Asshole Self Driving Cars Hit the Streets of Singapore

Doomed. Before you know it, robots will takeover the blogging industry and scores of unemployed ‘citizen journalists’ will hit the streets, in a scornful rage against the internet overlords who destroyed their millstone.

I cannot be more disappointed by this advancement in technology. I understand how Uber and asshole companies like nuTonomy want higher profit margins; but this is egregious. Think about what these assholes just did. They launched a ‘cool’ and hip livery service that was connected by a GPS app. They lured thousands of yellow cab and black car drivers to their ranks, which in turn fueled their growth, which in turn gave them the metrics to raise more capital and to scale their business globally. Like Saturn eating his son, they’re now turning on their own employees and attempting to replace them with autonomous driving cars.

A small company beat out Uber as first to market with this horseshit, by a matter of a week or so. Uber is slated to unveil their soon to be crashing into brick wall cars in Pittsburgh in a few weeks.

The service will start small — six cars now, growing to a dozen by the end of the year. The ultimate goal, say nuTonomy officials, is to have a fully self-driving taxi fleet in Singapore by 2018, which will help sharply cut the number of cars on Singapore’s congested roads. Eventually, the model could be adopted in cities around the world, nuTonomy says.

For now, the taxis only will run in a 2.5-square-mile business and residential district called “one-north,” and pick-ups and drop-offs will be limited to specified locations. And riders must have an invitation from nuTonomy to use the service. The company says dozens have signed up for the launch, and it plans to expand that list to thousands of people within a few months.

The cars — modified Renault Zoe and Mitsubishi i-MiEV electrics — have a driver in front who is prepared to take back the wheel and a researcher in back who watches the car’s computers. Each car is fitted with six sets of Lidar — a detection system that uses lasers to operate like radar — including one that constantly spins on the roof. There are also two cameras on the dashboard to scan for obstacles and detect changes in traffic lights.

The testing time-frame is open-ended, said nuTonomy CEO Karl Iagnemma. Eventually, riders may start paying for the service, and more pick-up and drop-off points will be added. NuTonomy also is working on testing similar taxi services in other Asian cities as well as in the U.S. and Europe, but he wouldn’t say when.

“I don’t expect there to be a time where we say, ‘We’ve learned enough,'” Iagnemma said.
Doug Parker, nuTonomy’s chief operating officer, said autonomous taxis could ultimately reduce the number of cars on Singapore’s roads from 900,000 to 300,000.

“When you are able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot of possibilities. You can create smaller roads, you can create much smaller car parks,” Parker said. “I think it will change how people interact with the city going forward.”

Good thing Obama is lenient and generous with his welfare programs. There will be scores of unemployed cab drivers and employees of livery car services in need of it soon.