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How we’ve built the World’s Most Experienced Urban Driver
- andyxor 5y agoand probably the most expensive, I see them going in circles all day long in my neighborhood, fuel alone must have cost a fortune
- cinntaile 5y agoIt's the human driver that costs money. Fuel is a very tiny part of that, especially in the US (compared to the EU) where fuel is practically free.
- jimbob45 5y agoI’m from the US and I don’t know why you’re saying that. Is EU fuel comparatively more expensive?
- e2021 5y agoCurrent petrol price in france is 1.60 EUR / litre, or almost $7 per gallon
- 908B64B197 5y agoThey should switch their provider. That's prohibitive.
- Filligree 5y agoThat's just the CO2 tax. Or at least that's the main source of the cost in Norway; France may break it down differently.
- orwin 5y agoYep, 50% of the price is taxes.
- 908B64B197 5y agoHow does that help the single mother of two working shifts where public transit isn't an option?
- mikestew 5y agoAssuming your question to be in good faith (because I'm surprised that it would come as a surprise that many EU countries tax the shite out of automotive fuel), gasoline seems to be approaching $7/gallon in some EU countries, whereas gas in AZ is under $3.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago> approaching $7/gallon 7 USD is 5.99 EUR. That would be 1.58 EUR/liter. They aren't just approaching that, that is pretty much exactly the current price for gasoline with 10% Ethanol added in several German cities that I checked, with some fuel stations cheaper and some more expensive. If you need E5 (older cars can't handle E10), you'll pay more than that.
- scandox 5y agoWell in the US it is apparently 0.9 USD per liter. In Ireland for example it is 1.8 USD per liter. https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/ https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/
- fragmede 5y ago$7/gal (converted from €1.60/liter), give or take, vs < $5, depending on where you are in the US. It's obvious hyperbole to say it's "practically free", but large parts of the economy would stop being functional at $7/gal.
- rnotaro 5y agoYes, cheaper than any EU country by a big margin. Bloomberg have a nice visualisation tool : https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/gas-prices/#20202:United-States:USD:g https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/gas-prices/#20202:United-...
- wmf 5y agoWhat Waymo doesn't talk about is their human remote drivers and chase vehicles. I wonder what their ratio of humans to "autonomous" cars is.
- alphabetting 5y agoThere are no human remote drivers. There are many human monitors but there is never a human remote controlling a vehicle. Monitors can observe if there is a problem and direct the car to take an action like park.
- mtwshngtn 5y agoWas it a Jaguar you saw? because those vehicles are electric.
- jeffbee 5y agoEven an electric car costs 11¢ per mile according to AAA. So that's $11,000/week to drive 100,000 miles per week. This may be "fortune"-level spending by some standards.
- criticaltinker 5y ago> We’re building systems that operate without any reliance on human drivers. Either the system can complete the entire trip or it cannot. There is never any confusion about who is in control and responsible for the safety of driving. So we focus on the hardest parts of the challenge, which is critical to reliably scaling vehicles with no human drivers. Wow and really impressive demos to support their claims. Waymo's tech seems likely to surpass the capabilities of Tesla and others if it hasn't already. Has there been any progress on an open test or benchmark that would reliably highlight the differences in performance and degree of autonomy provided by these competitors?
- gundmc 5y ago> Waymo's tech seems likely to surpass the capabilities of Tesla and others if it hasn't already. Waymo has been the consensus tech leader in this space for 10 years.
- jeffbee 5y agoYes, Tesla would have to revolutionize their whole approach to be able to do any of the things that Google/Waymo already demonstrated prior to 2011. For Waymo to "surpass" Tesla we'd have to be living in Oppositeland where Tesla actually possess self-driving car technology.
- saalweachter 5y agoI mean, as far as I know, Waymo is unwilling to barrel down a public highway at 80mph.
- CorrectHorseBat 5y agoLooking at a fragment another recent video I don't feel like it's really that great yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjztvddhZmI&t=644s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjztvddhZmI&t=644s Yes it's amazing what they can do, but if after all this time they can't even react correctly in such a simple situation I really wonder if full self driving is feasible.
- Crash0v3rid3 5y agoWhat exactly was wrong in the example clip you provided? To me, it looks like the car rightfully stopped because it assumed the person was going to cross the parking lot.
