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Waymo will start testing self-driving cars in New York City

279 points by alexrustic 5y ago

ktsayed 5y ago
Very excited to hop into one of these, hope they expand to Brooklyn soon. I feel like alarmbells must be going of @ Uber HQ with how fast Waymo is scaling
- wallaBBB 5y ago
  I always got a filing Uber was not serious about it and used it more for evaluation pump. Tesla is the one that should be hearing alarmbells, their evaluation is partially coming from their promises of (real) FSD, that they have been overpromising and underdelivering so far.
  - asdfsd234234444 5y ago
    They are literally the only company that has autopilot in production at scale.
    - minwcnt5 5y ago
      Waymo is doing autonomous driving though, autopilot is driver assist, they're not even remotely the same product.
- robert_foss 5y ago
  Well.. Uber sold their self-driving division to Aurora (Sequoia Capital and Amazon). They've kinda committed themselves to being solely a gig-economy app with no plans or ambition.
  - jjulius 5y ago
    Not exactly; they want the benefits that they think self-driving will bring, without doing the work. > Aurora is not paying cash for Uber ATG, a company that was valued at $7.25 billion following a $1 billion investment last year from Toyota, DENSO and SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Instead, Uber is handing over its equity in ATG and investing $400 million into Aurora, which will give it a 26% stake in the combined company, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (As a refresher, Uber held an 86.2% stake (on a fully diluted basis) in Uber ATG, according to filings with the SEC. Uber ATG’s investors held a combined stake of 13.8% in the company.) Shareholders in Uber ATG will now become minority shareholders of Aurora. Notably, once the deal closes, Uber together with existing ATG investors and the ATG employees who continue their employment with Aurora are expected to collectively hold about 40% interest in Aurora on a fully diluted basis. > Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will take a board seat in the newly expanded Aurora. https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/uber-sells-self-driving-unit-uber-atg-in-deal-that-will-push-auroras-valuation-to-10b/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/uber-sells-self-driving-un...
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    spending piles of money developing self-driving and managing a large fleet of automated cars is kind of antithetical to the way uber operates anyway
    - afavour 5y ago
      It was explicitly their goal back in the day. Paid drivers were seen as a stepping stone.
      - micromacrofoot 5y ago
        and it didn't make sense to me then either! They'd have to build out massive fleets of cars and technicians... at the moment they're really just managing contractors and do simple background checks and car inspections... much less overhead than maintaining a fleet.
  - lhorie 5y ago
    Uber is basically shifting from a heavy NIH "build, don't buy" culture to a less insulated culture. This is manifesting at all levels, from more widespread adoption of AWS/GCP internally to seeking partnership deals (in SDV w/ Aurora, but also in other areas e.g. SKTelecom, etc)
- leesec 5y ago
  Is this a joke? Their scaling has been at a snails pace.
  - minwcnt5 5y ago
    That's how the start of an exponential growth trend works.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
amelius 5y ago
Question: will their self-driving cars be safe even if the deep-learning part of their code always makes the wrong prediction?
b20000 5y ago
so did they fix google docs?
leesec 5y ago
Very cool, maybe in 10 more years they'll expand to Chicago too.
aaronharnly 5y ago
The posts says, “ Our vehicles will be manually operated by autonomous specialists at all times, to help us scale and advance our technology in support of our mission to make roads safer.” So this really is just mapping/training, not testing?
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Maybe hybrid depending on conditions, driver control only required in case of risky situations
  - shock-value 5y ago
    No. According to the press release the vehicles in NYC will all be manually controlled at all times.
- darkwizard42 5y ago
  Correct, I think the title submitted is just misleading
- jfk13 5y ago
  It's nice to know that the specialists who'll be operating these vehicles are autonomous.
  - dml2135 5y ago
    Wouldn't want any Borg driving those things around.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
      About that... https://research.google/pubs/pub43438/ https://research.google/pubs/pub43438/
  - toast0 5y ago
    If they weren't autonomous, they'd be employees.
slg 5y ago
Wait, are they actually test driving self-driving cars like the HN title says? The article seems to indicate they are manually driving the cars to get the mapping. Either way, it will be super interesting to see how self-driving cars fare in Manhattan. I would expect that there would need to be tweaks to the aggressiveness of the AI to drive there compared to somewhere like Phoenix.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  It would not be interesting. There should not be cars in Manhattan whether they have 0, 1, or more drivers.
  - afavour 5y ago
    I’m as pro-transit as anyone but I don’t foresee a future where we have no cars in Manhattan any time soon. Taxis do serve a purpose even with the best subway system in the world, like when you need to go somewhere with more items than you can carry (as a parent of two young children this happens to me a lot more than it did in my twenties!) A Manhattan without private cars would still be a huge leap forward and feels more achievable (though neither feel achievable any time soon in absolute terms)
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
      > Taxis do serve a purpose even with the best subway system in the world And from what I have read, while Manhattan is the best Subway system in the United States, it is far from being the best in the world (see for example, Tokyo).
      - afavour 5y ago
        Oh, definitely. It’s woefully underinvested and hasn’t seen large scale expansion in decades despite population growth. Not to mention the number of accessible stations is abysmal.
        5y ago
enahs-sf 5y ago
Having seen these putting around the Inner Richmond at night and now visiting NYC and witnessing the chaos that is driving here, i'm not sure they're quite ready to handle this level of a problem. NYC would require a true level 5 autonomous vehicle and i'm not sure it's even possible to drive 100% legally at all times given variables like construction, pedestrians going the wrong way on one-ways on scooters, et al. I hope they can figure it out and wish them good luck!
- convolvatron 5y ago
