37 ms·

Waymo begins driverless rides in San Francisco

548 points by ra7 5y ago

dontreact 5y ago
I’m curious on the HN community opinion on whether Cruise is ahead of Waymo in SF, or if Waymo is just more careful and has spent less time training models specific to SF, but will expand to a fully public program sooner
- jdavis703 5y ago
  At this point, being let’s say a “transportation safety activist” in the Bay Area, they seem about the same. That said, I’ve seen Waymo still being too cautious relative to Cruise. Like I was waiting on the crosswalk with my bike at a 45-degree angle, and Waymo seemed terrified that I was going to bike diagonally through on-coming traffic. It was kind of hilarious. That said when I’ve tried to test the safety parameters on Cruise while on my bike or skateboard and the system has called my bluff. I don’t know if this means Cruise is less safe. Or they’ve found a way to give the AI a sense of confidence and assertiveness against people using micromobility to aggressively bypass urban traffic congestion.
  - bckr 5y ago
    > Or they’ve found a way to give the AI a sense of confidence and assertiveness against people using micromobility to aggressively bypass urban traffic congestion. I'm looking forward to mass robotics. I'm not looking forward to corporate dark patterns in mass robotics.
- hamandcheese 5y ago
  This is not very scientific at all, but I see Waymo and Cruise cars driving around SF all the time. Waymo cars appear to drive much more naturally than Cruise to my eyes.
  - exhaze 5y ago
    Can you give some examples? I feel like perception of safety will be a big adoption gap. What made the Waymo cars appear more natural?
    - hamandcheese 5y ago
      It’s hard to put my finger on any specific thing, and it may even come down to the fact that I see a lot more Waymos than Cruises, and have also seen Waymos around SF for much longer (or at least noticed them for longer). I feel like Cruises are a bit more cautious, to the point of making me skeptical. But again, I’m struggling to think of any example in particular. This might be silly but I also think the Cruise cars are much more ugly.
      - exhaze 5y ago
        I wonder if it’s something like the “bozo bit”? Once you see one Waymo car doing something that looks unsafe, your entire perception of “Waymo car” becomes (nearly irreversibly) lower.
- ehsankia 5y ago
  Considering Waymo has had almost a year of no-one-in-driverseat service in Phoenix, I would say they are overall ahead, even though that's not in SF specifically. Being first to driverless in SF also shows that. They are definitely taking things very very carefully, as they know a single major accident is all it takes to set them back years.
  - AlotOfReading 5y ago
    The first to driverless in SF was Cruise, who's had a public driverless program running there for a few months, albeit at night.
    - avthrowaway35 5y ago
      I think it’s “public” in air quotes - technically non-Cruise employees have taken rides, but it doesn’t seem like they’re pulling people organically from the waitlist. It’s mostly local influencers or Cruise investors in the few videos I’ve seen that aren’t Cruise employees.
      - AlotOfReading 5y ago
        They're pretty limited by the number of vehicles they have available and resources to support them. Even employees have trouble accessing the program due to the lack of vehicles and the waitlist is in the tens of thousands of people. I imagine they prioritized influencers or actual users since they can't possibly meet total demand.
      - spikels 5y ago
        Waymo is “public” in the same sense. The general public can’t just request a ride.
        ehsankia 5y ago
        People who have zero connection to Google or Waymo have gotten in the program and used the service for months. Waymo also removed any sort of NDA allowing people to post videos of the full experience, hence all the videos on Youtube. Lastly, I would still say "10 PM and 6 AM at a maximum speed of 30 MPH" is quite a major restriction compared to what Waymo can do.
- avthrowaway35 5y ago
  My take as someone in the industry, but at neither of these two companies: Cruise is limited (by their own choice) to operating between 11 PM and 5 AM. Waymo is operating at all hours of the day. That alone indicates a much greater level of confidence in their capabilities. The complexity of driving in a busy street in SF at daytime is dramatically higher than at night, especially in SF, which tends to be pretty sleepy after hours. Note that both companies avoid driving in SOMA, FIDI, and other challenging parts of the city.
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    Cruise is running _driverlessly_ at nighttime. Like Waymo, they're driving autonomously 24/7 around San Francisco, just with a safety driver. This new announcement doesn't specify their driverless hours. I suspect that they would have highlighted it if they were the first to be driving around SF in the daytime, just as they highlighted the first of being driverlessly deployed in multiple cities. My guess (also in the industry) would be that Waymo combines Google's incredible technical skill with Google's incredible incompetence at focused execution. This is why they haven't had a milestone in a couple years since their deployment in Phoenix. I also think that this combination of strengths and weaknesses is a good fit for the AV industry.
    - avthrowaway35 5y ago
      They include footage of their drive without a safety operator and it’s in the middle of the day. https://youtu.be/O8TSA-X9UlU https://youtu.be/O8TSA-X9UlU
      - jeffbee 5y ago
        I wonder what the little icon is that the Waymo viz is putting on top of those double-parked cars.
        CobrastanJorji 5y ago
        I'd guess you answered your own question. It's an icon of a car next to some car-shaped blobs, so "double parked" or "stopped in a traffic lane" sounds like a good guess.
- ra7 5y ago
  1. Cruise only operates between 10 PM and 6 AM and under 30 mph. Waymo operates all day without an artificial speed restriction. 2. Waymo's service area in SF is more than twice that of Cruise's. Unsurprisingly, both of them avoid downtown areas. 3. Waymo has hundreds of vehicles in San Francisco. Cruise only has a fraction of that — last I heard, only <10 of them were providing driverless rides. 4. According to CA DMV 2021 disengagement data, Waymo is driving almost 3x more miles than Cruise. Waymo seems to love a slow and steady approach, but when they announce a service it's fully featured as we've seen in Chandler, AZ.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    I don't think it's fair to say that either Cruise or Waymo avoid downtown areas. Cruise cars come pouring out of their depot at Van Ness and California nightly at 10pm, like bats or something. That's not downtown but it's in a very dense, very busy area. Cruise's offices are in SoMa where Dropbox used to be, and I see tons of Cruise cars in the vicinity of Folsom/Embarcadero. I also see Waymo working Embarcadero on both sides of Market, which is downtown.
    - ra7 5y ago
      Oh yes, they test in downtown areas. I meant they avoid them for their public beta program rides.
  - silentsea90 5y ago
    Sounds like Google. Slow, steady and more reliable.
    - dymk 5y ago
      Reliable? https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ It sounds like Waymo, sure, but not like Google. There's a reason they're separate companies.
      - fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
- spikels 5y ago
  I live/work in SF and signed up for both Cruise and Waymo yet have never been able to get an actual ride. As best I can tell almost everyone getting rides from these services in SF are employees or specially selected. Neither is available the general public. Waymo’s “Waymo One” app makes you fill out a pretty extensive questionnaire to sign up and suggests they will do some kind of checks about the other members of your household. Filled out rather invasive info out yet still no access. Cruise makes you fill out a simpler form but puts you in a cue to get the actual app. Know several people who have filled it out but none have gotten the app. So far no actual robotaxis in SF.
xhkkffbf 5y ago
Has anyone tried this? How did it feel? Did it feel safe?
- redisman 5y ago
  Did it get stuck because of an edge case?
- mcrady 5y ago
  I took a fully autonomous Waymo in phoenix a year ago. Very cool. A little jerky and at one point it said "Figuring this out" but whatever it was got resolved very quickly. Also, it was a pain to book it. I tried once and there were no vehicles available. I tried a couple days later and it told me I would have to wait a half hour for a ride.
greesil 5y ago
I was biking in SF the other day, pulling my kid in a bike trailer. A waymo vehicle pulled up behind me while I was waiting for the traffic light. I was pleasantly surprised that it waited for me when the light turned green and didn't run me over. Robot anxiety is real though. Edit: anxiety also because I wasn't sure it would recognize the bike trailer as a real thing. How many bike trailers end up in the training set?
- omnicognate 5y ago
  I wonder what the stats are on those bike trailers. I see people using them in traffic and they look plain terrifying: a child dangling out in a flimsy canvas pod behind the cyclists's back, too low for drivers to see when close, surrounded by vehicle wheels... yikes.
  - cjrp 5y ago
    There shouldn't be anything inherently dangerous about them, a car shouldn't be getting that close to the back of a bicycle really. I've seen some that have a tall flag-like thing, I guess that's to help show that there's something behind the bicycle
    - omnicognate 5y ago
      Shouldn't doesn't mean doesn't. Seems to me that common sense suggests they're pretty dangerous to use in traffic, but I'm not claiming that is actually the case. I'm just wondering what the stats are - the only real way to know. For context, I live in a major city. I've seen people pulling these things round busy multi-lane roundabouts and the like.
      - bckr 5y ago
        Many people seem really careless with their children on the road. Another example is walking out into a crosswalk with a stroller without looking both ways. Yes, it's my responsibility to slow down. But for god's sake don't assume I'm going to!
moritonal 5y ago
I know we'll have driverless cars within ten-years, and I know there will be benefits, but has any government yet started planning for the relatively near-instant transformation of the Trucker and Taxi industry once this "works"? The fall-out is going to be intense: * Fuel-stops are going to change completely, what's the point of half of the motels on long-haul drives when your car can drive all night and likely recharge automatically at a stop-point. * Reduced downtime on goods movement will impact uptime in every other industry. * Autonomous-vehicle-only lanes that line up with traffic timings creating a two-tier driving experience * Huge influx of unemployed drivers who I guess might get "chauffeur" style jobs. * Security issues, complex legal issues when there's accidents. * Fake taxi's that drive a customer into a bad experience for "lols". I know all this is extreme, but if history is studying the past to understand the present, science-fiction is studying the "future" to predict the problems of tomorrow.
- givemeethekeys 5y ago
  What will happen: - Truckers will go out of work in very large quantities. - They will go into other trades. - Many won't. Crime may go up if we don't figure out how to create more jobs for the type of people who chose trucking.
- lostgame 5y ago
