[HN Gopher] Next stop: Miami
___________________________________________________________________
Next stop: Miami
Author : ra7
Score : 206 points
Date : 2024-12-05 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (waymo.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (waymo.com)
| timmg wrote:
| I wonder when they will be able to provide service in northern
| cities (that get snow).
|
| Once they can do that -- and (I guess) can prove profitable --
| they could expand non-stop across the country.
| mavhc wrote:
| Assuming they stop relying on hd maps, or map everywhere
| schiffern wrote:
| Anyone know the timeline for Waymo expanding to northern areas
| _outside_ urban centers? Or are these underserved populations
| forever stuck waiting hours for an Uber that still cancels half
| the time?
| comte7092 wrote:
| At the end of the day that isn't a technical problem but a
| unit economics one.
|
| Removing the driver from a taxi doesn't bring down costs
| _that much_. Self driving cars aren't going to change the
| uber /taxi model at a fundamental level.
|
| They have a finite fleet that they need to deploy. Urban
| centers mean that fleet utilization is high, and relatively
| less time and miles are spent driving with no one on board.
| In rural areas with little demand they will sit empty or have
| to drive empty for many more miles to their pickups. It just
| isn't profitable to use your fleet that way no matter what
| you do.
| Philpax wrote:
| Hmm, I'm not sure about that - fully autonomous taxis
| wouldn't be subject to the limitations of human drivers in
| terms of availability / reliability / endurance. You could
| ostensibly leave a few taxis around to service otherwise
| underserved areas and have them run without having to
| secure a driver each time.
|
| That being said, there is still the cost of maintenance and
| cleanup, but that can be mitigated (the taxis for five
| towns could drive to one centralised depot, maintenance can
| be scheduled to maximise operational time, and eventually
| all of this can be automated, too)
|
| I don't know if that's how things will work out just yet,
| but it seems like a possible future based on Waymo's
| current operational strategy.
| comte7092 wrote:
| > You could ostensibly leave a few taxis around to
| service otherwise underserved areas and have them run
| without having to secure a driver each time.
|
| I think you're dramatically overestimating how much of a
| barrier obtaining a driver is here. The primary cost is
| opportunity cost of the capital that isn't being
| utilized. Not having to have a driver doesn't somehow
| make it so you can infinitely provision a fleet.
| skybrian wrote:
| They won't have to pay for the driver when idle, but
| owning cars ties up capital and the fewer rides they do,
| the longer it takes to pay off. This isn't specific to
| cars - all capital equipment works that way. Lower
| utilization is sometimes unavoidable, but it still means
| less revenue which can be the difference between a profit
| and a loss.
|
| How much this matters depends on the price of the car. We
| don't know how much a Waymo costs, but they're probably
| not cheap.
|
| To be profitable with lower utilization, they'll need to
| work on reducing how much each car costs somehow.
| xnx wrote:
| > To be profitable with lower utilization, they'll need
| to work on reducing how much each car costs somehow.
|
| Definitely. Their custom vehicle had optimizations for
| cost, but seems to be on hold due to tariffs.
|
| Waymo also has the option to drop prices lower than
| Uber/Lyft when vehicles are unutilized, though they still
| need to stay above their per-mile depreciation and
| operating costs.
| comte7092 wrote:
| > Waymo also has the option to drop prices lower than
| Uber/Lyft when vehicles are unutilized
|
| I think that's an unproven assumption.
|
| There's certainly reason to believe it to be true of
| course, but uber and Lyft are already capturing upwards
| of 50% of the fares for each ride, and that's _without_
| the capital costs on their books. Removing the driver
| from the equation can't lead to much more than that 50%
| (realistically much less) margin.
|
| Going from charging $10 to $5 isn't going to make rides
| suddenly materialize. Especially in rural areas there are
| just times that people aren't going to be looking to go
| anywhere, and wait time becomes far more of a factor that
| raw costs.
| jsnell wrote:
| > There's certainly reason to believe it to be true of
| course, but uber and Lyft are already capturing upwards
| of 50% of the fares for each ride,
|
| That's not true. If you check Uber's Q3 financials, gross
| bookings for "Mobility" were $21B while revenue was
| $6.5B. That's way lower than 50%.
| cameldrv wrote:
| > but uber and Lyft are already capturing upwards of 50%
| of the fares for each ride
|
| I'm not sure if that's an accurate number, but I have
| seen a lot of complaints from drivers that they're
| getting a far lower share of the trip revenue than they
| used to. It's pretty remarkable that in a competitive
| market where Uber and Lyft are almost perfect substitutes
| for each other and charge almost exactly the same prices,
| that they're able to maintain these gross margins.
| 0xB31B1B wrote:
| Theres a bunch of factors that will mess with your
| intuition here: 1) ride hail demand as significant spikes
| in usage during morning and evening rush hours AND it has
| a fairly strong seasonal trend depending on geo. 2)
| Insurance is also a big expense and for large operations
| like this is priced per mile or per operating hour,
| having more deadhead time means a higher loss to
| insurance. 3) People are very sensitive to wait times AND
| reliability. The desire to use the service drops a ton
| when wait times are greater than 10 minutes or if you're
| consistently not able to find a ride. Could waymo support
| less dense suburbs now? Maybe at certain off peak hours,
| but the economics and product experience are difficult.
| kieranmaine wrote:
| Removing the driver does allow for single occupant models
| that could be significantly cheaper (reduced materials,
| smaller battery - assuming they'll all be EVS).
|
| It will be interesting to see how things develop once the
| driver is no longer required and cost is the most important
| factor (after safety). Exciting times!
| comte7092 wrote:
| Taxis today are already far far larger than they need to
| be for two people.
|
| Logistically you need the flexibility of having more
| seats available. If you're in a rural area and need to
| transport a family are you going to send 4 vehicles
| separately?
|
| Ironically it's probably urban areas where single
| occupancy vehicles make the most sense, given that
| there's always going to be sufficient demand to allow for
| more specialization in vehicles for different use cases.
| xnx wrote:
| > If you're in a rural area and need to transport a
| family are you going to send 4 vehicles separately?
|
| Probably still years off, but Waymo will probably have a
| library of vehicles ranging from 2 seats to 20.
| david-gpu wrote:
| We already have single occupant vehicles that are low
| cost and fun to use: bicycles and e-bikes. They are very
| popular in areas where safe infrastructure is available.
| kieranmaine wrote:
| I'm already an avid cyclist throughout the year, but
| there's a real drop in the number of people cycling
| during the winter months. If we can get people in AVs I
| think this will be a real positive for cyclist for the
| following reasons:
|
| 1. Reduced curb space dedicated to parking. If you don't
| need to come back to the same vehicle you only need space
| to be picked up/dropped off, reducing the amount of
| parking spaces needed. This space could be used for
| separated bike lanes. 2. Safer - This is still an unknown
| but data looks good atm [1]. It would be even better if
| AVs could be design to prevent cyclists being doored that
| would be amazing.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/12/human-drivers-
| crash-a-l...
| david-gpu wrote:
| I envy your optimism.
|
| Self-driving cars will eventually lower the total cost of
| driving and it will allow for longer commutes as people
| will be able to either sleep or do some work while in the
| vehicle.
|
| The inevitable consequence of that is an increase of car
| traffic, which means more congestion, noise and air
| pollution (tires and brake pads). We can't know whether
| the theoretically lower collisions per distance traveled
| will translate into lower actual injuries until we know
| how much the distance traveled will increase.
|
| Most importantly, the more people rely on a particular
| form of transport, the more they will vote to facilitate
| it, via more lanes, more highways, more forgiving
| legislation, etc.
|
| I would rather see more active transportation and more
| efficient forms of transportation. Four-wheel single
| occupancy vehicles are just about the worst option of
| all.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| I can't believe the level of ignorance I'm seeing in these
| comments.
|
| The driver is THE overwhelming cost of a taxi/uber. What
| are you talking about?
|
| Your problem is you're not seeing past the costs of a Waymo
| vehicle with all its sensors and LiDAR, plus all the costs
| of keeping high definition maps updated, and having
| teleoperaters on hand.
|
| Tesla doesn't have those costs. Their FSD version 13
| already drives close to a Waymo of not better in some
| circumstances. its a done deal, Tesla has won this game
| triceratops wrote:
| > Removing the driver from a taxi doesn't bring down costs
| that much
|
| A driver's salary costs as much as a new car. Every year.
| danans wrote:
| > Removing the driver from a taxi doesn't bring down costs
| that much
|
| The average pay for a gig driver $18/hr. So for your
| typical 15-minute ride, that adds $4.50 to it.
|
| Let's say that 15 minute ride is 10 miles. Average. Uber
| rates are about $1.50 a mile, so that ride is $15.
|
| Therefore, the driver costs almost a third of the cost of
| the fare.
|
| Waymo's operational cost per mile, however, should be much
| lower than a regular driver because they will pay lower
| bulk rates for energy (already much cheaper because it's
| mostly off peak electricity instead of gasoline) and
| maintenance (standardized vehicles with highly controlled
| driving patterns and pre-negotiated repair contracts).
