45 ms·

DMV approves Cruise and Waymo for commercial service in parts of Bay Area

416 points by ra7 5y ago

philovivero 5y ago
Zero comments? When the robotic overlords take over, it will not be to thunderous applause nor loud protestations, but rather quietly beneath the surface silence of billions of people distracted by something more interesting or enticing.
- reidjs 5y ago
  It’s self driving cars, not autonomous governments. Considering how distracted and impaired the average driver is, this might be a godsend.
- Falling3 5y ago
  You think no comments within 20 minutes of posting is enough to make that kind of claim over?
obilgic 5y ago
> https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1442706542839701510 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1442706542839701510 And Tesla is rolling out FSD beta to cars based on drivers' safety score.
- EastOfTruth 5y ago
  Tesla is getting some real competition
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    You can buy the Waymo software as a consumer, and put it in your own car right now?
    - EastOfTruth 5y ago
      eventually, you won't have to buy a car... there will be self-driving cars everywhere waiting for you to hop on.
    - adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
      I'll sell you a self-driving car. Please be advised that it will drive into walls, fail to brake for stationary obstacles, drive straight off the road, and is in fact a Saturn with a brick on the gas pedal. I didn't say it was a good self-driving car. Tesla doesn't have competition because they aren't in the game at all. They do not make self-driving cars and probably never will.
    - EastOfTruth 5y ago
      no but I can't do that with Tesla software either .... I can with comma.ai though....
    - marmshallow 5y ago
      Tesla's business model (and stock valuation) is based on launching a robotaxi service. I'd say that this news introduces more competition for the robotaxi aspect, not the selling you a car aspect.
- cheeze 5y ago
  What does this mean? Hasn't Tesla been selling FSD beta for like 5 years now? I don't really trust anything Elon says anymore. I feel like he's not followed through on commitments about FSD far too many times. I'd personally never buy a TSLA until they get things much more in order (build quality/fit and finish, and actually deliver FSD)
  - jsight 5y ago
    This version is much more advanced than their previous versions, but I generally agree with you. Its nowhere close to being able to get you through most drives without assistance.
  - dcow 5y ago
    For the vast majority of people Tesla's vehicles are a practical, real, available, easy, modern, electric, car experience that are a near drop in replacement for ICE vehicles because you can road trip with them. There are zero competing offerings available today that have the range of a Tesla and an extensive associated integrated hi-amperage charging network. The only gripe is that FSD hasn't been delivered on the projected timelines (and may never be). I suspect you wouldn't buy a Tesla based on moonshot FSD claims anyway, so what's holding you back? The Elon hate train?
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      The reason why "the vast majority of people" are not considering purchasing an electric vehicle have to do with uncertainty about the charging experience and long term maintenance and repair costs. It has nothing to do with FSD. Once the costs of ownership are well understood, that uncertainly will be resolved and the cars can be priced correctly. That will take time -- if I buy a 10 year old corolla with 100K miles I will know (after the usual mechanic inspection) what my expected maintenance costs will be, on average, for the next 5 years of ownership. You can't really say that for an out-of-warantee Tesla because there isn't a large group of independent mechanics that can service it and because there is a lot of uncertainty about the battery life and service costs. Over time, if Teslas remain popular, and if the company doesn't DRM them out of existence, such networks will develop and we will accumulate actuarial data on repair costs that will reduce risk. Until then, this market will remain primarily one of price insensitive or risk-insensitive customers -- e.g. wealthier people and possibly government or other large corporate fleet sales. That is exactly what you would expect for new technologies. But for most people, a car is a major proportion of their networth, one they need to get to work, and so they are going to be risk averse (which is exactly what they should be). My next car will most likely be a 10 year old Lexus or Acura product. Even if it's a different manufacturer it will be an ICE vehicle and not an electric vehicle. Purchasing an out of warranty Tesla isn't remotely close to a viable option as it's not possible for me to price it. But used car prices drive new car prices because most purchasers are not planning on driving the car until it has zero value, they are counting on the used car market to pay for half of their car purchasing costs. Really for new technologies, Tesla should focus on leasing their cars if they want to reach out beyond the price insensitive market.
- m463 5y ago
  The "safety score" is a really really creepy thing. Not only that they are using it for this, but that they're collecting this data in the first place.
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    Uh, they only collect if you literally approve it on a full page popup that explains what the safety score is and how data is shared. Just to clarify your position, you want to hand over beta car driving software to people that do not first pass a test for safe driving?
    - basisword 5y ago
      Nobody can drive a car without passing a test demonstrating they can drive safely. If passing the government approved driving test doesn’t make someone good enough to use your software it probably shouldn’t be allowed on the road.
    - FireBeyond 5y ago
      > Uh, they only collect if you literally approve it on a full page popup that explains what the safety score is and how data is shared. I don't think that's accurate. Tesla collects a whole host of telemetry on all of their drivers. "Shadow Autopilot", etc., etc. They show zero hesitation in releasing that telemetry to the media, or elsewhere, if there's the slightest hint it will put you under scrutiny rather than them. Even misleadingly so - witness a fatal accident where Tesla said "the driver was not paying attention - the vehicle had warned him about taking his hands off the steering wheel", neglecting the ever so slight detail that it had warned him, once, and that warning occurred a quarter hour before the crash. Tesla collect all this data constantly, not just for entry into the FSD beta program.
- esturk 5y ago
  Marketplace actually had a segment this morning on this and why it's misleading. https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/teslas-full-self-driving-mode-is-actually-not-fully-self-driving https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/teslas-fu...
- adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
  Have you watched the footage of the current "beta"? It's a scam. It runs into stationary objects. It drives into oncoming traffic. It runs red lights, makes illegal turns, drives straight toward other cars, and can't stay on the road. And that's footage recorded and edited by Tesla's biggest fans. "Full Self Driving" does not exist. Every indication is that it never will. I still can't believe no one's gone to prison over this. Tesla's "self driving" features are probably the biggest fraud in history with a body count to match.
  - dzader 5y ago
    lol
  - colinmhayes 5y ago
    People are terrible at driving. Releasing a half baked product to get data needed to improve it makes complete sense and deserves to be encouraged, even if people die. Because it the end it's likely that many lives will be saved.
    - adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
      You don't get to smash a 4,000 pound explosive into a preschool because you want to gather data.
      - colinmhayes 5y ago
        If that data saves more lives it seems like a positive to me.
        adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
