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Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

495 points by ra7 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
taylorlapeyre 2y ago
Living here for the last 10 years, it's been jarring how just in the last few years, driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" The Waymos are genuinely good drivers. I look forward to taking them every time.
- xeromal 2y ago
  I was riding a bike yesterday with a Waymo behind me and was impressed with how much confidence it gave me that it knew I was there.
  - Rebelgecko 2y ago
    One thing that really impressed me about riding Waymo is that when you start to open the door, it'll give really good warnings if you're potentially opening the door into traffic. Even specifying if there's a passing car/bike/scooter
- Abroszka 2y ago
  > driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" That's still far away, these are not driverless cars, there is always a driver monitoring, but they monitor not one but many cars, ready to take over.
  - ra7 2y ago
    Highly recommend people read how Waymo's fleet response works before throwing out phrases like "remote drivers take over cars": https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/ https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
    - Abroszka 2y ago
      There is someone to take over as soon as the car encounters something it cannot handle. It's not self driving. By definition it's not driverless, there is always a driver assigned who will take care of it if needed. One of the reason they cannot scale beyond small areas.
      - alphabetting 2y ago
        Do you think the remote operators are driving the vehicles? They can only give the car instructions (pull over, go back to depot etc). In no sense are they driving.
      - ra7 2y ago
        Assistance != taking over. It's driverless by definition because... there's no driver in the seat. The car is in control and is responsible for its safety at all times.
        lucianbr 2y ago
        Regardless of the definition, I can't buy and own such a "driverless car" because I don't operate a supervision center with people available to "assist" the car. Whatever "assist" means. Nor can any company that's not large enough to operate the infrastructure. I'm sure at least some of the hype is in regards to people owning such "driverless" cars. It's driverless by definition because it does not have a driver, but it's not autonomous by definition, because it requires outside help to function. Cool hair splitting. It's an impressive technical feat for sure. In regards to perceived benefits for society, it's part of the way there, as it reduces the number of humans required to driver from 1 per car to 0.something per car.
        ra7 2y ago
        These cars are not meant to be owned. They're part of a fleet. They are driverless and specifically L4 autonomous, which is the best autonomy you can get right now. The vehicles that can operate without any help doesn't exist. You'll be waiting for a long time if that's your expectation.
  - xnx 2y ago
    Where did you get this information? There are definitely people ready to respond to any requests from the car or passenger when they come up, but I've never read anything to indicate that each ride is actively monitored by a person.
    - Abroszka 2y ago
      Search for "driver monitoring system". As soon as there is something unexpected there is an actual driver taking care of it. Also the reason why it's not level 5, but stuck at level 4 self driving.
      - bryanlarsen 2y ago
        That's not "always a driver monitoring". They're not actively monitoring all of them all of the time, they're responding to requests from the car. And they're not drivers, they're supervisors. They don't take over driving, AFAICT they issue high-level commands like "safe to proceed", "take the right lane", et cetera.
        Abroszka 2y ago
        There is always somebody ready to respond. Of course they can't take full control, that would be stupid dangerous, but they can still control the car. They even have people who go to your car to get it unstuck manually when needed.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > There is always somebody ready to respond I mean, this is true for Uber as well.
        TulliusCicero 2y ago
        They can tell the car what to do like a human navigator in the front seat, but they don't directly operate the car. Those are very different things.
      - 2y ago
  - Stevvo 2y ago
    If you could rent/purchase a vehicle without a steering wheel, would you not want there to be someone available who can help out when the system runs into trouble? As long as there is no driver in the car, does it matter how it drives? Is that not just an irrelevant implementation detail that has no bearing on your passenger experience?
    - lucianbr 2y ago
      As long as it requires some humans to be available to "assist", I'm not sure anyone would sell or buy such a vehicle. Or rent in the "car rental" sense. Taxi service is what makes sense. If I own the car, and I'm sending it to do errands for me while I work or sleep, seems like the cost of someone being available to "assist" it at short notice would be prohibitive. Unless it requires assistance once a month or so.
      - dventimi 2y ago
        If you're sending it to do errands, you might consider also sending it out to take riders, as a side hustle. Do that, and you're now a taxicab service. Point being, I suspect many people don't want to own any vehicle, whatever level of automation it has (which could be none). The reason we do is that taking taxis everywhere is too expensive. If that cost can be brought down, however it's done (computer brain, cab driver, capuchin monkey, whatever), many people will be happy to forgo owning a vehicle.
        lucianbr 2y ago
        I think you meant to reply to the person I replied to.
        dventimi 2y ago
        At this point I have no idea who's who in this thread anymore. Sorry.
  - __loam 2y ago
    The waymo I took on Sunday didn't have a driver.
- tomoyoirl 2y ago
  I don’t look forward to taking them and choose other drivers, mostly because the price and wait time dynamics are a little funny, but I am glad I did take a ride or two. They’re much better drivers in the sense of “not interested in pushing any limits.” They navigated around a parked truck effectively, queueing and waiting their turn to go into the opposing lane behind some other cars. The perception display of surrounding people and cars was very comforting. My only moment of fear was a sudden stop because a wrong-way bicyclist had lurched out into traffic — that’d happen with any driver, unless we hit the guy. Yeah, I guess you can cone them, they’re that conservative of drivers. It’s clear that they’re not the cars for me to worry about out there on a bike / on foot / etc.
