Uber to Cali DMV: Back off, pal, our 'self-driving cars' aren't self driving Shrugging off a demand from California's Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain a permit to operate its self-driving cars on state roads, Uber contends it doesn't need a permit because the DMV's rules do not apply. Following Uber's announcement on Wednesday that its self-driving cars are available as a pilot test for customers …
The car will be able to pick up people along the route.
Here's the irony.
Uber was created with the idea of providing a service that is supposed to be better than cabs and depending on the type of service... it would be cost comparable if not sometimes cheaper.
It was supposed to be a way for some poor schmucks to make some additional cash with flexible hours. (There are not enough coffee shops to support everyone...)
Now you're going to see Uber buying or leasing a self driving vehicle and putting those drivers out of work. In short, they are becoming what they wanted to replace ... a Cab service albeit without the high price of a city /county controlled medallions.
Now that Obama is out of office... all of those 'independent contractors' will be out of a job.
"It was supposed to be a way for some poor schmucks to make some additional cash with flexible hours."
Uber's CEO was up-front nearly from the start that he saw human drivers as a stopgap until he could deploy an autonomous fleet.
The ultimate goal of these "sharing economy" or "gig economy" companies is fewer jobs, not more.
"The rules apply to cars that can drive without someone controlling or monitoring them,"
So if I have a manager or a supervisor, that tells me, you could say, "controls" what I do. They also ensure that I do my work by "monitoring" me, I am not actually the one doing work? Wow, we get paid for not working, but boy, sure feels like I am.
> the money you're paying them isn't paying them
Prolly, it isn't money at all... which means it can't be taxable! Doubles all round!
Uber's corporate behaviour reminds me of that of a bolshy teenager, always trying to find a smartass way to get one-up on long-suffering parents.
I think you'll find that technically my bedroom is actually "living space" because it is used for more than just a bed, and so your rules about tidying bedrooms therefore do not apply.
Technically my car is not being driven by my cat, because I am supervising it. Therefore your rules on cars being driven by pets do not apply.
You must have a very large cat.
Mine can't reach the pedals and thus sits on my lap steering while I press the gas and the brakes.
And you know he was trained properly because he keeps his paws at 2 and 10.
And I pity the fool who gets in to a road rage incident with him. He's got sharp pointy teeth and knows how to use them.
(The spawn of Satan is well... that's because my cat sometimes acts like the spawn of Satan.)
What is it with Uber?
So far as I can tell from the Eastern side of the Atlantic, the State of California has been commendably obliging (and suitably rigourous too) with facilitating on road tests of self driving cars. I cannot think of any other place on the planet where such testing on the public highway can be more easily arranged (I presume that the other like-minded states have similar processes) in cooperation with the local government.
So why on earth would they ever want to make an issue out of deliberately refusing to engage with such a lightweight (all things considered), permissive, forward thinking and highly appropriate regulatory process? Masochism? Lunacy? A deliberate intent to lose their investor's money through paying needlessly incurred fines? A need to put their future personal liberty on the line by risking incurring injury or death in a third party through accidents happening whilst (but not necessarily caused by) their technology is being used without the top-cover provided by a regulatory blessing from an informed and content State government? Afterall, the questions in court would be something like i) was the car in supervised self driving mode at the time of the accident? Yes. Was the supervisor's hands actually on the wheel at the time, and were they in sole charge of the vehicle's operations? Don't know. Guilty, m'Lord.
Is it perhaps that they're afraid that the State would publish the performance statistics, just like they did for Google, likely (and independently) showing their investors just how far they're from actually achieving a real, dependable self driving car?
Unbelievable.
Other players in the industry should regard Uber's behavior as a risk and lean on them to cut it out. It risks inviting more stringent regulation, and damaging public perception of autonomous vehicles at a sensitive stage in their development. Because of the potential PR and political consequences, the nuclear power industry long had the slogan, "an accident for one is an accident for all." This needs to be the autonomous car industry's motto, too.