  Yet another reason why Universal Basic Income is going to become a necessity. As each industry automates itself more and more, it'll be UBI or total riots and chaos. And thank God. People are not robots. They shouldn't have to spend their valuable lives doing repetitive, monotonous tasks for 8+ hours a day to barely survive anyway. So long cashiers, so long truck drivers, and hello future.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    I disagree with this. There’s a labor shortage in just about every industry right now, we aren’t in a high unemployment world by any stretch. UBI is not needed when wages are high and unemployment is low.
RankingMember 5y ago
Edit: I'm wrong, misread the context of the quote. Please disregard the below. Thanks to the people who double-checked me! Despite the claims of "no human driver behind the wheel", there'll still be what amounts to a driver, they're just calling the person a "specialist" instead of a "driver": > Just as we’ve done before, we'll start with Waymo employees hailing trips with autonomous specialists behind the wheel, with the goal of opening it up to members of the public via our Trusted Tester program soon after.
- avthrowaway35 5y ago
  Some of the rides going forward will include safety drivers, but no, this announcement is about how they took the “specialist”/driver/human safety operator out of the car for the first time in San Francisco. Edit: looking at the full context of that quote, they’re talking about their plan for removing the safety driver in downtown Phoenix. >Our commitment to Phoenix and the community there remains strong, and we’ll soon be expanding to another area: Downtown Phoenix. Just as we’ve done before, we'll start with Waymo employees hailing trips with autonomous specialists behind the wheel, with the goal of opening it up to members of the public via our Trusted Tester program soon after.
  - RankingMember 5y ago
    You are correct, thanks for double-checking me. Updated my comment to indicate my error.
- jefftk 5y ago
  I think you're misreading the post? I'm interpreting that sentence as being specifically about the Phoenix expansion: "Our commitment to Phoenix and the community there remains strong, and we’ll soon be expanding to another area: Downtown Phoenix. Just as we’ve done before, we'll start with Waymo employees hailing trips with autonomous specialists behind the wheel, with the goal of opening it up to members of the public via our Trusted Tester program soon after." (Disclosure: I work for Google, a sibling company to Waymo.)
  - 5y ago
moffkalast 5y ago
Interesting how they seem to keep adding more and more sensors to it. Gotta have redundancy I guess.
tapoxi 5y ago
When I see one of these cars in South Boston (narrow streets with street parking) during the winter (piles of snow everywhere), I'll believe they're a reality. Until then, they'll remain 90% of the way there.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  This is a strange perspective. Do you consider subways "not a reality" because small rural towns can't sustain one?
  - the_other 5y ago
    I guess there's a mismatch in some people's understanding of what a driverless car should be. It sounds like you think "a vehicle that works in a limited set of circumstances" qualifies as a car. As a mode of transport in some areas, I get why that would seem useful. Busses, trams and trains work like that. And subways! I use all those: they're great. I imagine the GP thinks of cars as "can go almost anywhere with limited immediate infrastructure, even some way off-road". That's how I think of them. I can imagine "driverless cars that operate like 1-5 person taxis in urban areas that have specialised roadways" could show up. But to me, these are not "cars". They don't get me to a party in the woods; they don't let me park up illegally when I need to sleep; they probably don't let me rush an injured person or someone giving birth to prepared to deal with the legal consequences later.. etc. These things will not be "cars"; they'll be non-mass-public-transit.
    - staz 5y ago
      > If an autonomous car don't let me run over someone it's not really a car. ... do we even need n-gate anymore?
    - wutbrodo 5y ago
      > in some people's understanding of what a driverless car should be. I don't understand at all what you mean by "should". The comment I was responding to said that [whatever this is] "wasn't a reality". This was a top-level comment to the announcement itself, not a response to a comment claiming "well, human-operated cars are officially over". Doing exactly what a current, human-operated car is an irrelevant, arbitrary point of comparison, introduced by the GP comment. This makes exactly as much sense as saying that the first motor vehicles "weren't a reality" until, like a horse, you could take them on trails, jump over low obstacles, and live in the wilderness with them indefinitely. That's what I'm pushing back against: it's classic ignorant Luddism to set imaginary bars for new technologies and then insist that the new tech isn't valuable at all on that basis. I know this is super-common, but it's an eternal pet peeve of mine, as I can't help but imagine how much better the world would be without people like this.
29athrowaway 5y ago
So basically all the leverage that truck drivers had collectively will vanish over night.
Traster 5y ago
>Just as we’ve done before, we'll start with Waymo employees hailing trips with autonomous specialists behind the wheel, Ok. I tell you what, I've got an innovative idea. You see, these "autonomous specialists". They sound expensive, right? Got to be trained not just to drive, but to debug the computer, to have higher concentration levels to mitigate the inevitable higher risk of sudden interventions. So what you do - and stay with me now - you strip out the autonomous tech and just replace it with a steering wheel. All of a sudden you no longer need these useless "autonomous specialists" and anyone could drive it. It's a billion dollar idea, I guarantee it!
throw7 5y ago
Is this really "fully autonomous"? I get the feeling the driver (the one with the legal liability) is watching from a remote terminal back at waymo hq.
- ra7 5y ago
  It’s fully autonomous. They can’t “joystick” the car from a remote terminal.
  - tinybrotosaurus 5y ago
    Could you show me the control stack source code to prove that? Ah yes, you can't.
    - ra7 5y ago
      You can choose to believe Waymo (and all other SDCs who say the same) or not. No one's going to show you source code on an internet forum.
- qgin 5y ago
  There’s no remote driver. There are people at a remote center that can add labels to scenes if the computer doesn’t have enough confidence to proceed. One the computer has enough information to start planning again, it resumes driving.
daenz 5y ago
The clip at 0:42s impressed me https://youtu.be/O8TSA-X9UlU?t=42 https://youtu.be/O8TSA-X9UlU?t=42 because the behavior seems to be trying to "edge in" and assert fairness, which is what humans expect of each other in these situations.
- akira2501 5y ago
  There's a huge danger in trying to anthropomorphize these systems too much, unless you believe there really is a "fairness" model built in. If not, then we shouldn't try to understand what it's doing in these terms. A problem I spotted is, shortly after that turn, it sees the person ahead trying to parallel park... and then it give them several car lengths of distance while it waits. It's waiting so far back that the vehicle behind it couldn't fully clear the intersection. That's not particularly "fair" of it to do that.. nor is giving such a large space to the parallel parking particularly useful or expected. I do not have high expectations for a road filled with this level of barely autonomous agents operating smoothly en masse.
  - enragedcacti 5y ago
    Google has been implementing "fairness" models for a probably going on a decade in their self driving cars. the first example I can remember is them talking about intentionally nosing into a 4 way stop to signal to other drivers that the vehicle understood that it was it's turn to go. Not to say its perfect but the car is "thinking" along those terms.
spupe 5y ago
This is a major landmark. Excited to see the results.
leroman 5y ago
Have to say, seeing my Auto Pilot graphics with cars "jumping" all over and appearing and disappearing.. (this is not the FSD Beta graphics mind you) compared with what seems like a stable and coherent visualization of the environment, it really makes the difference in my feeling of confidence that it's aware and able to react to the same things I see around me
- bckr 5y ago
  > it really makes the difference in my feeling of confidence it's aware and able to react to things as a result of being aware to them. Could you clarify? In which direction does it make a difference?
  - darknavi 5y ago
    Seeing a "stable" visualization of what the car sees strengthens your confidence in its ability to perceive the world around the car.
    - bckr 5y ago
      yeah I am still confused because in the first part there's jumpy graphics and in the second part there are stable graphics, and I'm not sure if this represents a change over time, or different vehicles, or what
      - jhalstead 5y ago
        I believe OP is comparing the visualizations produced by the Auto Pilot system in their Tesla (jumpy) to Waymo's visualizations (stable and coherent).
        bckr 5y ago
        Ah, okay thank you.
- cjrp 5y ago
atx42 5y ago
Trucks that drive highways solely automatically, I'd expect would come way before cars navigating cities. I'd think trucks could just pull over on the shoulder in unusual conditions, e.g. bad weather, construction. I suppose it's more a legal issue. Cars just need permission within a city, whereas trucks cross lots of legal boundaries?
- adam_arthur 5y ago
  That's been the confusing thing for me. I'm sure automated trucking is being worked on, but all the media/conversation seems to be around consumer vehicles. Automated trucking is a much more impactful, and frankly easier problem to solve. You could simply automate highway part and have manual take over near cities to remove 90% of the challenge.
- phendrenad2 5y ago
  I'm hoping that self-driving trucks result in separate highway lanes, or perhaps even dedicated roads. A road just for self-driving trucks wouldn't need a passing lane, or a breakdown lane (if a truck breaks down, someone can be dispatched to fix it, and it's okay if the whole roadway of autonomous trucks comes to a stop). (Yes I know, I've just reinvented trains, but trains would likely coexist with this, and they serve different purposes (trucks are better at going over mountains, for instance))
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    With some minimal standardization, these could also drive with almost zero distance between each other, braking together. This would significantly reduce air resistance and road space usage.
- redytedy 5y ago
  There's also a perception challenge that doesn't exist in cities. At highway speeds and longer stopping distances, you need your perception stack to see much further. Still an active area of research.
jeffbee 5y ago
One thing I am glad for is the presence of Waymo in SF has upgraded the detail on Google Maps in that city. Every curb, sidewalk, marked crosswalk, and other feature of the streetscape now appears in Google Maps. It's really improving. Compare: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/37.76628/-122.46048 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/37.76628/-122.46048 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7663897,-122.4603632,19.6z?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7663897,-122.4603632,19.6z?h... Google Maps has this level of detail in. S.F. and Phoenix, their two self-driving launch cities, and not in other places like say Denver or Charlotte, so I surmise this data is attributable to Waymo.
- ra7 5y ago
  Do you happen to know if this is because of Waymo? I've always wondered how much of a feedback loop there is between Waymo and Google Maps. They've never officially confirmed anything and I can't find any literature on it.
  - gundmc 5y ago