- amelius 2y ago
  Good LiDAR makes the problem considerably easier.
- oblio 2y ago
  We do appreciate your sacrifice, here in the EU.
  - GardenLetter27 2y ago
    It's us in the EU who are having the sacrifice though. As we're left behind economically and technologically as a load of octogenarian bureaucrats decide to ban genetic engineering, AI, etc.
    - ratg13 2y ago
      calling protecting people's data, 'banning AI' is an interesting take
      - GardenLetter27 2y ago
        I was referring to the AI Act, not the GDPR.
  - frakkingcylons 2y ago
    Congrats on your breakthroughs in writing laws.
    - oblio 2y ago
      Do you still elect presidents with a minority of the popular vote? Are corporations still people? Turns out, the right breakthroughs in writing laws are good, too. While the bad ones wreck you.
  - sschueller 2y ago
    Sitting in traffic in a taxi or your own car sucks either way. Public transportation is the only sustainable solution.
- toss1 2y ago
  This makes me wonder why this shouldn't become the default mode of public transport — i.e., subsidized by the local govt in the same way as busses/trolleys. It seems they could actually replace the busses and provide better service with a sufficient inventory of cars. Could even provide Waymo-style vans on regular++ routes, with the "++" being ability to divert to nearby residences, especially for the mobility-impaired. Why? Why Not?
miohtama 2y ago
Does this mean the self-driving cars are finally here? Where next?
- icey 2y ago
  They've been in Phoenix for the past two years (generally available for the past year). They're so commonplace now, I don't think anyone really notices them.
- xnx 2y ago
  Austin https://waymo.com/waymo-one-austin/ https://waymo.com/waymo-one-austin/
- rwmj 2y ago
  London hopefully. Maybe one day soon I can get rid of my car.
  - archagon 2y ago
    You can’t get rid of your car in London, one of the best public transit cities in the world...?
    - rwmj 2y ago
      I don't exactly live in central London.
  - miohtama 2y ago
    It will take forever before any regulator in Europe allowes anything like this. Hopefully during our life time.
mixtureoftakes 2y ago
I haven't taken a ride in one of those yet, what does it feel like?
- 649nanos 2y ago
  > I haven't taken a ride in one of those yet, what does it feel like? Like grandma driving. In a good way. Less jerky motion, cars don’t smell bad, less motion sickness while looking at your phone.
  - skyyler 2y ago
    Ubers don't smell bad until someone shits or pukes in one. I can't imagine these will be any different...
    - xnx 2y ago
      About half the Ubers I get in have overpowering air "fresheners" (perfumes). I'll always roll down a window unless the driver has disabled it (which is one more thing not to like about Ubers).
      - skyyler 2y ago
        Without those perfumes the scent of vomit and faeces would be more present.
      - dilap 2y ago
        I hate those -- they instantly make me nauseous.
    - tayo42 2y ago
      How do you they stop you from trashing these? Or getting into one that isn't clean?
      - sbuttgereit 2y ago
        They do have cameras pointed inwards, so passengers are monitored and I'm sure the remote operators can see car condition as well.
xeromal 2y ago
What are the odds. I'm in SF this week for work and joined the waitlist last night. lol.
wing-_-nuts 2y ago
I'm always struct by how much more slowly driverless cars has been deployed than what I expected when the first won the darpa grand challenge. I guess I understand the need for caution. By the time this goes nationwide, I expect it will be pretty damned solid.
- avrionov 2y ago
  The need for caution is one reason, but the other reason is the huge capital expenses which are needed to deploy a fleet of cars in a major city.
ra7 2y ago
Add freeways and airport rides, both of which they are very close to doing, Waymo will become much more of a complete service and a true Uber/Lyft replacement. In a year's time, we could genuinely see them operating at scale in 6-8 major cities (SF, Phoenix, LA, Austin and new cities), especially with their new dedicated robotaxi from Zeekr. A possible hold up would be China import tariffs imposed by the US government.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > 6-8 major cities (SF, Phoenix, LA, Austin and new cities) If I had to guess, I'd say Atlanta, San Diego, Houston and Miami.
  - ra7 2y ago
    They’re testing in DC and giving media rides there. So DC is a candidate too.
- ajcp 2y ago
  1: Airport rides are already available in Phoenix between 10PM and 6AM. 2: I have never seen a Waymo on the freeway without someone driving it (not monitored self-driving, but physically driving it). Take this with a grain of sand but it is my understanding that full self-driving on highways is still far away given the limited range of the (relatively) small sensors and the speed of travel required. That is: the sensors cannot see far enough ahead to react comfortably when going above N miles-per-hour. That might be a dated understanding of the issue though... Source: I've been riding Weymo since 2019 when it first went public beta (NDA-restricted use). Rode one last night coming home from the airport!
  - Lisdexamfeta 2y ago
    Airport rides in Phoenix are always available, but apart from the hours you note, Waymo drops riders off at the 24th or 44th Street Sky Train locations.
prasoonds 2y ago
I highly recommend everyone try it out if you're in SF. It's an incredibly smooth and sure ride. The cars are really nice too (Jaguar I-Pace electric cars), clean and spacious. The first time you ride in one, it feels truly sci-fi. But within 5 minutes, you're almost bored of it - that's how good it is. If I had to choose between an Uber of questionable cleanliness and driver temperament and a Waymo with a slightly longer wait and slightly more fare, I'd choose the Waymo every time. (I have no affiliation with Waymo, Google or any related industry - it's just an amazing service!)
- tapoxi 2y ago
  Wouldn't the Ubers potentially be cleaner? Who's cleaning the Waymo between rides?
  - sbuttgereit 2y ago
    Potentially. But, with each driver exercising quality control over their own vehicles, the actual result will likely vary from hitting as good or better a standard to being worse. The Waymo standards, thus far, are pretty high, so I would expect on average Uber/Lyft/Etc. would fair worse on average.
    - kungito 2y ago
      I have no doubt that Google is waiting for more adoption before starting to cut costs everywhere and before you know it your puked out ride will direct you to www.waymo.hr/help to find an article which resolves your issue
      - dventimi 2y ago
        Why would that be any different from Uber? Doesn't Uber also want to cut costs?
        kungito 2y ago
