[HN Gopher] Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expan...
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Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F
Author : rntn
Score : 118 points
Date : 2024-06-21 16:24 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sfchronicle.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sfchronicle.com)
| steelframe wrote:
| Cool. Can I take one without my identity and travel patterns
| being tracked? Like, suppose I want to get picked up from work
| and dropped off at my girlfriend's house in San Mateo. Something
| I might not want my soon-to-be-ex's lawyer to be able to
| subpoena. There's one of those machines onboard that are all over
| the place in supermarkets where I can feed bills right?
|
| Or maybe not. Okay then, Luxor Cab it is. Cheaper, better
| conversation, more aggressive about squeezing through traffic,
| and doesn't violate my privacy.
|
| I'm not against automated taxi services in principle. I'm just
| not interested if it's a package deal where I have to surrender
| my physical comings and goings to a scummy data broker like
| Google.
| yazzku wrote:
| Obviously you do surrender all of your travel privacy to the
| data broker. That's why they are making self-driving cars in
| the first place. But you're already doing all of that by
| carrying an Android phone.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Strange this is downvoted no ?
| qlaotht wrote:
| I've come to the conclusion that most people enjoy being
| tracked, surveilled and data-mined. It makes them feel
| important.
|
| I would not enter such a panopticon vehicle either.
| astrange wrote:
| Pretending they're being tracked and that people are
| making money from it makes them feel important, more
| like. You aren't actually that valuable.
| quqalx wrote:
| It isn't actually a secret:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/04/smile-
| you...
| yazzku wrote:
| I also found it strange. The parent comment has some amount
| of hyperbole, but it does not detract from the point they
| are conveying.
| pier25 wrote:
| > _That 's why they are making self-driving cars in the first
| place_
|
| It is?
|
| I thought they wanted to disrupt transportation.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I mean the most obvious reason is making money.
|
| But other things like making the roads safer is a nice side
| effect.
| steelframe wrote:
| > But you're already doing all of that by carrying an Android
| phone.
|
| I'm not.
| yazzku wrote:
| My boy. Now, when a self-driving car drives past you, make
| sure you show them that sweet middle finger of yours.
| currymj wrote:
| interestingly the NYC yellow cabs were recording all this data
| for a while and released it in an "anonymized" dataset, which
| turned out to be pretty easy to deanonymize because people tend
| to be picked up or dropped off near their homes or workplaces.
|
| https://agkn.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/riding-with-the-stars-...
|
| i think the answer is just that you don't have much meaningful
| privacy when using a taxi service in a normal way.
| steelframe wrote:
| My trick is to walk a block or two on either end of the trip.
| joecasson wrote:
| How would you design that system?
|
| I can't imagine a self-driving car request via an app could be
| accomplished without _someone_ knowing / tracking your travel
| patterns. You can't do cash transactions because that would be
| rife for smash-n-grabs from others.
| steelframe wrote:
| With a regular taxi I just call from a phone in a hotel lobby
| and ask to be picked up a block or so from my location. No
| reason there can't be a dispatch service you can call for
| self-driving taxis too.
|
| Crime happens, but that's why there's insurance. It's not
| like cab drivers don't get robbed too. It doesn't (and
| shouldn't) stop cash commerce.
| spankalee wrote:
| In what was is Google a data broker? Where can you buy this
| data?
| seeknotfind wrote:
| Wooooooo! Goodbye Lyft and Uber. Honestly, I get a bag driver,
| use the AI for a while. Feels too sterile, switch back, get some
| interesting drivers. Waymo has everything going for it but good
| company. Love it.
| Me1000 wrote:
| Unfortunately Waymo still wont operate on freeways or at SFO.
| But I long for the day when I can take a Waymo between SF and
| Berkley or to SFO, those are my most frequent reasons to call a
| Lyft.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Well they just got the permit to expand, so you shouldn't
| have to wait too long. That said, I think the plan was first
| to expand down the peninsula.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I'm still surprised that they, and most of their competitors,
| chose to start off in such difficult to navigate regions. I would
| have started off in a retirement community or the like.
