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>>> "Waymo will be operating a fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel ... Waymo wants to broaden the geographic scope of its tria

>>> "Waymo will be operating a fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel ... Waymo wants to broaden the geographic scope of its trial, starting with expansion in the near-term to cover the entire Phoenix metro area, which represents more acreage than the whole of the Greater London area, he noted" My family is mostly in Tempe / Mesa area (near Chandler, AZ) and during my last few visits I've seen an increasing number of these autonomous (driver-at-the-wheel) cars on the streets. Note that Uber / Lyft also are very popular in the area. Waymo's transition to a general-public/driverless service in the whole Phoenix area will be the first time that automated ride-hailing services go up against human-driven ride-hailing services. This will be a very interesting and perhaps disturbing experiment. I predict Waymo will price their service competitively, will ramp up to a large fleet, and that after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble. The public will accept the perceived risks in driverless rides. Over a longer term it will be interesting to see what impact there is on car-buying, congestion ... I wonder whether Waymo will provide ride-sharing as well. EDIT: clarification; ride-sharing; car market; traffic congestion. ( Hmmm, also adding that "... after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble" is probably too compressed, it realistically will take a longer time. )

eggpy 9y ago
I dunno I can see this remaining small-scale for a while so Waymo can gather data about how people feel about the experience. I can see the backlash now if they were to suddenly unleash a battalion of fully autonomous vehicles on the unsuspecting public. I suspect keeping the numbers relatively low will be a good way to gather just how disturbing this is to the general populace without overwhelming people and ultimately causing an unnecessary uproar and rejection based on appearance, with no regard to quality.
- Fricken 9y ago
  The cars are a familiar sight in Phoenix, they've been testing there for a couple years now. They started up an early rider program in the spring, with real people volunteering to be guinea pigs while they refine the human UI and logistics. This isn't coming out of the blue.
  - eggpy 9y ago
    I'm aware, I live in Phoenix :) I'm referring to this bit > I predict Waymo will price their service competitively, will ramp up to a large fleet, and that after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble Waymo vehicles are far less ubiquitous than either Lyft/Uber vehicles. I expect to see a growth in Waymo cars, I just mean that I don't think we will see a huge ramp up in the number of driverless Waymo vehicles soon as people need time to acclimate and no one yet knows what the response will be. IT will happen, just not immediately.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Gustomaximus 9y ago
      > as people need time to acclimate I suspect it will be the opposite. Who-ever releases driveless taxi's first, people will clamour for the experience. People will be ordering rides for the sake of it for initial weeks/months. Then assuming the experience is safe etc, people will go by price and ride availability which driveless is sure to win. I also guess there will be some big drama about the danger, then find out it wasn't the cars fault. E.g Massive headline about someone dying in a Waymo car and then we find out they decided to climb out the window while moving or something like that.
      - speedplane 9y ago
        I agree with most of your story, but I do think there will be deaths from Waymo/Tesla/Uber. It'll have a very negative impact on the tech sector, but I also think they'll learn from their mistakes and after several years they'll get better and trust will be rebuilt. Be prepared for a five year self-driving winter that will slowly subside.
    - speedplane 9y ago
      Once they get the software down, they'll need to find a way to lower the cost of those LIDARs. No one is paying $150k for a self-driving car, and it'll be difficult to recoup that investment as a taxi.
- greeneggs 9y ago
  On the other hand, there is also an advantage to moving quickly. Waymo seems to be far ahead, but if others (like Tesla?) release their self-driving vehicles prematurely, that would cause a backlash perhaps against the whole industry. (For example, Uber's self-driving cars running red lights in San Francisco I think helped result in tighter regulations across California.) Moving quickly to show that the technology is safe might prevent a heavy-handed regulatory backlash.
  - konschubert 9y ago
    My impression was that tesla is years behind Waymo.
    - speedplane 9y ago
      That is also my impression, and it scares me that they have been so aggressive getting something "autonomous" to market. If flaky products are released that end up killing drivers (or worse, pedestrians), it'll set the entire self-driving tech sector back 5 years or longer.
dabeeeenster 9y ago
Why bother with ride sharing when the cost per mile would be so cheap?
- Johnny555 9y ago
  Because "cheaper" is cheaper than "cheap". I don't ride-share with Lyft because the per-ride cost is cheap enough for me -- but that's not true for everyone. No matter how cheap it is, there will always be people that want to pay less. Plus, when cities are inundated with car-shares and institute congestion pricing, even if the car is cheap, the $20 congestion charge can be split among the riders.
- zjaffee 9y ago
  Car pool lanes will likely be a big reason people choose to pool in autonomous cars. I imagine that self driving cars will make traffic much worse, and we will see a movement where cities create more and more HOV lanes to reduce traffic in such situations.
  - pmoriarty 9y ago
    "I imagine that self driving cars will make traffic much worse" With fewer accidents causing traffic jams it could be much better. Eventually many autonomous cars will probably network with one another to create an optimal traffic pattern as well.
  - sudhirj 9y ago
    Over a short term, yes, but there's likely to be work done on co-operation + communication standards between autocars. If a cars at an intersection are all auto, a quick Raft election can decide who goes first, so they'll all get to go through much faster. Broadcasting intention can also help with overtaking, trailing, etc. And if road train standards get built in they can all run much faster and more efficiently on highways as well.
    - r00fus 9y ago
      You're assuming all cars will be automatic or somehow able to communicate with each other? How does a circa 2010 human driven car in this scenario complicate or invalidate your routing algorithm proposal? Would human driven cars need to be outlawed in order to get the efficiency gains you mention?
samstave 9y ago
>>The public will accept the perceived risks in driverless rides. This is what I am trying to highlight - what, specifically, are these risks that people need to be made aware of? So now, in addition to everything, there will come a day when a person is stranded some-place as the driverless car couldnt exactly find them, and the person had to call the call center to get help and guess what... calling the call center for uber and lyft has been an "email us and we wil get back to you in 24 hours" type of thing, so imagine the following scenario which will happen in the next few years: Person takes a driverless car to an event. Person winds up being in an unsafe environment and needs immediate assistance. Person gets into the driverless car way too intoxicated and passes out/overdoses/dies in the car -- need physical help? So now we have driverless cars effectively classified as emergency ambulances - so assuming the CARNOC is paying attention, they then drive the car to the hospital - and have to have a mechanism to contact said hospital I think that driverless cars have WAY too many factors that have literally been either not well thought out, or not openly discussed. I am positive some of these questions have been asked - but I dont see any answers forthcoming. Imagine the healthcare implications where if someone hasa seizure, ODs, cardiac, etc... what is the response time from the CARNOC, and getting them to a hospital ==> then what types of lawsuits will these companies see? what type of insurance will they require?
- nwatson 9y ago
  These are companies with big purses and lots of human-factors personnel, and lots of lawyers that can write huge terms-of-service agreements, and cover legal costs and damages in lawsuits until they get it right. There are few better test beds for driverless cars than Phoenix metro, from technical, legal, and customer-concern viewpoints.
  - samstave 9y ago
    jeasus christ I dont know why you all are literally sticking your heads in the sand about asking questions and thinking answers. "because money" isnt a freaking answer to the questions I have posed - so fucking man up and answer if you know? Just because self driving tech is the new hotness doesnt mean that we can be ignorant to the consequenses and then thought-shame me for asking questions. An engineer of any of his salt should posit an answer, and I literally asked for an ELI5 to some of these things and was met by a bunch of jerks who think that these are stupid questions to ask. WTF HN?
ehsankia 9y ago
More interesting, the impact it'll have on parking, especially on busier areas.
aknosis 9y ago
I just like the idea that a private company can _disrupt_ transportation in such an area where mass transit sucks. Personally, I would be much more inclined to commute if I could use that time more effectively (Netflix, offline coding, even napping).

