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A robotaxi without a human driver! For some reason Waymo seems way ahead of everyone else in self-driving

by anchpop 6y ago

solarkraft 6y ago
Maybe they are, but their service is super constrained and retains human supervision - just remote controlled.
- ra7 6y ago
  They can't be remote controlled i.e. remote operators can't steer the car. They can only "answer questions" apparently. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/e8bfse/waymo_explains_what_remote_operators_do/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/e8bfse/way...
- aetherson 6y ago
  The actual thing that self driving cars get you is "not paying for a taxi driver." If one remote operator can supervise 10 mostly autonomous vehicles, you've gotten 90% of the economic value of full autonomy.
  - Judgmentality 6y ago
    This ignores the cost of sending data wirelessly over cellular networks so remote operators can see the vehicle, the cost of maintaining the software and hardware on the vehicle itself, the cost of maintaining the vehicle fleet, the cost of creating and operating a consumer-facing support system (!!! for Google), the cost of dealing with the enormous amounts of data those vehicles create (even for Google this is not trivial), the cost of maintaining the special HD maps necessary for the vehicles, not to mention the sunk cost of billions spent developing it. That's not to say you shouldn't dream big (it's a moonshot after all). But there are plenty of reasons to think it won't be viable even if they can solve the technical challenges, and that much still isn't even clear yet.
    - AstralStorm 6y ago
      Most importantly, their fleet could be made obsolete by personal ownership of assisted driving vehicles. So by any of car manufacturers... (Better version of Tesla autopilot for instance.)
      - sofixa 6y ago
        Taxis exist today even if a lot of people own cars, there'd still be uses for them ( e.g. when flying somewhere, you won't bring your car)
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      The phrase "value of full autonomy" is excluding fleet costs on purpose. It's about drivers. Customer support is also going to be far far fewer than one person per vehicle. The enormous amounts of data? If it's not valuable they can just discard it! Having sensors attached to something doesn't obligate you to store it forever. Everyone knows the software/configuration costs are immense here. But that's the lion's share of the difficulty, and there's no reason to act like minor hurdles are bigger than they are.
      - Judgmentality 6y ago
        > The enormous amounts of data? If it's not valuable they can just discard it! I'm curious what the legal requirements for this will be. But I imagine they'd want to hold on to data of driving scenarios for at least a month, in case they get accused of wrongdoing by other drivers. If they had no data to back up their case with all those sensors, it would look awfully suspicious and essentially one witness against nobody - so they'd have to hold onto the data for however long the legal teams deem is okay. This may sound crazy, but it's already happening at the scale of testing with just a few dozen cars. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/gm-settles-with-motorcyclist-struck-by-cruise-self-driving-car/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/gm-settles-with-motorcy...
        Dylan16807 6y ago
ra7 6y ago
As an outsider, the reason why Waymo is way ahead is clear. Extremely talented team, access to Google infrastructure and expertise, deep pockets and a culture of prioritizing safety over everything.

A robotaxi without a human driver! For some reason Waymo seems way ahead of everyone else in self-driving

solarkraft 6y ago

Maybe they are, but their service is super constrained and retains human supervision - just remote controlled.

ra7 6y ago
They can't be remote controlled i.e. remote operators can't steer the car. They can only "answer questions" apparently. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/e8bfse/waymo_explains_what_remote_operators_do/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/e8bfse/way...
aetherson 6y ago
The actual thing that self driving cars get you is "not paying for a taxi driver." If one remote operator can supervise 10 mostly autonomous vehicles, you've gotten 90% of the economic value of full autonomy.
- Judgmentality 6y ago
  This ignores the cost of sending data wirelessly over cellular networks so remote operators can see the vehicle, the cost of maintaining the software and hardware on the vehicle itself, the cost of maintaining the vehicle fleet, the cost of creating and operating a consumer-facing support system (!!! for Google), the cost of dealing with the enormous amounts of data those vehicles create (even for Google this is not trivial), the cost of maintaining the special HD maps necessary for the vehicles, not to mention the sunk cost of billions spent developing it. That's not to say you shouldn't dream big (it's a moonshot after all). But there are plenty of reasons to think it won't be viable even if they can solve the technical challenges, and that much still isn't even clear yet.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    Most importantly, their fleet could be made obsolete by personal ownership of assisted driving vehicles. So by any of car manufacturers... (Better version of Tesla autopilot for instance.)
    - sofixa 6y ago
      Taxis exist today even if a lot of people own cars, there'd still be uses for them ( e.g. when flying somewhere, you won't bring your car)
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    The phrase "value of full autonomy" is excluding fleet costs on purpose. It's about drivers. Customer support is also going to be far far fewer than one person per vehicle. The enormous amounts of data? If it's not valuable they can just discard it! Having sensors attached to something doesn't obligate you to store it forever. Everyone knows the software/configuration costs are immense here. But that's the lion's share of the difficulty, and there's no reason to act like minor hurdles are bigger than they are.
    - Judgmentality 6y ago
      > The enormous amounts of data? If it's not valuable they can just discard it! I'm curious what the legal requirements for this will be. But I imagine they'd want to hold on to data of driving scenarios for at least a month, in case they get accused of wrongdoing by other drivers. If they had no data to back up their case with all those sensors, it would look awfully suspicious and essentially one witness against nobody - so they'd have to hold onto the data for however long the legal teams deem is okay. This may sound crazy, but it's already happening at the scale of testing with just a few dozen cars. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/gm-settles-with-motorcyclist-struck-by-cruise-self-driving-car/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/gm-settles-with-motorcy...
      - Dylan16807 6y ago

ra7 6y ago

As an outsider, the reason why Waymo is way ahead is clear. Extremely talented team, access to Google infrastructure and expertise, deep pockets and a culture of prioritizing safety over everything.