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G.M., Expecting Rapid Change, Invests $500 Million in Lyft

Anomalism

Anomalism

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/technology/gm-invests-in-lyft.html

The founders of Lyft, the ride-hailing service, have long imagined that the future of transportation would involve fewer cars on the road. Now General Motors is helping the start-up reach that goal. Lyft announced on Monday that G.M. invested $500 million in the company, or half of its latest $1 billion venture financing round. The funding, which recently closed, values Lyft, which is based in San Francisco, at $4.5 billion. G.M.’s support includes more than financial backing. As part of the investment into Lyft, G.M. will work on developing a so-called autonomous on-demand network of self-driving cars, an area of research to which companies like Google, Tesla and Uber have all devoted enormous resources in recent years.
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joG said:
It makes sense on the face of it.
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It is a very risky bet. The entire operation is on shaky legal ground, and given the trend to object to the exploitation of labor it is likely to have trouble surviving, and self driving cars are not legal and there is no reason to expect that they will get legal during the foreseeable future.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
All cars in America legally need human drivers. There is no economic benefit to " self driving" cars that must have humans legally in control.
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I'm pretty sure some states either already have or are considering passing legislation related to autonomous cars. Make no mistake, these cars are the future. They are far better drivers than people and when fully implemented will reduce road fatalities dramatically.
 
Anomalism said:
I'm pretty sure some states either already have or are considering passing legislation related to autonomous cars. Make no mistake, these cars are the future. They are far better drivers than people and when fully implemented will reduce road fatalities dramatically.
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We used to have a magazine that you would have liked. It was called Omni. It was for hopefully optimistic technical society fanatics, who had varying degrees of knowledge.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
It is a very risky bet. The entire operation is on shaky legal ground, and given the trend to object to the exploitation of labor it is likely to have trouble surviving, and self driving cars are not legal and there is no reason to expect that they will get legal during the foreseeable future.
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It would be a real pity, if the much more powerful technology could not be used, because it is we decided to make it illegal.
 
joG said:
It would be a real pity, if the much more powerful technology could not be used, because it is we decided to make it illegal.
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One of the problems that is caused by the political system melting down is that we lose the ability to rejigger law to deal with new opportunities such as this. Add to this the general explosion of liability claims in this society as we have become molded by victim culture and it is very difficult to see how cars without drivers will happen in even my kids lifetime. Who pays if the Chinese hack google and cause 700.000 crashes with 98,000 deaths over the space of ten minutes?
 
Hawkeye10 said:
It is a very risky bet. The entire operation is on shaky legal ground, and given the trend to object to the exploitation of labor it is likely to have trouble surviving, and self driving cars are not legal and there is no reason to expect that they will get legal during the foreseeable future.
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Driverless cars have been legalized in California, Florida, Michigan, and Nevada. Furthermore there are legalization bills under consideration more than a dozen states this year including your own state of Washington.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
...and there is no reason to expect that they will get legal during the foreseeable future.
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When huge companies like GM and Google want something from politicians, they tend to get it.
 
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