17 ms·

Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

327 points by yarapavan 8y ago

gniv 8y ago
The link at the bottom of that article is pointing to another Medium post with details of the launch: https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164c5c0e https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164... Notably, "At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise our vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience." Edit: Re-reading my comment, it sounds negative, so I want to acknowledge that I think this is a big deal. No matter how "soft" this launch, it's still a historic moment.
- jbob2000 8y ago
  Mark these words, "At the start", because we'll be hearing them for the next 10 years until Waymo closes up shop. That they are going to market with drivers in the car means that the business has pivoted from "can we do driverless taxi" to "can we make money as uber-but-with-employees". The next announcement from Waymo will be that they are cutting staff "mostly from R&D". The announcement after that will be that they are opening up the Waymo app for anyone to be a driver. The announcement after that will be that they are closing up shop or being sold to Uber.
  - TotempaaltJ 8y ago
    You realize those drivers won't actually be driving most of the time, right?
    - jbob2000 8y ago
      Doesn't matter, it's not self-driving if you need a driver. And when that driver takes control of the vehicle away from the AI, it's going to be at a startling and dangerous moment when the AI makes a really bad decision, like directing the car towards a barrier or a stopped bus.
      - GeorgeO84 8y ago
        If the driver has large uneventful periods of time where he/she has nothing to do. He/she will not react in time for an emergency.
        dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        If the software driver is bad enough that the safety driver will feel compelled to pay attention at all times but not quite take control unless the car does something actually warranting it. It'll be like teaching a 16yo to drive but without them actually getting better (because the software will need to be tuned to keep the driver on edge). Doing it that way is kind of a backhanded approach but it would force the backup driver to pay attention.
        lolc 8y ago
        Worst of both worlds!
  - pliny 8y ago
    That's a prediction, but why do you think that's how it'll turn out?
    - jbob2000 8y ago
      The news would be different. This news item is focused around the driver and safety. They are slowly changing their messaging from being about self-driving to being about safe-driving. They can't come out right away and say "guys we failed at self driving, it doesn't work", that would tank the personal careers of everyone important in the company. They have to slowly move the needle away from self driving, and then they'll give us the bomb drop, "we could only build better safety systems, not self-driving systems" and nobody will care because they are happy with safe-driving. If they truly had self-driving tech, they'd be doubling down on that with their messaging. Not only to let everyone know there's a new sheriff in town (bye Uber!), but also to let their competitor's know to start their death clocks.
      - yholio 8y ago
        > They can't come out right away and say "guys we failed at self driving, it doesn't work", that would tank the personal careers of everyone important in the company. That's exactly what would happen if a newly developed product killed some people. A human assisted rollout is a cautious strategy that allows them to learn in the real world without exposing their massive R&D investment to the fate of Uber's.
      - malcolmwhite 8y ago
        Waymo used "self-driving" in the article's title and twice in its first sentence, literally doubling down with that messaging.
        jbob2000 8y ago
        No, that's part of the strategy of shifting the messaging: Use both phrases together so people associate them, and then slowly drop the phrase that you want to go away.
  - bryanlarsen 8y ago
    Mark these words. In 10 years time we'll still be hearing the same comments about Waymo & their competitors because there still will be certain combinations of passenger, route & conditions that Waymo will refuse to take without a safety driver along. But since Waymo will handle the vast majority of rides we'll just tune out those comments. Handling all rides & conditions is a very hard problem and it'll take decades to solve. But scaling from "a few" to "most" is a much easier problem and one that I have confidence that Waymo will achieve. And "most" can be very useful & profitable.
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      I assume we're talking about city driving. I'm not sure about the USA, but being in Europe, the average speed my car says I go is 28.5 km/h. Do you think we could not solve traffic for 10 years if we slowed cars down to 30 km/h? With assumption being that a city-wide driverless system would easily 'swim' through the city without encountering red lights or slowdowns due to unpredictiveness of other drivers. We could even tolerate a little bit more errors because accidents would not be harmful too much.
      - bryanlarsen 8y ago
        I'm a big fan of Sweden's Project Zero, one leg of which is setting and enforcing a speed limit of 30 km/h on any road or street without fully separated pedestrian & cycle infrastructure. I don't know if self-driving will help accomplish this everywhere, but I'd be ecstatic if it did. > We could even tolerate a little bit more errors because accidents would not be harmful too much. instead of "harmful too much" you can simply use "fatal". 30km/h is a pretty magic value: below that speed pedestrian collisions are very rarely fatal. Serious perhaps, but not fatal. Above that speed they are often fatal.
        njarboe 8y ago
        About the speed of a sprinting human, unsurprisingly.
  - Isamu 8y ago
    >until Waymo closes up shop Maybe if this was Microsoft, and Waymo was the Zune. Alphabet has given it some 9 years just to get to this soft launch, I think they have the patience to see it through. There is enough money and interest in this space internationally that I'd give it some time.
- TotempaaltJ 8y ago
  From what I can tell, they won't actually be driving most of the time.
- Fricken 8y ago
