,000+ miles before the autonomous system needed to be disengaged:
www.ttnews.com/articles/new-autonomous-mileage-reports-are-out-data-meaningful
GM has already dumped $10B+ into Cruise, and it seems fairly apparent the company’s tech is on par with Nikola rolling their EV truck down a hill (who were oddly enough yet another shoddy GM partner lol..). While Waymo is still operating at present, their vehicles have been reportedly experiencing many of the same issues. Regulators have lost trust in this tech, and will be rolling out stricter requirements and oversight.
What’s the play? Tesla FSD imo is going to be what most of legacy auto turns to. They’ve banked more than 1000x the number of road hours of every other driverless company combined. Their accidents and incidents per mile are a fraction of a fraction of what Waymo and Cruise are reporting. I’m only holding shares, as we’re still many years away from nation-wide autonomous cars imo. But this news is concrete proof of what many have been speculating for years. These “L4” autonomous driving companies are full of it. They’re glorified trains on virtual tracks that are constantly being remotely operated by humans.
Disclaimer: This information is only for educational purposes. Do not make any investment decisions based on the information in this article. Do you own due diligence or consult your financial professional before making any investment decision.