  you know that thing where drivers see a bicyclist and just shut down because they are afraid they are going to dart out in front of them (not arguing with the instinct, bicyclists are pretty bad) I ride near the waymo depot on the way to work. they always don't know what to do about me and pretty much just stop in confusion until I'm well clear. forget about construction. I just cant imagine what they would do in an actual urban environment. this whole thing just feels like a deeply misplaced marketing excersise right now.
LeanderK 5y ago
As I understood it they are only gathering data, it might be a PR stunt. I think we're still not able to handle such chaotic environments.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  Waymo seems to do lot of these sort of publicity stunts. As far as I know their service and lidar mapping is very limited to some suburbs of Phoenix
  - darkwizard42 5y ago
    They give full autonomous rides in Chandler, but are giving safety driver-in-the-car rides in SF and Phoenix. Doesn't seem like much of a publicity stunt
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      I don't think safety driver in the car rides have any value. They're just getting paid to add sensor data to their ml platform.
      - darkwizard42 5y ago
        The driver does not enter any data as they are actively ready in case of disengagement. This is not accurate.
lbsnake7 5y ago
There is a future that exists where cars aren’t allowed in major cities. Something similar to Amsterdam where people and bikes have right of way, and cars are the least preferred mode of travel. Obviously there are situations where you need motorized transport (emergencies, moving day, people with disabilities, businesses etc) but these can be serviced by autonomous vehicles run by the city. All vehicle infrastructure (roadways, parking) would be cut dramatically. Autonomous busses that pick up and drop you off exactly where you need would be the preferred mode of transport but you could even have personalized autonomous cars that people can rent for more privacy. But these would be slow moving vehicles swerving in and out of people and bike traffic, all connected to a central hub. Only problem is with 2 feet of snow on the ground, no one will bike or walk and the demand for these vehicles would greatly strain the system. Not sure how you would account for it.
- hi5eyes 5y ago
  Toronto solved this for the core with an underground mall
- spicyramen 5y ago
  This may be unrealistic in our life time. I have 2 kids, 1 toddler and 1 newborn, i can't imagine biking, using public transportation or anything similar when going to doctor, grocery shopping, etc.
  - react_burger38 5y ago
    I feel you. Father of 3 here. My two year old always just runs as far as fast as he can pretty much whenever he gets a chance. Won't stay in the stroller either. Putting him in a carseat is much easier. Just went on a flight the other day with the kids and chasing him around the airport wasn't easy, although in the end it was somewhat manageable. Car travel with kids is way easier compared to other methods. We took the kids to Paris a while back and carting the stroller up and down the stairs to the metro was a huge pain.
    - couchand 5y ago
mindvirus 5y ago
NYC is going to be an interesting case. As soon as pedestrians get comfortable that the cars won't hit them, I suspect a lot of jaywalking will happen - I wonder if they'll get anywhere at all. You sort of have to br an aggressive driver too with taxis and delivery trucks, so I'm really curious to see how it all works out.
- Animats 5y ago
  You sort of have to be an aggressive driver too with taxis and delivery trucks, so I'm really curious to see how it all works out. There's a theory paper on this: "Go ahead, make my day: Robot conflict resolution by aggressive competition"[1] This is a known problem with mobile hospital robot carts. Many hospitals have robot carts moving linens and meals around a big plant. If they make no attempt to get others out of their way, they keep getting stalled by people talking in halls and crowding into elevators. So some degree of pushyness has to be programmed in. Cars, though. That may not work out as well. Maybe lighting and sound effects to encourage people to get out of the way. [1] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.43.4978 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.43.4...
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Great link. Thanks.
- gen220 5y ago
  Yep, I think this is how it’s going to work out, too. The dawdling driverless vehicles (paralyzed by opportunistic jaywalkers) will actually make the traffic worse. The worst possible future is if entrenched interests (waymo, etc) begin lobbying for more active measures of jaywalking enforcement (first policing, but also fences to keep those pesky humans on the sidewalk), as a way to get around the technical problem of becoming a more aggressive/communicative driver. The only natural conclusion of that possible future would be streets that are utterly hostile to humans, which would be throwing away one of NYC’s best assets. I hope it doesn’t come to fruition! And I hope driverless car tech can solve this problem. The idea is developed more / better articulated here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/12/automated-vehicles https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/12/automated-vehi...
quantumwannabe 5y ago
Having ridden in a Waymo in Phoenix a month ago, I don’t think they are anywhere close to being able to handle Manhattan traffic. As an example, during my ride the Waymo driver missed turns several times forcing a reroute around the block because it couldn’t change lanes because the driver in the next lane didn’t let it in. A human driver would have sped up or slowed down to get ahead of or behind the blocking car or they would slowly inch over the line to force themselves in. The Waymo car just maintained its speed and lane position until it was too late to turn. I can’t imagine how the car would fare in NYC with its famously aggressive drivers.
- curiousllama 5y ago
  Seems like a great reason to test, gather data, and improve in NYC, no?
  - tonypags 5y ago
    I can't wait to see one and punch the hood and yell "I'm walkin' here!"
    - tempest_ 5y ago
      I don't know about New York but I live in a major city and I wonder what will happen when the homeless population figures out they can mess with them.
      - vntok 5y ago
        What is this population currently doing with cars operated by humans and how would it be any different?
        dont__panic 5y ago
        In my city, mostly throwing glass bottles at vehicles and screaming.
        5y ago
KerrickStaley 5y ago
The current title on HN is misleading. They are not beginning to test their self-driving system; rather, they are beginning to collect map data, which is a step that needs to be done first.
ck2 5y ago