        If you ever find yourself in a position of power, please write these thoughts down. The prosecutor will find them helpful. We aren't dealing with hypothetical scenarios here. We are dealing with a real company that is really killing people in cold blood. People do not have the right to kill others because they guesstimate it's worth it. On planet Earth, not planet PH101, that's called murder. And that's being charitable. I don't believe for a second that Tesla's victims are sacrifices for the greater good. Tesla's technology is a dead end and the motivation is pumping the stock price.
- gibolt 5y ago
  The difference is scalability. Tesla can manufacture full equipped vehicles faster and for much cheaper. There are also already 1.5mil vehicles that could be turned on. They do not rely on HD maps. Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise, they can quickly dominate the driverless market.
  - serioussecurity 5y ago
    Tesla is 5 years behind and has no plans to begin work on a number of the key challenges they're facing.
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    > Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise It's tough to anchor Tesla's arrival based on the rest of the industry's progress. Cruise and Waymo are heavily dependent on Lidar; Tesla is solving a fairly different technological problem.
  - ra7 5y ago
    > Tesla can manufacture full equipped vehicles faster and for much cheaper. There are also already 1.5mil vehicles that could be turned on. This sounds like premature optimization. The real unsolved problem here is autonomous technology (software and hardware), not manufacturing equipped vehicles. No point having millions of vehicles if your self driving technology doesn't actually work. > They do not rely on HD maps. Precisely why FSD doesn't work and is still level 2. The AV players have shown fully autonomous driving needs HD maps and (inconspicuously) the only one not to graduate out of level 2 self driving is the one that's not using HD maps — Tesla. Creating/maintaining HD maps isn't nearly as hard as you think it is, but the benefits are incredible for safe driving.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
colpabar 5y ago
> Cruise in March submitted the applications for driverless operations, whereas Waymo in January applied for autonomous vehicle deployment with safety drivers behind the wheel. Wow, driverless actually means no driver here. But how does that work? What if it makes a mistake? Is there some fallback pilot somewhere that can take over and control it remotely?
- icyfox 5y ago
  Waymo has a similar approach in Phoenix. Passengers can't directly intervene but can call tech support and they'll dispatch roadside assistance to override the car and drive it to safety. Will be interesting to see if Cruise copies this same model.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Isn't Waymo also starting the same service in parts of San Francisco?
    - asah 5y ago
      with safety drivers = not the same
      - shkkmo 5y ago
        Nope, they announced driveless bay area testing several weeks back. A recent press release confirms this. [0] Waymo is allowed to test at all hours, in rain and light fog, within a limited geographic area. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28710098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28710098
        andrewnc 5y ago
        Anecdata here, but every waymo car I've seen here in SF for the past several weeks (probably 30+ cars) has had a safety driver.
        5y ago
smegcicle 5y ago
that's one way to both increase and decrease the homeless population
black_13 5y ago
Auto-de-fe : Zelazney https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-Fé_(short_story) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-Fé_(short_story)
TrainedMonkey 5y ago
> The California DMV said in a separate release that Cruise driverless "vehicles are approved to operate on public roads between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at a maximum speed limit of 30 miles per hour." At night only testing at super low speed. It's a good way to get started, but definitely not an autonomous taxi that title implies.
- Retric 5y ago
  30MPH isn’t super low speeds, it’s plenty fast for collisions to be dangerous.
  - vkou 5y ago
    For car-pedestrian, car-bicycle, and car-motorbike collisions, yes. For car-car collisions, not really. Yes, getting into a head-on 30-30 MPH collision is pretty bad, but you're more than likely going to walk away from it, especially if you're in the back seat.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - google234123 5y ago
      "Pitt et al. (1990) examined about 1,000 urban crashes with pedestrians younger than 20 years of age taken from NHTSA's Pedestrian Injury Causation Study (PICS) data. They found that, compared to crashes with vehicle travel speeds of 10 - 19 mph, the risk of serious injury (or death) was 2.1 for speeds of 20 - 29 mph, 7.2 for speeds of 30 - 39 mph, and 30.7 for speeds of 40 mph or more." https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/hs809012.html https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/hs809012.ht...
      - appletrotter 5y ago
        Really not sure how valid this 30 year old study is anymore!
sykseh 5y ago
Johnnycab: Hello I'm Johnnycab, where can I take you tonight? Doug Quaid: Drive, drive! Johnnycab: Would you please repeat the destination? Doug Quaid: Anywhere, just go, GO! Doug Quaid: SHIT, SHIT!!! Doug Quaid: SHIT, SHIT! Johnnycab: Im not familiar with that address, would you please repeat the destination?
- tlb 5y ago
  Having to verbally specify your destination address was always a lousy UX. Uber's UX where you enter it in an app is much better and allows using your address book, upcoming calendar entry, or searching by name.
dobs_bob 5y ago
How long does it take the "safety driver" to react at 65mph?
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  Per TFA, they're limited to 30 MPH and will not have safety drivers. And obviously the launch is conditioned on regulators' belief that the system can handle reacting, to a degree of safety that's similar to human drivers: otherwise they wouldn't get the permit. The reaction time of safety drivers is not what this approval pivots on. Though obviously the interesting question is: how did the company and the regulators get to this level of confidence in the system's safety
  - matttb 5y ago
    They are referring to the multiple parts in 'TFA' talking about Waymo using safety drivers and a 65mph limit.
    - wutbrodo 5y ago
      Ah, thanks for clarifying. That makes way more sense. BTW, you seem to have been reading TFA as some sort of snark. It's a pretty well-established bit of internet jargon that's (at least in my experience) more winking than aggressive at this pt.
somehnacct3757 5y ago
Given the hours of operation, I wonder what happens when your self-driving car shows up with puke in the upholstery from a previous rider
- bennyg 5y ago
  I'm sure they have a process for "car unsafe" arrivals.
- asdff 5y ago
  Ironic how by 'saving money' without the human driving the car, they end up probably spending a mountain more on engineers debugging this software constantly along with cleaning staff and maintenance for the entire fleet, legal staff for regulatory issues, and no doubt a huge insurance bill to pay. Sunk cost is a strong fallacy to see past I guess.
  - cromka 5y ago
    I don’t think you grasp the scale of this change. You think that this “mountain of engineers“ will equal to the (eventual) number of taxi drivers displaced? WORLDWIDE? Also, you think those engineers, capable of creating an autonomous car, somehow will find it too difficult to install liquid detectors all over the car and combine them with cameras inside to would allow for instantaneous, remote inspection of the car and imposing the penalties/taking the car offline – all of which are possible with existing technology?
    - asdff 5y ago
      All I'm saying is that when you look at other sectors with low cost labor, smart money like mcdonalds had the tech stack to replace their burger flippers with robots just like the auto industry in the 1970s, so there's probably a good reason why they still have human burger flippers today.
      - Jensson 5y ago
        Robots that can flip burgers are expensive. Robots that can drive us around already exists and so affordable that we see billions of them on the roads, they are called cars. All the road robots need is a better steering system, we don't need to invent tricky machinery. The burger flipping robots however would need tons of different new movable parts to be invented, mass produced and shipped all over etc. That would be expensive.
