Brian Harries

Waymo driving on the wrong side of the road due to what appears to be a bad driving decision -- for the second video in a week. Wonder what their excuse will be this time! Last time it was a strained story that they were trying to be safe by moving into an oncoming traffic lane (with oncoming traffic) for well over a block a few days ago (pointer to that earlier video here; involves a swarm of unicycles: https://lnkd.in/eHFicWNg ) This video is a lot more straightforward. The problem with heavy-tail situations is it highlights a lack of "common sense" that is an inherent limitation to machine learning-based technology. Not a great look for a company trying to convince us that human drivers are terrible. Video source is apparently from TikTok. Or a deepfake -- or one from a year ago that just surfaced -- let's see what Waymo says. Happy to update with more info on date/source/provenance if we find out. Update: I got a note saying this was in Phoenix from an informed source, but not iron-clad confirmation. The previous video with crazy unicycle circumstances, no crash, and a laughable explanation is one thing. A second video makes Waymo's one-off edge case defense a lot less credible. Source: https://lnkd.in/eQJQxsap

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***Lucid Motors, Rivian, and Ferrari Showcase EV Industry Camaraderie at Pebble Beach Concours.*** In a striking display of industry unity, Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson and Rivian founder RJ Scaringe were seen together at the Pebble Beach Concours, examining Lucid's new Gravity SUV. This interaction highlights the collaborative spirit within the electric vehicle (EV) sector, contrasting with the often polarizing fan culture surrounding some EV brands. The event also drew attention from traditional automakers, with Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna joining the Lucid and Rivian executives to explore Gravity's features, including its spacious frunk (front trunk). This gathering of industry leaders underscores a growing trend in the EV market: a focus on shared progress and innovation rather than divisive competition. Cooperation and mutual respect among manufacturers may shape the future of electric mobility, accelerating the industry's overall advancement. Such moments of cross-company engagement at high-profile events like Pebble Beach not only showcase new technologies but also foster a more collaborative approach to addressing the challenges of sustainable transportation. I love to see this! Images from Lucid Motors. #automotivenews #automotiveengineering #automotivemanufacturing #lucidgravity #rivian #ferrari

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I took my first Waymo ride yesterday. While they’re often seen as a leader in autonomous vehicles with their Level 4 autonomy, contraversialy I think there are reasons why they may not truly hold that title: 1. Vehicle Production: Waymo doesn’t manufacture its own autonomous vehicles; instead, it retrofits Jaguar I-Pace cars with their proprietary hardware and software. Building a dedicated vehicle production line is a significant, complex undertaking. 2. Expensive Hardware: Their setup relies on a combination of costly LiDAR, cameras, and sensors, which makes scalability challenging. 3. Limited Operating Range: Currently, Waymo’s service is limited to select areas like San Francisco, so it’s not broadly available. 4. Financial Losses: Waymo lost approximately $1.2 billion last year, reflecting the steep costs of scaling and technology development. 5. Human Intervention Needed: When the vehicle encounters unfamiliar situations, a human operator is alerted to make decisions, highlighting some limitations in fully autonomous functionality. So, who’s leading in autonomous vehicle technology? Tesla might be. Here’s why: 1. Full In-House Manufacturing: Tesla manufactures its own vehicles and builds the infrastructure required to scale production—an extremely challenging feat. 2. Integrated Hardware: Tesla’s hardware is fully integrated, relying on cameras and software rather than the more expensive LiDAR systems. 3. Profitability: Tesla is profitable on each vehicle sold, a rarity in the EV and AV industries. 4. Adaptability: Tesla’s vehicles are designed to operate in a variety of locations without relying on pre-mapped routes. 5. Fully Autonomous System: Tesla’s approach aims for no human intervention in its autonomous technology.

