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Can anyone comment as to how realistic the last line is? >But it's clear that Waymo is aiming to bring its product to market soon—likely in 2018, if not this y

Can anyone comment as to how realistic the last line is? >But it's clear that Waymo is aiming to bring its product to market soon—likely in 2018, if not this year.

jfoster 9y ago
They've had cars driving all over the place for years. If they've got the driving part "done", the other parts of it are about product stuff; how to request rides, in-ride experience, etc. They definitely would've had that all happening in parallel with refining the autonomy tech. I don't have any information, but it seems plausible to me that it could be 2018.
- ManuPop 9y ago
  They have mostly been driving in sunny areas with very nice weather. Driving with strong weather hasn’t really been tackled by anybody yet. Additionally the legal side is still not (officially) resolved.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Waymo says its cars can handle nighttime driving and light rain, but its cars will be geofenced Nice weather driving is predicable out ~6 hours and easily 98+% of driving conditions nationwide. If the system simply checks a weather service before driving and says no if there is problems with the route that's fine for version 1.0
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Mostly, yes, but Waymo has been testing in Kirkland, WA since February 2016.
mathattack 9y ago
Indeed. Insiders, please share!
majestik 9y ago
There’s a big difference between running a project like this in “R&D mode” vs “full on production mode” and I mean that from every angle: hardware, software, operations, legal, etc. So I’m skeptical on a 2018 delivery. Call me cynical but this looks more like Google gave Waymo a deadline and now they’re trying to ship a MVP to keep the funds coming.
- zaphar 9y ago
  Google doesn't do deadlines. They also don't announce until it's ready. It's deeply ingrained in their culture. They dabbled with a deadline a couple times and the results were a disaster. I know technically waymo is a different company but it incubated in Google itself. My experience with how Google operates runs counter to your experience. This is all anecdotal on both of our parts of course but I wouldn't bet against Waymo on this. They have what looks like a massive head start against the competition here.
  - kyrra 9y ago
    Sadly we do deadlines now, depending on the product. Before Google got into the world of hardware, that may have been true. But consumer hardware requires deadlines to be successful.
neom 9y ago
Quite. Sidewalk labs flow product + waymo + wayze = very safe. Cities are super keen to move on it.
agildehaus 9y ago
There are recent rumors they'll be launching in Phoenix soon. That they're releasing details like this at about the same time as the rumors is a promising indicator those rumors may be right.

Can anyone comment as to how realistic the last line is? >But it's clear that Waymo is aiming to bring its product to market soon—likely in 2018, if not this year.

jfoster 9y ago

They've had cars driving all over the place for years. If they've got the driving part "done", the other parts of it are about product stuff; how to request rides, in-ride experience, etc. They definitely would've had that all happening in parallel with refining the autonomy tech. I don't have any information, but it seems plausible to me that it could be 2018.

ManuPop 9y ago
They have mostly been driving in sunny areas with very nice weather. Driving with strong weather hasn’t really been tackled by anybody yet. Additionally the legal side is still not (officially) resolved.
- Retric 9y ago
  Waymo says its cars can handle nighttime driving and light rain, but its cars will be geofenced Nice weather driving is predicable out ~6 hours and easily 98+% of driving conditions nationwide. If the system simply checks a weather service before driving and says no if there is problems with the route that's fine for version 1.0
- icebraining 9y ago
  Mostly, yes, but Waymo has been testing in Kirkland, WA since February 2016.

mathattack 9y ago

Indeed. Insiders, please share!

majestik 9y ago

There’s a big difference between running a project like this in “R&D mode” vs “full on production mode” and I mean that from every angle: hardware, software, operations, legal, etc. So I’m skeptical on a 2018 delivery. Call me cynical but this looks more like Google gave Waymo a deadline and now they’re trying to ship a MVP to keep the funds coming.

zaphar 9y ago
Google doesn't do deadlines. They also don't announce until it's ready. It's deeply ingrained in their culture. They dabbled with a deadline a couple times and the results were a disaster. I know technically waymo is a different company but it incubated in Google itself. My experience with how Google operates runs counter to your experience. This is all anecdotal on both of our parts of course but I wouldn't bet against Waymo on this. They have what looks like a massive head start against the competition here.
- kyrra 9y ago
  Sadly we do deadlines now, depending on the product. Before Google got into the world of hardware, that may have been true. But consumer hardware requires deadlines to be successful.

neom 9y ago

Quite. Sidewalk labs flow product + waymo + wayze = very safe. Cities are super keen to move on it.

agildehaus 9y ago

There are recent rumors they'll be launching in Phoenix soon. That they're releasing details like this at about the same time as the rumors is a promising indicator those rumors may be right.