| standardUser wrote:
| That doesn't follow from the facts. Rideshare drivers get
| around 50% of the fare (though this seems to vary from
| 25%-75%). And many riders tip 10-20% of the total. Most of
| that cost goes away if a single operator is monitoring ~10
| cars. The tip goes away entirely.
|
| An average per-trip reduction of ~50% changes the economics
| entirely.
| mlyle wrote:
| It's got to be the lowest priority; population density
| improves economics and utilization. Not to mention that it's
| hard enough to drive in a city with snow, compared to all the
| other kinds of situations that can manifest outside of urban
| centers.
| timerol wrote:
| SF in 2015 (with passengers 2021), Phoenix in 2022, Miami in
| 2025. Northern urban centers are probably a decade out, let
| alone areas outside urban centers. There are a lot of cities
| in the Sun Belt to expand to first.
| duped wrote:
| I think ultimately the solution to this problem is the same
| as it was for electrification and telco: government funded
| mandates to provide service to populations where it's
| otherwise uneconomical.
|
| One interesting thing today is that CoL can be as high in
| rural areas as urban areas in the same state, partly because
| the additional costs of things that don't scale (mostly
| transportation and healthcare). But we've given up on
| government helping people, apparently.
| ndileas wrote:
| That is indeed one solution to this "problem". However,
| maybe people who live in the sticks should just accept the
| tradeoffs that come with rural life? If you want next day
| delivery and taxi service maybe you should live in a place
| that has those? Not every service has to serve all people
| in all places and times equally. The government should
| absolutely not be mandating service levels across the whole
| US.
| allturtles wrote:
| Some people need to live in "the sticks" to produce the
| resources (food, ores, oil, timber) that the rest of
| society relies on. Subsidizing the availability of
| services for those people doesn't seem unreasonable, and
| it is certainly something the federal government has
| historically taken responsibility for (for mail,
| electricity, telephone).
| ndileas wrote:
| Sure, although I think there's room for reasonable people
| to disagree where to draw the line for various services.
| But taxi service? Seems way way out there in terms of
| costs and of minimal benefit.
| duped wrote:
| State governments already operate special rural
| transportation services, like busses or even volunteers.
| Think people who are sick/injured and can't get to
| healthcare services because they can't drive.
|
| It's not unreasonable to me that they would subsidize
| robo-taxis for those services since they are already
| funding services that are expensive or inadequate.
| Especially if there is some give and take to be had with
| regulatory overhead for the taxi service.
| rjrdi38dbbdb wrote:
| Why not just let the market find its own equilibrium? If
| people need to live there to produce valuable resources,
| then the cost of those resources will naturally rise to
| cover the expenses of those employed in those industries.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| People are clowning on you, but I think rural airport rides
| would be huge for waymo.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Based on what I saw in SF they're still pretty limited to noob-
| level driving. I expect driving difficulty will be way more of
| a barrier than snow.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| If twin peaks and downtown are your definition of "noob-level
| driving", what's normal difficulty? Mumbai rush hour? An
| active war zone?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| strong disagree
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Driving in SF alone means it's above mid tier in most other
| places.
| therein wrote:
| SF drivers are pretty okay as far as my experiences go.
| Unless it rains, if it is raining then they'll act like
| this is the first time they have driven in the rain.
| Seattle-Tacoma area was the worst. I have never seen so
| many people drive with so little attention paid to their
| surroundings.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I was referring to road layouts and obstacles on the
| roads mostly.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| They've been testing in Michigan for a while. I guess the only
| problem is that you can only test this stuff in a third of the
| year.
| jitl wrote:
| They should test year round so they can drive year round.
| simpleintheory wrote:
| I think the most interesting part is that the article says that
| Waymo's handing its operations to Moove. It seems like Waymo's
| trying to become a software provider while having other companies
| handle the capital-intensive parts.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Compared to software, hardware sucks.
|
| Mother nature OS is by far the worst to develop for.
| lnsru wrote:
| It does not suck! Hardware just barely works.
|
| I design motherboards for industrial computers for living.
| Last gem: radio module draws 5 amps while transmitting
| instead of specified 2 amps. Trust nobody!
| ra7 wrote:
| The pivot has already happened. They're handing over Austin and
| Atlanta to Uber, and now Phoenix and Miami to Moove. The only
| places they will continue to own operations for at least the
| next year are SF and LA.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| Pivot to what exactly?
| ra7 wrote:
| To owning just the self driving stack and not the physical
| operations of running a robotaxi service.
| taneq wrote:
| Capital-intensive, or labour-intensive? If I were a provider of
| 'special smart sauce' that goes on a common piece of equipment,
| I'd be trying to focus on making it so I could provide the
| sauce rather than dealing with all the real-world issues that
| come with all the real-world people using the saucy equipment.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Depends.
|
| Chick-fil-A grew into a pretty big business by vertically
| integrating outside of just selling sandwiches to Waffle
| House.
|
| So sometimes it's worth owning sauce distribution too. ;)
| xnx wrote:
| > having other companies handle the capital-intensive parts.
|
| Waymo definitely wants to outsource the areas where they don't
| have special expertise (i.e. Waymo is 100x better at driving,
| but not 100x better at washing and vacuuming cars). I'm not
| sure how capital-intensive regional operations are. The
| vehicles are definitely the largest capital expense. This is
| more like an AirBnB property owner hiring a cleaning service.
| hwc wrote:
| Also, contracting out the menial labor makes Waymo's labor
| practices look much better. They can tell their engineers
| that all employees make a living wage and get excellent
| health insurance.
|
| When the actual labor is done by part-timers with no health
| insurance making not much over minimum wage.
| kieranmaine wrote:
| This seems much more scaleable. Car share services (eg. Evo in
| Vancouver) seem like good partners as they already have the
| fleet management services and a recognizable (and hopefully
| trusted) brand.
|
| I'm not sure about other car share services work, but in the
| case of Evo they have existing relationships with the cities
| that make up Metro Vancouver. I wonder if this would ease
| rollout as you'd already know all the required people to talk
| to within municipal government?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| B.C. in particular went out of their way to ban autonomous
| vehicles a few years back, so I'm sure waymo's in no rush to
| talk to local partners there.
| ttul wrote:
| Ugh, don't remind me of the lost decade or so during which
| the local taxi lobby captured the regulators and prevented
| the entry of Uber. It wasn't until the provincial
| government was about to be blown away anyhow that they
| cashed in their chips in a few ridings where the majority
| of cab owners live...
|
| I have no doubt that BC may be a nice place to live for a
| variety of reasons, but it will be the last place to have
| autonomous vehicles.
| kieranmaine wrote:
| That is very unfortunate. I'm confused why they wouldn't
| want to get involved in trials and investigate all the
| benefits. Do you know the rationale behind the decision?
| bickfordb wrote:
| Seems smart. They'll continue to have all the leverage since
| they own the tech and will offload all the operational risk
| summerlight wrote:
| This makes sense. If they don't outsource, they need to run
| millions of cars. This will cost Alphabet hundreds of billions
| capex, which is not cheap even for them. This is not just the
| money problem, but also has significant implications on their
| speed of business expansion. Let's say Google decides to pour
| tens of billions every year on Waymo, it will takes tens of
| years to expand into all of the major US cities. They probably
| don't want to give the competitors that much time.
| seeingfurther wrote:
| Miami probably has some of the worst, most lawless drivers in the
| country -- it's like a free-for-all out there. Makes me wonder if
| Waymo picked Miami as a kind of stress test for their self-
| driving tech. If they can handle the chaos there, they can
| probably handle just about anything.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Miami car insurance fraud rings are going to have a fun trying
| to trick Waymo into rear-ending them. Wonder if it will work.
| rwmj wrote:
| Would you want to commit insurance fraud against a vehicle
| that is covered in cameras?
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Yes.
|
| The game is that you start to pull out for a right turn,
| and then brake unexpectedly and get the person behind you
| to tap your bumper, while they are looking for oncoming
| traffic to the left. Then you take your car to a "friendly"
| repair shop that overcharges for a new bumper (or claims to
| replace it) and split the payout.
|
| There's nothing illegal about braking suddenly, the
| collision is always the fault of the person behind you
| legally, so there's no personal risk.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| When I've been in Waymo, they've never drove so fast that
| they don't have time to brake if the car in front of them
| does. And they can multitask - while looking for oncoming
| traffic to the left they can still watch the car in front
| of them
| itchyouch wrote:
| I'd imagine NYC to be worse than Miami.
|
| Miami seems to share enough similarity in warm weather to SF to
| be a similar enough use case to expand while providing slightly
| different driving conditions to be able to dip ones toes in to
| the driving habits of a different city.
| dangus wrote:
| Yeah, bad drivers are easy for self-driving to deal with. You
| just drive defensively and avoid the objects. It's the snow
| and other sensor obstructions that make things difficult.
| wil421 wrote:
| Warm yes but SF doesn't have many thunderstorms and afternoon
| downpours.
| 15155 wrote:
| NYC is unique in that you have no choice but to do extremely
| dangerous things to actually operate in traffic at all in
| most scenarios.
|
| Streets, alleys, etc. are blocked or are narrowed by vehicles
| and a myriad of other possible obstructions, all of which
| could be concealing pedestrians.
