15 ms·

20,000 robtotaxis, a million trips a day, my oh my. Go big or go home. Uber and Lyft do an estimated 170,000 trips a day in San Francisco, so if Waymo dumps jus

20,000 robtotaxis, a million trips a day, my oh my. Go big or go home. Uber and Lyft do an estimated 170,000 trips a day in San Francisco, so if Waymo dumps just 1/5th of their fleet on SF, the rideshare companies may as well pack their bags and go home.

jfoster 9y ago
They've already clocked up a lot of California time from their earlier days. Seems pretty likely that they will put some of that fleet into SF. By the way, that's 20k from Jaguar. Don't forget the thousands of Chrysler minivans that they ordered.
- scarmig 9y ago
  Interesting question: does a mile in CA four years ago equal a mile today? Not in the sense that roads change (though they do!), but because I worry about regressions and new bugs. You can mitigate it a bit by simulating many rides in virtual reality--which Waymo is absolutely doing already--but add enough cities and that would get really expensive really quickly, even by Google standards. And you probably couldn't run that world suite of tests for every code submission, or even on a nightly candidate.
  - londons_explore 9y ago
    This is a solved problem. You have a neural network which inspects the code change, and predicts which tests/scenarios might be affected (a change in the vision system is unlikely to affect the handbrake tests for example). You run only the most likely to fail tests. A test which hasn't been run for a long time is more likely to fail, since more code changes were done since it was last tested, so all tests end up being run on a semi-random schedule. When any test fails, you then run back through time, bisecting every revision till you find the code commit which caused the failure. At that point, depending on your engineering workflow, you either create a ticket to an engineer to fix this commit to pass the test before the next release, or you auto-revert that commit.
    - scarmig 9y ago
      A change in the vision system can absolutely affect handbrake tests. As far as we know, last week how Uber detects obstacles changed in a way that affected latency enough that it couldn't brake in time, which is why we now have a broken person instead of a broken test. An autonomous car is inherently a system, and you need a deep suite of integration tests, regularly run and covering all possible cases, to believe you're even approaching vehicle safety. The wider you space out when any given integration test is run, the harder it becomes to fix. And if a given test only runs once per week, sooner or later (sooner with a sufficiently large test suite) you're going to hit a place where auto-reverting the commit breaks additional tests. And when that happens, unless you put a global lock on new code entering the system, it might be impossible to fix the regression. And putting a global lock on new code submission will make new feature development extremely slow and expensive.
    - oblio 9y ago
      Is there any real-life system that actually does this? It’s the first time I hear about it... It sounds cool, is anyone actually using something like this in production? For normal apps, I mean.
Gustomaximus 9y ago
I assume this rationale is why Uber has been pushing the limits with the technology theft and putting unsafe cars on the roads. Is this where Uber rushes to IPO?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
notheguyouthink 9y ago
If prices decrease for AI drivers too, I could totally see myself selling my car entirely too. Granted, I live in a smaller city in Washington, ie not Seattle/etc, so it'll be a while for me I'm sure. I'd be curious to see if a lot of people did a similar thing (giving up their cars). Price is the kicker here though. When I own a car, I can pretty much drive as frequently or infrequently as I want. Where as with Taxi's/etc, the cost would quickly rack up. So these AIs are going to have to be cheap by comparison. Man, the future of this tech is so exciting for me.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bluGill 9y ago
  There are a lot of unknown. First of all, what is a lot? 1% of the US would be around 3 million people, which is a lot of people and yet 1% is not very significant. Of course we know some people don't own a car, you can make your numbers look bigger or smaller depending on if you count them. (there are books on how to lie with statistics if you want to continue this line) There are people who are already close to giving up their car who will. I believe that most people will not give up their own car. Rush hour is a thing for a reason: most cars are driving during those hours, so your costs for a self driving car ride rental needs to account for that. Once your costs are not much different the utility of your own car is a price worth paying. I know that I can go shopping over lunch and leave my new toys in the trunk. I keep a spare diaper in my car just in case my kid needs one. When I go on vacation I often start packing the car a few days before. If you are frugal rides in a self driving car is probably more expensive than rides in your own car. Your payment has to cover oil changes (I change my own oil - I've concluded that it actually saves me time over driving to a mechanic). Your payment covers inspection/cleaning after every ride - nobody cleans their personal car that often. People who ride in a self driving car will demand newer cars even though a 12 year old car (if well maintained) works perfectly fine for the same task.
  - treis 9y ago
    No one is going to clean/inspect cars after every ride. At best it will be once a day. More likely something like once a week or until someone complains. Same thing with the car age. They aren't going to cycle new cars in every few years. At best, they are going to replace the interiors in that time frame. It also doesn't account for the size of the car. People buy 4 seaters for the 10% (or whartever) of the time that they have passengers. Commuters will be perfectly fine with a 1 seater if they can order a bigger car when needed.
wpietri 9y ago
I'll be very interested to see how this rolls out. Right now Waymo is extremely cagey about exactly what you can do with their existing vehicles. All the riders are under NDA. So I haven't found answers to pretty basic questions, like: Can you go anywhere in the test area? Can you go at any time of day? Can you go in any weather conditions? Can it go to places with no data service? That isn't to say the service won't be useful for many even if the answer to most of those questions is "no". But urban environments are challenging even for human drivers [1], so I wouldn't be shocked if it's another decade or more before we have true, go-anywhere-at-any-time robotaxis in SF. [1] http://www.sfexaminer.com/uber-vehicle-takes-wrong-turn-gets-stuck-safeway-stairs/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/uber-vehicle-takes-wrong-turn-gets...
- lima 9y ago
  Waymo fully mapped the entire area, so they know where it's safe to drive.
  - falcolas 9y ago
    I don’t disagree with your premise, but the word safe doesn’t apply to even mapped roads. “Safe” changes on a daily, even hourly, basis. An unrelated accident changes the Safety of a particular route. A rainstorm can surface oils from the road, making it unreasonably slick for a short period of time. A crew working on the sewers can change the routing of a road onto the shoulders, which will have different grip characteristics than the road itself. Even Arizona can see snow.
    - jsjohnst 9y ago
      > Even Arizona can see snow. I’d sure hope so considering there’s ski resorts there (Flagstaff). Summer time highs in Flagstaff peak out in the 80s usually too.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    I can believe they have claimed that, but as we see in the link I posted, having an area fully mapped does not equal 100% knowledge of where it's safe to drive.
VVyattPrentice 9y ago
Unless, you know. Fog. But there's never fog... in... SanFra....
- on_and_off 9y ago
  is a lidar affected by fog ?
  - mercutio2 9y ago
    Lidar is hugely affected by fog and other water phenomena (rain, snow, etc.). We’ll need different imaging technology for foggy/wet/snowy places. Arizona is a much more reliable location for these systems in large part because it’s so dry.

