Lyft will begin offering "autonomous" rides (with a test driver in the front seat) to some ride-hailing customers by the end of the year. The program is expected to launch in Boston first:
Silicon Valley's steady march toward self-driving cars took another step forward Friday as the ride-hailing company Lyft said its customers will be able to summon a driverless vehicle on some roads by the end of the year.
The autonomy program, which is expected to launch in Boston before eventually spreading to other cities, could ultimately involve hundreds of thousands of vehicles, said company officials. Depending on the precise conditions of a trip — including the route, traffic, weather and time of day — riders who opt into the trial may be automatically picked up in a self-driving car built by one of a number of manufacturers working with Lyft, rather than a human driver. "You're going to see it. You're going to see these vehicles on the street," said Taggart Matthiesen, Lyft's senior director of product.
As with other companies that have been publicly testing self-driving cars, Lyft riders who participate in the program will be accompanied by test drivers sitting in the front seats of the vehicles.
Lyft announcement. Also at TechCrunch, Reuters, and Bloomberg.
[Ed. addition: I can personally vouch for all 14 of the suggestions given in Boston Driving Tips. If you are intending to drive in Boston, don't trust your past experience — this short article should be mandatory reading.]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Sunday July 23 2017, @01:21PM (4 children)
Serious discounts for adrenaline junkies and suicidal types.
Guys who declared they trust more self-driving cars than human drivers are also invited to put their money where their mouth is - they'll need to sign a not-to-sue kind of waiver anyway.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Sunday July 23 2017, @02:39PM (3 children)
There is a junkie for every vice, and somebody needs to be the alpha/beta tester.
Good luck to them, quite frankly. Autonomous vehicles are not my cup of tea.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 23 2017, @08:45PM (2 children)
Autonomous vehicles will become safer than human-driven vehicles, if they aren't already. I hope you can enjoy your team without getting creamed.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @01:39PM
> Autonomous vehicles will become safer than human-driven vehicles, if they aren't already.
I'm waiting for self-driving cars to become safer than me (or more specifically, my demographic). I believe that as a 60 year old with a clean record, no health issues, my own car (no loan), who doesn't drive while impaired, that I'm at least an order of magnitude safer than an average driver. Working from home (no commute) might add another good multiplier.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday July 24 2017, @02:38PM
> Autonomous vehicles will become safer than human-driven vehicles, if they aren't already. I hope you can enjoy your team without getting creamed.
Don't worry, I will. Even if autonomous cars are proven safer than humans (which I find highly unlikely will ever happen) I would still want to be in control.
I never found driving particularly hard (in fact I find it really enjoyable), and have never had an accident, even a minor one. However, I don't begrudge others, everyone has different priorities and are willing to take other risks (or not). Seeing people using the phone, reading (wtf?), putting on their make up or otherwise not paying attention to driving shows me that there are people for whom driving is not a pleasure, but a chore to devote as little time and effort to as possible.
They will never put the required concentration into piloting what is essentially 2 tons of fast moving metal, and for them I believe autonomous cars would be exactly what they would want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @02:00PM
I don't want to give Lyft any money while I'm saving to buy a sledgehammer to smash self-driving cars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @02:25PM
PhD Thesis: "Back seat driver : voice assisted automobile navigation" 1989.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/14225 [mit.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @03:40PM (2 children)
I've been unable to confirm any plans for having vehicles available by the end of the year anywhere except on the Washington Post article. And they in turn seem to be basing that entirely on the quote: "You're going to see it. You're going to see these vehicles on the street.” That quote is given without any context and seems to be something that could be an intentional 'misinterpretation' of what was said. None of the other articles covering this mentioned, among several others I found, mention anything about plans for having this done by the end of the year. I found this timeline somewhat unlikely, and so far as I can tell this just seems to be Washington Post clickbaiting.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday July 23 2017, @08:43PM (1 child)
So quick to call WaPo fake news. Is Trumpu-jiichan whispering in your ear?
Lyft's plans are entirely plausible because Uber is doing the exact same thing in Pittsburgh [npr.org]. Autonomous cars with test drivers, assigned to certain app trips based on various factors. No different than what is proposed here and already underway.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @06:20AM
The reason for my suspicion is because multiple organizations are reporting on this and WaPo is the only one that is suggesting this timeline. Their evidence for such is also extremely ambiguous. As an aside, I don't think it's a secret that Washington Post's credibility has been going down the drain. These are some headline stories currently on their front page: [washingtonpost.com]
- A desperate request for water and a worker’s suspicions led to discovery of a ‘horrific tragedy’ in a truck in Texas
- How to make $100,000 a month in China, live-streaming your life
- Read Anthony Scaramucci’s old tweets. You’ll understand why he deleted them.
- Please keep this guy away from rousing charter school debate
- Why a biodefense firm is going on a spending spree
Feel free to ctrl+f to verify - I copied those headlines verbatim from their page. WaPo is quickly turning into a tabloid and so I like to do some basic verification on their stories before sharing them, or ideally find a more reliable source for the story. In this case, I think Lyft aiming for self driving tests by the end of the year (that's about 4 months) would be pretty amazing news, but I don't think it's wise to use the Washington Post as a 'first party' source anymore.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Sunday July 23 2017, @03:49PM
Someone fix the headline, please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @07:36PM
Driving in Boston isn't as bad as it's made out to be. It's only a real problem for the types of people that wait all day to make a left turn, are too afraid to merge into city traffic, or think the best way to merge into freeway traffic is to slow down.
Parking is expensive or a pain to find (not unusually so for a city), but there was one thing I've never seen anywhere else: metered parking that turned into a handicapped spot in off-meter hours. There wasn't any blue paint or blue sign nearby - the only indication was a white sign at one end of the road.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 23 2017, @09:38PM (3 children)
I misread "autonomous" as "anonymous" It's the opposite of anonymous.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday July 23 2017, @10:44PM (1 child)
If it centralizes car ownership, it could become the end of anonymous travel for many people. Those with autonomous cars that they bought themselves will be trackable, and today's cars probably have some spy electronics in them as well.
Add a kill switch so that police can stop your car remotely.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @12:55AM
today's cars probably have some spy electronics in them as well.
news from 2015: Car calls 911 after alleged hit-and-run, driver arrested [zdnet.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 24 2017, @06:12PM
It can be:
1) steal someone else's phone
2) call autonomous car for a ride
3) send it to discrete area. load it quickly into faraday-cage truck.
4) dismantle at your leisure
5) profit !
What do you mean by "it's more complicated than stealing a normal car"? Killjoys...
By the way, how will people tell their autonomous car to stop right here instead of there, or change roads, turn around or other oops moments, when it's not able to listen?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bziman on Monday July 24 2017, @01:48PM
You all must be amazing drivers with excellent vision and reflexes, who never get tired and never drink and never need to take a phone call. Well I'm not like you. My vision sucks, especially at night. And paying attention is such a drag. I would much prefer to pay a professional to drive me around the city... and I'd trust an autonomous vehicle twice as much. I can't wait for this to be universally available.