        Uber has partner drivers which have their own companies, their own rating, and can be punished for their behaviour. Once a company completely vertically integrates (like Google would like), meaning they have their own cars, they no longer want to punish themselves for bad behaviour/cars. Since they have to choose between short term cost of higher maintenance fee or long term cost of loss of quality of service their managers will start to optimize for quarterly results: cutting short term costs. What they want is to first entrench the market, push out competitors, introduce complex regulation and fees which prevents new competitors into the market and then start cutting costs everywhere they can and increase prices. Since you mention Uber, I can definitely see in my city how the quality of cars decreased and they started using almost inclusively cheap immigrants who realistically couldn't pass a drivers exam in my country and have on multiple occasions driven into wrong directions/ran red lights etc.
alphadog_78 2y ago
[flagged]
kelsey98765431 2y ago
I remember almost 10 years ago, maybe 8 i first saw one of these up in the city. It was parked and the technician was outside of it with an ipad, and i happened to strike up a conversation with the gentleman. I was just curious and at first he was remarkably cagey, i was quite confused and just continued to be friendly and express hope for the projects success and for automation in general. I got the feeling that man had been accosted many times by angry locals and I may have been the first to give a word of encouragement, he was very polite after the initial tension wore away and he felt my shared enthusiasm. He must have been one of the early engineers, I had never seen or heard the name waymo but I was aware google had been competing in the level 1/2 dessert tests. The man was very friendly and i was surprised how his behavior must be a reflection of society's view towards technical automation. Seeing the videos of people kicking food delivery robots and now my own tendency to flip off elon musks tesla cameras all these years later I am starting to get why he was nervous. Cheers to the future I suppose, but hopefully the future has less cars and more walkable cities.
- Turing_Machine 2y ago
  In the future, when you're old and quite possibly disabled, you might rethink the whole "walkable cities" thing. I mean, it's easy to say "just walk (or ride a bike)" when you're 22 years old and in prime health, but the population in most First World countries is rapidly aging.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    A walkable city doesn't preclude driving. In fact it often improves it. If almost everybody is walking or biking or using transit that means there are few other cars and driving becomes much nicer too.
  - spankalee 2y ago
    Old and handicapped people have lived before cars, and in less car-centric cities forever. Walkable cities mainly mean that things are close to you so you _can_ walk to them. Actual car-free areas, like the access-controlled dense old towns in Europe, are possible (if built-out where they don't exist), but not necessarily to be walkable.
tayo42 2y ago
How much do these cost? Is it cheaper then uber/lyft, taxis? Muni? That would be pretty crazy
- elforce002 2y ago
  $300,000 per car. They're burning billions trying to go mainstream.
  - ra7 2y ago
    4 year old quote from their former CEO: "It costs as much as a moderately equipped S-class". That's around $150,000.
    - gary_0 2y ago
      That's what I've read, about $150-200k: https://blog.dshr.org/2023/11/robotaxi-economics.html https://blog.dshr.org/2023/11/robotaxi-economics.html
- hot_gril 2y ago
  Whatever it costs now, it could be cheaper later.
- TulliusCicero 2y ago
  They're not cheaper right now. Might be possible as they scale up. A lot of people seem to prefer them to Uber/Lyft even as it is, though.
swozey 2y ago
Do these need a significant amount of local infrastructure (parking, charging, etc) specific to Waymo that would make them moving into a new city (Austin is next) a big investment? Like will there need to be a big Waymo fleet center/office built in each city? I'm not sure if these park and someone plugs them in or what, who maintains the actual Jaguars, etc. Can't wait to never have to drive a car again.
- mdorazio 2y ago
  Depends on your definition of “significant”. They require at least one depot in each city where they operate. The depot handles charging, cleaning, inspection, repair, and parking during low-demand times. Each depot is different since they are generally leased buildings or lots in light industrial areas. You can search on YouTube to see them.
  - swozey 2y ago
    Thanks! Found the perfect video. He talks about the depots here, there are some that are full service and some that are not. These are actually a lot bigger than I was expecting and have a bunch of staff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZ3e7mWD9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZ3e7mWD9E
petters 2y ago
The app is not available in my region (EU). But I visit SF from time to time. What should I do?
- Ambroos 2y ago
  Alternative Apple ID / Google account with region set in US. Always useful to have! For Android it's much easier, I have a bunch (for every country I've lived in) set up on my phone simultaneously and I can just switch in the Play Store.
999900000999 2y ago
This is both amazing and horrifying. I'm actually confident this automation will save lives. Well of course any system can fail, Uber drivers are often distracted by 30 things, they're fiddling with the app, on personal calls, while navigating tricky traffic situations. However I predict within a decade or so we're going to get to a point where gig work is no longer feasible. It'll take a bit of trickery, but I'm sure you could have restaurants opt in to putting their own food in the backseat of these. And then as a consumer you would just get your own food from the car . So think about every delivery driver, and every Uber driver, and many other gig workers. All of these people are going to be out of work very soon. Plus tons of creatives will be replaced by AI. AI will reduce the need for junior software engineers . I don't think the modern economy is ready for this. If I had one wish, it would be to at least decouple employment from health care. As is, let's say you have a serious illness that requires you to resign or otherwise not have employment for an extended period of time. You're now stuck with a serious illness and no health care. Depending on the state unless you're a child or parent you're not qualifying for Medicare period. Has anyone figured out, who exactly gets sued when one of these Waymo's hits someone.
- dventimi 2y ago
  If gig work is such a good job perhaps you should consider doing it.
  - 999900000999 2y ago