eggpy 9y ago

I dunno I can see this remaining small-scale for a while so Waymo can gather data about how people feel about the experience. I can see the backlash now if they were to suddenly unleash a battalion of fully autonomous vehicles on the unsuspecting public. I suspect keeping the numbers relatively low will be a good way to gather just how disturbing this is to the general populace without overwhelming people and ultimately causing an unnecessary uproar and rejection based on appearance, with no regard to quality.

Fricken 9y ago
The cars are a familiar sight in Phoenix, they've been testing there for a couple years now. They started up an early rider program in the spring, with real people volunteering to be guinea pigs while they refine the human UI and logistics. This isn't coming out of the blue.
- eggpy 9y ago
  I'm aware, I live in Phoenix :) I'm referring to this bit > I predict Waymo will price their service competitively, will ramp up to a large fleet, and that after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble Waymo vehicles are far less ubiquitous than either Lyft/Uber vehicles. I expect to see a growth in Waymo cars, I just mean that I don't think we will see a huge ramp up in the number of driverless Waymo vehicles soon as people need time to acclimate and no one yet knows what the response will be. IT will happen, just not immediately.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Gustomaximus 9y ago
    > as people need time to acclimate I suspect it will be the opposite. Who-ever releases driveless taxi's first, people will clamour for the experience. People will be ordering rides for the sake of it for initial weeks/months. Then assuming the experience is safe etc, people will go by price and ride availability which driveless is sure to win. I also guess there will be some big drama about the danger, then find out it wasn't the cars fault. E.g Massive headline about someone dying in a Waymo car and then we find out they decided to climb out the window while moving or something like that.
    - speedplane 9y ago
      I agree with most of your story, but I do think there will be deaths from Waymo/Tesla/Uber. It'll have a very negative impact on the tech sector, but I also think they'll learn from their mistakes and after several years they'll get better and trust will be rebuilt. Be prepared for a five year self-driving winter that will slowly subside.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    Once they get the software down, they'll need to find a way to lower the cost of those LIDARs. No one is paying $150k for a self-driving car, and it'll be difficult to recoup that investment as a taxi.
greeneggs 9y ago
On the other hand, there is also an advantage to moving quickly. Waymo seems to be far ahead, but if others (like Tesla?) release their self-driving vehicles prematurely, that would cause a backlash perhaps against the whole industry. (For example, Uber's self-driving cars running red lights in San Francisco I think helped result in tighter regulations across California.) Moving quickly to show that the technology is safe might prevent a heavy-handed regulatory backlash.
- konschubert 9y ago
  My impression was that tesla is years behind Waymo.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    That is also my impression, and it scares me that they have been so aggressive getting something "autonomous" to market. If flaky products are released that end up killing drivers (or worse, pedestrians), it'll set the entire self-driving tech sector back 5 years or longer.

