[HN Gopher] Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues...
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Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF
Author : ra7
Score : 291 points
Date : 2023-05-04 13:10 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.waymo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.waymo.com)
| jeffbee wrote:
| The Waymo approach has proven itself. Targeted testing, running
| the driver in hard mode as much as possible, is better than the
| Tesla approach. Tesla's plan was essentially "machine learning
| underpants gnomes". Collect ten billion miles of data from guys
| driving down 280 -> ??? -> profit. Didn't work and now Tesla is
| recognized as being dead last in the game, behind dozens of no-
| name Chinese players.
|
| Now what I wonder is whether Waymo has a durable lead over
| Cruise, or if Cruise succeeds alongside them.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Last based on what metrics? I've never seen anything better
| than the Tesla FSD except for the LIDAR robo taxis, but they
| are solving a very different problem with different
| constraints. Most recent cost estimate I can find shows a cost
| per vehicle of $130-150K for Waymo vs the Tesla system that
| needs to go in a vehicle costing $40-50K which makes using a
| Waymo style sensor suite impossible. Would be interesting to
| see how the Tesla software would perform with the sensor input
| of something like the superior Waymo suite, but we won't ever
| find out unless costs come down by a massive amount.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Your numbers are very outdated. Exact figures and targets
| aren't usually announced, but both Waymo has talked about
| their upcoming vehicle being designed around a cost/mile
| ratio lower than consumer vehicles. That's not possible
| without very reasonable production costs. Cruise has also
| announced a target production price for their vehicle of $50k
| at scale, which is around the price of a new Tesla. That's
| not apples to apples, but it's close enough.
| surfpel wrote:
| Tesla announced a 25k car. All of the numbers so far from
| every company are just speculation, though. We'll see how
| things actually pan out.
| xnx wrote:
| Sensors are following a really great learning curve, rapidly
| getting both more capable, more reliable, and cheaper. It's
| reasonable to expect they could be a few hundred dollars per
| unit soon.
| sidibe wrote:
| > Collect ten billion miles of data from guys driving down 280
| -> ??? -> profit.
|
| It's actually
|
| Profit -> Collect ten billion miles of data from guys driving
| down 280 -> ???
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Yes why build a technology when you can sell just the promise
| of that technology to your stans.
| fastball wrote:
| You don't think Tesla is building out their technology?
| zaroth wrote:
| What does "running the driver in hard mode as much as possible"
| mean?
|
| Why do you think Tesla's approach "didn't work and they are now
| dead last in the game?"
|
| Maybe that's just an opinion because you provided nothing to
| back it up - but I can tell you not only does AutoPilot/FSD
| Beta work, the latest FSD Beta stack (I'm driving 11.3.6) works
| extremely well.
|
| Tesla has orders of magnitude more passenger-miles driven than
| any other solution, which is one quantitative way to gauge
| success.
|
| Tesla's latest FSD Beta safety record on city streets is also
| excellent - 10x fewer accidents per mile than Cruise for
| example.
|
| This is another huge win for Tesla but it's important to note
| that this is accomplished in part by requiring strict driver
| oversight (enforced through gaze & attention tracking in the
| cabin camera). So the significantly lower accident rate is not
| an apple-to-apples comparison of two L4 solutions, but it
| convincingly shows that their L2 solution is actively making
| the city and highway roads safer for the driver and the cars &
| pedestrians that they are sharing the road with.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I have always been a huge proponent of Waymo and obviously
| Tesla doesn't have something comparable to them now.
|
| But if you look at videos of recorded Tesla autopilot drives on
| Youtube you will see a huge amount of success in terms of
| getting people to their destination without crashing or killing
| anyone. And there is constant gradual improvement.
|
| If Tesla can get another 2-3% improvement, they may actually be
| able to launch a robotaxi service. The trick will probably be
| that you need to have a driver's license and sit in the front
| seat at first. But after X months they will probably allow
| sitting in the back, especially for certain vetted trip
| regions.
| danans wrote:
| > If Tesla can get another 2-3% improvement, they may
| actually be able to launch a robotaxi service.
|
| 2-3% improvement in what metric exactly? Disengagement rate?
| Tesla has a long way to go there in anything but highway
| driving.[1]
|
| YouTube videos are not proof of the safety of an autonomous
| vehicle. Tesla autopilot is currently very optimistically at
| level 2.5. 2-3%, even across all metrics won't get them to
| level 3, much less level 5.
|
| I don't blame the people working in their self-driving
| program. The expectations that have been placed upon them are
| unreasonable given the constraints on equipment cost and
| aesthetic design.
|
| 1. https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1458169941128097800
| bagacrap wrote:
| 2-3% is not nearly enough. They need to reduce fatal/serious
| accidents by like 99.9% from where they are.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Tesla's advanced-driving systems (AP and FSD) lead the world
| in terms of deaths. It's not even close: Tesla has more
| fatalities than every other advanced-driving system in the
| world, combined.
|
| Even massaging the data in the light most favorable for
| Tesla, a Tesla is still 3x more likely to be in an accident
| resulting in injuries than the _next_ worst advanced-driving
| system, and is more than 50x more likely to be in an accident
| causing injuries than Toyota 's or GM's advanced driving
| systems.
|
| A 2-3% improvement still means that Tesla is the most
| dangerous advanced driving system on the roads.
| surfpel wrote:
| Do you have a source for these claims?
|
| > Toyota's or GM's advanced driving systems
|
| What advanced driving system? Do you mean lane assist with
| adaptive cruise control? That's not even remotely
| comparable.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| It doesn't matter what advanced driving systems you
| compare; Tesla is the world's worst in terms of
| accidents, injuries, and fatalities. For sources: NYT and
| WaPo both have a series of articles covering this; the
| NHTSA has released a report documenting over 100 Tesla
| advanced driving accidents.
| surfpel wrote:
| * * *
| fallingknife wrote:
| It's not 100. It's 100/X and if you don't know what X is
| then your number is worse than useless.
| ok_dad wrote:
| > The trick will probably be that you need to have a driver's
| license and sit in the front seat at first
|
| Rental cars? Lame.
| xnx wrote:
| Not only that. Tesla thought they could do it (better!) with an
| inferior sensor suite.
| fossuser wrote:
| The argument was more that to do it generally you need vision
| to work, lidar will always be a narrow solution and redundant
| when you have vision.
|
| It might end up that solving the narrow city problem with
| high res maps is valuable enough to tackle anyway, but it
| could still be true that will never solve the general case.
|
| Of course, it could be true that Tesla was be unable to solve
| it also. Though at some point attaching some general
| intelligence to vision can probably do it. Likely will be
| bigger issues then though.
| xnx wrote:
| Birds fly by eating bugs and flapping wings, but that
| doesn't mean we should build planes that way. Tesla is
| stubbornly handicapping itself by cheaping-out on sensors
| because they think they can hail-mary yolo themselves all
| the way full self driving.
| fossuser wrote:
| The Tesla's do have more than two cameras despite us
| having only two eyes. I don't think that analogy totally
| holds. It's more that because roads (and road signs) are
| designed for human vision and human drivers in order to
| handle all cases you _really_ need to solve vision and if
| you do that sufficiently then the other sensors are
| redundant anyway.
|
| High resolution mapping works for localized solutions,
| but not in the general case.
|
| I'm glad both groups are working on different approaches,
| it'll be better for us in the long run imo.
| ra7 wrote:
| High resolution maps are only one part of the equation.
| Everyone is working on a generic
| perception/prediction/planning stack that works
| everywhere. Only the map changes between different
| cities. This is how Waymo/Cruise have been able to deploy
| in different geographies.
| unionpivo wrote:
| Just because humans can generally do it without lidar and
| other sensors, does not mean that lidar and other sensors,
| would not improve human driving, if we could somehow
| integrate them seamlessly (and well reduce their price).
|
| A car equipped with more sensors, will always be better at
| handling more situations, than the one without them, no
| matter how "smart" their drivers become.
| stevenhuang wrote:
| > A car equipped with more sensors, will always be better
| at handling more situations
|
| Yes, integrating seamlessly is the hard part.
|
| For Tesla, they found the increased sensor fusion
| complexity made the overall system less reliable, which
| was what informed their attempt at vision only. Karpathy
| went into this on Lex Fridman's podcast.
|
| Only with better sensor fusion algorithms that worst case
| the overall system performance doesn't degrade with
| additional sensors. Tesla could have hit compute bounds
| in order to meet latency requirements for example (or
| they couldn't find the right technique/algorithms).
|
| Sounds like a hard problem but I imagine this would
| eventually be overcome in the future. More sensors is
| definitely the future.
| xnx wrote:
| This is retroactive justification for using low-cost
| sensors. There's a chance they get lucky and pull it off
| with only cameras, but the chance of Tesla doing that is
| much less likely than Waymo getting their sooner with
| more sensors (or even even the Waymo driver achieving it
| with only vision if they chose. Using a full suite of
| sensors gives Waymo much better training data if they
| ever chose to use vision-only.
| fossuser wrote:
| I think Tesla does use Lidar in training for what it's
| worth (at least I recall someone telling me this - I
| think it was a friend that worked there but not 100% sure
| I'm remembering correctly).
|
| It's possible the lidar approach only really works with
| up to date high resolution maps and without that you end
| up in a local max you can't really escape with that
| approach.
|
| That's been Tesla's argument up to this point anyway and
| I don't think the success in cities really proves things
| either way.
|
| It may not matter since robotaxis in cities is still
| worth a lot and highway driving is mostly a solved
| problem.
|
| True full self driving though will probably require
| solving vision - in that case I think the argument that
| lidar is a local max could very well be true.
| ra7 wrote:
| > It's possible the lidar approach only really works with
| up to date high resolution maps and without that you end
| up in a local max you can't really escape with that
| approach.
|
| Sorry, but you're just repeating Elon Musk's buzzwords
| like "local maximum". It doesn't make sense. There's no
| such thing as "lidar approach". All sensor inputs are
| fused (early/late fusion) and run through perception
| algorithms. Lidar is used for localization with maps, but
| that's not even its primary use (that's object
| detection). And it does not require maps to be up to date
| either.
| xnx wrote:
| I expect Tesla's rationalization will suddenly change
| when the cost for lidar units drops to hundreds of
| dollars. At that point, Waymo will have a huge head
| start.
| ra7 wrote:
| Lidar cost has already dropped a lot. Waymo's lidar on
| their I-Pace is 90% cheaper than the previous gen. We're
| also seeing car manufacturers (GM, Volvo/Polestar,
| Mercedes, Chinese OEMs) include inexpensive lidar units
| for driver assistance.
|
| Tesla's problem is that they've promised their existing
| cars on the road are capable of full self driving. They
| can't add hardware to them, so they will maintain the
| "camera is sufficient" stance for a long time.
| fastball wrote:
| I think the overlooked part is "seamlessly integrate".
| Signal to noise ratio is important, and it is not trivial
| to "just add sensors". I think the analogy of "too many
| cooks in the kitchen" applies here.
| fossuser wrote:
| Yeah, adding sensors can sometimes make things worse.
| xnx wrote:
| Example? There are plenty of examples where mistakes that
| Tesla's cameras make (being blinded by the sun, having
| trouble with emergency vehicles) are no problem for
| systems with more sensors.
| fossuser wrote:
| This talk was worth watching (any Karpathy or Carmack
| talk is imo): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6bOwQdCJrc
|
| Specifically this is the relevant part:
| https://youtu.be/g6bOwQdCJrc?t=1370
|
| They removed radar because it was making things worse.
| xnx wrote:
| I interpreted that statement by Karpathy as an accidental
| admission of Tesla's own limitations and not of the
| approach itself. (Note: I'm upvoting all your comments
| because they're very reasonable and supported.)
| surfpel wrote:
| Indeed. Ultimately humans do it remarkably well with just
| vision, too, when they're not intoxicated, distracted, or
| falling asleep.
| ra7 wrote:
| I think the keyword you're looking for is 'sensor
| fusion', which apparently is only a problem for Tesla
| because the others have figured it out years ago. Perhaps
| there is a talent gap at Tesla or an unwillingness to
| invest in it. They generally avoid having to do anything
| that's hard and try to look for shortcuts.
|
| Case in point: the whole radar removal and reintroduction
| flip flop. It seems like they don't believe themselves
| that cameras are sufficient.
| fastball wrote:
| I don't think anyone has "figured it out" if they still
| don't have unconstrained driverless cars.
| ra7 wrote:
| That's tangential to your original point of discussion
| which was sensor integration. Sensor fusion is absolutely
| a solved problem. Autonomous driving requires more than
| just sensor fusion though.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Tesla approach is to grief their customers into paying for
| feature they have no concrete plans to ever deliver on (in the
| absence of lidar/radar sensors it's a crapshoot) -> profit.
| Worked pretty well
| hnburnsy wrote:
| The baby steps makes sense, but you gotta admit Phoenix has to
| be thr easiest metro area to test with: Little inclement
| weather, little terrain change, newer infrastructure, streets
| mostly laid out in an east-west, north-south grid with
| consistent naming and numbering.
| paxys wrote:
| Waymo and Cruise have also been operating in San Francisco
| for a while, which is quite the opposite.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Most of Waymo's hours are in simulation anyway, and that
| can be as hard as they want it to be. Waymo's meatspace
| test track is also nothing but edge cases.
|
| I understand that Tesla also learns in simulation.
| rvnx wrote:
| simulation -> production
| bagacrap wrote:
| Hard mode would be anywhere that has snow.
| ra7 wrote:
| That's probably the hardest problem. But I think you
| severely underestimate just how hard getting it to work
| in a place like SF (in rain and fog) is. To get to where
| they are is a serious accomplishment.
| redox99 wrote:
| Proven in what way? As a way to lose money?
|
| It's no surprise that it's easier to get to Level 4 if you have
| a 50-100k sensor suite, HD maps and a geofence.
|
| However, I wouldn't be shocked if, even if Tesla robotaxis
| arrive many years later, Tesla achieves profitability before
| Waymo does.
| sidibe wrote:
| Tesla's FSD had been very profitable for a long time already.
| To most of us that is not as impressive as operating actually
| robotaxis at whatever cost
| austinkhale wrote:
| I live inside the original area in Phoenix where they did their
| training. I have to give kudos where it's due. I originally
| _hated_ their cars constantly driving around our neighborhood,
| but I was persuaded to try one a few weeks back. It completely
| changed my mind. They are now my favorite way to get around. I am
| a very happy, frequent customer and hope they keep adding
| coverage and more cars. This is absolutely the future I want to
| live in.