If a self-driving car kills someone, who is put on trial for negligence?
- dml2135 5y ago
  The same as if a human hits someone with a car -- nobody.
darkwizard42 5y ago
Really awesome stuff to see them start mapping NYC more heavily. Doesn't look like most people even bothered reading the article. They admit it has very little to do with trying to actually give rides or autonomously drive in the NYC area, but rather to map and get data on how the cars perform in different weather conditions. Hopefully this announcement also means they are finding the testing in SF very useful and are accelerating their expansion
- what_ever 5y ago
  These days, it looks like everyone on HN comes with a preconceived notion about the company, topic, product, technology a given submission is and write their views as if they are expert on everything before reading the post and giving it a thought. e.g. in this post, Waymo, a company who has spent billions of dollars and years of work and research and being where they are right now, is posting about their plans. It's obvious they must have thought about the traffic, the jaywalkers, the complex intersections, the weather before making this decision. But let's ignore that and post how this is a bad idea. Being a skeptic is fine. It just feels like the skepticism is dialed to 11 here. There is nothing technical about the replies, nothing hacker about them. Just, "I am very smart" comments.
  - tuatoru 5y ago
    > It just feels like the skepticism is dialed to 11 here. Dialed to 11? Ours goes to 101!
  - ra7 5y ago
    > There is nothing technical about the replies, nothing hacker about them. Exactly. The top comment in this thread is just listing some complex scenarios they've encountered and then assuming Waymo haven't thought about it. In reality, there is already evidence of Waymo navigating complex situations and plenty of published research in those areas.
    - pricecomstock 5y ago
      Hey I made that comment! I assume Waymo has thought about it. I assume lots of people at Waymo have spent plenty of time in NYC. I also don't say that this was impossible or I think it will fail. What I do believe is that there are tons of edge cases, and diminishing returns with trying to solve for all of them. And, I would guess that it will take quite a while (the decade I mentioned) before self driving technology is capable of making >95% of trips autonomously without extra issues that most human drivers would handle. Additionally, I think there are moral and comfort issues with AI that need to be addressed. This is speculation, but Waymo likely aims for the appearance of safety and tunes things to be overly cautious. That is at odds with some of the dynamics of driving in NYC, where you need to be assertive and maybe even risky, and I'm curious to see how that will play out. I can see how it sounds like I'm just shitting on this tech. My intention was more to describe that self-driving in NYC is maybe even a harder problem than it sounds, and possibly an overreaction to the hype about this technology. I think about it pretty often when I'm driving or biking and encounter situations that seem very difficult for a computer to navigate.
deleted 5y ago
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pricecomstock 5y ago
As someone who both bikes and drives around Brooklyn, I would bet this is going to be nearly a decade of testing. There are so many edge cases that I encounter on almost every single trip, and I just don't see anything but very advanced AI handling it - obvious, but large numbers of pedestrians and cyclists - 2 way roads becoming 1 lane where the directions must take turns due to construction, deliveries, or the Uber in front of you stopping in the middle of traffic for a pickup - resurfaced roads that don't have lines painted on them for weeks or months - congested intersections where you'd probably need to wait 3 hours to pass through legally, so you have to just pull into the intersection trusting that traffic will clear when the next light turns green - pittsburgh lefts need to happen for the sake of traffic flow sometimes - sometimes you need to do very human and assertive "negotiation" to get into the lane you need. - another comment mentioned Waymo cars just rerouting to the next turn when no cars would let them in. There are a decent number of situations where that will cost you 5-30 minutes of extra trip time - you can disrupt traffic flow quite badly if you e.g. don't pull up to the crosswalk, and out of the way of cars behind you, while waiting for pedestrians to cross on a turn (humans are also bad at this) - it's difficult to overstate how often cars/vans/trucks are double parked, changing the lanes available, forcing cars and bikes to improvise lanes. This isn't an occasional thing, this is a 10x on a 15 minute trip thing
- ep103 5y ago
  So honest question, when I'm stuck behind one of these fucking things refusing to take a turn correctly, because it means crossing the white line, what do I do? With a human driver, I can blare the horn, or, god forbid, get out of the car to talk to them. But with a driverless car, what do I do? Honk at an empty vehicle that literally has no ears?
  - windowsrookie 5y ago
    Why are you so angry?
    - knowfilter 5y ago
      Presumably because they have to drive a car in downtown Brooklyn occasionally This Brooklyn Intersection Is The Worst In The State, Study Finds https://patch.com/new-york/parkslope/brooklyn-intersection-worst-state-study-finds https://patch.com/new-york/parkslope/brooklyn-intersection-w...
mysterEFrank 5y ago
I'm surprised waymo is collecting data in manhattan where there's great public transit coverage. The outer boroughs would be much more useful.
nickcodes 5y ago
Self driving is an interesting paradox. Many of the problems we have with self-driving cars would be mitigated by having a large majority of self-driving cars on the road sharing data and coordinating with each other as a network. Need to merge left in 2 miles? Ask the cars in the other lane to slow or accelerate slightly to provide the opening. Unfortunately we can't simply flip a switch and enter this reality, and we're stuck trying to solve the much harder problem of designing self-driving cars that can ably share the road with other human drivers.
horsemans 5y ago
What problem is this solving? NYC doesn't have a problem with people either not being able to drive or not knowing where they're going. We have workable (for an American definition of workable) mass transit and several livery services including taxis and Uber. We're trying to get rid of cars here. Congestion pricing, the widening of pedestrian and biking thoroughfares, just to name two initiatives. We don't need more cars, regardless whether or not they're being human-driven or not.
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  I agree. Public transportation in the US is great if we use 1950s standards. It’s falling behind because politicians don’t have a long enough cycle to see the fruits of their labor.
