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from the waymo'-on-the-way-for-waymo dept.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/30/16948356/waymo-google-fiat-chrysler-pacfica-minivan-self-driving
Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, has reached a deal with one of Detroit's Big Three automakers to dramatically expand its fleet of autonomous vehicles. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced today that it would supply "thousands" of additional Chrysler Pacifica minivans to Waymo, with the first deliveries starting at the end of 2018.
Neither Waymo nor FCA would disclose the specific number of vehicles that were bought, nor the amount of money that was trading hands. The manufacturer's suggested retail price for the 2018 Chrysler Pacifica hybrid minivan starts at $39,995. A thousand minivans would cost $40 million, so this was at the very least an eight-figure deal.
Waymo currently has 600 of FCA's minivans in its fleet, some of which are used to shuttle real people around for its Early Rider program in Arizona. The first 100 were delivered when the partnership was announced in May 2016, and an additional 500 were delivered in 2017. The minivans are plug-in hybrid variants with Waymo's self-driving hardware and software built in. The companies co-staff a facility in Michigan, near FCA's US headquarters, to engineer the vehicles. The company also owns a fleet of self-driving Lexus RX SUVs that is has been phasing out in favor of the new minivans. (The cute "Firefly" prototypes were also phased out last year.)
Also at Ars Technica and Bloomberg.
Previously: Apple Expands Self-Driving Fleet From 3 to 27 Cars
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:11AM (2 children)
Man's ferocious tadpoles rape woman's egg in situ, and later dump it into a garbage bin. Compared to that, the dome isn't nearly as biased or cavey.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:00AM (1 child)
Knowing the penalties for moderating something as Spam, is it possible to cause the Spam mod to drop the score to -2, so that once *anyone* with enough karma to issue such a mod does so, that post will drop completely under the radar. No-one but the Soylent staff or someone deliberately cruising at -2 will see it. No other negative mod would drop it that low... only a Spam can go that low.
Reason being that there are often perfectly good posts running with offtopic and troll mods, albeit flamebaits are exactly that, and are usually accurately moderated.
It effectively will remove the post from all view, making it hardly worth the effort to type it in if the first modpoint-haver kills it off with just one mod.
Won't take two. Just one will do. Knowing every Spam mod will be logged for review by Soylent staff, and the issuer thereof held accountable.
Of course, if the moderator has misused his privilege, severe penalties to him as well... require Karma to be 40+ to issue a spam mod, and drop it to zero if he abuses such a delegation of authority. I feel the destruction of someone else's post is a helluva lot of authority to grant someone, but someone HAS to "take the trash out".
I guess its another way of saying if I come into the restroom stall and there's a turd in the toilet, anyone with sufficient karma can flush it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @08:06AM
"there's a turd in the toilet"
Don't flush it yet. A jew might come along who wants to nibble on it.