  The milestone to mark is the day when you or I can, at least theoretically, download the the fricken app and request a ride in an autonomous vehicle that has no safety driver.
  - anticensor 8y ago
    That car would probably be called Windows Car (not to be confused with your car's windows), stop irregularly at weird places to allow for mandatory updates, and report your height and weight to Microsoft.
    - GeorgeO84 8y ago
      Critical Update. You have 2 minutes to close all the windows and leave the car.
      - c2h5oh 8y ago
        More like "critical update is being installed" signaled by the car hitting the breaks hard until full stop in the middle of a highway.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        beamatronic 8y ago
        You would be sailing along at highway speeds and the steering would stop responding for a few minutes.
        anticensor 8y ago
        I also thought of that, but it is a very dangerous failure mode for a car. EDIT: -silly \r\n +dangerous
        GeorgeO84 8y ago
        Wait! After several users complains (the ones that survived), they've "fixed" it. Now you can "choose" a "12 hour range" where this can happen.
- dzhiurgis 8y ago
  They are not even taking new customers either. They are just going to start charging existing 400 users. That's the only difference of this "launch".
talawahdotnet 8y ago
> Waymo One is rolling out in the Metro Phoenix area first. Over time, we hope to expand to new places and more people. You can sign up to express interest using the form at the bottom of this page[1] (asks for your gmail address, zip code and type of phone). P.S. Why is the mobile experience on Medium so frustratingly bad? Between the permanent heading plus the "please download our app" heading I find it maddening. I also find the UX around reading comments to be unnecessarily confusing. 1. https://waymo.com https://waymo.com
- spuz 8y ago
  Don't worry, Medium on desktop is equally bad. Two persistent banners bottom and top plus a "pardon the interruption" popup. I really wish companies wouldn't use Medium as their blogging platform.
  - bertil 8y ago
    I’m guessing it would be possible to block those with uBlock Origin, or an equivalent software.
  - kuroguro 8y ago
    The web annoyances ultralist really helps :) https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances
  - luhn 8y ago
    It's also started pushing entries into my browser history as I scroll past headings, stopping my back button from doing what I expect. Really gets my goat.
  - buboard 8y ago
    but do you know we have cookies? And now please, would you like some tracking before proceeding to marvel at our giant header and footer flanking 3KB of plaintext?
- Angostura 8y ago
  > Why is the mobile experience on Medium Because they really want you to: "please download our app". See also, Reddit
11thEarlOfMar 8y ago
I know this is a heated debate, but it's interesting to see the divergent approaches that are being taken to achieve self driving. In one corner, it's lidar-based, equipping vehicles produced by other companies, organically and incrementally growing the navigation technology. In the other, it's video-based with now 100s of thousands of vehicles feeding data to a massive neural net. Each has very well thought-out arguments for the approach they are taking, and I expect that both would ultimately 'work' by reducing the inherent risks of taking a car ride by a substantial amount (90%?). I think the winner will be the one who gets to that milestone soonest. It's entertaining to watch.
- krona 8y ago
  You forgot radar. Most startups are using a combination of all the perception approaches, especially vehicle manufacturers.
- Shivetya 8y ago
  While I own a TM3 I have little faith in their full self driving solution and did not opt for that. I did take the enhanced auto pilot and recent additions show how much more work it will take. An example would be that it now shows different vehicle types and even pedestrians near you yet when all surround objects are obviously not moving it still has them moving on the display. It still has issues with certain bridges and apparently it is hard coded disabled around certain bridges to the point there are videos of it not recognizing a merging semi. with regards to Waymo's solution, I am concerned that it should have something in the driver's seat. I don't care if its a Total Recall "Jiffy Cab" type solution. not so much for the riders but for those who are also sharing the same road be that other vehicles or pedestrians. Something that clearly indicates it is under control.
  - rbowlby83 8y ago
    Perhaps that blowup pilot from Airplane?
- WhompingWindows 8y ago
  Definitely entertaining to watch, I agree heartily. I don't agree that whoever gets there first will be the winner. As we see with Waymo one, it's quite probable that there will be a limited roll-out of features/locations, such that it'll be much like these electric scooters: available in some places, but not others. The roll-out should be much slower in winter months and in places with inclement weather, however I see no reason that warm/dry places couldn't expect to see a big roll-out in the next decade. Phoenix is the beginning for Waymo, what about Tucson, Dallas, Houston, Miami, San Diego, etc? Whereas, with Tesla, we'll likely see features rolling out slowly over time, an incremental push towards FSD, with owners being responsible for safety monitoring their own vehicle.
bertil 8y ago
They announced a change of brand a month ago. I guess adding “One” at the end of the existing name counts, and I like the implication that they want to communicate clearly on phases of the project but… Was it worth announcing a brand change? I feel like I’m missing something.
- zerealshadowban 8y ago
  Logically, we should expect them to launch a Waymo Two service (or Zero!?) -- and so the relevant question is: what will be different about it?
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  They promised a public launch by the end of the year, and they're delivering on their promise even if there are no substantive changes.
  - bertil 8y ago
    Absolutely — and given the potential global growth of the service, committing and delivering on a schedule is a promising sign. I was just puzzled by the added information that they would change the brand: they didn’t need to (and they haven’t, not really).
  - Fricken 8y ago