| filoleg wrote:
| Absolutely agreed. Not even just because of the weather imo,
| but because of the actual driving experience here itself.
|
| I've lived and been driving for nearly 15 years in various
| large cities (SF, ATL, Seattle, Portland, LA, etc.), both
| cars and motorcycles, and NYC (where i currently live) is the
| only place in the US I absolutely refuse to ever drive (or
| ride) in.
|
| Not just because it isn't as necessary here due to public
| transit usefulness (which is also true), but also because
| driving here feels like entering a warzone. Narrow roads and
| parking, drivers being extremely on the edge and leaving a
| few cm distance max between each car in traffic, constant
| honking, having to make very dangerous maneuvers on the daily
| just to get somewhere, and just the cutthroatness of the
| whole thing here.
|
| I genuinely believe that NYC will end up being the final
| frontier for Waymo, after all the other places in the US
| (aside from those with extreme snow conditions).
| NickC25 wrote:
| NYC is far better than Miami.
|
| Miami sucks because half the people on the roads here don't
| actually know how to drive.
|
| They are immigrants that come from countries whose roads are
| effectively lawless, or come from countries that have a
| severely underdeveloped automobile infrastructure, or come
| from countries where all that's needed to get a driver's
| license is to pay someone.
| jitl wrote:
| Big +1. Here using the turn signal is iffy because some drivers
| see that as a sign to speed up to try to overtake. I've had a
| few close calls where I check my mirrors, everything is safe
| for a lane change, turn on the blinker, and the guy in the left
| lane floors it from 5 car lengths back to cut me off. Sigh.
|
| The Waymo driver is very passive and defensive so I imagine it
| will be quite slow compared to an Uber who is willing to fight
| to make turns etc.
| foobarian wrote:
| Not from Miami, so I wonder (based on news etc.) if flooding is
| ever an issue for traffic in and around the city?
| jitl wrote:
| It is during and after a hurricane. I wouldn't recommend taking
| a robotaxi during a storm though.
| Quinner wrote:
| Flooding is absolutely an issue, during the rainy season (third
| of the year) localized flooding is quite common. Some streets
| are partially flooded on an almost daily basis, something human
| drivers are used to but I imagine will pose a new challenge to
| waymo.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| Jaguar discontinued the I-PACE and presumably does not
| manufacture them anymore. It must be the case that Waymo is
| cannibalizing their fleet capacity from other markets for every
| new city launch.
| jitl wrote:
| Waymo has a zillion I-PACE vehicles in storage/prep and 2 new
| models in the pipeline.
| dangus wrote:
| I can't imagine that they would have any major difficulties
| installing their equipment on any other vehicle.
|
| And they also probably have every little default finding I-PACE
| vehicles that have gone unsold or are unwanted.
| poniko wrote:
| Waymo is changing to a Hundai iqonic 5, especially made for
| them. In the meantime they have brought up all Jaguar they
| could.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Jaguar did not manufacture the I-Pace at all. It was made by
| Steyr, who also built a ton of them for Waymo.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| TIL Magna Steyr is the largest contract manufacturer of
| automobiles worldwide
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Steyr)
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| This is important if nothing else because Miami sees much more
| rain than SF and Phoenix:
|
| Miami: 57 in. (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-
| normals/#dataset...
|
| SF: 25 in. (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-
| normals/#dataset...)
|
| Phoenix: 7 in. (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-
| normals/#dataset...)
| bbor wrote:
| Good point! Though also worth mentioning that they're already
| in Atlanta, which gets ~50in (and 59in so far this year,
| despite the mind-bending "first October without rain in
| recorded history")
| newfocogi wrote:
| I think they've announced they're headed to Atlanta in early
| 2025. So they may be testing there, but I don't believe they
| are at GA in GA :)
| creaghpatr wrote:
| They are frequently spotted but not yet available in ATL.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| Good point, I guess I missed when that happened. Looking at
| some news sites and Waymo's blog, it seems that they are
| testing in Atlanta and will start accepting customers in
| 2025.[0]
|
| >It currently operates fleets of driverless cars in San
| Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, and Phoenix. It also plans to
| launch a robotaxi service in Atlanta in an exclusive
| partnership with Uber.[1]
|
| [0] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/09/waymo-and-uber-expand-
| partner...
|
| [1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/5/24313346/waymo-miami-
| robo...
| ecesena wrote:
| Interesting random fact: when it rains, waymo turns on the
| windshield wipers
| falcor84 wrote:
| Is this relevant? Are any of its cameras/sensors behind the
| windshield? Or are there wipers directly on the external
| cameras?
| ecesena wrote:
| I think it's just for passengers' experience
| phantom784 wrote:
| Probably also a legal requirement to run them during
| rain, even if it's not actually needed for the self-
| driving cars to work.
| stemlord wrote:
| Plenty of south florida rain is not helped by windshield
| wipers. Anyway I wonder if waymo sensors actually have better
| visibility in such conditions than people do
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I think the comment you are replying to is implying that
| it's a bit funny/weird that the wipers turn on, because
| there aren't any sensors that are looking out the window to
| see. (As others pointed out, it could just be default auto-
| wiper functionality, and of course passengers still like
| being able to see out the window, even if they aren't
| controlling the vehicle).
| pengaru wrote:
| > Interesting random fact: when it rains, waymo turns on the
| windshield wipers
|
| The jaguar i-pace does this independent of the waymo use
| case.
| dgfitz wrote:
| My 2011 Mazda also did this.
| Grazester wrote:
| Cars dating back to 2008 if not earlier. It can also be
| annoying/doesn't work very efficiently
| rdsubhas wrote:
| The interesting part here is... the Waymo has no reason to.
| There is no driver. All cameras and sensors are outside.
| It's just for not freaking out the passenger :)
| pengaru wrote:
| > The interesting part here is... the Waymo has no reason
| to. There is no driver. All cameras and sensors are
| outside. It's just for not freaking out the passenger :)
|
| We have very different thresholds for what's interesting.
|
| The platform provides this feature out of the box, why
| would waymo go out of their way to disable it. Obviously
| potential occupants would appreciate seeing out the
| windshield if it's raining, why that is interesting
| escapes me.
| Fricken wrote:
| Waymo has wipers on it's LIDAR dome
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/6biyr8/
| way...
| jayd16 wrote:
| They would probably have to go out of their way to disable
| the auto-wipers, no?
| tshaddox wrote:
| They definitely go out of their way to make significant
| modifications to their vehicles.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Rain + lidar = challenges
| ecocentrik wrote:
| I'm guessing you've never tried driving in a tropical
| rainstorm. It's as bad a driving in heavy fog. Sometimes you
| only really have visibility of a few feet.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| The.... driverless car... doesn't look out the window....
| ecocentrik wrote:
| Who said anything about windows? I would imagine LIDAR
| looses some accuracy when its refracted by raindrops.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Also relevant, when it rains in Miami during the summer, it
| _pours_.
|
| As in, zero visibility for 15-30 minutes, then it's past.
|
| So if it can handle Miami tropical rain, it should be okay with
| all sorts of normal rain.
|
| Out of curiosity, what's Waymo's current production sensor
| suite mix? I'd assume lidar and radar would also be very
| unhappy with the surrounding space suddenly being ~10%(?)
| liquid water droplets.
| david-gpu wrote:
| I would expect service to be canceled while it is pouring
| down. Do we have reasons to believe that they have the
| ability to ride safely during heavy rain? I haven't been
| keeping up.
| tialaramex wrote:
| If it's too dangerous for humans to drive (regardless of
| whether they do anyway, humans do all manner of things
| which are unacceptably dangerous) then I don't expect Waymo
| to offer service even if they believe they technically
| could have the Waymo driver [their software] continue to
| deliver service.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The weather becomes too dangerous to drive because of
| mechanical (lost of adherence) problems way sooner than
| humans have sensorial problems anyway.
|
| So if it's too dangerous for people, it's also too
| dangerous for computers.
| thegrim33 wrote:
| You moved the goalpost by introducing the "too dangerous
| for humans to arrive" qualifier. The person you're
| replying to never said that. They asked if it would
| refuse to drive in pouring rain. They never asked if it
| would refuse to drive in scenarios where it's too
| dangerous for humans to drive.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| They can handle heavy rain, see time 6:00:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bm1A3aaQnh0
|
| From their August 2023 blog post:
|
| > During this past winter season in California with its
| record rain, high winds, and thunderstorms, we were able to
| maintain 99.4% fleet uptime
| david-gpu wrote:
| Thank you, that was fascinating.
| 1024core wrote:
| How does it make out lane markings? Or is it all just
| GPS-based?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Localization is primarily based on visual registration,
| i.e. matching the current surroundings to the closest
| data in its map. Lane markings are based on map data and
| what it's able to see in real-time.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Maybe similarly how humans do it.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Humans do it super badly in a heavy rain/snow though.
| We're basically blind and just toodle along following the
| guy in front and hoping for the best.
|
| A machine driver should not accept these conditions.
| rstuart4133 wrote:
| Where I come from that might be called a "shower". Heavy
| rain here is like fog. It's so thick you can only see a
| few meters, and the windscreen wipers can only give you a
| brief glimpse of what's ahead.