| icey wrote:
| Same here (downtown Phoenix area) -- the driverless Waymos have
| been awesome. Occasionally they get confused but it seems
| pretty rare. They're better than a lot of the other drivers on
| the road out here.
|
| I'm mostly excited that they upped the allowed passenger count
| from 3 to 4. Usually we take a car if we're going out to dinner
| with friends but the 3 passenger limit made taking one of these
| a pain in the ass or impossible.
| drusepth wrote:
| Does the fourth passenger sit in the "driver's" seat, or is
| it a three-packed-in-the-back kind of situation?
|
| Never seen a self-driving-car in person, but I assume it's
| the standard 4-seater sedan layout, right?
| ilaksh wrote:
| They are vans.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _They are vans_
|
| I was in a Jaguar. The one they show on their site [1].
|
| [1] https://waymo.com/phx/
| boulos wrote:
| Part of this announcement is the completion of retiring
| our Pacifica fleet. So while we used to have the vans on
| the road in Chandler, you'll now see the same vehicles
| that were in Downtown Phoenix and San Francisco.
| eep_social wrote:
| They were vans:
| https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/13559409?hl=en
| icey wrote:
| I haven't taken one since they announced the change (I'm in
| a part of Phoenix that's pretty walkable), but I think it
| will be 3 in the rear bench and one in the passenger seat.
| They've been pretty clear that they don't want people
| sitting in the driver's seat, and I'm guessing that will
| continue to be the case with this change.
| boulos wrote:
| Yep, three in the back and one up front, driver seat empty.
| (The door won't open for you anyway)
| rwmj wrote:
| I wonder if there's some regulation behind why they haven't
| got rid of the traditional front-facing layout entirely and
| replaced it with train carriage style seats around a table?
| HyperSane wrote:
| That would be a very expensive modification to make on
| all their cars.
| windowsrookie wrote:
| These cars still have to meet all federal crash safety
| standards. Modifying the seating position would also
| require modifying the airbags, seat belts, seat belt pre-
| tensioners, etc. Then the vehicle would have to be crash
| tested again to ensure it is safe for the passengers.
| dangus wrote:
| It blows my mind that someone living downtown in a city the
| size of Phoenix (relatively large) needs to use a car at all.
| It's really a shameful failure of urban planning.
| fooker wrote:
| Phoenix has a population density approximately 4.4% of that
| of NYC.
| zamnos wrote:
| If you need a car to get around, day-to-day, it's not a
| city but a big suburb.
| icey wrote:
| I drive a couple of times a month... It's not the most
| walkable city but the downtown area is fairly walkable
| sib wrote:
| Phoenix is like LA without the positives
| agensaequivocum wrote:
| This is definitely not true.
| unionemployee wrote:
| Phoenix and Manhattan have about the same population, but
| Phoenix has five Manhattans worth of parking.
| kortilla wrote:
| It's not a failure when they achieved their goal. Phoenix
| and the greater metro is a city for cars.
| dundermuffl1n wrote:
| You must not have walked outside in Phoenix - you can't
| walk a block in that weather.
| differentView wrote:
| That's a bit extreme. I lived in a city with a similar
| climate for over a decade and had no problem walking,
| running, biking, and playing basketball in 110+ degree
| dry heat. I now live in a relatively humid area and I
| wouldn't go hiking when it gets over 85 degrees.
| rvnx wrote:
| Probably needs replacement of the thermometer because
| this seems to be above of historical records.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Is a 20th-century mass transit system actually preferable
| to robocars once the technology is mature? My guess is it's
| the cities like Austin, planning new transit systems
| without designing for synergies with robocars, who are
| failing at urban planning.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Cars take up too much space. Relying on cars instead of
| mass transit means everything has to be more spread out,
| which makes walking and biking a lot worse.
| hansworst wrote:
| If everyone can share a small fleet of self driving
| vehicles, they don't need to take up a lot of space at
| all. I'm assuming you were talking about parking space; I
| don't see how self driving cars would take up
| significantly more space than mass transit while on the
| road.
| ulucs wrote:
| If a thousand people try to go to work at the same time,
| the car being driverless or not will not result in less
| than a thousand cars being driven, and the number of cars
| in the road is the biggest cause of congestion.
|
| However, a bus can carry a hundred people comfortably.
| Ten buses instead of a thousand cars results in much leas
| congestion.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Well, not exactly. The good thing is that automated,
| centrally booked autonomous systems can run pretty good
| car pools. Sure human drivers can do this but it's just
| not as practical. Not at all. So it's possible that those
| 1000 people might be served by 500, 300 or maybe even 250
| autonomous cars.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > If everyone can share a small fleet of self driving
| vehicles
|
| They cannot.
|
| > I don't see how self driving cars would take up
| significantly more space than mass transit while on the
| road.
|
| They would take up more space because they're cars. Cars
| can't get to similar efficiencies of space compared to
| buses unless you compared packed private cars with
| sparsely ridden buses. And then of course, there's
| trains.
|
| Perhaps someday we'll have all self driving cars that can
| safely coordinate and pack themselves into smaller spaces
| on the road, but that's decades away at a minimum, since
| you'd first need to get rid of all manually driven cars.
| xnx wrote:
| Trains are a very inefficient use of space. Trains often
| run nearly empty, and the tracks can only be used by
| trains. A road (utilized by autonomous vehicles) can be
| used at any time and any schedule by any vehicle,
| including the possibility of giving automatic
| intersection right of way to pedestrians, or safely
| sharing road space with personal transport (bikes,
| scooters, etc.)
| dymk wrote:
| Good public mass transit is absolutely superior. Waymo
| cars don't solve traffic, it only partly solves parking
| and paying a human.
|
| Having (on average) a single person take up 40 square
| feet of space on the road for travel is horribly
| inefficient. You do a few orders of magnitude better with
| a full train car or bus.
| George83728 wrote:
| Good public mass transit presumably involves cops kicking
| out the smelly homeless people, right? I don't think that
| would fly in most places these days though, it isn't
| humane. Yet it's the only way to make public transit
| tolerable.
| pfsalter wrote:
| A better idea might be to provide the homeless with a
| better standard of living, therefore making them nicer to
| be around on public transport
| 2devnull wrote:
| Some of them aren't merely lacking access to resources.
| Mental illness is part of the picture too. Trains and
| busses are warm comfortable places for such, as well as
| the criminal element. People think of bus and subway
| stations as dirty and often dangerous places, not just in
| the USA.
| George83728 wrote:
| You can't make them wipe.
| xnx wrote:
| I don't know if they're un-homed or not, but I've
| encountered a lot of people smoking, shouting, or making
| a mess with food in rail cars, making them unusable for
| everyone else.
| stouset wrote:
| Not only don't autonomous cars solve traffic, they will
| _actively make it worse_. The marginal cost of operating
| a car drops dramatically when you remove the human
| drivers from them (who also suffer from pesky conditions
| like boredom and drowsiness), and so we can expect these
| vehicles to drive _signficantly_ more frequently than
| their human-operated cousins.
|
| Think about uses like DoorDash. Instead of (in a city)
| walking to nearby restaurants, we now replace a larger
| share of those dinners with ones where cars are driving
| back and forth across the city to pick up the food and
| deliver it. This will only become _more_ common when the
| cost drops by not having to pay a human being, and so we
| can expect a much greater volume of traffic from this one
| example use.
|
| Other currently-marginal use cases will see equivalent
| growth due to the similar economics.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Most buses off rush hour are sparsely populated. Look up
| actual energy efficiency of American mass transit systems
| per rider mile. https://www.templetons.com/brad/transit-
| myth.html
|
| Re traffic: with robot-driven cars, congestion pricing
| would be technically easy. This is an example of not
| considering possibilities created by the new tech.
| whitemary wrote:
| > _Look up actual energy efficiency of American mass
| transit systems per rider mile._
|
| Could you pick a worse example?
| hibikir wrote:
| You are comparing with the least efficient form of
| transit, and looking at cities that are not really
| designed for transit anyway. So yes, bad transit in
| cities not designed for it isn't that efficient. Note, on
| top of this, that you are purely looking at energy
| efficiency, when the key problem of individual robotaxis
| is space efficiency.
|
| Realistically, what breaks efficiencies in the US is city
| design: Places of work mostly detached from activities
| and housing, pretty much guaranteeing inefficiency. The
| robotaxis don't make a difference here: The max number of
| people looking to travel at once doesn't change, and
| neither does their destination. This makes the number of
| vehicles actually on the road not change very much at
| all: The best you can do is hope for people being
| comfortable (and not inconvenienced) by carpooling with
| strangers, not unlike what lyft and uber offer already.
| In the middle of the day, there's no new demand for
| robotaxis: They'd be parked somewhere, and every mile
| they move is a car/mile of congestion they create. So you
| either park the cars where the jobs are, getting, in
| practice, the same results as private vehicles, or you
| park them somewhere else, increasing total congestion.
| It's not just robotaxis that would park: See what happens
| in all the train commuter lines in American cities, where
| most trains just get parked in a yard.
|
| The miracle of cities with top transit (See, for
| instance, Madrid), is that a relatively high percentage
| of the network is about equally busy in both directions.
| Trains might stop in rush hour, but route 6 will be
| useful in either direction most of the time, with little
| waste compared to US cities. This is the real weakness of
| the argument of just adding more transit: What we need to
| make it work is basically urban rebuilds. IMO still a
| good idea, bit it's a far slower, and more expensive
| problem than it might appear.
| sagarm wrote:
| Most roads off rush hour are sparsely populated; seems
| inefficient, let's pedestrianize them.
| whitemary wrote:
| Thank you
| xnx wrote:
| With autonomous vehicles we could! You could safely bike
| coast to coast on the shoulder of any highway. The
| possibilities are truly spectacular.
| sagarm wrote:
| Autonomous vehicles will not make cycling or walking next
| to much faster multi-ton vehicles more pleasant, even if
| those vehicles are less likely to kill you. I mean, have
| you walked along even a 35mph road with significant
| traffic? It's extremely unpleasant due to the noise and
| air pollution.
|
| In fact, today the area around elevated freeways is often
| much cheaper than the surrounding area for several
| blocks.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Good for your rich tech salary utopia to have congestion
| pricing and pay for it to get ahead of the rest.
|
| People with lower income benefit from having a decent bus
| system that doesn't require them to pay $10K a year on a
| car.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| London is looking at apeing some Uber-like technology but
| for paying to drive your own car.
| whitemary wrote:
| They were wrong and their argument was bad, but it
| remains a fact that America has dismal public transit
| compared to other developed nations (which is why their
| argument was bad).
| dymk wrote:
| Congestion pricing is congestion pricing because traffic
| is bad. Waymo doesn't solve traffic.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Robo cars are more expensive during peak usage, so they
| can form habits where public transit is both encouraged
| because I took a robocalled to work and the bus home
| because then it was rush hour, or Vice versa. Or I took
| the bus to work and left late at night after the buses
| stopped running via a robo taxi...etc. All this occurs
| with Uber already, I don't bother renting a car because
| even though it sucks to take the bus from the airport, I
| can Uber that and use more efficient transit when
| available, since I have something that fills in the gaps.
| Robo cars just make that link more efficient (lower cost
| eventually as humans become more and more expensive).
|
| They make not taking your car with you a bit more
| feasible, and that's a start at least.
| throwaway5371 wrote:
| it solves static traffic, which in many cities will solve
| traffic
| dymk wrote:
| How does it solve static traffic? Do you mean parking?
| Because a Waymo car takes up just as much space on the
| road as a human driven one.
| xnx wrote:
| Traffic isn't a function of road space. The true
| throughput of roads is immense when utilized by better
| drivers (one extreme example:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pbAI40dK0A). A lot of
| traffic is caused by bad human drivers: accidents (and
| associated rubbernecking), shockwaves, running red
| lights, double parking, circling around looking for
| parking. Additionally entire additional lanes of traffic
| (for cars or personal mobility vehicles) will be
| available when streetside parking isn't necessary.
| Personally I look forward to the possibilities of turning
| all that unecessary parking space into something useful
| ("we're the Saudi Arabia of developable land in cities").
| wolfram74 wrote:
| From an energetics perspective it's incredibly hard to
| beat walking, biking or rails. If your occupancy on the
| car is reliably greater than 1, that is an improvement
| over single occupancy cars, but those boxes are just huge
| compared to a bicycle.
| abecedarius wrote:
| Once it makes economic sense to design car models
| specifically for robotaxi use, small light one-passenger
| electric models may well become the most common type. In
| the graph I linked from my other reply, a one-person E.V.
| like this beat all of the transit systems and came in
| second only to an electric scooter/trike.
| pfsalter wrote:
| Still more cost efficient to run a single bus than
| separate vehicles, just in maintenance alone. Also we
| already have buses, these single occupation EVs that
| still have enough space for a decent battery size don't
| exist.
| xnx wrote:
| These seems reasonable, but I don't think the math holds
| up. A 2016 study (http://www.columbia.edu/~ja3041/Electri
| c%20Bus%20Analysis%20...) showed the lifetime cost
| (including maintenance) of a bus for its 12 year useful
| lifespan to be $1.4 million. Without even doing the
| inflation adjustment, that could buy at least 12 electric
| vehicles. Those 12 vehicles could be much more efficient
| even running on a single fixed bus route (i.e. more
| frequent schedule), or (more likely) operating like taxis
| by taking people to and from exactly where they want to
| go.
| HALtheWise wrote:
| I spouted this line for a long time, but was recently
| corrected by commenters pointing out that 2-3 occupancy
| electric cars actually beat the vast majority of subways
| and trains in practice, because you don't need to
| accelerate and decelerate every passenger at every
| possible stop. Cars are designed to be remarkably
| aerodynamically efficient, especially compared to
| motorcycles or bicycles, and an electric battery+motor is
| much more efficient at producing power than your muscles.
|
| Delivering on this requires some sort of "Uber Pool" like
| algorithm to put a few people together in a vehicle, but
| doesn't require large busses.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Maybe in some type of energy efficiency, but the push for
| public transit is not really about energy - it's about
| making cities pleasant places.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Driving in the city is not cruising. There are way more
| stoplights than subway stations.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| In cities where space is at a premium, a bunch of people
| standing, or on a bicycle, will always beat out people
| sitting down with room for an engine and a trunk.
|
| Average occupancy of a car is 1.5 in the US, and that
| number shrinks as household size declines.
|
| (It's also worth noting that there's no reason that
| automated technologies wouldn't also spread to buses and
| trains. In fact, you can already automate trains. The big
| win there, is that buses represent massive fleet
| commonality.)
