INTRODUCING RYDE- AUTONOMOUS DRIVING. DEMOCRATIZED
The development of automobiles started in 1885 when Karl Benz built the first practical automobile- later that same year, Karl took the same vehicle for a public test drive and drove it STRAIGHT into the wall.
140 years later, there have been substantial developments and iterations to the vehicle’s systems and manufacturing to introduce aspects like the bumpers and airbag system to mitigate the chances of these accidents from occurring. However, this approach failed in identifying and rectifying the least reliable component of the car and root-cause of these accidents- the driver.
There are 1.35 Million people that die annually from driving-related accidents worldwide which characterizes car accidents as the 8th leading cause of death for people around the world. The unfortunate reality of this situation is that this statistic stems from behavioural crashes.
- 25% of crashes result from distracted driving
- 28% are caused by speeding
- 23% stems from drunk driving
Beyond that, the average American spends 18 days each year driving. That sucks- most people hate driving. We hear and see that hatred on the road everyday! Toronto traffic reaches an average congestion rate of 63% at 5pm and the average commute time for Torontonians to their workplace is 34 minutes.
Rather than characterizing driving as something we dread; we envision driving as an experience that people should enjoy. The self-driving car developers at Tesla, Waymo and Uber shared this vision and created autonomous vehicles and brought them to market.
Autonomous vehicles have unparalleled potential- they increase driver and passenger safety, shorten commute time, are healthier for the environment, reveal an opportunity to revamp city infrastructure and ameliorate the driving experience.
Tesla released Autopilot in 2015. 5 years have passed and the death count is still increasing and traffic congestion is far worse. Why didn’t this make the type of progress we hoped it would?
Well- Tesla positioned their self-driving cars as a luxury product that the common consumer simply cannot afford; the affordability crisis presents an immense barrier to widespread market adoption.
The combined cost of the autonomous vehicle softwares with the car itself amounts to approximately 150,000 dollars per unit while the average Canadian’s income is only 50,000. In essence, these vehicles are simply not affordable for most Canadians which prevents them from having effective market penetration.
We founded Ryde with the intention of accelerating the shift towards democratized autonomous vehicle software by building open-source self-driving car software capable of adaptive cruise control, automated lane centering, forward collision warning and lane departure warning — using only your mobile device.
The mission of Ryde is to develop the most efficient level 5 autonomous vehicles that work in all conditions and locations. This can be achieved by building an international community of Ryde drivers that collect data while enjoying their autonomously driven ride, expediting our journey towards level 5 autonomy.
We are currently building open-source software you can download onto your smartphone and use bluetooth to interface the software with your vehicle’s hardware. The bluetooth reads radar and internal vehicle data to send to your phone for the software’s input. You can set up this process in 3 simple steps.
- Purchase the subscription online and create an account
- Download the application and enter your car model and year
- Connect to your car’s bluetooth
This seamless process will enable safer and more efficient driving practices and make the overall experience more enjoyable for everyone.
8 people died from behavioural car-related accidents while you read this article. That will amount to 3,700 by the end of the day and 1.35 million by the end of the year. We have the technology to rectify this problem, but the barrier of affordability hinders that reality.
Ryde is dedicated towards driving widespread market adoption of affordable self-driving car software across the entire world while working towards level 5 autonomous cars and saving lives in the process.
