Quote:
Originally Posted by LuvtheVillages
Cruise, a majority-owned subsidiary of General Motors, will acquire self-driving startup Voyage in another major autonomous vehicle merger. The announcement came less than a week after news first surfaced that the two companies were in talks about an acquisition. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Cruise mainly operates its autonomous vehicles in dense, urban settings like downtown San Francisco, while Voyage oversees a fleet of low-speed autonomous vehicles providing trips to residents of several retirement communities. Both companies have tested their vehicles without a safety driver behind the wheel and aspire to launch full-fledged commercial robot taxi services.
I saw Voyage cars being tested a few years ago. But nothing since. Articles I read about self driving cars indicated that they will need full 5G cell service to operate. That means a cell node on every street light.
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Interesting. I understand Tesla is supposed to be going into the "time-sharing your car" business once they release Full Self Driving. Can't come soon enough for me.
The idea is some Teslas are located in an area and people there timeshare them, paying so much per month to have a car on call. One that is available brings itself when you summons it. And returns to the pool when you are done with it.
Makes so much more sense to me than paying for a car that sits most of its life in the garage, and paying insurance and maintenance on it. A scheduled pickup will happen on time, a come now could take 10 or 15 minutes depending on where it is coming from.