17 ms·

Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

263 points by klintcho 6y ago

Judgmentality 6y ago
https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-driverless.html https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr... > We’ll start with those who are already a part of Waymo One and, over the next several weeks, welcome more people directly into the service through our app So...this is just an extension of what they currently do where it's not really open to the public? Waymo One is something you have to apply for and almost nobody gets in. It's not clear to me what "welcome more people directly into the service through our app" means. Waymo is terrible at PR. I can't even tell what they're trying to say here. But there is no date. There is no definitive statement. It's just another vague press release about how they're going driverless "soon"
- jkinudsjknds 6y ago
  Sounds pretty clear to me that you can download the app and, in several weeks, be allowed to use the service?
- jowday 6y ago
  They state the date pretty clearly in the article. >Beginning today, October 8, we’re excited to open up our fully driverless offering to Waymo One riders. Members of the public service can now take friends and family along on their rides and share their experience with the world.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    "Members of the public service" is different than "members of the public". This is still a closed beta. But now it seems you are allowed to have your friends along for the ride. I wonder if these friends and family persons are subject to any NDA.
    - jowday 6y ago
      Sure, I was addressing the date specifically.
    - neil_s 6y ago
      > "I wonder if these friends and family persons are subject to any NDA" According to the article: "take friends and family along on their rides and share their experience with the world"
    - polishTar 6y ago
      Waymo One doesn't use NDAs and users are allowed to bring friends with them, but Waymo also has an "early rider" program that's more restrictive and does use NDAs.
      - Ajedi32 6y ago
        Correct. This article is about "fully driverless" rides (rides with no safety driver present) graduating from their experimental "Early Rider Program" (which includes a small group of people under NDAs) to their public "Waymo One" service (which is a commercial service which requires no NDAs, but still has rather limited availability for now). Waymo One has been shut down for a while now due to COVID, but now that driverless rides are an option they're re-opening the service with 100% fully driverless rides. Once they get around to installing barriers between the driver and passenger seats they plan to go back to most rides having a safety driver, but with some smaller percentage of Waymo One rides continuing to be fully driverless.
  - fullshark 6y ago
    So Waymo One riders can now get a ride without a safety driver if they want to? Sounds like the OP has a point.
- nemonemo 6y ago
  > We expect our new fully driverless service to be very popular, and we’re thankful to our riders for their patience as we ramp up availability to serve demand. I think this explains the reasoning behind the gradual ramp-up. Even at the product launch like new iPhones, the demand is difficult to estimate, so IMO it seems more responsible to give a reasonable expectation to the public like this, than just saying bravely "the service is fully public from today". I think the take-away from this announcement is their commitment for wider rollout over time from this point on.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    Nope. It's a poor press release because that is not what "general public" means. You shouldn't have to analyze the takeaways of what Waymo really meant when they used the extremely common phrase "general public."
    - 8ytecoder 6y ago
      Yup, “available to general public” or “generally available” in product terms usually mean anyone can go sign up for it.
    - dang 6y ago
      Ok, we've shrunk the general public to "more people" in the title above.
- lhorie 6y ago
  Would it be too cynical to assume this whole thing is going to get shutdown after a few years due to failing to gain enough traction (due to people being wary of Google's track record of doing so with their in-google properties)?
  - vkou 6y ago
    Do you really care about the longevity of the taxi company whose cars you are riding in? Half the time, I don't even know which company that is. Or the longevity of the particular farm from which your grocery's tomatoes have been sourced from? This isn't e-mail. The cost and hassle of switching to a competing service is nearly zero.
    - lhorie 6y ago
      > Do you really care about the longevity of the taxi company whose cars you are riding in? I mean, look at McDonalds and Coca-Cola, for example. I'm skeptical about the idea that simply having the SDV technology somehow also translates to being in a leadership position in terms of regulation, customer support, branding/marketing/being-installed-on-peoples-phones, etc etc. Uber already had to fight uphill regarding regulation in many places so it definitely has some moat now (see, e.g. Uber and Ola in London). Waymo is on completely uncharted territory, regulation-wise. I'm also curious about how the economics and logistics will play out. One criticism of existing ride sharing is not accounting for vehicle depreciation and wear and tear (and this on mass produced vehicles). Waymo vehicles have a lot more expensive technology on board, so I'm curious how that balances out in terms of lidar/etc shelf-life + specialized tech inspections vs ROI. Also, cost of switching goes both ways. If this forces the hand of the other players to roll out SDV (via Cruise partnerships for example), Waymo doesn't necessarily stand to dominate the market, since it's already so crowded w/ well-funded/well-positioned players from all sorts of directions.
      - petra 6y ago
        Yes. There are other important factors. But at least for the next few years, technology is the barrier. So Google can partner with Lyft, for example, to get a good brand, app, customer service, regulation, etc. But on top of that, the brand in this market is the promise "our cars are safe". Google is in a distinct place to own that, because of all the press they had, they press they will have, and by really leading technologically. As for this being a commodity ? I believe we're really far from that.
- wetpaws 6y ago
  Pretty sure this is intentional. Waymo had an insane (decades) head start in regards to self driving technology and was notably quiet about it. While Uber and other folks are all boasting about their self driving project and collecting the lion share of controversy and unwanted attention, waymo is quietly, step by step, heading towards it's total dominance, staying completely off the radar.
  - nmstoker 6y ago