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
> The DMV has now approved three deployment permits. Waymo, Cruise, and who?
- tschwimmer 5y ago
  Seems like Nuro.[0] [0]https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/autonomous-vehicle-testing-permit-holders/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto...
mike_d 5y ago
"In order to receive a deployment permit, manufacturers must [... Develop] a Law Enforcement Interaction Plan that provides information to law enforcement and other first responders on how to interact with the autonomous vehicles." So they get to write the rules on how law enforcement interacts with their vehicles? Can I do that too?
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Do you really think this is helpful (much less a charitable) interpretation? This is asking the manufacturers for a user manual, like how to disable auto-piloting etc.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    At a time when it seems that police are unwilling to interface with regular human drivers, to the point they suggest that drivers need to preemptively place both their hands on the wheel so officers don't become spooked, it's reasonable to ask why companies get to specify deliberate procedures. As in, why isn't the attack first and ask questions later standard good enough for them too?
    - wutbrodo 5y ago
      > to the point they suggest that drivers need to place both their hands on the wheel so officers don't become spooked, it's reasonable to ask why companies get deliberate procedures. I don't understand. Isn't "place both hands on the wheel, show me your license", etc precisely a "deliberate procedure"? It sounds like your complaint is that police are too procedural instead of engaging on a human level, but then you complain that theyre not _more_ procedural with humans?
      - mindslight 5y ago
        I'm talking about who is setting the procedures, not simply their existence. With autonomous vehicles, they're asking how to interface with them politely. Like if they signal one to stop and it's not stopping, here is a phone number to call where someone can gracefully shut it down. As opposed to just deploying spike strips or ramming as is their default. Whereas human drivers don't get the luxury of specifying any such protocols. And rather than reform their own procedures, police are attempting to compensate by creating protocols drivers are supposed to know and follow before an officer is even at the car. As a motorist I'd love to be able to choose a protocol that police would follow when pulling me over. For example, call this phone number first rather than just walking up to me and risking yourself getting spooked and me getting killed.
modeless 5y ago
Huh, Cruise got a permit for "between 10 PM and 6 AM" up to 30 MPH, while Waymo got no time limit and 65 MPH. Presumably Cruise's permit is actually for the 6 AM to 10 PM time period and not the 10 PM to 6 AM one!
- bberenberg 5y ago
  Waymo has a safety driver, Cruise does not.
  - modeless 5y ago
    This release does not indicate a requirement for Waymo to have a safety driver. I don't think there is such a requirement.
    - modeless 5y ago
      Too late to edit, but I was wrong, it seems that Waymo did not request a permit for cars without safety drivers.
  - bagels 5y ago
    They have recently been operating without one.
    - flappysolutions 5y ago
      They've been operating without safety drivers in Phoenix, but not in SF. AFAIK, every Waymo car in SF has had a safety driver in it. Cruise has been testing driverless rides the past few months in that timeframe/speed limit.
- mindslight 5y ago
  Why presumably? 10PM-6AM is a much easier time to drive around. And it's not like they'd be going for daylight hours the other way.
  - 5y ago
unchocked 5y ago
Between the noise of self-driving singularlists, and that of self-driving impossibilists, it's great to see plodding, sequential progress like this.
- oblio 5y ago
  I think most reasonable people aren't against self-driving, they don't consider it impossible. They're generally against "create a self-driving startup in 2021, IPO by 2024 at the latest". That's just snake oil salesmanship.
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    Also against the "move fast and crash into things, and people" attitude some of them have.
    - marmshallow 5y ago
      (Tesla)
- Animats 5y ago
  Yes. I've been saying that for a few years, as Waymo's disconnect rate improved by a factor of 2 every 18 months or so. This is a hard engineering problem. Now that the "fake it til you make it" clowns have dropped out, there's real progress.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    What's the "disconnect rate"?
    - klodolph 5y ago
      I believe it's how often the system requires human intervention... e.g., once per 1,000 miles, or once per 250 hours, or something like that.
amirhirsch 5y ago
Can this be used to move cargo from place to place without people in the car?
- Vargohoat 5y ago
  Walmart already has a delivery pilot with an AV company (I think in AZ?). I'm not sure if it's without safety drivers yet though
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
badkitty99 5y ago
Get these robot cars off the road, no thank you
zabzonk 5y ago
How mad would you have to be to get into one of these?
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  At 30mph max in the back seat with the belt on? Not that mad I reckon.
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    As opposed to having one with a human driver?
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      I dunno? I guess I'd have to look at the statistics. My sense is that the Waymo vehicles at least are statistically safer than a human driver at these speeds, although not as competent. (I.e. they are less likely to cause an accident, but more likely to encounter a situation they can't handle and get stuck.)
      - asdff 5y ago
        I'd love to see these vehicles handle situations where pedestrians or debris are all over the road. Like in front of a busy bar, construction area, or homeless camp. To the best of my knowledge the environments they've been test driving in have been pretty controlled and orderly and they still manage to find people to run over.
        EchoAce 5y ago
        Wait, I see them everywhere in SF and in completely random places too…
        TulliusCicero 5y ago
        You're wrong twice over: Waymo and Cruise have been testing in SF for a long time, and so far neither has run anybody over. Uber ran someone over, it turns out they were shockingly incompetent, and thankfully they don't have an AV program anymore.
young_unixer 5y ago
For reference: 30 mph ≈ 48.2 km/h
gumby 5y ago
The point release says they have issued three permits. Which is the third?
- czr 5y ago
  nuro https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/autonomous-vehicle-testing-permit-holders/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto...
  - gumby 5y ago
    Thanks. I see them driving around the neighborhood but haven’t noticed anyone in the back seat, driver only.
  - Animats 5y ago
    Nuro has little self-driving delivery vehicles. But someone has to come out to them and take the stuff out, so they're not all that useful.
    - darkwizard42 5y ago
      Hm. Not sure I would say that... there really isn't a one-size fits all unloading mechanism across trucking/delivery and there will be a human involved in that process till we really really standardized. The value is now cutting the labor number by 1/3rd. Need a loader and unloader, no more driver. In food delivery this essentially removes your labor cost since the restaurant and consumer are the loader/unloader.
gfodor 5y ago
Robocars shuttling around actual people in SF at night in 2021 seems like it should surprise a lot of people who have been skeptics. The road to full, global, universal autonomy will probably take decades if we are going to use that as the standard, but the standard of being certain that autonomy will eat the world seems to be getting very close to being met.
- mountainboy 5y ago
  until the first pedestrian gets killed...
  - peter422 5y ago
    >10 pedestrians are killed each year by human drivers in SF, and almost exclusively they are the drivers fault (not only by definition, but also based on an impartial assessment of the situations). People will not care, and I also do not think these automated cars are going to kill any pedestrians anyways.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      When a human kills someone "that's a bad driver, take away their license" when a machine kills someone "that's a bad machine, ban it"
