The Two Opposite Futures of Self-Driving Cars
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- Self driving is here. But not like you thought.
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I’ll admit it. I’d gotten cynical about self driving cars. It feels like every 3 years, we’re told they’ll be here in another 3 years. Recently though, I saw a video that shocked me: Kyle Vogt, CEO of Cruise, called for a taxi and a driverless car arrived. He was just one of hundreds of people across San Francisco who are getting into their ride and finding no one else inside.
So... are self-driving cars finally here?
I took a deep dive into that question over the last few months, trying to piece together all the other self-driving stuff I’ve heard about to get the full picture. I ended up in San Francisco, interviewing Kyle himself!
The answer I found to whether self-driving is here is: YES. Just not like I thought. It’s not the sci-fi version I was expecting. Instead, it’s actually two kinds of autonomous vehicles, battling it out on the roads right now. And our lives are about to look very different depending on who wins.
Chapters:
00:00 Self driving cars are finally here
02:15 Levels of self driving, explained
03:32 Where are we now on self driving cars?
05:07 Thank you Masterworks!
06:10 The big fight for the future of driverless cars
07:04 Interviewing Kyle Vogt, CEO of Cruise
08:20 Robotaxi meets world (and police)
10:00 The two near futures of self driving
11:52 The long term future of driving
Important note (because I never want you to be confused about whether something is sponsored): The only sponsor in this video is Masterworks, which means they got to approve their ad section beforehand, but didn't get a say in the rest of the video. Cruise did not pay me for being part of this video. I did an interview with the Cruise CEO and Cruise let me see their Bolt car, for which I'm very grateful!
Be featured in an episode - upload questions for me to answer! www.dropbox.com/request/Edocs...
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: / cleoabram
You can find me on Instagram here for more personal stories: / cleoabram
You can find me on Twitter here for thoughts, threads and curated news: / cleoabram
Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular CZcams channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s CZcams Originals show, Glad You Asked.
Vox: www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/
Additional reading and watching:
- “My first fully driverless pickup!” Cruise • My first fully driverl...
- “Why You Should Want Driverless Cars On Roads Now,” Veritasium • Why You Should Want Dr...
- “From 1956: A future vision of driverless cars,” CBS • From 1956: A future vi...
- “Self-Driving Big Rigs Are Coming. Is America Ready?” Christopher Mims, Wall Street Journal www.wsj.com/articles/self-dri...
- “Beyond Tesla: Driverless Startups Promise Next-Level Autonomous Vehicles,” Wall Street Journal Video • Beyond Tesla: Driverle...
- “Are Driverless Trucks The Future Of Shipping? Inside Waymo’s New Test Program,” NBC • Are Driverless Trucks ...
- “75 Minutes of Autonomous Driving with Kyle Vogt and Sam Altman,” Cruise • 75 Minutes of Autonomo...
- “3 Generations of Driverless Delivery Vehicles,” WIRED • 3 Generations of Drive...
- “Tesla Autopilot For 24 Hours Straight!” Ryan Trahan • Tesla Autopilot For 24...
Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16-35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro
Music: Musicbed
Follow along for more episodes of Huge If True: czcams.com/users/cleoabram?sub...
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Welcome to the joke down low:
What has 10 letters and starts with G-A-S?
Automobile.
Find a way to use the word “start” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one ;)
OK, I admit -- I'm Cleo's Dad. But really, this is a great episode! The best part is how she organizes the coming driverless car/truck revolution to explain "the messy messy middle." Oh, also -- yes, the Batmobile WAS a driverless car.
Hi Cleo's dad, My wife and I love Cleo's content!
oh hi Dad!
Oh hello papa in law
@@ignaciomunoz577 Be respectful.
Guess its okay for me to Admit that I am in fact the True Holy Saint Celestine and totally don't have anything going on with sanguineous?
I've always said that self-driving technology will come to trucks before cars. Having a car drive itself is a neat gimmick, but having a lorry drive itself is a major, major cost saver to the logistics industry. Ultimately the one with the bigger financial incentive behind it was always going to come first.
And as for myself, I'll continue to use the mode of transport that has been 'self-driving' (at least from the perspective of passengers) for its entire existence: Trains. They're so much better than even the most utopian self-driving cars I've ever seen being presented to us.
Trains: some fuss is made about autonomous trucks “platooning”, driving very close, nose-to-bumper, to gain advantage over air resistance. Cyclists use this to great advantage. Trains have done this from day one.
Electrifying railways is well-understood technology. Combined with steel wheels on steel rails rolling advantage.
Expecially since there are so few rest stops for truck drivers, the truck can drive it self at night while the driver sleeps.
@@chrislanejones There should not be a need for a driver asleep or otherwise.
A driver may take the truck to the nearest interstate and switch it into autopilot. The driver goes home, the truck drives itself to the destination city. An entirely different driver navigates the truck from the interstate to its final destination. No one has to get hypnotized by the long interstate portion.
Most of this can already be done by intermodal truck-train. Dozens of trailers get packed onto a train. Instead of dozens of truckers having to drive the interstate it’s a train crew of three or four.
@@CarFreeSegnitz transporting you from point A to point B, trains do that perfectly, but cars wanted more options than that.
Trains don’t go eveywhere and they are very expensive to build. If you are building a new factory or warehouse then trucks are the cheapest and most versatile option.