    I think you're spot on here. Whilst I suspect they've a long way to go, it seems likely to mirror the situation Google had with early search growth where the more they had people use it the better it got, quickly feeding a cycle the competitors could not compete with.
    - jliptzin 6y ago
      Tesla?
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - dzhiurgis 6y ago
    > staying completely off the radar. *off the LIDAR.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
coolspot 6y ago
In metro Phoenix only, but still a step up from “by invitation only”.
- nwsm 6y ago
  I don't think it will even be close to general availability in Phoenix.
wartijn_ 6y ago
Direct link to the announcement: https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-driverless.html?m=1 https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr...
nsgi 6y ago
Why did their group of early riders need to be under NDA?
- tych0 6y ago
  Presumably in case the car did something weird/bad, so they wouldn't tell anyone.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  Given Waymo was recently the victim of a high-profile case of IP theft used to start a competitor, I imagine they’re being vigilant on this front.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    You think passengers would make off with the IP?
- RivieraKid 6y ago
  To protect against bad PR.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  on the flip side, if you can find enough riders that are willing to sign one, why not?
oh_sigh 6y ago
Is Phoenix because self driving cars can't handle any kind of inclement weather? Or is there some other reason to choose Phoenix over Denver or Milwaukee?
- jpm_sd 6y ago
  Both the geophysical climate and the regulatory climate are favorable in AZ. https://azdot.gov/motor-vehicles/professional-services/autonomous-vehicles-testing-and-operating-state-arizona https://azdot.gov/motor-vehicles/professional-services/auton...
  - kfarr 6y ago
    And the roadways are homogenous with relatively new, large simple grids enabling large roadways, clear signage and striping, etc. Unlike a dense complicated old grid style city.
    - dmd 6y ago
      Or, say, Boston. https://i2.wp.com/geoffboeing.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/manhattan-boston-street-network-orientation.jpg?ssl=1 https://i2.wp.com/geoffboeing.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09...
- duffpkg 6y ago
  Arizona in general and the metro phoenix area have extraordinarily diligent road maintenance. Surface street speeds are higher and larger road sizes are also very favorable for something like robot cars.
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  Phoenix has a TON of retired and disabled residents who can't or shouldn't drive (spread out over suburbs), so it was easy to get political support for comfortable transit options that improve their mobility (and don't cost the city anything).
  - 6y ago
almost_usual 6y ago
So the self-driving argument has always been winner take all. Does this mean competitors now have an existential threat unless they catch up immediately? I’m thinking Uber, Lyft, Cruise, etc.
- angryasian 6y ago
  I always thought it was pretty clear that Waymo wanted to license out the tech.
holidayacct 6y ago
I know everyone loves the idea of self-driving cars but the reality of self-driving cars is really ugly. We need repetitions driving vehicles in order to operate them effectively. If you don't have enough repetitions driving a vehicle when something goes wrong you're not going to be able to operate the vehicle at all. Furthermore, I'm skeptical that driverless vehicles can factor in all the ways in which someone might maliciously cause accidents or damage to these vehicles. I want to see what happens when someone figures out how to provide false input to the sensors on the vehicle.
- twmahna 6y ago
  >> I'm skeptical that driverless vehicles can factor in all the ways in which someone might maliciously cause accidents or damage to these vehicles You're probably right, but as long as it doesn't happen frequently and there's no way to mislead sensors en masse, it's not a big deal. There are malicious ways to cause accidents with current-day technologies also. e.g. Park a car in front of a train, fly a drone into a plane, etc.
- angryasian 6y ago
  I don't buy this repetitions argument at all. A computer and machine learning go through billions of driving scenarios more than any human could if the data is available.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    I think they are worried about driving skill atrophying among the human population if they ride exclusively in FSD vehicles.
dougmwne 6y ago
Pretty misleading title, but I think this is not an expansion of Waymo to the general public, but a getting rid of the safety drivers for some people participating in the closed-invite only preview but no longer under NDA. Seems like another incremental step forward. Google turned off the PR firehouse on Waymo over the past year, so I think many were starting to think the tech had hit a wall and wasn't ever going to be able to get rid of the safety driver. I suppose this makes me cautiously optimistic. I don't think self driving needs to handle all roads in all conditions to be economically useful.
- actuator 6y ago
  I am looking forward to Waymo Via. From an economic profitability standpoint, that looks like the best option at this time.
adenozine 6y ago
This is easily the most outrageous title ever to be on HN. Jesus, this is just so blatantly overreaching.
advisedwang 6y ago
What is the actual advantage to consumers over an Uber? Novelty will wear off, and so to survive Waymo will actually need to be better in some way. Can anyone in Phoenix answer if Waymo is cheaper? Is Waymo hoping people will choose Waymo for safety?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  I mean, if they can make this work well then you cut out the driver - which is very cost-saving. It also lets you a. optimize exactly where cars are driving to maximize ride share revenue, b. have the cars ready to pick someone up 24/7. It's going to be a much more efficient use of car capital than hiring a person to drive it.
  - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
    But it's a very different business model to ride share, which is based on externalising the costs of the car to the drivers.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      I agree that it is a very different model, but it's a bit much to say that externalizing car repair costs is what the business model of Uber/Lyft is "based on"
      - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        Dunno if you'll see this, but when I made my comment, this link was much of my source: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/29/1556557142000/Scoop--the-questionable-economics-of-autonomous-taxi-fleets/ https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/29/1556557142000/Scoop--...