| xnx wrote:
| Keep going with that thinking. What if trains were
| autonomous, electric, exactly/efficiently sized to what
| they were transporting, didn't require
| expensive/dedicated tracks, and could go directly between
| any 2 points? You end up with autonomous vehicles.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Trains are nice because they don't require massive
| reconfigurations to hold varying crowds of people and the
| things they carry. People move furniture on subways all
| the time. There isn't really a 'perfectly sized' personal
| vehicle; even now, just the simple bifurcation between a
| normal and XL taxi leads to longer waits for the latter,
| and god forbid you need special accommodations like for a
| wheelchair.
|
| Car-like vehicles have massive inefficiencies, because
| the act of merging into and out of other lanes is
| inefficient.
|
| A train line can carry up to 80k people per direction per
| hour. The FHWA's estimate of a car lane car capacity is
| 2k people per direction per hour. And because cars have
| to eventually dump onto a surface network that requires
| timed cycles so that pedestrians and cyclists can cross
| the street, these low capacity segments are actually the
| bottleneck.
| Chathamization wrote:
| > In cities where space is at a premium, a bunch of
| people standing, or on a bicycle, will always beat out
| people sitting down with room for an engine and a trunk.
|
| It depends. For example, you can theoretically fit more
| people into crowded bike lanes than you can into crowded
| streets. But around here at least, bike lanes don't get a
| lot of people. I lived by one for years that I don't
| think I ever saw a bicycle on once. But even when not in
| use, all of that space is still being set aside for
| cyclists.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Most of the time the issue with bike lanes is really an
| issue of a bike lane network.
|
| Where a wide high-quality network is deployed quickly,
| you do often see high ridership increases, but usually in
| the US what you see is a bunch of scattered lanes that
| barely reach anywhere in an unbroken link, and no one
| wants to ride a journey that is even 5% dangerous.
|
| But for example, London has seen 25% growth since pre-
| COVID by deploying more lanes widely:
| https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-cycling-
| covid-...
| xnx wrote:
| As a regular, enthusiastic, urban cyclist, there is
| nothing I want more than widespread use of autonomous
| vehicles. With well-behaved (i.e. not human) drivers,
| every street becomes safer and less stressful than a
| dedicated bike lane.
| umanwizard wrote:
| You're right, but it's a bit of a cherry-picked example.
| Phoenix is probably the most car-required major city in the
| world.
| 0zemp2c wrote:
| [flagged]
| dopamean wrote:
| Why did you hate them at first? What about the experience of
| using the service changed your opinion?
| austinkhale wrote:
| > Why did you hate them at first?
|
| I walk my dogs twice a day and the cars are constantly
| driving by with their array of sensors. Made me feel like I
| was being constantly filmed and recorded... which as I
| understand them to work I certainly was/am. Outside of that,
| I resented being involuntarily part of a science experiment
| that is objectively pretty dangerous all things considered.
| For example, I would never cross the street when one was
| coming down the road. I didn't trust them.
|
| > What about the experience of using the service changed your
| opinion?
|
| The UX is really incredible. The car handled driving very,
| very well. Much better/safer than most Uber/Lyft's I've been
| in. Made me realize how freeing this technology will be for
| those that don't have the ability to drive. If you don't have
| a car / don't have the ability to drive in Phoenix, you're
| going to have a bad time. Walkability here is typically very
| poor.
| lotsoweiners wrote:
| Yeah I hope Waymo expands soon out to Mesa/Gilbert area
| where I am. My wife has never driven in the 20 years we've
| been together. Fortunately we live within a 5-10 minute
| walk of an intersection with multiple grocery stores, lots
| of restaurants and medical offices but it would be nice for
| her to be able to go beyond that bubble without my help.
| She feels bad about using Uber for 2 mile drives (even
| though she tips well) but wouldn't feel bad about using a
| self driving for those purposes.
| dilap wrote:
| Yeah, as a skateboarder in SF a few years ago, the
| driverless cars for testing were already way more
| predictable and generally chill than the human Uber
| drivers, who would do all kinds of crazy, erratic things.
|
| In an ideal world, we'd have physical separation for
| peds/bikes/skateboards/etc and motorized vehicles, but if
| we have to share, I'd much rather share with AI than
| humans.
|
| (That's my pedestrian perspective. As a driver, I love
| driving and would hate to lose the right. But honestly I
| think the writing is on the wall, especially in dense urban
| environments.)
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| Regarding the risk of stepping out in front of a Waymo
| vehicle, I personally wouldn't be too concerned about it as
| long as there's adequate stopping distance to begin with.
| You're most definitely being picked up by at least a few
| different sensors, even from hundreds of ft away. If the
| car is able to correctly categorize you as a pedestrian,
| it's constantly re-assessing the probability of you
| stepping into its path based on multiple visual cues,
| adjusting its behavior accordingly. If the car isn't able
| to categorize you, it's still seeing you as a large blob
| that isn't in its static world map, so it's going to
| aggressively stop out of caution rather than try driving
| through you.
|
| The reliance on a static world map is a very big safety
| feature in my opinion. I wouldn't be as confident stepping
| into the path of a Tesla.
| kccqzy wrote:
| For those of us not located in areas where Waymo is available,
| do you mind elaborating on why this is your favorite way to get
| around? As compared to Uber, Lyft, etc.
| stingrae wrote:
| For me in SF using cruise, I find them to be much safer and
| smoother drivers than Uber/Lyfts. I don't get car sick and I
| don't have to worry for my safety.
| ra7 wrote:
| I've only taken a couple of Waymo rides when I went to
| Phoenix. I would take them over Uber/Lyft any day, if Waymo
| offered rides in my city because:
|
| * They are very safe and you're not at the mercy of the
| Uber/Lyft driver's driving skills.
|
| * Their cars are pretty good (Jaguar I-Pace fleet) and
| generally very clean. You know what you're getting every
| time.
|
| * You don't have to interact with a driver.
|
| * No tipping.
| austinkhale wrote:
| - The cars are very safe, very conservative drivers
|
| - The interiors are nice, well air conditioned and don't
| smell
|
| - You don't have to talk to a person, which I don't always
| hate but have had some bad experiences. This just removes the
| roll of the dice from the equation entirely.
|
| - They are currently at par or cheaper with Uber/Lyft prices
| and typically it's faster for the car to arrive
|
| - You get to play your own music
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Adding:
|
| - they're cheap. $5/ride.
|
| - they're fun. It's a self-driving car! That's cool! I
| genuinely had fun every time I was taken around in one.
| threeseed wrote:
| > You don't have to talk to a person
|
| My partner has been propositioned and harassed over a dozen
| times by Uber drivers.
|
| I think for many this is going to be a killer feature.
| NewMountain wrote:
| I had an Uber driver in upstate New York who was trying
| to get me to agree or at least not disagree with the
| superiority of the white "race". I had another driver in
| Oakland California who would not relent until I
| acknowledged God is real and I should be thankful for his
| love. I felt massive cognitive dissonance afterwards
| feeling both the requirement to report these drivers but
| also massive guilt at the non-zero chance I was depriving
| them of one if not the last potential for work available
| to them. I decided not to report either but still reflect
| on whether that was a good choice or not.
|
| Edit: to be totally clear: I did not agree in either
| situation, but tried to gracefully divert or redirect
| without escalating the situation. I didn't confront as,
| frankly, I wasn't sure if the person would have responded
| violently.
|
| Uber is valuable, but I have kind of accepted the premise
| that an Uber drive is just a public transit experience
| with a customized destination. I should expect some
| potentially weird and possibly unpleasant interactions as
| part of the process.
|
| I would 100% convert to Waymo only away from Uber just
| based on those two experiences and dozens if not hundreds
| of generally positive Uber experiences.
| asvitkine wrote:
| Wouldn't such cases result in bad ratings for the
| drivers?
| kypro wrote:
| Yeah, as a guy I personally quite enjoy interacting with
| my driver (if I feel like it anyway). But basically every
| young female I know has been spoken to or treated
| inappropriately by taxi drivers here in the UK.
|
| I think Uber has solved this to some degree with their
| rating system, but it's still a big problem.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| I feel like once they start rolling out to more and more
| locales, we will be hit with a spate of news stories like
| "creepy guy wouldn't let my car drive away by standing in
| front of it and leering at me"
| xnx wrote:
| Another benefit to Waymo vehicles: Full video recording
| of all road interactions
| drusepth wrote:
| I think a lot of Lyft's early "we're like Uber, but
| better for women!" marketing hints that this is a killer
| feature that will absolutely drive growth. Especially now
| that Lyft, too, is saturated to the point of equally-
| risky drivers as Uber was/is.
| josefx wrote:
| > You don't have to talk to a person, which I don't always
| hate but have had some bad experiences. This just removes
| the roll of the dice from the equation entirely.
|
| Given that they are a Google/Alphabet company this seems
| like a missed opportunity for running ads on loop.
| xnx wrote:
| The attention of a captive audience will _absolutely_ be
| monetized. This could happen any number of ways, but
| likely that there will be an option (like YouTube) to pay
| extra for an ad-free experience.
| trgn wrote:
| > - The cars are very safe, very conservative drivers
|
| So great to hear. Seeing videos of self-driving Tesla made
| me fear for the worst.
| icey wrote:
| Here's one concrete example -- these cars almost never
| take left hand turns. They'll route multiple right hand
| turns to get somewhere, which makes it feel much less
| risky when pulling onto a busy street from a
| neighborhood, for example.
| adrr wrote:
| I wish my navigation supported that feature.
| fzzzy wrote:
| I just make a right turn and let it reroute.
| sebmellen wrote:
| UPS style!
|
| https://theconversation.com/why-ups-drivers-dont-turn-
| left-a...
| xnx wrote:
| It's understandable, but very unfortunate that people
| group Waymo, Cruise, and Tesla together. Waymo is at
| least 5-10 years more advanced.
| saberience wrote:
| It's really really not, Waymo only works in a tiny
| section of the country which has almost perfect
| conditions for self driving. Let me know when it works in
| upstate New York during winter.
|
| Tesla is developing a general solution which works
| everywhere and can take left hand turns! ;)
| xnx wrote:
| Waymo is only publically active in a limited area. By all
| indications, they could operate to the same or better
| standard than Tesla in unmapped areas.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Depends on your definition of advanced. A coffee maker is
| more advanced than Waymo because it can do something
| Waymo can't. Waymo could easily modify their cars so that
| they can make coffee and can drive everywhere with a
| lower failure rate than Tesla, but they don't want to. On
| the other hand, Tesla can't do what Waymo does.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _Tesla is developing a general solution which works
| everywhere and can take left hand turns!_
|
| Ah yes, the classic comparison between a product you can
| literally go out and use, today, versus some hypothetical
| Tesla future state. No matter how good the technology is,
| Tesla promises something better and people act like it
| exists.
| what_ever wrote:
| Tbh, you shouldn't compare Tesla "AutoPilot" with these
| full self driving options.
| speedgoose wrote:
| The Tesla full self driving private beta is more
| comparable, but not able to drive by itself for long
| time.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _The Tesla full self driving private beta is more
| comparable_
|
| Have they removed the "you need to be fully aware and
| ready to grab the wheel" requirements of FSD? If not, how
| is this comparable? There is no driver.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I mention that in the second part of the sentence you
| quote. It's comparable in some ways because the car
| drives itself most of the time. And apparently is not
| restricted to some well mapped areas.
| cheonic20058 wrote:
| > Tbh, you shouldn't compare Tesla "AutoPilot" with these
| full self driving options.
|
| Right. Because Tesla FSD "beta" is not guaranteed, even
| if you pay for the monthly subscription.
|
| And even if you did have Tesla FSD beta, it's a pile of
| shit. It's gets worse every quarter as they continue to
| remove safety sensors from vehicles due to supply chain
| issues.
| speedgoose wrote:
| We haven't watched the same FSD videos on YouTube lately
| but ok.
| arecurrence wrote:
| Does it prompt for a tip?
| xnx wrote:
| No
| tradertef wrote:
| That would be a sole reason to use this for me..
| [deleted]
| kpw94 wrote:
| > The interiors are nice, well air conditioned and don't
| smell
|
| If they scale, that will become a problem:
|
| - people puking in car
|
| - people having sex in car
|
| - people eating greasy fries in car
|
| These happen in public transportation too (the sex one not
| as often, but puking, eating smelly/gross food definitely),
| but the big difference here is that users won't be
| anonymous. The next waymo rider (or waymo staff if the car
| stops by some inspection checkpoint between rides, or some
| extra in-car sensors) will be able to report the incident,
| which would flag repeating bad riders over time.
|
| Overall the experience would be as good as a Uber today, as
| like you said, no roll of the dice on the driver.
|
| Another new problem specific to self driving and not seen
| for public transportation: muggers driving a high speed
| bike targeting isolated rides (they'll know how easy it is
| to make the car stop, smash a window, and get the rider's
| valuables). Basically the modern version of stagecoach
| robberies.
|
| One could argue these already happens in Europe on highways
| with traffic jams, but I can see the muggers being more
| active at night, since in addition to knowing the rider
| can't try to escape, there's also less crowds around. It'll
| be very dependants on regions : In Phoenix, I'd assume less
| often as muggers won't know if the rider is carrying.
| [deleted]
| HALtheWise wrote:
| Constant HD video logging of everything going on inside
| and outside the car doesn't _eliminate_ these issues, but
| it should do a lot to minimize them. If you 're looking
| to do stagecoach robbery, I'm not sure why you'd pick the
| one car that will clearly record your face and license
| plate, and which is networked with hundreds of other cars
| to watch every second of your getaway.
| boulos wrote:
| And yet... https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/caught-on-
| camera-teen-jump...
| maccard wrote:
| If an occurence is newsworthy, then it's so uncommon that
| it's worth talking about. How many news stories do you
| hear about gangs on bikes or scooters snatching mobile
| phones from people?
| Animats wrote:
| "The car, however, used its self-defense features to
| scare them off."
|
| Just warnings and sirens. Nothing drastic, such as "Your
| Google account has been terminated for violating Google's
| terms of service".
| elbigbad wrote:
| Geez this is some Grade-A FUD. Wow, I'm shocked.
| andromeduck wrote:
| Arizona is a shall-issue State.
| agensaequivocum wrote:
| Arizona is a permitless state since 2010.
| andromeduck wrote:
| Even better - though I suppose it's probably against ToS
| agensaequivocum wrote:
| I too would be surprised if it's not like Uber/Lyft. That
| said, concealed is concealed.