    According to their blog post[1], this is done with satellite imagery and not Waymo data. [1] - https://blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-101-ai-power-new-features-io-2021/ https://blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-101-ai-power-n...
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      Interesting. If true, I wonder why the highly detailed map of Chandler AZ ends abruptly at the boundary of the Waymo One service area.
  - advisedwang 5y ago
    I got the impression that the extra data is not collected by Waymo, it's collected by ariel photography and streetview cards. However it is in a sense because of waymo - they need to collect this additional data to provide the best maps to the autonomous cars.
- dntrkv 5y ago
Lamad123 5y ago
They know their socks will get a hit so they do stunts like this!!
londons_explore 5y ago
This video is just over 10 years old today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdgQpa1pUUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdgQpa1pUUE It shows a waymo/google driverless car driving a multi-mile route on public streets with no supervision. And today we're seeing... Pretty much the exact same thing!
- enragedcacti 5y ago
  > Here's Steve, who joined us for a special drive on a carefully programmed route to experience being behind the wheel in a whole new way. We organized this test as a technical experiment, but we think it's also a promising look at what autonomous technology may one day deliver if rigorous technology and safety standards can be met. Not really the same thing.
AvAn12 5y ago
Is anyone thinking about "road neutrality" issues, such as: - Tiered priority: can people pay up to give their autonomous ride priority over others? - Differential access: can certain neighborhoods be made inaccessible to Avs originating in certain other neighborhoods? Or only accessible to friends and families of residents? (virtual gated community / virtual redlining)
- hammock 5y ago
  Good social credit score? The fast lane opens up for you (or you pay a lower toll).
- dymk 5y ago
  This isn't really a set of "problems" that don't/couldn't exist already with human driven cars. You can already pay to use the HOV lane in some places, gated communities already exist, etc.
  - AvAn12 5y ago
    I'm thinking more like an algorithmic bias, which we have already seen in retail and banking ML/AI systems. Virtual version of how taxis won't serve certain neighborhoods or pick up certain people based on appearances. How do we ensure that autonomous vehicles don't surreptitiously implement biased behavior like this? And I think it's actually a problem if it's possible to pay up for expedited routing. Implementing faster car travel for rich people is not the same as HOV lanes.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
Does anyone know what Waymo is doing in Phoenix? I saw a lot of there cars there but they were always being driven by someone in the driver seat (Jan-Feb 2022). They say they are driverless there but I never saw it and probably saw 500 Waymo cars/Waymo cars 500 times while there.
- jseliger 5y ago
  Waymo has a relatively small service area in Chandler, Mesa, and a very small section of Tempe. The first two are essentially Phoenix suburbs. Waymo doesn't reach some of the areas that would seem to be particularly useful: light rail stops (the Phoenix area now has about 20 miles of light rail: see the map tab at https://www.valleymetro.org/maps-schedules/rail https://www.valleymetro.org/maps-schedules/rail), or Arizona State University in Tempe, or some of the party/bar districts (like Mill Avenue in Tempe). I live in the Phoenix area and have wanted to try Waymo, but, sadly, it doesn't go anywhere useful for me.
  - ra7 5y ago
    This blog post is also announcing their expansion to Phoenix downtown.
  - AlwaysRock 5y ago
    Oh got it. Okay. That makes sense. Thanks.
belter 5y ago
Anything that changed radically since 2021? "Waymo and Cruise self-driving cars took over San Francisco streets at record levels in 2021 — so did collisions with other cars, scooters, and bikes" [1] "...Many of the accidents, which the companies are required to report to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, occurred while the vehicles were operating in manual mode, with a safety driver in control. ...But according to an analysis by Insider, a majority of the 98 reported accidents in 2021 occurred while the vehicles were in autonomous mode, or within seconds after the autonomous mode technology had been switched off..." [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/self-driving-car-accidents-waymo-cruise-tesla-zoox-san-francisco-2022-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/self-driving-car-accidents-w...
- mdorazio 5y ago
  You really need to look at which vehicles were at fault in these accidents. In the vast majority of cases, it's not the autonomous vehicle.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    Where is this data?
    - belter 5y ago
      "...Waymo sued the California DMV this week to prevent it from revealing certain information about its cars' performance, including Waymo's internal analyses of collisions. Waymo argued that the information, including any "potential technological remediations," represents a trade secret that would have "a chilling effect across the industry" if released, and would dissuade potential market participants from investing time and resources into developing self-driving cars..." Now the question is, did the government officials who approved this, been given access to this data? And if not, why not?
      - grandmczeb 5y ago
        What government officials are you referring to? These are disclosures made to the DMV, so obviously they have access. Maybe you mean the court? But they have access too as part of the lawsuit... so I'm not sure what you're talking about.
greggman3 5y ago
Just 2 days ago I saw a waymo car stuck at 4th and Townsend in SF facing NE (toward the bay). The car was in the left of 2 lanes. The light for the left lane turned green. The car sat there. People behind started honking. Eventually it went. Not if there was a driver or not. In the driver's defense (computer or human), SF's signals have gotten very complicated in the last ~10 yrs and even non-robot drivers fail to follow the rules about 20% of the time. 3 places I can see this happen every day are (1) 4th and Townsend on Townsend facing NE (the one above). The issue is the left lane has a green light but the right lane has a separate right turn signal because there is a bike lane further to the right that gets green first. Sit at the corner and I guarantee within 10 right turning cars someone will turn on red. Similarly, 5th and Bryant on 5th going NW (into the city). This has a similar deal. There's an on ramp to the freeway but it has a separate right turn signal from the green forward signal. This one, for me, is around 100% violation by which I mean I've never NOT seen a violation at the corner. Not ever car, but ever signal at least one car will turn right on to the freeway even though there are 2 large no right turn lights and a green bike light. The last is 4th and King, on 4th going SE facing the bay. I'm not sure these are technically violations. The left lane is painted as left turn only. The right as right turn only. The middle lane crosses King. Again, this is close to 100% for at least one car per signal ignoring those markings. I don't blame them as there's no way to see the markings until you're just a few car lengths from the intersection and if there are other cars there you can't see them at all. Further, looking up the law, solid white lines are just guidelines. It's legal to cross them. (double white are not). Still, people in the center lane get angry and honk when people in the left or right lanes cut them off since they weren't expecting it.
idreyn 5y ago
Glad to see they never exceed 20 mph in this video. If AVs can stick to city speeds that prioritize pedestrian safety over travel time, they'll have a huge head start over human drivers in safety and "human decency" metrics. Hopefully have a traffic calming effect on the rest of us, too.
Animats 5y ago
AutoX has had driverless taxis in Shenzhen since last year. Also, this is just driverless rides for Google employees, not everybody.
- redytedy 5y ago
  I have seen this news but have not seen any videos taken by a rider. On the other hand, members of the public have uploaded videos of their experiences in Waymo (Arizona, driverless). Are you aware of any such video for AutoX?
cwkoss 5y ago
When a Waymo car negligently kills someone, can the family sue Waymo? Or have their lobbyists carved out some sort of liability exemption?
- abvdasker 5y ago
  In the case of the Uber autonomous car which killed a pedestrian in 2018, Uber reached a settlement with the victim's family and faced no criminal charges (I think the answer to your question is clearly yes). The "driver" behind the wheel of the autonomous car did get charged with negligent homicide in addition to being sued by the family afaik.
lvl102 5y ago
Any studies on traffic and congestions with regards to autonomous cars? I’d imagine it would be fun to simulate something like this.
spikels 5y ago
How do you actually get a Waymo ride in SF?
wanderr 5y ago
The graphic showing the platforms from Austin to SF shows a disturbing trend of these autonomous platforms getting bigger, and therefore more dangerous for those of us on the outside of these vehicles. I would love to see regulations capping the size and speed of these autonomous platforms to minimize the danger to the public. Sure, eventually they might be proven to be safer than having humans behind the wheel, and then we can consider relaxing those regulations, but even then perhaps the standards should be higher, since they are likely to increase the overall number of cars on the road significantly - traffic will not discourage people from driving as much, if they are not in fact driving. (FWIW, I would love love love to never have to drive again. I just want us to take a measured approach to getting there for safety.)
- valine 5y ago
  Considering that cars already kill people en mass there's no real advantage to slowing the pace of SDV development other than to make people feel warm and fuzzy. I personally prefer Tesla's approach where they give customers permission to go ham with their latest beta software. The quicker we get to L5 the quicker we can put the automobile safety nightmare to rest permanently.
  - wanderr 5y ago
    Given that cars already kill people en mass, there's no real advantage to slowing down something that will likely 10x the number of cars on the road, or making those cars smaller and safer? Sure, let's get to L5 as quickly as we can...without killing lots of people unnecessarily.
robotburrito 5y ago
I wonder if it'd just be cheaper and easier in the long term to create some sort of track system that the robotic cars could drive on? You could even have one car pull other "dumb" self driving cars that could hold cargo or even more passengers. Maybe even have them powered by electricity straight from the grid instead of batteries.
- martythemaniak 5y ago
  A good illustration of why autonomous EVs will stop trains in their tracks. Tracks are expensive, precise and single-purpose. A road is cheap, flexible and multi-purpose. Being tied to the grid means you can't go where you need to get to, only pre-set destinations. And since every train-car can now drive itself, there's no longer a need to tie them together, so instead of 5 cars bunched up all at once every 10 minutes, you can get a single car every 2 minutes. That is, once this tech matures, no new train development will make sense.
  - elcomet 5y ago
    A train is much more energy-efficient. Convenience is not the only important factor here.
scoofy 5y ago