| SheinhardtWigCo wrote:
| They kinda did that - they were operating in the suburbs around
| Phoenix AZ for years before launching in SF.
|
| Not operating in difficult areas would slow them down because
| progress in this domain is bound by the breadth of edge cases
| encountered in the wild.
| AzzyHN wrote:
| They did some driving in some Arizona suburbs too, iirc. The
| reasoning for having so much driving in SF is twofold
|
| 1. Silicon Valley, both for the workers and the general
| public's willingness to embrace fancy new tech 2. SF is
| DIFFICULT to drive in. If you follow all driving laws & drive
| super defensively, you'll never get anywhere on time. If an AI
| can learn to effectively navigate around traffic, construction,
| stopped rideshare and foodshare cars, large crowds, etc etc, it
| can drive anywhere.
|
| SF also gets a lot of rain and dense fog, good for testing low-
| visibility conditions
| joshchaney wrote:
| _They did some driving in some Arizona suburbs too_
|
| I think you are really understating it. I believe Chandler,
| AZ has been Waymo's proving grounds for years, and according
| to this article (https://www.wsj.com/us-news/waymo-phoenix-
| arizona-self-drivi...) the Phoenix area is the leader of
| autonomous vehicle service.
| standardUser wrote:
| SF gets mild rain and mild fog, which may be even better for
| early testing than places with more severe weather.
| whiplash451 wrote:
| You need to work on the real problem head-on. << Solving >>
| retirement zones might lead to a tech stack that is totally
| unfit to dense areas.
|
| Also, the risk aversion of people in retirement zones does not
| make it a great target customer base.
| tanvach wrote:
| We recently started using Waymo more often:
|
| - Quality of Lyft and Uber rides have gone down significantly.
|
| - Consistently spacious, clean and quiet cars. You know what
| you'll get.
|
| - AC always works and not up to the whim of the driver.
|
| - No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby.
|
| Negatives:
|
| - Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber.
|
| - Pick up and drop off tend to be a small walk from requested
| locations.
|
| Forgot one more positive - you can choose a soothing music play
| list in the car and it automatically resumes in the next ride.
| Small but really nice detail when traveling with a baby.
| perfectstorm wrote:
| do you have to tip the 'driver'? jokes aside, i would be happy
| to take them once the expand to SFO region so i can have a
| consistent experience.
| tanvach wrote:
| Worth trying to sign up now. The waitlist takes a while.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| It's not on a waitlist in SF anymore, Waymo is just open.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| I'd love to take it to the airport, but I imagine it'll be a
| mess trying to pull up and park at departures. It's already
| incredibly chaotic with the way humans are, and I don't
| expect they'll even pretend to extend any curtesy to a robot.
|
| Maybe I'm wrong though? I think they go to the airport in
| phoenix, I just haven't heard any reports on the experience.
| ra7 wrote:
| Allowing Waymo at SFO is a political mess because the
| airport owned by the city and the city hates robotaxis.
| Waymo did apply for a permit to operate at SFO, but were
| denied.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it'll be a mess trying to pull up and park at
| departures_
|
| I've taken it to and from the airport at Phoenix. Pick-up
| was an in-airport light-rail station to the first stop.
| Drop-off was right to the curb late night.
| Me1000 wrote:
| > Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber.
|
| I found that to be true as well, but when you factor in the tip
| to the driver they come out to more or less the same price.
| mistercheph wrote:
| > No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby
|
| San Fransisco slave-owning class misanthropy on display.
|
| I'm sorry that the poor tried to talk to you instead of
| shutting up, and performing his digi-task without disturbing
| your innocent baby.
|
| Is it any wonder that the same upper-middle class NPC's that
| treat human beings like machines also (in error) dream of a
| future where machines will replace human beings?
