The Coming Dawn of Self-Driven Cars with Oliver Cameron | Summary and Q&A

TL;DR

Voyage is a self-driving car company focused on providing autonomous transportation to senior citizens in retirement communities.

Key Insights

• 😫 Voyage's focus on serving senior citizens in retirement communities sets them apart from other autonomous vehicle companies.
• 🚙 Retirement communities provide a controlled environment for autonomous vehicle testing and implementation.
• 😨 Hardening the technology and achieving driverless operations are crucial steps in bringing autonomous cars to market.
• 🚙 The regulatory environment is currently favorable for self-driving cars, but future reactions to accidents involving autonomous vehicles could impact the industry.
• 🤖 The challenges of self-driving trucking, such as speed and failure management, are significant and can be more complex than robo-taxi operations.
• 🛀 Waymo's cautious approach to deployment shows an understanding of the challenges of scaling autonomous vehicles.
• 🐎 The performance of algorithms in terms of speed and reliability is crucial for autonomous driving, and advancements in computer vision are not necessarily the main focus.
• 🚙 The investment required for autonomous vehicle development includes hardware, software, data labeling, and compute resources.
• 💦 Voyage and other self-driving companies are working on automating data pipelines and creating efficient labeling systems to improve training processes.

Transcript

hi fyi listeners before we jump into this episode of the four-year innovation podcast we wanted to invite you to join our q a video conference biz 2020 on wednesday june 24th at 1pm there jennifer doudna co-inventor of crispr gene editing jackie reeses squares capital lead and kathy wood arc ceo and cio will discuss how innovation gains traction du... Read More

Questions & Answers

Q: How did Voyage get started and what sets it apart from other autonomous vehicle companies?

Voyage was founded by a team that previously worked at an online education startup. They decided to build their own self-driving technology and focused on bringing it to market to serve the needs of senior citizens in retirement communities.

Q: What are some of the challenges Voyage encountered in working with retirement communities?

Voyage initially faced challenges in negotiating and communicating with the communities. They realized that working with communities is different from working with companies and adjusted their approach accordingly.

Q: What are some of the key insights Voyage has gained from working with senior citizens in retirement communities?

Voyage has learned that seniors aspire to be power users of self-driving cars and that they have a strong desire for freedom and independence. They have also learned about seniors' habits and behaviors, which has helped them design their technology to better meet their needs.

Q: What gives Voyage the confidence to move towards fully driverless operations and remove the safety driver from their vehicles?

Voyage has focused on hardening their technology and has made transitions in areas such as real-time operating systems and safety certifiable middleware. They have redundancy and diagnostic systems in place to ensure safe operation, and they are confident in the maturity of their technology.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Voyage was founded by a team that previously worked at an online education startup and decided to bring their own self-driving technology to market.

• The company is focused on serving senior citizens in retirement communities, giving them access to autonomous cars to regain their freedom and independence.

• Voyage has learned important lessons about community engagement and has worked on hardening their technology to achieve driverless operations.