| maccard wrote:
| > These happen in public transportation too (the sex one
| not as often, but puking, eating smelly/gross food
| definitely),
|
| Eh, I've used public transport regularly for 10+ years in
| two countries as a resident and in many, many cities as a
| visitor, and I can count on one hand the number of
| incidents I've had where someone has thrown up/left vomit
| on the bus or train I was on. The greasy/smelly food
| thing is slightly true, but let's be real, someone eating
| a McDonald's on a train for 10 minutes out of a 4 hour
| journey is partially because there's no other choice for
| food on that train on a long journey. On short distance
| transit (within the city/region) I genuinely can't
| remember the last time I had an issue with someone eating
| on the bus.
|
| > Another new problem specific to self driving and not
| seen for public transportation
|
| This is just FUD. If someone stepped out in front of me
| in a car in my city, I would stop. It's just as likely
| that two people step in front of me, one smashes my
| window and grabs my valuables and the other stops me from
| driving off, as it is that they pinpoint driverless cars.
| xnx wrote:
| Possible, but this behavior would get you immediately
| perma-banned by the vehicle operators because they 1)
| know who you are before you enter the vehicle 2) Have
| video recording of the vehicle, before, during, and after
| your ride. If the cameras didn't record some damage
| (smell?) to the vehicle, it's likely the next passenger
| would report it.
| petre wrote:
| Put a VOC sensor in the car and have a tireless robo
| voice educate the naughty occupants for the rest of the
| trip.
|
| Muggers won't be an issue since it's complicated to get
| people's stuff out of the car through a broken window.
| petters wrote:
| Can't believe you post on HN haven't tried them. I've been
| thinking of a vacation to Phoenix just to try them and I live
| in Europe :)
| ajcp wrote:
| I live downtown PHX (Roosevelt Row) and beyond riding in them I
| MUCH prefer them driving around on the streets than actual
| human drivers. There isn't a day goes by that I don't see
| drivers make up 4-way stops, disregard the 4-way stops, flip a
| youey in the middle of an intersection, etc. Contrast that to
| the ever predictable Weymo, just quietly going about their
| little self-driving existence.
|
| Only problem I've seen with them is people don't realize that
| just because you wave them through doesn't mean they will
| proceed. If a Waymo sees a human on the corner that looks like
| they will cross it will stop and wait until the heat-death of
| the universe for them to cross.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Waymo feature request: self-driving car waiting for a
| pedestrian for period of time, it screams "fool, I'm about to
| drive, so if you step in front of me, I'm driving right
| through your dumbass". Needs some little robot hands for deaf
| people. For those who simply aren't looking, it should use a
| water pistol.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| >they will cross it will stop and wait until the heat-death
| of the universe for them to cross.
|
| There's something adorable and HHGTG about that whole thing!
| Reminds me of the robotic Star Liner that refused to take off
| because of the peanuts hadn't been delivered thus its
| checklist was incomplete. It had waited eons as its
| passengers withered to corpses securely locked into the cabin
| only stating that it was 'statistically likely a new
| civilisation with peanut packages will arise on this planet'.
| dekhn wrote:
| Lemon-scented paper napkins, IIRC (I hadn't recalled
| corrected, so I updated it). Also Marvin spent ~millions of
| years in the car park for the Restaurant at the End of the
| Universe: ""The first ten-million years were the worst. And
| the second ten-million - they were the worst too... The
| third ten-million, I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went
| into a bit of a decline. "
| jamiek88 wrote:
| I deleted the Marvin bit as I was worried I was rambling!
| And yes it was the wipes, thanks for the correction!
| ajcp wrote:
| It's funny because for some reason they definitely do
| _feel_ adorable and polite. I know we shouldn 't actively
| anthropomorphize them, but it's just the feeling you get
| when you see them go about their polite little way,
| adorably plotting our downfall.
| xnx wrote:
| Their first cars were even more anthropomorphic:
| https://blog.waymo.com/2019/08/from-post-it-note-to-
| prototyp...
| readwriterick wrote:
| My wife swears up and down she witnessed someone wave a
| driverless car (maybe a Cruise?) through an intersection in
| the Sunset.
| jhurliman wrote:
| Yes, Cruise cars have enough pose/gesture recognition for
| this. It's needed for road construction with flaggers.
| dalyons wrote:
| Are you Australian originally maybe ? :)
| StrictDabbler wrote:
| I have never tried to spell the phrase "flip a youey" before.
|
| It might be the only word I use that I have never considered
| spelling, so I am grateful that you included it your comment.
|
| That said, I think you are wrong and it should be "uey",
| "uie," "u-ie," or any other spelling that emphasizes the "u"
| after which the term is named.
|
| Also "I do not know the answer but I am sure you are wrong"
| is the most internetish comment I've ever made, so that's two
| striking experiences for me today.
| groby_b wrote:
| If you believe the NYT crossword, it's spelled in whatever
| way gives you the right vowels on the right place ;)
|
| But yeah, u-turn, not you-turn.
| bmelton wrote:
| > I have never tried to spell the phrase "flip a youey"
| before.
|
| As a former Scripps spelling bee contestant, I've developed
| a low-grade allergy to commonplace onomotopeic words with
| no obvious, agreed-upon spelling. Recently I struggled with
| zhuzh (which has the bonus terror of having an alternate
| spelling, 'zhoosh') - but I commend OP for having chosen a
| phonetically parseable spelling over one of your (arguably
| more appropriate) choices, as I suspect it would have taken
| a lot longer to divine meaning from.
| bjork wrote:
| *onomatopoeic
| ec109685 wrote:
| Ironic.
| subarctic wrote:
| I thought it was onomatopoetic?
| neuronexmachina wrote:
| Maybe "U-ey" or "U-ee"?
| crazygringo wrote:
| https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/tsvbh2y
|
| > U-ie n.
|
| > also U, U-ee, U-ey, U-turn, youie
|
| > (orig. Aus.) a U-turn; thus chuck/bang a U-ie, to make
| a U-turn.
| riffic wrote:
| always been partial to "flip a bitch"
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flip_a_bitch
| stouset wrote:
| Thankfully this solves the spelling ambiguity!
| ajcp wrote:
| Hahahaha! So good of you to call that out because I had
| never seen the word written out before either and literally
| tried every form you suggested and more (you-ie, u-ee, uy,
| etc). To be honest I settled on 'youey' not because it was
| the one I thought was correct, rather it was the one I
| thought most people would understand.
|
| I also toyed with just putting "flip a bitch" but figured
| some might find that problematic as I'm not entirely sure
| of it's etymology...
| George83728 wrote:
| > _If a Waymo sees a human on the corner that looks like they
| will cross it will stop and wait until the heat-death of the
| universe for them to cross._
|
| I've had humans do this, when I had no intention of crossing
| the street because I was just standing at the corner waiting
| to meet somebody. At least the humans give up after a few
| seconds, with exacerbated expressions like I'm the one who
| did something wrong. It would be pretty funny to see a robot
| car sit there for minutes.
| sokka_h2otribe wrote:
| I do this all the time as a walker too! But I try to step
| away from the curb and signal clear dis-intent. That's bc
| when I'm driving the neccesary bias is to assume that all
| pedestrians could be erratic and go into the street at
| anytime. It's neccesary because even if it's only 10% you
| can't accept any errors.
|
| In other words, I'm trying to politely set the groundwork
| to say I think you are wrong if we assume having
| pedestrians signal clear dis-intent to cross is a
| reasonable requirement. Of course, the drivers are also
| wrong to be exasperated with you so I do think in a sense
| both parties are wrong :D.)
| George83728 wrote:
| The times it's happened to me, I was leaning up against a
| lamp post or telephone pole. Most drivers don't get
| confused, but some of the time somebody does. If I
| actually intend to cross, I stand up straight and
| attentive on the curb.
| dangus wrote:
| A hopefully not-too-annoying reminder that this _isn't_ a
| future that is sustainable or desirable to live in compared
| with alternatives. It's really just better than the automotive
| hellscape you are used to.
|
| Phoenix is one of the most car-centric places to live in the
| country. The only reason anyone needs a service like this is
| because of the area's complete failure in urban planning.
|
| Car-focused infrastructure is incredibly expensive per capita
| compared to alternatives that prioritizing walking, cycling,
| and public transit. It maximizes the amount of public utilities
| (roads, sewers, etc) needed to serve one family.
|
| One pair of train tracks can serve more human commuters than a
| 12-lane highway. One bus can replace 30-40 cars, and neither
| option needs fancy automation to be more cost and carbon
| efficient than a robotaxi.
|
| Waymo might band-aid the transit situation where you live but
| it's doing nothing to address the fundamental problems with
| large urban areas that require the use of personal vehicles.
| xnx wrote:
| A future with all autonomous vehicles is about the best
| transportation future I can imagine! Go directly point-to-
| point in private transportation quickly, quietly, safely and
| efficiently. In a fully-autonomous future, infrastructure
| needs are dramatically reduced: no parking, fewer lanes of
| traffic, minimal road surface (could even just be 2 "rails"
| of pavement for the tires). Fully-autonomous vehicles could
| also reduce domestic flights dramatically (and all the
| associated fuel consumption and noise).
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> The only reason anyone needs a service like this is
| because of the area's complete failure in urban planning
|
| By the criteria I would use, Phoenix is a massive success in
| urban planning. The criteria I would use would be the
| willingness of people to move there.
|
| In 1950, Phoenix was in the top 100 biggest US
| cities...barely. It was 99th, with a little over 100,000
| people. NYC was the largest, with around 8 million.
|
| In 2000, Phoenix was the 6th largest city in the US with 1.3
| million people. NYC was the largest, with around 8 million.
|
| In 2022, Phoenix was the 5th largest city in the US with 1.6
| million people. NYC was the largest, with around 8.5 million.
| And NYC has been losing population for the last few years.
|
| The people who moved to Phoenix didn't have guns to their
| heads. They moved there because out of all the cities in the
| US, Phoenix worked best for them. To me that points to an
| incredible urban planning success. They might have failed at
| building a city that you like. They might have failed at
| building a city that was hostile to people who want a single
| family home with a two car garage. But they didn't fail at
| building a city that people choose to move to.
| elbigbad wrote:
| What you're saying is probably true, but are you proposing
| razing Phoenix and rebuilding it as a less car-focused place?
| My sense is that that proposal wouldn't be too popular with
| the people whose homes you're tearing down, nor would
| necessarily the change in lifestyle they would be forced to
| undergo (after I'm sure what would be decades of
| rebuilding...).
| dangus wrote:
| Considering the fact that the Phoenix area is rapidly
| growing, I would propose that new development focuses on
| transit oriented design, smarter zoning, and improved land
| use. It would even benefit municipalities financially to
| discourage unproductive land use that don't drive tax
| revenue, like parking lots.
|
| When we talk about razing and rebuilding, it's notable that
| this has already happened in our history. That's how we
| have interstate highways cutting through urban areas and
| the destruction of the passenger rail network which was
| effectively razed and replaced by highways. Many big box
| stores and parking lots replace buildings that were
| destroyed (see before and after photos of downtown Houston,
| for example).
|
| Most American cities outside of the coasts wouldn't even
| exist without a railroad network that largely no longer
| exists.
|
| These are all conscious choices and there's no such thing
| as being stuck with cars-only infrastructure forever. The
| defeatism of saying that we are stuck with cars-only is a
| lie. After all, interstates regularly need billions of
| dollars of periodic investment just to keep them
| functional. Many states continually decide to do things
| like add lanes and enhanced interchanges at eye-watering
| costs that aren't too dissimilar from the cost of adding
| new rail service.
|
| For example, what if instead of spending $20 Billion in
| today's dollars on the big dig in Boston, the elevated
| highway was simply demolished and the rest of the insane
| costs that were sunk into an underground highway went into
| expanding the commuter rail network and making a better
| rail connection to Logan airport (the blue line already
| nearly goes there with a short airport bus transfer, which
| could be further improved). That would reduce traffic in
| downtown Boston rather than expanding traffic by adding
| lanes and making driving more attractive than alternatives.
| This is already one of America's most walkable cities but
| the highway was moved underground rather than removed.
|
| $20 billion is so much money that entire new commuter rail
| lines could have been built for that price.
| lovemenot wrote:
| There are more compelling reasons to not have cities in the
| desert.
|
| If water sources dry up it won't be necessary to raze the
| city. People will leave anyway.
| eep_social wrote:
| Phoenix is located at the confluence of the Gila and Salt
| rivers. Municipal water use is flat since the 1990s while
| the population has increased from 1 to 1.5 million [1].
| Its modern canal system is built on the ruins of
| irrigation works built by the Hohoklams over 1000 years
| ago [2]. Locations around the metro area have been
| inhabited for even longer. And finally, agriculture is
| 70% of water use state-wide [3]. Some embarrassingly
| large portion of that is used to grow alfalfa which is
| exported to the middle east where they have actual
| deserts.
|
| What scenario did you have in mind where the city runs
| out of water? I bet the nice folks who actually do this
| kind of work would love to hear about it. They seem
| exceedingly confident in their water portfolio [4]. Or
| maybe you're just speculating; a little curiosity goes a
| long way [5].
|
| [1] https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservices/resourcesconser
| vation/...
|
| [2] https://news.wef.org/ancient-engineering-lays-
| groundwork-for...
|
| [3] https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts
|
| [4] https://www.phoenix.gov/waterservices/resourcesconser
| vation/...
|
| [5] https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-
| environme...
| conorh wrote:
| I've gone over to Chandler to check them out - was also really
| impressed, very smooth ride! I'm on the wrong side of I-10
| unfortunately for getting regular rides from my house :/
| stouset wrote:
| I'll contrast this with Cruise, which are driving autonomously
| in San Francisco.
|
| I _hate_ them.
|
| At least in the area I'm in (the Inner Sunset), they often
| cruise around with no passengers while waiting for a request.
| While doing so, they circle around idling at 10-15mph, pausing
| for 30 seconds or more at stop signs. It's long enough where
| just when you decide they've completely stopped and start to go
| around, they "wake up" and start moving again. I have
| personally been held up by _four separate Cruise vehicles_
| acting this way within a ten block section of a single trip. It
| is maddening, and there 's no safe or reasonable way to pass
| them. I am generally quite patient and not particularly
| affected by road rage, but I'll confess that I have spent
| significant amounts of time fantasizing about an Office Space
| printer scene styled destruction of these vehicles.