- danielmarkbruce 5y ago
  Faster, cheaper, safer, more reliable transport has always been a strong value proposition and likely always will be. There are technical risks here, but there are not product/value proposition problems.
- randomopining 5y ago
  NYC needs to up it's biking game. It's getting there but still a long ways away. Plus riding a citi bike is like a life-or-death experience half the time.
- EastOfTruth 5y ago
  Maybe you could eliminate most parking spaces and reduce the total number of cars if everyone would share a number of real-self-driving cars.
- CobrastanJorji 5y ago
  NYC has something around 200,000 for-hire drivers among taxis, Ubers, etc. The need for all that human effort can be removed. Yes, eliminating cars entirely would be great, but that's an orthogonal problem.
staccatomeasure 5y ago
Hope they're trained to react to "I'm walkin' here!"
GhettoComputers 5y ago
I hate the self driving car approach. They are fitting cars into crappy legacy roads. They could change the infrastructure, roads and transportation so we won’t have to avoid problems and eliminate the situations from occurring but we’d rather fit crappy models in crappy old infrastructure instead of making roads that are more conducive to technology. It’s like making an android for handling a horse carriage.
- 05 5y ago
  Yeah, nope. 'smart' roads mean wasting billions on sensors that would become outdated soon after being installed and banning non-'smart' users is political suicide impossible even in China. Also, do animals, pedestrians and cyclists need to wear a transponder to avoid getting squashed like a bug? https://ideas.4brad.com/forget-smart-cities-you-need-make-your-infrastructure-stupid-survive-future https://ideas.4brad.com/forget-smart-cities-you-need-make-yo...
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    I live in a city that uses pressure sensors to detect if a car passed red lights. It’s still not outdated over 10 years later. You don’t need smart roads you just need to make roads visible for self driving cars. They shouldn’t need to be fit into acting like humans. Your dystopian vision is a very narrow and biased assumption, it doesn’t need electronics, it’s simple as using covered bridges, machine readable signs and powered rails like streetcars. China did exactly what I mentioned by using high speed rails rather than focusing on fitting self driving cars and bypasses the pedestrian and transponders you focused on avoiding.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
  > They are fitting cars into crappy legacy roads. > They could change the infrastructure Those are two different “they.”
1024core 5y ago
I wonder how well they'll do in the snow/sleet/mush conditions. So far they've been testing in perfect weather conditions.
halotrope 5y ago
Mobileye released a demo some time ago that shows their system driving in NYC: https://youtu.be/50NPqEla0CQ https://youtu.be/50NPqEla0CQ
dougSF70 5y ago
Question for SF folks: I see self driving cars all the time in the inner Richmond. This is happy-path driving, all 4-way stops, not much traffic, not many pedestrians. Easy driving. Are the firms doing as much mileage in rush hour in tougher driving spots, e.g from Bush to 2nd to the Bay Bridge at 5pm?
endisneigh 5y ago
at what point would it be easier just to lobby to standardize roads and profit share with said cities to keep the "standard roads" in place?
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
Key sentence: > We’ll be manually driving with five hybrid Chrysler Pacificas on the street during daylight. So no self driving for now, not even supervised.
jonplackett 5y ago
I wonder if people will just get used to the way driverless cars drive and make some allowances for them. Waymo at least are easy to spot. As a driver really your main job is to be predictable. If you’re doing something legal or dumb or borderline. The main thing you need is for everyone to understand what that thing is. So as long as waymo cars are predictable we’ll be able to get used to them.
Zigurd 5y ago
I see a lot of comments that conclude that the only way to drive in NYC is to drive like a local. AVs will be an interesting experiment in attempting to break the paradigm. AVs have infinite patience. I'm sure that will drive some locals accustomed to aggressive driving right out of their minds. AVs will drive differently. That may be good thing.
babypuncher 5y ago
NYC presents a lot of driving challenges not present in Phoenix. This must mean they are feeling more confident about how well their technology handles winter driving conditions and lots of pedestrians.
da39a3ee 5y ago
Do Waymo hire people working permanently remote or is it all in-office?
adminscoffee 5y ago
this would be a huge leap, i wonder at which point the government will require these firms to open their data to each other for safety purposes. if you think about it, when it comes to self driving cars, data is safety. the quality and quantity are of that data can literally mean life or death when it comes to self-driving cars. it'll be interesting to see what the future looks like
adamqureshi 5y ago
I grew up in New York City. I wish them good lucky messengers delivering packages from uptown to downtown delivery guys on electric bikes are all over the place you can fugaatabout getting through times square ANYTIME of the day its straight up bumper to bumper. Yellow cabs don't even care about bike lanes. Buses in the bus lane ( don't make me laugh) there should be NO CARS allowed in the city ( natives call manhattan "the city" the trains are packed. The streets are JAM packed with people. there are simply too many damn people and not to mention uber / lyft / food delivery guys messengers on foot and on bikes and some take the train. I mean enough is enough. we need less cars and more walking in the city. I don't even want to get into all the trucks in the fashion district you need to see it to believe it. Did i forget to mention yellow cabs? ok good lucky waymo. 2cents.
dustintrex 5y ago
I'm somewhat amused to see all the people who dismissed Waymo because they only operated in "easy" environments like Phoenix and later SF now being equally dismissive of Waymo tackling NYC. Of course it's going to be a challenge, but they seem confident enough to give it a crack, and I wish them luck. If they can handle NYC, they'll be able to operate pretty much anywhere in the US.
swiley 5y ago
serves you liberals right.
rsj_hn 5y ago
Will be interested to see how this works out. Don't understand why people are treating this as a bad thing here.
elil17 5y ago
They seem to be going for a strategy where they train the AIs separately for each location. In 50 years we may still be complaining about how all Boston drivers are a-holes, but the drivers will be AIs instead of humans.
guard0g 5y ago
no need to tip the driver, yay!