        6y ago
flokie 6y ago
I know the community is generally very negative/skeptic on this (at least based on the 21 comments so far below), but this is an amazing technical & business accomplishment. Congratulations! The blog post is relatively clear that ramp up will take a few weeks - "we’ll start with those who are already a part of Waymo One and, over the next several weeks, welcome more people directly into the service through our app" before you comment watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLkX2VaQs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLkX2VaQs4
- cyrux004 6y ago
  People are dissatisfied because of the vageuness around the start date for general public; not at the state of self driving. By Waymo's own timeline; they were supposed to deliver this atleast 3 years back. This seems to be a much bigger problem than anybody anticipitated
- jeffbee 6y ago
  The HN discussion around Waymo is always overwhelmingly negative because Waymo doesn't fit into the HN cosmology of innovation. Self-driving will come to pass when we force an AI to watch us play Pole Position for a million years, is the HN timeline. HN is comfortable with this Tesla narrative. Less comfortable is the idea that self-driving will be brought to market by lots of control theory PhDs and a really large number of unit tests.
  - nickik 6y ago
    HN is one of the most negative about Tesla of any place I have seen, including car forums. The hate against Tesla and their approach is about 10x more aggressive then the skepticism of Waymo. Also, I'm pretty sure Tesla has a lot of PhDs and probably about 100x more unit tests then Waymo as they have an gigantic amount of strange real-world corner cases that they have converted to unit-tests. There is no way Waymo has anything like that database, as they simply have never encountered all the strange scenarios Tesla see daily on the roads of China and all the other places they drive around in.
    - 6y ago
ilaksh 6y ago
> Later this year, after we've finished adding in-vehicle barriers between the front row and the rear passenger cabin for in-vehicle hygiene and safety, we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, which will add capacity and allow us to serve a larger geographical area. Makes it sound like the pandemic was a significant factor in expanding this to people who are not under NDA. Because if they were doing 5-10% before fully driverless and it was working, then there is a big issue with needing to retrofit the cars with infectious disease barriers, its going to make a lot more sense to just reduce the number of drivers entirely if you can. But one thing that might be a little misleading is that I am reading this announcement as saying that they are actually only letting in Waymo One people now which have had to apply and be accepted, and then in a non-specific number of weeks the public can try to get in via the app. But you still basically have to be on a wait list in the app. So the real difference today is letting people in the program already who are not under NDA ride without the safety driver. But it's very exciting. And necessary to have some wait-list because it is actually possible that the thing could become viral (sorry) and turn into driverless ride tourism and then you could have 30,000 tourists standing around at the same time cussing at an app that says "Service at capacity" all day.
yowlingcat 6y ago
Who foots the bill when a pedestrian inevitably gets run over?
- twmahna 6y ago
  Based on the precedent set by Uber, Waymo will be held financially responsible, but won't face criminal charges. I'd be interested in reading more about the liability insurance coverage Waymo has for its self-driving program, but can't find info anywhere. Source: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/08/uber-got-off-the-hook-for-killing-a-pedestrian-with-its-self-driving-car/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/08/uber-got-off-the-hook...
  - gundmc 6y ago
    For what it's worth, the backup driver in the Uber case was charged with negligent homicide just a few weeks ago. https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/16/21439354/uber-backup-driver-charged-autonomous-self-driving-car-crash-negligent-homicide https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/16/21439354/uber-backup-driv...
twmahna 6y ago
Just a few months ago, I recall many skeptics on HN claiming that full driverless technology was 10-20 years away. Do those people still think that it's going to take 10-20 years for this tech to reach say, New York, now that it's live in Phoenix?
- pb7 6y ago
  It might actually. Phoenix suburbs are different than the densest city in the US in a region that sees the worst of weather. Saying this as someone that hopes Waymo succeeds.
- chubot 6y ago
  Yes, because this announcement is a lot like their previous announcements -- fudging the language to make it sound like it's more available than it is. It's not even generally available in Phoenix yet. I'm sure someone on HN lives in Phoenix, and has never used Waymo before. Tell us if you can get a driverless ride. It's got a long way to go before it's something like Uber in Phoenix. It's got even longer to go before it's something like Uber in NYC (10-20 years still sounds right). ---- The funny thing is that the pandemic should have been HUGE for self-driving cars... Most people I know haven't taken rideshare in 6+ months because they don't want to ride with somebody, and I only did so in the last few weeeks. But it was a non-event. I didn't hear anyone talking about self-driving in the last 6 months. If it really worked, and was really available, then there would be certainly some people who would pay 2-5x the price of Lyft/Uber for no driver. (Not most people, but some people.)
  - pb7 6y ago
    I don't see the relationship between COVID and increased demand for self-driving. You're still sharing the same vehicle with potentially hundreds of people a day that are touching all the same surfaces. The driver is only a vector if they become infected. Other than that, the highest risk is touching doors and such.
    - vernon99 6y ago
      This is an scientific take and most of the casual folks don’t see it this way.
twmahna 6y ago
Let's place skepticism aside for a second and assume that full driverless tech will be fully operating in major metros soon. What does that mean for the rideshare business? Are Uber/Lyft basically dead if they are years behind Waymo?
- angryasian 6y ago
  I don't think so at least not in the short term. Demand in major metros is much higher than supply. Google will never be able to expand fast enough, in terms of getting approvals from cities, getting the tech right to be able to handle cities, and just the amount of cars on the street. We are probably looking at awhile before it is an actual threat to these other services. Who knows what will happen in that time.
  - vernon99 6y ago