|
| It happens rarely. When it does, more cautious drivers
| give up and pull over, even if they are on the freeway.
| That makes travelling at high speed down on freeway at
| high speed in those conditions near suicidal.
|
| It only lasts a few minutes. I expect Waymo would handle
| like any human. Stop, or just creep forward.
| nilstycho wrote:
| Far less than 10%. During a heavy downpour, by volume, about
| one part in a million is liquid. In a cubic meter of heavily
| rain, there are only a few tens of raindrops.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| Imagine if it were 10%, though. During the time it took for
| a droplet to fall 1 metre, you'd have 10cm of water on the
| floor.
|
| I reckon it'd feel quite heavy.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Rain falls at 9m/s, so in a second you'd almost
| completely fill that space with 900 liters. Imagine an
| olympic pool of water falling roughly every second.
| deepsun wrote:
| Yep, but what matters for radar/lidar is the projection. I
| mean what percentage of 1 _square_ meter (not cubic meter)
| is occupied by droplet projections. Or, in radial terms,
| what percentage of "Solid angle" is occupied by rain
| droplets.
| CasperH2O wrote:
| LiDAR sensors, like for example from SICK can have multiple
| 'layers' of sensors, which combined with various algorithms
| can handle rain pretty good.
| diggan wrote:
| > So if it can handle Miami tropical rain, it should be okay
| with all sorts of normal rain.
|
| I feel like a lot of "How well does it handle rain?" comes
| down to how the roads are built and maintained (Huge puddles,
| proper drainage, etc) rather than about the car itself, as
| the car you could test by blasting it with water from
| different directions and amounts.
| alwa wrote:
| There's also the question of how other drivers handle the
| rain. And I have to imagine it's nontrivial to, on a test
| range alone, permute the full range of different surfaces'
| handling characteristics under different precipitation
| conditions.
|
| I wonder whether, like many human drivers, Waymos might be
| wont to pull over and wait out the short-but-extreme Miami
| squalls.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Not just visibility in the rain, but diminished or fully
| obstructed visibility due to ponding and full flooding. Then
| there are the physical navigational problems associated with
| that. They probably shouldn't be driving though a foot of sea
| water.
| porphyra wrote:
| Lidars perform very well in the rain [1].
|
| [1] https://ouster.com/insights/blog/lidar-vs-camera-
| comparison-...
| somethoughts wrote:
| Interestingly is there a potential moral issue in the making
| here? What happens if/when self driving dependency is so
| prevalent that the majority of inhabitants in a city don't
| know how to drive. In addition add the fact that self driving
| cars don't have a steering wheel so even people who know how
| to take over driving can't actually take over.
|
| What happens if there's an event that requires a mass
| evacuation such as a Category 5 hurricane and the major self
| driving car companies deem it too risky to drive in the
| conditions that precede the storm?
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Waymo can handle heavy rain, see time 6:00 here:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bm1A3aaQnh0
| OnlineGladiator wrote:
| And yet I regularly get stuck behind a Waymo in SF when
| there's just a little bit of fog.
| drewg123 wrote:
| When I took Waymo in Phoenix, I booked a ride from a suburban
| hotel to a restaurant in a strip mall. One of the things I
| noticed was that I was picked up far away from the entrance of
| the hotel (eg, not under the overhang that protects from sun
| and rain, where every Uber has picked me up and dropped me
| off). I recall thinking that it was good there was no weather
| in Phoenix b/c I had to walk far enough I'd have gotten soaked
| in a decent rainstorm.
|
| Have they changed this?
| dannyobrien wrote:
| One thing I've noticed about the SF deployment is that it's
| slowly gotten better at this. At first it was very cautious
| about where it would pick you up/drop you off, but now it
| offers much closer options (from a menu -- a bit like Uber at
| airports).
|
| I suspect this might be something that is human-added from
| data collected in past trips.
| tortilla wrote:
| Also Waymo will not pick you up on private streets. I live in
| a small community with a private street and I have to walk to
| the nearest public one (2 mins).
| ecocentrik wrote:
| The rainfall can pose serious visibility risks that will be as
| much of a challenge as picking up and dropping off customers on
| a rainy day. Extreme high tides do still flood some roads on
| Miami Beach with brackish water, which isn't something you want
| to drive through in an electric car.
|
| On the less challenging side, the city has zero snow, no road
| ice to worry about.
| mg wrote:
| our service - which already provides over 150,000 trips
| per week across Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and
| Austin
|
| Interesting. That's about 8 million rides per year.
|
| I wonder how close they are to being profitable? As soon as they
| are getting close to being profitable, they will probably scale
| this up super fast.
|
| I don't know how much Google invested into Waymo so far.
| Something like $10B?
|
| If they at some point make $10 per ride, they would only need
| something like 50 million rides per year to justify that
| investment with a p/e ratio of 20.
|
| To go from 8M rides to 50M in 5 years they would have to increase
| their capacity by 50% per year. Might be possible?
| ezfe wrote:
| Profitable from an operations perspective? Surely close since
| they charge the same order of magnitude as an Uber/Lyft and
| have fewer than one driver per vehicle (monitoring the
| vehicles).
| mg wrote:
| We have to add the deprecation and maintenance of the car.
|
| Plus I guess they need high resolution maps? Not sure if that
| is a significant cost factor.
| bbor wrote:
| I mean, they're Google -- I'm guessing they're pulling out
| their "pointcloud of the entire world" for this one. The
| first point is a great one, tho; rideshare companies exist
| by offloading as much cost as possible onto their
| employees, and even then barely make it work.
|
| Plus, at least some of the Waymos are super-fancy Jaguars
| -- tho it looks like roughly 20K Jaguars to 65K Chrysler
| minivans, according to Wikipedia. Still, they're all brand
| new vehicles; even with bulk discount, that can't be cheap.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Waymo does not have 85k cars lol. In their latest CPUC
| report they only have 480 cars in California and that is
| their biggest market by far. If they had 85k cars and
| only 175k rides per week that would be the worst business
| in the history of businessing.
| yellowstuff wrote:
| It looks like they contracted to buy "up to" 20,000
| Jaguars:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/27/waymo-
| sel...
|
| Pretty effective press release! Nothing in it is untrue,
| but it's obviously misleading even to careful readers.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| On the other hand, they certainly have a much better
| vehicle utilization than the other ride-app companies. They
| cars are cooperating in covering an area, not competing for
| the rides there.
| bbor wrote:
| I imagine it's hard to quantify "profit" with such a research-
| driven org. It's like penciling out the profitability of the
| metaverse after years of $XX billion dollar losses. In general
| I get the sense that Waymo is more of a diverse investment than
| a pure ride-hailing play; for example, as of 2020 they were
| working for Volvo, Chrysler, Jaguar, and Nissan[1], presumably
| for $$$.
|
| It's also worth remembering that Zoox exists (Amazon's more
| futuristic self-driving car play, no steering wheel at all),
| and has not at all gone the way of Alexa/the Dodo bird (yet). I
| expect them to make a big splash sometime in the coming decade,
| personally.
|
| That is, of course, assuming they survive regulatory capture by
| Tesla, which would need a miracle or an unfair advantage to
| beat these two at this point, even if they finally follow the
| science on the need for LiDAR. Another big unknown is how the
| electorate will react to self-driving cars becoming more than a
| novelty; Elon Musk is absolutely correct that a backlash of
| some kind is inevitable even if the safety stats pencil out,
| IMHO. Trusting a machine is kind of inherently creepy - see
| Prof. Weinersmith's lectures on the topic:
|
| - https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/decisions
|
| - https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/fsd
|
| - https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/self-driving-car-ethics
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidsilver/2020/06/29/waymo-
| an...
| sixQuarks wrote:
| Wow, I can't believe you think Tesla needs a miracle to beat
| not only Waymo, but Zoox. This is laughable.
|
| Are you not aware of FSD version 13 that just came out in
| beta?
|
| An early tester did the exact same pickup and drop off at the
| same time of day between Tesla and Waymo yesterday. Tesla
| took 15 minutes while Waymo took 40 minutes.
|
| Watch for yourself. Tesla is going to destroy Waymo, they
| can't compete
|
| https://youtu.be/CfX8Lu9MHa0?si=cOYWNXjPiYP9R6L_
| rsanek wrote:
| in what markets is tesla able to drive autonomously without
| any driver in the seat? from what I've read, none.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| And what makes you believe 13 will finally have decent FSD
| when the previous 12 attempts using the same hardware did
| not?
| kernal wrote:
| Until you can hop into the back seat of your Tesla and tell
| it to drive you somewhere with complete confidence then
| don't even compare the capabilities of Waymo and Tesla FSD.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Tesla is going to destroy Waymo, they can't compete_
|
| You're both wrong. This remains an open question.
|
| Tesla has promised a Level 5 product but hasn't delivered;
| FSD is Level 3. Waymo has a Level 4 product, but it
| requires an expensive sensor suite.
|
| If Tesla can get Level 4 with cameras only, you're right.
| They win. We currently have no indication they've cracked
| that. We also have no evidence it's not doable with current
| technology.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Just a few hours ago Sundar Pichai said it's 175k/wk
| https://youtu.be/kZzeWLOzc_4?t=926
| avrionov wrote:
| The number of trips increased 10x from Sep 2023 to August 2024.
