https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/10/an-autonomous-car-for-consumers-lucid-says-its-happening/
Is it possible to be a CEO in 2025 and not catch a case of AI fever? The latest company to catch this particular cold is Lucid, the Saudi-backed electric vehicle startup. Today, it announced a new collaboration with Nvidia to use the latter's hardware and software, with the aim of creating an autonomous vehicle for consumers. Oh, and the AI will apparently design Lucid's production lines.
Formed by refugees from Tesla who saw a chance to improve on their past work, Lucid has already built the most efficient EV on sale in North America.
[...]
"We've already set the benchmark in core EV attributes with proprietary technology that results in unmatched range, efficiency, space, performance, and handling," said interim CEO Marc Winterhoff. "Now, we're taking the next step by combining cutting-edge AI with Lucid's engineering excellence to deliver the smartest and safest autonomous vehicles on the road. Partnering with Nvidia, we're proud to continue powering American innovation leadership in the global quest for autonomous mobility," Winterhoff said.
[...]
Car buyers are starting to cotton on to driver assists like General Motors' Super Cruise, which about 40 percent of customers choose to pay for after the three-year free trial ends, and Lucid must be hoping that offering a far more advanced system, which won't require the human to pay any attention while it is engaged, will help it earn plenty of money.
[...]
Nvidia's industrial platform will let Lucid create its production lines digitally first before committing them to actual hardware. "By modeling autonomous systems, Lucid can optimize robot path planning, improve safety, and shorten commissioning time," Lucid said.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29, @12:40PM (1 child)
When it comes to urban congestion, car pooling helps. Vehicles with a single driver are a problem. In terms of making good use of the available roads, vehicles with no driver are a bigger problem--how long before cities start limiting them?
(Score: 4, Touché) by Thexalon on Thursday October 30, @12:43AM
Or even better from a congestion standpoint is (1) identifying the busiest routes and then putting a few big vehicles on those routes that can move dozens or even hundreds of people all in a single vehicle rather than having a whole bunch of cars, and (2) moving people on smaller 2-wheeled vehicles that are smaller, and (3) and people using their feet to get around using this sophisticated method known as "walking". For option #1, they even sometimes put those big vehicles underground.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Touché) by FuzzyTheBear on Wednesday October 29, @02:10PM (11 children)
to see those cars slip and slide on our Quebec roads .. going zooom wheeeeeee off into a ditch on hilly roads we have all around. Autonomous cars ? LOLOL good luck and don't forget to wear a helmet. :)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday October 29, @03:59PM (1 child)
Actually, there was an Australian government study looking at head protection for car occupants/ordinary motorists.
Department of Transport and Regional Services; Australian Transport Safety Bureau: The Development of a Protective Headband for Car Occupants; Robert W G Anderson, Kirsten White and A Jack McLean; Road Accident Research Unit; University of Adelaide; 2000 [infrastructure.gov.au]
Further development:
AUSTRALIAN TRANSPORT SAFETY BUREAU DOCUMENT RETRIEVAL INFORMATION; CR 205; October 2001; Further Development of a Protective Headband for Car Occupants; Anderson RWG, Ponte G, McLean AJ, Tiller R and Hill S; Road Accident Research Unit Adelaide University [infrastructure.gov.au]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 29, @04:18PM
> ... head protection for car occupants/ordinary motorists.
c.1980 I had a clapped out step van (ex-commercial delivery truck) that had been sort-of converted to a camper. It came with no seat belt for the driver, and the passenger seat was a very sketchy bench added by the previous owners. One of my more sensible passengers always wore a motorcycle helmet while riding with me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 29, @04:58PM (8 children)
Not that I'm a fan of the Saudis, but having programmed computers myself in varied languages and seen how human beings drive, I'd bet that with an even number of self-driven and human-driven cars, the humans in ditches will outnumber the computers in ditches ten to one.