    This actually seems to me like a much easier problem to solve than scaling a two-sided marketplace in a lot of places. This is purely a capital + regulation problem and Google has a lot of capital and regulation will catch up as soon as first cities show promise.
- RivieraKid 6y ago
  If driverless taxis are cheaper - which is likely in the "fully operating in major metros" scenario, then the answer is obviously yes.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
donor20 6y ago
Fantastic. The reality is that good mapping and some level of lidar (which is getting cheaper faster for low res/angle sensors) is somewhat game changing in terms of self driving vehicle reliability. Tesla will miss out I think by not taking advantage of doing even the cheapest possible one sensor lidar to augment their existing system. $500 -> in the future $100 for the data lidar gives you is gold.
- tobyjsullivan 6y ago
  I imagine you're correct that lidar is a huge leg-up in the race to self-driving. However, I can see a scenario where, despite that, it is not the right choice for Tesla. It's important to remember that self-driving technology will be commodity at some point (like the lidar units themselves). Whoever offers the most affordable option meeting some baseline performance will dominate the market and licence to every self-driving fleet. It wouldn't surprise me if Waymo ended up meeting that criteria first and licensing the tech to everyone from Uber to Toyota. Once that tech is out, anyone else that succeeds in developing comparable tech effectively has an uphill battle ahead of them trying to sell their new, less proven version at a price and volume that can recoup their R&D investment. I think we'll see a lot of players leave the race once the first licensable product hits the market. In fact, I think we've seen a bit of that already. Which brings me back to Tesla. My guess is their strategy is not just to develop self-driving - they'd lose on equal ground (due to not being first) - but to develop "2nd gen" self-driving which has a specific competitive advantage of not requiring lidar and thus having lower total cost per unit. This allows them to enter the market late but still have a significant edge in that market. If a company lets their engineer's use lidar to develop self-driving tech, then the tech they build will be 100% dependent on lidar. That's Parkinson's law. If, on the other hand, the company adds a strict constraint that lidar is not an option, then the engineers might fail to build something that works - or else they will produce something with a unique advantage.
  - donor20 6y ago
    This is not true. Google is collecting incredible levels of ground / lidar truthed imagery. In terms of then doing a generation function from imagery to 3D model (without lidar) they are going to be in a good spot if they want to be. This is the same approach they have taken in many many other areas - huge ground truthed datasets, then infer without the ground truth.
WhompingWindows 6y ago
I'd say Waymo has taken a measured, conservative approach and their lack of major incidents is a huge advantage. They're taking it slow because they're far ahead of their competitors, they already have SDCs up and carrying passengers in exchange for payment. Yes, it's an easy geographic region, but it's hard to deny their tech and business is ahead of their competitors.
dang 6y ago
Url changed from https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1314235663248699393 https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1314235663248699393, which points to this.
drfuchs 6y ago
Can anyone knowledgeably speak to what these gizmos can and can't do? Can I tell it to "please back into the driveway on the left side, but not so close that I can't open the garage door, and open the trunk, so I can easily load a box of my stuff"? Or "please go around to the back entrance where they deliver the to-go orders"? "No, down there where that guy is standing." Etc.
- drivebycomment 6y ago
  The trunk is not accessible per: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/20/18175563/waymo-one-customer-interview-self-driving-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/20/18175563/waymo-one-custom... I think they have the computers in the trunk.
dzhiurgis 6y ago
Ahhh, the bi-annual Waymo's "expansion" PR. I think I've been seeing these for about last 5 years. Every few months they are "just about to be publicly tested" yet every user is carefully picked and signs NDA ;D
remote_phone 6y ago
Can Waymo cars do left turns into traffic? A few years ago I saw a Waymo car in Mountain View attempting a left turn across Rengstorff and the traffic was pretty bad. I would personally be terrified if I had to trust an algorithm to properly navigate that situation.
aussieguy1234 6y ago
Which is the safer option at the moment, a driverless car with their current safety record including the incidents that have happened, or getting into an Uber/taxi with a human driver and possibly catching Covid?
KKKKkkkk1 6y ago
Waymo's raison d'etre within Alphabet is that they solved self driving. They need to show Alphabet that they can deploy self driving at scale. Unfortunately, they only solved the problem when the car is supervised by a remote driver. Which is more expensive than hiring a human to drive a stock car. So they keep saying they're expanding the service without actually deploying at scale in the hope of postponing the inevitable moment at which Alphabet's board will realize that it's been taken for a ride.
YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago
>> In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless. We expect our new fully driverless service to be very popular, and we’re thankful to our riders for their patience as we ramp up availability to serve demand. Later this year, after we've finished adding in-vehicle barriers between the front row and the rear passenger cabin for in-vehicle hygiene and safety, we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, which will add capacity and allow us to serve a larger geographical area. I'm struggling to understand what this meas. On the one hand "In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless", but, on the other hand, "Later this year, ..., we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, (...)". So "the near term" is at least next year? Anyway it's difficult to understand exactly what is changing with this announcement. The (original) title makes it sound like everyone in Phoenix ("...the general public in Phoenix") will be able to hitch a driverless ride, but the text on the announcement makes it sound like only Waymo One members -and their relatives- will be able to do so ("Beginning today, October 8, we’re excited to open up our fully driverless offering to Waymo One riders. Members of the public service can now take friends and family along on their rides and share their experience with the world.").