Self driving cars would be amazing for people with disabilities. My sister has special needs and isn't quite able to drive on her own. One of her friends has a seizure disorder, and while he's been seizure free for a while, he still can't drive. This would also be amazing for visually impaired people. Since we have trash public transit, it could do a lot for people
They’re just going to be bus rapid transit (brt) systems. The Tesla loop is basically the prototype for this type of service.
Same with the seizures. I still get them though.
As a visually impaired person this was the same thing going through my mind
@@KRYMauL the tesla loop is a joke
@@PBMS123 It is a joke, but it's still a less efficient brt system. Can't wait for them to deploy the Tesla bus and call it "revolutionary micro transit."
In all of your videos there is usually a spot (or several) where you lay out the landscape of the topic and say "we are here". In this video, the 2x2 grid really helped me understand what's going on (and what is not). Two thumbs up.
People want driverless cars because they hate having to drive (emphasis on having to). But there are better solutions for this problem which would lead to more sustainable and livable cities, meanwhile also addressing major societal issues like sky rocketing housing prices and even obesity. What we need is cities and urban spaces that are designed for people rather than cars.
Agreed, but that raises questions. How do you redesign a city without gentrifying it and alienated undeserved communities? It seems like any time new and exciting things come along, the government tends to let capitalism do all the heavy lifting. Autonomous vehicles (even if they're buses or trains) and people-centric cities need to be heavily regulated, subsidized and accessible to all, not just the privileged.
Concur. I just bought an E-Bike and it's so liberating!
@@hueypautonoman A good start is decrease the number of parking spots, decrease the number of and size of existing roads, while creating public options. Use the idea of "induced demand" in the favor of the public rather than cars.
Just eliminating bad zoning laws would work wonders as suburbs begin to "fill in" so to speak. But as you do this build on top of old parking lots, and get rid of big box grocery stores so small grocers can take in that demand with more small stores available through walking or some other short public transit route.
Another HUGE step is re-routing interstates around cities that were bulldozed for those interstates. Also vitally important is what kind of housing is built, where, and in what quantity. I'm guessing there are experts who would need to be consulted on this front.
It's not hard to imagine many ways to begin this movement. But first and far more important is fomenting widespread acceptance of the fact that we need to do this.
The research that leads to self-driving cars wont go to waste if we do actually shift to better city planning strategies, though. Just being able to build robots that interact seamlessly with other human drivers is a huge step forward in computing and will certainly impact other types of automation and AI.
@@hueypautonoman the channel "Not Just Bikes" has some great insights for you for how feasible it actually is :)
I'm a Tesla Model Y owner with FSD Beta. I enjoy testing this in my area. Each release the car gets better and better. It is like watching a teenage driver get better and better through experience. You have to be control (or in the case of teen driver, scream!) at all times because in this 'messy time' things will happen you will not like. Great video.
While the results from the other companies profiled here are impressive, it looks like Tesla is clearly the leader in this field given that it's able to train its driving system on data from the millions of miles driven by Tesla vehicles every single day. It has a fundamental competitive advantage in this space.
Stop it!
@ lmfao clearly the leader? Multiple companies have cars driving around with no human behind the wheel and Tesla isn’t one of them. Teslas can’t even drive without a driver in Boring Tunnels. Leader lmfao
@@alvadagansta it depends how you define full self driving. Being able to drive autonomously in a geofenced area is not 'full self driving' in my opinion. It seems like a race between tesla to reach the level cruise is at and for systems like cruise to expand their map to the rest of the world. I think its more straight forward to expand the maps but it's a step change so amazingly large if tesla can get there. I'm an fsd beta tester and I do believe Tesla's approach will work.
@@alvadagansta both Cruse and Tesla are making great things happen in this space. How they both evolve and expand will be exciting to watch. Tesla is not there yet but when/if the get there it will work everywhere. Cruse is actually driving people but it’s service area is small and growing this area is going to be expensive.
Let’s all just enjoy watching both companies work hard to make a safer tomorrow!
We had around 2016 driverless buses in my hometown (Trikala,Greece) going on a scheduled route in a seperate bus lane, around the city center. Even if it lasted only for 6 months, since it was a EU program, and despite having maximum speed of around 20 kmph, it was a rather unique experience, travelling with one of the first fully independent automated vehicles
If I could shout something at Cruise / Waymo - where they are needed the most is if they can solve the “last mile” problem with public transit. I don’t need to ride a self driving car all the way to NYC, I just need it to get me to the train station that’s a ~5 minute drive away.
Love how you tell stories, Cleo. It's so accessible.
Very easy too
I think we need another episode on the different approaches between Tesla and every other autonomous driving company.
Cleo, I have worked in the autonomous industry since 2009 and my company leads others through the transition (cities, airports, state DOTs, etc.) and we also help the autonomous makers with their deployments (installation, risk assessment, safety verification...). We also educate people about the benefits & path to get to autonomous. And I have to say, your video is the BEST explanation I have seen. I am going to share this throughout my network. VERY well done!!! I'm so glad that this popped up on my feed this morning!
Cool topic, but would've appreciated some more in-depth details. Like how they're training the cars, what sort of tech, sensors, etc. Future plans for fleets, city expansion. What their biggest challenges are. Last few videos have been interesting, but without enough depth to learn anything new (like reading headlines without the article). I really do enjoy Huge If True and am excited to see your journey. Thanks!