279 points by alexrustic 5y ago

Very excited to hop into one of these, hope they expand to Brooklyn soon. I feel like alarmbells must be going of @ Uber HQ with how fast Waymo is scaling

wallaBBB 5y ago
I always got a filing Uber was not serious about it and used it more for evaluation pump. Tesla is the one that should be hearing alarmbells, their evaluation is partially coming from their promises of (real) FSD, that they have been overpromising and underdelivering so far.
- asdfsd234234444 5y ago
  They are literally the only company that has autopilot in production at scale.
  - minwcnt5 5y ago
    Waymo is doing autonomous driving though, autopilot is driver assist, they're not even remotely the same product.
robert_foss 5y ago
Well.. Uber sold their self-driving division to Aurora (Sequoia Capital and Amazon). They've kinda committed themselves to being solely a gig-economy app with no plans or ambition.
- jjulius 5y ago
  Not exactly; they want the benefits that they think self-driving will bring, without doing the work. > Aurora is not paying cash for Uber ATG, a company that was valued at $7.25 billion following a $1 billion investment last year from Toyota, DENSO and SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Instead, Uber is handing over its equity in ATG and investing $400 million into Aurora, which will give it a 26% stake in the combined company, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (As a refresher, Uber held an 86.2% stake (on a fully diluted basis) in Uber ATG, according to filings with the SEC. Uber ATG’s investors held a combined stake of 13.8% in the company.) Shareholders in Uber ATG will now become minority shareholders of Aurora. Notably, once the deal closes, Uber together with existing ATG investors and the ATG employees who continue their employment with Aurora are expected to collectively hold about 40% interest in Aurora on a fully diluted basis. > Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will take a board seat in the newly expanded Aurora. https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/uber-sells-self-driving-unit-uber-atg-in-deal-that-will-push-auroras-valuation-to-10b/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/uber-sells-self-driving-un...
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  spending piles of money developing self-driving and managing a large fleet of automated cars is kind of antithetical to the way uber operates anyway
  - afavour 5y ago
    It was explicitly their goal back in the day. Paid drivers were seen as a stepping stone.
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      and it didn't make sense to me then either! They'd have to build out massive fleets of cars and technicians... at the moment they're really just managing contractors and do simple background checks and car inspections... much less overhead than maintaining a fleet.
- lhorie 5y ago
  Uber is basically shifting from a heavy NIH "build, don't buy" culture to a less insulated culture. This is manifesting at all levels, from more widespread adoption of AWS/GCP internally to seeking partnership deals (in SDV w/ Aurora, but also in other areas e.g. SKTelecom, etc)
leesec 5y ago
Is this a joke? Their scaling has been at a snails pace.
- minwcnt5 5y ago
  That's how the start of an exponential growth trend works.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

amelius 5y ago

Question: will their self-driving cars be safe even if the deep-learning part of their code always makes the wrong prediction?

b20000 5y ago

so did they fix google docs?

leesec 5y ago

Very cool, maybe in 10 more years they'll expand to Chicago too.

aaronharnly 5y ago

The posts says, “ Our vehicles will be manually operated by autonomous specialists at all times, to help us scale and advance our technology in support of our mission to make roads safer.” So this really is just mapping/training, not testing?

agumonkey 5y ago
Maybe hybrid depending on conditions, driver control only required in case of risky situations
- shock-value 5y ago
  No. According to the press release the vehicles in NYC will all be manually controlled at all times.
darkwizard42 5y ago
Correct, I think the title submitted is just misleading
jfk13 5y ago
It's nice to know that the specialists who'll be operating these vehicles are autonomous.
- dml2135 5y ago
  Wouldn't want any Borg driving those things around.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    About that... https://research.google/pubs/pub43438/ https://research.google/pubs/pub43438/
- toast0 5y ago
  If they weren't autonomous, they'd be employees.

slg 5y ago

Wait, are they actually test driving self-driving cars like the HN title says? The article seems to indicate they are manually driving the cars to get the mapping. Either way, it will be super interesting to see how self-driving cars fare in Manhattan. I would expect that there would need to be tweaks to the aggressiveness of the AI to drive there compared to somewhere like Phoenix.

Ericson2314 5y ago
It would not be interesting. There should not be cars in Manhattan whether they have 0, 1, or more drivers.
- afavour 5y ago
  I’m as pro-transit as anyone but I don’t foresee a future where we have no cars in Manhattan any time soon. Taxis do serve a purpose even with the best subway system in the world, like when you need to go somewhere with more items than you can carry (as a parent of two young children this happens to me a lot more than it did in my twenties!) A Manhattan without private cars would still be a huge leap forward and feels more achievable (though neither feel achievable any time soon in absolute terms)
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
    > Taxis do serve a purpose even with the best subway system in the world And from what I have read, while Manhattan is the best Subway system in the United States, it is far from being the best in the world (see for example, Tokyo).
    - afavour 5y ago
      Oh, definitely. It’s woefully underinvested and hasn’t seen large scale expansion in decades despite population growth. Not to mention the number of accessible stations is abysmal.
      - 5y ago

enahs-sf 5y ago

Having seen these putting around the Inner Richmond at night and now visiting NYC and witnessing the chaos that is driving here, i'm not sure they're quite ready to handle this level of a problem. NYC would require a true level 5 autonomous vehicle and i'm not sure it's even possible to drive 100% legally at all times given variables like construction, pedestrians going the wrong way on one-ways on scooters, et al. I hope they can figure it out and wish them good luck!

convolvatron 5y ago
you know that thing where drivers see a bicyclist and just shut down because they are afraid they are going to dart out in front of them (not arguing with the instinct, bicyclists are pretty bad) I ride near the waymo depot on the way to work. they always don't know what to do about me and pretty much just stop in confusion until I'm well clear. forget about construction. I just cant imagine what they would do in an actual urban environment. this whole thing just feels like a deeply misplaced marketing excersise right now.