    It isn't public, randos in Chandler can't download the app and take a ride, they need to be approved as members of the easy rider program. Waymo has lifted their NDAs, so now they can talk openly about their experiences.
- danvoell 8y ago
  Felt the exact same way. Why add the One? Did something really change and is there a difference between Waymo and Waymo One? Just confusing folks.
- pavelrub 8y ago
  I'm not sure I understand. What brand change? Wyamo is the name of the company. Waymo One is the name of the service they are launching.
bertil 8y ago
We still do not have much clarity on the price point. The screenshot (see gniv’s link) shows that a 24-min ride could cost around $8, with an apparent 20% rebate. I suspect that they won’t try to under-cut Uber too dramatically but the long-term costs are bound to be much lower if you don’t need to pay a driver. That illustrative price seems to match this. They certainly have copied Uber’s focus on identifying the best pick-up and drop-off based on many factors, notably road setup. I’m less sure about child seats: their copy and photo seem to imply that there are infant raisers. However, it would be unusual to have those in every car. I’m not seeing a way to indicate that you want one in the interface, and presumably, that’s a request per journey, not an account permanent status. People have suggested advertising but I’m not seeing any of it in the screenshot, nor do I expect to see it any time soon, until their model has imposed itself.
- coffeedrinker 8y ago
  I expect the funding model for self driving taxis will be like validated parking. You ride free (or reduced) if you spend $x at whatever business, shopping mall, etc.
  - c22 8y ago
    Shouldn't it be enough that the taxi will only drive to one of the businesses that has sponsored it?
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Why though? Even in places with cheap labor (so cheap drivers), they still don’t have things like that, taxis are just cheaper.
    - coffeedrinker 8y ago
      Because if I'm Safeway and I can get elderly people to come to my business (for shopping, prescriptions, etc.) they won't be shopping somewhere else. The business gains/retains the clientele by providing the driving service.
vyrotek 8y ago
Super excited to try it soon. I've been watching them test their vehicles around our office in Tempe all year. Hoping to take one to lunch one day.
spiderPig 8y ago
RIP Uber.
cromwellian 8y ago
Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice. IMHO, to do less would be reckless showboating that could do unimaginable damage to the AV industry, as well as end up endangering lives. In the tech industry, we don't like to wait, we like moving fast, taking risks, shipping MVPs, learning by shipping, etc. And for the next great Camera filter app, perhaps that makes sense, but not for cars, planes, or medical equipment.
- rsync 8y ago
  "Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice." A whole year! Truly sage-like wisdom from the MoveFastBreakThings generation of technical development. It is simultaneously comical, exasperating and sad to watch this tragedy unfold. We will slowly build our own, modern Deuteronomy - instead of forbidding the consumption of shellfish or stipulating gifts for former slaves, ours will talk about agency and skin-in-the-game and aligned incentives ... Meanwhile, there will be a multi year (decade ?) period of experimentation where we will all be terrified as we drive at highway speeds and another vehicle approaches that road at a right-angle. Currently, I know what that vehicle will do, because all other choices lead to death-of-driver. But in this near (and short lived) future, that other vehicle could do anything.
  - sanarothe 8y ago
    Having recently trusted that intuition and nearly being T boned, human drivers can currently do anything...
  - njarboe 8y ago
    I'm not sure where you live but in my country (USA, where these companies you are mocking operate) when a vehicle approaches the road and I am going highway speed, I get a bit nervous, cover the brake, and feel a nice sense of relaxing stress when I pass by. That other vehicle could do anything. 40,000 deaths a year and over a million world wide.
brianbreslin 8y ago
I hope they roll this out in Miami soon. Miami has some of the laxest AV regulations in the country. Also would happily pay to not drive in this mess every day.
- asdkhadsj 8y ago
  As excited as I am for self driving, it makes me sad that I get car/motion sick. I can't exploit self driving to do laptop work, reading, gaming, etc without getting sick - all I can do is sleep basically lol. It will be bittersweet in a self driving car realizing that since I don't have to pay attention, I can do so much more with my time!.. and then promptly stare out the window for an hour.
  - DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago
    Try audiobooks or podcasts! Listen with a soundtrack. You won’t regret it.
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    Not sure how common this is, but I was able to improve my resistance to motion sickness by incrementally doing more reading (interspersed with breaks) over a period of a couple of years that I commuted by bus.
  - 83457 8y ago
    Is it the motion or seeing movement out of your peripheral vision?
    - nashashmi 8y ago
      As someone who has experienced both, it is the sudden unexpected movements that cause motion sickness. And if I am tired, my mind cannot coordinate between the movement I see to the movement I feel. And now I realize that in the first case, it is a personality issue where if I am stubborn/stiff/unyielding, I will get annoyed at unexpected movements. I find this to be true also with my wife :D
    - 8y ago
drewvolpe 8y ago
Does anyone know if each of these has a remote operator as, I believe, the ones in CA do?
lawrenceyan 8y ago
“Fares are based on time and distance, and customers can expect fares to be roughly on par with what you'd pay for an Uber or Lyft trip—perhaps even a bit lower. The above Waymo-provided screenshot shows a customer booking this trip, which is 4.6 miles long and takes about 12 minutes. Waymo charges $7.32 for the trip. I punched the same route into Lyft and Uber aps on Tuesday afternoon and got quotes of $8.29 and $9.38, respectively.”
- russdill 8y ago
  And there's absolutely no pressure to tip.
Tempest1981 8y ago
One feature I like is the LCD displays for passengers, which (supposedly) show what the Waymo car is "thinking". So if the car stops unexpectedly, the display might show, "waiting for a crossing pedestrian". Ideally with a simple map diagram of what's around the vehicle.
