BlankI wondered about his over-ambitiousness; thinking he could develop an
add-on for regular cars on the cheap.
Steve
Fed letter unplugs hacker's self-driving car company Marco della Cava , USA
TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO 'A tech startup that promised to give cars self-driving
powers by the end of the year'is shutting down after federal regulators
expressed concern about the technology. Comma.ai founder and celebrated hacker
George Hotz tweeted Friday that he was shuttering his Andreessen
Horowitz-backed
company in response to a letter from the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration asking for more information about the aftermarket technology
before it proceeded with sales. Hotz's first tweet said simply: "would much
rather spend my life building amazing tech than dealing with regulators and
lawyers. It isn't worth it. His next:'"The comma one is cancelled. Hotz, who
first made a name for himself as a teen hacker who jailbroke an iPhone,
suggested on Twitter that he would be pivoting his company to focus on new
products
and technologies. Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment. An email to Hotz,
whose tweets suggested he was in China, did not get an immediate reply. The
two-page letter from NHTSA lawyer Paul Hemmersbaugh does not call for Hotz to
close Comma.ai. Rather, it encourages Hotz to "delay selling or deploying
your product on the public roadways unless and until you can ensure it is safe.
It closes, however, with a note that non-compliance to the letter could
trigger fines of up to $21,000 a day. Department of Transportation Secretary
Anthony Foxx recently released a 116-page policy document that aims to guide
automakers and technologists on best-practices when it comes to the
manufacturing and deployment of autonomous vehicle features. The Comma.ai news,
which
was first reported by tech site The Verge, comes after a flurry of activity in
the self-driving car world. Uber is busy picking up Pittsburgh passengers
in self-driving cars. Ford says it will produce a car with no pedals or
steering
wheel by 2021. And an array of'small startups such as Drive.ai are trying
to break new technological ground in transportation using machine learning.
Volvo and Uber are contributing a combined $300 million to a joint project
that will see the two develop base vehicles to incorporate the latest
developments in autonomous technologies, up to and including fully driverless
cars.
The base vehicles will be manufactured by Volvo and purchased by Uber, but both
will reportedly use it for their autonomous efforts moving forward. (Photo:
Volvo) Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who had publicly sparred with Hotz and claimed that
one person in a garage couldn't do the scientific work necessary to develop
self-driving tech, recently announced that he would build all Teslas with
autonomous hardware that one day would allow motorists'to completely disconnect
from the task of driving. At TechCrunch Disrupt here last month, Hotz took the
stage to say that Comma One was 'fully functional, and'about on par with
Tesla Autopilot. Pioneering technologist turned investor Marc Andreessen also
appeared at the tech conference, where he praised the lone wolf approach
to solving complex tech problems. "He is one'brilliant person, not'1,500
people," said Andreessen, a reference to the number of employees that his friend
Jeff Bezos said he deployed on building voice assistant Alexa. Increasingly,
the
division of labor between tech and auto companies is becoming clearer
as self-driving mobility advances, with the former largely serving as tech
supplies to the latter. Uber is in a $300 million partnership with Volvo to
develop self-driving tech, while Google is in a partnership with Fiat Chrysler
to automate Pacifica minivans. Apple, which has been' rumored to be'building
a car , recently laid off employees of its automotive project and pivoted from
making a car to creating'autonomous software, according to reports. Hotz
was hardly on a'lark by starting'a company that aimed to sell kits that would,
at least initially, turn various Acura models into cars that had a high
degree of self-driving features, although not full autonomy. A small startup
called Cruise Automation had the same approach, and last March was purchased
by' General Motors for $1 billion . Another aftermarket self-driving tech
company recently completed a successful 120-mile beer delivery without anyone
at the wheel. A big rig cab equipped with sensors made by Otto, a startup
bought
by Uber recently for $670 million, made the delivery of Budweiser beer
while its driver rested in the sleeper berth during most of the trip down
Colorado's Interstate 25. Follow USA TODAY tech reporter'Marco della Cava'
@marcodellacava