Lyft puts his self-driving car on Lyft's taxi network

Lyft also doesn't have the ability to predict the future, so in order to ensure that they can always play an important role in the field of autonomous driving, they take a two-legged approach: in addition to the Level 5 team, Lyft has an open platform that allows other companies. In cooperation with it, its autonomous vehicles are placed on Lyft's taxi network. This is like a variety of mobile phones that need to be connected to the wireless carrier's network.

Lyft puts his self-driving car on Lyft's taxi network

After nearly 10 years of exploration in the autonomous driving pioneer Google (Waymo), after many gullies, more and more players are participating in this autonomous driving war. Lyft is one of the more prominent of these latecomers, although the company's research in the field of autonomous driving is still little known.

Some of the details that have not been reported by the media are that, in order to complete the "take-off" in the field of autonomous driving, Lyft is using the Chinese Internet giant Baidu's autopilot open source platform - "Apollo Project" in addition to seeking some possible acquisitions. Related technology. At the same time, Lyft is still recruiting many engineers, including those who have never worked in the field of autonomous driving. Moreover, relevant people familiar with the matter said that Lyft has developed a relatively conservative autonomous fleet landing schedule.

The engineering challenge of making a fully automated car is very high, and for new players, the rest of the time is really not much. “The world is changing too fast and there are too many obstacles in front of us. This situation does not allow Lyft to develop its own autonomous driving technology from scratch.” Lyft strategic leader Raj Kapoor clearly recognized the reality.

Level 5, open platform, the second largest taxi service platform in the United States Lyft Automated Driving Layout

* Lyft Strategic Leader Raj Kapoor

It is understood that Lyft's autonomous driving research and development is mainly led by former Google map engineer Luc Vincent, who promoted the entire Lyft research in the field of automatic driving. Now he and Kapoor report to the founder of Lyft.

Lyft began to make a difference in the field of autonomous driving, one of the main reasons is that its owner included a company like Google, after Lyft won a new round of financing of $1 billion led by Google's investment company. For Google, investing in competitors is quite risky.

But what is certain is that Lyft's mission in the field of autonomous driving is very different from that of Waymo. The former is to develop a standard autonomous driving software system, and at the same time promote it to more vehicles, becoming a standard like airbags. “We are not trying to build a proprietary system, but to use openness to drive the formation of a standard that will accelerate the overall cost reduction and work with the carmakers,” Kapoor said. That being said, Lyft is currently developing some proprietary technologies for autonomous driving, especially in terms of hardware.

It is understood that Lyft's automatic driving landing time planning is more cautious than other pioneers. People familiar with the matter disclosed their plans as follows:

· In mid-2018, its fixed-line commuter car will operate on Palo Alto in the US Gulf;

· By 2019, it can be operated in the night and in the rainy environment;

• In 2020, there will be 500 self-driving vehicles on the road, passengers can pay for the ride, and will be equipped with a “safety driver” to take over the vehicle in an emergency.

Level 5

Lyft's autonomous vehicle research and development department is called Level 5 and is synonymous with the highest level of automatic driving. The department's office is located in Palo Alto, 30 miles from Lyft's San Francisco headquarters.

At present, Level 5 has 60 employees, many of whom have experience in digital map development, which will come in handy sooner or later, because autonomous vehicles need high-precision maps to know their location and lanes.

In order to quickly cut into the development of autonomous driving, Lyft is using open source software, including ROS - many related projects are using this open source software to build their own basic platform; and Baidu's Apollo platform, eliminating Lyft The trouble of rewriting your own software system.

Kapoor said that Lyft is open to all partners, such as autonomous car developers, potential acquireable teams and software technology.

Unlike companies like Waymo, GM, and Ford, Lyft doesn't plan to design sensors like laser radar. Because there are enough players in this field to research and develop, but also to ensure its diversity. And that means that Lyft can choose from it.

