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Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet a Teen Who Rides One Every Day
- lawrenceyan 8y agoAny info on when paid rides are going to roll out?
- Fricken 8y agoI'm doubting the merits of a rumour I heard it would be August. 'Sometime this year' is what Waymo has been saying since March. In November last year they said 'In a few months'.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sosa2k 8y agoIn the article it talks about how the app has been displaying trip prices for the test users (even though they don't pay). No dates given but that's a positive step.
- kjksf 8y agoI don't know but reading between the lines: soon. This article happened because Waymo wanted it to happen. Waymo has a very strict NDA which is why outside of Google press releases we haven't heard a word about how this early rider program works. Google explicitly allowed Bloomberg reporter to interview few people who used Waymo car. The only reason for Waymo to allow this publicity is because they are gearing up for a public, unrestricted release.
- Firerouge 8y agoGoogle doesn't usually do public unrestricted releases out the gate, particularly not for disruptive technologies. Expect a few years of invite only closed beta.
- kjksf 8y agoThey publicly stated they plan to launch this year (https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/waymo-self-driving-car-service-launch-this-year-phoenix/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/waymo-self-driving-car-se...)
- CaliforniaKarl 8y agoI see the Waymo test vehicles so often; I am really looking forward to this rolling out on the peninsula!
- cliffy 8y agoThe pricing quoted in the article seems way too high. Comparable price to an Uber or Lyft ride? People on the fench about autonomous vehicles are going to pick human drivers unless the price per mile drops considerably.
- pnloyd 8y agoThe article says those are just demo prices to test customer's reactions, and then goes on to say those prices reflect 1.70$ per mile, comparable to uber and lift, but that an analyst said they could afford to go as low as 70 cents per a mile now, and 35 cents per a mile by 2020. If that's true and materialize, WOW!
- rat_1234 8y agoI totally believe it. If you've ever taken a taxi in a market like South Africa, China, or Chile, it's so cheap it's insane. Almost unbelievable. In many cases the cars are more or less the same, the gas costs more or less the same, so the only variable that's different is the cost of labor which Waymo eliminates.
- shkkmo 8y agoMost of those cars are much older and have much lower maintenance labor costs as well. I fully expect self driving cars to remain more expensive than taxis in many of the countries I've visited.
- rat_1234 8y agoOh well sure I do as well. All they have to do is be less expensive than what Uber can deliver enough to get people over any concerns with technology and they're good. My point is really that Waymo is eliminating what is unquestionably the highest marginal cost component of a ride.
- neaden 8y agoI'm surprised by this, 35 cents is less than the IRS deduction for mileage at about 55 cents a mile which is supposed to represent depreciation and direct expenses, how would they get so much lower?
- pnloyd 8y agoThis is a super interesting article. Here are some interesting bits. - Miles driven per needed human intervention 2017, Waymo: ~5700; GM: ~1300; Nissan: ~250, everyone else sucks at around 100. - Tesla is not talked about at all, surprising considering Elon is constantly saying it's around the corner. - Waymo has an Uber / Lyft esque app that the customers testing it's pilot program are using. - Waymo's showing (not charging) prices similar to Lyft and Uber ($1.70/mile). An analyst thinks without paid drivers they could go as low as 70¢/mile, and only 35¢/mile by 2020. - Waymo is only testing is places with perfect weather. - Waymo plans on launching their first location for a ride hailing service by the end of 2018.
- pythonaut_16 8y agoI don't think Tesla is really considered a serious competitor in the self driving car industry by anyone besides Tesla. Which is probably fortunate for all the other players since all of the Autopilot issues get attributed mainly to Tesla rather than to self driving cars.