|
| They need to either find places to pull over (ideal) or drive
| like normal participants in traffic. Their current behavior
| feels disruptively slow (cars end up backed up behind them) and
| simultaneously unpredictable and confusing.
|
| Worse, in other areas like Fell St., they drive exclusively in
| the left hand lane while driving 15mph below the flow of
| traffic. This actually causes _significantly_ extra traffic
| during busier times as that street is often at or near
| capacity. It also disrupts the design of that road, which has a
| "green wave" of lights paced at about 30mph. Dramatically fewer
| cars make it through any section of road when you have one car
| driving 20mph that prompts everyone behind it to merge over to
| the right, further impacting the throughput of other lanes.
|
| I've also seen acute instances where they completely fail in
| situations where humans would cooperate to solve an issue. In
| one instance, a left-turning Muni bus was unable to complete
| the turn due to a Cruise vehicle coming from that direction.
| The Cruise vehicle had entered too far into the intersection
| before stopping. There's paint on the intersection to indicate
| that cars need to stop further back, and the Cruise had failed
| to obey this. The bus was unable to back up due to traffic
| behind it as well as visibility concerns, and the only real
| solution was for the Cruise vehicle to move out of the way.
| There was, however, _no way_ to instruct, plead with, or
| otherwise convince the Cruise to move. It had no place in
| particular to be, so it had no reason to decide to do anything
| other than sit in place with infinite patience and wait for
| everyone else to resolve the situation on its behalf. I watched
| as this completely gridlocked a busy intersection for at least
| five cycles of traffic lights before I got bored and left. I
| have no idea how they finally unwedged the situation, but I
| have to imagine it involved the bus driver getting out and
| having the cars behind clear a space for it to back up and
| allow the Cruise to complete its prime directive and pass.
|
| Will these things get better? Sure. But right now, they are
| _inexcusably_ bad drivers.
| petre wrote:
| > a left-turning Muni bus was unable to complete the turn
|
| In Italy this would be resolved by the passengers getting out
| of the bus, lifting and moving the car out of the way.
| todd8 wrote:
| In these cases, bus vs cruise vehicles, the bus is often
| helpless to fix the problem, and a stalemate ensues. As I
| understand it, bus drivers in SF are not allowed to backup
| without the presence of a supervisor (it makes sense that
| you'd want someone watching the back of the bus) so it is up
| to the cruise vehicle to backtrack if they somehow meet up
| head-to-head. Of course the cruise vehicle is like an Uber
| driven by Spock--perfectly logical and without emotion--and
| will just is sit waiting until the path ahead is clear.
| CPLX wrote:
| Visualizing this situation happening in New York City, where
| I live, is causing me to chuckle out loud.
|
| It's hard not to envision the nearest construction vehicle
| casually lifting the thing into the east river while a couple
| NYPD guys laugh and take pics for their friends.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| In one instance, a left-turning Muni bus was unable to
| complete the turn due to a Cruise vehicle coming from
| that direction. The Cruise vehicle had entered too far
| into the intersection before stopping. There's paint on the
| intersection to indicate that cars need to stop further
| back, and the Cruise had failed to obey this.
|
| Yeah that tracks. My last run in with Cruise was towards the
| end of April when their vehicle (Gnome) decided to just wait
| for the light to turn green... in the fucking crosswalk. This
| was on Market, so it's not like it's a small, easy to miss
| crosswalk.
| stouset wrote:
| In their defense, this is how human-operated vehicles act
| on Market too. :)
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Well, at least in this instance, the traditional vehicles
| were all stopped in the appropriate place.
| bombcar wrote:
| Human vehicles also eventually fix problems by bending or
| breaking the law if necessary.
| lotsoweiners wrote:
| I wonder what happens when a police officer tries to pull
| one over.
| jonnydubowsky wrote:
| I'm curious as well...are there any protocols in place
| for emergency services or police interactions?
| macintux wrote:
| Yes, there were some news stories about the challenges
| that public safety and law enforcement had when dealing
| with Cruise vehicles. The company sent training
| materials, but that's as much as I can remember at the
| moment, I'm sure some searching would pull up hits.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Sure, to that end my favorite Cruise anecdote stems from
| one of the Cruise humans forcing the car to make an
| illegal left turn off of Mission a few years ago. Granted
| Cruise's software still struggles with _legal_ left
| turns, but still.
| bombcar wrote:
| A formative experience when I was learning to drive was
| being pulled over to the right and watching a firetruck
| pull behind a car stopped at a red light, siren blaring
| and lights flashing, and eventually having to get on the
| PA and tell the person to run the red light so they could
| get through.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| That's a mistake by the fire truck. You aren't supposed
| to preemptively run a red light to help them, they're
| supposed to order you to do it right away if that's what
| they want.
| macintux wrote:
| This surprised me, and I haven't found any information
| one way or the other about the universality of the rule,
| but I did find this guide that strongly implies you're
| correct.
|
| https://www.firerescue1.com/fire-truck-
| crash/articles/stop-f...
| namibj wrote:
| In Germany you have to make way/not obstruct, though you
| don't have to endanger yourself excessively. So if the
| traffic behaves, you absolutely have to move out of the
| emergency vehicle's way traffic light be damned. Usually
| you'd pull over to not put yourself into a prime t-boning
| spot, but with good visibility you actually drive across
| the intersection to where you where going anyways, and
| ensure you let them pass.
| seabass-labrax wrote:
| > Worse, in other areas like Fell St., they drive exclusively
| in the left hand lane while driving 15mph below the flow of
| traffic.
|
| Staying in the overtaking lane is against the rules in
| Britain; is that the case in California too?
| geocar wrote:
| "It depends"
|
| https://www.mwl-law.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SLOWER-
| TR...
| [deleted]
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| Driving in a chaotic dense urban environment like San
| Francisco is much harder than driving in a giant suburb like
| Phoenix, which is among some of the most car-optimized,
| easiest places to drive in the world.
|
| Cruise also operates in Phoenix; it would be interesting to
| contrast its performance with Waymo there.
| ctchocula wrote:
| Waymo also operates in SF, except during the daytime unlike
| Cruise.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| It seems to have recently gotten worse too. I'd never had a
| bad experience driving near them until recently, and all of a
| sudden every time I'm near one it's doing something
| annoying/worrying.
| stouset wrote:
| As far as I can tell, what changed is they got rid of the
| humans who were backing up the AI.
| sgarrity wrote:
| 10,000 trips / week is impressive. How many vehicles is this?
| bushbaba wrote:
| It's not really when you consider their burn rate. Say each of
| those trips gross 10$. That's just 100k/week or $5.2
| million/year. They'd need to likely 10,000x the ride volume to
| even be close to profitability.
|
| Uber does 7.64 billion rides per year. And they are not
| profitable. The waymo cars sure ain't cheap, and scale of
| operations will take a ton of cash. I wonder if waymo would
| ever be profitable.
| pizzalife wrote:
| 1. It's impossible!
|
| 2. It's possible but it's going to take forever
|
| 3. It's real and happening now but it's dangerous
|
| 4. It's not dangerous but it's annoying and blocking an
| intersection sometimes
|
| 5. It's not annoying but maybe they won't make money
|
| we are here.
|
| 6. It makes money but what about drivers
|
| 7. It works in cities but what about suburbs
|
| 8. It works in suburbs but what about rural areas
|
| 9. This city in Turkmenistan is the last place on earth
| without any autonomous vehicles and visiting is like getting
| into a time machine
| revelio wrote:
| Counterpoint: Concord, Google Glass, etc. Just because
| something can be achieved technologically, doesn't mean
| there is demand for it at the price you'd need to charge
| for it to make sense.
| rvnx wrote:
| Big difference though, nobody needed Google Glass, Magic
| Leap, FB Metaverse, or the feature that adds a fart sound
| in a Tesla.
|
| Almost anyone who needs transportation would use such
| taxis if they become affordable.
| revelio wrote:
| Don't get me wrong. Self driving taxis are cool. I'd like
| to use Waymo if it were launched where I live, at that
| price.
|
| But that's a very large set of very large assumptions,
| stacked on top of each other! I can immediately think of
| lots of ways it can go wrong:
|
| 1. The economics may never work.
|
| 2. The "can't speed won't speed" problem may prove
| politically unsolvable, meaning people end up preferring
| taxis who avoid liability by being decentralized.
|
| 3. Google's core business may falter before Waymo manages
| to become financially independent, and in the absence of
| Waymo other competitors may decide it's no longer worth
| the investment vs Tesla-style incrementalism.
|
| 4. Public transport isn't going anywhere in high density
| cities simply due to limited road capacity.
|
| 5. Many people may simply prefer having their own cars
| even if Waymo taxis are everywhere, simply because you
| can't beat the latency of walking to your own driveway.
|
| But the core problem is going to be price. Taxi drivers
| are cheap. For years people said Uber/Lyft would build up
| brand loyalty, raise prices and start making money any
| day now. After all it's ultimately just a ridehailing
| app, it's not _that_ hard to make, so how can they not
| make a decent business out of it? Yet they never did get
| to that point even though it 's a million times easier.
| Waymo not only has to find a way to turn a regular weekly
| profit taking into account their ultra-expensive staff,
| hardware, energy costs, support costs, etc but then maybe
| even one day yield enough profit to pay off the initial
| investment! All of that whilst competing in a super low
| margin market? Maybe it can be done but when I see the
| reasons people are giving here for why they like Waymo
| cars (clean, safe, etc) I'm not seeing the basis of a
| great company. It sounds a lot like the reasons I heard
| when Uber first appeared, even. And it's certainly WAY
| easier to compete on those aspects whilst still using
| human drivers.
|
| Perhaps one day yes, presumably someone will get self-
| driving taxis to the point of being a sustainable
| business, but it might well be writeoff for Google just
| like it was for Uber.
| dekhn wrote:
| hopefully we get to 8 before waymo.com posts "An Update on
| Waymo self-driving cars" and kills the project. That said,
| this is one project that google really seems to have
| invested for the long-term.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If "makes money" is taking in any revenue at all then it
| should be much higher in the list.
|
| Also I don't think they've reached "not annoying" yet.
| ketzo wrote:
| Are we really evaluating a fleet of self-driving taxis on
| profitability today, though?
|
| If they're reliably doing 10,000 trips a week, I _promise
| you_ they don 't need to worry about finding additional
| investors.
|
| "It's not really impressive to be doing 10,000 self-driving
| taxi trips every week, because it's currently costing them
| money" is a really, really wild take.
| mtmickush wrote:
| $5.2 million/year * 10,000 = $52 Billion / year if I'm
| understanding you correctly. That seems on the high side to
| me?
| thunkshift1 wrote:
| Uber comparison is moot.. 1. They dont own the vehicles 2.
| They have to pay the drivers 3. They have to pay google maps
|
| None of these problems exist for waymo, so they can be
| profitable a lot quicker
| ijustlovemath wrote:
| The difference is that the variable costs are much lower -
| just recharging the EV + any other incidentals, as opposed to
| having to pay a driver for every ride. That's why Uber never
| became profitable, because they had to share the fare. Waymo
| has higher up front costs, but if the cars are there, they
| have much more profitable fares.
| mechagodzilla wrote:
| Maybe - Waymo has to recharge, clean and maintain a fleet
| of cars that they own (and which are depreciating and
| likely have no resale value, at least at the moment) -
| Uber's drivers effectively use their wages to cover all of
| those costs. I'm curious how Waymo is handling all of the
| fleet maintenance, recharging, cleaning, etc, and how they
| plan to scale that infrastructure.
|
| I also wonder how Waymo plans to handle 'surges' - they
| either have enough cars to handle peak demand, in which
| case many are idle much of the time (and thus not making
| money), or they build a fleet for the minimum/average, and
| let more elastic competitors cover surges (or it's just
| impossible to get one at rush hour anywhere). It really
| seems like Uber/Lyft/etc ought to have a better business
| model than this very centralized, capital-intensive
| approach, and they're seemingly incapable of earning a
| profit.
| cyberax wrote:
| EVs need very little complicated maintenance. At this
| point, batteries and electric motors are a rock-solid
| technology.
|
| So you're left with occasional minor maintenance for
| mechanical issues like broken door handles or jammed
| windows, and also with interior cleaning.
|
| Even this can in future be minimized by building a taxi-
| only car model. You can get rid of the steering wheel,
| instrument cluster, central console, and all the
| complicated plastic parts that go with all of this. You
| can just replace everything with durable and easily
| washable hard plastic, like seats on public transit.
|
| Then make seats easily removable, and the interior
| becomes straightforward to clean (heck, you can even
| automate it).
| minwcnt5 wrote:
| I would bet on technology being able to handle peak
| demand better than a non-tech solution. They could pre-
| position vehicles better, incentivize pooling and transit
| connections, etc. And just like Ubers they could
| repurpose vehicles for other tasks (delivery, getting
| cleaned) in low demand times. But I'm sure there will
| still be surge pricing as you can't avoid demand spikes
| completely.
| kaibee wrote:
| > Uber's drivers effectively use their wages to cover all
| of those costs. I'm curious how Waymo is handling all of
| the fleet maintenance, recharging, cleaning, etc, and how
| they plan to scale that infrastructure.
|
| Probably large regional hubs that cars will drive
| themselves to for periodic maintenance (or get towed to
| if the vehicle becomes disabled). Much more potential to
| bring down total cost than the 'each driver does it
| themselves' model.
| xnx wrote:
| Exactly, cars currently return to a depot where they are
| charged and inspected.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Uber does 7.64 billion rides per year. And they are not
| profitable_
|
| Uber is profitable in many cities before Uber Eats. An urban-
| only strategy should be profitable for Waymo.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Ha, they're finally expanding to the ASU Tempe campus. This
| should be fun.
| eep_social wrote:
| Can confirm, expecting a public brouhaha about this any moment
| now. Kids are gonna kid.
| parshimers wrote:
| I know they started testing a while back in LA, has anyone been
| in one there? I haven't seen them around town like I have in SF.
| sib wrote:
| Oddly, I've seen a _lot_ of them in the past three days in LA,
| sometimes multiple in an hour. Wonder how close they are
| getting to launch?
| boulos wrote:
| LA is employee only for now (https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1
| 630326911648841730?cxt=HHw...). We often do smaller
| announcements / updates only via Twitter, rather than a blog
| post on blog.waymo.com.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Please consider adding Mastodon!
| esalman wrote:
| Phoenix gets like 300 days of sunny weather, Bay area also has
| historically mild climate. Why is almost no comments mentioning
| this?