    A lot of people depend on those job to survive. We need some type of off-ramp if we're going to just wipe out a large section of the economy . I've worked horrible jobs before, and I needed the money to survive. Not everyone can write Ruby code and make 300k a year.
    - dventimi 2y ago
      > We need some type of off-ramp Now, we're talking. Often, there will be handwringing about low-wage jobs from people who wouldn't dream of working low-wage jobs and who benefit from the existence of low-wage jobs. Often, that will be invoked as a rebuke to automation. But, automation in general isn't a threat to workers or well-being. In fact it's productivity gain which benefits well-being by lowering costs and raising living standards. If a portion of those productivity gains aren't used to help the people they displace, that's a matter of policy not of technology.
michaelbuckbee 2y ago
For anyone else curious about the exact service area: https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/9059119?hl=en https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/9059119?hl=en
- jessriedel 2y ago
  To be clear: Waymo can take you to basically any address in those city limits, but it doesn't do so by taking the freeways like 101 and 280 that pass through it.
  - LeoPanthera 2y ago
    I saw a Waymo on 280 the other day. Maybe it was being driven by hand, but the lidar was spinning.
    - metadat 2y ago
      It's always good to collect up to date map data. If I were the architect, I'd make sure we were always collecting.
    - TulliusCicero 2y ago
      They've announced that they've started testing fully driverless on freeways IIRC. No passengers yet though, I think.
    - jessriedel 2y ago
      Yes they’ve been testing them with drivers for a while. We were discussing the actual operating envelope of the deployed pay service.
MichaelNolan 2y ago
While it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to human driven taxis, it’s remarkable that Waymo will like reach 50 million passenger only miles this year. And will surpass 100 million passenger only miles sometime in 2025. With that much data the safety case should become very clear.
- greenthrow 2y ago
  Except that they have remote humans monitoring every vehicle so the whole thing is an illusion and we don't know the truth of how safe truly autonomous vehicles are (since they don't exist.)
  - kajecounterhack 2y ago
    1:1 remote human monitoring would not scale from a unit economics perspective, and even if they did that, the remote operators can't drive the car, only offer small feedbacks. So the car is really driving itself. The safety story is an interesting one. Companies like Cruise and Waymo are not forthcoming with their incident data. They share infrequently and through spreadsheets that do not capture every incident. It's pretty ass, and I'd be wary of trusting their self-reported data. I imagine their insurance companies have slightly better data than the gov't, but even then maybe not.
    - jessriedel 2y ago
      Spreadsheets are the best and most open way to share data because it lets other people analyze it. But they put out plenty of their own research if you want to read that. I'm really not sure what you mean by "infrequently". They release new raw data every 3 or 6 months or something, and every single accident is trumpeted in the news. What other industry has more publicly accessible safety data?
      - kajecounterhack 2y ago
        Every software release is a totally new driver. If they release software at a cadence of say, 6 or 8 weeks, would you feel comfortable riding? You don't know how safe the car was during that time -- any part of the driver can regress. You're basically trusting that they know how to do simulation, that they bore the cost of running that simulation, and that their simulator is realistic enough to yield trustworthy statistics. Sadly, our regulatory agencies are currently set up for very delayed decisionmaking. Since every company can release software at any time, you could imagine a regulatory platform that tracks software releases and their corresponding safety statistics in real time.
hypeatei 2y ago
I can't imagine this turning out well if there is any social media movement around these cars. It's reminding me of that one robot travelling across the country which ended up getting destroyed by some people.
- jebby 2y ago
  It will turn out well once the newness and novelty of messing with them wears off eventually.
- jessriedel 2y ago
  They have been slowly expanding service in SF for several years. Tens of thousands of people have taken a ride. Actually, they give more than 10k rides a week, so probably over a hundred thousand people. Scaling up to the whole city (pop: 800k) is not that big of a jump.
- yunwal 2y ago
  People already have gone around putting traffic cones over the car sensors. https://www.npr.org/2023/08/28/1196487085/anonymous-protestors-immobilize-driverless-cars-using-traffic-cones#:~:text=Its%20newest%20target%20has%20been,sensors%20and%20shuts%20it%20down https://www.npr.org/2023/08/28/1196487085/anonymous-protesto....
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Just as a comparison, the people who did that also do highway protests. There's a video if you'll scroll down a little https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/08/activists-block-san-francisco-freeway-ramp-traffic/ https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/08/activists-block-san-franci...
    - hot_gril 2y ago
      I don't agree with this, but gotta hand it to them, the WWE thing is funny and well-done.
- TulliusCicero 2y ago
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Is much known about the science behind Waymo? I am impressed that the cars can operate autonomously in real life when I see them around me. At the same time, they have an enormous number of sensors like multiple spinning LIDARs (?). I also read that they have to map everything ahead of time to be able to operate in an area. That seems a bit like cheating to me. It may work and may even be valuable to customers, but it doesn’t seem like as big a breakthrough as achieving autonomy with the same sensors as humans.
- greenthrow 2y ago
  Nobody knows the details, e.g. how many humans are monitoring per car. It came out at one point that Cruise was using >1 human per car. What is Waymo doing? We dunno, we just keep seeing these absurd puff pieces.
- Heliosmaster 2y ago
  But...they are a company, their goal isn't to make breakthroughs. Their goal is (eventually?) to make a profit. They'll simply use the technology and breakthroughs that allow them to get there faster. That's not cheating.. that's business
- TulliusCicero 2y ago
