Hope Rivian can keep up with Nvidia's autonomous driving stack

[allisgoodman]

Otherwise, Rivian is making the wrong bet on developing its own stacks and chips.

Sponsored

 

[Dark-Fx]

Are you at CES? I've heard no-one is impressed with Nvidia's offering there.

 

[allisgoodman]

No. Only watched the keynote and demo video. I'm more impressed at Nvidia's capabilities. I can't imagine how Rivian could keep up. It will be hard for Rivian to win over customers when more mature competitors join the autonomy game

 

[ElGuano]

I saw some online demos of Nvidia's offerings. It's good, but I'm hard pressed to say it's state of the art versus Waymo or Tesla, which are widely considered industry leaders. IOW, I think Rivian already knows where the bar is set, and Nvidia falling somewhere in the ballpark doesn't really change anything.

 

[COdogman]

 

[allisgoodman]

Tesla is in its own game of delivering Robotaxi with vision sensors only. It has no competitor yet and it will have little impact on others unless it can scale its Robotaxi service.

All others are in the other game of catching up and surpassing Tesla's capabilities with hybrid sensors approach.

 

[CharonPDX]

Nvidia's automotive stack is a solution in search of a problem. Nobody is using Nvidia's stack in shipping vehicles.

 

[Zoidz]

Otherwise, Rivian is making the wrong bet on developing its own stacks and chips.

Developing their own stack is more likely a ideal situation for Rivian. If in three years, the Nvidia stack is soooo superior, Rivian could make an agreement with NVidia and directly license & incorporate it into their stack. As opposed to being bound to an OEM agreement such as MobileEye, where they could be stuck long term with whatever MobileEye does.

 

[tmw]

Nvidia has been touting this for a long long while, real answer is they have good hardware but the software and logic has to fall on the auto mfg. Not sure last nights demo really moves the needle..heck I remember a very similar presentation in 2018. Before that it was mobileeye

I watched their video ... and yawned and actually said out loud..."oh this again"

I thought it was 2019...went back and found the video from 2018.

 

[SwampNut]

I am close to one of the top people making this. We've shared some funny texts like "JUST DRIVE OVER THE FUCKING STICK!" Nvidia is not to be under-estimated, in both dollar might and intellectual capital.

It's also important to differentiate driver assist from full, no-driver self driving. Most people want the highly advanced, hands off help which removes over 90% of the workload. Actually just hopping in the back seat is not a desire I hear from most people. Nvidia and Rivian are both well poised to do the extreme assist.

 

[Brenden]

My limited understanding is the training from real world miles driven is a significant factor that Rivian is building up on rather quickly as we are driving the vehicles. While Tesla has way more miles, I don't think anyone else does and Rivian also has the benefit of seeing where the Tesla crashes go wrong and setting its systems to avoid the same mistake without getting the brand hit of highly publicized crashes.

 

[portdirect]

I am close to one of the top people making this. We've shared some funny texts like "JUST DRIVE OVER THE FUCKING STICK!" Nvidia is not to be under-estimated, in both dollar might and intellectual capital.

It's also important to differentiate driver assist from full, no-driver self driving. Most people want the highly advanced, hands off help which removes over 90% of the workload. Actually just hopping in the back seat is not a desire I hear from most people. Nvidia and Rivian are both well poised to do the extreme assist.

Is it fair to think of this as a ”standard“ nvidia play: develop the hardware and reference platforms, develop the software frameworks to utilize them, and then provide basic building blocks using those frameworks to take you to 90% of a product - at which point it’s up to the integrators to assemble and refine to an actual production ready deployment (enabling differentiation etc)?

 

[SwampNut]

Unfortunately I realized that what I said is all I can say on this, too much private info. I will agree that you have perfectly nailed what they do, and their philosophy. There’s no reason to think that they aren’t already doing this with top EU car makers. Huang’s leadership and abilities are up there with Jobs’, but with a lot less crazy.

 

[SwampNut]

at which point it’s up to the integrators to assemble and refine to an actual production ready deployment (enabling differentiation etc)?

Oh, here’s something I can speculate on. They could become the next MobilEye, but not be garbage. I think you’re onto something here specifically.

Also, I’m not sure if people are aware that Nvidia now produces entire systems that are ready to go out of the box. This is different from their past. But they are still meant to be implemented into other systems not be a complete solution. If that makes sense. It’s exactly what you were saying and it puts Nvidia closer to a ready to go entire system to run a car. Minus integration and top level UX.

 

[portdirect]

Oh, here’s something I can speculate on. They could become the next MobilEye, but not be garbage. I think you’re onto something here specifically.

Also, I’m not sure if people are aware that Nvidia now produces entire systems that are ready to go out of the box. This is different from their past. But they are still meant to be implemented into other systems not be a complete solution. If that makes sense. It’s exactly what you were saying and it puts Nvidia closer to a ready to go and tire system to run a car.

Sounds like Nvidia Nvidia’ing - it’s a solid model and not to be dismissed lightly.

Sponsored