- munificent 8y ago
  This is both really cool, and really smart strategically. I'm sure the Waymo folks know that one of the largest barriers to success for automated vehicles is public perception and fear. Each time a rider rides in one of these, they get a beautifully rendered window into the car's brain, which helps build the trust needed to sell the technology.
- matt_kantor 8y ago
  For anyone like me who hadn't seen these displays, there are some photos in this article: http://www.thedrive.com/tech/23280/a-first-ride-in-waymos-self-driving-car-prototype-dont-blame-google-for-playing-autonomy-safe http://www.thedrive.com/tech/23280/a-first-ride-in-waymos-se...
a-wu 8y ago
I can’t wait for wheelchair accessible vehicles to be equipped with this technology. It looks like they’re using Chrysler Pacificas which already have wheelchair ramp conversions from VMI and Braun. Since the self driving equipment seems to be on the top of the vehicle, it seems trivial to mount it on a converted Pacifica. As a quadriplegic who doesn’t drive (yet), the possibilities with this excite me greatly.
- buboard 8y ago
  Yeah i was hoping that waymo would make those a priority. It's a small market for smaller companies to invest in, but it should be very successful.
  - a-wu 8y ago
    It would be huge for the wheelchair using community because while there's UberWAV and LyftAssist, those are contingent on someone owning a wheelchair accessible vehicle to start, which is rare. Uber is starting to partner with local paratransit companies but rollout is slow and doesn't offer great availability. A big advantage I can see with wheelchair accessible Waymos is that once they're comfortable running them without supervision, a wheelchair user could call them at all hours. Right now it's really hard to request paratransit service after-hours so my social life is pretty much restricted to daytime hours unless I have someone to drive my converted van.
  - nashashmi 8y ago
    Could significantly impact the paratransit industry. I know those to be government subsidized here in the northeast. If those subsidies were offered to self-driving vehicles, it could help a startup not only establish itself but also begin to compete with Uber/Waymo giants. Which got me recalling, I believe there is a self-driving startup dedicated to helping the elderly get around.
- creato 8y ago
  > It looks like they’re using Chrysler Pacificas which already have wheelchair ramp conversions from VMI and Braun. How common is this for other makes/models? If it is rare, I wonder if it influenced Google's choice of vehicle?
whyaduck 8y ago
Is the NDA preventing pictures, video, or even discussion of the service in effect for paying customers?
aresant 8y ago
What zip codes is the trial / beta accepting? I'm in AZ often enough that I'd love to try it out for purely experiential reasons.
Animats 8y ago
"At first, Waymo-trained drivers will supervise our Waymo One vehicles." That's about where they've been for years now - almost autonomous, with a safety driver. Back in November, Waymo started sending some cars out without a safety driver. But they backed off on that.[1] I'm disappointed. I thought Waymo was ready to launch a real self-driving system. But no, not yet. [1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/waymos-cars-play-it-safer-after-incidents-and-driver-fatigue https://www.theinformation.com/articles/waymos-cars-play-it-...
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  According to the article on the verge, they are testing and will continue testing without human drivers via the Early Rider program.
  - oldgradstudent 8y ago
    Arstechnica[1] asked about it and Waymo did not deny: > In fact, last week the Information's Amir Efrati reported that Waymo may actually have moved backward recently. > "Within the past month or so, due to concerns about safety, the Alphabet company put so-called safety drivers back behind the wheel of its most advanced prototypes, ending a year-long period in which those people generally sat in the passenger or back seat," Efrati wrote. > We asked Waymo about this, and a spokesperson dismissed the report as nothing new, saying that the company regularly changes the mix of cars with and without safety drivers. [1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/12/waymos-ambitious-plans-for-high-speed-taxis-could-be-holding-it-back/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/12/waymos-ambitious-plans-...
notatoad 8y ago
I'm confused as to what they're actually launching here. If i'm reading correctly, their existing service which was branded as an "early rider" program has been renamed to "waymo one", but the service hasn't actually changed at all and is still limited to the same region and to existing users of the early rider program?
- Skunkleton 8y ago
  Maybe they will start charging money?
  - notatoad 8y ago
    ah, that's probably it. it does seem like they're charging now, i didn't realize they weren't before.
zaroth 8y ago
I’m surprised to see, after what happened to Uber — the failure of their safety driver to stay engaged enough to stop the car before striking a pedestrian — that a safety driver who will be mostly disengaged from the driving experience is still thought to add an appropriate safety margin?
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  I'm surprised to see them use a location for the article's main photo that's right down the street from where Uber's robocar hit that lady. The bridge in the background is the actual street where it happened and the accident site is not very far from there, couple hundred meters maybe?
- gpm 8y ago
  Waymo has been driving without safety drivers for awhile though, so it appears not to really be a safety margin thing at this point.
ajennings 8y ago
It is interesting that the main photo on that article seems to be taken about 200 yards from where the Uber accident happened in Tempe, AZ.
tonyquart 8y ago
I have read a little bit about this topic at https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accident-injury-lawyers-attorneys/ https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accid.... I think it's interesting to talk about this future tech. However, I personally won't risk myself to ride inside one of these prototype. It needs to be 99% safe before I would by one of it.