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      If you're setting the over-under at 0.5, I'll take the over...
    - DamnYuppie 5y ago
      Agreed most people will not care. The legacy auto manufacturers and their mainstream media lap dogs will jump all over it. There will be an outpouring of fabricated outrage. It is all so predictable I want to puke.
      - jjulius 5y ago
stooliepidgin 5y ago
Driverless cars with passengers operating on the streets with pedestrians, insane taxi drivers, and the prototypical BMW cell-phone-shouting suit with a buzz-cut who just drive around everyone like they're not there. How could this possibly go wrong?
asdff 5y ago
Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving car? It was always a joke in college how the dream was to get hit by a university bus and have your tuition paid off in a huge settlement. I'd imagine if a waymo car made its way around the more desperate parts of the bay area like the tenderloin and liability ends up shifting to huge company with billions of dollars, we might end up with a Russia sort of situation in terms of rampant insurance fraud. Maybe waymo et al will just respond by never servicing these areas, which will no doubt open an entire can of worms in the press and among the most virtuous online.
- 0_____0 5y ago
  The cars themselves are studded with every kind of camera and sensor you can imagine, it'd be pretty hard to pull of an insurance scam
- notatoad 5y ago
  >a russia sort of situation in russia the rampant insurance fraud ended in everybody getting dashcams to defend themselves. waymo and cruise have way more than just a dashcam - if you can successfully commit insurance fraud while being recorded on a dozen cameras as well as lidar and infrared sensors, you probably deserve the settlement.
  - asdff 5y ago
    Set a mark, people will aim for it.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      Aim, sure. That doesn't mean enough people will hit it to matter.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving car? Short answer: in the U.S., it will depend on the facts and circumstances. Common law has many drawbacks. But organic adaptability is one of its advantages.
hardwaregeek 5y ago
Has there been any attempts to make hybrid autonomous train-cars? Like some sort of enclosed road/track highway or a caravan? Seems like a more safe goal versus the chaos that is urban environments.
- asdff 5y ago
  There are already automatic subway systems. You could make BRT autonomous pretty easily too since it runs on its own separated grade in a fixed route. You could throw down some sensors in the road surface and call it a day like the technology used in the new disneyland star wars ride.
- apendleton 5y ago
  As another responder said, lots of subways are autonomous, but if you're thinking of a car-sized thing on a train guideway, these have been proposed but only a small number of actually been built: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
  - hardwaregeek 5y ago
    Subways are good (not that automated in New York due to union pressure) but a lot of american cities are not designed around mass transit but unfortunately highways. I could see some system where cars drive onto a highway then get put into a caravan or special lane that automates the driving until their exit
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Electric trolleys existed in many cities in the past.
jamez1 5y ago
It is logical to assume self driving cars start off in low risk areas, prove their concept, and gradually take on more and more use cases. Things like retirement villages and so on, where this incremental approach has already had success. Skepticism is easy when thinking about the grand scale but this incrementalism will surely win out in the end.
yalogin 5y ago
> Verifying the technology is capable of detecting and responding to roadway situations in compliance with the California Vehicle Code, and a description of how the vehicle meets the definition of an SAE Level 3, 4 or 5 autonomous technology. How does the company prove this? Are there detailed criteria listed somewhere that these companies should then prove to meet? AFAIK, its all self reported. I mean, if the company is confident it can do it, I guess it's a good thing, but is it enough?
kvogt 5y ago
Cruise founder here. This is kind of confusing. Short version: - Cruise permit is for robo-taxi service, available to public (fully driverless, nobody in the car) - Waymo permit is for robo-taxi service, available to public (human safety driver behind the wheel at all times) - Nuro permit is for robo-delivery, available to public (no human passengers)
- guiomie 5y ago
  will you not have a robo-taxi service with human safety driver at first?
  - kvogt 5y ago
    We have been running one for employees on and off since 2017.
    - vntok 5y ago
      So is that a yes or no to parent's question?
      - arthurcolle 5y ago
        How could you interpret it anything other than a 'yes' ?
        adriand 5y ago
        Actually, answering “yes” to that question would have been extremely confusing given how the question is worded! Which makes the snarky request for a binary response even less reasonable.
        dang 5y ago
        I take your point but it might not have been snarky - for example, HN has a lot of non-native English speakers and different languages handle affirmation-of-negation very differently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas
sfblah 5y ago
I signed up for the waitlist to use this in San Francisco. Anyone here work at Waymo and know when/if I might get approved? I'm curious to try it out.
georgehotz 5y ago
Full disclosure, I founded a somewhat competing company in the space, comma.ai Why is this progress? Evaluating progress in self driving cars is extremely complex. Why do people trust that the California government is able to do so? A milestone is a working product with many user videos on YouTube. This is a press release from the California DMV.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  Seems like it might be a bit difficult to have user videos on YouTube if you can't legally have users. Getting the permits issued is a good first step.
  - georgehotz 5y ago
    Tesla has tons of videos on YouTube from users showcasing similar technology, including in San Francisco. While FSD beta may still have issues, I see no reason to believe that this doesn't also have similar issues.
    - AlotOfReading 5y ago
      I wasn't aware that Tesla was operating commercial autonomous rideshare in SF. Can you link something? I've seen the FSD beta, but that's neither "L4" (whatever you think of the SAE levels) nor commercial. This announcement is specifically about safety drivers and commercial operation, because both Cruise and Waymo have been operating non-commercial fleets with safety drivers for awhile now.
      - gitfan86 5y ago
        Tesla is currently in beta everywhere, not just SF. Tesla is taking the path of improving the technology with driver monitoring, rather than focusing on getting a single city to label them as 'L4'
        AlotOfReading 5y ago
diebeforei485 5y ago
So, when can I hail a Cruise vehicle?
- ehsankia 5y ago
  after 10PM apparently.
inezk 5y ago
"within designated parts of San Francisco" - as for Cruise, which parts of San Francisco those are?
m0zg 5y ago
I wonder what (if anything) they're going to do with the fact that these cars carry $200K in additional equipment (maybe more), which will be immediately sawed off and broken into by SF's extensive homeless population. BayArea seems like the one of the worst places in the US to leave expensive stuff unattended like this.
daveslash 5y ago
This is off topic BUT DAT FONT SIZE!!! ~ I had to double and triple check my zoom settings in my browser. I'm used to everything from the CA DMV being boring and mundane like Ben Stein. After poking around, I realize that's just the font size for DMV New Releases.... but wow... caught me off guard. Low quality comment, down-vote if you must; I've said what I came here to say.
iammisc 5y ago
California is so progressive, first they legislate away Uber drivers jobs, convince everyone it's for moral decency and then in the same fell swoop, they make their newly 'liberated' employees completely redundant. It must sure feel good to know that you would be an employee if anyone wanted to hire you when you're waiting in line for the dole.