LeanderK 5y ago

As I understood it they are only gathering data, it might be a PR stunt. I think we're still not able to handle such chaotic environments.

LegitShady 5y ago
Waymo seems to do lot of these sort of publicity stunts. As far as I know their service and lidar mapping is very limited to some suburbs of Phoenix
- darkwizard42 5y ago
  They give full autonomous rides in Chandler, but are giving safety driver-in-the-car rides in SF and Phoenix. Doesn't seem like much of a publicity stunt
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    I don't think safety driver in the car rides have any value. They're just getting paid to add sensor data to their ml platform.
    - darkwizard42 5y ago
      The driver does not enter any data as they are actively ready in case of disengagement. This is not accurate.

lbsnake7 5y ago

There is a future that exists where cars aren’t allowed in major cities. Something similar to Amsterdam where people and bikes have right of way, and cars are the least preferred mode of travel. Obviously there are situations where you need motorized transport (emergencies, moving day, people with disabilities, businesses etc) but these can be serviced by autonomous vehicles run by the city. All vehicle infrastructure (roadways, parking) would be cut dramatically. Autonomous busses that pick up and drop you off exactly where you need would be the preferred mode of transport but you could even have personalized autonomous cars that people can rent for more privacy. But these would be slow moving vehicles swerving in and out of people and bike traffic, all connected to a central hub. Only problem is with 2 feet of snow on the ground, no one will bike or walk and the demand for these vehicles would greatly strain the system. Not sure how you would account for it.

hi5eyes 5y ago
Toronto solved this for the core with an underground mall
spicyramen 5y ago
This may be unrealistic in our life time. I have 2 kids, 1 toddler and 1 newborn, i can't imagine biking, using public transportation or anything similar when going to doctor, grocery shopping, etc.
- react_burger38 5y ago
  I feel you. Father of 3 here. My two year old always just runs as far as fast as he can pretty much whenever he gets a chance. Won't stay in the stroller either. Putting him in a carseat is much easier. Just went on a flight the other day with the kids and chasing him around the airport wasn't easy, although in the end it was somewhat manageable. Car travel with kids is way easier compared to other methods. We took the kids to Paris a while back and carting the stroller up and down the stairs to the metro was a huge pain.
  - couchand 5y ago

mindvirus 5y ago

NYC is going to be an interesting case. As soon as pedestrians get comfortable that the cars won't hit them, I suspect a lot of jaywalking will happen - I wonder if they'll get anywhere at all. You sort of have to br an aggressive driver too with taxis and delivery trucks, so I'm really curious to see how it all works out.

Animats 5y ago
You sort of have to be an aggressive driver too with taxis and delivery trucks, so I'm really curious to see how it all works out. There's a theory paper on this: "Go ahead, make my day: Robot conflict resolution by aggressive competition"[1] This is a known problem with mobile hospital robot carts. Many hospitals have robot carts moving linens and meals around a big plant. If they make no attempt to get others out of their way, they keep getting stalled by people talking in halls and crowding into elevators. So some degree of pushyness has to be programmed in. Cars, though. That may not work out as well. Maybe lighting and sound effects to encourage people to get out of the way. [1] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.43.4978 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.43.4...
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Great link. Thanks.
gen220 5y ago
Yep, I think this is how it’s going to work out, too. The dawdling driverless vehicles (paralyzed by opportunistic jaywalkers) will actually make the traffic worse. The worst possible future is if entrenched interests (waymo, etc) begin lobbying for more active measures of jaywalking enforcement (first policing, but also fences to keep those pesky humans on the sidewalk), as a way to get around the technical problem of becoming a more aggressive/communicative driver. The only natural conclusion of that possible future would be streets that are utterly hostile to humans, which would be throwing away one of NYC’s best assets. I hope it doesn’t come to fruition! And I hope driverless car tech can solve this problem. The idea is developed more / better articulated here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/12/automated-vehicles https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/8/12/automated-vehi...

quantumwannabe 5y ago

Having ridden in a Waymo in Phoenix a month ago, I don’t think they are anywhere close to being able to handle Manhattan traffic. As an example, during my ride the Waymo driver missed turns several times forcing a reroute around the block because it couldn’t change lanes because the driver in the next lane didn’t let it in. A human driver would have sped up or slowed down to get ahead of or behind the blocking car or they would slowly inch over the line to force themselves in. The Waymo car just maintained its speed and lane position until it was too late to turn. I can’t imagine how the car would fare in NYC with its famously aggressive drivers.

curiousllama 5y ago
Seems like a great reason to test, gather data, and improve in NYC, no?
- tonypags 5y ago
  I can't wait to see one and punch the hood and yell "I'm walkin' here!"
  - tempest_ 5y ago
    I don't know about New York but I live in a major city and I wonder what will happen when the homeless population figures out they can mess with them.
    - vntok 5y ago
      What is this population currently doing with cars operated by humans and how would it be any different?
      - dont__panic 5y ago
        In my city, mostly throwing glass bottles at vehicles and screaming.
      - 5y ago

KerrickStaley 5y ago

The current title on HN is misleading. They are not beginning to test their self-driving system; rather, they are beginning to collect map data, which is a step that needs to be done first.

ck2 5y ago

If a self-driving car kills someone, who is put on trial for negligence?

dml2135 5y ago
The same as if a human hits someone with a car -- nobody.