327 points by yarapavan 8y ago

gniv 8y ago

The link at the bottom of that article is pointing to another Medium post with details of the launch: https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164c5c0e https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164... Notably, "At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise our vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience." Edit: Re-reading my comment, it sounds negative, so I want to acknowledge that I think this is a big deal. No matter how "soft" this launch, it's still a historic moment.

jbob2000 8y ago
Mark these words, "At the start", because we'll be hearing them for the next 10 years until Waymo closes up shop. That they are going to market with drivers in the car means that the business has pivoted from "can we do driverless taxi" to "can we make money as uber-but-with-employees". The next announcement from Waymo will be that they are cutting staff "mostly from R&D". The announcement after that will be that they are opening up the Waymo app for anyone to be a driver. The announcement after that will be that they are closing up shop or being sold to Uber.
- TotempaaltJ 8y ago
  You realize those drivers won't actually be driving most of the time, right?
  - jbob2000 8y ago
    Doesn't matter, it's not self-driving if you need a driver. And when that driver takes control of the vehicle away from the AI, it's going to be at a startling and dangerous moment when the AI makes a really bad decision, like directing the car towards a barrier or a stopped bus.
    - GeorgeO84 8y ago
      If the driver has large uneventful periods of time where he/she has nothing to do. He/she will not react in time for an emergency.
      - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
        If the software driver is bad enough that the safety driver will feel compelled to pay attention at all times but not quite take control unless the car does something actually warranting it. It'll be like teaching a 16yo to drive but without them actually getting better (because the software will need to be tuned to keep the driver on edge). Doing it that way is kind of a backhanded approach but it would force the backup driver to pay attention.
        lolc 8y ago
        Worst of both worlds!
- pliny 8y ago
  That's a prediction, but why do you think that's how it'll turn out?
  - jbob2000 8y ago
    The news would be different. This news item is focused around the driver and safety. They are slowly changing their messaging from being about self-driving to being about safe-driving. They can't come out right away and say "guys we failed at self driving, it doesn't work", that would tank the personal careers of everyone important in the company. They have to slowly move the needle away from self driving, and then they'll give us the bomb drop, "we could only build better safety systems, not self-driving systems" and nobody will care because they are happy with safe-driving. If they truly had self-driving tech, they'd be doubling down on that with their messaging. Not only to let everyone know there's a new sheriff in town (bye Uber!), but also to let their competitor's know to start their death clocks.
    - yholio 8y ago
      > They can't come out right away and say "guys we failed at self driving, it doesn't work", that would tank the personal careers of everyone important in the company. That's exactly what would happen if a newly developed product killed some people. A human assisted rollout is a cautious strategy that allows them to learn in the real world without exposing their massive R&D investment to the fate of Uber's.
    - malcolmwhite 8y ago
      Waymo used "self-driving" in the article's title and twice in its first sentence, literally doubling down with that messaging.
      - jbob2000 8y ago
        No, that's part of the strategy of shifting the messaging: Use both phrases together so people associate them, and then slowly drop the phrase that you want to go away.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  Mark these words. In 10 years time we'll still be hearing the same comments about Waymo & their competitors because there still will be certain combinations of passenger, route & conditions that Waymo will refuse to take without a safety driver along. But since Waymo will handle the vast majority of rides we'll just tune out those comments. Handling all rides & conditions is a very hard problem and it'll take decades to solve. But scaling from "a few" to "most" is a much easier problem and one that I have confidence that Waymo will achieve. And "most" can be very useful & profitable.
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    I assume we're talking about city driving. I'm not sure about the USA, but being in Europe, the average speed my car says I go is 28.5 km/h. Do you think we could not solve traffic for 10 years if we slowed cars down to 30 km/h? With assumption being that a city-wide driverless system would easily 'swim' through the city without encountering red lights or slowdowns due to unpredictiveness of other drivers. We could even tolerate a little bit more errors because accidents would not be harmful too much.
    - bryanlarsen 8y ago
      I'm a big fan of Sweden's Project Zero, one leg of which is setting and enforcing a speed limit of 30 km/h on any road or street without fully separated pedestrian & cycle infrastructure. I don't know if self-driving will help accomplish this everywhere, but I'd be ecstatic if it did. > We could even tolerate a little bit more errors because accidents would not be harmful too much. instead of "harmful too much" you can simply use "fatal". 30km/h is a pretty magic value: below that speed pedestrian collisions are very rarely fatal. Serious perhaps, but not fatal. Above that speed they are often fatal.
      - njarboe 8y ago
        About the speed of a sprinting human, unsurprisingly.
- Isamu 8y ago
  >until Waymo closes up shop Maybe if this was Microsoft, and Waymo was the Zune. Alphabet has given it some 9 years just to get to this soft launch, I think they have the patience to see it through. There is enough money and interest in this space internationally that I'd give it some time.
TotempaaltJ 8y ago
From what I can tell, they won't actually be driving most of the time.
Fricken 8y ago
The milestone to mark is the day when you or I can, at least theoretically, download the the fricken app and request a ride in an autonomous vehicle that has no safety driver.
- anticensor 8y ago
  That car would probably be called Windows Car (not to be confused with your car's windows), stop irregularly at weird places to allow for mandatory updates, and report your height and weight to Microsoft.
  - GeorgeO84 8y ago
    Critical Update. You have 2 minutes to close all the windows and leave the car.
    - c2h5oh 8y ago
      More like "critical update is being installed" signaled by the car hitting the breaks hard until full stop in the middle of a highway.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - beamatronic 8y ago
        You would be sailing along at highway speeds and the steering would stop responding for a few minutes.
        anticensor 8y ago
        I also thought of that, but it is a very dangerous failure mode for a car. EDIT: -silly \r\n +dangerous
        GeorgeO84 8y ago
        Wait! After several users complains (the ones that survived), they've "fixed" it. Now you can "choose" a "12 hour range" where this can happen.
dzhiurgis 8y ago
They are not even taking new customers either. They are just going to start charging existing 400 users. That's the only difference of this "launch".