263 points by klintcho 6y ago

https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-driverless.html https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr... > We’ll start with those who are already a part of Waymo One and, over the next several weeks, welcome more people directly into the service through our app So...this is just an extension of what they currently do where it's not really open to the public? Waymo One is something you have to apply for and almost nobody gets in. It's not clear to me what "welcome more people directly into the service through our app" means. Waymo is terrible at PR. I can't even tell what they're trying to say here. But there is no date. There is no definitive statement. It's just another vague press release about how they're going driverless "soon"

jkinudsjknds 6y ago
Sounds pretty clear to me that you can download the app and, in several weeks, be allowed to use the service?
jowday 6y ago
They state the date pretty clearly in the article. >Beginning today, October 8, we’re excited to open up our fully driverless offering to Waymo One riders. Members of the public service can now take friends and family along on their rides and share their experience with the world.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  "Members of the public service" is different than "members of the public". This is still a closed beta. But now it seems you are allowed to have your friends along for the ride. I wonder if these friends and family persons are subject to any NDA.
  - jowday 6y ago
    Sure, I was addressing the date specifically.
  - neil_s 6y ago
    > "I wonder if these friends and family persons are subject to any NDA" According to the article: "take friends and family along on their rides and share their experience with the world"
  - polishTar 6y ago
    Waymo One doesn't use NDAs and users are allowed to bring friends with them, but Waymo also has an "early rider" program that's more restrictive and does use NDAs.
    - Ajedi32 6y ago
      Correct. This article is about "fully driverless" rides (rides with no safety driver present) graduating from their experimental "Early Rider Program" (which includes a small group of people under NDAs) to their public "Waymo One" service (which is a commercial service which requires no NDAs, but still has rather limited availability for now). Waymo One has been shut down for a while now due to COVID, but now that driverless rides are an option they're re-opening the service with 100% fully driverless rides. Once they get around to installing barriers between the driver and passenger seats they plan to go back to most rides having a safety driver, but with some smaller percentage of Waymo One rides continuing to be fully driverless.
- fullshark 6y ago
  So Waymo One riders can now get a ride without a safety driver if they want to? Sounds like the OP has a point.
nemonemo 6y ago
> We expect our new fully driverless service to be very popular, and we’re thankful to our riders for their patience as we ramp up availability to serve demand. I think this explains the reasoning behind the gradual ramp-up. Even at the product launch like new iPhones, the demand is difficult to estimate, so IMO it seems more responsible to give a reasonable expectation to the public like this, than just saying bravely "the service is fully public from today". I think the take-away from this announcement is their commitment for wider rollout over time from this point on.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Nope. It's a poor press release because that is not what "general public" means. You shouldn't have to analyze the takeaways of what Waymo really meant when they used the extremely common phrase "general public."
  - 8ytecoder 6y ago
    Yup, “available to general public” or “generally available” in product terms usually mean anyone can go sign up for it.
  - dang 6y ago
    Ok, we've shrunk the general public to "more people" in the title above.
lhorie 6y ago
Would it be too cynical to assume this whole thing is going to get shutdown after a few years due to failing to gain enough traction (due to people being wary of Google's track record of doing so with their in-google properties)?
- vkou 6y ago
  Do you really care about the longevity of the taxi company whose cars you are riding in? Half the time, I don't even know which company that is. Or the longevity of the particular farm from which your grocery's tomatoes have been sourced from? This isn't e-mail. The cost and hassle of switching to a competing service is nearly zero.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    > Do you really care about the longevity of the taxi company whose cars you are riding in? I mean, look at McDonalds and Coca-Cola, for example. I'm skeptical about the idea that simply having the SDV technology somehow also translates to being in a leadership position in terms of regulation, customer support, branding/marketing/being-installed-on-peoples-phones, etc etc. Uber already had to fight uphill regarding regulation in many places so it definitely has some moat now (see, e.g. Uber and Ola in London). Waymo is on completely uncharted territory, regulation-wise. I'm also curious about how the economics and logistics will play out. One criticism of existing ride sharing is not accounting for vehicle depreciation and wear and tear (and this on mass produced vehicles). Waymo vehicles have a lot more expensive technology on board, so I'm curious how that balances out in terms of lidar/etc shelf-life + specialized tech inspections vs ROI. Also, cost of switching goes both ways. If this forces the hand of the other players to roll out SDV (via Cruise partnerships for example), Waymo doesn't necessarily stand to dominate the market, since it's already so crowded w/ well-funded/well-positioned players from all sorts of directions.
    - petra 6y ago
      Yes. There are other important factors. But at least for the next few years, technology is the barrier. So Google can partner with Lyft, for example, to get a good brand, app, customer service, regulation, etc. But on top of that, the brand in this market is the promise "our cars are safe". Google is in a distinct place to own that, because of all the press they had, they press they will have, and by really leading technologically. As for this being a commodity ? I believe we're really far from that.
wetpaws 6y ago
Pretty sure this is intentional. Waymo had an insane (decades) head start in regards to self driving technology and was notably quiet about it. While Uber and other folks are all boasting about their self driving project and collecting the lion share of controversy and unwanted attention, waymo is quietly, step by step, heading towards it's total dominance, staying completely off the radar.
- nmstoker 6y ago
  I think you're spot on here. Whilst I suspect they've a long way to go, it seems likely to mirror the situation Google had with early search growth where the more they had people use it the better it got, quickly feeding a cycle the competitors could not compete with.
  - jliptzin 6y ago
    Tesla?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- dzhiurgis 6y ago
  > staying completely off the radar. *off the LIDAR.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

coolspot 6y ago

In metro Phoenix only, but still a step up from “by invitation only”.

