George Hotz Even Closer To DIY Self Driving Car Kit Release!

[DroidModderX]

​

In cool news today George Hotz just finished up an interview with TheVerge in which he outlines the progress of his DIY Self Driving Car Kit add on. Many of you will remember George Hotz as GeoHotz the guy who first jaillbroke the iphone, and then later carcked the PS3. I was more impressed by his Root for the Verizon Galaxy S5 which was thought by the security experts to be unrootable. Several months ago he made the announcement that he would be developing a "Tesla killer" self driving car system.

All this time later and the CEO of Comma.ai has come a very long way. He has come to the realization that Elon Musk and Tesla are not his competition, and he has virtually no competition. While Tesla is building self driving cars, Hotz is building Self Driving Car Aftermarket kits. He claims that installing the kit will be easy enough for anyone and will take no more time than building an IKEA desk.

He went on to say that the kit will be available for many vehicles. In fact if your car has electronic stability control and electronic power steering he should be able to make a kit that will work. In other words this won't work on your 72 Chevy. His system might even be ready to ship by the end of this year.

What sets the Hotz system apart from other self driving systems is that it does not follow a set of hard rules, rather the system instructs the car to emulate a series of driver habits tracked and aggregated by Hotz. Hotz looked at the habits of both good and bad drivers so he could program what to do and what not to do.

At this point you can actually help Hotz with the collection of driver data. By the end of this month Comma.ai will release the Chffr (pronounced Chauffeur) app to Android. The app will be available for the Nexus 6P, Galaxy S6, and Galaxy S7 phones. As you drive your habits will be tracked and sent back to comma.ai. Miles logged turn into Comma points. Those at the top of the leader board will be rewarded. While Hotz didn't say exactly how you will be rewarded we can assume he means leaders will get a free kit when they release.

What are your thoughts? Will a driving system that learns from thousands of human drivers be safe? Would you be interested in converting your current car into a self driving car? How much would you be willing to pay for such a kit? Sound off in the comments below.

via TheVerge

 

[kodiak799]

DIY self-driving kit....sounds like another GREAT idea - what could possibly go wrong?

 

[FoxKat]

DIY self-driving kit....sounds like another GREAT idea - what could possibly go wrong?

Definitely sounds like something that will suffer severe resistance from DOT. But then any autonomous vehicle is going to be met with resistance at least initially.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[RETG]

Installed by a manufacturer who has done millions of miles of testing is a flag, but a DIY kit? Give me a break. Most DIY'ers cannot work on the modern vehicle interfaces so how will they connect a system like this?
I can see the lawsuits flying and it won't just be billy bob getting sued, it will be the kit manufacturer. Billy bob has no money, Hotz does.
Only good thing is, billy bob won't be able to connect to his1956 Ford PU.