talawahdotnet 8y ago

> Waymo One is rolling out in the Metro Phoenix area first. Over time, we hope to expand to new places and more people. You can sign up to express interest using the form at the bottom of this page[1] (asks for your gmail address, zip code and type of phone). P.S. Why is the mobile experience on Medium so frustratingly bad? Between the permanent heading plus the "please download our app" heading I find it maddening. I also find the UX around reading comments to be unnecessarily confusing. 1. https://waymo.com https://waymo.com

spuz 8y ago
Don't worry, Medium on desktop is equally bad. Two persistent banners bottom and top plus a "pardon the interruption" popup. I really wish companies wouldn't use Medium as their blogging platform.
- bertil 8y ago
  I’m guessing it would be possible to block those with uBlock Origin, or an equivalent software.
- kuroguro 8y ago
  The web annoyances ultralist really helps :) https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances
- luhn 8y ago
  It's also started pushing entries into my browser history as I scroll past headings, stopping my back button from doing what I expect. Really gets my goat.
- buboard 8y ago
  but do you know we have cookies? And now please, would you like some tracking before proceeding to marvel at our giant header and footer flanking 3KB of plaintext?
Angostura 8y ago
> Why is the mobile experience on Medium Because they really want you to: "please download our app". See also, Reddit

11thEarlOfMar 8y ago

I know this is a heated debate, but it's interesting to see the divergent approaches that are being taken to achieve self driving. In one corner, it's lidar-based, equipping vehicles produced by other companies, organically and incrementally growing the navigation technology. In the other, it's video-based with now 100s of thousands of vehicles feeding data to a massive neural net. Each has very well thought-out arguments for the approach they are taking, and I expect that both would ultimately 'work' by reducing the inherent risks of taking a car ride by a substantial amount (90%?). I think the winner will be the one who gets to that milestone soonest. It's entertaining to watch.

krona 8y ago
You forgot radar. Most startups are using a combination of all the perception approaches, especially vehicle manufacturers.
Shivetya 8y ago
While I own a TM3 I have little faith in their full self driving solution and did not opt for that. I did take the enhanced auto pilot and recent additions show how much more work it will take. An example would be that it now shows different vehicle types and even pedestrians near you yet when all surround objects are obviously not moving it still has them moving on the display. It still has issues with certain bridges and apparently it is hard coded disabled around certain bridges to the point there are videos of it not recognizing a merging semi. with regards to Waymo's solution, I am concerned that it should have something in the driver's seat. I don't care if its a Total Recall "Jiffy Cab" type solution. not so much for the riders but for those who are also sharing the same road be that other vehicles or pedestrians. Something that clearly indicates it is under control.
- rbowlby83 8y ago
  Perhaps that blowup pilot from Airplane?
WhompingWindows 8y ago
Definitely entertaining to watch, I agree heartily. I don't agree that whoever gets there first will be the winner. As we see with Waymo one, it's quite probable that there will be a limited roll-out of features/locations, such that it'll be much like these electric scooters: available in some places, but not others. The roll-out should be much slower in winter months and in places with inclement weather, however I see no reason that warm/dry places couldn't expect to see a big roll-out in the next decade. Phoenix is the beginning for Waymo, what about Tucson, Dallas, Houston, Miami, San Diego, etc? Whereas, with Tesla, we'll likely see features rolling out slowly over time, an incremental push towards FSD, with owners being responsible for safety monitoring their own vehicle.

bertil 8y ago

They announced a change of brand a month ago. I guess adding “One” at the end of the existing name counts, and I like the implication that they want to communicate clearly on phases of the project but… Was it worth announcing a brand change? I feel like I’m missing something.

zerealshadowban 8y ago
Logically, we should expect them to launch a Waymo Two service (or Zero!?) -- and so the relevant question is: what will be different about it?
bryanlarsen 8y ago
They promised a public launch by the end of the year, and they're delivering on their promise even if there are no substantive changes.
- bertil 8y ago
  Absolutely — and given the potential global growth of the service, committing and delivering on a schedule is a promising sign. I was just puzzled by the added information that they would change the brand: they didn’t need to (and they haven’t, not really).
- Fricken 8y ago
  It isn't public, randos in Chandler can't download the app and take a ride, they need to be approved as members of the easy rider program. Waymo has lifted their NDAs, so now they can talk openly about their experiences.
danvoell 8y ago
Felt the exact same way. Why add the One? Did something really change and is there a difference between Waymo and Waymo One? Just confusing folks.
pavelrub 8y ago
I'm not sure I understand. What brand change? Wyamo is the name of the company. Waymo One is the name of the service they are launching.