Agreed
agreed
I'm interested in more too, but I actually think this was a solid edit from Cleo (Hey Cleo). She came at this with a clear thesis of understanding where AVs are and where they are not, in terms of sophistication and adoption, and I think she really followed through on that. Would I like to know more? Heck yeah, but then that's another video and one we can kindly request from her or look up ourselves.
Same thought for me. This was basically just basic knowledge and a few appealing shots. 😄
Same, I wish she would talk more about the resistance to it and the general attitude towards driverless cars being one of the factors behind it's slow growth. Also the fact that it'll replace jobs...
I'm curious why you didn't look more closely at Tesla FSD Beta? Considering that this appears to be the most advanced self-driving technology available right now, it seems a pretty "huge" omission. Tesla's FSD Beta represents the state of the art when it comes to self-driving, and it has nothing to do with taxis.
As a data scientist myself working on similar problems I am really happy to see cars getting smarter but I would love to see the traffic signals/lights getting smarter too .. that makes a lot of difference or find a way not to have traffic lights at all.. if things are getting automated. That’s what I would call progress.
I love how often we talk about “when will we be able to just sit while we get magically transported from one place to another.” Like, guys… we have trains.
We also have BRT that could be used as on call systems. The train systems need to be tied to development to make money like they are in Japan.
Trains don't reach my office. And last mile connectivity is a real issue everywhere.
@@tackytaco8133 Not having huge parking lots between all buildings and generally denser built up areas would go a long way here. Also better public transport (for example via a, potentially driverless, bus) branching off from systems with more capacity(subway, trams, etc.) could make it that you can reach everywhere in a city with a maybe 500-1000 meter walk, which is honestly not that much
@@tackytaco8133 i feel like those issues might be more feasible to solve than making cars that can drive by themselves...
@@KRYMauL Our country is tied that way by rail, we just don’t utilize bride of oil and automotive lobbying. 70 years ago my town had 7 railroads, 3 factories and a trolley. Now we have one railroad and crack addicts
You need to try a full self driving beta tesla .
I’d love to!
@@CleoAbram we are getting an update this week or so it is going to be cutting edge. i am in the bay area if you need my Y. exciting!
@@CleoAbram If you get the chance definitely try it. Words of wisdom though. It will be amazing in some ways and frightening in others.
My back was sweating when I first got FSD, but when you learn what it can do and what it’s not great at it gets exciting.
I can relax on country roads and well marked intersections and i’m alert and ready to take over on complex city intersections and roundabouts. Go for a ride or better yet drive one for a couple of weeks:) great videos keep them coming!
Honestly don’t know how you can’t or hardly mention Tesla as a leader in space.
Tesla FSD BETA has had 35,000,000 miles driven alone on it or and there’s tons of videos of people showing how smooth it’s driving.
Or… you know… public transport. Just one person driving 100s off people. And driverless subways have been a thing for decades even
How about the Tesla Loop, but with buses. It’s basically just a glorified underground BRT system as that seems to be the original message that Tesla was promoting.
Literally. Say all cars are now driverless on the road, effectively all you have is extremely low density rapid transit, that is likely also extremely slow because traffic isn't going away.
My thoughts exactly, just making a worse train with that robot truck instead of just adding more tracks to deliver goods like Switzerland did
well sure but in the U.S. public transportation (outside of a major city) is absolutely worthless, beyond that I can go from where I am to exactly where I want to be, without transfers, trying to be there on time for public transport that is not there on time, or waiting for anyone else.
Also, to add to that, a big problem with American public transportation is that it just doesn't run frequently enough for people to rely on it. In major European cities, the train will come every couple minutes. If you miss one train, you only need to wait for a minute for another one. It's really quite liberating to have that available to people that want it! It'll free up roads for people that want to drive, too
A topic close to my heart. As someone who cannot drive, self driving cars is a miracle technology that would change my life.
My 2022 Hybrid F-150 has adaptive cruise and lane centering that, when used, has the truck primarily driving itself when I drive from Maine to Colorado or Alabama, and it's awesome. But I can also turn all of it off. When I get to a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, or a snow covered logging access road, I can shut off everything, even the traction control, with basically just one button.
I hope the future keeps giving me these options. I have no problem with the truck driving on the highway, in fact, I'd love it if it were good enough I could flip my chair around and play a board game with people in the back seat. But when I'm alone on a gravel road, where the only person I'm really putting at risk is myself... or when I need to get to a hospital _right now_, and I'm not waiting for an empty 4am red light to do it.... I hope I can still take over.
As someone who deals a LOT with the trucking industry and where said industry impacts cost directly, we are foaming at the mouth to get autonomous long range trucks. The cost and time savings will be huge.
Awesome to hear - people building you said trucks :)
At least here in Europe we won't have those in the near future.
How would anyone troubleshoot an autonomous truck that breaks down in the middle of the highway, without any human in charge of it?
@carultch All of these trucks would be monitored remotely. If the truck senses something wrong, it would pull to the side of the road just like a normal human. Then a repair team would be dispatched to fix the truck.
There will probably be a new industry revolving around fixing autonomous trucks and cars that get stuck. Capitalism always finds a way.
@@drewcambre Sounds good until it breaks down where there is no cell service, which a lot of us can relate to. At least a human driver can coast it to the side of the road, and fix something if it is simple enough. And hitch a ride to somewhere where there is cell service.
Great video. Although I wish you would have mentioned Tesla, who is by many measures leading the self driving industry
Agreed. I would be looking to gain knowledge on the Cruse approach vs the Tesla approach to solving the same/ similar problem.