| tdb7893 wrote:
| Lmao I can't tell if this is satire or not but calling people
| NPCs always reminds me of this XKCD I once had up in my
| cubicle. https://xkcd.com/610/
| dang wrote:
| Yikes, you can't attack another user like that here. We have
| to ban accounts that do, so please don't do it again.
|
| While I have you: could you please stop posting unsubstantive
| comments and flamebait generally? You've unfortunately been
| doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and
| destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking
| the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be
| grateful.
| firloop wrote:
| A rarely discussed negative to Waymo is that they drive slower
| than human drivers. Anecdotally they can be 10-25% slower than
| the rest of traffic, and it's not uncommon to see human drivers
| do unsafe moves to pass a Waymo.
| IamLoading wrote:
| it boggles my mind. why this isnt talked more.
| tanvach wrote:
| That's quite true, but still surprisingly human like to me
| when compared to, say, Tesla FSD. It will also take longer to
| call one due to less supply.
|
| If we want nice, relaxing ride with no time pressure then we
| call a Waymo. Uber is still our go to if we are in a rush.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Honestly as a cyclist who takes Waymo, all the Waymos I've
| seen are much nicer to cyclists than any human driver. Most
| human drivers in SF either buzz past the 3 ft legal limit
| going 15 mph over (good luck when their mirror taps you at 40
| mph) to try and overtake the cyclist or they'll just edge the
| cyclist out any time there's space to merge into the lane.
| Waymos usually give cyclists the whole lane comfortably and
| take time to merge out properly.
|
| (I've read comments that if you're on a skateboard this isn't
| true but I've never used a skateboard in SF so I don't know
| much about the experience.)
|
| Sometimes I wish I could load my bike into a Waymo. I hit a
| flat yesterday and left my replacement tube at home and it
| would have been so much nicer if I could have loaded my bike
| into the car and gotten a ride home.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| I used to work with a guy who liked cycling, and liked
| doing it light and in open, fairly rural areas near a city.
|
| He didn't carry tools or spare parts. He'd just summon an
| appropriate Uber to his location and get a ride home home
| with his bike if he had an issue.
| rainsford wrote:
| Is that a negative of Waymo or a negative of the
| aggressive/illegal way many humans drive? My assumption is
| the anecdotal speed difference you notice is Waymos actually
| following the speed limit, and I imagine Waymo isn't really
| looking to program their cars to break the law while they're
| trying to expand their ability to operate.
| babyshake wrote:
| Not just humans, but Uber/Lyft drivers. It is very common
| for an Uber driver to perform unsafe and illegal maneuvers
| while driving me. I don't report them because I don't want
| to get them fired. Usually I don't even remark on it,
| unless I think they did it in a way that was especially
| unsafe.
| firloop wrote:
| Yes, most human drivers go above the speed limit. I agree
| that it can be unsafe, but wouldn't a self-driving car be
| safer at going above the speed limit than humans? I feel
| like it should be OK for it to go 5-10 miles over,
| especially if that's what the flow of traffic is.
| rainsford wrote:
| I don't know if it's actually safer, but I feel like
| programming your self driving car to regularly break the
| speed limit would be a hard sell from a regulatory
| perspective. It's different in "self-driving" cars with
| drivers who can choose the speed of the vehicle. In this
| case, Waymo is programming the car to independently pick
| a speed, and making that programming decide to break the
| law seems like it could be a problem.
|
| Probably a better solution is more reasonable speed
| limits and more consistent enforcement of those limits,
| but now I'm just engaging in wishful thinking.
| lacker wrote:
| If they're really safer than human drivers, like the Google-
| funded studies claim they are, then this seems like a
| positive rather than a negative. Perhaps we humans should be
| slowing down and driving more carefully?
|
| But I'm not sure if we can trust these studies. I'd really
| like to see a completely independent evaluation, of how the
| safety of Waymo cars compares to human drivers, and to the
| safety other companies like Zoox.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I agree that an independent study would be very useful to
| get a better idea of what's actually happening.