| https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/waymo-robotax...
| oblio wrote:
| Google has invested and also drawn external funding. From what
| I've seen in the last 15 years since founding the lower bound
| for their cost seems to be higher than $12bn and I can only
| imagine expenses will only accelerate.
| jeffbee wrote:
| There were three things in Waymo's latest CPUC filing that
| interested me. First, through the end of August, Los Angeles
| still irrelevant. Over 85% of their California rides were still
| in SF. Second, ridership in SF doubled in 90 days without a
| significant expansion in either vehicles or trips per service
| hour, but they had the cars out on the road more hours every day.
| Third, the geographic concentration of their rides is extreme,
| with a large fraction of trips starting near either the Ferry
| Building or Fisherman's Wharf, which suggests that it is popular
| with and useful to tourists.
| deadbabe wrote:
| It will be a showdown of man vs machine in the city with the
| worst drivers in the nation. Interesting times.
| timerol wrote:
| Did you know that almost every city believes this about their
| local drivers? I've gotten it in LA, Boston, NYC, DC, SF,
| Philly, Atlanta, and Austin. Adding Miami to the list.
| BWStearns wrote:
| Having lived in most of those cities and in Miami I can say
| Miami is definitely the most dangerous driving I've seen. And
| my car insurance company certainly seems to agree.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Most Americans don't understand that Miami is full of
| expats from the caribbean and latin america, some of whom
| may be here illegally, and so can't get a driver's license.
| They also may have grown up in places where they didn't get
| a drivers license or learn the rules. So they literally
| aren't supposed to be driving and never learned how.
| Because they can't legally drive a car, they buy a beater
| second-hand for cash, and it's never inspected, and of
| course falls apart and causes accidents. Add to that the
| crime in general, and yeah, insurance is $$$$$, and lots of
| crazy driving. (It's a minority of people, but enough that
| it creates more extreme outlier events than in most states)
|
| Not to mention The Ticket Clinic, a private service to pay
| a small fee to get out of traffic court. I probably had 10
| different traffic violations thrown out, for $80 a pop,
| when I grew up there in the 00's.
| NickC25 wrote:
| This right here.
|
| I currently live in Miami. I've lived all over the
| country. I'm from NYC burbs. I thought NYC drivers sucked
| before I moved here almost a decade ago.
|
| Miami's drivers are _horrible_ , mostly because most of
| the people here have never been trained to actually
| drive.
| maybelsyrup wrote:
| Yes, that's true, but in this case they're all actually
| wrong. I've driven or lived in all of those cities, and
| they're all placid next to Miami. It's not even close.
| Quinner wrote:
| LA Drivers aren't that bad, driving just is awful there
| because the amount of traffic. NYC Driving is an absolute
| pleasure compared to Miami driving. I have what should be an
| easy ten minute commute and every day I am avoiding an
| accident due to a driver doing something crazy you would
| almost never see in another US city.
|
| This is exacerbated by the dysfunctional government which is
| happy to let developers do whatever they want without regard
| to impact on traffic flow, while doing no investment in
| infrastructure itself. I'm generally pro-growth, and I think
| California goes too far with its restrictions, but living in
| Miami has caused me to gain some appreciation for the reason
| behind some of what California does.
| kemotep wrote:
| In my experience it is a State wide problem. I95 seemed to be
| a speed _minimum_ of 95 if you didn't want to get run off the
| road by everyone else for going too slow. I-4 (Daytona to
| Tampa, through Orlando) had over 400 deaths caused by traffic
| accidents one year. More than 1 death per mile of road. I
| don't think 75 was any better, of course it was rough in
| Atlanta too, but still.
|
| My experience with Florida driving was not a great experience
| for the few years I lived there.
| deadbabe wrote:
| In Florida it is common to see cars drive at speeds in
| excess of 100mph.
| jmyeet wrote:
| That's an interesting choice for several reasons:
|
| 1. Literally nobody in Florida can drive. Nobody indicates.
| People run red lights. They speed on the hard shoulder to
| overtake someone else who is speeding slightly less;
|
| 2. There's a lot of things that come down to timing, like when
| the bridges are up on the Venetian and over the Miami River. You
| can also get trains blocking the entire of downtown;
|
| 3. It seems like there's constant rerouting for closed roads,
| typically due to contruction;
|
| 4. Inclement weather. High winds and flooding. Biscayne Boulevard
| is often called Lake Biscayne. 30 minutes can be the difference
| between Miami Beach being dry and every road being 1 foot deep in
| water (not an exaggeration); and
|
| 5. What will be the covered area? I guess Phoenix and LA sprawl
| too but what constitutes "Miami" goes south, west and north
| pretty far. I mean there's no break between Miami, unincorporated
| Miami-Dade County and Fort Lauterdale.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Yeah, I dunno if the team understands just how crazy Miami
| driving is. Maybe they'll restrict it to Downtown, Miami Beach,
| the Grove, etc to limit the chaos?
| NickC25 wrote:
| That won't limit the chaos. FWIW I went to whole foods
| downtown today and nearly got hit twice. I live in Midtown,
| so it's quite literally a 27-block trip. Some of the worst
| driving (save for on 95) I've seen here has been either 1.
| idiots on the Beach 2. idiots in Brickell or 3. idiots in
| downtown.
|
| People here suck at driving.
| BWStearns wrote:
| I am morbidly curious to see how Waymos interact with the Good
| Vibes Only crazies. Miami is definitely going to be hard mode for
| self driving.
| tsunamifury wrote:
| Haha that's nothing compared to its hometown of San Francisco.
| People attack, destroy, burn waymos here. Let alone extreme
| hills and visibility issues.
|
| Miami will be comparably far simpler.
| entropi wrote:
| I feel like at this point someone needs to take a step back and
| think about the general vision and overall goals of this whole
| fully automated ride-hailing service thing.
|
| I mean, what is the exact problem that's being solved here? I
| don't mean "problem" like "solving the technical problem of
| making a car move autonomously in a chaotic city" sense. I mean
| what is the need that's being addressed here, exactly?
|
| Ride-hailing workers were already often working for less than
| minimum wage. They were also handling most of the maintenance and
| customer relations aspects of the work, for basically free. Are
| these sexy cutting edge tech firms with eye-watering budgets and
| even more eye-watering valuations really going after whatever
| these people were making?
|
| If the problem is efficiently moving people around in a city;
| well to be honest I find this premise a bit ridiculous. Call me a
| European, but I find the idea that moving 1-2 people in private
| vehicles on roads being superior than public transit -preferably
| on rail- simply absurd.
|
| Is the idea of living and moving around in a city full of
| autonomous vehicles actually appealing to anyone? I personally
| find the whole idea completely disgusting for a number of
| reasons.
|
| What is the goal here? Am I missing a grand vision? What is there
| to get excited for? Sorry if this post has been a rant-y one. I
| feel like I am really missing the point of most of these things.
| falcor84 wrote:
| As I see it, the biggest goal is safety - self-driving cars
| seem to reduce accidents per distance driven by at least one
| order of magnitude.
| bluGill wrote:
| Citation needed. I've seen claims like that, but none of them
| from a source that stands up to scrutiny. Most such claims
| come from the people promoting self driving cars and so they
| have reason to "lie with statistics". Those who have unbiased
| data (ie governments) are not talking about it from what I
| can see.
|
| I personally am significnatly safer than the average driver.
| This comes solely down to me not drinking alcohol and thus I
| never drive while drunk. The typical driver also isn't under
| the influence and thus is significantly better than the
| average. (I also try to follow other safety practices, but
| I'm not sure if I'm really better - I'm aware of and pay
| attention to one thing which makes me better - but what am I
| not aware of that others are doing?)
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Most people are safer than average most of the time. Risk
| is a heavily bimodal. The issue is that people keep driving
| even when it's risky. Maybe they _have_ to get to work even
| though they didn 't sleep much, or they need to get home
| from the bar, or they're road raging, or they don't have
| someone with them to drive instead.