There's an interesting battle between the technologies of self-driving as well. Notably pure vision vs LiDAR
The other battle is - using high resolution maps done by 3D mapping and then only letting cars into these pre-mapped areas vs. using regular navigational data that humans use (including lane navigation that's not available everywhere and isn't always 100% correct) and letting the car figuring the rest on the fly. The latter is what Tesla is trying (not sure what other companies do this but most of them seems to go the first way) and has the benefit of being a more general approach that's not dependent on specialized mapping and having the data always up-to-date but is of course much more challenging to do. But if anyone can pull it off, then that's going to be the winner.
I've brushed up on this in class in geomatics engineering. Using LiDAR seems to be the way to go with the SLAM algorithm... Would love to work in this area!
that is imo the interesting part.
I’m a Tesla FSD beta tester and I’m amazed you didn’t talk at all about how differently Tesla is approaching autonomous driving. Have you had the chance to test a Tesla driving autonomously in a city?? Is not perfect, but when it works, is amazing!
It blows my mind how many people don’t know about how amazing Tesla’s fsd actually is!
I was amazed about that too! If she dove into the actually technological approaches behind them, she would have realized the fact that FSD beta is almost completely neural nets by this point, which eliminates more and more of those human-intuitive only nuances
Tesla FSD is a joke , she's talking about real shit here
Tesla FSD can't even detect a speed bump ffs.
@@NickMeskhi 🤡
One thing i find even couler is that we actually have self driving train systems since they 1980 with the Vancouver SkyTrain and the DLR in Londen making use of a system called celtrack.
Tried one in Vegas at CES several years ago. It was… terrifying and cool at the same time?
Send a radio-wave to the destination. It can move to a GPS measurement (by actively interfering with the correct GPS signal). Next, restrict the radio-wave to follow the "safe rules of the road", including finding a surface to drive on, keeping away from other vehicles or pedestrians using the surface of the vehicle, etc. Finally, interfere the controls for the vehicle with the radio-wave!
A futuristic improvement will be to streamline the surface of the vehicle to become focused like a laser. Then, the vehicle is very safe and won't collide with nearby traffic or obstacles. "Where We're going, We don't need roads!" (Quoting "Back To The Future 2"). Signed, Chris. Nice work on the video too!
Very informative video as always! Cleo, I have been a huge* fan of your work over the years. A bit sad that some of the original videos of you speaking to your kid are gone, they were super nice. Esp the one where you talk about your friends getting together every weekend for no-technology hang outs. You're very inspiring. :) Keep doing what you do!
Suggestion for a new video: How future jobs will shift / the bigger potential of automation and autonomy.
Positive side: There are already less and less truck drivers (although that has also to do with working conditions), with autonomy you would not need them and they could do other work, same for taxidrivers. Now think about other jobs you do not really need like cashiers in the super market, train drivers, many jobs in factories can be even more automated etc. This is also important as people get older and older and less and less working people have to uphold the economy. Interesting times ahead!
(FYI I know that this was only the positive side ;)
What you're saying sounds like everything being automated would be good, I dont agree with you.
You said about getting rid of jobs we don't "need" if there wasn't a need for it, then that job wouldn't exist.
Fact of the matter is, if you replace it with machines, the human is now pushed out of that job, and not by a small amount either, there are over a million PART TIME cashiers in my country, and more than double that in full time cashiers work, that's a lot of people now jobless looking for a new job, if you add taxi drivers and factory workers, we are talking tens of millions potentially now looking for work, the more we automate, the less jobs there will be for these workers to migrate to, even if you argue that people would be needed to look after the machines, you would only need a dozen or so people, eventually people would just not be able to work, and if people can't afford to live, the economy suffers.
Also your idea that the population is declining is also not entirely correct. Yes people are living longer, and while births are a bit lower in most countries, it is not at a point where there isn't enough workers, if you look at China and Japan they show the stark reality of a declining population, so in these two countries you are right, they have a massive population of elderly people and not enough born to replace them, China right now really suffered because of the one child policy to the point they are almost paying people to have more kids, but in most other countries, the population is still expanding and therefore people need jobs, we also need a plan to accommodate the higher percentage of elderly, but that's a separate issue.
Long story short, we do need jobs, automation is amazing, but the cost of that is people's livlihood and if we replace everything with machines, it will negatively impact workers there needs ro be a balance, because if people cannot afford to live, the economy shrinks and that's bad.
Hi Cleo, Your content is always on point! This time tho, i was disappointed you didn't cover the progress Tesla is making with FSD. Maybe you could do an episode on that after their Ai Day next week? :)
This has become my new favorite CZcams channel. Thank you for taking deep dives in complex questions and showing them in a fun and well made manner.
This was so well put together!! Informative, engaging and the visuals/editing were great!!! 🙌
I love how half the comments are : wow self driving cars are so awesome.
and the other half is like: dude, trains and public transport?
and here i am in a country without trains and unable to afford a car 🤣
Great video Cleo! I learned so much :)
Love your finance videos Humphrey!
People are going to save so much money when they don't have to own cars anymore 💸🚙💰
Great segment! 👍 I recently discovered your channel and am truly enjoying it! It satisfies my inner geek in a way no other channel has. The presentation of your content is excellent. I hope the widespread use and acceptance of self-driving cars comes sooner rather than later. Although I love driving, I'm willing to give it up for safer roads and fewer bad drivers.