nwsm 6y ago
I don't think it will even be close to general availability in Phoenix.

wartijn_ 6y ago

Direct link to the announcement: https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-driverless.html?m=1 https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr...

nsgi 6y ago

Why did their group of early riders need to be under NDA?

tych0 6y ago
Presumably in case the car did something weird/bad, so they wouldn't tell anyone.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
Given Waymo was recently the victim of a high-profile case of IP theft used to start a competitor, I imagine they’re being vigilant on this front.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  You think passengers would make off with the IP?
RivieraKid 6y ago
To protect against bad PR.
leetcrew 6y ago
on the flip side, if you can find enough riders that are willing to sign one, why not?

oh_sigh 6y ago

Is Phoenix because self driving cars can't handle any kind of inclement weather? Or is there some other reason to choose Phoenix over Denver or Milwaukee?

jpm_sd 6y ago
Both the geophysical climate and the regulatory climate are favorable in AZ. https://azdot.gov/motor-vehicles/professional-services/autonomous-vehicles-testing-and-operating-state-arizona https://azdot.gov/motor-vehicles/professional-services/auton...
- kfarr 6y ago
  And the roadways are homogenous with relatively new, large simple grids enabling large roadways, clear signage and striping, etc. Unlike a dense complicated old grid style city.
  - dmd 6y ago
    Or, say, Boston. https://i2.wp.com/geoffboeing.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/manhattan-boston-street-network-orientation.jpg?ssl=1 https://i2.wp.com/geoffboeing.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09...
duffpkg 6y ago
Arizona in general and the metro phoenix area have extraordinarily diligent road maintenance. Surface street speeds are higher and larger road sizes are also very favorable for something like robot cars.
bpodgursky 6y ago
Phoenix has a TON of retired and disabled residents who can't or shouldn't drive (spread out over suburbs), so it was easy to get political support for comfortable transit options that improve their mobility (and don't cost the city anything).
- 6y ago

almost_usual 6y ago

So the self-driving argument has always been winner take all. Does this mean competitors now have an existential threat unless they catch up immediately? I’m thinking Uber, Lyft, Cruise, etc.

angryasian 6y ago
I always thought it was pretty clear that Waymo wanted to license out the tech.

holidayacct 6y ago

I know everyone loves the idea of self-driving cars but the reality of self-driving cars is really ugly. We need repetitions driving vehicles in order to operate them effectively. If you don't have enough repetitions driving a vehicle when something goes wrong you're not going to be able to operate the vehicle at all. Furthermore, I'm skeptical that driverless vehicles can factor in all the ways in which someone might maliciously cause accidents or damage to these vehicles. I want to see what happens when someone figures out how to provide false input to the sensors on the vehicle.

twmahna 6y ago
>> I'm skeptical that driverless vehicles can factor in all the ways in which someone might maliciously cause accidents or damage to these vehicles You're probably right, but as long as it doesn't happen frequently and there's no way to mislead sensors en masse, it's not a big deal. There are malicious ways to cause accidents with current-day technologies also. e.g. Park a car in front of a train, fly a drone into a plane, etc.
angryasian 6y ago
I don't buy this repetitions argument at all. A computer and machine learning go through billions of driving scenarios more than any human could if the data is available.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  I think they are worried about driving skill atrophying among the human population if they ride exclusively in FSD vehicles.

dougmwne 6y ago

Pretty misleading title, but I think this is not an expansion of Waymo to the general public, but a getting rid of the safety drivers for some people participating in the closed-invite only preview but no longer under NDA. Seems like another incremental step forward. Google turned off the PR firehouse on Waymo over the past year, so I think many were starting to think the tech had hit a wall and wasn't ever going to be able to get rid of the safety driver. I suppose this makes me cautiously optimistic. I don't think self driving needs to handle all roads in all conditions to be economically useful.

actuator 6y ago
I am looking forward to Waymo Via. From an economic profitability standpoint, that looks like the best option at this time.

adenozine 6y ago

This is easily the most outrageous title ever to be on HN. Jesus, this is just so blatantly overreaching.

advisedwang 6y ago

What is the actual advantage to consumers over an Uber? Novelty will wear off, and so to survive Waymo will actually need to be better in some way. Can anyone in Phoenix answer if Waymo is cheaper? Is Waymo hoping people will choose Waymo for safety?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
whimsicalism 6y ago
I mean, if they can make this work well then you cut out the driver - which is very cost-saving. It also lets you a. optimize exactly where cars are driving to maximize ride share revenue, b. have the cars ready to pick someone up 24/7. It's going to be a much more efficient use of car capital than hiring a person to drive it.
- disgruntledphd2 6y ago
  But it's a very different business model to ride share, which is based on externalising the costs of the car to the drivers.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    I agree that it is a very different model, but it's a bit much to say that externalizing car repair costs is what the business model of Uber/Lyft is "based on"
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      Dunno if you'll see this, but when I made my comment, this link was much of my source: https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/29/1556557142000/Scoop--the-questionable-economics-of-autonomous-taxi-fleets/ https://ftalphaville.ft.com/2019/04/29/1556557142000/Scoop--...
      - 6y ago