dabeeeenster 9y ago

Why bother with ride sharing when the cost per mile would be so cheap?

Johnny555 9y ago
Because "cheaper" is cheaper than "cheap". I don't ride-share with Lyft because the per-ride cost is cheap enough for me -- but that's not true for everyone. No matter how cheap it is, there will always be people that want to pay less. Plus, when cities are inundated with car-shares and institute congestion pricing, even if the car is cheap, the $20 congestion charge can be split among the riders.
zjaffee 9y ago
Car pool lanes will likely be a big reason people choose to pool in autonomous cars. I imagine that self driving cars will make traffic much worse, and we will see a movement where cities create more and more HOV lanes to reduce traffic in such situations.
- pmoriarty 9y ago
  "I imagine that self driving cars will make traffic much worse" With fewer accidents causing traffic jams it could be much better. Eventually many autonomous cars will probably network with one another to create an optimal traffic pattern as well.
- sudhirj 9y ago
  Over a short term, yes, but there's likely to be work done on co-operation + communication standards between autocars. If a cars at an intersection are all auto, a quick Raft election can decide who goes first, so they'll all get to go through much faster. Broadcasting intention can also help with overtaking, trailing, etc. And if road train standards get built in they can all run much faster and more efficiently on highways as well.
  - r00fus 9y ago
    You're assuming all cars will be automatic or somehow able to communicate with each other? How does a circa 2010 human driven car in this scenario complicate or invalidate your routing algorithm proposal? Would human driven cars need to be outlawed in order to get the efficiency gains you mention?

samstave 9y ago

>>The public will accept the perceived risks in driverless rides. This is what I am trying to highlight - what, specifically, are these risks that people need to be made aware of? So now, in addition to everything, there will come a day when a person is stranded some-place as the driverless car couldnt exactly find them, and the person had to call the call center to get help and guess what... calling the call center for uber and lyft has been an "email us and we wil get back to you in 24 hours" type of thing, so imagine the following scenario which will happen in the next few years: Person takes a driverless car to an event. Person winds up being in an unsafe environment and needs immediate assistance. Person gets into the driverless car way too intoxicated and passes out/overdoses/dies in the car -- need physical help? So now we have driverless cars effectively classified as emergency ambulances - so assuming the CARNOC is paying attention, they then drive the car to the hospital - and have to have a mechanism to contact said hospital I think that driverless cars have WAY too many factors that have literally been either not well thought out, or not openly discussed. I am positive some of these questions have been asked - but I dont see any answers forthcoming. Imagine the healthcare implications where if someone hasa seizure, ODs, cardiac, etc... what is the response time from the CARNOC, and getting them to a hospital ==> then what types of lawsuits will these companies see? what type of insurance will they require?

nwatson 9y ago
These are companies with big purses and lots of human-factors personnel, and lots of lawyers that can write huge terms-of-service agreements, and cover legal costs and damages in lawsuits until they get it right. There are few better test beds for driverless cars than Phoenix metro, from technical, legal, and customer-concern viewpoints.
- samstave 9y ago
  jeasus christ I dont know why you all are literally sticking your heads in the sand about asking questions and thinking answers. "because money" isnt a freaking answer to the questions I have posed - so fucking man up and answer if you know? Just because self driving tech is the new hotness doesnt mean that we can be ignorant to the consequenses and then thought-shame me for asking questions. An engineer of any of his salt should posit an answer, and I literally asked for an ELI5 to some of these things and was met by a bunch of jerks who think that these are stupid questions to ask. WTF HN?

ehsankia 9y ago

More interesting, the impact it'll have on parking, especially on busier areas.

aknosis 9y ago

I just like the idea that a private company can _disrupt_ transportation in such an area where mass transit sucks. Personally, I would be much more inclined to commute if I could use that time more effectively (Netflix, offline coding, even napping).