jfoster 9y ago

They've already clocked up a lot of California time from their earlier days. Seems pretty likely that they will put some of that fleet into SF. By the way, that's 20k from Jaguar. Don't forget the thousands of Chrysler minivans that they ordered.

scarmig 9y ago
Interesting question: does a mile in CA four years ago equal a mile today? Not in the sense that roads change (though they do!), but because I worry about regressions and new bugs. You can mitigate it a bit by simulating many rides in virtual reality--which Waymo is absolutely doing already--but add enough cities and that would get really expensive really quickly, even by Google standards. And you probably couldn't run that world suite of tests for every code submission, or even on a nightly candidate.
- londons_explore 9y ago
  This is a solved problem. You have a neural network which inspects the code change, and predicts which tests/scenarios might be affected (a change in the vision system is unlikely to affect the handbrake tests for example). You run only the most likely to fail tests. A test which hasn't been run for a long time is more likely to fail, since more code changes were done since it was last tested, so all tests end up being run on a semi-random schedule. When any test fails, you then run back through time, bisecting every revision till you find the code commit which caused the failure. At that point, depending on your engineering workflow, you either create a ticket to an engineer to fix this commit to pass the test before the next release, or you auto-revert that commit.
  - scarmig 9y ago
    A change in the vision system can absolutely affect handbrake tests. As far as we know, last week how Uber detects obstacles changed in a way that affected latency enough that it couldn't brake in time, which is why we now have a broken person instead of a broken test. An autonomous car is inherently a system, and you need a deep suite of integration tests, regularly run and covering all possible cases, to believe you're even approaching vehicle safety. The wider you space out when any given integration test is run, the harder it becomes to fix. And if a given test only runs once per week, sooner or later (sooner with a sufficiently large test suite) you're going to hit a place where auto-reverting the commit breaks additional tests. And when that happens, unless you put a global lock on new code entering the system, it might be impossible to fix the regression. And putting a global lock on new code submission will make new feature development extremely slow and expensive.
  - oblio 9y ago
    Is there any real-life system that actually does this? It’s the first time I hear about it... It sounds cool, is anyone actually using something like this in production? For normal apps, I mean.

