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> This is why driverless cars are still just demos Not directly the point of the article, but is it fair to say driverless cars are still just demos when they'

> This is why driverless cars are still just demos Not directly the point of the article, but is it fair to say driverless cars are still just demos when they're operating on every street, road, and freeway from San Francisco to San Jose, with tens of millions of passenger miles? I feel like once there are paying customers sitting in the vehicles, it's not a demo, it's a reality.

Solvency 2y ago
amazons shop and go had thousands of paying customers and yet was still abandoned because the majority of the AI check out decisions had to be offloaded to a human to verify. So I guess it depends on your definition of demo.
passwordoops 2y ago
Yes, it's a demo when you still have these issues going on: Cruise: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/cruise-to-pull-all-of-its-driverless-vehicles-off-streets-nationwide/ https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/cruise-to-pull-all-of-it... VW, Ford: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/business/ford-argo-ai-vw-shut-down/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/business/ford-argo-ai-vw-shut... Apple: https://www.therobotreport.com/apple-reportedly-pulls-plug-on-autonomous-vehicles/ https://www.therobotreport.com/apple-reportedly-pulls-plug-o... Tesla: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-update-software-autopilot-control-issue-2-mln-vehicles-nhtsa-2023-12-13/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  It's Waymo operating the driverless cars, not any of the four you've listed.
  - passwordoops 2y ago
    Still looks like a beta when stuff like this happens: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/san-francisco-robotaxi-traffic-jam-1.6938440 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/san-francisco-robotaxi-...
    - fragmede 2y ago
      Eh, Outside Lands is a giant clusterfuck for human drivers every year. If human drivers and wasted riders can't manage it, that a (inebriated, if not wasted) rider didn't close a door all the way is hardly am indightment of the whole thing. If your opinion is that it's a beta, that's your perogative. For riders in San Francisco and LA, that prefer to use Waymo, self-driving taxis are here, now. The only problem now is scaling up the fleet as the real problem with Waymo is that cars are not always available, or they're backed up and I have to fall back to calling a Lyft.
silverquiet 2y ago
I've never ridden in one and I've never been in a city where they exist. I guess they are a reality for some, but not me.
- inopinatus 2y ago
  Nonetheless, I was woken up by the laughing kookaburras this morning.
nyrikki 2y ago
In good weather, with remote operators. The national school bus accident rate is 0.01 per 100 million miles traveled, vs 0.06 for commercial aviation and 0.96 for other passenger vehicles. Approximately 9.1 driverless car crashes occur per million miles driven, while it may not always be the driverless car's fault, avoiding accidents is not a one way responsibility. When you consider those driverless cars are only operating in good weather, while school bus drivers operate in most weather conditions while simultaneously dealing with 50+ kids...there is still a very long tail.
- elmerfud 2y ago
  The school bus isn't a fair comparison but commercial vehicles would be or a limo service commercial vehicles such as taxis would be even the non-commercial passenger vehicles would be a good comparison. The reason why these School bus does not offer a realistic way to compare is because these are highly visible vehicles with lights and a built-in legally binding traffic control device on them. This causes the vehicle to be very visible to all other drivers around them and where that the stop sign can be deployed at any time and that is a traffic control device when it is deployed.
- jlmorton 2y ago
  You are conflating entirely different statistics. For every stat other than driverless vehicles, you used the fatality rate. For autonomous vehicles, you used the accident rate, and you included all manufacturers and a stat from 3 years ago. The statistics that have been released from Waymo are significantly different: https://waymo.com/blog/2023/12/waymo-significantly-outperforms-comparable-human-benchmarks-over-7-million/ https://waymo.com/blog/2023/12/waymo-significantly-outperfor...
  - nyrikki 2y ago
    Ya I was suckered by a spam site. But the vendor isn't a reliable source either. The latest NTSB info I can find is: 9.1 crashes in driverless vehicles per million vehicle miles driven 4.2 crashes in conventional vehicles per million miles driven But to quote you link: > The second is differences in driving conditions and/or vehicle characteristics. Public human crash data includes all road types, like freeways, where the Waymo Driver currently only operates with an autonomous specialist behind the wheel, as well as various vehicle types from commercial heavy vehicles to passenger and motorcycles. The post I was responding to claimed freeway driving, which always has a safety driver right now. As speeds increase, outcomes become less optimal. And the cars can't simply stop in the middle of the road and wait for a remote driver without putting the occupants at serious risk. There is a lot more work for Waymo to do before they can drive in more conditions and locations. Snow and heavy rain for example. With almost half a million school buses providing transportation service daily they eclipse the number of trips in one month compared to the 7m+ Waymo is claiming.
igortg 2y ago
I agree that "still just demos" is an overstate. But I'd say that in 2015 a lot of people predict that in 2020 we'd have driverless Ubers everywhere. And that just didn't happen. The challenges that are still open in getting driverless vehicles to operate in more chaotic scenarios like India or Latin America seem pretty much in line with what he's talking about: new improvements need exponentially more data.