CTRL + F: rain As far as I know, they still don't/won't drive in the rain, and they operate safely and slowly. I want to believe this thing is moving forward, but I'm skeptical about building a marketplace where the service is unavailable exactly when demand is highest. It creates conflicts of interest, that at best, encourage actors to take risks that can undermine the entire industry.
- shagie 5y ago
  I'm still waiting for a video of a self driving car during snow five miles outside of Fargo, Minneapolis, or Madison when the road hasn't been plowed in the past hour.
  - gretch 5y ago
    They probably will never do that and there’s nothing wrong with it. Consider that airlines are a well established and reliable business worth trillions around the globe. And yet they also don’t take off or land in adverse weather conditions. Sometimes there’s a snowstorm and a whole day of flights is canceled. But none of that invalidates the existence of the industry as a whole.
    - shagie 5y ago
      If they don't do that, then: A driverless taxi service in any city where it snows will never exist. It will not be possible to replace my personal car with a driverless car. Relatives who are in the southern states (with driverless cars) will not be able to visit for many winter holidays. --- Self driving cars are very interesting - but can you get to the point where it is possible to replace them in Chicago or Minneapolis with the same availability for personal or services as a human driven one? With airlines, yes, shutting canceling the flights out of O'Hare is certainly inconvenient. Is it reasonable to also make it so that people can't get to work via local commuting because of snow? To get to the point where self driving is default, it needs to be able to handle the conditions that a human driver currently does with the same availability. This goes for taxis, trucks, and the daily commute and errands.
consumer451 5y ago
I recently learned of Wayve via Pieter Abbeel's interview of Alex Kendall. This seemed like the first real contender for Tesla in my view. Would love to hear everyone else's take. https://www.therobotbrains.ai/who-is-alex-kendall-wayve https://www.therobotbrains.ai/who-is-alex-kendall-wayve
- sytelus 5y ago
  Wayve pushes very hard on what is called "end-to-end" approach. That means, you input sensing into the deep network and out comes the controls. No ifs and buts. When it came out on 2017, no one I knew believed that it can possibly work with reasonable reliability to actually put things in production. Deep learning is simply not there. You can converse with GPT-3 and find few great example to cite but within few tried you will encounter things which don't make sense. Deep learning is a great component to provide pattern recognition but there are still a lot many more pieces such as memory, abstractions, compositions etc that we have no idea how to do it. The pattern recognition can certainly emulate those pieces to certain extent but it's not the same thing. Consequently, E2E self-driving only using current state of deep learning is unlikely to produce something beyond video clip demos.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  What does it mean to contend with Tesla in this industry? They're aiming to become the 5th place self-driving car company?
  - consumer451 5y ago
    I am not a Tesla fanboy but could be highly misinformed, so honest question: Is it generally accepted that Tesla's approach is the worst in the industry?
    - md2020 5y ago
      No
sytelus 5y ago
There are conflicting news: This blog post says car was driverless while all other reports says it wasn't because Waymo does not have CA driverless permit for SF yet. https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/30/waymo-opens-driverless-robotaxi-service-to-san-francisco-employees/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/30/waymo-opens-driverless-rob...
gysfjiutedgj 5y ago
Are all of Waymo's service geofenced?
14 5y ago
I can not wait until the day cars no longer break any rules and the police are forced to take a hard look at what they do and justify being employed. How will they civil forfeit if they have no reason to pull you over? I really hope I live long enough to see that day.
- harambae 5y ago
  Unfortunately many of the self-driving cars will be robotaxis with camera systems watching the riders. If anything, it'll increase the police state.
backtoyoujim 5y ago
I hope that Boston Dynamic can do will make robotic horses/tauntauns that need to be tied to a charging post whilst I head into the daily shopping would be awesome. And if I took one to the pub and later that night it could get my intoxicated body home safely without my guidance yeah that would be a huge plus. I'm tired of cars and trucks and segways and scooters. I want robotic electro auto-tauntauns.
_yo2u 5y ago
I think waymo has advanced the tech pretty far but I am still worried about the legal and business aspects of self driving cars: 1. liability cross section scales with size of fleet if waymo is solely responsible for developing their algorithms 2. added operational cost of running a self driving car - is it worth it to average consumer? This is something everyone throws numbers out for but here is what i'm thinking: - we have lots of examples of transportation systems that have some level of automation (eg. train, subway, planes) but even after decades of robust operations, nearly all of them still require operators in the loop. This is especially striking since rail systems/subways are as closed-loop and simple as you can get in terms of automation. As an outsider, it's unclear to me why they are needed but they are there. Is it because as fleets age, their parts wear down in unpredictable ways? Is it some regulatory requirement? - for self driving cars, will the same expectation be there eventually? either a remote assistance driver or a chauffer safety driver? If that is the case, then it will be difficult for a self driving car to be cheaper esp with the added cost of all self driving tech stack and operational costs.
- jffry 5y ago
  > added operational cost of running a self driving car - is it worth it to average consumer? Early high-cost self-driving cars largely won't be owned by individual consumers where the cars spend the majority of their time parked. They will be owned by companies that sell access to them as taxis by the minute/mile and can justify the cost by minimizing downtime.
rejor121 5y ago
I wonder what kind of bubble tech bros and the people running these companies live in. Ten years to transition? Try twenty at least. Most people still buy second hand vehicles and those are still gonna be gas. Think about the motorcycles too, and the pedestrians, and the cyclists. Adoption will be much slower due to costs, safety concerns and privacy. It would be better to just spend the money on better infrastructure and public transport, but that’s a pipe dream in the States at least.
- eightysixfour 5y ago
  I moved to live in a more walkable, less car dependent city. I care about us improving transit infrastructure, but the idea that American cities will significantly divest from their existing car-centric infrastructure is just wrong. We’ve already invested in that infrastructure and it is incredibly expensive to replace. I think the replacement of manually driven vehicles will be decently rapid - the bottom 1/3rd of drivers cause a large percentage of motor vehicle accidents, as soon as they’re better than that group I think the financial incentives (like insurance) will dramatically change and it will be cheaper to ride in someone else’s self driving car than to own your own older vehicle. Guess we will see.
- frakkingcylons 5y ago
  If legit self-driving capabilities became available, I feel pretty confident in saying that there's a sizeable consumer market for this that are not sensitive to the price. I would immediately drop an extra 30-40% on a car if that's what it cost to get that self-driving. For those that are more price-sensitive, well, new cars become used cars in a relatively short amount of time.
rnikander 5y ago
I'm in Bogotá. Traffic here is worse than anything in San Francisco. The main danger is probably the motorcycles, flying between cars, sometimes with inches to spare. I don't know the fatality stats, but they must be worse than the USA. It's hard to see how an AI could deal with this.
walrus01 5y ago
Now we seem to have very clear evidence that both waymo and cruise consider LIDAR sensors as essential, while Tesla is still trying to do "full self driving" with visual spectrum cameras only.
jmu1234567890 5y ago
How will this scale? As they release to more locations there will be a higher likelihood of a bad accident. Once there is any bad accident the whole fleet is shut down. On the other hand, if an Uber driver has a bad accident only the driver is fired.
arvindrajnaidu 5y ago
About 30 people die in SF per year because of traffic fatalities. Say 2 people die in a Waymo car in a year … we gotta be cool with that and not ban the whole thing. Wait what?
vmception 5y ago
is there any way to be invisible to these cars?
bitL 5y ago
"You've driven through the area where somebody used a stolen credit card with their Google account. Your Waymo account is now blocked, please leave the car."
jzer0cool 5y ago
What a long journey! Congrats to the team.
neycoda 5y ago
I can't wait to make out with someone in a driverless car ;D
ethagknight 5y ago
I am mostly ready for my own self-driving car (with my stuff inside and my settings and my cleanliness) that can Drop me off at the front door of my hotel and ferry itself back to the parking garage; or one that I can drive myself to work, and then it ferries itself back home to pick up my wife and kids to get to school. I don’t need my car to drive me necessarily, I just want it to go on and perform the next task for me. It can perform these autonomous tasks slowly and safely.
2143 5y ago
I'm into cars. And I have this dream of owning and driving around this very particular supercar. I've been slowly saving up, and within a few years I'll probably be able to outright buy it. And I plan to keep it for about 15 years atleast. This car is neither electric nor self-drive capable. Should I abandon that dream because I might not be allowed to drive around for too long? And yes, I do understand and agree that in the long run, autonomous cars are probably going to be safer overall. Like, I'm not opposed to it. (Please don't lecture me on why buying a car outright (instead of leasing) is financially stupid, or why buying cars with internal combustion engines or high CO2 emissions is a crime, or how my conscience allows me to buy a fancy car when there are a million other problems in this world).
- OldFritz 5y ago
  Definitely do not abandon your dream car. human drivers will be on the road for the next 50 years or more, and I suspect that even after most cars on the road are self driving, there will still be car shows and events for the classics. At least I hope so given my dream car is a Plymouth Superbird and I'm not close to attaining it quite yet.
- okdood64 5y ago
  > Please don't lecture me on why buying a car outright (instead of leasing) is financially stupid Who's saying this? And why?
all_usernames 5y ago
Found this on a bike forum, posted two days ago: "On March 24th, 2022, I was riding my bike near the beach in San Francisco down a slight slope. My hands were on my brakes to make sure the bike was in control. About 150 feet ahead of me, a vehicle suddenly stopped in the middle of the road. To avoid oncoming traffic, I veered towards the vehicle's right, which suddenly moved directly in front of me. At that point, I could not avoid impact and crashed through the vehicle's back window with my bike. As I lay on the road, I saw that the car that hit me did not have a driver." https://www.gofundme.com/f/autonomous-car-hit-my-brother https://www.gofundme.com/f/autonomous-car-hit-my-brother
black_13 5y ago

