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Really 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 in

Really 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 ago
  Well, my point exactly ;)
toss1 3y ago
Yup, 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 ago
  Interesting question. I'm guessing the information density of 100 miles of standard American interstate is less than that of 1 city block in Manhattan.
- eep_social 3y ago
  Google has a strong foundation for estimating this effort because they already do it at lower fidelity with streetview. I would assume they are considering these questions regularly as part of whatever long term planning goes into the rollout.
- boulos 3y ago
  > 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? That's certainly the intent with Waymo Via for trucking, and we drive multiple routes today including say Dallas <=> Houston for beer [1]. The video at [2] includes some footage of the trucks on a highway. [1] https://www.ttnews.com/articles/waymo-ch-robinson-driverless-trucks-haul-beer-houston-dallas https://www.ttnews.com/articles/waymo-ch-robinson-driverless... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lon1vRv2wQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lon1vRv2wQ8
  - toss1 3y ago
    Very cool - thx!
amacneil 3y ago
> relatively small team 2,800 employees on Linkedin > instead of opting for attention-seeking behavior, making ridiculously pompous claims and false promises Waymo and Jaguar announced in 2018 plans to build up to 20,000 vehicles in the first two years of production [0] Cheap shots, I know (they did say "up to" 20,000 vehicles, after all). Waymo have been making great progress lately, and it's nice to see the AV industry has transitioned from wild claims to steady progress. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17165992/waymo-jaguar-i-pace-self-driving-ny-auto-show-2018 https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17165992/waymo-jaguar-i-p...
- RivieraKid 3y ago
  > Cheap shots, I know Definitely. The big picture is that they are very careful and conservative with their statements about the future, but if you look hard enough you can always find something. With Tesla it's the polar opposite.
- bdcravens 3y ago
  2,800 employees is small, when you consider what they are trying to accomplish. Tesla has 130k.
  - surfpel 3y ago
    Waymo is the autonomous driving division of Alphabet. Alphabet has 190k employees Tesla’s autopilot team has ~300 people. Both teams have done incredible work.
    - zaroth 3y ago
      I didn’t realize Tesla’s team was so small. Both companies have truly done incredible work! It’s funny watching HN comments trying to tear down Musk and Tesla while their software—which has driven billions of miles—continues to just get better and better. I love that we have these companies all investing billions of dollars on trying to solve this problem in very different ways. Truly a beautiful example of capitalism at work pushing technology forward in a way that (sooner than you think) will be saving millions of lives and trillions of dollars.

xnx 3y ago

> How many people know the name of their CEO? CEOs (plural)

agnosticmantis 3y ago
Well, my point exactly ;)

toss1 3y ago

Yup, 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 ago
Interesting question. I'm guessing the information density of 100 miles of standard American interstate is less than that of 1 city block in Manhattan.
eep_social 3y ago
Google has a strong foundation for estimating this effort because they already do it at lower fidelity with streetview. I would assume they are considering these questions regularly as part of whatever long term planning goes into the rollout.
boulos 3y ago
> 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? That's certainly the intent with Waymo Via for trucking, and we drive multiple routes today including say Dallas <=> Houston for beer [1]. The video at [2] includes some footage of the trucks on a highway. [1] https://www.ttnews.com/articles/waymo-ch-robinson-driverless-trucks-haul-beer-houston-dallas https://www.ttnews.com/articles/waymo-ch-robinson-driverless... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lon1vRv2wQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lon1vRv2wQ8
- toss1 3y ago
  Very cool - thx!

amacneil 3y ago

> relatively small team 2,800 employees on Linkedin > instead of opting for attention-seeking behavior, making ridiculously pompous claims and false promises Waymo and Jaguar announced in 2018 plans to build up to 20,000 vehicles in the first two years of production [0] Cheap shots, I know (they did say "up to" 20,000 vehicles, after all). Waymo have been making great progress lately, and it's nice to see the AV industry has transitioned from wild claims to steady progress. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17165992/waymo-jaguar-i-pace-self-driving-ny-auto-show-2018 https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/27/17165992/waymo-jaguar-i-p...

RivieraKid 3y ago
> Cheap shots, I know Definitely. The big picture is that they are very careful and conservative with their statements about the future, but if you look hard enough you can always find something. With Tesla it's the polar opposite.
bdcravens 3y ago
2,800 employees is small, when you consider what they are trying to accomplish. Tesla has 130k.
- surfpel 3y ago
  Waymo is the autonomous driving division of Alphabet. Alphabet has 190k employees Tesla’s autopilot team has ~300 people. Both teams have done incredible work.
  - zaroth 3y ago
    I didn’t realize Tesla’s team was so small. Both companies have truly done incredible work! It’s funny watching HN comments trying to tear down Musk and Tesla while their software—which has driven billions of miles—continues to just get better and better. I love that we have these companies all investing billions of dollars on trying to solve this problem in very different ways. Truly a beautiful example of capitalism at work pushing technology forward in a way that (sooner than you think) will be saving millions of lives and trillions of dollars.