416 points by ra7 5y ago

Zero comments? When the robotic overlords take over, it will not be to thunderous applause nor loud protestations, but rather quietly beneath the surface silence of billions of people distracted by something more interesting or enticing.

reidjs 5y ago
It’s self driving cars, not autonomous governments. Considering how distracted and impaired the average driver is, this might be a godsend.
Falling3 5y ago
You think no comments within 20 minutes of posting is enough to make that kind of claim over?

obilgic 5y ago

> https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1442706542839701510 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1442706542839701510 And Tesla is rolling out FSD beta to cars based on drivers' safety score.

EastOfTruth 5y ago
Tesla is getting some real competition
- brianwawok 5y ago
  You can buy the Waymo software as a consumer, and put it in your own car right now?
  - EastOfTruth 5y ago
    eventually, you won't have to buy a car... there will be self-driving cars everywhere waiting for you to hop on.
  - adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
    I'll sell you a self-driving car. Please be advised that it will drive into walls, fail to brake for stationary obstacles, drive straight off the road, and is in fact a Saturn with a brick on the gas pedal. I didn't say it was a good self-driving car. Tesla doesn't have competition because they aren't in the game at all. They do not make self-driving cars and probably never will.
  - EastOfTruth 5y ago
    no but I can't do that with Tesla software either .... I can with comma.ai though....
  - marmshallow 5y ago
    Tesla's business model (and stock valuation) is based on launching a robotaxi service. I'd say that this news introduces more competition for the robotaxi aspect, not the selling you a car aspect.
cheeze 5y ago
What does this mean? Hasn't Tesla been selling FSD beta for like 5 years now? I don't really trust anything Elon says anymore. I feel like he's not followed through on commitments about FSD far too many times. I'd personally never buy a TSLA until they get things much more in order (build quality/fit and finish, and actually deliver FSD)
- jsight 5y ago
  This version is much more advanced than their previous versions, but I generally agree with you. Its nowhere close to being able to get you through most drives without assistance.
- dcow 5y ago
  For the vast majority of people Tesla's vehicles are a practical, real, available, easy, modern, electric, car experience that are a near drop in replacement for ICE vehicles because you can road trip with them. There are zero competing offerings available today that have the range of a Tesla and an extensive associated integrated hi-amperage charging network. The only gripe is that FSD hasn't been delivered on the projected timelines (and may never be). I suspect you wouldn't buy a Tesla based on moonshot FSD claims anyway, so what's holding you back? The Elon hate train?
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    The reason why "the vast majority of people" are not considering purchasing an electric vehicle have to do with uncertainty about the charging experience and long term maintenance and repair costs. It has nothing to do with FSD. Once the costs of ownership are well understood, that uncertainly will be resolved and the cars can be priced correctly. That will take time -- if I buy a 10 year old corolla with 100K miles I will know (after the usual mechanic inspection) what my expected maintenance costs will be, on average, for the next 5 years of ownership. You can't really say that for an out-of-warantee Tesla because there isn't a large group of independent mechanics that can service it and because there is a lot of uncertainty about the battery life and service costs. Over time, if Teslas remain popular, and if the company doesn't DRM them out of existence, such networks will develop and we will accumulate actuarial data on repair costs that will reduce risk. Until then, this market will remain primarily one of price insensitive or risk-insensitive customers -- e.g. wealthier people and possibly government or other large corporate fleet sales. That is exactly what you would expect for new technologies. But for most people, a car is a major proportion of their networth, one they need to get to work, and so they are going to be risk averse (which is exactly what they should be). My next car will most likely be a 10 year old Lexus or Acura product. Even if it's a different manufacturer it will be an ICE vehicle and not an electric vehicle. Purchasing an out of warranty Tesla isn't remotely close to a viable option as it's not possible for me to price it. But used car prices drive new car prices because most purchasers are not planning on driving the car until it has zero value, they are counting on the used car market to pay for half of their car purchasing costs. Really for new technologies, Tesla should focus on leasing their cars if they want to reach out beyond the price insensitive market.
m463 5y ago
The "safety score" is a really really creepy thing. Not only that they are using it for this, but that they're collecting this data in the first place.
- brianwawok 5y ago
  Uh, they only collect if you literally approve it on a full page popup that explains what the safety score is and how data is shared. Just to clarify your position, you want to hand over beta car driving software to people that do not first pass a test for safe driving?
  - basisword 5y ago
    Nobody can drive a car without passing a test demonstrating they can drive safely. If passing the government approved driving test doesn’t make someone good enough to use your software it probably shouldn’t be allowed on the road.
  - FireBeyond 5y ago
    > Uh, they only collect if you literally approve it on a full page popup that explains what the safety score is and how data is shared. I don't think that's accurate. Tesla collects a whole host of telemetry on all of their drivers. "Shadow Autopilot", etc., etc. They show zero hesitation in releasing that telemetry to the media, or elsewhere, if there's the slightest hint it will put you under scrutiny rather than them. Even misleadingly so - witness a fatal accident where Tesla said "the driver was not paying attention - the vehicle had warned him about taking his hands off the steering wheel", neglecting the ever so slight detail that it had warned him, once, and that warning occurred a quarter hour before the crash. Tesla collect all this data constantly, not just for entry into the FSD beta program.
esturk 5y ago
Marketplace actually had a segment this morning on this and why it's misleading. https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/teslas-full-self-driving-mode-is-actually-not-fully-self-driving https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-tech/teslas-fu...
adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
Have you watched the footage of the current "beta"? It's a scam. It runs into stationary objects. It drives into oncoming traffic. It runs red lights, makes illegal turns, drives straight toward other cars, and can't stay on the road. And that's footage recorded and edited by Tesla's biggest fans. "Full Self Driving" does not exist. Every indication is that it never will. I still can't believe no one's gone to prison over this. Tesla's "self driving" features are probably the biggest fraud in history with a body count to match.
- dzader 5y ago
  lol
- colinmhayes 5y ago
  People are terrible at driving. Releasing a half baked product to get data needed to improve it makes complete sense and deserves to be encouraged, even if people die. Because it the end it's likely that many lives will be saved.
  - adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
    You don't get to smash a 4,000 pound explosive into a preschool because you want to gather data.
    - colinmhayes 5y ago
      If that data saves more lives it seems like a positive to me.
      - adfrhgeaq5hy 5y ago
        If you ever find yourself in a position of power, please write these thoughts down. The prosecutor will find them helpful. We aren't dealing with hypothetical scenarios here. We are dealing with a real company that is really killing people in cold blood. People do not have the right to kill others because they guesstimate it's worth it. On planet Earth, not planet PH101, that's called murder. And that's being charitable. I don't believe for a second that Tesla's victims are sacrifices for the greater good. Tesla's technology is a dead end and the motivation is pumping the stock price.
gibolt 5y ago
The difference is scalability. Tesla can manufacture full equipped vehicles faster and for much cheaper. There are also already 1.5mil vehicles that could be turned on. They do not rely on HD maps. Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise, they can quickly dominate the driverless market.
- serioussecurity 5y ago
  Tesla is 5 years behind and has no plans to begin work on a number of the key challenges they're facing.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  > Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise It's tough to anchor Tesla's arrival based on the rest of the industry's progress. Cruise and Waymo are heavily dependent on Lidar; Tesla is solving a fairly different technological problem.
- ra7 5y ago
  > Tesla can manufacture full equipped vehicles faster and for much cheaper. There are also already 1.5mil vehicles that could be turned on. This sounds like premature optimization. The real unsolved problem here is autonomous technology (software and hardware), not manufacturing equipped vehicles. No point having millions of vehicles if your self driving technology doesn't actually work. > They do not rely on HD maps. Precisely why FSD doesn't work and is still level 2. The AV players have shown fully autonomous driving needs HD maps and (inconspicuously) the only one not to graduate out of level 2 self driving is the one that's not using HD maps — Tesla. Creating/maintaining HD maps isn't nearly as hard as you think it is, but the benefits are incredible for safe driving.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