548 points by ra7 5y ago

I’m curious on the HN community opinion on whether Cruise is ahead of Waymo in SF, or if Waymo is just more careful and has spent less time training models specific to SF, but will expand to a fully public program sooner

jdavis703 5y ago
At this point, being let’s say a “transportation safety activist” in the Bay Area, they seem about the same. That said, I’ve seen Waymo still being too cautious relative to Cruise. Like I was waiting on the crosswalk with my bike at a 45-degree angle, and Waymo seemed terrified that I was going to bike diagonally through on-coming traffic. It was kind of hilarious. That said when I’ve tried to test the safety parameters on Cruise while on my bike or skateboard and the system has called my bluff. I don’t know if this means Cruise is less safe. Or they’ve found a way to give the AI a sense of confidence and assertiveness against people using micromobility to aggressively bypass urban traffic congestion.
- bckr 5y ago
  > Or they’ve found a way to give the AI a sense of confidence and assertiveness against people using micromobility to aggressively bypass urban traffic congestion. I'm looking forward to mass robotics. I'm not looking forward to corporate dark patterns in mass robotics.
hamandcheese 5y ago
This is not very scientific at all, but I see Waymo and Cruise cars driving around SF all the time. Waymo cars appear to drive much more naturally than Cruise to my eyes.
- exhaze 5y ago
  Can you give some examples? I feel like perception of safety will be a big adoption gap. What made the Waymo cars appear more natural?
  - hamandcheese 5y ago
    It’s hard to put my finger on any specific thing, and it may even come down to the fact that I see a lot more Waymos than Cruises, and have also seen Waymos around SF for much longer (or at least noticed them for longer). I feel like Cruises are a bit more cautious, to the point of making me skeptical. But again, I’m struggling to think of any example in particular. This might be silly but I also think the Cruise cars are much more ugly.
    - exhaze 5y ago
      I wonder if it’s something like the “bozo bit”? Once you see one Waymo car doing something that looks unsafe, your entire perception of “Waymo car” becomes (nearly irreversibly) lower.
ehsankia 5y ago
Considering Waymo has had almost a year of no-one-in-driverseat service in Phoenix, I would say they are overall ahead, even though that's not in SF specifically. Being first to driverless in SF also shows that. They are definitely taking things very very carefully, as they know a single major accident is all it takes to set them back years.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  The first to driverless in SF was Cruise, who's had a public driverless program running there for a few months, albeit at night.
  - avthrowaway35 5y ago
    I think it’s “public” in air quotes - technically non-Cruise employees have taken rides, but it doesn’t seem like they’re pulling people organically from the waitlist. It’s mostly local influencers or Cruise investors in the few videos I’ve seen that aren’t Cruise employees.
    - AlotOfReading 5y ago
      They're pretty limited by the number of vehicles they have available and resources to support them. Even employees have trouble accessing the program due to the lack of vehicles and the waitlist is in the tens of thousands of people. I imagine they prioritized influencers or actual users since they can't possibly meet total demand.
    - spikels 5y ago
      Waymo is “public” in the same sense. The general public can’t just request a ride.
      - ehsankia 5y ago
        People who have zero connection to Google or Waymo have gotten in the program and used the service for months. Waymo also removed any sort of NDA allowing people to post videos of the full experience, hence all the videos on Youtube. Lastly, I would still say "10 PM and 6 AM at a maximum speed of 30 MPH" is quite a major restriction compared to what Waymo can do.
avthrowaway35 5y ago
My take as someone in the industry, but at neither of these two companies: Cruise is limited (by their own choice) to operating between 11 PM and 5 AM. Waymo is operating at all hours of the day. That alone indicates a much greater level of confidence in their capabilities. The complexity of driving in a busy street in SF at daytime is dramatically higher than at night, especially in SF, which tends to be pretty sleepy after hours. Note that both companies avoid driving in SOMA, FIDI, and other challenging parts of the city.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  Cruise is running _driverlessly_ at nighttime. Like Waymo, they're driving autonomously 24/7 around San Francisco, just with a safety driver. This new announcement doesn't specify their driverless hours. I suspect that they would have highlighted it if they were the first to be driving around SF in the daytime, just as they highlighted the first of being driverlessly deployed in multiple cities. My guess (also in the industry) would be that Waymo combines Google's incredible technical skill with Google's incredible incompetence at focused execution. This is why they haven't had a milestone in a couple years since their deployment in Phoenix. I also think that this combination of strengths and weaknesses is a good fit for the AV industry.
  - avthrowaway35 5y ago
    They include footage of their drive without a safety operator and it’s in the middle of the day. https://youtu.be/O8TSA-X9UlU https://youtu.be/O8TSA-X9UlU
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      I wonder what the little icon is that the Waymo viz is putting on top of those double-parked cars.
      - CobrastanJorji 5y ago
        I'd guess you answered your own question. It's an icon of a car next to some car-shaped blobs, so "double parked" or "stopped in a traffic lane" sounds like a good guess.
ra7 5y ago
1. Cruise only operates between 10 PM and 6 AM and under 30 mph. Waymo operates all day without an artificial speed restriction. 2. Waymo's service area in SF is more than twice that of Cruise's. Unsurprisingly, both of them avoid downtown areas. 3. Waymo has hundreds of vehicles in San Francisco. Cruise only has a fraction of that — last I heard, only <10 of them were providing driverless rides. 4. According to CA DMV 2021 disengagement data, Waymo is driving almost 3x more miles than Cruise. Waymo seems to love a slow and steady approach, but when they announce a service it's fully featured as we've seen in Chandler, AZ.
- jeffbee 5y ago
  I don't think it's fair to say that either Cruise or Waymo avoid downtown areas. Cruise cars come pouring out of their depot at Van Ness and California nightly at 10pm, like bats or something. That's not downtown but it's in a very dense, very busy area. Cruise's offices are in SoMa where Dropbox used to be, and I see tons of Cruise cars in the vicinity of Folsom/Embarcadero. I also see Waymo working Embarcadero on both sides of Market, which is downtown.
  - ra7 5y ago
    Oh yes, they test in downtown areas. I meant they avoid them for their public beta program rides.
- silentsea90 5y ago
  Sounds like Google. Slow, steady and more reliable.
  - dymk 5y ago
    Reliable? https://killedbygoogle.com/ https://killedbygoogle.com/ It sounds like Waymo, sure, but not like Google. There's a reason they're separate companies.
    - fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
spikels 5y ago
I live/work in SF and signed up for both Cruise and Waymo yet have never been able to get an actual ride. As best I can tell almost everyone getting rides from these services in SF are employees or specially selected. Neither is available the general public. Waymo’s “Waymo One” app makes you fill out a pretty extensive questionnaire to sign up and suggests they will do some kind of checks about the other members of your household. Filled out rather invasive info out yet still no access. Cruise makes you fill out a simpler form but puts you in a cue to get the actual app. Know several people who have filled it out but none have gotten the app. So far no actual robotaxis in SF.

xhkkffbf 5y ago

Has anyone tried this? How did it feel? Did it feel safe?

redisman 5y ago
Did it get stuck because of an edge case?
mcrady 5y ago
I took a fully autonomous Waymo in phoenix a year ago. Very cool. A little jerky and at one point it said "Figuring this out" but whatever it was got resolved very quickly. Also, it was a pain to book it. I tried once and there were no vehicles available. I tried a couple days later and it told me I would have to wait a half hour for a ride.

greesil 5y ago

I was biking in SF the other day, pulling my kid in a bike trailer. A waymo vehicle pulled up behind me while I was waiting for the traffic light. I was pleasantly surprised that it waited for me when the light turned green and didn't run me over. Robot anxiety is real though. Edit: anxiety also because I wasn't sure it would recognize the bike trailer as a real thing. How many bike trailers end up in the training set?

omnicognate 5y ago
I wonder what the stats are on those bike trailers. I see people using them in traffic and they look plain terrifying: a child dangling out in a flimsy canvas pod behind the cyclists's back, too low for drivers to see when close, surrounded by vehicle wheels... yikes.
- cjrp 5y ago
  There shouldn't be anything inherently dangerous about them, a car shouldn't be getting that close to the back of a bicycle really. I've seen some that have a tall flag-like thing, I guess that's to help show that there's something behind the bicycle
  - omnicognate 5y ago
    Shouldn't doesn't mean doesn't. Seems to me that common sense suggests they're pretty dangerous to use in traffic, but I'm not claiming that is actually the case. I'm just wondering what the stats are - the only real way to know. For context, I live in a major city. I've seen people pulling these things round busy multi-lane roundabouts and the like.
    - bckr 5y ago
      Many people seem really careless with their children on the road. Another example is walking out into a crosswalk with a stroller without looking both ways. Yes, it's my responsibility to slow down. But for god's sake don't assume I'm going to!

moritonal 5y ago

I know we'll have driverless cars within ten-years, and I know there will be benefits, but has any government yet started planning for the relatively near-instant transformation of the Trucker and Taxi industry once this "works"? The fall-out is going to be intense: * Fuel-stops are going to change completely, what's the point of half of the motels on long-haul drives when your car can drive all night and likely recharge automatically at a stop-point. * Reduced downtime on goods movement will impact uptime in every other industry. * Autonomous-vehicle-only lanes that line up with traffic timings creating a two-tier driving experience * Huge influx of unemployed drivers who I guess might get "chauffeur" style jobs. * Security issues, complex legal issues when there's accidents. * Fake taxi's that drive a customer into a bad experience for "lols". I know all this is extreme, but if history is studying the past to understand the present, science-fiction is studying the "future" to predict the problems of tomorrow.

givemeethekeys 5y ago
What will happen: - Truckers will go out of work in very large quantities. - They will go into other trades. - Many won't. Crime may go up if we don't figure out how to create more jobs for the type of people who chose trucking.
lostgame 5y ago
Yet another reason why Universal Basic Income is going to become a necessity. As each industry automates itself more and more, it'll be UBI or total riots and chaos. And thank God. People are not robots. They shouldn't have to spend their valuable lives doing repetitive, monotonous tasks for 8+ hours a day to barely survive anyway. So long cashiers, so long truck drivers, and hello future.
- thehappypm 5y ago
  I disagree with this. There’s a labor shortage in just about every industry right now, we aren’t in a high unemployment world by any stretch. UBI is not needed when wages are high and unemployment is low.