- rohit2412 8y agoOr regular public (non technical people). A few weeks ago I attended a meeting in a top 20 university where the head of a inter-disciplinary research department was discussing autonomous vehicles and funding. The first and only name he said was Tesla. Marketing affects anyone not knowledge in machine learning field.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago>Trucking: Waymo has outfitted several Peterbilt Class 8 semi trucks with autonomous packages. The hardware is exactly the same as what’s used on its Pacifica minivans, and Krafcik says the software is 95 percent similar Is that 5% the 5% that lets them pick routes that don't include under-height structures , stupidly sharp turns, highly congested areas, or other places one generally prefers to not be driving something larger than a panel van? If so I highly look forward to the eventual (and already severely overdue considering how trivial the problem is) release of this feature to their consumer facing maps product. Yes, I'm kind of annoyed that it's 2018 and I can't just check a checkbox that says "avoid known under-height structures" >The experience of riding in a Waymo is surprisingly mundane. The robotaxi drives like a very careful human I would really like to know how careful they mean. There's a fine line between a good chauffeur for grandma and being so timid that anyone capable of driving themselves would be very frustrated with its performance and people would honk or make obscene gestures at you regularly
- pnloyd 8y agoFor the carefulness comment. >While making a left turn in a large multi-lane intersection, the car signals and creeps forward before accelerating into the turn. Waymo drives conservatively, to be sure, but the robots aren’t cowards. Gone are the days where two self-driving cars facing each other in a parking lot might freeze up from an overabundance of politeness:
- oh_sigh 8y agoYou can check that box, just not in consumer grade mapping software. Commercial software exists for that, e.g. pcmiler.com
- twothamendment 8y agoHow about a checkbox to avoid tunnels? Maybe that won't matter, hopefully there aren't too many autonomous Hazardous Materials trucks rolling around full of explosives.
- kingbirdy 8y agoI would think that vehicle height is so rarely an issue that consumers face that they don't bother integrating it for the free product, because instead that data can be sold as part of a commercial maps offering to the trucking companies who need that information to do business.
- Animats 8y agoWell, Waymo is doing it right, and everybody else is nowhere. The next big jump will be when the next-generation LIDARs come out. All solid state, and much cheaper. Industry analysts say 2020 for that.[1] They can be built now, but nobody is prepared to order enough of them yet. Continental, the big European auto parts company, is probably in the lead. (Quanergy keeps announcing, but try to order what they announced in 2016.) [1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-and-china-in-vehicle-lidar-industry-report-2017-2022-300676717.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-and-china-in...
- dev_dull 8y agoThe hardware will surely be commoditized... so the big differentiator seems to be software. Software is one thing that Google surely does well.
- Animats 8y agoAdvanced LIDAR requires some less-used semiconductor fab technologies, like indium gallium arsenide. So you can't just send an order into a commercial CMOS fab like TMSC. Continental bought Advanced Scientific Concepts, which had semiconductor physics PhDs figuring out how to do this. The devices work fine, but early models were for DoD and space applications (the Dragon spacecraft has one), built by hand, and priced accordingly. Once there's a market for a few million a year, the price will come way down.
- dev_dull 8y agoDo you know if there's any (public) companies who are close to producing solid state lidar at any kind of scale?
- Animats 8y agoAbout 15 of them are talking about it.[1] About five have demoed.[2] As far as I can tell, nobody is shipping in volume. There are lots of rotating-scanner devices now, still expensive. LeddarTech is shipping 1x8 and 1x16 pixel flash LIDARs now.[3] That's too low-rez for self driving, and they plan higher resolutions. Velodyne's big scanner is 64x400 (full circle scan). BrashTech, which sells drones for inspecting towers, bridges, and other hard to get at infrastructure, has Continental's flash LIDAR on drones. So we're at "expensive niche product", waiting for somebody to order in volume. [1] https://www.tetravue.com/news/ces-2018-summary-of-15-solid-state-lidar-makers https://www.tetravue.com/news/ces-2018-summary-of-15-solid-s... [2] https://www.motortrend.com/news/2018-ces-tech-six-budget-lidar-systems/ https://www.motortrend.com/news/2018-ces-tech-six-budget-lid... [3] https://leddartech.com/modules/leddarvu/ https://leddartech.com/modules/leddarvu/
- dev_dull 8y ago> while a longer 11.3-mile trip lists a cost of $19.15. That’s similar to the cost of a ride from Uber Technologies Inc. or Lyft Inc., and cheaper than a local taxi. I’m really curious to learn more about the economics of this price. My understanding is that the lyft/uber pricing is subsidized. If Waymo can do the same but at a profit, then that will make them hugely competitive.