colpabar 5y ago

> Cruise in March submitted the applications for driverless operations, whereas Waymo in January applied for autonomous vehicle deployment with safety drivers behind the wheel. Wow, driverless actually means no driver here. But how does that work? What if it makes a mistake? Is there some fallback pilot somewhere that can take over and control it remotely?

icyfox 5y ago
Waymo has a similar approach in Phoenix. Passengers can't directly intervene but can call tech support and they'll dispatch roadside assistance to override the car and drive it to safety. Will be interesting to see if Cruise copies this same model.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Isn't Waymo also starting the same service in parts of San Francisco?
  - asah 5y ago
    with safety drivers = not the same
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      Nope, they announced driveless bay area testing several weeks back. A recent press release confirms this. [0] Waymo is allowed to test at all hours, in rain and light fog, within a limited geographic area. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28710098 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28710098
      - andrewnc 5y ago
        Anecdata here, but every waymo car I've seen here in SF for the past several weeks (probably 30+ cars) has had a safety driver.
      - 5y ago

smegcicle 5y ago

that's one way to both increase and decrease the homeless population

black_13 5y ago

Auto-de-fe : Zelazney https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-Fé_(short_story) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da-Fé_(short_story)

TrainedMonkey 5y ago

> The California DMV said in a separate release that Cruise driverless "vehicles are approved to operate on public roads between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at a maximum speed limit of 30 miles per hour." At night only testing at super low speed. It's a good way to get started, but definitely not an autonomous taxi that title implies.

Retric 5y ago
30MPH isn’t super low speeds, it’s plenty fast for collisions to be dangerous.
- vkou 5y ago
  For car-pedestrian, car-bicycle, and car-motorbike collisions, yes. For car-car collisions, not really. Yes, getting into a head-on 30-30 MPH collision is pretty bad, but you're more than likely going to walk away from it, especially if you're in the back seat.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - google234123 5y ago
    "Pitt et al. (1990) examined about 1,000 urban crashes with pedestrians younger than 20 years of age taken from NHTSA's Pedestrian Injury Causation Study (PICS) data. They found that, compared to crashes with vehicle travel speeds of 10 - 19 mph, the risk of serious injury (or death) was 2.1 for speeds of 20 - 29 mph, 7.2 for speeds of 30 - 39 mph, and 30.7 for speeds of 40 mph or more." https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/hs809012.html https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/hs809012.ht...
    - appletrotter 5y ago
      Really not sure how valid this 30 year old study is anymore!

sykseh 5y ago

Johnnycab: Hello I'm Johnnycab, where can I take you tonight? Doug Quaid: Drive, drive! Johnnycab: Would you please repeat the destination? Doug Quaid: Anywhere, just go, GO! Doug Quaid: SHIT, SHIT!!! Doug Quaid: SHIT, SHIT! Johnnycab: Im not familiar with that address, would you please repeat the destination?

tlb 5y ago
Having to verbally specify your destination address was always a lousy UX. Uber's UX where you enter it in an app is much better and allows using your address book, upcoming calendar entry, or searching by name.

dobs_bob 5y ago

How long does it take the "safety driver" to react at 65mph?

wutbrodo 5y ago
Per TFA, they're limited to 30 MPH and will not have safety drivers. And obviously the launch is conditioned on regulators' belief that the system can handle reacting, to a degree of safety that's similar to human drivers: otherwise they wouldn't get the permit. The reaction time of safety drivers is not what this approval pivots on. Though obviously the interesting question is: how did the company and the regulators get to this level of confidence in the system's safety
- matttb 5y ago
  They are referring to the multiple parts in 'TFA' talking about Waymo using safety drivers and a 65mph limit.
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    Ah, thanks for clarifying. That makes way more sense. BTW, you seem to have been reading TFA as some sort of snark. It's a pretty well-established bit of internet jargon that's (at least in my experience) more winking than aggressive at this pt.

somehnacct3757 5y ago

Given the hours of operation, I wonder what happens when your self-driving car shows up with puke in the upholstery from a previous rider

bennyg 5y ago
I'm sure they have a process for "car unsafe" arrivals.
asdff 5y ago
Ironic how by 'saving money' without the human driving the car, they end up probably spending a mountain more on engineers debugging this software constantly along with cleaning staff and maintenance for the entire fleet, legal staff for regulatory issues, and no doubt a huge insurance bill to pay. Sunk cost is a strong fallacy to see past I guess.
- cromka 5y ago
  I don’t think you grasp the scale of this change. You think that this “mountain of engineers“ will equal to the (eventual) number of taxi drivers displaced? WORLDWIDE? Also, you think those engineers, capable of creating an autonomous car, somehow will find it too difficult to install liquid detectors all over the car and combine them with cameras inside to would allow for instantaneous, remote inspection of the car and imposing the penalties/taking the car offline – all of which are possible with existing technology?
  - asdff 5y ago
    All I'm saying is that when you look at other sectors with low cost labor, smart money like mcdonalds had the tech stack to replace their burger flippers with robots just like the auto industry in the 1970s, so there's probably a good reason why they still have human burger flippers today.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Robots that can flip burgers are expensive. Robots that can drive us around already exists and so affordable that we see billions of them on the roads, they are called cars. All the road robots need is a better steering system, we don't need to invent tricky machinery. The burger flipping robots however would need tons of different new movable parts to be invented, mass produced and shipped all over etc. That would be expensive.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago

> The DMV has now approved three deployment permits. Waymo, Cruise, and who?

tschwimmer 5y ago
Seems like Nuro.[0] [0]https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/autonomous-vehicle-testing-permit-holders/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto...

