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Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF
- MarkMc 3y ago> we are now serving over 10 thousand trips per week to public riders, not including employees. With this latest expansion, we intend for those numbers to accelerate rapidly to 10 times that scale by next summer. Waymo cars are safer, cleaner and cheaper than Uber, which has never made an operating profit and has abandoned its self-driving development. Uber is stalled on the railway tracks while the freight train of self-driving tech hurtles towards it. How is it still worth $76 billion?
- gniv 3y agoI wonder if they plan to test in Europe. I moved to France and one issue I struggle with as a human driver is speed limits. I live in a suburban area where most streets have 30kmh limits (19mph). Nobody respects them, not even busses. I often get honked at when driving the speed limit. What would Waymo do?
- callalex 3y agoIn this thread I am seeing nearly 100% positive praise for the driving abilities of these vehicles, but that is simply not always true. They are causing almost daily incidents for emergency responders in San Francisco and these companies seem unwilling to address the issue. https://missionlocal.org/2023/05/waymo-cruise-fire-department-police-san-francisco/ https://missionlocal.org/2023/05/waymo-cruise-fire-departmen...
- rvnx 3y agoLove this company, hopefully it will split off Alphabet and become a publicly-listed stock.
- esalman 3y agoPhoenix gets like 300 days of sunny weather, Bay area also has historically mild climate. Why is almost no comments mentioning this?
- pclmulqdq 3y agoThis doesn't suit the narrative that self-driving cars are close to taking over. Up in the northeast US, drivers are actually a lot better at controlling their vehicles than bay area and southwestern drivers thanks to the fact that everyone has to drive in ice and snow.
- xnx 3y agoThere will always be situations where self-driving vehicles are not appropriate, but those situations will continue to decrease.
- surfpel 3y ago> Bay area also has historically mild climate Bay Area yes. San Francisco less so. Sure it doesn’t get snow but it is often rainy and foggy. Beyond that, the drivers are very aggressive along with pedestrians and cyclists. It is not a very easy place to drive. Are you suggesting that they should start development in a more extreme climate right off the bat?
- esalman 3y agoYes. What's the point of developing something that is suitable for sunny climate only? This is how bias creeps into Al/ML systems.
- surfpel 3y agoYou start with the easy case then gradually make the model more robust by increasing the difficulty. What you’re suggesting is akin to trying to develop a jetliner before building propeller aircraft. Too hard too soon and you don’t really know what the target even is. Much learning happens before you can successfully execute a complex plan like that. Plus it’s better from a business standpoint because you can achieve probability profitability sooner with your MVP.
- xnx 3y agoWaymo has even developed custom localized climate models for San Francisco: https://blog.waymo.com/2022/11/using-cutting-edge-weather-research-to-advance-the-Waymo-Driver.html https://blog.waymo.com/2022/11/using-cutting-edge-weather-re...
- coolspot 3y agoThey are also testing in West LA.
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- alphabetting 3y ago> "we are now serving over 10 thousand trips per week to public riders, not including employees. With this latest expansion, we intend for those numbers to accelerate rapidly to 10 times that scale by next summer" they've been pretty cautious on predictions after the AV hype boom and bust a couple years ago. 10x in a year is an ambitious goal.
- melling 3y ago10,000 trips in electric vehicles. Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate and the air quality.
- tommoor 3y agoAnd pedestrian/cyclist safety
- twoWhlsGud 3y agoNot to mention everyone else who is not driving a 9000 lb Hummer - e.g. see how fear of being squished by a giant SUV dominates the discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35827974 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35827974
- mertd 3y agoTo be fair, human drivers don't do terribly well on that front.
- peter422 3y agoThe comment is saying these cars will improve pedestrian/cyclist safety. I can also attest to it. I've interacted as a pedestrian and cyclist to many cruise and waymo cars and they've been very, very cautious and careful.
- panick21_ 3y agoDrivers do fine if the infrastructure is designed for humans rather then for cars. The reason so many people die in US cities is because of policy, not because people can't drive inherently.
- austinkhale 3y agoI live inside the original area in Phoenix where they did their training. I have to give kudos where it's due. I originally _hated_ their cars constantly driving around our neighborhood, but I was persuaded to try one a few weeks back. It completely changed my mind. They are now my favorite way to get around. I am a very happy, frequent customer and hope they keep adding coverage and more cars. This is absolutely the future I want to live in.
- kccqzy 3y agoFor those of us not located in areas where Waymo is available, do you mind elaborating on why this is your favorite way to get around? As compared to Uber, Lyft, etc.
- ra7 3y agoI’ve only taken a couple of Waymo rides when I went to Phoenix. I would take them over Uber/Lyft any day, if Waymo offered rides in my city because: * They are very safe and you’re not at the mercy of the Uber/Lyft driver’s driving skills. * Their cars are pretty good (Jaguar I-Pace fleet) and generally very clean. You know what you’re getting every time. * You don’t have to interact with a driver. * No tipping.