- CorrectHorseBat 5y agoThe person was clearly not going to cross right there at the corner so such an abrupt stop was totally unnecessary. If the car assumed he was going to stop a bit further at the yellow lines it should have either braked earlier or just keep on driving. The way it reacted it IMO just looks like clueless new driver.
- random314 5y agoNot clear at all that the person wouldn't cross the corner.
- ALittleLight 5y agoI wonder if you had a million such scenarios would the pedestrian surprisingly step in front of the car at least once? Humans, who never experience a million such cases, would learn that such things just don't happen and would take the one in a million risk of bumping that guy if he decided to be stupid. The machine driver, if we're being charitable, may be trying to minimize even rare accidents accepting the cost of less pleasant passenger conditions.
- _Algernon_ 5y agoSure, but it didn't endanger anyone, which can't be said for some (many?) human drivers.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoIf it can handle the traffic in Delhi then I will be impressed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDLCd70iTeE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDLCd70iTeE
- marai2 5y agoThe first 30 seconds are slow but after that crossing the intersection gives me a new appreciation for the human brain :-)
- a9h74j 5y agoBeautiful. Take that, Mr. Hollywood montage director!
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y agoIt doesn't seem that much harder. The difference between normal car driving and that seems to be a much lower speed, and a much higher tolerance to get close to pedestrians. Route finding will be a bit more difficult, but other than that, it could probably be approximated as "if (closest_obstacle_in_front.distance > 30 cm) { drive(SPEED_SNAIL_PACE); } else { honk(); }"
- tibbydudeza 5y agoOr this roundabout in the UK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OGvj7GZSIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OGvj7GZSIo
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rhacker 5y agoIt took a while, here's the video I watched that made me not want ANY Waymos near where I live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdKCQKBvH-A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdKCQKBvH-A I think the thing that made me so furiously mad is that there's all these situations in the video that people might laugh at, but there are situations where I've been stuck in traffic in an emergency and if I found out it's because Google was trying to make it's next pentillionth dollar I would blow my top. Can you imagine one of these during the Campfire evacuation?
- UncleMeat 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiYO1TObNz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiYO1TObNz8 One can think of all sorts of tail cases where some better technology is worse, but we should be careful not to let the tail cases cloud our overall analysis of a technology. "I might not be able to escape if my whole town was on fire" is also an argument against virtually all public transportation - but clearly should not be used as a reason to disregard public transportation.
- alphabetting 5y agoTotally agreed. That youtube channel op linked to was my main source of following waymo until he stopped. There's close to 100 full driverless rides and nearly all are normal. The one that has a hickup got maybe 1000x more coverage than any other ride but that's how it goes. I liked how the guy, despite clearly being a waymo fan, makes sure to show an unvarnished view at the state of the tech in contrast to some enthusiasts who mislead or overhype the tech they cover.
- jeffbee 5y agoImagine believing that escaping a fire by car would ever work. Of the 25 people who died in the 1991 Oakland fires, many were killed when the fire overtook them in their cars in a massive traffic jam. Mass evacuation is when the colossal stupidity of car-based transportation is most clearly evident.
- 5y ago
- nradov 5y agoThe workers repairing potholes in my neighborhood rely on vague and confusing hand gestures to direct traffic. They don't even have those little stop / slow signs. I wonder how Waymo would handle such situations?
- thepasswordis 5y agoIt’s the workers that need to adapt. Self driving cars are here and they’re not going away.
- toiletaccount 5y agolol, you havent worked with road workers if a self driving car cant handle something like a guy in an orange vest directing traffic then its a very questionable venture even for scroogle or crapple. unexpected things happen on the road and corner cases happen all over, every day.
- thepasswordis 5y agoYes I have worked with road workers. Have you?
- 908B64B197 5y agoHave someone somewhere remote-control the cars when they get on a construction site.
- nradov 5y agoA lot of roads don't have reliable, high speed cellular data service. There are major dead zones just a few miles from my house.
- xnx 5y agoWaymo cars currently only operate in pre-mapped areas with good connectivity. Self driving doesn't have to replace human drivers on 100% of roads 100% of the time to still be immensely valuable and life saving.
- contingencies 5y agoWe've built the world's most expensive Uber driver... in misreading, my subconscious espousing wisdom.
- imapeopleperson 5y agoThe hubris of the title distracts from the achievement. Still curious how it fairs pumping gas and driving in the snow; two simple things many urban drivers can do.