7 ms·

people asked the same thing about facebook in 2008

anonytrary 7y ago
Facebook in 2008 had a singularity of users, so people were more comfortable with the answer.
celeritascelery 7y ago
Facebook was started by one college kid 4 years prior. Waymo has had the resources of one of the largest companies in the world for the last 10 years.
- Ragib_Zaman 7y ago
  And their core goal of truly autonomous vehicles is a technical challenge that at this point seems like it will take at least several years more than what they originally thought 3 years ago. Their situation is not similar to FB in 2008 at all.
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Even if they overcome this the bigger question is whether the market opportunity is worth the R&D costs, and whether or not bulky self driving vehicles are the best and most lucrative solution to mass transit.
    - kendallpark 7y ago
      Speaking of market opportunity, are there SDVs being tested in outside of California and Arizona? The rest of the US gets its fair share of rain, snow, and ice. Even if the Bay Area can manage self-driving cars, when would we expect a rollout in places like Minneapolis or Boston?
      - tsimionescu 7y ago
        I think the CEO of Waymo has already said that that driving in bad weather is likely much farther away.
        bart_spoon 7y ago
        That seems like a huge problem. Even places with idyllic weather like California can have bad days. I'm skeptical of anything purporting to be a revolution in transportation when it will largely limited to a few select areas and is prone to catastrophic failure based on something as common as snow or rain.
      - jeffreygoesto 7y ago
        Or Mumbai? Or Jakarta?
        Godel_unicode 7y ago
        Even if the answer there is "never", so what? Do we really need to set the bar at "replace all vehicles everywhere in all situations" for it to be a success?
        chrischen 7y ago
        No but there is an opportunity cost to the research on self-driving that could potentially be spent on other methods that seem less cool.
        kevingadd 7y ago
        It becomes much harder to justify buying a self-driving car if there are many parts of the country where I can't drive it. Even a mid-tier sedan can be driven all the way up the west coast from southern california to Seattle as long as you have chains and wait for the pass to be open. Waymo's cars are designed to not even have steering wheels, last time I checked...
        7y ago

Facebook in 2008 had a singularity of users, so people were more comfortable with the answer.

Facebook was started by one college kid 4 years prior. Waymo has had the resources of one of the largest companies in the world for the last 10 years.

Ragib_Zaman 7y ago
And their core goal of truly autonomous vehicles is a technical challenge that at this point seems like it will take at least several years more than what they originally thought 3 years ago. Their situation is not similar to FB in 2008 at all.
- chrischen 7y ago
  Even if they overcome this the bigger question is whether the market opportunity is worth the R&D costs, and whether or not bulky self driving vehicles are the best and most lucrative solution to mass transit.
  - kendallpark 7y ago
    Speaking of market opportunity, are there SDVs being tested in outside of California and Arizona? The rest of the US gets its fair share of rain, snow, and ice. Even if the Bay Area can manage self-driving cars, when would we expect a rollout in places like Minneapolis or Boston?
    - tsimionescu 7y ago
      I think the CEO of Waymo has already said that that driving in bad weather is likely much farther away.
      - bart_spoon 7y ago
        That seems like a huge problem. Even places with idyllic weather like California can have bad days. I'm skeptical of anything purporting to be a revolution in transportation when it will largely limited to a few select areas and is prone to catastrophic failure based on something as common as snow or rain.
    - jeffreygoesto 7y ago
      Or Mumbai? Or Jakarta?
      - Godel_unicode 7y ago
        Even if the answer there is "never", so what? Do we really need to set the bar at "replace all vehicles everywhere in all situations" for it to be a success?
        chrischen 7y ago
        No but there is an opportunity cost to the research on self-driving that could potentially be spent on other methods that seem less cool.
        kevingadd 7y ago
        It becomes much harder to justify buying a self-driving car if there are many parts of the country where I can't drive it. Even a mid-tier sedan can be driven all the way up the west coast from southern california to Seattle as long as you have chains and wait for the pass to be open. Waymo's cars are designed to not even have steering wheels, last time I checked...
        7y ago