- austinkhale 3y ago- The cars are very safe, very conservative drivers - The interiors are nice, well air conditioned and don't smell - You don't have to talk to a person, which I don't always hate but have had some bad experiences. This just removes the roll of the dice from the equation entirely. - They are currently at par or cheaper with Uber/Lyft prices and typically it's faster for the car to arrive - You get to play your own music
- josefx 3y ago> You don't have to talk to a person, which I don't always hate but have had some bad experiences. This just removes the roll of the dice from the equation entirely. Given that they are a Google/Alphabet company this seems like a missed opportunity for running ads on loop.
- parshimers 3y agoI know they started testing a while back in LA, has anyone been in one there? I haven’t seen them around town like I have in SF.
- boulos 3y agoLA is employee only for now (https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1630326911648841730?cxt=HHwWhIC2yYbsiqAtAAAA https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1630326911648841730?cxt=HHw...). We often do smaller announcements / updates only via Twitter, rather than a blog post on blog.waymo.com.
- jamiek88 3y agoPlease consider adding Mastodon!
- sib 3y agoOddly, I've seen a lot of them in the past three days in LA, sometimes multiple in an hour. Wonder how close they are getting to launch?
- sgarrity 3y ago10,000 trips / week is impressive. How many vehicles is this?
- bushbaba 3y agoIt’s not really when you consider their burn rate. Say each of those trips gross 10$. That’s just 100k/week or $5.2 million/year. They’d need to likely 10,000x the ride volume to even be close to profitability. Uber does 7.64 billion rides per year. And they are not profitable. The waymo cars sure ain’t cheap, and scale of operations will take a ton of cash. I wonder if waymo would ever be profitable.
- ijustlovemath 3y agoThe difference is that the variable costs are much lower - just recharging the EV + any other incidentals, as opposed to having to pay a driver for every ride. That's why Uber never became profitable, because they had to share the fare. Waymo has higher up front costs, but if the cars are there, they have much more profitable fares.
- mechagodzilla 3y agoMaybe - Waymo has to recharge, clean and maintain a fleet of cars that they own (and which are depreciating and likely have no resale value, at least at the moment) - Uber's drivers effectively use their wages to cover all of those costs. I'm curious how Waymo is handling all of the fleet maintenance, recharging, cleaning, etc, and how they plan to scale that infrastructure. I also wonder how Waymo plans to handle 'surges' - they either have enough cars to handle peak demand, in which case many are idle much of the time (and thus not making money), or they build a fleet for the minimum/average, and let more elastic competitors cover surges (or it's just impossible to get one at rush hour anywhere). It really seems like Uber/Lyft/etc ought to have a better business model than this very centralized, capital-intensive approach, and they're seemingly incapable of earning a profit.
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- lopkeny12ko 3y agoI can't for the life of me figure out how to sign up for the waitlist in SF. The app just says "you'll receive updates about San Francisco." Anyone been successful with this?
- boulos 3y agoSorry if that's unclear, if you set up the app, logged in, and are located in San Francisco when doing so, I think that's equivalent.
- rahimnathwani 3y agoI see the same message on the app. It's super unclear. I think I signed up twice, a few months apart, because the message in the app didn't give me confidence that I'd signed up the first time. Separately, the other day I turned right and there was a Waymo car blocking the lane, about to pick up some passengers. My car and the car behind me couldn't continue along the road until the passengers had reached the car had gotten in. They didn't seem like they were in a hurry. Stopping a couple of extra car lengths away from the junction (or, better still, not blocking in the lane at all) wouldn't have paused other people's journeys.
- paxys 3y agoI believe that's what the app shows if you have already signed up.
- danvoell 3y agoIs there any sort of road map for how they plan to roll this out beyond the two cities?
- boulos 3y agoWe post updates on our blog or Twitter account from time to time. There isn't an explicit, public roadmap of "On this date, we will open in < CITY >", but we have announced LA [1] as our next city for Waymo One (the name of the ride hailing service): > Los Angeles will be Waymo’s next ride-hailing city, joining Phoenix and San Francisco as we expand to more locations. Beyond the official service, we also do testing in multiple locations. For example, we announced that returning to Austin for testing [2]. In that post, we mention other weather testing we've done in Miami, NYC, and Bellevue, WA. Beyond ride hailing, we have separate testing for Waymo Via with our Class 8 trucks, that you might see in Arizona or Texas. [1] https://blog.waymo.com/2022/10/next-stop-for-waymo-one-los-angeles.html https://blog.waymo.com/2022/10/next-stop-for-waymo-one-los-a... [2] https://blog.waymo.com/2023/03/expanding-waymos-testing-to-Austin.html https://blog.waymo.com/2023/03/expanding-waymos-testing-to-A...