mike_d 5y ago

"In order to receive a deployment permit, manufacturers must [... Develop] a Law Enforcement Interaction Plan that provides information to law enforcement and other first responders on how to interact with the autonomous vehicles." So they get to write the rules on how law enforcement interacts with their vehicles? Can I do that too?

bpodgursky 5y ago
Do you really think this is helpful (much less a charitable) interpretation? This is asking the manufacturers for a user manual, like how to disable auto-piloting etc.
- mindslight 5y ago
  At a time when it seems that police are unwilling to interface with regular human drivers, to the point they suggest that drivers need to preemptively place both their hands on the wheel so officers don't become spooked, it's reasonable to ask why companies get to specify deliberate procedures. As in, why isn't the attack first and ask questions later standard good enough for them too?
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    > to the point they suggest that drivers need to place both their hands on the wheel so officers don't become spooked, it's reasonable to ask why companies get deliberate procedures. I don't understand. Isn't "place both hands on the wheel, show me your license", etc precisely a "deliberate procedure"? It sounds like your complaint is that police are too procedural instead of engaging on a human level, but then you complain that theyre not _more_ procedural with humans?
    - mindslight 5y ago
      I'm talking about who is setting the procedures, not simply their existence. With autonomous vehicles, they're asking how to interface with them politely. Like if they signal one to stop and it's not stopping, here is a phone number to call where someone can gracefully shut it down. As opposed to just deploying spike strips or ramming as is their default. Whereas human drivers don't get the luxury of specifying any such protocols. And rather than reform their own procedures, police are attempting to compensate by creating protocols drivers are supposed to know and follow before an officer is even at the car. As a motorist I'd love to be able to choose a protocol that police would follow when pulling me over. For example, call this phone number first rather than just walking up to me and risking yourself getting spooked and me getting killed.

modeless 5y ago

Huh, Cruise got a permit for "between 10 PM and 6 AM" up to 30 MPH, while Waymo got no time limit and 65 MPH. Presumably Cruise's permit is actually for the 6 AM to 10 PM time period and not the 10 PM to 6 AM one!

bberenberg 5y ago
Waymo has a safety driver, Cruise does not.
- modeless 5y ago
  This release does not indicate a requirement for Waymo to have a safety driver. I don't think there is such a requirement.
  - modeless 5y ago
    Too late to edit, but I was wrong, it seems that Waymo did not request a permit for cars without safety drivers.
- bagels 5y ago
  They have recently been operating without one.
  - flappysolutions 5y ago
    They've been operating without safety drivers in Phoenix, but not in SF. AFAIK, every Waymo car in SF has had a safety driver in it. Cruise has been testing driverless rides the past few months in that timeframe/speed limit.
mindslight 5y ago
Why presumably? 10PM-6AM is a much easier time to drive around. And it's not like they'd be going for daylight hours the other way.
- 5y ago

unchocked 5y ago

Between the noise of self-driving singularlists, and that of self-driving impossibilists, it's great to see plodding, sequential progress like this.

oblio 5y ago
I think most reasonable people aren't against self-driving, they don't consider it impossible. They're generally against "create a self-driving startup in 2021, IPO by 2024 at the latest". That's just snake oil salesmanship.
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  Also against the "move fast and crash into things, and people" attitude some of them have.
  - marmshallow 5y ago
    (Tesla)
Animats 5y ago
Yes. I've been saying that for a few years, as Waymo's disconnect rate improved by a factor of 2 every 18 months or so. This is a hard engineering problem. Now that the "fake it til you make it" clowns have dropped out, there's real progress.
- kstrauser 5y ago
  What's the "disconnect rate"?
  - klodolph 5y ago
    I believe it's how often the system requires human intervention... e.g., once per 1,000 miles, or once per 250 hours, or something like that.

amirhirsch 5y ago

Can this be used to move cargo from place to place without people in the car?

Vargohoat 5y ago
Walmart already has a delivery pilot with an AV company (I think in AZ?). I'm not sure if it's without safety drivers yet though

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

badkitty99 5y ago

Get these robot cars off the road, no thank you

zabzonk 5y ago

How mad would you have to be to get into one of these?

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
At 30mph max in the back seat with the belt on? Not that mad I reckon.
- zabzonk 5y ago
  As opposed to having one with a human driver?
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    I dunno? I guess I'd have to look at the statistics. My sense is that the Waymo vehicles at least are statistically safer than a human driver at these speeds, although not as competent. (I.e. they are less likely to cause an accident, but more likely to encounter a situation they can't handle and get stuck.)
    - asdff 5y ago
      I'd love to see these vehicles handle situations where pedestrians or debris are all over the road. Like in front of a busy bar, construction area, or homeless camp. To the best of my knowledge the environments they've been test driving in have been pretty controlled and orderly and they still manage to find people to run over.
      - EchoAce 5y ago
        Wait, I see them everywhere in SF and in completely random places too…
      - TulliusCicero 5y ago
        You're wrong twice over: Waymo and Cruise have been testing in SF for a long time, and so far neither has run anybody over. Uber ran someone over, it turns out they were shockingly incompetent, and thankfully they don't have an AV program anymore.

young_unixer 5y ago

For reference: 30 mph ≈ 48.2 km/h

gumby 5y ago

The point release says they have issued three permits. Which is the third?

czr 5y ago
nuro https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/autonomous-vehicle-testing-permit-holders/ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/auto...
- gumby 5y ago
  Thanks. I see them driving around the neighborhood but haven’t noticed anyone in the back seat, driver only.
- Animats 5y ago
  Nuro has little self-driving delivery vehicles. But someone has to come out to them and take the stuff out, so they're not all that useful.
  - darkwizard42 5y ago
    Hm. Not sure I would say that... there really isn't a one-size fits all unloading mechanism across trucking/delivery and there will be a human involved in that process till we really really standardized. The value is now cutting the labor number by 1/3rd. Need a loader and unloader, no more driver. In food delivery this essentially removes your labor cost since the restaurant and consumer are the loader/unloader.

gfodor 5y ago

Robocars shuttling around actual people in SF at night in 2021 seems like it should surprise a lot of people who have been skeptics. The road to full, global, universal autonomy will probably take decades if we are going to use that as the standard, but the standard of being certain that autonomy will eat the world seems to be getting very close to being met.

mountainboy 5y ago
until the first pedestrian gets killed...
- peter422 5y ago
  >10 pedestrians are killed each year by human drivers in SF, and almost exclusively they are the drivers fault (not only by definition, but also based on an impartial assessment of the situations). People will not care, and I also do not think these automated cars are going to kill any pedestrians anyways.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    When a human kills someone "that's a bad driver, take away their license" when a machine kills someone "that's a bad machine, ban it"
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    If you're setting the over-under at 0.5, I'll take the over...
  - DamnYuppie 5y ago
    Agreed most people will not care. The legacy auto manufacturers and their mainstream media lap dogs will jump all over it. There will be an outpouring of fabricated outrage. It is all so predictable I want to puke.
    - jjulius 5y ago

stooliepidgin 5y ago

Driverless cars with passengers operating on the streets with pedestrians, insane taxi drivers, and the prototypical BMW cell-phone-shouting suit with a buzz-cut who just drive around everyone like they're not there. How could this possibly go wrong?

asdff 5y ago

Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving car? It was always a joke in college how the dream was to get hit by a university bus and have your tuition paid off in a huge settlement. I'd imagine if a waymo car made its way around the more desperate parts of the bay area like the tenderloin and liability ends up shifting to huge company with billions of dollars, we might end up with a Russia sort of situation in terms of rampant insurance fraud. Maybe waymo et al will just respond by never servicing these areas, which will no doubt open an entire can of worms in the press and among the most virtuous online.