I love your presentation style. I see good things for this channel. I'm excited to be sharing this epoch with you, when it feels like we're on the brink of something great. The next evolution. This is what it felt like, as a kid, coding away at Geocities homepages, not know what's in stored for the future. Exciting stuff!
Just remember there used to be an elevator operator (lift-man or lift-girl).
Very informative & interesting video as always 👌👌👌
elevators move along literal rails in an enclosed shaft with no other traffic or pedestrians, and they still rely on sensors in the shaft and a centralized control computer in the machine room to be safe - that's not really a valid comparison by any means, they're more skin to trains than anything even remotely close to a car
Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of driving at all - so I kinda really dig the idea of autonomous cars...
Probably my favorite video you've made so far! As someone who drives from Phoenix to LA on the I-10 quite frequently, I've always wondered when automonus trucks would become a reality. Glad to see that technology is being worked on. Love how we can see your enthusiasm throughout the video, keep up the amazing work! 😁
I feel like autonomous cars have been here for a while cause I was seeing autonomous buses in my city managing traffic and pedestrian passage without ever having an accident and that was a few years ago
That’s what autonomous vehicles are going to be simply because the ROI on an av taxi service is way too low.
Would love to see a part 2 on each of these ideas + other developments in the space. Good stuff as always :) - I might *start* by looking at the links in the description 😉
Self-driving has always seemed like an over engineered silicon valley solution to problems we already have solutions for. Just build a good national train net, walkable cities and a good subway net in all cities. Suddenly you don't need a car and can travel much quicker with public transportation than you ever could with your car. Streets are safer, just like with the super idealized level 5 automation, and you can do whatever you want while on the "road". Read a book, take a nap, get some work done... etc. The future doesn't need more cars and huge parking lots/roads that take up a shit tonne of space
If cars are self driving, utilization would go up, meaning less cars in parking lots and less parking lots needed. Also tunneling is another solution for roads. Trains are just hard to build in America bc the gov is inefficient and the public doesn’t support it
@@Foremangrill it's kind sad that legislation that allows completely autonomous cars and huge stacked tunnels seem more realistic in the US than good public transportation
@@soundninja99 true, but at the same time it was kind of how american cities were planned and created. space wasn't necessarily a constraint. additionally, i thought that in the suburbs of other cities cars are needed
"Just build a good national train net"
That is way, way, way, way harder than you insinuate it is. It could have been easy if we just collectively decided that is what we would do, but as that won't happen it won't happen. Self driving cars does only have technology as a barrier, and tech only barriers are broken all the time. All the time. This is only a question about time.
@@snuffeldjuret Ah, the American way. It's easier to invent sci-fi tech than collectively deciding to do something the entire continent of Europe already has
Hi, loved the video subject... I have watched many of your newer videos and I have to say you're very impressive from your editing to the fact that you can speak on a topic without the typical cut edits...hell I even enjoyed your ad ..lol
Thank you for your content, I am an amateur video editor/maker and your videos are very well done.
This is probably my favorite CZcams channel. I always learn something new or gain a new perspective. Great work cleo!
Interesting that that conversation happened in a driverless elevator, without any concern for needing to take over manually.
those aren't even comparable - how many pedestrians or other cars are in your average elevator shaft?
@@ashen_dawn people have died from elevators. Operators used to have to be there to prevent that from happening. They're no longer necessary.
@@kevinmbrooks people still die from elevators even today - my point is that elevators are on literal rails and move in one axis, and so comparing them to a self driving car is ridiculously underestimating how much more complex cars are
@@ashen_dawn I didn't say they were the same. Just that they went through the same transition and people had the same concerns at the time.
Self-driving cars arent as good as they sound. (but they are better than normal ones)
1. For the trucks, they could just use a train that can hold much more cargo and could also be autonomous.
2. Regular public transport could also be self driving and it can carry much more people and also be more efficient.
But a train can't deliver goods to your local store, because there are no railways and it will be expensive to place them
@@oldcrawfish5008 Short distance stuff like that can still be done with trucks, but a lot less would be needed in that case. A lot of long distance stuff is still done with trucks but would be more efficient with trains.
@@candy_heart7191 trains already exist and function in this way. The last mile autonomy, really end-to-end autonomy, is the real game changer.
They need to build the infrastructure and will work even better.
I gotta be honest. This video leaves what I think is the main and only important part of the story out of the discussion. What about the legal aspects of it all? What happens -if- when an individual private "self driving" (as we have today) car crashes? Who's responsible for it? The driver? Or the company? And what about in the trucking industry?
I know that self driving taxi would 100% be responsible for any damages that might happen but honestly if we're filling our streets with self driving cabs we're already past doomed. It'd be like a post-doom era. True hellscape. It gives me chills just thinking about it.
Love this video and also having just found your channel yesterday your storytelling, pacing and editing have me INSPIRED. The notification bell has officially been dinged*!
Do a video on how public transit in America should come back, and how it used to be widely used. Autonomous vehicles are cool but they are still cars and require much more land than dense urban areas that aren’t infested with giant parking lots and suburban style housing developments that rely on individual cars.
Here for the “giggling maniacally” subtitle.
This must be Ex-Vox inside humor. haha
Love your videos, they are fun, engaging and most importantly very informative. nice lighting by the way!
"Don't wait for the sci-fi version before paying attention. The future is made in the messy, messy middle, and that's where we're in right now"
As a French currently living in America I noticed how non-existant/bad the train system is in the US so I understand why autonomous trucks sound like a big deal but I feel like if the train system was way more developed in here, the need for those self-driving trucks wouldn't be that high.