- hcazz 3y agoI understand it's interesting to announce accomplishments (such as increased areas for testing), but as someone who lives in West LA, it's slightly annoying to see multiple announcements saying "testing is expanded, be on the lookout!". I'm nearly at the point where I'm just ignoring announcements for Los Angeles because the last two haven't amounted to any changes for someone that lives here and wants to use the service.
- boulos 3y agoFor folks that are interested, the discussion at /r/selfdrivingcars [1] picked out some of the salient numbers. Brad Templeton also did his own write up at [2]. I mainly hope that people take away that this service exists now. You can download the app and just use it in Phoenix. As mentioned in the post, we're doing thousands of trips per week of non-employee rides. There are some great (and not so great!) examples posted to /r/selfdrivingcars from time to time if you want to see them. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/137hr3l/waymo_doubles_robotaxi_service_area_in_phoenix_in/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/137hr3l/wa... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2023/05/04/waymo-hits-2-million-no-driver-miles-and-greatly-expands-robotaxi-zone-can-it-replace-your-car https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2023/05/04/waymo-...
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoDoes each city have an independent wait list? Or once you’re in, you’re in?
- ra7 3y agoSeems to be waitlist per city. But they only have a waitlist in SF currently. Phoenix is fully open to the public and LA is employee-only so far, so no waitlist open there yet.
- boulos 3y agoWe currently only operate the public service in Phoenix and San Francisco. There isn't a wait list in Phoenix, anyone can ride, but there is in San Francisco. So... technically they're currently independent. But our goal in any new area would be to focus on the people that live there, because they would use the service regularly. Of course, the broader goal is no waitlist anywhere :).
- Camillo 3y agoIs the waitlist FIFO or does it prioritize? For example, suppose a Googler signed up for the waitlist, and since they already have ~all Googlers on it, they won't get access before 2026. Could they get access faster by quitting their job, deleting their Waymo account, then re-enrolling as unemployed?
- jeffbee 3y agoThe Waymo approach has proven itself. Targeted testing, running the driver in hard mode as much as possible, is better than the Tesla approach. Tesla’s plan was essentially “machine learning underpants gnomes”. Collect ten billion miles of data from guys driving down 280 -> ??? -> profit. Didn’t work and now Tesla is recognized as being dead last in the game, behind dozens of no-name Chinese players. Now what I wonder is whether Waymo has a durable lead over Cruise, or if Cruise succeeds alongside them.
- zaroth 3y agoWhat does “running the driver in hard mode as much as possible” mean? Why do you think Tesla’s approach “didn’t work and they are now dead last in the game?” Maybe that’s just an opinion because you provided nothing to back it up - but I can tell you not only does AutoPilot/FSD Beta work, the latest FSD Beta stack (I’m driving 11.3.6) works extremely well. Tesla has orders of magnitude more passenger-miles driven than any other solution, which is one quantitative way to gauge success. Tesla’s latest FSD Beta safety record on city streets is also excellent - 10x fewer accidents per mile than Cruise for example. This is another huge win for Tesla but it’s important to note that this is accomplished in part by requiring strict driver oversight (enforced through gaze & attention tracking in the cabin camera). So the significantly lower accident rate is not an apple-to-apples comparison of two L4 solutions, but it convincingly shows that their L2 solution is actively making the city and highway roads safer for the driver and the cars & pedestrians that they are sharing the road with.
- dilyevsky 3y agoTesla approach is to grief their customers into paying for feature they have no concrete plans to ever deliver on (in the absence of lidar/radar sensors it’s a crapshoot) -> profit. Worked pretty well
- sidibe 3y ago> Collect ten billion miles of data from guys driving down 280 -> ??? -> profit. It's actually Profit -> Collect ten billion miles of data from guys driving down 280 -> ???
- agnosticmantis 3y agoReally love what waymo have been achieving with a relatively small team, but more importantly, they’ve had their heads down working and solving hard problems instead of opting for attention-seeking behavior, making ridiculously pompous claims and false promises (e.g. delivering robotaxies that make you $30k/yr by next year!), getting into ideological (sensor) wars, etc. (How many people know the name of their CEO? And yet they’re slowly and steadily marching along, hitting one milestone after another.) Kudos to the hardworking waymonauts!
- xnx 3y ago> How many people know the name of their CEO? CEOs (plural)
- agnosticmantis 3y agoWell, my point exactly ;)
- toss1 3y agoYup, I very much liked the broader approach of solving the general problem, but this actually seems to be doing better. The general problem has insane amounts of edge cases, and is basically trying to do a pole-vault-height high jump; if you succeed, you own the world (or at least can automatically drive anywhere on it), but until then, you and your customers have lots of problems. Meanwhile, the approach of map-everything-down-to-the-centimeter and keep it updating is making real practical progress. The question is whether it'll ever get out of cities? While storage is constantly getting cheaper, but is it feasible to map and update the maps sufficiently for a cross-country trip? Still, there's an awful lot of city territory that can be covered with genuinely useful service.