|
| That said, human drivers in the US are bad. We have the
| highest traffic crash rate among all developed countries by
| far. Pedestrian and cyclist crash rates have been
| increasing in the US, one of the only developed countries
| in the world that this is happening in. Much of the US
| remains opposed to automated traffic enforcement or speed
| governors of any kind. Privacy advocates use privacy as an
| excuse but given how much Americans care about their
| privacy in other aspects of their life, I'm doubtful. And
| anecdotally it's common for friends to talk about driving
| 10-15 mph over the speed limit, and we know speed is the
| leading predictor for severity of a crash. Most US drivers,
| especially of higher income classes, are probably well
| aware that they speed and break plenty of other traffic
| laws on a regular basis and don't want to reckon with that
| fact.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| > And anecdotally it's common for friends to talk about
| driving 10-15 mph over the speed limit, and we know speed
| is the leading predictor for severity of a crash. Most US
| drivers, especially of higher income classes, are
| probably well aware that they speed and break plenty of
| other traffic laws on a regular basis and don't want to
| reckon with that fact.
|
| Because 99 44/100 percent of the time, this is not a
| factor. The true threat is not someone going 10 over on
| the highway, it's the loons you see zooming ahead of
| everyone else going 20+ over, weaving like they're in a
| video game. Equally unsafe are the self-appointed speed
| police camping in the left lane doing 2 under (looking at
| you, Greater Seattle). This forces people to pass on the
| right to keep up the flow of traffic, which is much less
| predictable.
|
| The correct answer is to keep right except to pass, keep
| your speed within reason (<10 over max in good weather),
| keep a decent following distance, and let the cops take
| care of anyone driving recklessly. If speed was so
| dangerous by itself, Germany would not have Autobahns.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I imagine people will be more tolerant of a slower ride if
| --as a passenger--they can be engaged reading a book or
| watching a movie or whatever.
|
| Not just because it's easier to pass the time, but also
| because there's no push to make the experience of driving
| "more interesting." (Too much, and someone drives unsafely,
| too little, and they aren't really paying attention.)
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I'm curious why they can't pick up and drop off at exact
| locations, as long as the location is in their operating
| boundaries.
| wanderingstan wrote:
| In my experience they are very strict about finding a "safe"
| place to pick up and drop off, which often means turning onto
| a small side street or looking for a gap in parked cars. They
| won't block traffic like a Lyft/Uber driver might.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _They won't block traffic like a Lyft /Uber driver
| might._
|
| Wow, then I don't know how they'd ever expand to NYC.
|
| In most areas there's no such thing as a "safe place" that
| doesn't block traffic.
|
| If there are sides of the road that aren't traffic (or
| bicycle) lanes, then they're taken up by parking.
|
| Taxis, Ubers, delivery trucks -- literally everything just
| stops in the street (or bicycle lane) and traffic
| temporarily goes around it.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| When an Uber is near people wave to it, and the driver can
| stop where they are.
|
| The Waymos probably don't have that kind of social skills.
| tanvach wrote:
| The app forces you to pick locations that the car can park
| safely (no double parking) that's closest to the requested
| locations. They can be 1-2 minutes walk.
|
| Not a big deal for us to be honest, except when going to the
| theaters in SF, where the car can stop a block away in
| sketchy Tenderloin.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| They should have flashing lights and stop in the middle of
| the road like school busses do.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Because they have courtesy to not block traffic. Anecdotally,
| drivers are also MUCH more aggressive near them, so I'd be
| pretty nervous as a pedestrian getting in/out of one near
| heavy traffic. I'm not handicap in any way, and I'm totally
| fine walking to the corner of a city block to get in it, in
| exchange for a much safer ride than an Uber.
|
| I've never had it be more than a few hundred feet - usually
| it's 2-3 cars away where it can parallel park on the other
| side of an intersection in the WORST case. Oh I guess they do
| avoid some of the intense AF hills but I've had Uber drivers
| do the same.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Human drivers are willing to break the law for pick ups and
| drop offs, and as a society we largely tolerate that as long
| as it's not egregious in terms of safety or blocking others.
