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I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow. To which someone on HN will respond - 'well it's dangerous to

I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow. To which someone on HN will respond - 'well it's dangerous to be driving during that time anyway.' Well, yes - but people still need to get to places (hospitals). And I've yet to see regulation under what situations autonomous vehicles can and cannot operate. And the fact that hasn't been addressed yet in any legal manner/you're not seeing cars available with it on a lot other than Tesla (who is playing with fire without LIDAR) tells you where this is at. Not saying it shouldn't be worked on/this isn't coming, but we've got a ways to go with this yet. @markbspiegel and some of the other Tesla bears (read: those with large short positions) have documented the NHTSA cases that have been filed against Tesla.

praneshp 9y ago
I get that you are contributing a lot in this thread, and my position on how soon self driving cars will be widespread is negative. That said "I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow." is a (edited:) poor argument. There are plenty of non-snowing cities to test the crap out of self-driving cars first. (And clearly, that's what the Waymo early-rider program is trying)
- JangoSteve 9y ago
  Yeah, but when you sell them to the public, you can't stop people from driving into other states or areas where conditions are less favorable; which I think is relevant and applicable to their original argument that actually having self-driving cars out in the market is further out than what the industry is saying. But yeah, in relation to the Early Rider program, that's probably one of the reasons you must apply. They were asked what they thought of the program, and my interpretation of their response (not putting words in their mouth, but as I understood it) would be along the lines of, "Must be a controlled trial, since their technology is likely far from being able to handle anything outside of favorable environments."
  - vthallam 9y ago
    At least for Waymo, the biggest use case is to test the rideshare program with driverless cars with Waze aka a driverless Uber. They can apparently operate in specific cities first, start to monetize and figure out extreme weather conditions and edge cases.
    - praneshp 9y ago
      This was the point I was making. The first gen can just be rideshare (vs buy the car).
      - sagarm 9y ago
        IMO self driving car ownership won't be cost competitive with ride-sharing/tncs. Why would a car that can drive itself be idle 95% of the time?
        praneshp 9y ago
        Self driving cars would still suffer deprecation, wear and tear etc relative to miles driven. I don't see how self-driving will directly change any of those.
    - JangoSteve 9y ago
      This and the other replies are all valid points, and further illustrate the larger picture of the process involved in getting self-driving cars to the market.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    You can stop the self driving features from working in some geographic areas. GM is launching an enhanced cruise control that only works on limited access highways. They lidar mapped all the limited access highways in the US and Canada for the system.
    - gregmac 9y ago
chiph 9y ago
> And I've yet to see regulation under what situations autonomous vehicles can and cannot operate. It wouldn't be implausible in the future for an insurance company to deny a claim based on the fact that the owner knew the autonomous system didn't work in snow, but drove anyway.
VVayneTracker 9y ago
"I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow." This kills the argument.

praneshp 9y ago

I get that you are contributing a lot in this thread, and my position on how soon self driving cars will be widespread is negative. That said "I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow." is a (edited:) poor argument. There are plenty of non-snowing cities to test the crap out of self-driving cars first. (And clearly, that's what the Waymo early-rider program is trying)

JangoSteve 9y ago
Yeah, but when you sell them to the public, you can't stop people from driving into other states or areas where conditions are less favorable; which I think is relevant and applicable to their original argument that actually having self-driving cars out in the market is further out than what the industry is saying. But yeah, in relation to the Early Rider program, that's probably one of the reasons you must apply. They were asked what they thought of the program, and my interpretation of their response (not putting words in their mouth, but as I understood it) would be along the lines of, "Must be a controlled trial, since their technology is likely far from being able to handle anything outside of favorable environments."
- vthallam 9y ago
  At least for Waymo, the biggest use case is to test the rideshare program with driverless cars with Waze aka a driverless Uber. They can apparently operate in specific cities first, start to monetize and figure out extreme weather conditions and edge cases.
  - praneshp 9y ago
    This was the point I was making. The first gen can just be rideshare (vs buy the car).
    - sagarm 9y ago
      IMO self driving car ownership won't be cost competitive with ride-sharing/tncs. Why would a car that can drive itself be idle 95% of the time?
      - praneshp 9y ago
        Self driving cars would still suffer deprecation, wear and tear etc relative to miles driven. I don't see how self-driving will directly change any of those.
  - JangoSteve 9y ago
    This and the other replies are all valid points, and further illustrate the larger picture of the process involved in getting self-driving cars to the market.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  You can stop the self driving features from working in some geographic areas. GM is launching an enhanced cruise control that only works on limited access highways. They lidar mapped all the limited access highways in the US and Canada for the system.
  - gregmac 9y ago

chiph 9y ago

> And I've yet to see regulation under what situations autonomous vehicles can and cannot operate. It wouldn't be implausible in the future for an insurance company to deny a claim based on the fact that the owner knew the autonomous system didn't work in snow, but drove anyway.

VVayneTracker 9y ago

"I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow." This kills the argument.