RankingMember 5y ago

Edit: I'm wrong, misread the context of the quote. Please disregard the below. Thanks to the people who double-checked me! Despite the claims of "no human driver behind the wheel", there'll still be what amounts to a driver, they're just calling the person a "specialist" instead of a "driver": > Just as we’ve done before, we'll start with Waymo employees hailing trips with autonomous specialists behind the wheel, with the goal of opening it up to members of the public via our Trusted Tester program soon after.

avthrowaway35 5y ago
Some of the rides going forward will include safety drivers, but no, this announcement is about how they took the “specialist”/driver/human safety operator out of the car for the first time in San Francisco. Edit: looking at the full context of that quote, they’re talking about their plan for removing the safety driver in downtown Phoenix. >Our commitment to Phoenix and the community there remains strong, and we’ll soon be expanding to another area: Downtown Phoenix. Just as we’ve done before, we'll start with Waymo employees hailing trips with autonomous specialists behind the wheel, with the goal of opening it up to members of the public via our Trusted Tester program soon after.
- RankingMember 5y ago
  You are correct, thanks for double-checking me. Updated my comment to indicate my error.
jefftk 5y ago
I think you're misreading the post? I'm interpreting that sentence as being specifically about the Phoenix expansion: "Our commitment to Phoenix and the community there remains strong, and we’ll soon be expanding to another area: Downtown Phoenix. Just as we’ve done before, we'll start with Waymo employees hailing trips with autonomous specialists behind the wheel, with the goal of opening it up to members of the public via our Trusted Tester program soon after." (Disclosure: I work for Google, a sibling company to Waymo.)
- 5y ago

moffkalast 5y ago

Interesting how they seem to keep adding more and more sensors to it. Gotta have redundancy I guess.

tapoxi 5y ago

When I see one of these cars in South Boston (narrow streets with street parking) during the winter (piles of snow everywhere), I'll believe they're a reality. Until then, they'll remain 90% of the way there.

wutbrodo 5y ago
This is a strange perspective. Do you consider subways "not a reality" because small rural towns can't sustain one?
- the_other 5y ago
  I guess there's a mismatch in some people's understanding of what a driverless car should be. It sounds like you think "a vehicle that works in a limited set of circumstances" qualifies as a car. As a mode of transport in some areas, I get why that would seem useful. Busses, trams and trains work like that. And subways! I use all those: they're great. I imagine the GP thinks of cars as "can go almost anywhere with limited immediate infrastructure, even some way off-road". That's how I think of them. I can imagine "driverless cars that operate like 1-5 person taxis in urban areas that have specialised roadways" could show up. But to me, these are not "cars". They don't get me to a party in the woods; they don't let me park up illegally when I need to sleep; they probably don't let me rush an injured person or someone giving birth to prepared to deal with the legal consequences later.. etc. These things will not be "cars"; they'll be non-mass-public-transit.
  - staz 5y ago
    > If an autonomous car don't let me run over someone it's not really a car. ... do we even need n-gate anymore?
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    > in some people's understanding of what a driverless car should be. I don't understand at all what you mean by "should". The comment I was responding to said that [whatever this is] "wasn't a reality". This was a top-level comment to the announcement itself, not a response to a comment claiming "well, human-operated cars are officially over". Doing exactly what a current, human-operated car is an irrelevant, arbitrary point of comparison, introduced by the GP comment. This makes exactly as much sense as saying that the first motor vehicles "weren't a reality" until, like a horse, you could take them on trails, jump over low obstacles, and live in the wilderness with them indefinitely. That's what I'm pushing back against: it's classic ignorant Luddism to set imaginary bars for new technologies and then insist that the new tech isn't valuable at all on that basis. I know this is super-common, but it's an eternal pet peeve of mine, as I can't help but imagine how much better the world would be without people like this.

29athrowaway 5y ago

So basically all the leverage that truck drivers had collectively will vanish over night.

Traster 5y ago

>Just as we’ve done before, we'll start with Waymo employees hailing trips with autonomous specialists behind the wheel, Ok. I tell you what, I've got an innovative idea. You see, these "autonomous specialists". They sound expensive, right? Got to be trained not just to drive, but to debug the computer, to have higher concentration levels to mitigate the inevitable higher risk of sudden interventions. So what you do - and stay with me now - you strip out the autonomous tech and just replace it with a steering wheel. All of a sudden you no longer need these useless "autonomous specialists" and anyone could drive it. It's a billion dollar idea, I guarantee it!

throw7 5y ago

Is this really "fully autonomous"? I get the feeling the driver (the one with the legal liability) is watching from a remote terminal back at waymo hq.

ra7 5y ago
It’s fully autonomous. They can’t “joystick” the car from a remote terminal.
- tinybrotosaurus 5y ago
  Could you show me the control stack source code to prove that? Ah yes, you can't.
  - ra7 5y ago
    You can choose to believe Waymo (and all other SDCs who say the same) or not. No one's going to show you source code on an internet forum.
qgin 5y ago
There’s no remote driver. There are people at a remote center that can add labels to scenes if the computer doesn’t have enough confidence to proceed. One the computer has enough information to start planning again, it resumes driving.

daenz 5y ago

The clip at 0:42s impressed me https://youtu.be/O8TSA-X9UlU?t=42 https://youtu.be/O8TSA-X9UlU?t=42 because the behavior seems to be trying to "edge in" and assert fairness, which is what humans expect of each other in these situations.

akira2501 5y ago
There's a huge danger in trying to anthropomorphize these systems too much, unless you believe there really is a "fairness" model built in. If not, then we shouldn't try to understand what it's doing in these terms. A problem I spotted is, shortly after that turn, it sees the person ahead trying to parallel park... and then it give them several car lengths of distance while it waits. It's waiting so far back that the vehicle behind it couldn't fully clear the intersection. That's not particularly "fair" of it to do that.. nor is giving such a large space to the parallel parking particularly useful or expected. I do not have high expectations for a road filled with this level of barely autonomous agents operating smoothly en masse.
- enragedcacti 5y ago
  Google has been implementing "fairness" models for a probably going on a decade in their self driving cars. the first example I can remember is them talking about intentionally nosing into a 4 way stop to signal to other drivers that the vehicle understood that it was it's turn to go. Not to say its perfect but the car is "thinking" along those terms.

spupe 5y ago

This is a major landmark. Excited to see the results.

leroman 5y ago

Have to say, seeing my Auto Pilot graphics with cars "jumping" all over and appearing and disappearing.. (this is not the FSD Beta graphics mind you) compared with what seems like a stable and coherent visualization of the environment, it really makes the difference in my feeling of confidence that it's aware and able to react to the same things I see around me

bckr 5y ago
> it really makes the difference in my feeling of confidence it's aware and able to react to things as a result of being aware to them. Could you clarify? In which direction does it make a difference?
- darknavi 5y ago
  Seeing a "stable" visualization of what the car sees strengthens your confidence in its ability to perceive the world around the car.
  - bckr 5y ago
    yeah I am still confused because in the first part there's jumpy graphics and in the second part there are stable graphics, and I'm not sure if this represents a change over time, or different vehicles, or what
    - jhalstead 5y ago
      I believe OP is comparing the visualizations produced by the Auto Pilot system in their Tesla (jumpy) to Waymo's visualizations (stable and coherent).
      - bckr 5y ago
        Ah, okay thank you.
cjrp 5y ago

atx42 5y ago

Trucks that drive highways solely automatically, I'd expect would come way before cars navigating cities. I'd think trucks could just pull over on the shoulder in unusual conditions, e.g. bad weather, construction. I suppose it's more a legal issue. Cars just need permission within a city, whereas trucks cross lots of legal boundaries?

adam_arthur 5y ago
That's been the confusing thing for me. I'm sure automated trucking is being worked on, but all the media/conversation seems to be around consumer vehicles. Automated trucking is a much more impactful, and frankly easier problem to solve. You could simply automate highway part and have manual take over near cities to remove 90% of the challenge.
phendrenad2 5y ago
I'm hoping that self-driving trucks result in separate highway lanes, or perhaps even dedicated roads. A road just for self-driving trucks wouldn't need a passing lane, or a breakdown lane (if a truck breaks down, someone can be dispatched to fix it, and it's okay if the whole roadway of autonomous trucks comes to a stop). (Yes I know, I've just reinvented trains, but trains would likely coexist with this, and they serve different purposes (trucks are better at going over mountains, for instance))
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  With some minimal standardization, these could also drive with almost zero distance between each other, braking together. This would significantly reduce air resistance and road space usage.
redytedy 5y ago
There's also a perception challenge that doesn't exist in cities. At highway speeds and longer stopping distances, you need your perception stack to see much further. Still an active area of research.

jeffbee 5y ago

One thing I am glad for is the presence of Waymo in SF has upgraded the detail on Google Maps in that city. Every curb, sidewalk, marked crosswalk, and other feature of the streetscape now appears in Google Maps. It's really improving. Compare: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/37.76628/-122.46048 https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/37.76628/-122.46048 https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7663897,-122.4603632,19.6z?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@37.7663897,-122.4603632,19.6z?h... Google Maps has this level of detail in. S.F. and Phoenix, their two self-driving launch cities, and not in other places like say Denver or Charlotte, so I surmise this data is attributable to Waymo.