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| 1. The global Taxi market is one that does a quarter trillion
| dollar revenue per year.
|
| 2. the biggest cost component is labour. The biggest safety
| component is labour. The biggest service component is related
| to labour.
|
| 3. if you cut down cost of labour, make it more safe than
| before, and provide a quiet and private ride allowing private
| calls, conversations, music, you can beat other market
| participants
|
| So yes it's commercially interesting and that's all it needs to
| be.
|
| As for efficient and sustainable transport, there are certainly
| criticisms to be had. But these must be addressed via
| regulation, in my view. You can't expect taxi companies to
| disappear. You can add a tax to fuel to encourage a transition
| to electric. You can put a tax on noisy cars to encourage
| silent ones. You can put a tax on size, to encourage 1-person
| taxi pods for 1 person which will be 80% of the self-driving
| taxi fleet, and encourage 100% utilisation of self-driving
| busses for a small portion of the fleet. But you can't expect
| companies to simply not do business in the taxi industry
| because cars are imperfect from a sustainability/transport
| point of view.
|
| I'm not sure what's disgusting to you.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| It also expands the market. Currently bus riders can't afford
| to take Ubers but would prefer to. People that would rather
| take Ubers than walk or bike, and people who would rather
| give up their car and do uber full time.
|
| This will all be possible with low cost autonomous transport
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > If the problem is efficiently moving people around in a city;
| well to be honest I find this premise a bit ridiculous. Call me
| a European, but I find the idea that moving 1-2 people in
| private vehicles on roads being superior than public transit
| -preferably on rail- simply absurd.
|
| Much of the US like Huston and Miami is extremely lacking in
| public transit, and will likely never build the infrastructure.
|
| > Ride-hailing workers were already often working for less than
| minimum wage.
|
| ~50% of your fare goes to the driver.
| entropi wrote:
| > Much of the US like Huston and Miami is extremely lacking
| in public transit, and will likely never build the
| infrastructure.
|
| I am not trying to be a contrarian here, but I fail to see
| how that is an answer. I feel like what you say boils down to
| "since we are not solving the problem at hand in a good way,
| we decided to solve it in a worse way".
|
| > ~50% of your fare goes to the driver.
|
| Yet these ride-hailing companies who receive whatever is
| remaining after the meager pay of the rider and other costs
| only recently started to make actual profits. And even though
| it feels like the prices for customers increased a lot over
| the years, these companies are not exactly printing money.
| palmtree3000 wrote:
| > since we are not solving the problem at hand in a good
| way, we decided to solve it in a worse way
|
| It's a different "we". Rephrased:
|
| since Houston's government is not solving the problem at
| hand in a good way, Waymo decided to solve it in a worse
| way
| standardUser wrote:
| Forget Houston. Half this country is suburban-to-rural with
| development patterns that are profoundly ill-suited to mass
| transit. Yet, all of those areas have a fantastic road
| system already fully built out. Provide cheap rideshares
| (by removing most of the labor cost, which are the vast
| majority of the per-ride costs) and you've solved the
| previously unsolvable problem of moving Americans from
| point A to point B without each person needing to own and
| pilot a car.
| bluGill wrote:
| Huston is in fact building transit. They have a large spread
| out city which makes it a hard problem, but if you carefully
| choose where you look you will find people living there who
| don't have a car and just rely on transit and don't notice
| any loss of lifestyle.
| nunez wrote:
| Houston is adding bus routes, and even those are hotly
| contested in city hall. The city tried to expand the very
| limited light rail we have but the vote for that failed.
|
| We live in a super walkable part of Houston and still need
| cars to go to many places outside of (and even within) the
| Inner Loop. A 10-min journey in a car takes 45+ mins by
| bus, and that's assuming peak schedules and buses that
| arrive on time.
|
| I actually tried to do the no-car thing for a few weeks. It
| definitely impacted my lifestyle for the worst. The gym I
| go to is 10 mins away by car. It's a 45 minute journey by
| bus.
|
| I needed to walk 15 minutes to the nearest bus stop
| (despite being next to two well-trafficked cross streets).
| When the bus finally arrived, I needed to pay with cash
| because METRO didn't have Apple Pay set up at the time
| (early 2024) and while you could use the Q Ticketing app,
| it doesn't have a Watch app and I didn't bring my phone.
|
| The bus didn't show on two occasions. The next buses were
| 45 minutes away.
|
| All of this is, again, in the most walkable, public transit
| covered part of Houston.
|
| I also lived in NYC for a long time. There, getting
| anywhere was a 10 min walk to a train station, swiping you
| MetroCard (Apple Pay these days), taking the train and
| walking a bit to your destination. The only places that
| were inconvenient to get to by train alone were deep in
| Queens, Brooklyn or the Bronx; for those, you'd take the
| bus, which usually ran every 10 mins.
| comte7092 wrote:
| *50% of your fare goes to the driver, as well as paying for
| fuel, vehicle maintenance and depreciation, insurance, etc.
|
| Without a driver those other costs don't go away.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| It's ~75% going to the driver if you count the driver's
| expenses as money that goes to the driver:
| https://www.hyrecar.com/blog/how-much-does-uber-take-from-
| dr...
| standardUser wrote:
| Not to mention tips. I feel an obligation to tip drivers,
| in part because I know the economics of their job is
| rough. I don't tip robots.
| rangestransform wrote:
| At least for me the goal is to have me seated, heated/cooled,
| separated from smelly hobos and showtimes, not breathing in
| crack smoke, not breathing in brake dust in subway tunnels, not
| breathing in other peoples diseases. Anyone who tells me my
| individual wants are disgusting will not get my vote.
|
| For society, building rail infrastructure in the US is so eye
| watering expensive and time consuming that transporting
| everyone by electric AV might actually be an easier way to
| decarbonize transport.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| Here are some benefits:
|
| - Lower costs in the long-term. In the future it should be
| cheaper than owning a car.
|
| - Lot of space that is currently being used for parking will be
| freed up.
|
| - Convenience. It's a better experience than Uber and it will
| be a better experience than a manually-driven car. One example
| is when I want to drive to place A, take a 3 hour hike to place
| B and then drive home.
| fhub wrote:
| Living in SF as a family of four with both adults working
| from home... Owning 1 car and using Waymo/uber/lyft/e-Bike is
| already significantly cheaper than owning 2 cars.
| ipdashc wrote:
| > Is the idea of living and moving around in a city full of
| autonomous vehicles actually appealing to anyone? I personally
| find the whole idea completely disgusting for a number of
| reasons.
|
| Assuming they're safe and cheaper than current Ubers/taxis?
| Yeah I'd be fairly okay with it. I don't think it's necessarily
| ideal, but I definitely can't relate with "completely
| disgusting", personally.
|
| Public transit is nice and all but walking to and then waiting
| around at bus stops (especially in bad weather), squeezing into
| a crowded bus or train, stopping at intermediate stops, making
| transfers... there's definitely downsides. I don't use
| Uber/Lyft/Waymo often but I have to admit walking outside and
| having a climate-controlled, comfortable ride right there,
| which takes you straight to where you're going, is pretty nice.
| If it cost less and was more eco-friendly I'd probably use it
| more; we'll see if they can tackle that.
| triceratops wrote:
| > moving 1-2 people in private vehicles
|
| Eliminating the driver opens up so many options:
|
| 1. Vehicles designed expressly for 1 or 2 people, so they take
| up less space 2. Dynamic mini bus routes that can run all hours
| of the day 3. Dynamic car pooling
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > I mean, what is the exact problem that's being solved here?
|
| There are people that will pay you to give them a ride from
| point A to point B; Google has developed a cheaper and more
| scalable way to give people a ride from point A to point B.
|
| > Ride-hailing workers were already often working for less than
| minimum wage.
|
| And now Google made them way more productive, what leads to
| some combination of higher wages, lower prices, and higher
| profits. The government there has a moderate amount of control
| over the proportion, it's not clear to me what values it will
| pick.
|
| > If the problem is efficiently moving people around in a city
|
| Nah, it's certainly not. But if you solve that one, Google will
| be forced to pivot into efficiently moving people into and out
| of a city, and they can add a lot of value there.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| > Ride-hailing workers were already often working for less than
| minimum wage.
|
| That's the problem. People want taxis. Taxi drivers are both
| underpaid and also expensive. Removing the driver is a very
| expensive research process, but once you've done it and rolled
| out the solution nationally, you're saving a lot of money.
|
| And you're also creating a huge moat against competition. Say
| Google "finishes" self-driving cars, stops needing to spend
| nearly as much money on researching/developing the software,
| and mostly has figured out scaling. It's now far cheaper for
| Google to drive around than Uber. They can easily charge less
| than basically everyone who isn't willing to spend billions
| developing self-driving cars.
| caadxv wrote:
| The grand vision is to erode the middle class entirely, have
| undocumented immigrants work in agriculture and automate the
| rest.
|
| Who can afford a Waymo ride in that scenario is an open
| question, but perhaps the tech overlords dream of having a tiny
| "elite" and a robot army that subjugates the farm workers, in
| which case Waymo will no longer be required.
| rangestransform wrote:
| uber drivers deserve to be eroded entirely if their
| occupation literally costs lives compared to an autonomous
| vehicle
| tuna74 wrote:
| "I feel like at this point someone needs to take a step back
| and think about the general vision and overall goals of this
| whole fully automated ride-hailing service thing."
|
| The goal is to make money for the owners and managers of those
| companies.
| bedobi wrote:
| Imagine if instead Miami built MetroRail extensions to the beach
| and everywhere else it should go, increased TriRail frequency and
| express services, built a real network of fully segregated
| greenways etc etc. It would turn transport nightmare into
| transport heaven. We don't need more cars on the streets of Miami
| or the I95...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Well that would cost Miami taxpayers hundreds of billions of
| dollars, and this costs Miami taxpayers nothing.
|
| It would also take decades.
|
| This will be happening next year.
|
| Build all the transit you want. You need something for the next
| 30 years while you're doing that.
| bedobi wrote:
| no it would save miami and the state and the federal
| government billions
|
| trirail frequency increases can be done overnight
|
| a greenway network can also be built quickly and cheaply
|
| metrorail extension would cost more but still less than it
| costs to build and maintain roads
|
| but they are too busy spending billions building even more
| car infra which will only make traffic and congestion even
| worse
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > no it would save miami and the state and the federal
| government billions
|
| Have you ever looked at the local budget of a US transit
| authority?