- pnloyd 8y agoYa, getting self driving cars for the automative industry is the equivalent of rockets landing themselves for the space industry. How do you compete with that?
- dev_dull 8y agoIf you can’t compete then legislate... keep an eye out for incumbent friendly legislation in the coming months and years, no doubt preceded by a lot of FUD.
- repsilat 8y agoUber lobbying for increased regulation as a barrier to competition would be the highest of ironies. I want to believe they would know how bad it would look and stay away, but I think the more likely reason it won't happen is that they're working on their own self-driving tech.
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y agoBy finding things that self-driving cars can't do such as load your luggage, open the door for you, make sure your car is absolutely spotless. There's always a way to compete; it's a matter of finding out what people will pay for and people have a long history of paying premium prices for premium services.
- dev_dull 8y agoIt's the 80/20 rule of disruption. Those things are good, but driving from A to B is 80% of everything people really care about.
- draw_down 8y agoSounds nice and all, but if I can’t use it, not super interesting to me. I can’t imagine we’re less than 5 years away from having this broadly available, and I personally would guess more like 10. Hard to get excited about something that far off. See ya when we see ya.
- donclark 8y agoWhat does this mean for car ownership/insurance companies/auto dealers/mechanics/public transportation/etc? Has anyone seen a roadmap that includes how other industries are affected(disrupted)? Should we think hard about selling our cars now before they are de-valued or become more costly to drive? Clean Disruption - Why Energy & Transportation will be Obsolete by 2030 - Oslo, March 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM&t=639smost https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM&t=639smost
- arebop 8y agoIf I owned a big auto insurer like Geico, I'd be interested in diversifying into other kinds of risks. Of course Berkshire does have a broader insurance portfolio but still I wonder if this is part of the motivation for them to team up with Amazon and JPM on a new approach to health insurance.
- QML 8y agoI don’t see how caring for a Waymo or a Cruise fleet would be different from that of a city fleet. A city fleet is basically the set of vehicles owned and operated by a city government, mostly for use by its employees but could also be interpreted to include public transportation. A caveat is that the Waymo fleet would obviously be significantly bigger and thus more complex to handle, but I’m sure there’s a physical analog of “sharding” or dividing up fleets into geographical sets.
- xyzzy123 8y agoOne thing I haven’t seen much discussion of is the value of the data that fleets of these cars are going to throw off. It’s possible that the value of this data could subsidise ride costs. They basically become a ubiquitous street level surveillance system and for this to be effective you want a lot of them driving around. Some examples: Detailed local weather mapping. Potential for near real time street view. Very detailed sensing of traffic flows and trends, can also estimate pedestrian traffic. Could use the sensors to track non self driving cars by alpnr. Locate stolen or wanted vehicles. Automated reporting of traffic infringements, dangerous driving or accidents. Can estimate patronage of almost any business, via rides to destination, counting carparks, local foot traffic etc. Can sell data on infrastructure conditions (pothole location, missing signs, etc) to cities. Lots of other detailed profiling on riders, consumers, businesses. For example can automatically distinguish between blue collar bars and cocktail lounges. Almost certainly lots lots more I couldn’t imagine. It’s the data!
- astazangasta 8y ago8 million miles in fully-autonomous mode. I'll repeat my favorite statistic - the safety rate for auto driving in the US is about 1.5 deaths per 100 million passenger miles. That is, Waymo is about 12.5X from having driven enough to see a single death on average, if they're driving as well as a human. Not enough data. Still, I imagine we'll fast-track this into place with no regulatory oversight, because $$$$$$$$$.