ra7 5y ago
Do you happen to know if this is because of Waymo? I've always wondered how much of a feedback loop there is between Waymo and Google Maps. They've never officially confirmed anything and I can't find any literature on it.
- gundmc 5y ago
  According to their blog post[1], this is done with satellite imagery and not Waymo data. [1] - https://blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-101-ai-power-new-features-io-2021/ https://blog.google/products/maps/google-maps-101-ai-power-n...
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    Interesting. If true, I wonder why the highly detailed map of Chandler AZ ends abruptly at the boundary of the Waymo One service area.
- advisedwang 5y ago
  I got the impression that the extra data is not collected by Waymo, it's collected by ariel photography and streetview cards. However it is in a sense because of waymo - they need to collect this additional data to provide the best maps to the autonomous cars.
dntrkv 5y ago

Lamad123 5y ago

They know their socks will get a hit so they do stunts like this!!

londons_explore 5y ago

This video is just over 10 years old today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdgQpa1pUUE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdgQpa1pUUE It shows a waymo/google driverless car driving a multi-mile route on public streets with no supervision. And today we're seeing... Pretty much the exact same thing!

enragedcacti 5y ago
> Here's Steve, who joined us for a special drive on a carefully programmed route to experience being behind the wheel in a whole new way. We organized this test as a technical experiment, but we think it's also a promising look at what autonomous technology may one day deliver if rigorous technology and safety standards can be met. Not really the same thing.

AvAn12 5y ago

Is anyone thinking about "road neutrality" issues, such as: - Tiered priority: can people pay up to give their autonomous ride priority over others? - Differential access: can certain neighborhoods be made inaccessible to Avs originating in certain other neighborhoods? Or only accessible to friends and families of residents? (virtual gated community / virtual redlining)

hammock 5y ago
Good social credit score? The fast lane opens up for you (or you pay a lower toll).
dymk 5y ago
This isn't really a set of "problems" that don't/couldn't exist already with human driven cars. You can already pay to use the HOV lane in some places, gated communities already exist, etc.
- AvAn12 5y ago
  I'm thinking more like an algorithmic bias, which we have already seen in retail and banking ML/AI systems. Virtual version of how taxis won't serve certain neighborhoods or pick up certain people based on appearances. How do we ensure that autonomous vehicles don't surreptitiously implement biased behavior like this? And I think it's actually a problem if it's possible to pay up for expedited routing. Implementing faster car travel for rich people is not the same as HOV lanes.

AlwaysRock 5y ago

Does anyone know what Waymo is doing in Phoenix? I saw a lot of there cars there but they were always being driven by someone in the driver seat (Jan-Feb 2022). They say they are driverless there but I never saw it and probably saw 500 Waymo cars/Waymo cars 500 times while there.

jseliger 5y ago
Waymo has a relatively small service area in Chandler, Mesa, and a very small section of Tempe. The first two are essentially Phoenix suburbs. Waymo doesn't reach some of the areas that would seem to be particularly useful: light rail stops (the Phoenix area now has about 20 miles of light rail: see the map tab at https://www.valleymetro.org/maps-schedules/rail https://www.valleymetro.org/maps-schedules/rail), or Arizona State University in Tempe, or some of the party/bar districts (like Mill Avenue in Tempe). I live in the Phoenix area and have wanted to try Waymo, but, sadly, it doesn't go anywhere useful for me.
- ra7 5y ago
  This blog post is also announcing their expansion to Phoenix downtown.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  Oh got it. Okay. That makes sense. Thanks.

belter 5y ago

Anything that changed radically since 2021? "Waymo and Cruise self-driving cars took over San Francisco streets at record levels in 2021 — so did collisions with other cars, scooters, and bikes" [1] "...Many of the accidents, which the companies are required to report to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, occurred while the vehicles were operating in manual mode, with a safety driver in control. ...But according to an analysis by Insider, a majority of the 98 reported accidents in 2021 occurred while the vehicles were in autonomous mode, or within seconds after the autonomous mode technology had been switched off..." [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/self-driving-car-accidents-waymo-cruise-tesla-zoox-san-francisco-2022-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/self-driving-car-accidents-w...

mdorazio 5y ago
You really need to look at which vehicles were at fault in these accidents. In the vast majority of cases, it's not the autonomous vehicle.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Where is this data?
  - belter 5y ago
    "...Waymo sued the California DMV this week to prevent it from revealing certain information about its cars' performance, including Waymo's internal analyses of collisions. Waymo argued that the information, including any "potential technological remediations," represents a trade secret that would have "a chilling effect across the industry" if released, and would dissuade potential market participants from investing time and resources into developing self-driving cars..." Now the question is, did the government officials who approved this, been given access to this data? And if not, why not?
    - grandmczeb 5y ago
      What government officials are you referring to? These are disclosures made to the DMV, so obviously they have access. Maybe you mean the court? But they have access too as part of the lawsuit... so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

greggman3 5y ago

Just 2 days ago I saw a waymo car stuck at 4th and Townsend in SF facing NE (toward the bay). The car was in the left of 2 lanes. The light for the left lane turned green. The car sat there. People behind started honking. Eventually it went. Not if there was a driver or not. In the driver's defense (computer or human), SF's signals have gotten very complicated in the last ~10 yrs and even non-robot drivers fail to follow the rules about 20% of the time. 3 places I can see this happen every day are (1) 4th and Townsend on Townsend facing NE (the one above). The issue is the left lane has a green light but the right lane has a separate right turn signal because there is a bike lane further to the right that gets green first. Sit at the corner and I guarantee within 10 right turning cars someone will turn on red. Similarly, 5th and Bryant on 5th going NW (into the city). This has a similar deal. There's an on ramp to the freeway but it has a separate right turn signal from the green forward signal. This one, for me, is around 100% violation by which I mean I've never NOT seen a violation at the corner. Not ever car, but ever signal at least one car will turn right on to the freeway even though there are 2 large no right turn lights and a green bike light. The last is 4th and King, on 4th going SE facing the bay. I'm not sure these are technically violations. The left lane is painted as left turn only. The right as right turn only. The middle lane crosses King. Again, this is close to 100% for at least one car per signal ignoring those markings. I don't blame them as there's no way to see the markings until you're just a few car lengths from the intersection and if there are other cars there you can't see them at all. Further, looking up the law, solid white lines are just guidelines. It's legal to cross them. (double white are not). Still, people in the center lane get angry and honk when people in the left or right lanes cut them off since they weren't expecting it.

idreyn 5y ago

Glad to see they never exceed 20 mph in this video. If AVs can stick to city speeds that prioritize pedestrian safety over travel time, they'll have a huge head start over human drivers in safety and "human decency" metrics. Hopefully have a traffic calming effect on the rest of us, too.

Animats 5y ago

AutoX has had driverless taxis in Shenzhen since last year. Also, this is just driverless rides for Google employees, not everybody.

redytedy 5y ago
I have seen this news but have not seen any videos taken by a rider. On the other hand, members of the public have uploaded videos of their experiences in Waymo (Arizona, driverless). Are you aware of any such video for AutoX?

cwkoss 5y ago

When a Waymo car negligently kills someone, can the family sue Waymo? Or have their lobbyists carved out some sort of liability exemption?

abvdasker 5y ago
In the case of the Uber autonomous car which killed a pedestrian in 2018, Uber reached a settlement with the victim's family and faced no criminal charges (I think the answer to your question is clearly yes). The "driver" behind the wheel of the autonomous car did get charged with negligent homicide in addition to being sued by the family afaik.

lvl102 5y ago

Any studies on traffic and congestions with regards to autonomous cars? I’d imagine it would be fun to simulate something like this.

spikels 5y ago

How do you actually get a Waymo ride in SF?

wanderr 5y ago

The graphic showing the platforms from Austin to SF shows a disturbing trend of these autonomous platforms getting bigger, and therefore more dangerous for those of us on the outside of these vehicles. I would love to see regulations capping the size and speed of these autonomous platforms to minimize the danger to the public. Sure, eventually they might be proven to be safer than having humans behind the wheel, and then we can consider relaxing those regulations, but even then perhaps the standards should be higher, since they are likely to increase the overall number of cars on the road significantly - traffic will not discourage people from driving as much, if they are not in fact driving. (FWIW, I would love love love to never have to drive again. I just want us to take a measured approach to getting there for safety.)

valine 5y ago
Considering that cars already kill people en mass there's no real advantage to slowing the pace of SDV development other than to make people feel warm and fuzzy. I personally prefer Tesla's approach where they give customers permission to go ham with their latest beta software. The quicker we get to L5 the quicker we can put the automobile safety nightmare to rest permanently.
- wanderr 5y ago
  Given that cars already kill people en mass, there's no real advantage to slowing down something that will likely 10x the number of cars on the road, or making those cars smaller and safer? Sure, let's get to L5 as quickly as we can...without killing lots of people unnecessarily.

robotburrito 5y ago

I wonder if it'd just be cheaper and easier in the long term to create some sort of track system that the robotic cars could drive on? You could even have one car pull other "dumb" self driving cars that could hold cargo or even more passengers. Maybe even have them powered by electricity straight from the grid instead of batteries.

martythemaniak 5y ago
A good illustration of why autonomous EVs will stop trains in their tracks. Tracks are expensive, precise and single-purpose. A road is cheap, flexible and multi-purpose. Being tied to the grid means you can't go where you need to get to, only pre-set destinations. And since every train-car can now drive itself, there's no longer a need to tie them together, so instead of 5 cars bunched up all at once every 10 minutes, you can get a single car every 2 minutes. That is, once this tech matures, no new train development will make sense.
- elcomet 5y ago
  A train is much more energy-efficient. Convenience is not the only important factor here.