|
| They typically lose $2+ per passenger trip, and get bailed
| out by the federal government.
|
| Mass transit is not going to save Miami any money for
| decades until ridership approaches Hong Kong levels.
|
| Unless you count passing on expenses to the Federal
| government as savings, and even then, it's still decades
| out.
| kemotep wrote:
| With car usage on most roads free of charge at use and
| maintenance also footed largely by the Federal
| Government, it probably comes out cheaper long term to
| invest in rail.
|
| And every car off the toad makes driving more pleasant
| for everyone who stays.
| bedobi wrote:
| lol the idea isn't to make money off transit, it's to
| save money on roads
|
| roads cost more than transit - a LOT more, and motorists
| aren't paying anywhere near the cost of road construction
| and maintenance, they're (quite literally) free-riding
| subsidized trips on the taxpayer
|
| traffic also destroys productivity, public health, life
| expectancy etc etc so costs money in many more ways than
| motorists not paying for them
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > and motorists aren't paying anywhere near the cost of
| road construction and maintenance, they're (quite
| literally) free-riding subsidized trips on the taxpayer
|
| So are public transit riders. And to a worse degree.
| What's your point?
|
| We should magically spawn mass transit systems overnight
| and force everyone to ride them?
|
| By the way, I'm a fan of mass transit, and live somewhere
| in the US - specifically - where that's a viable option.
|
| It just isn't a viable option in ~80% of the US, and even
| if those areas start doing everything right to be mass
| transit viable (no indication of that), it still takes
| decades.
|
| Rome wasn't built in a day.
| bedobi wrote:
| > So are public transit riders. And to a worse degree.
| What's your point?
|
| that this is wildly incorrect. roads cost more than
| transit. a lot more. and road users are wildly more
| subsidized than transit users.
|
| > We should magically spawn mass transit systems
| overnight
|
| yes
|
| > and force everyone to ride them?
|
| you won't have to when the choice is between sitting
| hours in traffic vs a fraction of the time on efficient
| transit and greenways. people are not stupid.
|
| > It just isn't a viable option in ~80% of the US
|
| this is Miami, not middle of nowhere Iowa
|
| > Rome wasn't built in a day
|
| so it's correct of Miami to continue to "invest" in even
| more roads to nowhere, like yet another new highway
| bridge across the bay? that will take decades to complete
| and cost billions, and cause MORE traffic?
|
| like no lol just build the effing transit and greenways
| and traffic will go down and the government and people
| alike will save billions instead (and their time, and
| lives)
| vel0city wrote:
| > trirail frequency increases can be done overnight
|
| Increasing the frequency can't necessarily be done
| overnight, unless they actually have the spare rolling
| stock just sitting around along with all the workers needed
| to operate and maintain the increased usage and the spare
| budget to cover the increased operations costs. Otherwise,
| they need to find the money to procure the rolling stock,
| actually place the order, wait for the rolling stock to be
| built/delivered, hire the people to operate and maintain
| it, etc.
| bedobi wrote:
| yeah, all of which can be done overnight
| vel0city wrote:
| You can get expansions in funding approved, solicit bids
| from multiple firms to make the trains, analyze and
| approve the bid, get a factory to make potentially
| several to dozens more trains, ship them across the
| country (or potentially internationally), hire and train
| a lot of workers, in less than 24 hours?
| bedobi wrote:
| you're just being obtuse
|
| in the realm of infrastructure investment, all of that is
| overnight
|
| vs eg the yet another additional bridge to nowhere
| they're currently building that is taking decades and
| costing billions
|
| but tell you and every other frothing at the mouth
| motorist what, enjoy sitting in traffic
| vel0city wrote:
| > but tell you and every other frothing at the mouth
| motorist what, enjoy sitting in traffic
|
| You're being quite rude here about this for no reason and
| projecting an identity on me that's not warranted. I'm
| generally pro public transit, but I'm also a realist and
| not suggesting it takes practically zero time to procure
| additional rolling stock and hire a lot more people. A
| lot of people think having a higher level of service is
| just run the trains/busses more, but chances are they're
| already running all the stuff they currently have the
| capacity to own and operate. It's not like most transit
| orgs have double the current capacity just sitting idle
| and nobody thought to run them.
|
| It took them three years after finding the funding and
| getting all the approvals and signing the contracts to
| add rolling stock last time. So probably more like four
| or five years _at least_ to add some additional trains.
| And that was replacing existing trains, not expanding the
| fleet, so its not like they had to considerably expand
| their existing workforce. I imagine most people would
| consider four or five years not "overnight".
|
| The bus service near me is usually every 20 minutes.
| That's terrible. I'd absolutely love it to cut that in
| half. It also means it would cost _significantly_ more to
| operate. Getting everyone to agree to pay that (a massive
| task at the start), getting all the proposals put
| together, soliciting bids, signing the contracts, getting
| the new busses, hiring the new drivers, and actually
| increasing the service isn 't something that is going to
| happen in 2025. Probably also not 2026.
| bedobi wrote:
| the disconnect here is you have a status quo biased
| thinking
|
| the current state of things is, roads get all the money
| and transit and bike infra get scraps and are poorly run
| (so are FDOT road projects too btw)
|
| no one disputes that?
|
| what is being advocated is increasing trirail frequency,
| implementing an actual network of segregated greenways
| and expanding metrorail
|
| you're saying "oh we can't do that"
|
| but like, yes, we can? I promise you, if you send out
| construction crews to apply green paint and put down
| curbs for greenways, there's no natural law of the
| universe that would make the paint not come out
|
| and once it's in place, there's nothing preventing
| millions of Miami residents from using them the same way
| they're being used in NYC, Montreal, Barcelona etc etc
| instead of having to get in the car for literally every
| single trip and errand
|
| likewise if you procure trains there's no magic wall that
| prevents them from crossing into the state of Florida etc
| etc
|
| these things are trivially achievable, but misinformed
| policymakers and voters alike think adding more roads is
| somehow not costing any money (it costs way more) and
| will fix traffic (it won't)
| vel0city wrote:
| > the disconnect here is you have a status quo biased
| thinking
|
| No, the disconnect here is you're being quite rude here
| about this and projecting an identity on me that's not
| warranted. And now you're even putting words in my mouth.
|
| > you're saying "oh we can't do that"
|
| I never once made the claim. I just argued it wouldn't be
| "overnight".
|
| None of my statements were about greenways or even about
| expanding the Metrorail. Just that adding additional
| capacity can and often does take a while to be approved,
| acquired, and put into service. Stating it can be done
| overnight is ignoring reality just as much as someone
| arguing the paint somehow wouldn't come out to paint a
| greenway.
|
| I'm for them adding more trains and expanding the
| existing lines. I'm for the bus service outside my house
| being a lot better than it currently is. I'm also looking
| at the fact the cities around me are talking about
| slashing the funding instead of increasing it and seeing
| the people around me cheering for such an idea. Me
| thinking it can be improved overnight is a delusional
| thought given the realities of today. Thinking Tri-Rail
| can just snap their fingers and magically get approvals
| and sign contracts and get trains delivered overnight is
| also delusional.
|
| Even _if_ we somehow changed people 's minds "overnight"
| to want to increase train service, it'll still take a few
| years to actually do all the process for acquiring and
| implementing the additional capacity. Governments almost
| always move slowly. Even when talking car infrastructure,
| something which generally _is_ popular, it takes forever
| to put together the budget proposals, get the funding
| approved, get the bids together, purchase the materials,
| and actually get to work. They 're still working on doing
| projects related to a road bond package in my city passed
| several years ago, and that's once again ignoring all the
| planning that went into it just to get the proposal
| together and get it passed.
|
| None of this happens "overnight". Even just getting
| everything together to officially change the traffic
| patterns and put the paint down will take many months at
| the fastest. And that's assuming it's a popular decision.
| NickC25 wrote:
| >Well that would cost Miami taxpayers hundreds of billions of
| dollars, and this costs Miami taxpayers nothing. It would
| also take decades.
|
| Ironically enough, the county approved and passed a tax back
| in 2000 to expand the MetroMover. Not a single inch of rail
| has been built since. Wonder where all the tax revenue went?
| davidcbc wrote:
| But then a rich person might have to share a ride with a poor
| person and we can't have that
| bluGill wrote:
| That doesn't follow. Nobody has said we will force the rich
| out of their limos.
|
| Some of the rich will chose to use transit though. There is a
| group of rich people who got that way by being cheap and that
| group will use transit if possible just because it is
| cheaper. They don't care about sharing rides with poor people
| at all.
|
| There is a group of people who appear rich - they live in
| mansions, drive limos. They are also in dept up to their eyes
| and one wrong move will put them out on the streets.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| point to point transport is nice. trains are ridiculously
| expensive nowadays. US governments largely can't do large infra
| projects anymore
| bedobi wrote:
| they can, they just malinvest in roads that only increase
| traffic and make things worse and cost even more
|
| instead of transit which saves money
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > that only increase traffic
|
| Increase traffic of people successfully getting from point
| a to point b, that is what induced demand is.