  > it doesn’t seem like as big a breakthrough as achieving autonomy with the same sensors as humans. As far as I know, nobody is currently attempting to do that. Even Tesla has way more cameras on their cars than you have eyeballs, covering far more angles than your head can. There is that one org that does L2 automation with just a phone IIRC, but I don't think they're trying for full autonomy. Realistically, it's hard for the car to be as smart as the human mental model while driving, and so having vastly superior sensors helps compensate for that.
aresant 2y ago
Genuine question -> - Elon (and his pro-analysts) heavily weight the future of the co's valuation on their ability to deploy a taxi network and has been promising it just around corner for years - Alphabet via Waymo seems to have "solved" robotaxis for city-proximity driving and has deployed as a business. Beyond the obvious "reality distortion field" argument is Tesla actually in a position to win here due to their manufacturing capability / current deployment of Tesla's? Disclaimer - I am an Alphabet & Tesla shareholder
- greenthrow 2y ago
  1) Waymo has not "solved" robotaxis as a business. They are not profitable and the vehicles are not truly autonomous (the humans monitoring the vehicles are merely remote. We don't know how many humans are needed per vehicle.) 2) Tesla has zero even remotely monitored, let alone autonomous, miles driven. So no, there is no reason to believe Tesla is close to true robotaxis.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    Really, you can't repeat this point enough. Tesla has zero experience in autonomous operation. Their vehicle has not ever driven itself any distance, under any circumstances. There is no reason to believe their software is on the cusp of a sudden improvement. They simply release new major version numbers that have different sets of flaws.
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    You are correct, Waymo has not solved the economics of robotaxis yet. However Waymo does have a huge head start on the solution. Waymo has been able to manage their scale growth to manage the cost of finding these solutions. It seems like a competitor that hasn't had that will have to pay a lot more to catch up.
- zooq_ai 2y ago
  as a Alphabet and Tesla shareholder, this is what is important. The rate of innovation at Tesla > Waymo The cost of building Tesla FSD = 1/100 * cost of building Waymo FSD The cost of delivering Tesla FSD = 1/10 * cost of delivering Waymo FSD Tesla has economies of scale. Waymo has all the details figured out. Waymo can never get to the scale of Tesla (it can never buy 5 Million FSD cars, while Tesla is delivering them every 2 years) Mathematically, Tesla has an upper hand over Waymo and it'll play out as that. Larry, Sergei are extremely poor capital allocators. Musk is brilliant (despite him being a narcisstic a*hole). Larry/Sergei left Waymo at a limbo state because they don't think in terms of economics, just coolness. Waymo is successful enough to not kill it, but also not a cash-flow positive to scale it up Edit : Tch, Tch expected HN anti-Musk hate showing up in downvotes.
jonny_eh 2y ago
Can they drive over steam yet? https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1dm3cqf/selfdriver_stopped_by_steam_how_do_they_handle/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1dm3cqf/se...
- LeoPanthera 2y ago
  Is it stopped for the steam? Or for the person holding the camera directly in front of it?
  - dymk 2y ago
    > “When I first saw it before filming, it was all alone, no peds, no other moving traffic. So, I don’t think it was yielding for any of the peds, just stopped for the steam.”
amelius 2y ago
They solved the wrong problem. I still have to sit in a car for 30 minutes after work. If instead they made a robotic chef cook, that would actually save me 30 minutes every day.
- skulk 2y ago
  Best we can do is include a small kitchen in the back seat of the waymo so you can cook while you would have been driving.
- mrastro 2y ago
  Just work in your car using a mobile hotspot and leave work 30 mins earlier. Works for any white collar job assuming you have a reasonable employer.
  - crossroadsguy 2y ago
    Then why go to office in the first place? :P
    - yazaddaruvala 2y ago
      Because, employers are mandating a certain amount of office time. Silly and sad, but real :(
- TrueSlacker0 2y ago
  Giant chain hamburgers coming to a waymo near you. Available in all rides longer than 7 minutes.
lopkeny12ko 2y ago
You can definitely feel the fear from Tesla's competition recently, just ahead of Tesla's robotaxi unveil on 8/8 :) * Uber CEO dumps $70 million of shares this week * Google tries to steal the Tesla's media thunder by opening Waymo to everyone * GM brings in new leadership to revitalize Cruise * Rivian gets a huge cash injection
- georgeecollins 2y ago
  Fear of what? I am not disagreeing with you, I just don't know what is happening at Tesla that you are referring to.
  - lopkeny12ko 2y ago
    "Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8" https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1776351450542768368 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1776351450542768368
    - georgeecollins 2y ago
      Thank you. I didn't know about that. That's a little vague, is there any more information? Like is this a special model of Tesla or a technology or software package for an existing model? Just wondering because I bet there are people here who have insight.
- ra7 2y ago
  Seems like a massive stretch to insert Tesla into the conversation. Waymo has been building up to this for years in San Francisco. Cruise has been looking for a new CEO for many months. Rivian has been in well known financial trouble. I don’t think anyone’s worried about a Tesla robotaxi. It’s another vaporware in their long list of vaporwares. Going by their FSD track record, that thing won’t exist for a number of years.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  "Rivian gets a huge cash injection" seems more like it belongs in the opposite list.
deleted 2y ago
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webwielder2 2y ago
Does Uber regret shutting down its autonomous efforts? The problem has emerged as a tractable one. Or were they just too far behind and the capital expenditures too high to even remotely consider continuing? Does Uber exist in ten years?
bragr 2y ago
Couple of anecdotal data points from a new rider. Here's the first time rider spiel they give you [1]. Overall experience is pretty polished. It's handled some tricky situations with confidence like this left hand turn from a two way stop on the inside of a blind curve [2]. Then other times it drives like the most cautious newbie driver. Maybe it didn't like me being so closed to the road, but this time it awkwardly failed to pull close enough on pickup [3]. Definitely got some stink eye from drivers trying to squeeze by. [1] https://photos.app.goo.gl/apNmS7JNbQ4Cau8dA https://photos.app.goo.gl/apNmS7JNbQ4Cau8dA [2] https://photos.app.goo.gl/JdUYkTYkJJZYmUt99 https://photos.app.goo.gl/JdUYkTYkJJZYmUt99 [3] https://photos.app.goo.gl/USvznpWqRrY3fnqL9 https://photos.app.goo.gl/USvznpWqRrY3fnqL9
