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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.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @01:35PM (5 children)
I'm a little surprised that Waymo/Google are doubling down on Chrysler products, when the company is close to being split up by their Fiat owners (Jeep & RAM trucks are profitable, and not much else). Maybe Google figures they can just buy the minivan division when the break-up comes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @02:33PM (3 children)
They are a weak player with no autonomous vehicle project of its own, so they will bend the most to accommodate Waymo's custom requirements. Couple thousand vehicles are really mostly a development pool - doesn't need to be tightly coupled with whatever end products come out of the project.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:20PM (2 children)
Sounds reasonable. I sure hope they don't build a production fleet of autonomous vehicles with Chryslers though, unless they want a lot of breakdowns. Chryslers are probably some of the least reliable vehicles sold in America now.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday February 01 2018, @05:00AM (1 child)
Status symbols do not need to be reliable... just expensive.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday February 01 2018, @03:29PM
Chryslers aren't expensive; they're like the McDonald's of the car world. I can't imagine anyone buying one to show off their wealth. But we're talking about Waymo here, which is developing robocars; reliability is pretty important there. If they just wanted to show off expensive cars, they'd buy BMWs or Mercedes or something, not Chryslers.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday January 31 2018, @06:44PM
Once Google cements its dominant position in the industry, it can probably sell its AI system to other car manufacturers. At that point, presumably the other players will stop playing and just pony up the fee so they aren't pushed out of the car market entirely.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Wednesday January 31 2018, @07:30PM (1 child)
Is it just me? They resemble the original Ghostbusters ambulance. :-D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 31 2018, @09:19PM
Just you, all I can see is white, long shape, and some shit on top. Maybe there is actually a tear in the veil between worlds and all this self-driving car nonsense is really just a cover to transport thousands of ghostbusters around without anyone realizing what's up!?! Sorry I jest :)