General Discussion

FrodosNewPet

(495 posts) Tue Nov 21, 2017, 01:03 AM Nov 2017

Uber orders up to 24,000 Volvo XC90s for driverless fleet

Ready or not, here they come!
---------------------------------------
Uber orders up to 24,000 Volvo XC90s for driverless fleet

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/20/uber-orders-24000-volvo-xc90s-for-driverless-fleet/

Posted 14 hours ago by Darrell Etherington

Uber has entered into an agreement with carmaker Volvo to purchase 24,000 of its XC90 SUVs between 2019 and 2021 to form a fleet of autonomous vehicles, according to Bloomberg News. The XC90 is the base of Uber’s latest-generation self-driving test car, which features sensors and autonomous driving computing capability installed by Uber after purchase on the XC90 vehicle.

The deal is said to be worth around $1.4 billion, per the Financial Times, with the XC90 starting at $46,900 in the U.S. in terms of base model consumer pricing. Uber is already testing the XC90 in Arizona, San Francisco and Pittsburgh in trials with safety drivers on board to help refine and improve their software. Uber also paired up with Volvo to jointly develop autonomous driving and a vehicle ready for self-driving implementation, with investment from both sides committed last year.

Uber’s new fleet of XC90s will go further than the existing test vehicles, in that they will incorporate redundant systems for braking and steering that will allow them to operate without a human safety driver on board. The 24,000 vehicle model is also subject to change, depending on Uber’s needs. Uber also paints the right to order vehicles from other OEMs to help contribute to its fleet as part of the deal.

Driverless rival Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle unit, recently announced plans to launch its own self-driving ride hailing service open to consumers soon, which might be part of the impetus behind Uber accelerating its own plans. Still, no timeline has been given from either company for when everyday users might be able to access the services in a non-testing capacity.

~ snip ~

17 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Uber orders up to 24,000 Volvo XC90s for driverless fleet (Original Post) FrodosNewPet Nov 2017 OP

Driver beware! Rider, no choice. n/t RKP5637 Nov 2017 #1

Fuck Uber. Thats all. n/t TDale313 Nov 2017 #2

agreed Skittles Nov 2017 #3

Personal injury attorneys will be forced out of retirement. oasis Nov 2017 #4

The number of personal injuries will be reduced by 80%, lawyers will go broke Cicada Nov 2017 #10

Volvo is Chinese owned. lpbk2713 Nov 2017 #5

Interesting Loki Liesmith Nov 2017 #6

my understanding is that uber escapes taxicab regulations because it's ride-sharing, but this...? unblock Nov 2017 #7

Businesses are wonderful, saintly. Individuals are horrible, demonic FrodosNewPet Nov 2017 #8

Agreed and this is just one more drop misanthrope Nov 2017 #11

A big two fingers up to Uber drivers, but how is this any benefit to Uber customers? Doodley Nov 2017 #9

I've had to use Uber MFM008 Nov 2017 #12

Hopefully, they are preparing for LAU FrodosNewPet Nov 2017 #14

I've already seen where this is leading to. Here is a clip from the future DFW Nov 2017 #13

not getting into one of these , never ever, we are putting our lives out of existance sunonmars Nov 2017 #15

Extinction is already in the works. democratisphere Nov 2017 #16

That's very cool, but Uber really needs to upscale their driving/directions app. aikoaiko Nov 2017 #17

RKP5637

(67,111 posts)

1. Driver beware! Rider, no choice. n/t

Reply to FrodosNewPet (Original post)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 01:05 AM

Nov 2017

TDale313

(7,820 posts)

2. Fuck Uber. Thats all. n/t

Reply to FrodosNewPet (Original post)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 01:07 AM

Nov 2017

Skittles

(153,169 posts)

3. agreed

Reply to TDale313 (Reply #2)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 01:07 AM

Nov 2017

oasis

(49,389 posts)

4. Personal injury attorneys will be forced out of retirement.

Reply to FrodosNewPet (Original post)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 01:09 AM

Nov 2017

Cicada

(4,533 posts)

10. The number of personal injuries will be reduced by 80%, lawyers will go broke

Reply to oasis (Reply #4)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 03:07 AM

Nov 2017

And that is just the reduction in the early years. Later even more injuries will be avoided. This is going to put most personal injury lawyers out of business. In addition the car manufacturers will provide insurance as part of the purchase price. Lawsuits will address design flaws, lumping many victims together in class action suits. Instead of a hundred lawyers for a hundred victims, and a hundred lawyers for the hundred defendants, there will be five lawyers on each side.