|
| But programming a robot to deliberately break the law is
| uncomfortable for people to think about.
| ndesaulniers wrote:
| You take ride share with a baby? How does that work, with
| regards to car seats?
| tanvach wrote:
| We take an infant car seat and use the European belt routing
| (or if that fails due to short belts in American cars,
| American belt routing) to secure to the back seat.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| WTF belt routing? Don't you guys have Isofix over there?
| eyeareque wrote:
| Doesn't the price end up being the same if you factor in tips
| with Lyft?
| RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u wrote:
| > - Consistently [...] clean [...]
|
| I don't expect this to hold true once Waymo become generally
| available, alas.
| dventimi wrote:
| I do. It'll be easier to keep the fleet on a cleaning
| schedule, and won't be left to the whims of individuals.
| billjings wrote:
| I have a good friend who's a Lyft driver. According to him,
| all drivers are rated on cleanliness by passengers; if
| you're dinged for a weird smell, there are lasting
| financial consequences (even if it was for reasons outside
| of your control, e.g. using a Lyft provided rental while
| repairing from a traffic accident).
|
| We'll see how Waymo handles it! It will definitely be
| Waymo's problem to solve, though.
| RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u wrote:
| I think the difference is that as an individual driver
| you have an incentive to keep your car clean, so that
| Lyft continues to dispatch riders to you. For Waymo the
| selective pressure is less direct and also spread across
| their entire fleet. They can accept a level of dirtiness,
| given some probability that the rider would reject the
| car x cost of rider requesting a (partial) refund x etc.
| etc.
|
| More cynically, there are simply too many people that
| won't take care of "public" property. If every 3rd rider
| (exaggerated for rhetorical purposes) trashes the car,
| it's gonna be dirty no matter what.
| akira2501 wrote:
| The metric will be "cost of time spent cleaning" / "cost of
| sending out a dirty car." If this ratio is > 1 the
| "recommended cleaning schedule" will be the lowest priority
| item in the entire fleet.
| alooPotato wrote:
| The cost of cleaning goes way down when you do it in bulk
| at a service center rather than individual lyft/uber
| drivers trying to do it. A standardized car also helps.
| akira2501 wrote:
| If you can incorporate the cost of large horizontal
| demand spikes into the off hours and you can find cheap
| enough labor to fill it, perhaps.
|
| The time spent travelling out of service, in cleaning,
| and back into service are all lost opportunities.
| Hopefully you can clean a very large number of cars in a
| very short period of time.
|
| The cars may be standard. The messes, obviously, will not
| be.
| mgillett54 wrote:
| The cars already need to go out of services to recharge,
| they can just clean the cars while charging
| akira2501 wrote:
| The have multiple charging centers strategically placed
| throughout the city. These seem to currently only have
| security guards there. The logistics of having cleaning
| staff there and trying to match their schedule to
| expected charging times is probably not very difficult
| but also not very reliable either.
|
| The win they do have, that I did not consider is, they
| have cameras _in_ the car. So visible cleanliness is
| something they can manually check before and after the
| rid and schedule for service if required; however, it
| currently seems that this requires the vehicle to go to
| the larger centralized maintenance facility, which I
| guessing takes quit a bit more time than the auxiliary
| charge only lots.
|
| Not trying to be super pessimistic, but mixing
| distributed autonomous operations with centralized manual
| service, especially in an urban environment, seems
| fraught with novel challenges.
| Alupis wrote:
| By this logic public transportation should be the cleanest
| of them all. But, it is unfortunately far from that.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _public transportation should be the cleanest of them
| all_
|
| Privately operated public transport ( _e.g._ jitneys and
| ferries) frequently are when positioned at a premium, as
| Waymo is.
| Alupis wrote:
| This is counter to my personal experiences - but I'm
| certain it does depend on location/region.
| primedteam wrote:
| They have some rider rules around keeping the car clean
| (screenshot link below). I'm not sure if they are enforced to
| this level but they do have at least one camera in the car
| (above the middle rear seat).