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| This doesn't suit the narrative that self-driving cars are
| close to taking over. Up in the northeast US, drivers are
| actually a _lot_ better at controlling their vehicles than bay
| area and southwestern drivers thanks to the fact that everyone
| has to drive in ice and snow.
| xnx wrote:
| There will always be situations where self-driving vehicles
| are not appropriate, but those situations will continue to
| decrease.
| surfpel wrote:
| > Bay area also has historically mild climate
|
| Bay Area yes. San Francisco less so. Sure it doesn't get snow
| but it is often rainy and foggy.
|
| Beyond that, the drivers are very aggressive along with
| pedestrians and cyclists. It is not a very easy place to drive.
|
| Are you suggesting that they should start development in a more
| extreme climate right off the bat?
| xnx wrote:
| Waymo has even developed custom localized climate models for
| San Francisco: https://blog.waymo.com/2022/11/using-cutting-
| edge-weather-re...
| esalman wrote:
| Yes. What's the point of developing something that is
| suitable for sunny climate only? This is how bias creeps into
| Al/ML systems.
| surfpel wrote:
| You start with the easy case then gradually make the model
| more robust by increasing the difficulty.
|
| What you're suggesting is akin to trying to develop a
| jetliner before building propeller aircraft. Too hard too
| soon and you don't really know what the target even is.
| Much learning happens before you can successfully execute a
| complex plan like that.
|
| Plus it's better from a business standpoint because you can
| achieve probability profitability sooner with your MVP.
| coolspot wrote:
| They are also testing in West LA.
| RobinL wrote:
| With all the hype about AI this year, does anyone know whether
| it's translating in any meaningful sense into self driving? Can
| they use transformers? If so, is there a step change in
| performance? Has this already happened?
| boulos wrote:
| Yep! Our research team publishes a lot of work
| (waymo.com/research).
|
| If you're interested in Transformers and attention in
| particular, the excellently named Wayformer [1] paper is pretty
| easy to follow and SWFormer is impressive on a lot of levels
| [2].
|
| The main challenge for autonomous vehicles has been (large)
| multi-modal inputs, _while_ delivering real-time inference
| performance on the road. Many of the large-language model
| things you see produce cool results, but would be much too slow
| or expensive for a real-time, safety-critical application.
|
| [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.05844
|
| [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.07372
| mkaic wrote:
| Already happened and still actively happening! In Tesla's
| latest annual AI day presentation they gave some insights into
| their training procedures and architecture choices. Lots of
| transformers, lots of bleeding-edge stuff.
| [deleted]
| callalex wrote:
| In this thread I am seeing nearly 100% positive praise for the
| driving abilities of these vehicles, but that is simply not
| always true. They are causing almost daily incidents for
| emergency responders in San Francisco and these companies seem
| unwilling to address the issue.
|
| https://missionlocal.org/2023/05/waymo-cruise-fire-departmen...
| hansoolo wrote:
| As we Europeans are very far away from seeing any of those, I
| have a question: how is the refuel / recharge handled? These are
| EVs, right? Do they some how do that independently, too?
| boulos wrote:
| Today, they come back to the depot to be recharged. People plug
| them in and unplug them when done.
| [deleted]
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| I can't for the life of me figure out how to sign up for the
| waitlist in SF. The app just says "you'll receive updates about
| San Francisco." Anyone been successful with this?
| paxys wrote:
| I believe that's what the app shows if you have already signed
| up.
| boulos wrote:
| Sorry if that's unclear, if you set up the app, logged in, and
| are located in San Francisco when doing so, I _think_ that 's
| equivalent.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| I see the same message on the app.
|
| It's super unclear.
|
| I think I signed up twice, a few months apart, because the
| message in the app didn't give me confidence that I'd signed
| up the first time.
|
| Separately, the other day I turned right and there was a
| Waymo car blocking the lane, about to pick up some
| passengers. My car and the car behind me couldn't continue
| along the road until the passengers had reached the car had
| gotten in. They didn't seem like they were in a hurry.
|
| Stopping a couple of extra car lengths away from the junction
| (or, better still, not blocking in the lane at all) wouldn't
| have paused other people's journeys.
| boulos wrote:
| For folks that are interested, the discussion at
| /r/selfdrivingcars [1] picked out some of the salient numbers.
| Brad Templeton also did his own write up at [2].
|
| I mainly hope that people take away that this service exists now.
| You can download the app and just use it in Phoenix. As mentioned
| in the post, we're doing thousands of trips per week of _non-
| employee_ rides. There are some great (and not so great!)
| examples posted to /r/selfdrivingcars from time to time if you
| want to see them.
|
| [1]
| https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/137hr3l/wa...
|
| [2]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2023/05/04/waymo-...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Does each city have an independent wait list? Or once you're
| in, you're in?
| ra7 wrote:
| Seems to be waitlist per city. But they only have a waitlist
| in SF currently. Phoenix is fully open to the public and LA
| is employee-only so far, so no waitlist open there yet.
| boulos wrote:
| We currently only operate the public service in Phoenix and
| San Francisco. There isn't a wait list in Phoenix, anyone can
| ride, but there is in San Francisco. So... technically
| they're currently independent.
|
| But our goal in any new area would be to focus on the people
| that live there, because they would use the service
| regularly. Of course, the broader goal is no waitlist
| anywhere :).
| Camillo wrote:
| Is the waitlist FIFO or does it prioritize? For example,
| suppose a Googler signed up for the waitlist, and since
| they already have ~all Googlers on it, they won't get
| access before 2026. Could they get access faster by
| quitting their job, deleting their Waymo account, then re-
| enrolling as unemployed?
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| How well does this scale? At some point do you just turn on the
| tap, buy a million cars and cover the whole country, or are you
| reliant on ongoing large amounts of support for the cars which
| means that the costs for expansion make it currently non
| viable?
| mdorazio wrote:
| Not OP, but I work in the industry. It's not as simple as
| opening the tap for three primary reasons: 1) localization,
| 2) operations, 3) cost.
|
| Localization means that you cannot generally (with current-
| state tech) ship a bunch of cars to a new city and turn them
| loose. You have to do a large amount of detailed mapping,
| characterization, and training in every area you want to
| launch. That's why you see all the self-driving companies
| slowly expanding availability areas _after_ their test cars
| have been running around for many thousands of miles in the
| area.
|
| Operations is all the stuff that's not the car driving itself
| around. The cars need a home base where they can park when
| not in use, recharge, get cleaned, have sensors checked and
| calibrated, and get maintenance when needed (scales linearly
| with number of vehicles). The cars are also not 100%
| flawlessly handling every situation and rider issue - there
| still needs to be human support in the loop, both in terms of
| a dedicated remote support team (scales linearly with number
| of rides) and in terms of local rescue people to get cars
| when they're really stuck (scales linearly with number of
| vehicles).
|
| Cost is the cost of vehicles, tech (ADKs), and operations.
| Waymo and Cruise are currently operating at absolutely
| massive loss and will continue to do so for years. It's
| generally not a great idea to open the faucet on a money-
| losing business until you at least have a solid way to get to
| profitability. Yes, I know, Uber and other giant startups
| basically never made money, etc. etc. but the market has
| changed and owners are looking to decrease costs of tech and
| operations before really scaling up. It's going to take a
| couple years still.
| boulos wrote:
| Good summary! (I was away for a bit)
|
| I would only caution that people shouldn't overindex on
| mapping costs. When you're talking about entering a major
| metro area, you need lots of vehicles and depots and so on
| anyway just to provide the eventual service. So the upfront
| initial map build out is certainly a _component_ of
| starting in a new geography, but I think people assume it
| is somehow dominant. It 's not.
|
| The current approach then for ride hailing, which requires
| depots, means that:
|
| > just turn on the tap, buy a million cars and cover the
| whole country
|
| is not happening anytime soon.
| ra7 wrote:
| There seems to be a lot of misconception and
| misinformation about mapping. People (mostly influencers
| associated with Tesla) constantly cite it as a major
| bottleneck for scaling. And there are barely any
| technical details about the mapping process. Are you able
| expand on the following:
|
| - Is the initial mapping effort very high and expensive?
| How long does it take, on an average, to fully map a city
| the size and complexity of San Francisco?
|
| - How much of the mapping process is automated?
|
| - How are the maps kept up-to-date? We know from Waymo's
| blog post a while ago [1] that the cars map continuously.
| But is human intervention required to verify an update
| (like a new construction zone that was encountered)?
|
| - How much of the country have you already mapped? Waymo
| says they are testing in 25 cities, so I'm assuming the
| number is at least 25 cities.
|
| - What does a vehicle do if it detects a mismatch of road
| conditions vs the onboard map? (I already know the
| answer, but this is one of the most frequent points of
| misinformation where people say it stops working)
|
| Anything you can share without revealing your secret
| sauce is appreciated!
|
| [1] https://blog.waymo.com/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-
| handbook-map...
| nvrmnd wrote:
| I haven't taken a ride but I expect that Waymo/Cruise just
| set their current price/ride to 80% of whatever Uber etc.
| charge. Since that cost is just a made up number anyway as
| they have accepted operating at a loss.
|
| When you take a hard look at exactly how to get the costs
| down to the point where that price is profitable, that must
| be a monumental challenge. The cars must cost maybe
| $100-150k more? Maintenance on the sensitive custom-fit
| equipment, software and operations costs, yikes.
| granshaw wrote:
| No driver wages tho!
| isubkhankulov wrote:
| Thanks for those links.
|
| This claim in the Forbes article doesn't make sense to me: "
| _It doesn't need the money_ but it does want to learn from how
| riders interact with a service they are paying for. "
|
| Alphabet has been pressured to show more tangible financial
| results by activist shareholders[1]. Waymo has 2,500 employees.
| Waymo's annual budget for headcount alone include stock based
| compensation is over $1B by my estimate.
|
| [1]
| https://www.ft.com/content/6daa5d29-8595-4630-a633-eb1f8b138...
| jeffbee wrote:
| Imagine believing that anyone at Alphabet gives a fuck what a
| 5% shareholder wants.
| rurp wrote:
| Activist investors spur changes with that share of
| ownership all the time. The exact size of their current
| stake matters much less than their expected ability to
| marshall much larger amounts if desired; by buying more
| stock and/or convincing existing shareholders to vote with
| them.
| rcme wrote:
| Apparently someone does. Activist investors are the reason
| for Google's layoffs.
| wepple wrote:
| Citation (other than Business Insider) needed
| rcme wrote:
| How about the Wall Street Journal?
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/activist-investor-calls-on-
| goog...
|
| Or The Guardian?
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/15/major-
| inv...
|
| > "We are writing to express our view that the cost base
| of Alphabet is too high and management needs to take
| aggressive action," TCI wrote in the letter, signed by
| managing director Christopher Hohn. "The company has too
| many employees and the cost per employee is too high."
| saagarjha wrote:
| What makes you think that TCI was the reason for the
| layoffs?
| rcme wrote:
| https://www.teamblind.com/post/Google-Layoffs---TCI-Fund-
| Yq4...
|
| This is a follow-up from TCI
| jeffbee wrote:
| Your interpretation of these facts is rather loose.
| rcme wrote:
| How so? Here are the facts:
|
| 1. TCI writes a letter to Google saying that they should
| layoff employees.
|
| 2. A few weeks later, Google lays off employees.
|
| 3. Literally the day the Google layoffs are announced,
| TCI writes a letter to Google saying "I have appreciated
| our recent dialogue concerning Alphabet's cost base. I am
| encouraged to see that you are now taking some action to
| right size Alphabet's cost base and understand that it is
| never an easy decision to let people go."
|
| How else should these facts be interpreted.
| jeffbee wrote:
| As unilateral self-aggrandizing.
| rcme wrote:
| I don't think you can really call it aggrandizing when
| you're able to CC Google's board and they'll actually
| read your letter.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| I really hope that I can get access in San Francisco soon. The
| closest grocery store to me in Bayview is a 30 minute walk
| across one of SF's riskiest pedestrian intersections and my
| neighborhood's only bus service is a corporate shuttle. Cruise
| just announced coverage for the "entire city" but it won't
| actually include my neighborhood. I've been well aware of Waymo
| for a long time, and been on the waiting list for over a year
| now! I've actually seen people getting in and out of Waymos
| near my apartment, and my limited experiencing riding the
| Cruise beta has me really excited to someday traverse SF in
| self driving vehicles. Can't wait.
| fossuser wrote:
| Cruise's "entire city" coverage is currently only for
| employees.
|
| The beta coverage is sunset to pacific heights and only 10pm
| to 530am - making it effectively useless.
| zamnos wrote:
| More specifically, it excludes the night club district
| which is when the 10pm to 5am service time would actually
| be in demand.
| [deleted]
| fossuser wrote:
| Yeah it's weird for me that the CEO bragged about it on
| Twitter as if it was open to everyone, when it's only
| open to employees?
|
| I'm in the beta but still haven't tried it because unless
| you live directly in the zone it operates it's not
| useful. Even then rarely am I ubering in the middle of
| the night anyway.
|
| As is, I'd have to take an uber to the zone it operates
| in after 10pm, then get a cruise point to point in an
| area where everything is closed, then take an uber home.
| suqy wrote:
| [dead]
| sprout20 wrote:
| I've had access in SF for the past few months and have been
| really impressed! The Waymo rides I've taken have been confident
| + a bit conservative (e.g. driving at the speed limit when
| traffic is flowing more quickly), but overall the team's done a
| great job with the experience. It's free for now so I've been
| using it regularly during commuting/rush hour and casual drives.
| Some quick thoughts:
|
| Advantages over Uber/Lyft: - Privacy - having the
| car to yourself is nice! - Safety - My friends who are
| women have almost universally said they feel uncomfortable taking
| Ubers/Lyfts at night and would prefer the Waymo - Ride
| matching happens almost instantly - Estimated pickup times
| are consistently accurate - Trunk is open for use and the
| car will prompt you to grab your items and open the trunk at the
| end of a ride - Extra legroom in backseat because there's
| no driver - No driver/car confusion - you can set your
| initials to be displayed on top of the car at pickup
|
| Parity with Uber/Lyft: - Drives surprisingly
| confidently/well - can handle complex urban traffic, pedestrians,
| cyclists without doing anything obviously "dumb" - First-
| class native app experience - Rides are priced upfront
| - Rides can be multi-stop
|
| Disadvantages (today) vs Uber/Lyft: - Driving is
| conservative - nothing above the speed limit - Driving is
| sometimes a little bit jerky (e.g. at stop signs, while inching
| on a right turn at a red light) - Routes can sometimes be
| odd / longer (usually within 25% of the most direct route)
| - Rarely (<5% rides), car will stop for pickup somewhere odd
| (middle of lane when there's an available curb, right turn lane)
| - No driver if you leave something behind (there's a support form
| online, but I left my phone once and a good samaritan happened to
| call using the emergency number) - Pickup times can be
| longer today than Uber/Lyft as they roll out more cars
|
| Honestly, if they fix the occasional indirect routing and
| eventually are able to let the cars flow at the same speed as
| traffic, I'd pick the Waymo almost every time.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| "Driving is sometimes a little bit jerky (e.g. at stop signs,
| while inching on a right turn at a red light)"
|
| Imagine if all (or even most!) SF drivers decided they would
| come to a complete stop at each stop sign and at each red
| light!