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Only three #robotaxis efforts left in the US 🇺🇸 😢. General Motors is cutting all funding for cruise, which leaves Waymo, Tesla, Zoox, and Uber 🤷🏻‍♂️! Still not sold on the Uber plan so we will call it two with Waymo being the pioneer. Meanwhile every #EV effort in China is all-in on #autonomy 🤦‍♂️. Just another sign that China is out pacing legacy OEMs like Ford Motor Company and Honda in every way. https://lnkd.in/gkW2UuBQ

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Range is the #2 barrier to purchase an EV, after cost, but it's a narrative that belongs in the rear-view more and more every day. This week Rivian released a trip planning tool that make it easy to preview drives with any needed charging stops: https://lnkd.in/gzH3_csa Send it to your friends that have said "I want an EV but --" Very rewarding to be a part of the team behind this release. Between incredibly capable long-range vehicles like Rivian and a massively expanding EV charging network in North America, let's scale up the next wave of EV ownership ⚡ #EV #Rivian #charging

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Tesla's latest software update, version 2024.26, introduces new features including parental controls with PIN-enabled settings allowing parents to set speed limits and acceleration controls for young drivers. A "Night Curfew" mode notifies parents via the #Tesla app if the car is driven past curfew. Additionally, Tesla now supports YouTube Music and Amazon Music alongside Spotify for music streaming. Other updates include displaying local weather, adding sub-destinations in navigation, full-screen Zoom mode when parked, and menu enhancements. These features require Tesla's Premium Connectivity subscription or a Wi-Fi connection. The update's rollout schedule to all Tesla owners remains unspecified. Follow Amanda Newman to stay up to date with technology. https://lnkd.in/e_s7HbnS

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This is actually 4D chess. If all of the OEMs signed on to the standard, then the rest of the industry can start contributing to building it out. Every single member of the Supercharger team will be snapped up instantaneously throughout the industry. It’s shocking at first blush, but actually brilliant. It’s not just fair, but the most beneficial move for the industry. Everyone should be building.

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Missed expectations on board. Rivian falls short of reaching the revenue highway as the automaker misses Q3 expectations and lowers earnings guidance. Its situation is a microcosm of the bigger problems facing the auto industry where companies are all struggling. It's losing less money, so that's a start. Producing vehicles isn't for the weak at heart, and the same can be said for Rivian. The company lost $39,130 for every vehicle that they delivered in Q3 2024, which isn't great until you understand losses used to be more than $125,000 per vehicle. Being small is tough especially in the EV business. Traditional automakers like General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have had their own share of issues related to supply chain disruptions, growing inventory and high interest rates. The arrival of 2025 models certainly isn't helping clear out the lot at the moment for many. Stellantis just recently announced 1,100 layoffs because of declining sales for its Jeep brand, while Volkswagen is closing plants in Germany for the first time ever. Small and nimble requires four-wheel drive. Smaller automakers like Rivian face greater challenges in the EV market due to their limited product lines. Even Tesla has had its problems. In contrast, established giants like GM and Ford have significant investments in EVs and are launching numerous models to appeal to a wider range of consumers. Where Rivian can standout or at least enhance its runway is through partnerships. Just last quarter, Volkswagen invested $1 billion in Rivian to develop technology to be used in future EVs. That type of investment provides the cash cushion the struggling automaker needs to weather a quarter with subpar sales https://cnb.cx/3UKz4GS #rivian #electricvehicles #automotiveindustry #supplychain

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Sustainable and modern student transportation, along with that -- feeding the grid!

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Waymo has announced a major milestone, potentially paving the way for other emerging robotaxi companies — even amid persistent skepticism and division over this technology. Waymo said that over the course of just three months, the company has doubled its paid rides to 100,000 per week. It’s currently the only such company collecting fares for riders who take the unmanned self-driving taxis. The company has opened up service to anyone in San Francisco, has expanded in metro Phoenix and has plans to extend to the San Francisco Peninsula and to certain parts of Los Angeles. What does this all mean for the industry? The main barrier to scaling this technology, in my opinion, is doubt and concern among the general public who has expressed distrust and uncertainty. Once Waymo can offer up proof of concept and ease those fears, I think we’ll see the other struggling players in the space — including Cruise and Zoox and others gain traction, too. https://lnkd.in/egKPv2pB #waymo #selfdrivingtaxis #robotaxis #waymotaxis #cruise #cruiseGM #AV #autonomousvehicles