Solvency 2y ago

amazons shop and go had thousands of paying customers and yet was still abandoned because the majority of the AI check out decisions had to be offloaded to a human to verify. So I guess it depends on your definition of demo.

passwordoops 2y ago

Yes, it's a demo when you still have these issues going on: Cruise: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/cruise-to-pull-all-of-its-driverless-vehicles-off-streets-nationwide/ https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/cruise-to-pull-all-of-it... VW, Ford: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/business/ford-argo-ai-vw-shut-down/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/26/business/ford-argo-ai-vw-shut... Apple: https://www.therobotreport.com/apple-reportedly-pulls-plug-on-autonomous-vehicles/ https://www.therobotreport.com/apple-reportedly-pulls-plug-o... Tesla: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-update-software-autopilot-control-issue-2-mln-vehicles-nhtsa-2023-12-13/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...

bryanlarsen 2y ago
It's Waymo operating the driverless cars, not any of the four you've listed.
- passwordoops 2y ago
  Still looks like a beta when stuff like this happens: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/san-francisco-robotaxi-traffic-jam-1.6938440 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/san-francisco-robotaxi-...
  - fragmede 2y ago
    Eh, Outside Lands is a giant clusterfuck for human drivers every year. If human drivers and wasted riders can't manage it, that a (inebriated, if not wasted) rider didn't close a door all the way is hardly am indightment of the whole thing. If your opinion is that it's a beta, that's your perogative. For riders in San Francisco and LA, that prefer to use Waymo, self-driving taxis are here, now. The only problem now is scaling up the fleet as the real problem with Waymo is that cars are not always available, or they're backed up and I have to fall back to calling a Lyft.

silverquiet 2y ago

I've never ridden in one and I've never been in a city where they exist. I guess they are a reality for some, but not me.

inopinatus 2y ago
Nonetheless, I was woken up by the laughing kookaburras this morning.

nyrikki 2y ago

In good weather, with remote operators. The national school bus accident rate is 0.01 per 100 million miles traveled, vs 0.06 for commercial aviation and 0.96 for other passenger vehicles. Approximately 9.1 driverless car crashes occur per million miles driven, while it may not always be the driverless car's fault, avoiding accidents is not a one way responsibility. When you consider those driverless cars are only operating in good weather, while school bus drivers operate in most weather conditions while simultaneously dealing with 50+ kids...there is still a very long tail.

elmerfud 2y ago
The school bus isn't a fair comparison but commercial vehicles would be or a limo service commercial vehicles such as taxis would be even the non-commercial passenger vehicles would be a good comparison. The reason why these School bus does not offer a realistic way to compare is because these are highly visible vehicles with lights and a built-in legally binding traffic control device on them. This causes the vehicle to be very visible to all other drivers around them and where that the stop sign can be deployed at any time and that is a traffic control device when it is deployed.
jlmorton 2y ago
You are conflating entirely different statistics. For every stat other than driverless vehicles, you used the fatality rate. For autonomous vehicles, you used the accident rate, and you included all manufacturers and a stat from 3 years ago. The statistics that have been released from Waymo are significantly different: https://waymo.com/blog/2023/12/waymo-significantly-outperforms-comparable-human-benchmarks-over-7-million/ https://waymo.com/blog/2023/12/waymo-significantly-outperfor...
- nyrikki 2y ago
  Ya I was suckered by a spam site. But the vendor isn't a reliable source either. The latest NTSB info I can find is: 9.1 crashes in driverless vehicles per million vehicle miles driven 4.2 crashes in conventional vehicles per million miles driven But to quote you link: > The second is differences in driving conditions and/or vehicle characteristics. Public human crash data includes all road types, like freeways, where the Waymo Driver currently only operates with an autonomous specialist behind the wheel, as well as various vehicle types from commercial heavy vehicles to passenger and motorcycles. The post I was responding to claimed freeway driving, which always has a safety driver right now. As speeds increase, outcomes become less optimal. And the cars can't simply stop in the middle of the road and wait for a remote driver without putting the occupants at serious risk. There is a lot more work for Waymo to do before they can drive in more conditions and locations. Snow and heavy rain for example. With almost half a million school buses providing transportation service daily they eclipse the number of trips in one month compared to the 7m+ Waymo is claiming.

igortg 2y ago

I agree that "still just demos" is an overstate. But I'd say that in 2015 a lot of people predict that in 2020 we'd have driverless Ubers everywhere. And that just didn't happen. The challenges that are still open in getting driverless vehicles to operate in more chaotic scenarios like India or Latin America seem pretty much in line with what he's talking about: new improvements need exponentially more data.