Apart from that, very good and informative video as always! 👍
Freight train is better here in the US than anywhere else its the passenger rail that the US drastically lacking. Also trains including metro systems are the ultimate pinnacle for self driving vehicles.
I think the whole self driving taxi thing is going to be a fad that ends in autonomous brt.
@@Phingolfina Yeah I didn’t know about that. As a foreigner I only see the passenger rail situation and was surprised by the lack of train stations and ways to travel by train. Thanks for the explanation!
@@KRYMauLI don’t think so. Once they master this tech, I think everyone is going to want their own self driving chauffeur. To be able to just hop in your car, sit back and watch TV while your car takes you wherever you want to go is the ultimate convenience. Its too good a concept to be a fad
@@pete6705 It’s not going to be what you think, I think it’ll like a car rental service now.
I still think the "simpler situations, with passengers" part of the quadrant doesn't get enough love. Having grown up in the countryside, I know how tough it can be there for those that can't drive, because there's no public transport. The suburbs are pretty much the same situation. Tesla FSD already seems to do a pretty good job in the suburbs and on highways, so I really hope they launch a service there first instead of waiting until it can handle to madness of downtown NYC!
Tesla FSD is set up for bus systems, same with the loop. It’s just too expensive to run a fleet of taxis outside a city centre
@@KRYMauL You seriously think that? Have you done any math?
@@KRYMauL FSD is made more for the real world than Cruise, and cruise is more similar to a bus. Cruise works when it's in a familiar area, and that's fine, but that's much different from Tesla. Also, the loop from the boring company, digs at an average rate of 1000x faster speeds, or at least their prototype does. The other one used in vegas is its predecessor, digging slower, but much faster than the industry. Also, the boring company does it at a cost of 10-100x lower, depending on the company you compare it to. Moreover, its much smaller with the same capabilities, and built for the future of Self Driving Tech. They stated that trials would start later this year. I would suggest looking at Boring companies website. Wont take much time.
Love everyone of you videos! Great quality and great energy.
Love your videos!!! Please please never stop, I’ll watch them all. Thank you🙌🏼
How about cities retrofitted such that motorized transport is unnecessary? Dense, mixed use development. Residential, retail and professional offices all within easy walking distance of each other. Exclude cars saves space on wide roads and parking lots allowing even higher density.
Autonomous intercity transport… like trains! A technology thats now centuries old. Lots of countries have experience with high-speed and electrified railways.
Very good overview, Cleo. I'm of the thought that self-driving vehicles will be an important part of the future, but that converting all vehicles to electric power first is the far more important issue to address (single word reasoning: climate.) In some respects, full self-driving (FSD) has actually slowed down EV mass adoption in recent years, since the anticipation of FSD tech being "just around the corner" has allowed the sort of auto manufacturers who would otherwise be making smaller and more affordable EVs (ie: not necessarily Tesla) to slow walk this more important transition.
The true believers of FSD, who look to futurists like Tony Seba for inspiration, will tell you that the technology will make vehicle ownership obsolete. Or, to put it another way, that they will be so much safer than human-driven vehicles - which will be so much more expensive to insure - that driving yourself around will be effectively outlawed, making the incumbent tech prohibitively expensive to own. The other canard I still hear from the FSD crowd is that a modern city, where robotaxis are slated to be ubiquitous, will have less crowded streets and - even if they're mostly still gasoline-powered - that this alone will effectively address climate change more so than vehicle electrification. But, as Saul Griffith reminds us, you can't efficiency your way all the way down to zero.
I see FSD (pun alert) making inroads with the long haul trucking industry first. It will also eventually disrupt today's business models of car rental agencies and short haul rideshare or taxis. But if doesn't take the form of battery-powered vehicles powered by renewable energy, then it's all for naught.
Keep up the amazing work Cleo, your videos are very informative and interesting to watch.
All of your videos are just soooo interesting. Things I’ve never heard about but that make me so intrigued. What awesome things to learn about.😄
As someone who always gets anxiety during driving, I love this idea :)
Not in Italy, where taxi drivers are the ones who have real power and won't let anything new damage their business, no matter what...
Nobody wins against innovation over time.
For now
One of the things that particularly hit me was when you mentioned the returning of time. I spent most of 2019 travelling to school by public transport (1.5hr) instead of riding my motorbike (0.5hr). Many thought I was being crazy but it was because of time. The difference was 30 min focusing on the road and 1.5hr where I can do anything I want on public transport. So the appeal is definitely there. Thank you for sharing :)
Thanks for the video! I hope it keeps on getting better and better!
Love the video but I'm a bit surprised that you didn't go into Tesla's self driving capabilities. They seem to be chasing the classic ramp up method from level 3 to level 4 and are getting closer and closer to a general purpose "level 4" self-driving. I'd also have liked to hear more about the technology itself and, for instance, the pros and cons of using lidar vs video processing. I'm quite nervous about the extensive Lidar usage in the space and worried about interference and what issues that may cause on real-world roads. Other issues I'm concerned with would be complexities of multiple self-driving cars (from different companies) with different algorithms on the road, how would they interact? Would the lack of human cues from another self driving car cause issues to the algorithm? Sorry this ended up being so long but, all in all a p fun video, but I was hoping for a more complete story.