darkwizard42 5y ago

Really awesome stuff to see them start mapping NYC more heavily. Doesn't look like most people even bothered reading the article. They admit it has very little to do with trying to actually give rides or autonomously drive in the NYC area, but rather to map and get data on how the cars perform in different weather conditions. Hopefully this announcement also means they are finding the testing in SF very useful and are accelerating their expansion

what_ever 5y ago
These days, it looks like everyone on HN comes with a preconceived notion about the company, topic, product, technology a given submission is and write their views as if they are expert on everything before reading the post and giving it a thought. e.g. in this post, Waymo, a company who has spent billions of dollars and years of work and research and being where they are right now, is posting about their plans. It's obvious they must have thought about the traffic, the jaywalkers, the complex intersections, the weather before making this decision. But let's ignore that and post how this is a bad idea. Being a skeptic is fine. It just feels like the skepticism is dialed to 11 here. There is nothing technical about the replies, nothing hacker about them. Just, "I am very smart" comments.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  > It just feels like the skepticism is dialed to 11 here. Dialed to 11? Ours goes to 101!
- ra7 5y ago
  > There is nothing technical about the replies, nothing hacker about them. Exactly. The top comment in this thread is just listing some complex scenarios they've encountered and then assuming Waymo haven't thought about it. In reality, there is already evidence of Waymo navigating complex situations and plenty of published research in those areas.
  - pricecomstock 5y ago
    Hey I made that comment! I assume Waymo has thought about it. I assume lots of people at Waymo have spent plenty of time in NYC. I also don't say that this was impossible or I think it will fail. What I do believe is that there are tons of edge cases, and diminishing returns with trying to solve for all of them. And, I would guess that it will take quite a while (the decade I mentioned) before self driving technology is capable of making >95% of trips autonomously without extra issues that most human drivers would handle. Additionally, I think there are moral and comfort issues with AI that need to be addressed. This is speculation, but Waymo likely aims for the appearance of safety and tunes things to be overly cautious. That is at odds with some of the dynamics of driving in NYC, where you need to be assertive and maybe even risky, and I'm curious to see how that will play out. I can see how it sounds like I'm just shitting on this tech. My intention was more to describe that self-driving in NYC is maybe even a harder problem than it sounds, and possibly an overreaction to the hype about this technology. I think about it pretty often when I'm driving or biking and encounter situations that seem very difficult for a computer to navigate.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pricecomstock 5y ago

As someone who both bikes and drives around Brooklyn, I would bet this is going to be nearly a decade of testing. There are so many edge cases that I encounter on almost every single trip, and I just don't see anything but very advanced AI handling it - obvious, but large numbers of pedestrians and cyclists - 2 way roads becoming 1 lane where the directions must take turns due to construction, deliveries, or the Uber in front of you stopping in the middle of traffic for a pickup - resurfaced roads that don't have lines painted on them for weeks or months - congested intersections where you'd probably need to wait 3 hours to pass through legally, so you have to just pull into the intersection trusting that traffic will clear when the next light turns green - pittsburgh lefts need to happen for the sake of traffic flow sometimes - sometimes you need to do very human and assertive "negotiation" to get into the lane you need. - another comment mentioned Waymo cars just rerouting to the next turn when no cars would let them in. There are a decent number of situations where that will cost you 5-30 minutes of extra trip time - you can disrupt traffic flow quite badly if you e.g. don't pull up to the crosswalk, and out of the way of cars behind you, while waiting for pedestrians to cross on a turn (humans are also bad at this) - it's difficult to overstate how often cars/vans/trucks are double parked, changing the lanes available, forcing cars and bikes to improvise lanes. This isn't an occasional thing, this is a 10x on a 15 minute trip thing

ep103 5y ago
So honest question, when I'm stuck behind one of these fucking things refusing to take a turn correctly, because it means crossing the white line, what do I do? With a human driver, I can blare the horn, or, god forbid, get out of the car to talk to them. But with a driverless car, what do I do? Honk at an empty vehicle that literally has no ears?
- windowsrookie 5y ago
  Why are you so angry?
  - knowfilter 5y ago
    Presumably because they have to drive a car in downtown Brooklyn occasionally This Brooklyn Intersection Is The Worst In The State, Study Finds https://patch.com/new-york/parkslope/brooklyn-intersection-worst-state-study-finds https://patch.com/new-york/parkslope/brooklyn-intersection-w...

mysterEFrank 5y ago

I'm surprised waymo is collecting data in manhattan where there's great public transit coverage. The outer boroughs would be much more useful.

nickcodes 5y ago

Self driving is an interesting paradox. Many of the problems we have with self-driving cars would be mitigated by having a large majority of self-driving cars on the road sharing data and coordinating with each other as a network. Need to merge left in 2 miles? Ask the cars in the other lane to slow or accelerate slightly to provide the opening. Unfortunately we can't simply flip a switch and enter this reality, and we're stuck trying to solve the much harder problem of designing self-driving cars that can ably share the road with other human drivers.

horsemans 5y ago

What problem is this solving? NYC doesn't have a problem with people either not being able to drive or not knowing where they're going. We have workable (for an American definition of workable) mass transit and several livery services including taxis and Uber. We're trying to get rid of cars here. Congestion pricing, the widening of pedestrian and biking thoroughfares, just to name two initiatives. We don't need more cars, regardless whether or not they're being human-driven or not.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
I agree. Public transportation in the US is great if we use 1950s standards. It’s falling behind because politicians don’t have a long enough cycle to see the fruits of their labor.
danielmarkbruce 5y ago
Faster, cheaper, safer, more reliable transport has always been a strong value proposition and likely always will be. There are technical risks here, but there are not product/value proposition problems.
randomopining 5y ago
NYC needs to up it's biking game. It's getting there but still a long ways away. Plus riding a citi bike is like a life-or-death experience half the time.
EastOfTruth 5y ago
Maybe you could eliminate most parking spaces and reduce the total number of cars if everyone would share a number of real-self-driving cars.
CobrastanJorji 5y ago
NYC has something around 200,000 for-hire drivers among taxis, Ubers, etc. The need for all that human effort can be removed. Yes, eliminating cars entirely would be great, but that's an orthogonal problem.

staccatomeasure 5y ago

Hope they're trained to react to "I'm walkin' here!"

