9 comments

  • dyingkneepad1 hour ago
    We're excited to tell you that your pedestrian kids are involuntarily participating in this innovative experiment! They are shaping our future! Their eventual tragic accidental death will provide enough data for the Company to improve their products even further, generating even more value for our shareholders! Thank you for your contribution!
    • trunnell14 minutes ago
      I see, you'd prefer to continue the prior experiment of humans flying around corners in multi-thousand-pound vehicles, over the speed limit, while sipping coffee and looking at the radio?
      • gruez0 minutes ago
        &gt;looking at the radio?<p>Current trend nowadays is watching tiktok, though thankfully I&#x27;ve only seen it at red lights, but that might just be because I&#x27;m not staring at other drivers when driving around at 40mph.
      • GoToRO1 minute ago
        Where did he said that? A new experiment can be done, responsibly, right?
    • gruez31 minutes ago
      So what does this mean for Timmy (16 years old) learning how to drive? Should that also be banned, lest he runs over some kid? Or does he get a pass because he&#x27;s a human and not a faceless corporation? Maybe he can repay the favor in 60 years when he gets run over by another teenager learning how to drive?
      • steve_adams_8615 minutes ago
        I&#x27;m torn on this.<p>I do want safer vehicles and I do see a path to get there with this technology.<p>What I don&#x27;t want is companies training their technologies with legitimate risk to the public, with a clear pathway to profiting off of this risk and public data, with no benefit to the public _unless_ they happen to succeed, and to some degree, unless you can afford their products. Something feels off about that.<p>Of course, everyone benefits if vehicles are safer, but it does feel like there is an extractive factor regardless. These companies benefit from public resources, are wholly enabled by public resources, but are trying to create a situation in which the technologies they create are more or less required to be used in order to utilize the public resource. Does that make sense? I suppose it&#x27;s inferred, but, I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s unreasonable to believe any car manufacturer with a working FSD technology would LOVE to have that technology mandated to be on every new vehicle. Imagine leasing that to every manufacturer who didn&#x27;t develop it themselves so they could continue to sell in the USA.<p>On one hand, safer vehicles are a MUST because we allow an absurd number of people to die due to unsafe driving every day. On the other hand, I don&#x27;t feel right about private companies benefiting so much from roads the public built, while training their technology with some degree of risk imposed on the public, and with no clear desire in these companies to give back. They tend to pay paltry sums in taxes, if any. Rivian was at a net loss of over 4 billion for 2024. I understand they&#x27;re trying to build something that requires massive capital, but, I also understand that these companies are experts at operating at a loss for prolonged periods of time. Amazon is a stellar example.<p>This definitely cuts both ways, but I&#x27;m not sure exactly where I stand. I need more information to decide, but I&#x27;m confident that there is some degree of exploitation of public data and resources here. I&#x27;m not trying to imply Tesla, Waymo, or Rivian are the only ones guilty of this either. The tragedy of the commons is a well-known phrase because it&#x27;s such a typical phenomenon. I&#x27;m also not suggesting that there&#x27;s a simple solution. There can&#x27;t be because the fragmentation of the polities in which these companies operate and train their technology within.
      • burkaman24 minutes ago
        Yes, he would be banned from driving if he ran over a kid. Self-driving models and the companies that create them have not been banned so far, even after they cause accidents.
        • gruez20 minutes ago
          &gt;Yes, he would be banned from driving if he ran over a kid.<p>Realistically no, unless he was hilariously reckless.<p>&gt; SMITH: There’s the case that happened with the little boy on the Upper West Side, Cooper Stock. He and his dad were crossing the street. And a driver was making a turn, and he just ran over the little boy, didn’t see him.<p>&gt; SMITH: So right now all that is is a summons to the driver for failing to yield. But it does not rise to the level of any kind of manslaughter or homicide charge. There was a study that showed that between 2008 and 2012 there were something like almost 1,300 fatal crashes in New York, and there were like 66 drivers arrested.<p>&gt;Smith says that New York has some of the narrowest standards for conviction in the country. It’s called the “rule of two” — you need two significant violations of traffic laws in order to bring a charge, including some incredibly reckless or criminally negligent act. Otherwise, it’s just … an accident.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;freakonomics.com&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;the-perfect-crime-2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;freakonomics.com&#x2F;podcast&#x2F;the-perfect-crime-2&#x2F;</a><p>Maybe it&#x27;s different in europe, but I doubt that&#x27;d be the case either unless there were several aggravating factors.
        • ainch19 minutes ago
          Self-driving cars also operate at a far larger scale than individual human drivers. Over 300 people died in Boeing 737 crashes, but the entire aviation industry has not been shut down as a result.
      • 32ahgf12 minutes ago
        Civilized countries have the concept of a driving school, where you have to take 20 one hour lessons with an instructor who can override everything as well as theory lessons, followed by an independent state run exam, theory and practice.
        • gruez5 minutes ago
          Rivian didn&#x27;t do any preliminary tests with safety drivers, or on a closed source?
      • creaturemachine12 minutes ago
        Yeah about that, 16 is indeed far too young but it&#x27;s somehow what has been agreed upon, no doubt whole-heartedly by the automotive industry.
    • philipallstar17 minutes ago
      &gt; We&#x27;re excited to tell you that your pedestrian kids are involuntarily participating in this innovative experiment<p>How dare you call my kids pedestrian. They&#x27;re better than that.
    • 0xdeadbeefbabe31 minutes ago
      Experimenting only on the boring ordinary kids doesn&#x27;t seem fair either.