| tln wrote:
| This is not the way
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| Did you get access from the public beta sign-up list, or some
| other channel? I've been on the waitlist for over a year and
| have seen people utilizing Waymo near my apartment, but
| nothing's budged for me. I did get into the Cruise beta, and
| that just made me positive Waymo will almost completely replace
| other forms of car transit for me once it's available, but
| Cruise is very limited.
| neel8986 wrote:
| I guess the biggest advantage will be pricing. The cost can
| easily be < 10x if we remove the driver from the equation. But
| this will need scale
| tbruckner wrote:
| How is pricing?
| jamiek88 wrote:
| It's free for now.
| gniv wrote:
| I wonder if they plan to test in Europe. I moved to France and
| one issue I struggle with as a human driver is speed limits. I
| live in a suburban area where most streets have 30kmh limits
| (19mph). Nobody respects them, not even busses. I often get
| honked at when driving the speed limit. What would Waymo do?
| dmix wrote:
| > including improved hand gesture detection
|
| What does this mean? It can recognize pedestrians making hand
| gestures?
| [deleted]
| xnx wrote:
| Gestures from flaggers routing traffic around construction, or
| police around an accident for example.
| MarkMc wrote:
| > we are now serving over 10 thousand trips per week to public
| riders, not including employees. With this latest expansion, we
| intend for those numbers to accelerate rapidly to 10 times that
| scale by next summer.
|
| Waymo cars are safer, cleaner and cheaper than Uber, which has
| never made an operating profit and has abandoned its self-driving
| development.
|
| Uber is stalled on the railway tracks while the freight train of
| self-driving tech hurtles towards it. How is it still worth $76
| billion?
| alphabetting wrote:
| > "we are now serving over 10 thousand trips per week to public
| riders, not including employees. With this latest expansion, we
| intend for those numbers to accelerate rapidly to 10 times that
| scale by next summer"
|
| they've been pretty cautious on predictions after the AV hype
| boom and bust a couple years ago. 10x in a year is an ambitious
| goal.
| melling wrote:
| 10,000 trips in electric vehicles.
|
| Self-driving EV's in all major cities would be a big win for
| the climate and the air quality.
| xnx wrote:
| And noise! I will rejoice when idiots are no longer allowed
| to speed and operate clearly illegal (in terms of emissions
| and noise) vehicles on public roads.
| abawany wrote:
| that and rolling coal - I see at least one per month in
| texas.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Don't worry, the gov't is here to make sure you don't miss
| out. Newer EVs and hybrids are required to make _noise_ at
| <20mph. Never mind that a properly muffled ICEV is only
| audible when completely stopped. My neighborhood is getting
| louder as we all switch to EVs.
| r00fus wrote:
| I was worried about that back in 2018 when it was
| announced but having heard hundreds of backup sounds
| (luckily mine is silent as it's from before 2019), they
| are all chill and mostly imperceptible.
| majormajor wrote:
| It's probably more of a mixed bag.
|
| Self-driving car fleets probably increase suburbization in
| the same way that trains created suburbs long ago.
|
| Depending on how it breaks out, "more space per person at
| similar total environmental impact" is a quality of life win
| but not a climate-change-fighting one.
|
| Pedestrian safety and other externalities are probably a big
| win, still.
| jccooper wrote:
| I feel like the increase in suburbanization due to self-
| driving cars is probably pretty small over person-driven
| cars. Given the low building density that human-driven cars
| create (read: parking lots) there's some hope that a large
| change in car parking behavior would lead to lots of infill
| development.
| majormajor wrote:
| If your commute is "sitting in an office doing email or
| taking calls" instead of "having to babysit your car
| through traffic" you're gonna see some significant
| behavioral changes.
|
| The parking lot point is interesting, I hadn't thought
| about that.
|
| But it's not obviously better to me: commuting behavior
| is very time-of-day determined, and the cars are gonna
| have to be somewhere in between rush hours. You don't
| want them on the road, and you can probably shift around
| to catch other sorts of predictable demand, but
| environmentally you're gonna want to minimize the total
| nubmer of miles driven without passengers.
|
| EDIT: so in areas with less development and commmuters
| are parking their cars in surface lots all day, yeah, you
| don't need those surface lots for commuters + all the
| other lots at retail, residential, etc all at once if the
| cars are moving around to other uses during the day. But
| in denser recent-development areas where office parks
| predominantly have underground or garage parking it may
| be harder to realize infill there.
| xnx wrote:
| There are a lot of possible changes possible with
| autonomous vehicles (long term, I think it will be rare
| for an asset that costs tens of thousands of dollars to
| sit idly for 80+% of its life), but, for a simple
| example, imagine how many cars could fit in a perfectly
| packed parking lot: cars packed bumper to bumper and no
| need to leave space for doors to open.
| ghaff wrote:
| I don't know. I live in the exurbs anyway and just don't
| go into the city much. But, if I had effectively a
| personal driver and I could work in the car, the bar to a
| 30-60 minute drive in for the evening would be a lot
| lower for me.
| iinnPP wrote:
| I agree but also worry about the job loss and the inevitable
| loss of freedoms that will inevitably be 'justifiable' when
| automatic driving is the norm.
|
| Basically, if the cost can be comparable to car ownership,
| reducing resource use by making car buying of any kind far
| more difficult. Which is admittedly entirely a thought
| experiment. Though it is a thought experiment many authors
| seem to arrive at.
|
| Edit: I wish I could say I was surprised at the downvotes for
| a comment that is pro-worker.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| Making transportation more affordable will provide a lot
| more freedom to most of society.
| aidos wrote:
| Which jobs are you thinking? Bus drivers? Taxis? Car
| production? Which loss of freedom are you referring to?
|
| I can't help thinking that the potential upside will far
| out-way the cost.
|
| London streets are littered with dormant vehicles. Most
| just sit there taking up room and dominating the city. It
| would be a whole other city if we could change that
| dynamic.
| genghisjahn wrote:
| Truck drivers mainly. There are LOTS of truck drivers.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/m
| ap-...
| tyingq wrote:
| If they get over-the-road trucking automated, that also
| trickles down to many roadside workers...gas stations,
| restaurants, motels, and so on. Then, some back office
| functions associated with routing, driver compliance,
| hiring drivers, etc. I'm sure there's more. It would be a
| big adjustment.
| iinnPP wrote:
| Not just financial either. When more people are
| perpetually online in an internet populated by an even
| larger population of bots designed for engagement, what
| happens?
|
| Many of the jobs you are referring to are socially
| fulfilling to some people. It's an escape from a poor
| home situation or from an addiction.
| iinnPP wrote:
| I grew up in foster care. One of my guardians made a
| living driving a taxi. The guy was an absolute wreck of a
| human and I probably wouldn't break if he was crossing.
|
| It was what he used to survive though, and surely not all
| cab drivers would be the same.
|
| My brother in law drove Uber when he was illegally canned
| from his factory work and is the reason he got to eat.
|
| There are options to solve problems that don't require a
| change in the outcome you desire. Mainly something along
| the lines of forcing the companies profiting from this to
| pay a person a reasonable wage to act as the social
| aspect that will be missing. So the job market can be
| unaffected.
|
| It's not just a cab job problem either. It's also not
| about who I like or dislike or whether or not it impacts
| me or not. I have never used a cab in my life and I
| cannot drive and thus have no car taking up your street.
|
| I do however see a worsening homeless crisis in my small-
| ish Canadian city. I would rather see empty cars than
| tortured souls.
| theLiminator wrote:
| > There are options to solve problems that don't require
| a change in the outcome you desire. Mainly something
| along the lines of forcing the companies profiting from
| this to pay a person a reasonable wage to act as the
| social aspect that will be missing. So the job market can
| be unaffected.
|
| Essentially removing most economic incentive to deploy
| self-driving cars at all?
| iinnPP wrote:
| Market dominance would still allow for it to be
| profitable.
|
| Is money to goal or is it a better society? Less
| pollution, less waste, more social interaction, and
| increased safety. Less colored paper.
|
| Surely the government has an interest in financially
| incentivising this development. Especially given a
| decrease in road wear and tear, lower climate impact and
| surely any number of other benefits.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _money to goal or is it a better society_
|
| More people taking cheaper trips in cleaner vehicles is a
| better society in my book.
| iinnPP wrote:
| Absolutely. That is the today impact.
|
| What about when it's Waymo One or Uber Zero. Support is
| GPT7 Two.
|
| No call center jobs, no driving jobs, less supporting
| jobs, less money flow, more homelessness, more violence.
| Decreasing compensation for the jobs remaining due to
| increased competition.
|
| Short term profits go brrr?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Support is GPT7 Two_
|
| Have you _tried_ to get support on Uber, Lyft or a taxi?
|
| > _No call center jobs, no driving jobs, less supporting
| jobs, less money flow, more homelessness, more violence.
| Decreasing compensation for the jobs remaining due to
| increased competition_
|
| It's difficult to distinguish this from neo-Luddism.
| Maybe there is nothing productive for those people to do.
| If so, we can address it then. But the history of
| technological revolutions-from the agrarian to the
| internet-suggests the opposite. (We are, after all,
| discussing jobs which first arose around a century ago.)
| mlyle wrote:
| I read your comment as:
|
| "Let's make artificial fake work to make sure that people
| have something to do and money."
|
| Hopefully we can do better than that.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > Mainly something along the lines of forcing the
| companies profiting from this to pay a person a
| reasonable wage to act as the social aspect that will be
| missing.
|
| Force them to hire someone to sit in a car all day and do
| absolutely nothing?
| iinnPP wrote:
| act as the social aspect that will be missing.
|
| To act as a local for a traveler.
|
| To recommend locations
|
| To do nothing but sit there and look at their device or
| read
|
| Or perhaps the answer is a tax on automation and everyone
| can sit at home perpetually online.
|
| Im not claiming to have answers to this rapidly
| approaching problem. It's definitely a problem though.
| Even if it doesn't impact myself whatsoever at this time.
|
| What is your job? If it is gone tomorrow and your
| education is useless, what will you do?
|
| What about your family and friends?
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > What is your job?
|
| I drove cabs for nine years (right up until Covid).
|
| Some people want to talk, some people don't want to talk,
| some people just won't stop talking and you have to tune
| them out.
|
| What everyone had in common was the desire to get from
| point A to point B as cheaply as possible. They didn't
| care about any social aspect, given the choice I suspect
| the majority of them would rather not have been paying
| for my livelihood if it meant the ride was cheaper.
|
| How many people do you think fell for the Lyft "fist
| bump" BS over taking a VC subsidized ride for a discount
| over a taxi?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _act as the social aspect that will be missing_
|
| Nobody I know wants this. I've had great Uber, Lyft and
| taxi drivers. But they're far from the norm. I'd much
| prefer to be able to play my own music, or take back-to-
| back phone calls, or snore loudly.
|
| If this is genuinely the service, there is booming
| business in tour guiding.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| What is the power source for charging these EVs? In Phoenix,
| I could imagine it might be solar but the cars probably want
| to charge at night during low-demand times?
|
| If it's utility electric, from what fuel source is it
| generated?
| theobromus wrote:
| Waymo buys renewable energy for charging
| https://blog.waymo.com/2023/03/paving-way-toward-fully-
| elect...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Arizona is a nuclear and natural-gas state [1], with most
| of the coal (No. 3) being retired in the coming years [2].
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_
| in_Ar...
| tedivm wrote:
| Climate yes, but air quality not by as much as you'd think.
| Multiple studies have come out showing that the weight of EVs
| puts more pressure on tires and breaks, which in turn
| increases the particles they dump in the air.
|
| > As a result, total PM10 emissions from EVs were found to be
| equal to those of modern ICEVs. PM2.5 emissions were only
| 1-3% lower for EVs compared to modern ICEVs. Therefore, it
| could be concluded that the increased popularity of electric
| vehicles will likely not have a great effect on PM levels.
| Non-exhaust emissions already account for over 90% of PM10
| and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic. These proportions
| will continue to increase as exhaust standards improve and
| average vehicle weight increases. Future policy should
| consequently focus on setting standards for non-exhaust
| emissions and encouraging weight reduction of all vehicles to
| significantly reduce PM emissions from traffic.
|
| As the quote mentioned, this can be improved. Lighter
| batteries, better regenerative breaking, and improvements in
| tire material would all help.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522.
| ..
| zizee wrote:
| This is interesting/surprising and I would like to learn
| more, but the linked study is truncated behind a Paywall.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| I wonder if it would make sense to program robotaxis to use
| only regenerative braking, maybe with a more powerful
| regenerative braking system, and using real brakes only for
| emergencies.
| magnuspaaske wrote:
| That's how most electric cars are set up already
| cyberax wrote:
| > Climate yes, but air quality not by as much as you'd
| think. Multiple studies have come out showing that the
| weight of EVs puts more pressure on tires and breaks, which
| in turn increases the particles they dump in the air.
|
| This is total bullshit. EVs barely use frictional brakes at
| all. My Tesla Model S from 2014 is still on the original
| set of brakepads after nearly 200000 miles. Several EV car
| models even have a problem with disks _rusting_ because the
| frictional brakes are not used except when the car is
| parked.
|
| If anything, EVs will absolutely cut down on brake dust.
|
| With tires, it's a bit more nuanced. Regular tires can
| indeed wear a bit faster on an EV, especially if you are
| addicted to high acceleration. But tire vendors are now
| producing EV-optimized tires that are a bit more durable,
| and it seems like the difference is pretty negligible.
|
| Also, keep in mind that your bullshit study only looked at
| weight. So it follows that buses and trucks (that have MUCH
| more weight) will leave genocide and devastation in their
| wake.
