4 ms·
Self driving car services already exist in Phoenix and San Francisco. Whether they can feasibly scale out to many other cities in an economic fashion is still
by TulliusCicero 3y ago
Self driving car services already exist in Phoenix and San Francisco.
Whether they can feasibly scale out to many other cities in an economic fashion is still unknown, but on a technical level they're definitely possible, because we already have them.
And yeah, cities and countries vary in difficulty, though as far as the US goes, SF is quite technically challenging in terms of urban obstacles (though the weather is of course quite mild).
- jcynix 3y agoDepends on one's definition of "self driving" and as a computer scientist with AI training (although that happened during last century ;-) I still see no real self driving cars, just highly assisted driving where a human always has to be prepared to take over in case something severe happens. And when I see how most modern cars handle signs like a speed limit to e.g. 30km/h with both additional texts like "from 9-15” and additionally on "monday-friday" or limited "for 300m" I always shake my head.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago> I still see no real self driving cars, just highly assisted driving where a human always has to be prepared to take over in case something severe happens. There's no human driver in the car. At most, the cars can stop/pull over and ask for remote navigation from humans (but not remote operation).
- CalRobert 3y agoHow do you know there's no remote operation?
- AlotOfReading 3y agoBecause they send people out to physically recover the vehicle if it gets too stuck. They wouldn't do that if a human could just drive it out.
- natch 3y agoBoth can be true. In some cases the remote driver can drive it, in other cases it requires physical presence.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 3y agoWhy would you believe that? How do you know human operators don't type pages of results manually every time you do a Google search?
- CrampusDestrus 3y agoIf waymo's entire fleet was operated by real time remote drivers (extremely dangerous because of latench) we would know already
- jcynix 3y agoGranted, there are some niche applications where autonomous vehicles exist. And some level x assisted driving on prepared roads. But I was talking about "real self driving" cars, i.e. cars on any street in any city or even in rural areas. And I still don't see them anywhere, nor do I see them coming in the near future, expect in some tech dreams.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dilyevsky 3y agoCruise and waymo are running ride hailing service without any drivers at all in multiple cities including SF
- pipo234 3y agoSo next up: will they be able to reach profitability servicing SF and Phoenix. So far, highly small scale subsidized pilot projects. The hardware is more expensive than regular cabs. The software has cost billions, an may cost billions more. Operationally, energy use should be marginally higher. Hourly cab-driver wages: gone. Insurance and write off — we'll see, but if the software is any good this should be considerably lower. I guess it comes down to the big unknown: will it work at scale. Can we find enough cities with great weather, where enough people will use it? What will happen when the price goes up? What is a fair, sustainable price? Will that be higher than human-driven car?
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThen ice thing about software is that you can copy it at least, even if it’s expensive. LIDAR prices are coming down at a steady rate, although Tesla is still trying to go the vision only route. > I guess it comes down to the big unknown: will it work at scale. Can we find enough cities with great weather, where enough people will use it? What will happen when the price goes up? What is a fair, sustainable price? Will that be higher than human-driven car? If we assume the technology won’t improve any longer, this is true. But I don’t think that is a very safe assumption. Everything seems to point to the question being when rather than if.
- pipo234 3y agoAnother five years away it is, then ;-)
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThere will be progress in 5 years, will it be enough? Who knows, it’s something to play the stock market with if you are into that.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- austinkhale 3y agoWeird. Should tell that to the Waymo that drove me 20 minutes from my home to a restaurant downtown last night. I was the only human in the car, located in the back seat.
- fnord77 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LInDo1A0J4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LInDo1A0J4I
- ZanyProgrammer 3y agoAh yes, the famously narrow, cramped and heavily utilized by pedestrians streets of Phoenix.
- Finn_ 3y agoCompletely ignoring that they they also mentioned SF?
- TulliusCicero 3y agoAside from weather, SF is probably one of the hardest to drive in cities in the US.
- Lonestar1440 3y agoFrom my perspective as an SF resident, it truly does not exist here. We have some interesting experiments (Cruise, Waymo) wandering around (a subset of) our streets, but they simply can't drive nearly as well as 98% of humans. They achieve some measure of "safety" by failing safe e.g. stopping and putting hazard flashers on when confused. But they're not an effective or useful "service" for us, in the current state. Have you ever seen one try to deal with a contested left turn, or a 4 way stop with pedestrians constantly crossing?
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago> or a 4 way stop with pedestrians constantly crossing? The problem is by the letter of the law, the car can simply never proceed. People drivers don’t need to adhere to that letter so much, so can get creative, auto taxis can’t.
- fnord77 3y agoEvery waymo ride I have had has been at least as good of a driver as a mediocre Uber driver. Haven't tried it, but I hear Cruise is considerably worse. > Have you ever seen one try to deal with a contested left turn, or a 4 way stop with pedestrians constantly crossing? I've done considerable mileage in Waymo and these two situations it handles pretty well. I think the software is improving rapidly - I've reported some problems that happened consistently that a week later seem to have been resolved
- abecedarius 3y agoAustin too. I signed up to try it, though I haven't got around to it yet.