@Orv, yes that's all sensible stuff. It's similar in the aero engine business too - GE, RR, PW are deadly serious competitors but assist each other to help out on safety issues. It's a mature industry that operates well for the benefit of passengers and suppliers alike.
I think that California is also being very sensible by permitting and regulating tests and publishing test results. It's forcing the nascent self driving car industry to behave with maturity, and most importantly of all it's not letting PR control whether or not these things go on general sale.
That's definitely caught out Google's team, whose enthusiasm for self driving has taken a dive following the publication of their test results. One wonders what would have happened had publication not been an obligatory part of the process.
If Uber start chipping away at that edifice of rationality then, as you say, that could ruin the current beneficial status quo.
My own point of view is that we'll never be able to develop a self driving car that is demonstrably as reliable as the best human driver (no point being as good as the average driver, most of us would be worse off). We simply don't have the means to even write down in detail what it is that a human driver actually does and can do if required. And if we can't even write that down on paper, how can we ever test a self driving car and show that it is equal to the best human driver?
There will always be some unexpected circumstances that defeat a self driving car (anyone tried one on a dark foggy night on narrow twisty British lanes with black ice here and there, lots of leaves falling from the trees? Thought not...), and you won't want the car getting into a panic when it's got only your kids on board.
At best we might get an elaborate cruise control thing, but then there are human factors concerns about drivers who spend very little time actually driving suddenly being expected to take over in circumstances that by definition will be challenging. Just look at the problems surrounding Tesla's Autopilot... I'm hoping that State regulators will think very carefully about that aspect.
It would be rather interesting to innovate a profitable second hand furniture business by removing the contents of Uber's offices when they aren't looking. Such a revolutionary approach would generate ample margins, and of course those doing the actual removal would be independent contractors, so the furniture business itself shouldn't be counted as breaking the law or responsible for what its contractors did...
...about those disengagement reports, is that Mercedes' has been faxed. Yes, faxed, I kid you not.
At least it wasn't done on a typewriter.
"I grew up there. Everyone I know calls it California. Only those wannabes from other places call it Cali."
Hey, but then the Mary Pop;pins subheads don't work. So learn to live with it. :-p
And anyway, I've seen documentaries from the late 1800s and it gets called both Californ-eye-ay and Californy (think that last might have been narrated in a sing-song way by Calamity Jane).
Hey Matt,
Yes, they will take that argument to court. Why? Because they are lawyers.
With respect to the permit, the State has put it in place long before Uber tried to enter the game. Its a way for them to control the 'driverless cars' which btw none of them are completely autonomous at this stage in the game.
Uber's lawyers could try to argue that if they have to be permitted, then every Tesla on the road with its 'autopilot' feature should also be permitted and all of its trips logged for the public record.
Granted neither would fly, but hey, they are lawyers and get paid either way. ;-)
IMHO, Uber is being stupid on this... they are going to have to log the trips themselves and retain those records, if not for technical reasons, but for legal reasons too.
Whilst the autonomous system may be disengaged, will the supervisor have total control?
c.f.
"As “master override” was engaged on the final landing attempt, however, the drone remained in its “approach” state. Its vertical acceleration reduced enough for the onboard logic to decide that it was now straight and level and therefore on the ground – despite being 325 feet above it – and commanded a nose down manoeuvre to put weight onto the steerable nosewheel.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/15/watchkeeper_wk006_crash_report_poor_software_laser_altimeters/
This is the most egregious doublespeak I've seen for some time.
Advertisement says you can order a self-driving Uber. Company turns around and says "Nah cuz, not self-driving because someone is in the driver's seat".
Bet some of the Americans are begging for their equivalent of the Advertising Standards Council (or Board, or whatever they are this month).
If it stops and starts by itself, changes lanes by itself and uses sensors and cameras to identify what to do, it's a bloody self driving car.
If it stops and starts by itself, changes lanes by itself and uses sensors and cameras to identify what to do, it's a bloody self driving car.
Damn, so my 2002 car with a start/stop function while waiting at stop lights, some sensors and a rear camera that beeps when comming closer to object and with the ability to change lanes by itself when taking my hands off the wheel is a bloody self driving car?
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