|
| https://i.imgur.com/vCRvWOc.jpeg
| ra7 wrote:
| > _Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber._
|
| Waymo says they are a premium service like Uber Black because
| they have nice cars (Jaguar I-Pace), plus the novelty and
| safety of being driverless. They're not trying to be
| competitive with Uber X or shared rides for in their current
| form.
| gnicholas wrote:
| How nice is the backseat of a Waymo compared to an Accord?
| asphodel_gray wrote:
| 10%? you're lucky. Every time I check the app it's usually
| twice the price of an Uber or Lyft.
| fhub wrote:
| > You can choose a soothing music play list in the car and it
| automatically resumes in the next ride
|
| Oh wow! There is a non zero chance that was implemented because
| of some feedback I provided as a trusted tester many months
| ago. I napped my son in them a lot when they were free and just
| spent my time thinking up things they should do and reporting
| them in app.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Man. My daughter's head would sometimes detach from her body
| and fly around the room by itself.
|
| Strapping her down in a car seat and taking her for a drive
| usually rectified the situation.
|
| I look forward to a future where this process can become more
| automated.
|
| (/s, sorta)
| paxys wrote:
| From my experience prices for Waymo are at least double that of
| an equivalent Lyft/Uber ride and wait times are usually 20+
| minutes. It is a great novelty but nowhere near where it needs
| to be to handle real scale.
| laluser wrote:
| This won't last long. Waymo has a treasure chest waiting to
| be deployed as soon as they start expanding more.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I genuinely expect that there will be a point at which
| manufacturing becomes the bottleneck.
|
| That's going to be a _lot_ of cars to build.
|
| I really wonder if and when they expand to a lot more car
| manufacturers and models, just to avoid supply chain
| issues.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| It will be more profitable for them to deploy cars to new
| cities at a premium than to deploy them to existing cities
| to capture more of those cities' markets. We won't see
| affordable driverless taxi service for many years unless
| competition appears. After Uber and Cruise imploded, I
| don't have much hope for that.
| mechagodzilla wrote:
| Is that true? There's a ton of overhead required to have
| _any_ presence in a city (all of the fueling
| /cleaning/repairing/storing/etc depots) that you need to
| amortize over lots of cars. If they can keep the cars
| busy, I think they'd much rather have 5,000 cars in one
| city than 500 cars in 10 cities (with 10x the overhead).
| jessriedel wrote:
| Doesn't match my experience in SF. I see 10% premium over
| Uber/Lyft, with Lyft and Waymo _displaying_ wait times that
| are ~3 slower, but _actual_ wait times are the same. (Uber
| consistently underestimates in my experience.)
| acchow wrote:
| Does that 10% markup account for the Uber/lyft driver tip?
| thesandlord wrote:
| In my experience, after tip Lyft/Uber are more expensive. The
| exception is during surges when Waymo's price shoots up like
| crazy.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Uber/Lyft drivers only get tips on 15-30% of rides, so tips
| are like ~3% of revenue. If you choose to tip, then prices
| are going to be very similar between Waymo and Uber/Lyft.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| Sorry, but any argument that basically boils down to "it's
| better because I don't have to talk to a driver" is not a real
| argument. Drivers are people too. Nevermind the fact that you
| are cheering for people to lose their jobs.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| Waymos are fantastic, I actually look forward to riding them
| every time. It's a quiet, peaceful space where you can relax for
| a bit on the way to your destination. Haven't had any issues with
| them except for one time where the car was super hot on the
| inside for whatever reason and the AC was not working.
| tanvach wrote:
| Same! It's funny how I actually look forward to get into a
| ride. I've been so used to a crappy experience in Lyft/Uber.
| athoun wrote:
| In my experience Waymo has been much worse compared to Lyft/Uber
| for longer rides.
|
| A big problem with Waymo in its current state is how its routes
| are terribly inefficient.