I found that also a little sad but whatever since that video was not about which system is better and more a general explaination about the technology. In my opinion Tesla is pretty well set and their way how they build the system and make it accessible for the public in early stages is helping them also to gather more data than others fast.
Also the LIDAR discussion is kinda overused as you could always add that to your self driving system in a later stage. The training of the network the right way is way more important. In my opinion FLIR would be probably a better addition than LIDAR anyways.
Let Tesla silently go to victory, it's fine! 🙂
Really nicely organized video! Very well presented and very informative. My only nitpick is that you never mention Waymo. They are an offshoot of the Google self-driving car project and are widely considered to be one of the big leaders in autonomous driving. They have driverless robotaxis in Chandler that the public can use and also testing driverless robotaxis in SF and downtown Phoenix. I know this video was focused on Cruise but it would have been nice if you had mentioned Waymo since they are such a big leader in this field. Thanks!
I REALLY like your way of presenting a topic! And thank you for not buying into those "bs claims" and focussing on things that are real now or in the near future. Please keep it up!
Always love the passion on your videos they are really good
Cool video !
As always, I can't shake the questions of externalities though.
Environmental externalities : more electronics, cars with few passengers, and even if they are electric they require a source of energy and some energy storage. Is it all addressed ?
Social externalities : less drivers... less jobs. Is anything envisioned by these companies to mitigate such societal change ? Like UBI for example ?
Tech is huge, as long as it is rooted in a sustainable development approach :)
Thanks Cleo !
Cars are already most often only occupied by 1 person only, so not sure what you're getting at there, mind elaborating?
@@JohanHultin I never mind elaborating :)
Indeed, cars are often not used at their full capacity these days, which increases the energy amont per person for transport - quite unsustainable.
My inquiry linked to externalities attempts to bring the sustainability discussion to the change perspective brought by self driving. If it remains a technical change that doesn't interrogate our ways of moving around, and doesn't anticipate its social and environmental impacts, it risks to remain within the same unsustainable model.
And to look at it the other way, integrated with a sustainability approach, maybe it could help with car pooling, reduce the number of needed personal cars in cities, and push for the emergence of a proper recycling industry for lithium-based batteries and decentralized renewable energy production...
That's the type of question I always ask myself when a cool tech comes up :)
Self-driving will be Huge, as long as it makes sure to be part of the solution for a sustainable future, not a contribution to its already massive problems.
Fantastic video :)
:)
Gosh Cleo, I love your video essays. Keep them coming!
Great episode! I hope you keep covering this subject as it evolves. Love your videos. They're super interesting and your a likable storyteller. Can't wait for your next video.
I just feel like the real solution is better mass transit and less véhicules on the road.
👏👏👏👏
I gotta admit, self-driving vehicles are kinda cool. But they are just not for everyone, especially in developing countries.
As it does not serve a huge advantage in terms of improving our lifestyle, it needs good and well-maintained road infrastructure in the first place.
By the way, I love how you constantly give a new perspective on this topic although I have read a lot about it before.
Yeah just improve public transport. Especially long-distance trucking should be replaced with rail transport, which is more efficient (both in terms of man-hours and energy). I see a place for those short distance autonomous cars though, to get from a train station to your front door.
All technology is scary till it *starts* working
Your 2x2 framework to discuss self-driving really speaks to me as a management consultant. Love it! I have done some work with an autonomous company...its really fascinating stuff.
We can already see that second gen. cruise 'car' slowly evolve into a train. With time they'll logically progress from car to bus > trolley bus > tram > metro.
Trains are like the crabs of transportation, unfortunate we had to take such a circuitous route to get there.
It honestly seems like this because trains are just so efficient. Even the Hyperloop is a glorified vacuum train.
Anything using HD maps is a glorified train, they lay down invisible track for the car to follow
@@TypicalBlox Ah, I was wondering whether they were on rails throughout the video! She never said, so thanks for the information.
Awesome, I do think that we should abandon the concept of private transport, and concentrate on making public transport self driving
Subways around the world are automated. Vancouver, Canada, has Skytrain since the mid-1980s, was automated from day one.
@@CarFreeSegnitz yes, but I was thinking more about the bus system.
As always I love your work. Especially your delivery. Please keep up the amazing work!
As a rideshare driver I, of course have mixed feeling about this. Biggest concern is NOT about my "job". Its about humanity, or the lack there of. Who cleans the car between trips? Or a horrible situation I've encountered twice in a years time. "Men" bold enough to get in an "uber" uninvited with a single female passenger. Self driving cars with seats for 4? College kids will figure out how to get eight people in. Within a years time kids will be pulled behind the back on skateboards. Hookers will turn tricks in em, and the graffiti on them will put the trains of the 70s in New York to shame.
Great episode though. I really love your episode ideas and the enlightenment they bring.
Okay guys this might be the next step from driverless cars. As you guys might already know it cars got stuck in traffic quite often, let's just make a new "lanes" or "tracks" for these driverless cars. And cars only fit 5-7 people tops, so let's make them more efficient by sticking them together to fit more people, and make the cars themselves bigger too! Now we have driverless cars that are computer controlled, have their own tracks so they don't get stuck in traffic and can fit a lot of people! But we can go better from there, instead of ordering and waiting for the cars to pick you up, we can make the cars stop in a predetermined places and predetermined schedule too! And we can make them go over those "places" or "stations" so often that we don't need to check the schedule as well! Isn't that super great? Imagine going anywhere without the hassle of driving and looking for parking spaces!