scoofy 5y ago

CTRL + F: rain As far as I know, they still don't/won't drive in the rain, and they operate safely and slowly. I want to believe this thing is moving forward, but I'm skeptical about building a marketplace where the service is unavailable exactly when demand is highest. It creates conflicts of interest, that at best, encourage actors to take risks that can undermine the entire industry.

shagie 5y ago
I'm still waiting for a video of a self driving car during snow five miles outside of Fargo, Minneapolis, or Madison when the road hasn't been plowed in the past hour.
- gretch 5y ago
  They probably will never do that and there’s nothing wrong with it. Consider that airlines are a well established and reliable business worth trillions around the globe. And yet they also don’t take off or land in adverse weather conditions. Sometimes there’s a snowstorm and a whole day of flights is canceled. But none of that invalidates the existence of the industry as a whole.
  - shagie 5y ago
    If they don't do that, then: A driverless taxi service in any city where it snows will never exist. It will not be possible to replace my personal car with a driverless car. Relatives who are in the southern states (with driverless cars) will not be able to visit for many winter holidays. --- Self driving cars are very interesting - but can you get to the point where it is possible to replace them in Chicago or Minneapolis with the same availability for personal or services as a human driven one? With airlines, yes, shutting canceling the flights out of O'Hare is certainly inconvenient. Is it reasonable to also make it so that people can't get to work via local commuting because of snow? To get to the point where self driving is default, it needs to be able to handle the conditions that a human driver currently does with the same availability. This goes for taxis, trucks, and the daily commute and errands.

consumer451 5y ago

I recently learned of Wayve via Pieter Abbeel's interview of Alex Kendall. This seemed like the first real contender for Tesla in my view. Would love to hear everyone else's take. https://www.therobotbrains.ai/who-is-alex-kendall-wayve https://www.therobotbrains.ai/who-is-alex-kendall-wayve

sytelus 5y ago
Wayve pushes very hard on what is called "end-to-end" approach. That means, you input sensing into the deep network and out comes the controls. No ifs and buts. When it came out on 2017, no one I knew believed that it can possibly work with reasonable reliability to actually put things in production. Deep learning is simply not there. You can converse with GPT-3 and find few great example to cite but within few tried you will encounter things which don't make sense. Deep learning is a great component to provide pattern recognition but there are still a lot many more pieces such as memory, abstractions, compositions etc that we have no idea how to do it. The pattern recognition can certainly emulate those pieces to certain extent but it's not the same thing. Consequently, E2E self-driving only using current state of deep learning is unlikely to produce something beyond video clip demos.
jeffbee 5y ago
What does it mean to contend with Tesla in this industry? They're aiming to become the 5th place self-driving car company?
- consumer451 5y ago
  I am not a Tesla fanboy but could be highly misinformed, so honest question: Is it generally accepted that Tesla's approach is the worst in the industry?
  - md2020 5y ago
    No

sytelus 5y ago

There are conflicting news: This blog post says car was driverless while all other reports says it wasn't because Waymo does not have CA driverless permit for SF yet. https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/30/waymo-opens-driverless-robotaxi-service-to-san-francisco-employees/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/30/waymo-opens-driverless-rob...

gysfjiutedgj 5y ago

Are all of Waymo's service geofenced?

14 5y ago

I can not wait until the day cars no longer break any rules and the police are forced to take a hard look at what they do and justify being employed. How will they civil forfeit if they have no reason to pull you over? I really hope I live long enough to see that day.

harambae 5y ago
Unfortunately many of the self-driving cars will be robotaxis with camera systems watching the riders. If anything, it'll increase the police state.

backtoyoujim 5y ago

I hope that Boston Dynamic can do will make robotic horses/tauntauns that need to be tied to a charging post whilst I head into the daily shopping would be awesome. And if I took one to the pub and later that night it could get my intoxicated body home safely without my guidance yeah that would be a huge plus. I'm tired of cars and trucks and segways and scooters. I want robotic electro auto-tauntauns.

_yo2u 5y ago

I think waymo has advanced the tech pretty far but I am still worried about the legal and business aspects of self driving cars: 1. liability cross section scales with size of fleet if waymo is solely responsible for developing their algorithms 2. added operational cost of running a self driving car - is it worth it to average consumer? This is something everyone throws numbers out for but here is what i'm thinking: - we have lots of examples of transportation systems that have some level of automation (eg. train, subway, planes) but even after decades of robust operations, nearly all of them still require operators in the loop. This is especially striking since rail systems/subways are as closed-loop and simple as you can get in terms of automation. As an outsider, it's unclear to me why they are needed but they are there. Is it because as fleets age, their parts wear down in unpredictable ways? Is it some regulatory requirement? - for self driving cars, will the same expectation be there eventually? either a remote assistance driver or a chauffer safety driver? If that is the case, then it will be difficult for a self driving car to be cheaper esp with the added cost of all self driving tech stack and operational costs.

jffry 5y ago
> added operational cost of running a self driving car - is it worth it to average consumer? Early high-cost self-driving cars largely won't be owned by individual consumers where the cars spend the majority of their time parked. They will be owned by companies that sell access to them as taxis by the minute/mile and can justify the cost by minimizing downtime.

rejor121 5y ago

I wonder what kind of bubble tech bros and the people running these companies live in. Ten years to transition? Try twenty at least. Most people still buy second hand vehicles and those are still gonna be gas. Think about the motorcycles too, and the pedestrians, and the cyclists. Adoption will be much slower due to costs, safety concerns and privacy. It would be better to just spend the money on better infrastructure and public transport, but that’s a pipe dream in the States at least.

eightysixfour 5y ago
I moved to live in a more walkable, less car dependent city. I care about us improving transit infrastructure, but the idea that American cities will significantly divest from their existing car-centric infrastructure is just wrong. We’ve already invested in that infrastructure and it is incredibly expensive to replace. I think the replacement of manually driven vehicles will be decently rapid - the bottom 1/3rd of drivers cause a large percentage of motor vehicle accidents, as soon as they’re better than that group I think the financial incentives (like insurance) will dramatically change and it will be cheaper to ride in someone else’s self driving car than to own your own older vehicle. Guess we will see.
frakkingcylons 5y ago
If legit self-driving capabilities became available, I feel pretty confident in saying that there's a sizeable consumer market for this that are not sensitive to the price. I would immediately drop an extra 30-40% on a car if that's what it cost to get that self-driving. For those that are more price-sensitive, well, new cars become used cars in a relatively short amount of time.

rnikander 5y ago

I'm in Bogotá. Traffic here is worse than anything in San Francisco. The main danger is probably the motorcycles, flying between cars, sometimes with inches to spare. I don't know the fatality stats, but they must be worse than the USA. It's hard to see how an AI could deal with this.

walrus01 5y ago

Now we seem to have very clear evidence that both waymo and cruise consider LIDAR sensors as essential, while Tesla is still trying to do "full self driving" with visual spectrum cameras only.

jmu1234567890 5y ago

How will this scale? As they release to more locations there will be a higher likelihood of a bad accident. Once there is any bad accident the whole fleet is shut down. On the other hand, if an Uber driver has a bad accident only the driver is fired.

arvindrajnaidu 5y ago

About 30 people die in SF per year because of traffic fatalities. Say 2 people die in a Waymo car in a year … we gotta be cool with that and not ban the whole thing. Wait what?

vmception 5y ago

is there any way to be invisible to these cars?

bitL 5y ago

"You've driven through the area where somebody used a stolen credit card with their Google account. Your Waymo account is now blocked, please leave the car."

jzer0cool 5y ago

What a long journey! Congrats to the team.

neycoda 5y ago

I can't wait to make out with someone in a driverless car ;D

ethagknight 5y ago

I am mostly ready for my own self-driving car (with my stuff inside and my settings and my cleanliness) that can Drop me off at the front door of my hotel and ferry itself back to the parking garage; or one that I can drive myself to work, and then it ferries itself back home to pick up my wife and kids to get to school. I don’t need my car to drive me necessarily, I just want it to go on and perform the next task for me. It can perform these autonomous tasks slowly and safely.

2143 5y ago

I'm into cars. And I have this dream of owning and driving around this very particular supercar. I've been slowly saving up, and within a few years I'll probably be able to outright buy it. And I plan to keep it for about 15 years atleast. This car is neither electric nor self-drive capable. Should I abandon that dream because I might not be allowed to drive around for too long? And yes, I do understand and agree that in the long run, autonomous cars are probably going to be safer overall. Like, I'm not opposed to it. (Please don't lecture me on why buying a car outright (instead of leasing) is financially stupid, or why buying cars with internal combustion engines or high CO2 emissions is a crime, or how my conscience allows me to buy a fancy car when there are a million other problems in this world).

OldFritz 5y ago
Definitely do not abandon your dream car. human drivers will be on the road for the next 50 years or more, and I suspect that even after most cars on the road are self driving, there will still be car shows and events for the classics. At least I hope so given my dream car is a Plymouth Superbird and I'm not close to attaining it quite yet.
okdood64 5y ago
> Please don't lecture me on why buying a car outright (instead of leasing) is financially stupid Who's saying this? And why?

all_usernames 5y ago

Found this on a bike forum, posted two days ago: "On March 24th, 2022, I was riding my bike near the beach in San Francisco down a slight slope. My hands were on my brakes to make sure the bike was in control. About 150 feet ahead of me, a vehicle suddenly stopped in the middle of the road. To avoid oncoming traffic, I veered towards the vehicle's right, which suddenly moved directly in front of me. At that point, I could not avoid impact and crashed through the vehicle's back window with my bike. As I lay on the road, I saw that the car that hit me did not have a driver." https://www.gofundme.com/f/autonomous-car-hit-my-brother https://www.gofundme.com/f/autonomous-car-hit-my-brother

black_13 5y ago