|
| It purposely avoids freeways and higher speed roads, opting to
| take more inefficient routes without regards to the number of
| stop signs, hills, and other factors which will inevitably lead
| to a longer travel time. It's almost like it's using a worse
| version of the "Avoid highways" feature on Google Maps, and
| getting to a further destination can take almost twice the amount
| of time as compared to a Lyft/Uber.
|
| Another problem is its lack of human intuition and strategies
| when driving in the city during some kind of event where many of
| the roads are blocked off. A human driver would have been
| navigating the blocked roads throughout the day and already know
| where to go to avoid the crowds, where as Waymo naively follows
| its navigation system and gets stuck in a bunch of traffic for no
| reason.
|
| It also drives annoyingly slowly which leads to frustration from
| human drivers who constantly try to overtake you.
| tanvach wrote:
| We actually prefer safer and slower ride, some Lyft/Uber
| drivers drive way too dangerously for no reason.
| athoun wrote:
| I could definitely see that. If you're not pressed on time it
| can be a smoother ride for sure. But if you're trying to get
| somewhere fast or efficiently like going to the airport,
| you'd want to get a regular Lyft/Uber otherwise you might
| miss your flight.
|
| It would be cool if you can configure the ride preferences
| for how aggressive you'd like it to drive.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Well it doesn't go to the airport today, because it doesn't
| go on highways or out of the city. So i don't think anyone
| has missed their flight.
|
| I suspect with their new permits approved, you'll see them
| drive on the highway soon, which will result in much faster
| trips where applicable.
|
| I am really glad it's not aggressive at driving - they
| drive how humans are supposed to - _cautiously_. Humans
| kill people regularly from aggressive driving.
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| I get around by bike, foot, transit, and car in that order and
| have mostly lost my ability to not get motion sick in a car
| when I'm not driving. I prefer taking Waymos any time I'm not
| in a hurry in SF, but usually traffic is bad enough during the
| hours I take it that it's not a huge factor anyway and if you
| can get a MUNI that's close to your start and end points, it's
| significantly faster. Rideshare and taxi drivers in most of SF
| are constantly changing lanes, cutting off pedestrians, or
| speeding from light to light to try and make up the extra
| 10-15% time lost that Waymo eats and can make for an unpleasant
| experience for me, but yes if I'm in a hurry I do prefer a
| human driver.
|
| (There's a slight component where as primarily a cyclist I feel
| that Waymos are much nicer to cyclists than human drivers are
| and it gives me affinity to Waymos that I don't feel for human
| drivers in the city.)
|
| I find Waymo the most useful to take after a concert far from a
| MUNI stop because usually surge pricing makes Lyft and Uber
| really expensive and I'm usually tired enough to not want to
| walk to a stop or it's late enough that MUNI headways are far
| apart.
| standardUser wrote:
| Does it do a decent job of estimating the ride time?
| athoun wrote:
| I believe it is fairly accurate at estimating the ride time.
| The first time I took it though, I mistakenly thought it
| would take the same amount of time to get to my destination
| as Google Maps estimated since that is usually the case for
| Uber/Lyft.
|
| So I was pretty annoyed after I got into the car and then
| realized that the route it selected was going through a bunch
| of hills and side streets that would take twice as long as
| the most direct route (via Google Maps) and there's nothing I
| could do to change that once the ride started.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _purposely avoids freeways and higher speed roads_
|
| When did you take it? They've started taking freeways in
| January, including for intracity trips [1].
|
| [1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/01/from-surface-streets-to-
| freew...
| jessriedel wrote:
| They announced that for Phoenix in January, but I think
| freeway driving is still only available to employees or maybe
| some special customers.
|
| https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/watch-waymos-self-
| driving...
|
| I tried it in Phoenix in May and it wouldn't take the
| freeway. And it's definitely not generally available in the
| Bay area. (I take them every week or two.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I think freeway driving is still only available to
| employees or maybe some special customers_
|
| Not a special customer, can't even get access in LA. Waymo
| took the freeway in Phoenix in March.