standardUser 2y ago
The big hope to me is the idea of cheap, cheap rides due to the lack of labor expenses, tipping and eventually gas. I don't see how that happens if there isn't competition, but I don't see how it doesn't happen if there are competing companies that can offer a similar service.
- fragmede 2y ago
  They've invested untold billions into getting this to work and now they need to recoup their investment. They'll get "cheap" eventually, but don't hold your breath.
  - standardUser 2y ago
    All it takes is one competitor in a hot space to get companies offering venture-subsidized prices, like we've seen when rideshare and delivery companies. And though the upfront investment may be huge, the price per trip can end up close to zero, unlike rideshares and delivery which have a much higher floor. Not that there's any competitor that seems even close to Waymo.
hackernoteng 2y ago
I dont get why anyone cheers shit like this. It just takes jobs away from more people. You will just get more homeless and drug addicted people. And more rich techies. And it will make no difference to the rider - they get where they need to be either way. It's just another bit wealth transfer from poor to rich. Yet this is cheered.
- kick_in_the_dor 2y ago
  I love coming to HackerNews to see exactly this type of salt. "Guys it's the future! Self-driving cars actually exist!" "Fuck you, here's why this is awful"
- shawabawa3 2y ago
  I agree, we should go back to have women and children working 14 hours a day at the loom spinning cloth, I can't believe we automated away those jobs
  - thrance 2y ago
    Your clothes are still mainly made by women and children, working 14 hours a day. They just don't live in the US anymore...
- machiaweliczny 2y ago
  Before Uber taxis were basically unaffordable for me. You had to call them and wait in queue till somebody send you one. Check if they aren't cheating etc. I think now much more people are using them due to convenience. Robotaxis can possibly expand market similar how Uber have done it.
- rangestransform 2y ago
  > rich techies nice, i love the creation of robotics jobs
foxylad 2y ago
How long before you have to stop and spend 5 minutes in a store on your route? Google is an advertising business, and can now literally drive traffic to your store.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  The cost of the extra drive time would seem counter to that kind of thing vs just serving more drives. It takes next to nothing to e.g. show a business with more emphasis on Google Maps so cheap ads for emphasizing your business are palatable for customers to buy and Google to serve. I'd expect something more like that (recommended destinations, recommended side stops) where the showing the option and getting a decline has basically no impact to the operation but you still have a chance to get the bite anyways.
ingend88 2y ago
This is so so huge and one where a tech ten years ago had an incredible interest and since then the companies started folding and only waymo survived. That's vision..10x
00_hum 2y ago
i drove for uber around 7 years ago. it was the first time that i experienced first-hand a mass delusion. more on that later though. at the time i had just read the first samples of GTP output from openai and i immediately understood that we were probably going to experience an explosion of AI progress. and it weighed on me because i was afraid that the economic disruption caused by the resulting automation would ruin my life. i remember sitting in my car thinking that its completely pointless because they are just going to automate ubers… so today is a funny day for me because this really is the death of human uber drivers in SF, even if generative AI isnt at play here. that day has come where people who need a job to tide them over for a few years wont be able to drive ubers. one less option. driving an uber costs about 20 cents per mile accounting for everything including gas, maintenance, replacement, insurance. including tips you are often paid around a dollar per mile. its just dead simple math. the idea that ubers lose money is a mass delusion fueled by outrage culture, echo chambers and the media. i made tons of money doing it. im screaming into the void and it wont change anyones mind
- vasilipupkin 2y ago
  What’s the definition of tons of money in this context ?
greekanalyst 2y ago
Let the robotaxi wars begin!
EcommerceFlow 2y ago
Comments are really underestimating Tesla FSD in here. As an owner and user of FSD, it's scary how quickly their new Neural Net version is improving. There's a reason Elon and other internal Tesla engineers are so bullish on it, they've seen the data on 12.5 and beyond. Once their 100,000 GPU cluster is complete this year, how many iterations until FSD is comparable to Waymo? One year? Maybe 3 years? The reason Waymo should be worried is because once FSD hits that "crossing", a flick of a switch at Tesla and 3-8 million robo taxis could hit the market all at once. For comparison, Waymo has around 1,000 cars. It's cool what Waymo's doing, but as an actual FSD user it's plainly obvious "vision only" will work, which does not bode well for all the other car companies + waymo.
- flippyhead 2y ago
  Not to mention that Tesla's hardware costs are considerably less -- they're doing it with "just" a few cameras.
  - ra7 2y ago
    Except they are not "doing it" as long as it requires driver supervision. They are doing something that's few levels below Waymo. Removing the driver is the whole problem domain, which Waymo has done years ago. There's a reason Tesla hasn't been able to remove the driver (or even let them take their eyes off). It's because the car has "just" a few cameras.
- bryant 2y ago
  Is it gonna be good enough for Tesla to own and insure-for liability?
- claaams 2y ago
  With Elon, these types of massive changes are always just a year or two away and somehow never come or are not delivered as promised. They're bullish because it makes the stock price go up.
- anonymousab 2y ago
  > a flick of a switch at Tesla and 3-8 million robo taxis could hit the market all at once Assuming this is a feature that car owners (and presumably, states/provinces/countries) have to opt into, what does the insurance and liabilities look like for this? I can't believe that Tesla wouldn't shove all of it onto the end car owner, even if (or rather, when) they take a sizeable cut.
timcavel 2y ago
[dead]
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495 points by ra7 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Living here for the last 10 years, it's been jarring how just in the last few years, driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" The Waymos are genuinely good drivers. I look forward to taking them every time.