- lern_too_spel 8y ago0.7% of car accidents in Florida are fatal. That works out to more than one accident every half a million miles for humans.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sandworm101 8y ago>> ... to convince this 17-year-old to put off an American rite of passage: getting her driver’s license. As Kyla puts it, “What’s the point?” Get the license. Driverless tech or not, a driver's has use for all sorts of things. A 17yo looking for a job? Get it and don't use it. Don't wait until you are in your 20s and you loose out on an opportunity for or at work because you don't have a valid DL. Same too for passports.
- tomjakubowski 8y agoOther than for jobs that directly involve driving, why wouldn't a state ID be equally valid for work? It would be very strange in the US to accept a drivers license as identification but not a state ID.
- SeanBoocock 8y agoA driver's license is one of the most ubiquitous forms of government issued photo identification in the United States. There is no national ID and most people have a driver's license in lieu of any state identification card. It might be equally valid, but is quite less common in practice.
- saagarjha 8y agoThat doesn't mean you'll "loose [sic] out" on employment because you don't have a driver's license. You can just substitute it with something else.
- dragonwriter 8y agoYes, but that is not an argument for why you should get a DL instead of state ID.
- sandworm101 8y agoWell, driving or at least the ability to drive is part of a great many jobs. Want to work in a warehouse? Sure, you don't need a DL to drive a forklift but if you were hiring people to drive forklifts wouldn't you see a DL as a plus? Automation or not, tech boom or not, the ability to drive is still a part of most people's job description. Basically all the trades won't touch someone who cannot drive if called upon. Want to work in resource extraction (forestry, fishing etc) then you need a DL. Want to be a cop? Want to be a grad student studying melting glaciers in northern BC? Want an entry-level job on a film set? These jobs require the ability to navigate a vehicle in non-standard conditions, well beyond what automation promises us anytime soon. Don't limit your options. Want to go backcountry skiing? Want to go rock climbing? Windsurfing? Kayaking? These things only happen when someone drives the car with all the stuff to some location well off the normal road. We cannot all afford helicopters to haul our stuff from the highway.
- oska 8y agoA revealing quote showing how car transport often turns humans into aggressors against pedestrians: > “Kids walk and it halts,” she says. “It’s so polite. It's like, ‘Oh sorry.’ It’s not rude enough.”
- incompatible 8y agoA passenger can potentially be just as rude as a driver.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoThat quote is actually from the passenger criticizing the self driving car as being "too polite."
- incompatible 8y agoI assume their regular driver is always willing to wind down the window and yell at pedestrians, or use the horn. Perhaps passengers in self-driving cars should have a horn button.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoPerhaps the passenger, who is described as someone acting like she has a chauffeur, should learn better manners and more respect for other people instead.
- incompatible 8y agoThat would be ideal, but I'm not expecting any major changes in human nature simply because of technological change.
- m0nty 8y agoJeez, yes. All the people in this part of the thread lamenting that self-driving cars will drive safely around pedestrians.
- Tiktaalik 8y agoThis is why cities are gonna have to regulate the hell out of autonomous vehicles to reduce congestion. The induced demand from affordable autonomous cars is going to be incredible, as the set of available drivers expands to include those below 16, the elderly currently unable to drive, and the unlicensed. If everyone starts sending their kid to school via their own autonomous car its going to be a disaster. A much better idea that doesn't run into issues of limited road space is of course is autonomous public transit.
- vanderZwan 8y ago> A much better idea that doesn't run into issues of limited road space is of course is autonomous public transit. I suspect you could argue that for metros and trains it already is largely automated. Surely the scheduling is at the very least supported by computer algorithms, or perhaps even automatically planned and then only manually overridden by human elements as needed?
- Tiktaalik 8y agoVancouver's skytrain light rail is fully automated (and thus achieves crazy short headways). Buses however aren't elevated from traffic and so of course they currently require a driver. If we had autonomous buses then a transit system would lower its labour costs, but I don't know what other potential gains there could be.
- stephencoyner 8y agoI'm actually in Vancouver right now for a public transit conference and have been incredibly impressed. Such a great system!
- vanderZwan 8y agoNo "need" for a separate train track, I suppose. I wonder if that would be a net savings in the long run though.