Most people are as stupid as a computer, neither one really thinks. Unlike a computer a human has the capability, but usually refuses to use it. Most think four wheel drive gives you better traction! It only gives you two more wheels to try to get a grip taking off, and once moving is no different than two wheel drive.
And a Floridian visiting Quebec (or Illinois) in the winter had better have a self-driving car! Life long Floridians and southern Californians have no clue about driving in snow or ice. An autonomous vehicle that can't handle ice is a vehicle programmed by a moron.
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday October 29, @07:33PM (5 children)
Wouldn't surprise me if the AI vehicles decided it was cheaper to conserve energy and transit slowly, as a machine can have infinite patience.
A human gets bored. Zoom zoom zoom! Snap snap!
Gotta have that speed, even if distracted or unsafe conditions.
I think the autonomous car will be the new pace setters of the road...everything else lined up behind them, as they optimize energy efficiency by minimizing accelerations and braking.
Especially if the car is in Loiter mode, as the car is now minimizing energy cost per hour on the road against parking fees. It might even seek congestion and add to it as it is seeking idle at least cost to it.
I imagine the "have-nots" in the human population will resent this symbol of conspicuous consumption in their midst, trap, and disassemble it for marketable parts.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 29, @07:56PM (4 children)
You give FAR too much credit to AI. But a passage from my next (unfinished) book:
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday October 30, @02:12AM (3 children)
I am just imagining how people are going to use this.
Given the concept of "Tragedy of the Commons".
People will buy into things that will grant them a larger share of a public pie. All it takes is a law-maker to pass law in your favor. Tax Breaks, or increased access to a public good ( like the ability to use the public roads as your parking lot as long as the car is moving - it wouldn't surprise me at all to discover while some rich guy is having dinner, his car is just wandering the roads, as a parked fancy car may attract parts removal specialists from the Midnight Auto Supply Company. )
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30, @02:35AM (1 child)
1) Slowly drift into the lane you want.
2) Observe if robocar has noticed you (see if it moves away or slows down).
3) If robocar has noticed you, proceed to move smoothly into lane
4) Robocar slams on brakes.
5) Profit!
Of course if lots of people start doing this 3) might end up being: move smoothly into lane and crash into car ahead because another robocar has slammed on the brakes.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30, @08:01PM
> 4) Robocar slams on brakes.
They do this all the time already, but often the state operating rules don't require that these "ghost stops" be reported. It's part of the apparent good accident stats for Waymo and possibly others--they cause many, many accidents and are rear ended...but these accidents are not reported.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Friday October 31, @08:38PM
The tragedy of the commons wasn't what the rich people who stole that land from the commoners said it was. Just because someone isn't rich doesn't mean they're stupid. Everyone knew that the commons had to be taken care of or they would lose them, and they did, until the rich man stole it from them on that lie.
In twenty years when this tech is actually perfected and everyone is using it, the rich won't be using roads any more, the flying car is already here today and like the early automobiles, anybody who is driving a Rolls or a Bentley today will be in their flying cars. IINM they're less than a million bucks, and a Henry Ford is bound to come along.
This is ironic, because when the first gas tax was instituted in 1919, only the very rich needed roads! Horses, buggies, and wagons need none. Only cars needed them, and a 1901 Oldsmobile needed the kind of riches to own in its economy as the kind of riches you need for a flying car today.
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 2) by FuzzyTheBear on Thursday October 30, @10:34PM (1 child)
For having spent 7 years in south east Georgia and Florida , i seen how people react to a centimeter od snow or just a little ice on the road : it's spectacular. All of a sudden people forget how to drive and it's a wonder there's no more accidents than there is .. which is a lot. Maybe for them autonomous vehicles could help. As far as we Canadians ( im from Montreal ) are concerned. driving on ice and snow is a habit. Granted at the beginning of winter there's a lot of people that seem to have forgotten how to drive period .. but by Christmas , everything is honky dorey doo :) Nothing like doing a 360 in a highway entrance and finding oneself facing in the right direction on our merry way :D Yipppppeee :D
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday October 31, @08:52PM
No different than Illinois. Probably worse here. And the people who can't even drive correctly in nice, warm, dry weather outnumber those who can drive in snow without going into a ditch.