Funny.
Trains😊
I think you missed the actual divide, how different companies are trying to achieve those levels, visual vs radar for example. Because all companies are trying to achieve the more complex roads, what makes it geographically constrained is the technology chosen.
I think this is also a fascinating story - how two companies within the same or nearby boxes approach building differently
9:49 you made this more clear than any of the freaking 30 articles I read on the topic when disscussing "what to expect in the near future", that basically repeated "we're in level 2 yet".
You explained this complex subject so succinctly and easily - really appreciate your videos. Thank you
As much as I find the tech in self driving cars really cool and sexy, wouldn’t a robust bus and rail system be a cheaper solution that has already been around for nearly a century? Shouldn’t this be where we are putting our efforts?
10:00 do you mean a train? Like tens if not hundreads of wagons full of stuff with a single person or a small crew working on them?
11:05 that vehicle looks absolutely terrible at passenger safety.
I really like your videos but this feels and screams like an ad as every other video on this platform that got to speak to someone who works in these companies. I really hope you got paid well.
Hoping the next video is good as everything you have done before!
Coming to this video in 2023 just hits different. NFTs pretty much died as fast as as they rose to the popularity.
Really appreciate the clarity and authenticity of your journalism.
But Teslas self driving cars are completely different!
Trains and Bikes will still be the best way to get around for most trips if a city is designed well.
We cant let Self Driving and Electric Cars perpetuate car dominance
Agreed. Most of our citie's infrastructure is made for the darn things. We need less cars not more.
@@rgonzalo511 yeah, self driving cars will be useful though, making even fewer people be able to use a car, but it should still be very rare to use a large personal vehicle like that
The explanation is top notch....one question i think wasn't addressed in this video was what if some tech on the driverless car malfunctions
That was awesome! I've heard a lot of the story in small bites and from disparate sources but you really put it together here. Thanks so much, keep it up!
Self driving cars are great and all, but they’re basically just trains without the economy of scale, less energy efficient, and far more dangerous.
IMO I dont think this video really gives enough credit to Tesla FSD Beta, or really explains the different approaches to achieve Full self driving. A company like Cruise uses both Lidar and cameras, which overcomplicates things. And are only accesable in geofenced locations, where the AI is "familiar" with the roads. Whereas Tesla FSD Beta only uses computervision, to be able to navigate in the real world, like a human only using vision. The revolution happens when Tesla achieves FSD lvl 4, it will overtake all the competition, because it will be able to drive everywhere, instead of only driving on roads it is familiar with. Incredible we had to watch 2 min of the video before we even see the Tesla logo, even though they are the unassailable leaders of this technology lmao. Most journalists for some reason, completely undermine Tesla and the disruption they have created.
I’m a huge admirer of Tesla. In this case, I tried to focus on the major divides in categories, and used Cruise as the case study. But I’d love to do other videos about Tesla - there’s so much to talk about!
@@CleoAbram The problem is that you state that there are two approaches (like at 6:51): driving in less complex environments anywhere, and driving in more complex but constrained areas. But you leave out the third approach, which is to support driving in complex environments anywhere, which is what Tesla is working toward and has had many beta testers driving for some time. I accept that you were focusing on this one company and this one approach, but by ignoring Tesla and its great strides toward a third, better, approach you do your viewers a disservice.
Because it doesn't work yet and nobody knows how long it will take. This video is talking about things that already work with at least decent reliability
Wonderfully produced as always!
I love and support this idea for a great many reasons. I also am worried about self driving cars for the same reasons because of the state I live in. Where I currently live in Texas people drive very aggressively, and they do so gladly because they feel like it’s OK to jump all their emotions, their anger, their frustrations out onto the highway and drive in an extremely unsafe manner and it causes a lot of frustration to them to see people like me who drive the speed limit, and we drive cautiously. So I hope that they’re taking into account that particular factor that until everybody is using self driving cars, there’s gonna be a lot of pushback from people who would rather take control themselves and drive their car through five others if it means getting to their location five minutes faster and I’m not kidding when I say they would rather drive through other cars because they try to and have done so.
Just STARTed watching your videos through an MKBHD collab - I love your work. Great find for me!
We have to further destinguish between user operated systems and supervised systems. Robotaxis are supervised. So cars are monitored, checkt by professionals and maps are manually updated. This is the same with trucking, delivery etc.
You save a lot of money on drivers, so you can afford to pay staff for monitoring and servicing the vehicles.
User operation is way harder. Cars are expected to work for 10+ years, Sensor get dirty and they should work everyware. Furthermore people do not save money, so the tech is more like a bonus feature. If self driving is 100.000$ nobody is gonna buy it. So the tech has to make compromises to be cheap.
As an Urban Planner, I wish Cleo would have made this video a little longer and talked about another split: private AVs vs public AVs. The built environment looks vastly different if we try to make AVs into private assets like we already did with cars. I think this will be the largest challenge to gaining a critical mass is convincing people that they shouldn't own AVs because Americans are so accustomed to on demand transport. AVs should be owned by municipalities and become another public transportation option; this way we reduce the amount of space we'd need to store them and avoid private companies from stopping the service (e.g. ReachNow and Car2Go in Seattle).
Why do I feel personally attacked by the line "in the mid-1900''s"..like, I was there when cruise control took off! Yes, I know...I. Am. Old. Awesome video Cleo...well presented and very entertaining.