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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: 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!
When masked police can stop you on the street and demand that you prove citizenship, your nation is a POLICE STATE
(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]
When masked police can stop you on the street and demand that you prove citizenship, your nation is a POLICE STATE
(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.
When masked police can stop you on the street and demand that you prove citizenship, your nation is a POLICE STATE