GhettoComputers 5y ago

I hate the self driving car approach. They are fitting cars into crappy legacy roads. They could change the infrastructure, roads and transportation so we won’t have to avoid problems and eliminate the situations from occurring but we’d rather fit crappy models in crappy old infrastructure instead of making roads that are more conducive to technology. It’s like making an android for handling a horse carriage.

05 5y ago
Yeah, nope. 'smart' roads mean wasting billions on sensors that would become outdated soon after being installed and banning non-'smart' users is political suicide impossible even in China. Also, do animals, pedestrians and cyclists need to wear a transponder to avoid getting squashed like a bug? https://ideas.4brad.com/forget-smart-cities-you-need-make-your-infrastructure-stupid-survive-future https://ideas.4brad.com/forget-smart-cities-you-need-make-yo...
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  I live in a city that uses pressure sensors to detect if a car passed red lights. It’s still not outdated over 10 years later. You don’t need smart roads you just need to make roads visible for self driving cars. They shouldn’t need to be fit into acting like humans. Your dystopian vision is a very narrow and biased assumption, it doesn’t need electronics, it’s simple as using covered bridges, machine readable signs and powered rails like streetcars. China did exactly what I mentioned by using high speed rails rather than focusing on fitting self driving cars and bypasses the pedestrian and transponders you focused on avoiding.
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
> They are fitting cars into crappy legacy roads. > They could change the infrastructure Those are two different “they.”

1024core 5y ago

I wonder how well they'll do in the snow/sleet/mush conditions. So far they've been testing in perfect weather conditions.

halotrope 5y ago

Mobileye released a demo some time ago that shows their system driving in NYC: https://youtu.be/50NPqEla0CQ https://youtu.be/50NPqEla0CQ

dougSF70 5y ago

Question for SF folks: I see self driving cars all the time in the inner Richmond. This is happy-path driving, all 4-way stops, not much traffic, not many pedestrians. Easy driving. Are the firms doing as much mileage in rush hour in tougher driving spots, e.g from Bush to 2nd to the Bay Bridge at 5pm?

endisneigh 5y ago

at what point would it be easier just to lobby to standardize roads and profit share with said cities to keep the "standard roads" in place?

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

Key sentence: > We’ll be manually driving with five hybrid Chrysler Pacificas on the street during daylight. So no self driving for now, not even supervised.

jonplackett 5y ago

I wonder if people will just get used to the way driverless cars drive and make some allowances for them. Waymo at least are easy to spot. As a driver really your main job is to be predictable. If you’re doing something legal or dumb or borderline. The main thing you need is for everyone to understand what that thing is. So as long as waymo cars are predictable we’ll be able to get used to them.

Zigurd 5y ago

I see a lot of comments that conclude that the only way to drive in NYC is to drive like a local. AVs will be an interesting experiment in attempting to break the paradigm. AVs have infinite patience. I'm sure that will drive some locals accustomed to aggressive driving right out of their minds. AVs will drive differently. That may be good thing.

babypuncher 5y ago

NYC presents a lot of driving challenges not present in Phoenix. This must mean they are feeling more confident about how well their technology handles winter driving conditions and lots of pedestrians.

da39a3ee 5y ago

Do Waymo hire people working permanently remote or is it all in-office?

adminscoffee 5y ago

this would be a huge leap, i wonder at which point the government will require these firms to open their data to each other for safety purposes. if you think about it, when it comes to self driving cars, data is safety. the quality and quantity are of that data can literally mean life or death when it comes to self-driving cars. it'll be interesting to see what the future looks like

adamqureshi 5y ago

I grew up in New York City. I wish them good lucky messengers delivering packages from uptown to downtown delivery guys on electric bikes are all over the place you can fugaatabout getting through times square ANYTIME of the day its straight up bumper to bumper. Yellow cabs don't even care about bike lanes. Buses in the bus lane ( don't make me laugh) there should be NO CARS allowed in the city ( natives call manhattan "the city" the trains are packed. The streets are JAM packed with people. there are simply too many damn people and not to mention uber / lyft / food delivery guys messengers on foot and on bikes and some take the train. I mean enough is enough. we need less cars and more walking in the city. I don't even want to get into all the trucks in the fashion district you need to see it to believe it. Did i forget to mention yellow cabs? ok good lucky waymo. 2cents.

dustintrex 5y ago

I'm somewhat amused to see all the people who dismissed Waymo because they only operated in "easy" environments like Phoenix and later SF now being equally dismissive of Waymo tackling NYC. Of course it's going to be a challenge, but they seem confident enough to give it a crack, and I wish them luck. If they can handle NYC, they'll be able to operate pretty much anywhere in the US.

swiley 5y ago

serves you liberals right.

rsj_hn 5y ago

Will be interested to see how this works out. Don't understand why people are treating this as a bad thing here.

elil17 5y ago

They seem to be going for a strategy where they train the AIs separately for each location. In 50 years we may still be complaining about how all Boston drivers are a-holes, but the drivers will be AIs instead of humans.

guard0g 5y ago

no need to tip the driver, yay!