    • echelon20 minutes ago
      It&#x27;s only when kids play in the streets that <i>capitalist companies</i> are to blame.<p>We never blame kids playing on publicly-subsidized subway infrastructure.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aap.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;advocacy&#x2F;community-health-and-advocacy&#x2F;community-pediatrics-funded-projects&#x2F;anti-subway-surfing-campaign&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.aap.org&#x2F;en&#x2F;advocacy&#x2F;community-health-and-advocac...</a>
      • paimapi11 minutes ago
        you&#x27;ll never believe how modern public transit systems were kneecapped from the very beginning by big auto industry lobbyists (many such cases, for eg <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.smartcitiesdive.com&#x2F;ex&#x2F;sustainablecitiescollective&#x2F;demise-american-public-transportation&#x2F;183456&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.smartcitiesdive.com&#x2F;ex&#x2F;sustainablecitiescollecti...</a>)
  • syntaxing5 minutes ago
    I’m surprised they allow open lid drinks in the lab. One wrong bump and poof 300K easy.
  • SoftTalker1 hour ago
    &gt; <i>Rivian says it will charge $49.99 a month, or $2,500 up front, versus Tesla’s $99 per month for its rival system, which is somewhat misleadingly called Full Self-Driving (Supervised), or FSD. Mercedes, meanwhile, plans to charge $3,950 for a three-year subscription for the forthcoming MB.Drive Assist Pro</i><p>If and when FSD systems become a reality and are safer than human drivers, I would expect that regulators will require them on all cars, just as they did reversing cameras, airbags, automated emergency braking, and other once-optional safety features.
    • chung812356 minutes ago
      If it gets too embedded into the revenues of the car companies, regulators are going to have a hard time making it required without a subscription. It could be that you just either have a car with a monthly payment or you don&#x27;t.
      • SoftTalker55 minutes ago
        Or just make the car more expensive up front? That&#x27;s what all the other regulations do.
    • heaney-55539 minutes ago
      &gt;I would expect that regulators will require them on all cars<p>That assumes that suppliers are available to affordably add it.<p>So far Tesla is the only company remotely close to unsupervised self-driving that doesn&#x27;t add $1000s to the BoM cost of the car.
      • Kirby643 minutes ago
        &gt; So far Tesla is the only company remotely close to unsupervised self-driving that doesn&#x27;t add $1000s to the BoM cost of the car.<p>What makes you think it doesn&#x27;t? All those cameras, the expensive chips and cooling for them, and redundancy for all the systems don&#x27;t come free.
    • MisterTea26 minutes ago
      Sure. So long as I don&#x27;t have to pay for it.
  • rwz1 hour ago
    Sooo, Rivian is a chip maker now. That&#x27;s cool, I guess.
  • redwood1 hour ago
    The new Waymos (blue ones with sliding doors) are a dream to ride and come with built in voice Gemini.
  • xnx41 minutes ago
    car company != software company. Building a car gets you approximately 0% closer to knowing how to make a safe software <i>driver</i>. Writing AV software is exceptionally hard. We only have 2 safe functioning drivers presently: humans (debatable) and Waymo. Apple spent $7(?) billion and gave up. Uber and GM have also set billions on fire with nothing to show for it. Tesla might get there, but it could still be 5 years away.
    • delichon31 minutes ago
      &gt; Tesla might get there<p>As of August Tesla had 80+ unsupervised taxis in operation with more than 380k miles driven total, and they are required to report incidents to the NHTSA. At the rate at which they are adding miles, if they are not now safer than human drivers, we should know soon.
    • mikeryan25 minutes ago
      Rivian has actually split out the software side to a joint venture with Volkswagen Group (the group independent of the car company which the group owns with others like Audi and Porsche). I think the goal is to have a platform other brands can license
  • k31022 hours ago
    Dear humans at Rivian. If your vehicle didn&#x27;t look like a cartoon, I might consider one. It&#x27;s not conformity, or even ego. It&#x27;s the same reason I don&#x27;t wear a clown outfit in public.<p>I don&#x27;t own a lot of things, but they all look nice.<p>Until then, I enjoy the tech story.
    • delichon14 minutes ago
      &gt; It&#x27;s not conformity, or even ego. It&#x27;s the same reason I don&#x27;t wear a clown outfit in public.<p>Isn&#x27;t personal aesthetics about ego? Why would someone with no regard for status care about how they look?
    • hugeBirb41 minutes ago
      Lmao what are you talking about? Obviously this is all subjective. They&#x27;re unique looking, maybe not your taste but clown car?... so dramatic.
    • lern_too_spel51 minutes ago
      People complained about the Prius, but plenty of people drove Mini Coopers, which looked even more ridiculous and were far less functional. You can&#x27;t please everybody.
      • horsawlarway38 minutes ago
        I don&#x27;t even really understand the complaint. I quite like the way Rivians look.<p>It&#x27;s a fairly generic body shape, but the headlamp and grille shape is distinctively &quot;happy&quot; instead of &quot;aggressive&quot; (this is a real thing, and it&#x27;s intentionally designed for in lamp&#x2F;grille shapes on cars)<p>Personally, I don&#x27;t want &quot;aggressive&quot; near my cars. They kill enough people already, and I&#x27;m tired by how common it is for manufacturers to push aggressive body shapes.
      • acomjean9 minutes ago
        Cars can be a form of signalling.<p>I had a coworker who sold his small lexus, because it made dating weird.