flokie 6y ago

I know the community is generally very negative/skeptic on this (at least based on the 21 comments so far below), but this is an amazing technical & business accomplishment. Congratulations! The blog post is relatively clear that ramp up will take a few weeks - "we’ll start with those who are already a part of Waymo One and, over the next several weeks, welcome more people directly into the service through our app" before you comment watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLkX2VaQs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLkX2VaQs4

cyrux004 6y ago
People are dissatisfied because of the vageuness around the start date for general public; not at the state of self driving. By Waymo's own timeline; they were supposed to deliver this atleast 3 years back. This seems to be a much bigger problem than anybody anticipitated
jeffbee 6y ago
The HN discussion around Waymo is always overwhelmingly negative because Waymo doesn't fit into the HN cosmology of innovation. Self-driving will come to pass when we force an AI to watch us play Pole Position for a million years, is the HN timeline. HN is comfortable with this Tesla narrative. Less comfortable is the idea that self-driving will be brought to market by lots of control theory PhDs and a really large number of unit tests.
- nickik 6y ago
  HN is one of the most negative about Tesla of any place I have seen, including car forums. The hate against Tesla and their approach is about 10x more aggressive then the skepticism of Waymo. Also, I'm pretty sure Tesla has a lot of PhDs and probably about 100x more unit tests then Waymo as they have an gigantic amount of strange real-world corner cases that they have converted to unit-tests. There is no way Waymo has anything like that database, as they simply have never encountered all the strange scenarios Tesla see daily on the roads of China and all the other places they drive around in.
  - 6y ago

ilaksh 6y ago

> Later this year, after we've finished adding in-vehicle barriers between the front row and the rear passenger cabin for in-vehicle hygiene and safety, we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, which will add capacity and allow us to serve a larger geographical area. Makes it sound like the pandemic was a significant factor in expanding this to people who are not under NDA. Because if they were doing 5-10% before fully driverless and it was working, then there is a big issue with needing to retrofit the cars with infectious disease barriers, its going to make a lot more sense to just reduce the number of drivers entirely if you can. But one thing that might be a little misleading is that I am reading this announcement as saying that they are actually only letting in Waymo One people now which have had to apply and be accepted, and then in a non-specific number of weeks the public can try to get in via the app. But you still basically have to be on a wait list in the app. So the real difference today is letting people in the program already who are not under NDA ride without the safety driver. But it's very exciting. And necessary to have some wait-list because it is actually possible that the thing could become viral (sorry) and turn into driverless ride tourism and then you could have 30,000 tourists standing around at the same time cussing at an app that says "Service at capacity" all day.

yowlingcat 6y ago

Who foots the bill when a pedestrian inevitably gets run over?

twmahna 6y ago
Based on the precedent set by Uber, Waymo will be held financially responsible, but won't face criminal charges. I'd be interested in reading more about the liability insurance coverage Waymo has for its self-driving program, but can't find info anywhere. Source: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/08/uber-got-off-the-hook-for-killing-a-pedestrian-with-its-self-driving-car/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/08/uber-got-off-the-hook...
- gundmc 6y ago
  For what it's worth, the backup driver in the Uber case was charged with negligent homicide just a few weeks ago. https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/16/21439354/uber-backup-driver-charged-autonomous-self-driving-car-crash-negligent-homicide https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/16/21439354/uber-backup-driv...

twmahna 6y ago

Just a few months ago, I recall many skeptics on HN claiming that full driverless technology was 10-20 years away. Do those people still think that it's going to take 10-20 years for this tech to reach say, New York, now that it's live in Phoenix?

pb7 6y ago
It might actually. Phoenix suburbs are different than the densest city in the US in a region that sees the worst of weather. Saying this as someone that hopes Waymo succeeds.
chubot 6y ago
Yes, because this announcement is a lot like their previous announcements -- fudging the language to make it sound like it's more available than it is. It's not even generally available in Phoenix yet. I'm sure someone on HN lives in Phoenix, and has never used Waymo before. Tell us if you can get a driverless ride. It's got a long way to go before it's something like Uber in Phoenix. It's got even longer to go before it's something like Uber in NYC (10-20 years still sounds right). ---- The funny thing is that the pandemic should have been HUGE for self-driving cars... Most people I know haven't taken rideshare in 6+ months because they don't want to ride with somebody, and I only did so in the last few weeeks. But it was a non-event. I didn't hear anyone talking about self-driving in the last 6 months. If it really worked, and was really available, then there would be certainly some people who would pay 2-5x the price of Lyft/Uber for no driver. (Not most people, but some people.)
- pb7 6y ago
  I don't see the relationship between COVID and increased demand for self-driving. You're still sharing the same vehicle with potentially hundreds of people a day that are touching all the same surfaces. The driver is only a vector if they become infected. Other than that, the highest risk is touching doors and such.
  - vernon99 6y ago
    This is an scientific take and most of the casual folks don’t see it this way.

twmahna 6y ago

Let's place skepticism aside for a second and assume that full driverless tech will be fully operating in major metros soon. What does that mean for the rideshare business? Are Uber/Lyft basically dead if they are years behind Waymo?