xeromal 2y ago
I was riding a bike yesterday with a Waymo behind me and was impressed with how much confidence it gave me that it knew I was there.
- Rebelgecko 2y ago
  One thing that really impressed me about riding Waymo is that when you start to open the door, it'll give really good warnings if you're potentially opening the door into traffic. Even specifying if there's a passing car/bike/scooter
Abroszka 2y ago
> driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" That's still far away, these are not driverless cars, there is always a driver monitoring, but they monitor not one but many cars, ready to take over.
- ra7 2y ago
  Highly recommend people read how Waymo's fleet response works before throwing out phrases like "remote drivers take over cars": https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/ https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
  - Abroszka 2y ago
    There is someone to take over as soon as the car encounters something it cannot handle. It's not self driving. By definition it's not driverless, there is always a driver assigned who will take care of it if needed. One of the reason they cannot scale beyond small areas.
    - alphabetting 2y ago
      Do you think the remote operators are driving the vehicles? They can only give the car instructions (pull over, go back to depot etc). In no sense are they driving.
    - ra7 2y ago
      Assistance != taking over. It's driverless by definition because... there's no driver in the seat. The car is in control and is responsible for its safety at all times.
      - lucianbr 2y ago
        Regardless of the definition, I can't buy and own such a "driverless car" because I don't operate a supervision center with people available to "assist" the car. Whatever "assist" means. Nor can any company that's not large enough to operate the infrastructure. I'm sure at least some of the hype is in regards to people owning such "driverless" cars. It's driverless by definition because it does not have a driver, but it's not autonomous by definition, because it requires outside help to function. Cool hair splitting. It's an impressive technical feat for sure. In regards to perceived benefits for society, it's part of the way there, as it reduces the number of humans required to driver from 1 per car to 0.something per car.
        ra7 2y ago
        These cars are not meant to be owned. They're part of a fleet. They are driverless and specifically L4 autonomous, which is the best autonomy you can get right now. The vehicles that can operate without any help doesn't exist. You'll be waiting for a long time if that's your expectation.
- xnx 2y ago
  Where did you get this information? There are definitely people ready to respond to any requests from the car or passenger when they come up, but I've never read anything to indicate that each ride is actively monitored by a person.
  - Abroszka 2y ago
    Search for "driver monitoring system". As soon as there is something unexpected there is an actual driver taking care of it. Also the reason why it's not level 5, but stuck at level 4 self driving.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      That's not "always a driver monitoring". They're not actively monitoring all of them all of the time, they're responding to requests from the car. And they're not drivers, they're supervisors. They don't take over driving, AFAICT they issue high-level commands like "safe to proceed", "take the right lane", et cetera.
      - Abroszka 2y ago
        There is always somebody ready to respond. Of course they can't take full control, that would be stupid dangerous, but they can still control the car. They even have people who go to your car to get it unstuck manually when needed.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > There is always somebody ready to respond I mean, this is true for Uber as well.
        TulliusCicero 2y ago
        They can tell the car what to do like a human navigator in the front seat, but they don't directly operate the car. Those are very different things.
    - 2y ago
- Stevvo 2y ago
  If you could rent/purchase a vehicle without a steering wheel, would you not want there to be someone available who can help out when the system runs into trouble? As long as there is no driver in the car, does it matter how it drives? Is that not just an irrelevant implementation detail that has no bearing on your passenger experience?
  - lucianbr 2y ago
    As long as it requires some humans to be available to "assist", I'm not sure anyone would sell or buy such a vehicle. Or rent in the "car rental" sense. Taxi service is what makes sense. If I own the car, and I'm sending it to do errands for me while I work or sleep, seems like the cost of someone being available to "assist" it at short notice would be prohibitive. Unless it requires assistance once a month or so.
    - dventimi 2y ago
      If you're sending it to do errands, you might consider also sending it out to take riders, as a side hustle. Do that, and you're now a taxicab service. Point being, I suspect many people don't want to own any vehicle, whatever level of automation it has (which could be none). The reason we do is that taking taxis everywhere is too expensive. If that cost can be brought down, however it's done (computer brain, cab driver, capuchin monkey, whatever), many people will be happy to forgo owning a vehicle.
      - lucianbr 2y ago
        I think you meant to reply to the person I replied to.
        dventimi 2y ago
        At this point I have no idea who's who in this thread anymore. Sorry.
- __loam 2y ago
  The waymo I took on Sunday didn't have a driver.
tomoyoirl 2y ago
I don’t look forward to taking them and choose other drivers, mostly because the price and wait time dynamics are a little funny, but I am glad I did take a ride or two. They’re much better drivers in the sense of “not interested in pushing any limits.” They navigated around a parked truck effectively, queueing and waiting their turn to go into the opposing lane behind some other cars. The perception display of surrounding people and cars was very comforting. My only moment of fear was a sudden stop because a wrong-way bicyclist had lurched out into traffic — that’d happen with any driver, unless we hit the guy. Yeah, I guess you can cone them, they’re that conservative of drivers. It’s clear that they’re not the cars for me to worry about out there on a bike / on foot / etc.
amelius 2y ago
Good LiDAR makes the problem considerably easier.
oblio 2y ago
We do appreciate your sacrifice, here in the EU.
- GardenLetter27 2y ago
  It's us in the EU who are having the sacrifice though. As we're left behind economically and technologically as a load of octogenarian bureaucrats decide to ban genetic engineering, AI, etc.
  - ratg13 2y ago
    calling protecting people's data, 'banning AI' is an interesting take
    - GardenLetter27 2y ago
      I was referring to the AI Act, not the GDPR.
- frakkingcylons 2y ago
  Congrats on your breakthroughs in writing laws.
  - oblio 2y ago
    Do you still elect presidents with a minority of the popular vote? Are corporations still people? Turns out, the right breakthroughs in writing laws are good, too. While the bad ones wreck you.
- sschueller 2y ago
  Sitting in traffic in a taxi or your own car sucks either way. Public transportation is the only sustainable solution.
toss1 2y ago
This makes me wonder why this shouldn't become the default mode of public transport — i.e., subsidized by the local govt in the same way as busses/trolleys. It seems they could actually replace the busses and provide better service with a sufficient inventory of cars. Could even provide Waymo-style vans on regular++ routes, with the "++" being ability to divert to nearby residences, especially for the mobility-impaired. Why? Why Not?