This will literally decimate (cut to ten percent being the literal meaning of decimate) the number of personal injury lawyers. Or close to it.

lpbk2713

(42,759 posts)

5. Volvo is Chinese owned.

Reply to FrodosNewPet (Original post)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 01:18 AM

Nov 2017

How's that MAGA thing going Donnie?

Loki Liesmith

(4,602 posts)

6. Interesting

Reply to FrodosNewPet (Original post)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 01:36 AM

Nov 2017

Hope the AI proves itself.

unblock

(52,253 posts)

7. my understanding is that uber escapes taxicab regulations because it's ride-sharing, but this...?

Reply to FrodosNewPet (Original post)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 01:39 AM

Nov 2017

the driverless cars owned by uber means these are back to being regular taxicabs.

so shouldn't they be subject to more stringent regulation (never mind the regulation driverless cars should be subject to anyway, whether by used as taxicabs or not)?

FrodosNewPet

(495 posts)

8. Businesses are wonderful, saintly. Individuals are horrible, demonic

Reply to unblock (Reply #7)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 02:29 AM

Nov 2017

Congress and Trump has, for all intents and purposes, adopted a hands off approach to autonomous vehicles.

https://readwrite.com/2017/09/13/trump-self-driving-tl1/

Trump administration continues hands-off approach to self-driving cars

Posted on September 13, 2017

The Trump administration on Tuesday published the latest guidelines for self-driving cars, the first update since taking over from the Obama administration. The 36-page report, called Version 2.0 by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, continues the same hands-off approach to the emerging industry, with guidance being “entirely voluntary” with “no enforcement mechanism.”

Most of the questions raised in the guidance mimic what was found in the Obama report last year. These include questions on validation, cybersecurity, road tests, and hardware failures.

The rather light report comes as a bill, called the SELF DRIVE Act, makes its way through the Senate. The House of Representatives has already passed the bill, which would transfer regulatory power to Congress and let thousands more self-driving cars test on public roads.

The report does make mention of state regulations, warning the states against setting up too many regulations. Most of the states that have a large self-driving presence have already partly legalized road tests or give major auto and tech companies a pass to test on roads.

~ snip ~

misanthrope

(7,418 posts)

11. Agreed and this is just one more drop

Reply to unblock (Reply #7)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 03:14 AM

Nov 2017

in a deluge where the resulting flood will sweep us back to the Gilded Age. We're well on our way.

Everyone was willing to empower "gig economy" bandits but didn't stop to look at what the bigger picture was.

Doodley

(9,093 posts)

9. A big two fingers up to Uber drivers, but how is this any benefit to Uber customers?

Reply to FrodosNewPet (Original post)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 02:50 AM

Nov 2017

MFM008

(19,816 posts)

12. I've had to use Uber

Reply to FrodosNewPet (Original post)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 03:43 AM

Nov 2017

These past 8 weeks to get to my mom's house after her hip surgery every day.....Generally it's been very favorable. 90 percent of drivers very professional.. ...

FrodosNewPet

(495 posts)

14. Hopefully, they are preparing for LAU

Reply to MFM008 (Reply #12)

Tue Nov 21, 2017, 07:18 AM

Nov 2017

Life After Uber.

Once taxi / ridesharing / truck driving and related jobs are gone, it is going to be a challenge coming up with jobs accessible to a lot of the people in those jobs.

Some may say "They can be knowledge workers". Not everyone is cut out for those jobs. Writing "Hello, world!" is easy. Writing a sophisticated piece of robust, reliable code is not.

Personal care workers, caregivers, nurses, etc for our aging population? Yes, those are useful, necessary occupations. Alas, the social Darwinians on the right are going to make sure there won't be any money available.