- roflchoppa 8y ago
- DoreenMichele 8y agoThe Jacksons, who Waymo made available for this story, have largely ditched their own cars and now use self-driving vehicles to go almost everywhere within the 100 square-mile operating area: track practice, grocery shopping, movies, the train station. All rides are free for volunteers, but the Waymo app recently started to show hypothetical prices. A Waymo spokesperson says the placeholder price is a way to solicit feedback from volunteers and “does not reflect the various pricing models under consideration.” It’s certainly got the Jackson family wondering how the service they’ve come to rely on will soon fit into their lives. I am assuming no one promised them free rides for life. How easy it is to become dependent on something "free" and not think about what it might cost in the future when you can no longer live without it.
- pnloyd 8y agoFor my next job I plan on going full Uber + public transit for transport. Uber to the bus terminal and take a nice relaxed bus ride to downtown Seattle dropping me off directly next to my job. I did the math and at 8$ per ride my monthly expense should be 8$ * twice per day * 20 days per months = $320, well below the cost of ownership for a vehicle. Maybe they thought about it and came to the conclusion it's worth it. In my case it's surplus, not a cost.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoI don't doubt that it is actually cheaper in your case and that you planned it. That's not how the article frames it in this specific case though.
- ghaff 8y agoSo you never drive to the mountains or any of the other areas of interest around Seattle? Perhaps you don't but most of the people I know who live in and around West Coast cities do so in no small part because they can get out of the city to very nice locales on the weekend. (Of course, you can get rental cars for that but there's both a time transaction cost and and a literal cost.)
- 8y ago
- seancoleman 8y agoMy sister, 29, just got approved for the Waymo program in Phoenix. She has epilepsy and hasn’t driven in 10 years since she had a seizure while driving on the freeway and crashed. Miraculously she had no serious injuries. We sarcastically joke about how Silicon Valley is making the world a better place, oftentimes for privledged individuals but Waymo is completely changing her life.
- ageek123 8y agoNew tech almost always starts out being available only to privileged individuals but then becomes commoditized and available to everyone.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoPart of the reason is that new tech is always expensive and unreliable, so only the privileged individuals have money to burn on costly and risky experiments.
- cm2187 8y agoActually often military first, then privileged individuals!
- michaelt 8y agoIf the new tech is a robot that cleans your toilet, costs can come down until nobody ever has to manually clean a toilet again. If the new tech is an on-demand market that hires a person to clean your toilet, the amount of manual toilet cleaning in the world is unchanged :)
- JulianMorrison 8y agoInstead of working for a unionized cleaning company with a minimum wage, you too can be your own employer in the new app economy of toilet cleaning to order and be paid less, expected to buy your own equipment, and denied sick pay and holidays. But still subject to sacking if you don't put in 12-hour days, or get a sub-four-star review.
- mrweasel 8y agoA little off-topic: Are the Waymo cars absolutely huge or are the two women in the first picture just tiny?
- puranjay 8y agoI wonder if kids born today will ever need to learn how to drive.
- yaseer 8y agoOne thing I wonder is; how will these companies test software updates to production? Does anybody know if there is legislation around software testing when human life is at stake?
- analogmemory 8y agoThis might be a dumb question, but are there any negative impacts of all these LiDAR components with our eyes? I feel like I see all the excitement (and I'm excited too) but has there been any studies on the effects of these laser sensors? What happens when they are ubiquitous?
- CptMauli 8y agoThe pricing is way too high. The price should be compared to a car sharing program, not with a taxi service. The trip to school for my kid would cost, when using a car from a car sharing program around 4€. This is quite a difference to the mentioned $19. Even DriveNow, which is maybe the most expensive car sharing service in Germany, we are talking about maybe 9€.
- tonyquart 8y agoI have just read a little bit of information regarding the legal side of self-driving cars at https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accident-injury-lawyers-attorneys/ https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accid.... I think the most important thing that car companies and lawmakers should think seriously is the regulation. We all know that we would never completely avoid accidents on the roads, so fixed regulation is the most important thing when there are many accidents with these robot cars involved.