0_____0 5y ago
The cars themselves are studded with every kind of camera and sensor you can imagine, it'd be pretty hard to pull of an insurance scam
notatoad 5y ago
>a russia sort of situation in russia the rampant insurance fraud ended in everybody getting dashcams to defend themselves. waymo and cruise have way more than just a dashcam - if you can successfully commit insurance fraud while being recorded on a dozen cameras as well as lidar and infrared sensors, you probably deserve the settlement.
- asdff 5y ago
  Set a mark, people will aim for it.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    Aim, sure. That doesn't mean enough people will hit it to matter.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving car? Short answer: in the U.S., it will depend on the facts and circumstances. Common law has many drawbacks. But organic adaptability is one of its advantages.

hardwaregeek 5y ago

Has there been any attempts to make hybrid autonomous train-cars? Like some sort of enclosed road/track highway or a caravan? Seems like a more safe goal versus the chaos that is urban environments.

asdff 5y ago
There are already automatic subway systems. You could make BRT autonomous pretty easily too since it runs on its own separated grade in a fixed route. You could throw down some sensors in the road surface and call it a day like the technology used in the new disneyland star wars ride.
apendleton 5y ago
As another responder said, lots of subways are autonomous, but if you're thinking of a car-sized thing on a train guideway, these have been proposed but only a small number of actually been built: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
- hardwaregeek 5y ago
  Subways are good (not that automated in New York due to union pressure) but a lot of american cities are not designed around mass transit but unfortunately highways. I could see some system where cars drive onto a highway then get put into a caravan or special lane that automates the driving until their exit
heavyset_go 5y ago
Electric trolleys existed in many cities in the past.

jamez1 5y ago

It is logical to assume self driving cars start off in low risk areas, prove their concept, and gradually take on more and more use cases. Things like retirement villages and so on, where this incremental approach has already had success. Skepticism is easy when thinking about the grand scale but this incrementalism will surely win out in the end.

yalogin 5y ago

> Verifying the technology is capable of detecting and responding to roadway situations in compliance with the California Vehicle Code, and a description of how the vehicle meets the definition of an SAE Level 3, 4 or 5 autonomous technology. How does the company prove this? Are there detailed criteria listed somewhere that these companies should then prove to meet? AFAIK, its all self reported. I mean, if the company is confident it can do it, I guess it's a good thing, but is it enough?

kvogt 5y ago

Cruise founder here. This is kind of confusing. Short version: - Cruise permit is for robo-taxi service, available to public (fully driverless, nobody in the car) - Waymo permit is for robo-taxi service, available to public (human safety driver behind the wheel at all times) - Nuro permit is for robo-delivery, available to public (no human passengers)

guiomie 5y ago
will you not have a robo-taxi service with human safety driver at first?
- kvogt 5y ago
  We have been running one for employees on and off since 2017.
  - vntok 5y ago
    So is that a yes or no to parent's question?
    - arthurcolle 5y ago
      How could you interpret it anything other than a 'yes' ?
      - adriand 5y ago
        Actually, answering “yes” to that question would have been extremely confusing given how the question is worded! Which makes the snarky request for a binary response even less reasonable.
        dang 5y ago
        I take your point but it might not have been snarky - for example, HN has a lot of non-native English speakers and different languages handle affirmation-of-negation very differently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes!_We_Have_No_Bananas

sfblah 5y ago

I signed up for the waitlist to use this in San Francisco. Anyone here work at Waymo and know when/if I might get approved? I'm curious to try it out.

georgehotz 5y ago

Full disclosure, I founded a somewhat competing company in the space, comma.ai Why is this progress? Evaluating progress in self driving cars is extremely complex. Why do people trust that the California government is able to do so? A milestone is a working product with many user videos on YouTube. This is a press release from the California DMV.

AlotOfReading 5y ago
Seems like it might be a bit difficult to have user videos on YouTube if you can't legally have users. Getting the permits issued is a good first step.
- georgehotz 5y ago
  Tesla has tons of videos on YouTube from users showcasing similar technology, including in San Francisco. While FSD beta may still have issues, I see no reason to believe that this doesn't also have similar issues.
  - AlotOfReading 5y ago
    I wasn't aware that Tesla was operating commercial autonomous rideshare in SF. Can you link something? I've seen the FSD beta, but that's neither "L4" (whatever you think of the SAE levels) nor commercial. This announcement is specifically about safety drivers and commercial operation, because both Cruise and Waymo have been operating non-commercial fleets with safety drivers for awhile now.
    - gitfan86 5y ago
      Tesla is currently in beta everywhere, not just SF. Tesla is taking the path of improving the technology with driver monitoring, rather than focusing on getting a single city to label them as 'L4'
      - AlotOfReading 5y ago

diebeforei485 5y ago

So, when can I hail a Cruise vehicle?

ehsankia 5y ago
after 10PM apparently.

inezk 5y ago

"within designated parts of San Francisco" - as for Cruise, which parts of San Francisco those are?

m0zg 5y ago

I wonder what (if anything) they're going to do with the fact that these cars carry $200K in additional equipment (maybe more), which will be immediately sawed off and broken into by SF's extensive homeless population. BayArea seems like the one of the worst places in the US to leave expensive stuff unattended like this.

daveslash 5y ago

This is off topic BUT DAT FONT SIZE!!! ~ I had to double and triple check my zoom settings in my browser. I'm used to everything from the CA DMV being boring and mundane like Ben Stein. After poking around, I realize that's just the font size for DMV New Releases.... but wow... caught me off guard. Low quality comment, down-vote if you must; I've said what I came here to say.

iammisc 5y ago

California is so progressive, first they legislate away Uber drivers jobs, convince everyone it's for moral decency and then in the same fell swoop, they make their newly 'liberated' employees completely redundant. It must sure feel good to know that you would be an employee if anyone wanted to hire you when you're waiting in line for the dole.