Open platform

Lyft also doesn't have the ability to predict the future, so in order to ensure that they can always play an important role in the field of autonomous driving, they take a two-legged approach: in addition to the Level 5 team, Lyft has an open platform that allows other companies. In cooperation with it, its autonomous vehicles are placed on Lyft's taxi network. This is like a variety of mobile phones that need to be connected to the wireless carrier's network.

Today, Ford Argo, Jaguar Land Rover, Delphi nuTonomy and startup Drive.ai have become members of the open platform. Lyft said that at the end of this year, the autopilot test team that cooperates with Drive.ai will land, but will still be equipped with "safe drivers."

Level 5, open platform, the second largest taxi service platform in the United States Lyft Automated Driving Layout

What makes everyone curious is how will Lyft distribute profits to these autopilot companies in the future? Some developers say that Lyft has to give a higher percentage of these companies than the current cost to the driver, about 75%. But companies like Lyft or Uber don't think so. They say that as more and more autopilot companies enter the platform, shared travel companies will have more say, and they can take the lead when negotiating. . However, there are no fixed numbers yet.

So how will the Lyft open platform and Level 5 department coexist? Kappor compared Lyft to Amazon, saying that Amazon has its own retail business and also provides sales and distribution channels for other retailers.

Kapoor added that Lyft wanted to provide software for other autonomous vehicle manufacturers, such as high-resolution maps of city streets, that could be used for vehicle navigation. “We provide services to our partners, just as Amazon provides the AWS cloud and subsequent services, and collects fees from them.” Lyft can also provide maintenance services for these self-driving vehicles. If it is an electric car, parking and charging can also be done. Handed over by Lyft.

Also enemy and friend

Waymo has now entered into a partnership with Lyft, which will help the former build a shared travel network based on self-driving vehicles. Passengers can call a self-driving car through Waymo's app, while drivers on the Lyft platform. These vehicles will be taken over on some roads that Waymo autopilots can't control. Of course, there is also a way for cooperation between the two, that is, Waymo puts the self-driving car on the Lyft's taxi platform for operation, which is similar to the cooperation mode of Lyft and nuTonomy, Drive.ai.

Kapoor believes that there are more cooperation models in the future, so it is difficult to determine the final form of cooperation and continue to explore.

But we must be soberly aware that the potential bottleneck for software developers like Waymo and Lyft is that they still need to rely on the car factory for mass production and landing of self-driving vehicles. According to people familiar with the matter, Lyft is also considering purchasing Pacifica models from Fiat Chrysler as Waymo did. At the same time, Volvo's related models have also entered Lyft's consideration. Lyft's competitor Uber used Volvo's XC90 to build autonomous driving. Prototype car.

The common debate in the industry is that when the technology is mature enough, Waymo, Lyft and other autopilot software developers can get enough support from the car manufacturer to manufacture autonomous vehicles on a large scale. These companies have very high requirements for the selection of vehicles, because many sensors on the vehicle have special requirements for the vehicle, and the problem of fit is at hand. Therefore, the car manufacturers should also adapt to the current situation, to create new types of vehicles for these autopilot companies to meet the requirements of automatic driving transformation.

It is understood that the Lyft Level 5 team has purchased at least four modified Ford models from AutonomouStuff, each with a purchase cost of up to $200,000. In contrast, if you work directly with the car manufacturer, the cost will be cut in half, and there is some extra convenience that makes it easier to adapt.

Obviously, the planning of Lyft's automatic driving is very clear, and the rest is only waiting to be seen.

Infrared Thermometer

With more than 15+ yrs rich MFG experience, you can definitely trust in and cooperate with.
Provide you with the supply of Personal Protective Equipment. to help you safely get back to your daily routine.
Our products include pulse Oximeter Finger, Forehead Thermometer, Automatic foam soap dispenser, etc.
Our strict quality control protocol thoroughly vets every aspect of production, storage, and shipments all the way way to our end customers.

infrared thermometers wholesale, forehead thermometer wholesale,wholesale thermometer suppliers

TOPNOTCH INTERNATIONAL GROUP LIMITED , https://www.mic11.com