- xnx 3y agoInteresting question. I'm guessing the information density of 100 miles of standard American interstate is less than that of 1 city block in Manhattan.
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- sprout20 3y agoI've had access in SF for the past few months and have been really impressed! The Waymo rides I've taken have been confident + a bit conservative (e.g. driving at the speed limit when traffic is flowing more quickly), but overall the team's done a great job with the experience. It's free for now so I've been using it regularly during commuting/rush hour and casual drives. Some quick thoughts: Advantages over Uber/Lyft: - Privacy - having the car to yourself is nice! - Safety - My friends who are women have almost universally said they feel uncomfortable taking Ubers/Lyfts at night and would prefer the Waymo - Ride matching happens almost instantly - Estimated pickup times are consistently accurate - Trunk is open for use and the car will prompt you to grab your items and open the trunk at the end of a ride - Extra legroom in backseat because there's no driver - No driver/car confusion - you can set your initials to be displayed on top of the car at pickup Parity with Uber/Lyft: - Drives surprisingly confidently/well - can handle complex urban traffic, pedestrians, cyclists without doing anything obviously "dumb" - First-class native app experience - Rides are priced upfront - Rides can be multi-stop Disadvantages (today) vs Uber/Lyft: - Driving is conservative - nothing above the speed limit - Driving is sometimes a little bit jerky (e.g. at stop signs, while inching on a right turn at a red light) - Routes can sometimes be odd / longer (usually within 25% of the most direct route) - Rarely (<5% rides), car will stop for pickup somewhere odd (middle of lane when there's an available curb, right turn lane) - No driver if you leave something behind (there's a support form online, but I left my phone once and a good samaritan happened to call using the emergency number) - Pickup times can be longer today than Uber/Lyft as they roll out more cars Honestly, if they fix the occasional indirect routing and eventually are able to let the cars flow at the same speed as traffic, I'd pick the Waymo almost every time.
- neel8986 3y agoI guess the biggest advantage will be pricing. The cost can easily be < 10x if we remove the driver from the equation. But this will need scale
- mustacheemperor 3y agoDid you get access from the public beta sign-up list, or some other channel? I've been on the waitlist for over a year and have seen people utilizing Waymo near my apartment, but nothing's budged for me. I did get into the Cruise beta, and that just made me positive Waymo will almost completely replace other forms of car transit for me once it's available, but Cruise is very limited.
- dmix 3y ago> including improved hand gesture detection What does this mean? It can recognize pedestrians making hand gestures?
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- xnx 3y agoGestures from flaggers routing traffic around construction, or police around an accident for example.
- SanderNL 3y agoIt’s all smoke and mirrors. There’s surely someone driving it remotely or hidden under the hood. Self-driving is a hoax meant to distract us. AI is snake oil, Dreyfus, hype train. Stochastic parrot. Confabulations. Unredeemable and based on intellectual mistakes. Stochastic. Stochastic.. parr.. … fizzles out
- rvnx 3y agoIt's actually true for one "AI" robot delivery company :D (they still have billions in valuation). But Waymo has real tech, and real AI.
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoHa, they’re finally expanding to the ASU Tempe campus. This should be fun.
- eep_social 3y agoCan confirm, expecting a public brouhaha about this any moment now. Kids are gonna kid.
- RobinL 3y agoWith all the hype about AI this year, does anyone know whether it's translating in any meaningful sense into self driving? Can they use transformers? If so, is there a step change in performance? Has this already happened?
- mkaic 3y agoAlready happened and still actively happening! In Tesla's latest annual AI day presentation they gave some insights into their training procedures and architecture choices. Lots of transformers, lots of bleeding-edge stuff.
- boulos 3y agoYep! Our research team publishes a lot of work (waymo.com/research). If you're interested in Transformers and attention in particular, the excellently named Wayformer [1] paper is pretty easy to follow and SWFormer is impressive on a lot of levels [2]. The main challenge for autonomous vehicles has been (large) multi-modal inputs, while delivering real-time inference performance on the road. Many of the large-language model things you see produce cool results, but would be much too slow or expensive for a real-time, safety-critical application. [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.05844 https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.05844 [2] https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.07372 https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.07372
- hansoolo 3y agoAs we Europeans are very far away from seeing any of those, I have a question: how is the refuel / recharge handled? These are EVs, right? Do they some how do that independently, too?
- boulos 3y agoToday, they come back to the depot to be recharged. People plug them in and unplug them when done.
- suqy 3y agoallahr