bertil 8y ago

We still do not have much clarity on the price point. The screenshot (see gniv’s link) shows that a 24-min ride could cost around $8, with an apparent 20% rebate. I suspect that they won’t try to under-cut Uber too dramatically but the long-term costs are bound to be much lower if you don’t need to pay a driver. That illustrative price seems to match this. They certainly have copied Uber’s focus on identifying the best pick-up and drop-off based on many factors, notably road setup. I’m less sure about child seats: their copy and photo seem to imply that there are infant raisers. However, it would be unusual to have those in every car. I’m not seeing a way to indicate that you want one in the interface, and presumably, that’s a request per journey, not an account permanent status. People have suggested advertising but I’m not seeing any of it in the screenshot, nor do I expect to see it any time soon, until their model has imposed itself.

coffeedrinker 8y ago
I expect the funding model for self driving taxis will be like validated parking. You ride free (or reduced) if you spend $x at whatever business, shopping mall, etc.
- c22 8y ago
  Shouldn't it be enough that the taxi will only drive to one of the businesses that has sponsored it?
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Why though? Even in places with cheap labor (so cheap drivers), they still don’t have things like that, taxis are just cheaper.
  - coffeedrinker 8y ago
    Because if I'm Safeway and I can get elderly people to come to my business (for shopping, prescriptions, etc.) they won't be shopping somewhere else. The business gains/retains the clientele by providing the driving service.

vyrotek 8y ago

Super excited to try it soon. I've been watching them test their vehicles around our office in Tempe all year. Hoping to take one to lunch one day.

spiderPig 8y ago

RIP Uber.

cromwellian 8y ago

Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice. IMHO, to do less would be reckless showboating that could do unimaginable damage to the AV industry, as well as end up endangering lives. In the tech industry, we don't like to wait, we like moving fast, taking risks, shipping MVPs, learning by shipping, etc. And for the next great Camera filter app, perhaps that makes sense, but not for cars, planes, or medical equipment.

rsync 8y ago
"Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice." A whole year! Truly sage-like wisdom from the MoveFastBreakThings generation of technical development. It is simultaneously comical, exasperating and sad to watch this tragedy unfold. We will slowly build our own, modern Deuteronomy - instead of forbidding the consumption of shellfish or stipulating gifts for former slaves, ours will talk about agency and skin-in-the-game and aligned incentives ... Meanwhile, there will be a multi year (decade ?) period of experimentation where we will all be terrified as we drive at highway speeds and another vehicle approaches that road at a right-angle. Currently, I know what that vehicle will do, because all other choices lead to death-of-driver. But in this near (and short lived) future, that other vehicle could do anything.
- sanarothe 8y ago
  Having recently trusted that intuition and nearly being T boned, human drivers can currently do anything...
- njarboe 8y ago
  I'm not sure where you live but in my country (USA, where these companies you are mocking operate) when a vehicle approaches the road and I am going highway speed, I get a bit nervous, cover the brake, and feel a nice sense of relaxing stress when I pass by. That other vehicle could do anything. 40,000 deaths a year and over a million world wide.

brianbreslin 8y ago

I hope they roll this out in Miami soon. Miami has some of the laxest AV regulations in the country. Also would happily pay to not drive in this mess every day.

asdkhadsj 8y ago
As excited as I am for self driving, it makes me sad that I get car/motion sick. I can't exploit self driving to do laptop work, reading, gaming, etc without getting sick - all I can do is sleep basically lol. It will be bittersweet in a self driving car realizing that since I don't have to pay attention, I can do so much more with my time!.. and then promptly stare out the window for an hour.
- DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago
  Try audiobooks or podcasts! Listen with a soundtrack. You won’t regret it.
- organsnyder 8y ago
  Not sure how common this is, but I was able to improve my resistance to motion sickness by incrementally doing more reading (interspersed with breaks) over a period of a couple of years that I commuted by bus.
- 83457 8y ago
  Is it the motion or seeing movement out of your peripheral vision?
  - nashashmi 8y ago
    As someone who has experienced both, it is the sudden unexpected movements that cause motion sickness. And if I am tired, my mind cannot coordinate between the movement I see to the movement I feel. And now I realize that in the first case, it is a personality issue where if I am stubborn/stiff/unyielding, I will get annoyed at unexpected movements. I find this to be true also with my wife :D
  - 8y ago

drewvolpe 8y ago

Does anyone know if each of these has a remote operator as, I believe, the ones in CA do?

lawrenceyan 8y ago

“Fares are based on time and distance, and customers can expect fares to be roughly on par with what you'd pay for an Uber or Lyft trip—perhaps even a bit lower. The above Waymo-provided screenshot shows a customer booking this trip, which is 4.6 miles long and takes about 12 minutes. Waymo charges $7.32 for the trip. I punched the same route into Lyft and Uber aps on Tuesday afternoon and got quotes of $8.29 and $9.38, respectively.”

russdill 8y ago
And there's absolutely no pressure to tip.