angryasian 6y ago
I don't think so at least not in the short term. Demand in major metros is much higher than supply. Google will never be able to expand fast enough, in terms of getting approvals from cities, getting the tech right to be able to handle cities, and just the amount of cars on the street. We are probably looking at awhile before it is an actual threat to these other services. Who knows what will happen in that time.
- vernon99 6y ago
  This actually seems to me like a much easier problem to solve than scaling a two-sided marketplace in a lot of places. This is purely a capital + regulation problem and Google has a lot of capital and regulation will catch up as soon as first cities show promise.
RivieraKid 6y ago
If driverless taxis are cheaper - which is likely in the "fully operating in major metros" scenario, then the answer is obviously yes.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

donor20 6y ago

Fantastic. The reality is that good mapping and some level of lidar (which is getting cheaper faster for low res/angle sensors) is somewhat game changing in terms of self driving vehicle reliability. Tesla will miss out I think by not taking advantage of doing even the cheapest possible one sensor lidar to augment their existing system. $500 -> in the future $100 for the data lidar gives you is gold.

tobyjsullivan 6y ago
I imagine you're correct that lidar is a huge leg-up in the race to self-driving. However, I can see a scenario where, despite that, it is not the right choice for Tesla. It's important to remember that self-driving technology will be commodity at some point (like the lidar units themselves). Whoever offers the most affordable option meeting some baseline performance will dominate the market and licence to every self-driving fleet. It wouldn't surprise me if Waymo ended up meeting that criteria first and licensing the tech to everyone from Uber to Toyota. Once that tech is out, anyone else that succeeds in developing comparable tech effectively has an uphill battle ahead of them trying to sell their new, less proven version at a price and volume that can recoup their R&D investment. I think we'll see a lot of players leave the race once the first licensable product hits the market. In fact, I think we've seen a bit of that already. Which brings me back to Tesla. My guess is their strategy is not just to develop self-driving - they'd lose on equal ground (due to not being first) - but to develop "2nd gen" self-driving which has a specific competitive advantage of not requiring lidar and thus having lower total cost per unit. This allows them to enter the market late but still have a significant edge in that market. If a company lets their engineer's use lidar to develop self-driving tech, then the tech they build will be 100% dependent on lidar. That's Parkinson's law. If, on the other hand, the company adds a strict constraint that lidar is not an option, then the engineers might fail to build something that works - or else they will produce something with a unique advantage.
- donor20 6y ago
  This is not true. Google is collecting incredible levels of ground / lidar truthed imagery. In terms of then doing a generation function from imagery to 3D model (without lidar) they are going to be in a good spot if they want to be. This is the same approach they have taken in many many other areas - huge ground truthed datasets, then infer without the ground truth.

WhompingWindows 6y ago

I'd say Waymo has taken a measured, conservative approach and their lack of major incidents is a huge advantage. They're taking it slow because they're far ahead of their competitors, they already have SDCs up and carrying passengers in exchange for payment. Yes, it's an easy geographic region, but it's hard to deny their tech and business is ahead of their competitors.

dang 6y ago

Url changed from https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1314235663248699393 https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1314235663248699393, which points to this.

drfuchs 6y ago

Can anyone knowledgeably speak to what these gizmos can and can't do? Can I tell it to "please back into the driveway on the left side, but not so close that I can't open the garage door, and open the trunk, so I can easily load a box of my stuff"? Or "please go around to the back entrance where they deliver the to-go orders"? "No, down there where that guy is standing." Etc.

drivebycomment 6y ago
The trunk is not accessible per: https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/20/18175563/waymo-one-customer-interview-self-driving-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/20/18175563/waymo-one-custom... I think they have the computers in the trunk.

dzhiurgis 6y ago

Ahhh, the bi-annual Waymo's "expansion" PR. I think I've been seeing these for about last 5 years. Every few months they are "just about to be publicly tested" yet every user is carefully picked and signs NDA ;D

remote_phone 6y ago

Can Waymo cars do left turns into traffic? A few years ago I saw a Waymo car in Mountain View attempting a left turn across Rengstorff and the traffic was pretty bad. I would personally be terrified if I had to trust an algorithm to properly navigate that situation.

aussieguy1234 6y ago

Which is the safer option at the moment, a driverless car with their current safety record including the incidents that have happened, or getting into an Uber/taxi with a human driver and possibly catching Covid?

KKKKkkkk1 6y ago

Waymo's raison d'etre within Alphabet is that they solved self driving. They need to show Alphabet that they can deploy self driving at scale. Unfortunately, they only solved the problem when the car is supervised by a remote driver. Which is more expensive than hiring a human to drive a stock car. So they keep saying they're expanding the service without actually deploying at scale in the hope of postponing the inevitable moment at which Alphabet's board will realize that it's been taken for a ride.

YeGoblynQueenne 6y ago

>> In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless. We expect our new fully driverless service to be very popular, and we’re thankful to our riders for their patience as we ramp up availability to serve demand. Later this year, after we've finished adding in-vehicle barriers between the front row and the rear passenger cabin for in-vehicle hygiene and safety, we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, which will add capacity and allow us to serve a larger geographical area. I'm struggling to understand what this meas. On the one hand "In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless", but, on the other hand, "Later this year, ..., we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, (...)". So "the near term" is at least next year? Anyway it's difficult to understand exactly what is changing with this announcement. The (original) title makes it sound like everyone in Phoenix ("...the general public in Phoenix") will be able to hitch a driverless ride, but the text on the announcement makes it sound like only Waymo One members -and their relatives- will be able to do so ("Beginning today, October 8, we’re excited to open up our fully driverless offering to Waymo One riders. Members of the public service can now take friends and family along on their rides and share their experience with the world.").