| renewiltord wrote:
| They're fantastic. I can't wait to take one to the airport.
| _jab wrote:
| Glad to see this development. The amount of FUD around AVs is too
| high, and allowing each individual municipality to set their own
| regulations for AVs would have been a ridiculous amount of red
| tape for these companies to deal with. Just to pull one
| particularly bad quote from this article:
|
| > "I hope that, in the meantime, our communities do not suffer
| too much in terms of injuries and community damages due to the
| current regulatory gaps," Cortese said in a statement.
|
| What gaps? What injuries? What community damages? If someone can
| actually present statistics that these cars are more socially
| dangerous than an equivalent amount of Ubers and Lyfts, I would
| be very, very surprised.
| labrador wrote:
| Based on anecdotal evidence, I strongly suspect these are
| remotely driven cars, not completely self-driving, which means
| there is a remote saftey operator ready to take over if the ride
| starts to go bad. "Self-driving" sounds sexier and is the
| ultimate goal, but if it were my company I'd probably lead with
| "remotely monitored by safety driver" to calm any fears people
| might have. I'm guessing the percentage of people who are willing
| to put their lives in the hands of this tech is rather small and
| the percentage of people who don't trust tech is rather large.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Wouldn't the fear just become that not enough safety drivers
| will always be available or that the internet connection they
| use to "drive" the car remotely would fail?
|
| It's a taxi that you don't have to risk having a conversation
| with a stranger in. Outside of that it seems that all other
| benefits are marginal or well crafted illusions.
|
| Anyways, I'm sure I'm just being a pessimist, it's not as if
| large monopolistic companies with no human customer service
| have failed us significantly before. I mean, I trust them with
| my data completely, so why not my life, too?
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Waymo has been pretty clear about this: they do have remote
| navigators/coaches who tell the cars what to do if it gets
| stuck/confused, but they're not directly driving the car,
| they're telling it where to go, like a navigator in the front
| passenger seat.
|
| Remote operation is considered dangerous due to possible issues
| with network connection latency or stability. If it was
| actually happening, Waymo is big enough now (IIRC they said
| 50,000 paid rides each week) to where someone would've leaked
| such a secret.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| > they do have remote navigators/coaches who tell the cars
| what to do if it gets stuck/confused, but they're not
| directly driving the car, they're telling it where to go
|
| That sounds a lot like remote operation.
|
| Waymo is notoriously tight-lipped about this. Look at the
| number of journalists and reporters who have, over the years,
| asked very basic questions, like:
|
| 1. How often do remote operators intervene?
|
| 2. How many miles are driven per intervention? How does this
| compare to FSD?
|
| 3. How much of a typical ride is remotely operated and not
| actually driven by the car itself?
|
| Waymo _never_ provides answers, and one can only imagine it
| is because they are not proud of the answers.
| labrador wrote:
| I really don't understand why they aren't transparent about
| this, but judging by the downvotes I'm getting it seems
| people really, really want to believe they are intelligent
| and independent self-driving machines. It's so much more
| futuristic with a "wow" factor that attracts press
| attention and future investement.
| s09dfhks wrote:
| I had someone remotely intervene on my last ride. A car was
| trying to parallel park on a narrow street and the waymo stayed
| put, despite there being plenty of room to go around. I heard a
| chime and a pop up on the screen said "we're getting your waymo
| back on track" and it went around the car, like any sane driver
| would have done from the get go
| worstspotgain wrote:
| Some curiosities from seeing them on the road a lot. You can tell
| it's them even when you can't see the extra protuberances:
|
| - They take extended stops at stop signs, around 3-4 seconds.
|
| - They have extra-bright headlights and brake lights.
|
| - When waiting for a ride, they pull up next to parks and parking
| lots to avoid bothering residents. Their brake lights are on the
| whole time. If demand is low, they'll hang out in batches of 2-4.
| If a block has a hazy red hue at night, you know you've found a
| Waymo nest.
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