Tempest1981 8y ago

One feature I like is the LCD displays for passengers, which (supposedly) show what the Waymo car is "thinking". So if the car stops unexpectedly, the display might show, "waiting for a crossing pedestrian". Ideally with a simple map diagram of what's around the vehicle.

munificent 8y ago
This is both really cool, and really smart strategically. I'm sure the Waymo folks know that one of the largest barriers to success for automated vehicles is public perception and fear. Each time a rider rides in one of these, they get a beautifully rendered window into the car's brain, which helps build the trust needed to sell the technology.
matt_kantor 8y ago
For anyone like me who hadn't seen these displays, there are some photos in this article: http://www.thedrive.com/tech/23280/a-first-ride-in-waymos-self-driving-car-prototype-dont-blame-google-for-playing-autonomy-safe http://www.thedrive.com/tech/23280/a-first-ride-in-waymos-se...

a-wu 8y ago

I can’t wait for wheelchair accessible vehicles to be equipped with this technology. It looks like they’re using Chrysler Pacificas which already have wheelchair ramp conversions from VMI and Braun. Since the self driving equipment seems to be on the top of the vehicle, it seems trivial to mount it on a converted Pacifica. As a quadriplegic who doesn’t drive (yet), the possibilities with this excite me greatly.

buboard 8y ago
Yeah i was hoping that waymo would make those a priority. It's a small market for smaller companies to invest in, but it should be very successful.
- a-wu 8y ago
  It would be huge for the wheelchair using community because while there's UberWAV and LyftAssist, those are contingent on someone owning a wheelchair accessible vehicle to start, which is rare. Uber is starting to partner with local paratransit companies but rollout is slow and doesn't offer great availability. A big advantage I can see with wheelchair accessible Waymos is that once they're comfortable running them without supervision, a wheelchair user could call them at all hours. Right now it's really hard to request paratransit service after-hours so my social life is pretty much restricted to daytime hours unless I have someone to drive my converted van.
- nashashmi 8y ago
  Could significantly impact the paratransit industry. I know those to be government subsidized here in the northeast. If those subsidies were offered to self-driving vehicles, it could help a startup not only establish itself but also begin to compete with Uber/Waymo giants. Which got me recalling, I believe there is a self-driving startup dedicated to helping the elderly get around.
creato 8y ago
> It looks like they’re using Chrysler Pacificas which already have wheelchair ramp conversions from VMI and Braun. How common is this for other makes/models? If it is rare, I wonder if it influenced Google's choice of vehicle?

whyaduck 8y ago

Is the NDA preventing pictures, video, or even discussion of the service in effect for paying customers?

aresant 8y ago

What zip codes is the trial / beta accepting? I'm in AZ often enough that I'd love to try it out for purely experiential reasons.

Animats 8y ago

"At first, Waymo-trained drivers will supervise our Waymo One vehicles." That's about where they've been for years now - almost autonomous, with a safety driver. Back in November, Waymo started sending some cars out without a safety driver. But they backed off on that.[1] I'm disappointed. I thought Waymo was ready to launch a real self-driving system. But no, not yet. [1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/waymos-cars-play-it-safer-after-incidents-and-driver-fatigue https://www.theinformation.com/articles/waymos-cars-play-it-...

bryanlarsen 8y ago
According to the article on the verge, they are testing and will continue testing without human drivers via the Early Rider program.
- oldgradstudent 8y ago
  Arstechnica[1] asked about it and Waymo did not deny: > In fact, last week the Information's Amir Efrati reported that Waymo may actually have moved backward recently. > "Within the past month or so, due to concerns about safety, the Alphabet company put so-called safety drivers back behind the wheel of its most advanced prototypes, ending a year-long period in which those people generally sat in the passenger or back seat," Efrati wrote. > We asked Waymo about this, and a spokesperson dismissed the report as nothing new, saying that the company regularly changes the mix of cars with and without safety drivers. [1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/12/waymos-ambitious-plans-for-high-speed-taxis-could-be-holding-it-back/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/12/waymos-ambitious-plans-...

notatoad 8y ago

I'm confused as to what they're actually launching here. If i'm reading correctly, their existing service which was branded as an "early rider" program has been renamed to "waymo one", but the service hasn't actually changed at all and is still limited to the same region and to existing users of the early rider program?

Skunkleton 8y ago
Maybe they will start charging money?
- notatoad 8y ago
  ah, that's probably it. it does seem like they're charging now, i didn't realize they weren't before.

zaroth 8y ago

I’m surprised to see, after what happened to Uber — the failure of their safety driver to stay engaged enough to stop the car before striking a pedestrian — that a safety driver who will be mostly disengaged from the driving experience is still thought to add an appropriate safety margin?

UncleEntity 8y ago
I'm surprised to see them use a location for the article's main photo that's right down the street from where Uber's robocar hit that lady. The bridge in the background is the actual street where it happened and the accident site is not very far from there, couple hundred meters maybe?
gpm 8y ago
Waymo has been driving without safety drivers for awhile though, so it appears not to really be a safety margin thing at this point.

ajennings 8y ago

It is interesting that the main photo on that article seems to be taken about 200 yards from where the Uber accident happened in Tempe, AZ.

tonyquart 8y ago

I have read a little bit about this topic at https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accident-injury-lawyers-attorneys/ https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accid.... I think it's interesting to talk about this future tech. However, I personally won't risk myself to ride inside one of these prototype. It needs to be 99% safe before I would by one of it.