Gustomaximus 9y ago

I assume this rationale is why Uber has been pushing the limits with the technology theft and putting unsafe cars on the roads. Is this where Uber rushes to IPO?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

notheguyouthink 9y ago

If prices decrease for AI drivers too, I could totally see myself selling my car entirely too. Granted, I live in a smaller city in Washington, ie not Seattle/etc, so it'll be a while for me I'm sure. I'd be curious to see if a lot of people did a similar thing (giving up their cars). Price is the kicker here though. When I own a car, I can pretty much drive as frequently or infrequently as I want. Where as with Taxi's/etc, the cost would quickly rack up. So these AIs are going to have to be cheap by comparison. Man, the future of this tech is so exciting for me.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bluGill 9y ago
There are a lot of unknown. First of all, what is a lot? 1% of the US would be around 3 million people, which is a lot of people and yet 1% is not very significant. Of course we know some people don't own a car, you can make your numbers look bigger or smaller depending on if you count them. (there are books on how to lie with statistics if you want to continue this line) There are people who are already close to giving up their car who will. I believe that most people will not give up their own car. Rush hour is a thing for a reason: most cars are driving during those hours, so your costs for a self driving car ride rental needs to account for that. Once your costs are not much different the utility of your own car is a price worth paying. I know that I can go shopping over lunch and leave my new toys in the trunk. I keep a spare diaper in my car just in case my kid needs one. When I go on vacation I often start packing the car a few days before. If you are frugal rides in a self driving car is probably more expensive than rides in your own car. Your payment has to cover oil changes (I change my own oil - I've concluded that it actually saves me time over driving to a mechanic). Your payment covers inspection/cleaning after every ride - nobody cleans their personal car that often. People who ride in a self driving car will demand newer cars even though a 12 year old car (if well maintained) works perfectly fine for the same task.
- treis 9y ago
  No one is going to clean/inspect cars after every ride. At best it will be once a day. More likely something like once a week or until someone complains. Same thing with the car age. They aren't going to cycle new cars in every few years. At best, they are going to replace the interiors in that time frame. It also doesn't account for the size of the car. People buy 4 seaters for the 10% (or whartever) of the time that they have passengers. Commuters will be perfectly fine with a 1 seater if they can order a bigger car when needed.

wpietri 9y ago

I'll be very interested to see how this rolls out. Right now Waymo is extremely cagey about exactly what you can do with their existing vehicles. All the riders are under NDA. So I haven't found answers to pretty basic questions, like: Can you go anywhere in the test area? Can you go at any time of day? Can you go in any weather conditions? Can it go to places with no data service? That isn't to say the service won't be useful for many even if the answer to most of those questions is "no". But urban environments are challenging even for human drivers [1], so I wouldn't be shocked if it's another decade or more before we have true, go-anywhere-at-any-time robotaxis in SF. [1] http://www.sfexaminer.com/uber-vehicle-takes-wrong-turn-gets-stuck-safeway-stairs/ http://www.sfexaminer.com/uber-vehicle-takes-wrong-turn-gets...

lima 9y ago
Waymo fully mapped the entire area, so they know where it's safe to drive.
- falcolas 9y ago
  I don’t disagree with your premise, but the word safe doesn’t apply to even mapped roads. “Safe” changes on a daily, even hourly, basis. An unrelated accident changes the Safety of a particular route. A rainstorm can surface oils from the road, making it unreasonably slick for a short period of time. A crew working on the sewers can change the routing of a road onto the shoulders, which will have different grip characteristics than the road itself. Even Arizona can see snow.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    > Even Arizona can see snow. I’d sure hope so considering there’s ski resorts there (Flagstaff). Summer time highs in Flagstaff peak out in the 80s usually too.
- wpietri 9y ago
  I can believe they have claimed that, but as we see in the link I posted, having an area fully mapped does not equal 100% knowledge of where it's safe to drive.

VVyattPrentice 9y ago

Unless, you know. Fog. But there's never fog... in... SanFra....

on_and_off 9y ago
is a lidar affected by fog ?
- mercutio2 9y ago
  Lidar is hugely affected by fog and other water phenomena (rain, snow, etc.). We’ll need different imaging technology for foggy/wet/snowy places. Arizona is a much more reliable location for these systems in large part because it’s so dry.