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| I feel like this is a nonsense study. They used a 2013
| study that measured gas cars and then just extrapolated
| that out based on weight for EVs and did nothing to account
| for regenerative breaking, specialty EV tires, etc. Also
| the numbers are from the Simons 2013 study seem to be
| dubious as well.
|
| Anyone who has been to Oslo understands EVs are a huge
| benefit for urban air quality.
| xnx wrote:
| On top of that, the Waymo vehicles are much more
| efficient drivers: no rapid acceleration, no hard
| braking, lower top speed, etc.
| r00fus wrote:
| One thing that caught my eye is the study is simply
| modeling the increased PM10 and PM2.5 based on hypothesised
| influence of weight difference using gas and diesel cars
| (from 2013) as a basis.
|
| Obv. I haven't read anything but the summary but the core
| assumption means it's an extrapolation and not measuring
| actuals.
|
| For example, while EVs accelerate faster, regen braking
| massively reduces brake wear - the lack of mention of regen
| in this extrapolative study seems a huge miss. Also EVs
| typically don't have the same tire material - they use low
| rolling resistance tires which do better on particulates.
| chroma wrote:
| I'm suspicious of that paper. The largest source of non-
| exhaust emissions comes from brake pad wear[1] and EVs use
| brakes far less than combustion vehicles. Also the amount
| of particulate matter put into the air is highly dependent
| on vehicle speed. Densely populated areas have more
| traffic, which means cars drive slower and create less non-
| exhaust pollution.
|
| And it's no longer true that EVs are heavier than
| comparable combustion vehicles. The Tesla Model 3 weighs
| 3,550-4,070lbs. The BMW 3 Series weighs 3,200-4,330lbs,
| though the lightest model is a two door convertible. While
| combustion vehicles don't carry heavy batteries, they do
| need exhaust systems, more complicated drivetrains, and
| bigger cooling systems. Also, more and more combustion
| vehicles are becoming hybrids to meet stricter emissions
| standards. That means adding weight for batteries, an
| electric motor, and a transmission that can handle both
| propulsion sources.
|
| 1. See figure 6 in this paper:
| https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/12/2/190
| jeffbee wrote:
| As I understand it a large component of the particulate
| emissions from cars is resuspended road dust, so it
| doesn't really matter than an EV or hybrid has little of
| its own brake dust. The brake dust is already on the
| ground.
| brewdad wrote:
| But like CO2 emissions, the amount of brake dust
| available to be kicked up will decrease as more EVs take
| the road.
| xnx wrote:
| This isn't even accounting for the efficiencies of an
| autonomous vehicle decelerating less by better
| anticipating/timing stoplights. I see so many human
| drivers keep accelerating into a yellow/red light instead
| of easing off the pedal so they can resume accelerating
| by the time it turns green.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| This sounds completely ridiculous.
| magnuspaaske wrote:
| This is the wrong way to think about it since there's
| little that suggests AV-taxis also need to be larger than
| the cars already on the road. When I'm renting a car or
| taking a taxi I know exactly what my needs are and can
| decide to not pay for luggage space if I don't need that
| for instance. Further you can just put a smaller battery in
| AV-taxis since you can optimise the charging schedule. And
| lastly, when we've gotten rid of air pollution from
| tailpipe emissions air pollution from tires would be the
| next problem to fix and it intuitively seems that all
| electric, digital cars could have their pollution reduced
| via a software update.
|
| And obviously the technology making these cars possible
| also make self driving busses possible, which would allow
| new ways for urban mobility.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Self-driving EV's in all major cities would be a big win for
| the climate and the air quality.
|
| Counterpoint: no, they wouldn't. Moving towards self-driving
| automobiles merely props up an inefficient mode of
| transportation. Imagine sinking all that money that's being
| blown on self-driving cars into pedestrian and bicycle
| infrastructure. The problem with cars is cars, not drivers.
| xnx wrote:
| There's probably nothing better for bikes and pedestrians
| than self-driving cars. With autonomous drivers, every road
| becomes safe for bikes and pedestrians.
| cyberax wrote:
| Bike infrastructure is the ultimate boondoggle. It NEVER
| pays for itself in the US, it literally has nothing but
| negatives if you look at it objectively.
|
| Bike lanes don't appreciable increase the percentage of
| trips by bike, they dis-proportionally slow down car
| traffic, and the bike commutes themselves are probably the
| worst transit mode in the US.
|
| Heck, bike lanes almost never even _replace_ the amount of
| traffic that they displace.
|
| All bike lanes do, is cater to a bike lobby that tries to
| force their hobby on everybody else, at the expense of
| practicality.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Imagine sinking all that money that 's being blown on
| self-driving cars into pedestrian and bicycle
| infrastructure_
|
| This does jack squat for getting across San Francisco or
| from corner to corner of Phoenix.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| You can already bike from one part of SF to another,
| investment in bicycle infrastructure would make that
| easier and safer. Or, you know, public transit.
| Individual vehicles suffer from massive inefficiency
| compared to nearly any other form of transportation -
| look at Elon's fully autonomous tunnel.
| dekhn wrote:
| SF is not really a great bikeable city; almost any
| location to any location involves hills, some of them
| really significant. The streets are also not laid out in
| a reasonable pattern in many locations.
|
| Getting from outer sunset to market by bike daily isn't
| really practical, especially during Weather.,
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Well yeah, that's pretty much the point. San Francisco is
| not particularly walkable or bikeable by an objective
| standard (although it's still doable). Imagine if we sunk
| money into improving infrastructure instead of
| subsidizing autonomous vehicles.
| xnx wrote:
| > Individual vehicles suffer from massive inefficiency
| compared to nearly any other form of transportation
|
| I though this too until I looked at the true dollar costs
| or carbon impact per passenger mile. That doesn't even
| account for the externalities of particulate pollution
| and road wear. The buses in my city are also filthy
| diesel, belching thick, noxious, clouds of soot as they
| accelerate away from the stop, right at crowds of people
| who just got off the bus. Heavy buses also require
| special concrete pads at every stop and still do heavy
| damage to the road surface: rutting and exacerbating
| potholes.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| That sounds like a problem with your city. I've not seen
| a diesel car or truck belching smoke out here in
| _decades_. San Francisco phased out the two stroke
| diesels in the late 00s, and even those were a lot
| cleaner than the two strokes of my youth.
| still do heavy damage to the road surface: rutting and
| exacerbating potholes.
|
| Sure, the wear goes up exponentially with the weight (and
| axle loading). OTOH you need significantly more cars than
| buses to move people around. Investing in mixed-use
| development and better pedestrian infrastructure means
| that fewer people need to use mechanized transport.
|
| Look at lord Elno's autonomous vehicle tunnel -
| individual vehicles simply don't scale.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Phoenix has some really awesome bicycle paths, like along
| the ancient canal system. I was able to ride my bicycle
| home after a concert in Glendale to Tempe. It took hours
| and hours, but the weather was fine and conditions were
| favorable.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| The "EV" part seems to be carrying the weight there, not the
| self-driving. Self-driving might even make those problems
| worse by decreasing the cost of driving.
|
| It's like saying "self-driving cars and solving the nitrogen
| fixation problem would be a big win for preventing famine."
| tommoor wrote:
| And pedestrian/cyclist safety
| mertd wrote:
| To be fair, human drivers don't do terribly well on that
| front.
| peter422 wrote:
| The comment is saying these cars will improve
| pedestrian/cyclist safety.
|
| I can also attest to it. I've interacted as a pedestrian
| and cyclist to many cruise and waymo cars and they've
| been very, very cautious and careful.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Drivers do fine if the infrastructure is designed for
| humans rather then for cars.
|
| The reason so many people die in US cities is because of
| policy, not because people can't drive inherently.
| twoWhlsGud wrote:
| Driver quality in the US is much lower than in cycling
| hotspots like the Netherlands or Denmark. Infrastructure
| helps, but better drivers are critical.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I think it feels that way because people just drive much
| faster. If you forced people to slow down, I don't think
| the avg quality of driver is worse.
| xnx wrote:
| I don't have much international experience, but the level
| of distraction of US drivers is shocking. Easily 50% of
| drivers I see are looking at their phones (even while
| going through an intersection!).
| twoWhlsGud wrote:
| Not to mention everyone else who is not driving a 9000 lb
| Hummer - e.g. see how fear of being squished by a giant SUV
| dominates the discussion here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35827974
| danvoell wrote:
| Is there any sort of road map for how they plan to roll this out
| beyond the two cities?
| boulos wrote:
| We post updates on our blog or Twitter account from time to
| time. There isn't an explicit, public roadmap of "On this date,
| we will open in < CITY >", but we have announced LA [1] as our
| next city for Waymo One (the name of the ride hailing service):
|
| > Los Angeles will be Waymo's next ride-hailing city, joining
| Phoenix and San Francisco as we expand to more locations.
|
| Beyond the official _service_ , we also do testing in multiple
| locations. For example, we announced that returning to Austin
| for testing [2]. In that post, we mention other weather testing
| we've done in Miami, NYC, and Bellevue, WA.
|
| Beyond ride hailing, we have separate testing for Waymo Via
| with our Class 8 trucks, that you might see in Arizona or
| Texas.
|
| [1] https://blog.waymo.com/2022/10/next-stop-for-waymo-one-
| los-a...
|
| [2] https://blog.waymo.com/2023/03/expanding-waymos-testing-
| to-A...
| hcazz wrote:
| I understand it's interesting to announce accomplishments
| (such as increased areas for testing), but as someone who
| lives in West LA, it's slightly annoying to see multiple
| announcements saying "testing is expanded, be on the
| lookout!". I'm nearly at the point where I'm just ignoring
| announcements for Los Angeles because the last two haven't
| amounted to any changes for someone that lives here and wants
| to use the service.
| SanderNL wrote:
| It's all smoke and mirrors.
|
| There's surely someone driving it remotely or hidden under the
| hood.
|
| Self-driving is a hoax meant to distract us.
|
| AI is snake oil, Dreyfus, hype train. Stochastic parrot.
| Confabulations. Unredeemable and based on intellectual mistakes.
|
| Stochastic.
|
| Stochastic.. parr..
|
| ...
|
| _fizzles out_
| rvnx wrote:
| It's actually true for one "AI" robot delivery company :D (they
| still have billions in valuation).
|
| But Waymo has real tech, and real AI.
| rvnx wrote:
| Love this company, hopefully it will split off Alphabet and
| become a publicly-listed stock.
| agnosticmantis wrote:
| Really love what waymo have been achieving with a relatively
| small team, but more importantly, they've had their heads down
| working and solving hard problems instead of opting for
| attention-seeking behavior, making ridiculously pompous claims
| and false promises (e.g. delivering robotaxies that make you
| $30k/yr by next year!), getting into ideological (sensor) wars,
| etc. (How many people know the name of their CEO? And yet they're
| slowly and steadily marching along, hitting one milestone after
| another.)
|
| Kudos to the hardworking waymonauts!
| amacneil wrote:
| > relatively small team
|
| 2,800 employees on Linkedin
|
| > instead of opting for attention-seeking behavior, making
| ridiculously pompous claims and false promises
|
| Waymo and Jaguar announced in 2018 plans to build up to 20,000
| vehicles in the first two years of production [0]
|
| Cheap shots, I know (they did say "up to" 20,000 vehicles,
| after all). Waymo have been making great progress lately, and
| it's nice to see the AV industry has transitioned from wild
| claims to steady progress.
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17165992/waymo-jaguar-
| i-p...
| RivieraKid wrote:
| > Cheap shots, I know
|
| Definitely. The big picture is that they are very careful and
| conservative with their statements about the future, but if
| you look hard enough you can always find something. With
| Tesla it's the polar opposite.
| bdcravens wrote:
| 2,800 employees is small, when you consider what they are
| trying to accomplish.
|
| Tesla has 130k.
| surfpel wrote:
| Waymo is the autonomous driving division of Alphabet.
| Alphabet has 190k employees
|
| Tesla's autopilot team has ~300 people.
|
| Both teams have done incredible work.
| zaroth wrote:
| I didn't realize Tesla's team was so small. Both
| companies have truly done incredible work!
|
| It's funny watching HN comments trying to tear down Musk
| and Tesla while their software--which has driven billions
| of miles--continues to just get better and better.
|
| I love that we have these companies all investing
| billions of dollars on trying to solve this problem in
| very different ways. Truly a beautiful example of
| capitalism at work pushing technology forward in a way
| that (sooner than you think) will be saving _millions_ of
| lives and trillions of dollars.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Is it funny? I empathize, but maybe I'm too soft?
|
| A lot of people bought cars based on bad, lying, PR.
| Appreciating assets, $30K/year robotaxi service next
| year, we'll rent out your car for you. Coast to coast in
| 9 months, again, again, again, and again.
|
| It's sort of the opposite of what OP praised: loud, not
| quiet, scrambling in public, not head's down.
| l33tc0de wrote:
| You do realize Tesla makes cars too, or are these 130K
| people working just on autonomous driving?
| xnx wrote:
| > How many people know the name of their CEO?
|
| CEOs (plural)
| agnosticmantis wrote:
| Well, my point exactly ;)
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup, I very much liked the broader approach of solving the
| general problem, but this actually seems to be doing better.
|
| The general problem has insane amounts of edge cases, and is
| basically trying to do a pole-vault-height high jump; if you
| succeed, you own the world (or at least can automatically drive
| anywhere on it), but until then, you and your customers have
| lots of problems.
|
| Meanwhile, the approach of map-everything-down-to-the-
| centimeter and keep it updating is making real practical
| progress. The question is whether it'll ever get out of cities?
| While storage is constantly getting cheaper, but is it feasible
| to map and update the maps sufficiently for a cross-country
| trip?
|
| Still, there's an awful lot of city territory that can be
| covered with genuinely useful service.
| boulos wrote:
| > The question is whether it'll ever get out of cities? While
| storage is constantly getting cheaper, but is it feasible to
| map and update the maps sufficiently for a cross-country
| trip?
|
| That's certainly the intent with Waymo Via for trucking, and
| we drive multiple routes today including say Dallas <=>
| Houston for beer [1]. The video at [2] includes some footage
| of the trucks on a highway.
|
| [1] https://www.ttnews.com/articles/waymo-ch-robinson-
| driverless...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lon1vRv2wQ8
| toss1 wrote:
| Very cool - thx!
| eep_social wrote:
| Google has a strong foundation for estimating this effort
| because they already do it at lower fidelity with streetview.
| I would assume they are considering these questions regularly
| as part of whatever long term planning goes into the rollout.
| xnx wrote:
| Interesting question. I'm guessing the information density of
| 100 miles of standard American interstate is less than that
| of 1 city block in Manhattan.
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