I think there are a lot more of them than you realize. And don't forget, once your car is programmed for ice and snow, it will always drive on it like that, unlike humans who, like you said, remember how to drive on snow around Christmas.
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday October 29, @03:06PM (7 children)
Just no.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 29, @05:52PM
Insightful? And I thought this was a tech site!
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 2, Troll) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 29, @08:01PM (5 children)
No explanation, just "just no"? And they modded you insightful? Must be a lot of auto mechanics worried about their professions here today! That was the most unenlightening, fact-free comment I've seen all day!
Now I see how a convicted felon became America's president!
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Wednesday October 29, @10:12PM (2 children)
Well, what exactly is there left to say about self driving cars? They have been pretty well threshed out and proven not to work reliably enough. Anyone with a brain knows it just isn't possible. The only way to even come close would be to get rid of all manual driven cars and redo all roads as electronic train tracks.
Of course the more "high tech" these cars get, the more anti-consumer they become. Tracking, advertising, remote shutdown, features as subscriptions, built in obsolescence, and so on.
Security? Maintainability? Once everyone has one and this stuff becomes old hat, do you really think they will fix security holes? And, like other software, "updates" will just take features away and break things.
And who can wait for people to "mod" the self driving crap to get them where they are going faster?
Short term, full self driving would never survive in manual driven traffic. I can think of several places locally where if one followed the traffic rules exactly, they would never get where they are going, they would get honked at, snarl things up, and probably run in to.
So, you really want this shit on your roads?
Do you really want to be in one of these when that 0.1% driving exception pops up and something goes badly wrong?
And who is at fault when something goes wrong? If it is the manufacturers, then I'm surprised any of them would even touch self-driving abilities with a ten foot pole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30, @02:22AM
I note many insurers around my area ( California, USA ) flat won't insure in fire zone. They won't insure in flood plains. Earthquake coverage is ( quite a bit ) higher.
If I was an insurer, I wouldn't accept the liability of a self-driving car unless I could pass my loss to whoever made that car.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday October 31, @07:45PM
They have been pretty well threshed out and proven not to work reliably enough.
Ah, now I understand: youth. If you were born in this century you haven't lived long enough to see the march of technological progress. No, they don't work reliably enough... NOW. But twenty five years ago, cruise control only kept your car at a single given speed unless you corrected it manually, and didn't follow lanes. The 20th century cars' cruise control would rear end someone if you let it.
20th century SF writers made the same mistake as yours, having worldwide starvation by the year 2000 because of overpopulation; an example is Kurt Vonnegut's 2BR02B. [mcgrewbooks.com]
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday October 29, @11:14PM (1 child)
Maybe because the sheer stupidity of it all - and if you don't believe it's stupid, the amount of AI promises that obviously won't be realized anytime soon, and the PR bullshit that transpires from this story - is obvious to those who thought "Just no." encapsulates everything there is to say about this nonsense.
(Score: 3, Touché) by mcgrew on Friday October 31, @07:59PM
My old 2002 Concorde's cruise control would run off the road or into another car if you let it. Even the Level 2 autonomy all cars have now is head and shoulders above that. Don't you kids believe in technological advancement?
Who in 1949 would have believed that in twenty years, technology would have men on the moon? Nothing man-made had ever left the atmosphere! Who would have believed that we would be transplanting human organs?
Have a little faith, kid. You're going to see all sorts of impossible things if you live to old age.
No one born who could always afford anything he wanted can have a clue what "affordability" means.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday October 31, @02:52PM
I recently came across: https://comma.ai/ [comma.ai] I had no idea this was a thing, but it seems to be going pretty strong. For a bit more than $1,000, you too can turn a reasonably modern car into a self-driving car with sweet features like lane assist, etc.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"