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After some exchanges in the post below, Antonello De Galizia, Ph.D. and I had an interesting talk on safe #automateddriving. Because the community indeed struggles to navigate the complexity of this domain and to call things by their name, we didn’t want to spread the confusion and leave the discussion unsolved. We found out to be very well aligned and thought it was worth sharing our conclusions with you:   🚗 While both ISO26262 and ISO21448 are strong guidelines for ensuring safety during the development and design of automated driving system, they address different sources of risk, and these should be all tacked according to best practices and state of the art engineering. 🚗 While both standards are in place and provide the key concepts for safe automated driving, the complexity is in their implementation. This is especially true in the case of ISO21448, due to the lack hands-on experience. For example, investigating all possible scenarios within the target operational domain (TOD), considering all relevant combinations of the relevant factors (e.g., environmental conditions) is key to study the system functionalities and claim absence of unreasonable risk. 🚗 Following (to the letter) these standards is not sufficient to achieve truly safety automated driving. In fact, limiting the safety process only to cases where a malfunctioning (26262) or hazardous behavior (21448) result in safety relevant hazards (i.e., severity classes S1, S2 and S3) would mean that situations where unpredictable, irresponsible, or unlawful driving actions would be neglected if not found to be directly leading to harm. These need to be addressed too for a much more solid and proactive safety approach.   We hope to have contributed to a little more structured discussion on safety in this way. Feel free to reach out, Antonello & Henk Here is the link to the original post including our discussion: https://lnkd.in/e8ekRTtp

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With the news of #Tesla firing the entire Supercharger team, there have been lots of claims that they're walking away from a huge revenue stream. Conventional wisdom is that Tesla makes tons of money on charging. But do they? Take their only NEVI-funded site in Rockland, Maine. It takes about 7% utilization in that location just to pay the utility demand charges. That doesn't even account for the $2000/month in service charges to the utility, any other ongoing operational expenses, or recouping any of the capital expenses spent on installing the site. Current average for the state of Maine is about 6% utilization according to Stable Auto. So even if this Rockland site is average for the state, Tesla could be paying more to the utility company each month than they are collecting back in revenue. Of course, there is a lot more to the story. The finances of operating chargers are incredibly complex and highly variable depending on the local conditions at each site. Be wary of any blanket claims about the economics of the Supercharger network. It is not necessarily the golden goose that many people assume it to be, nor are they losing money at every site. There are certainly ways for charging to be profitable. Our ReVision Energy financial model for charging has about 200 data points. Every situation is a unique puzzle to solve and helping customers figure out how to make charging profitable is my favorite part of what I do. I hear Peter Gibbons in my head every time I explain it to a customer.

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25% of North American households have children under the age of 16. That 25% will wish to continue owning at least one household vehicle. A similar percentage needs to carry tools, equipment, pets, etc. in their vehicle. That additional percentage will wish to continue owning a personal vehicle. Another smaller fraction will be concerned about personal preferences, hygiene, etc. These three cohorts are not mutually exclusive but taken together, we will not reduce personal ownership by more than half unless numerous other innovations satisfy the populations I enumerated without them owning a household vehicle. What are those innovations?

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Waymo raised an additional $5.6 Billion to fund its activities. With over 150,000 paid driverless trips and 1 million fully autonomous miles per week, Waymo is clearly the leader of passenger autonomous driving. Waymo has shared cost reduction plans with new vehicles having fewer sensors and is opening new markets and business partnership deals to shoulder some of the operational costs. X (formerly twitter) user EV Industrial Complex shared a back of the envelope estimate for Waymo profitability. While the cost estimates look low and missing some elements, they do offer an indication of gross margins and potential for margin improvement. So why the hefty round?  Because Waymo’s current market is just a small fraction of the potential addressable #AV market. The Waymo announcement hints at new use cases: “We’ll also continue advancing the Waymo Driver… to support a variety of business applications over time.”  Could we be looking at the return of the Waymo One trucking or other use cases?  Or perhaps a software licensing model for other evolving (and less operationally complex) use cases? Thoughts? #autonomousvehicles #futureoftransportation

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Rivian's CEO explains why there won't be just one winner in the EV market. "This is such as big space. We as a planet consume 90 million new cars a year," Scaringe said. "This, by definition, needs many successful companies building many different flavors of what a car might be." "They give customers lots of choices that make customers run toward these new options," he added. RJ Scaringe you are spot-on! One flavor, albeit a niche, is electric amphibious highway legal vehicles, with engineered ability to provide great handling and performance on the road. The fully submerged computer controlled hydrofoils also delivers an amazing smoother longer range electric boating experience. Not only can these types of vehicles reduce road congestion by using water routes in combination with land routes, but in a flood emergency, they provide a method for escape for one's family. #tridentls1 - is also a "quality of life enhancer" being a convertible electric vehicle, worth the slight reduction in aerodynamic efficiency, as any convertible owner today will attest. #electrichydrofoil #electricboats

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