|
| > instead of transit which saves money
|
| Oh yeah, I'm sure saving on that California HSR project
| that has been in design since 2008.
| fixprix wrote:
| Waymo is cool, but I have no idea how it is going to compete with
| the tsunami coming that is CyberCab. Tesla will be mass producing
| this smaller, cheaper vehicle like nothing else. Covering the
| entire country with self driving vehicles.
|
| I don't know how Waymo can possibly compete with that. Their
| deployment by city is slow, their hardware is expensive, slown to
| produce, and not purpose built for self driving.
| oblio wrote:
| > Waymo is cool, but I have no idea how it is going to compete
| with the tsunami coming that is CyberCab. Tesla will be mass
| producing this smaller, cheaper vehicle like nothing else.
| Covering the entire country with self driving vehicles.
|
| Don't fall for the hype.
| tomp wrote:
| The bigger question is, how can Tesla with it's non-working
| "full self driving" compete with Waymo's working _actual_ self-
| driving.
| asdff wrote:
| I've seen teslas full self driving drive me on surface roads,
| on the highway, and even navigate the lot, find parking, and
| park the car. In what way is it non working at this point?
| Waymo doesn't even do highway.
| ra7 wrote:
| > _In what way is it non working at this point?_
|
| Because you're in the driver's seat supervising at all
| times? If it worked fully autonomously, you would be in the
| backseat.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| But not with a sufficient reliability and safety. You need
| that to do what Waymo does. Waymo could do highways 15
| years ago, right now they use highways in autonomous mode
| but only with employees or empty, so they will presumably
| launch soon.
|
| Imagine 2 drivers, one does something dangerous every hour,
| the other every 1000 hours. If you observe them for one
| hour, they may appear identical to you. Yet, one is 1000x
| better.
| danans wrote:
| > I've seen teslas full self driving drive me ...
|
| > In what way is it non working at this point?
|
| It's killing people:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273418/nhtsa-tesla-
| ful...
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| It's not "full" self driving despite their advertisements
| (which shouldn't even be legal to use). It can't handle
| basic weather or bad drivers or confusing road markings.
|
| Granted, neither can many humans. But the bar should be
| many times higher if the operators are relieved of
| liability.
| maverickmax90 wrote:
| What's your source for this claim?
|
| Please consider sharing sources before making baseless
| claims.
|
| I've seen this exact comment multiple times. You need to
| check your sources. You might be living in a bubble.
| rurp wrote:
| Literally the company selling FSD doesn't think that it's
| actually fully self driving. They strongly imply that it is
| in their consumer marketing, and have done so for many
| years, but any time Tesla interacts with regulators or the
| legal realm they are adamant that the system isn't level 4
| or 5, and the human driver is 100% responsible for handling
| any and all mistakes.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| How about this?
|
| Tesla's latest FSD beat Waymo by 30 minutes. Same route and
| same time of day.
|
| https://youtu.be/CfX8Lu9MHa0?si=cOYWNXjPiYP9R6L_
| ra7 wrote:
| > _Same route and same time of day._
|
| Just a small difference: one of them did it without a
| driver.
| magicalist wrote:
| This is literally just a video of getting somewhere midday
| in LA via highway vs surface streets? Waymos don't drive on
| highways in LA yet (just in the bay area, I think?)
| Charlie_Black wrote:
| Do you believe Musk's timeline estimates?
| threeseed wrote:
| Waymo doesn't make the cars. Geely does.
|
| And they make the same number of cars each year that Tesla
| does.
|
| Also deployment by city exists because each state will have
| different regulations.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| You are exactly right. Look at how you're getting downvoted.
|
| It's so disappointing that this so-called tech community is so
| deranged because of their hatred of Musk so much that they're
| not willing to look at the facts.
|
| If it was any other company doing what Tesla is doing with
| their self driving, the comments here would be completely
| different.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I don't see a taxi service from Tesla yet, while I've rode in a
| waymo in SF, so it is hard for me to see how Tesla is winning
| in the auto-taxi segment yet. Maybe their bet pays off and they
| dominate, or maybe waymo keeps expanding while Tesla keeps
| talking about vaporware, who knows?
| rurp wrote:
| Sure, right, it should be operational by 2017 at the latest,
| according to the Tesla CEO.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I'm sure they know much more than me and have thought this
| through, but it feels like Miami is an absolutely _awful_ choice.
| Traffic is notoriously chaotic there. I've driven in LA, Chicago,
| NYC, Philadelphia, SF, Miami, etc. It's by far the worst place to
| drive, moreso even than Manhattan.
| 1024core wrote:
| But have you driven in Boston?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| boston driving is so much better than SF+LA driving because
| at least what the drivers do there _makes sense_
| mankyd wrote:
| Nah. I live in Boston. I strongly prefer public transit, but
| I'll take driving here over most other cities, any day of the
| week.
|
| The _road layout_ is awful, but drivers are pretty
| cooperative on the whole. Certainly more than my years
| driving in DC, for instance.
|
| Granted, you need to be commmital here: if you put on your
| turn signal, drivers will generally make space for you to get
| in - briefly - but you need to be quick to take advantage of
| the gap. I could see Waymo being too slow to the draw for
| this, based on what I've seen online.
| oblio wrote:
| It's probably based on where public administrations are
| supportive. Isn't Florida notorious for being car centric?
|
| One more lane, bro, one more self driving car company, bro...
| :-)
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Why do you think that makes a bad market for a driverless car?
|
| If driving is miserable, that means lots of people that dont
| want to do it. If traffic is chaotic, that means a good place
| to improve their software.
| ecocentrik wrote:
| Miami is a challenging place to drive for most Americans with
| drivers from dozens of different countries on the roads at any
| given time, very bad traffic that makes drivers impatient and
| sometimes aggressive. Driving in Manhattan was way more chaotic
| than anything I experienced in Miami but that was back in the
| days of yellow cab dominance and those bastards made full use
| of their bumpers as offensive implements.
| rddbs wrote:
| The unique difficulties of driving in Miami might be the reason
| this is a good choice, not the reason it's a bad one.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| I think that's the point, isn't it? Get the fleet deployed and
| learn how to drive in very tough cities (LA, Miami, etc.)
| simonw wrote:
| "... we'll work to open our doors to riders in 2026". I guess it
| takes a while to set up for a new city!
| oblio wrote:
| Reminder that cars reshaped urban environments and generally for
| the worse, and self driving cars have a very solid chance to do
| the same thing:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0
|
| If you have an hour, highly recommended video. A bit too
| doomerist but the threat is there.
|
| Keep in mind that it's not just about tech (which can be
| amazing), but also about social aspects, money and politics
| (which can be atrocious and generally override morality and
| technology).
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Question: Do Waymo rides ever get on a freeway within their
| operating territory?
| ra7 wrote:
| Not yet. Freeway rides are open to employees only for now, so
| I'd imagine it's pretty close to being available to the public.
| Rebuff5007 wrote:
| I'm so curious about how the internal dev teams feeling about all
| this scaling. Four cities across 3 states -- surely there are
| differences in road signs, lane markings, emergency procedures,
| etc. Let alone the sheer volume of data of doing hundreds of
| thousands of miles ever week!
|
| Massive kudos to them if they are able to do all this without
| things being aflame on the inside...
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| My understanding is they have to make extremely detailed maps
| of where they operate and at great expense, and everything sort
| of breaks when anything changes. So lots of work indeed!
| dyauspitr wrote:
| >everything sort of breaks when anything changes
|
| What is "your understanding" based on?
| threeseed wrote:
| Waymo doesn't rely on the maps to operate. It just helps with
| redundancy in case it's unable to see.
|
| And it's just a matter of the cars driving through each of
| the streets and working with local authorities.
| ra7 wrote:
| Your understanding is wrong. They work perfectly well when
| road features change and the cars are able to update maps in
| real time. See https://waymo.com/blog/2020/09/the-waymo-
| driver-handbook-map...
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Why does it only operate in such tiny areas?
| Hasu wrote:
| > Four cities across 3 states
|
| This is actually a scale up to five cities across four states:
|
| > ...which already provides over 150,000 trips per week across
| Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Austin
|
| Which of course only adds to your point!
| joshjob42 wrote:
| Actually they Miami would be #6. They are also starting to
| operate in Atlanta early next year along with Austin. So 6
| cities across 5 states.
| Fricken wrote:
| Sundar Pichai recently claimed Waymo plans to be in 10 cities
| by the end of 2025.
| flkiwi wrote:
| The sheer number of these things that are going to get shot by
| angry Miami drivers ...
| drcwpl wrote:
| Come to Europe please
| BryanBeshore wrote:
| Why do I feel like a regulator would immediately file a suit
| for $1B+ if Waymo did this?
| dartos wrote:
| Let's see how they do with Miami drivers.
| nextworddev wrote:
| This is terrible. Driving Uber is an important source of income
| for recent immigrants from LatAM countries.
| crowcroft wrote:
| We should have cut things off back when we had the chance and
| never let the stocking frame do this to us.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| How is Waymo going to continue with the iPACE? Jaguar has ceased
| production of all cars and they are trying to reinvent themselves
| as an electric Rolls Royce brand.
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