miohtama 2y ago

Does this mean the self-driving cars are finally here? Where next?

icey 2y ago
They've been in Phoenix for the past two years (generally available for the past year). They're so commonplace now, I don't think anyone really notices them.
xnx 2y ago
Austin https://waymo.com/waymo-one-austin/ https://waymo.com/waymo-one-austin/
rwmj 2y ago
London hopefully. Maybe one day soon I can get rid of my car.
- archagon 2y ago
  You can’t get rid of your car in London, one of the best public transit cities in the world...?
  - rwmj 2y ago
    I don't exactly live in central London.
- miohtama 2y ago
  It will take forever before any regulator in Europe allowes anything like this. Hopefully during our life time.

mixtureoftakes 2y ago

I haven't taken a ride in one of those yet, what does it feel like?

649nanos 2y ago
> I haven't taken a ride in one of those yet, what does it feel like? Like grandma driving. In a good way. Less jerky motion, cars don’t smell bad, less motion sickness while looking at your phone.
- skyyler 2y ago
  Ubers don't smell bad until someone shits or pukes in one. I can't imagine these will be any different...
  - xnx 2y ago
    About half the Ubers I get in have overpowering air "fresheners" (perfumes). I'll always roll down a window unless the driver has disabled it (which is one more thing not to like about Ubers).
    - skyyler 2y ago
      Without those perfumes the scent of vomit and faeces would be more present.
    - dilap 2y ago
      I hate those -- they instantly make me nauseous.
  - tayo42 2y ago
    How do you they stop you from trashing these? Or getting into one that isn't clean?
    - sbuttgereit 2y ago
      They do have cameras pointed inwards, so passengers are monitored and I'm sure the remote operators can see car condition as well.

xeromal 2y ago

What are the odds. I'm in SF this week for work and joined the waitlist last night. lol.

wing-_-nuts 2y ago

I'm always struct by how much more slowly driverless cars has been deployed than what I expected when the first won the darpa grand challenge. I guess I understand the need for caution. By the time this goes nationwide, I expect it will be pretty damned solid.

avrionov 2y ago
The need for caution is one reason, but the other reason is the huge capital expenses which are needed to deploy a fleet of cars in a major city.

ra7 2y ago

Add freeways and airport rides, both of which they are very close to doing, Waymo will become much more of a complete service and a true Uber/Lyft replacement. In a year's time, we could genuinely see them operating at scale in 6-8 major cities (SF, Phoenix, LA, Austin and new cities), especially with their new dedicated robotaxi from Zeekr. A possible hold up would be China import tariffs imposed by the US government.

deleted 2y ago
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JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> 6-8 major cities (SF, Phoenix, LA, Austin and new cities) If I had to guess, I'd say Atlanta, San Diego, Houston and Miami.
- ra7 2y ago
  They’re testing in DC and giving media rides there. So DC is a candidate too.
ajcp 2y ago
1: Airport rides are already available in Phoenix between 10PM and 6AM. 2: I have never seen a Waymo on the freeway without someone driving it (not monitored self-driving, but physically driving it). Take this with a grain of sand but it is my understanding that full self-driving on highways is still far away given the limited range of the (relatively) small sensors and the speed of travel required. That is: the sensors cannot see far enough ahead to react comfortably when going above N miles-per-hour. That might be a dated understanding of the issue though... Source: I've been riding Weymo since 2019 when it first went public beta (NDA-restricted use). Rode one last night coming home from the airport!
- Lisdexamfeta 2y ago
  Airport rides in Phoenix are always available, but apart from the hours you note, Waymo drops riders off at the 24th or 44th Street Sky Train locations.

prasoonds 2y ago

I highly recommend everyone try it out if you're in SF. It's an incredibly smooth and sure ride. The cars are really nice too (Jaguar I-Pace electric cars), clean and spacious. The first time you ride in one, it feels truly sci-fi. But within 5 minutes, you're almost bored of it - that's how good it is. If I had to choose between an Uber of questionable cleanliness and driver temperament and a Waymo with a slightly longer wait and slightly more fare, I'd choose the Waymo every time. (I have no affiliation with Waymo, Google or any related industry - it's just an amazing service!)

tapoxi 2y ago
Wouldn't the Ubers potentially be cleaner? Who's cleaning the Waymo between rides?
- sbuttgereit 2y ago
  Potentially. But, with each driver exercising quality control over their own vehicles, the actual result will likely vary from hitting as good or better a standard to being worse. The Waymo standards, thus far, are pretty high, so I would expect on average Uber/Lyft/Etc. would fair worse on average.
  - kungito 2y ago
    I have no doubt that Google is waiting for more adoption before starting to cut costs everywhere and before you know it your puked out ride will direct you to www.waymo.hr/help to find an article which resolves your issue
    - dventimi 2y ago
      Why would that be any different from Uber? Doesn't Uber also want to cut costs?
      - kungito 2y ago
        Uber has partner drivers which have their own companies, their own rating, and can be punished for their behaviour. Once a company completely vertically integrates (like Google would like), meaning they have their own cars, they no longer want to punish themselves for bad behaviour/cars. Since they have to choose between short term cost of higher maintenance fee or long term cost of loss of quality of service their managers will start to optimize for quarterly results: cutting short term costs. What they want is to first entrench the market, push out competitors, introduce complex regulation and fees which prevents new competitors into the market and then start cutting costs everywhere they can and increase prices. Since you mention Uber, I can definitely see in my city how the quality of cars decreased and they started using almost inclusively cheap immigrants who realistically couldn't pass a drivers exam in my country and have on multiple occasions driven into wrong directions/ran red lights etc.

alphadog_78 2y ago

[flagged]

kelsey98765431 2y ago

I remember almost 10 years ago, maybe 8 i first saw one of these up in the city. It was parked and the technician was outside of it with an ipad, and i happened to strike up a conversation with the gentleman. I was just curious and at first he was remarkably cagey, i was quite confused and just continued to be friendly and express hope for the projects success and for automation in general. I got the feeling that man had been accosted many times by angry locals and I may have been the first to give a word of encouragement, he was very polite after the initial tension wore away and he felt my shared enthusiasm. He must have been one of the early engineers, I had never seen or heard the name waymo but I was aware google had been competing in the level 1/2 dessert tests. The man was very friendly and i was surprised how his behavior must be a reflection of society's view towards technical automation. Seeing the videos of people kicking food delivery robots and now my own tendency to flip off elon musks tesla cameras all these years later I am starting to get why he was nervous. Cheers to the future I suppose, but hopefully the future has less cars and more walkable cities.

Turing_Machine 2y ago
In the future, when you're old and quite possibly disabled, you might rethink the whole "walkable cities" thing. I mean, it's easy to say "just walk (or ride a bike)" when you're 22 years old and in prime health, but the population in most First World countries is rapidly aging.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  A walkable city doesn't preclude driving. In fact it often improves it. If almost everybody is walking or biking or using transit that means there are few other cars and driving becomes much nicer too.
- spankalee 2y ago
  Old and handicapped people have lived before cars, and in less car-centric cities forever. Walkable cities mainly mean that things are close to you so you _can_ walk to them. Actual car-free areas, like the access-controlled dense old towns in Europe, are possible (if built-out where they don't exist), but not necessarily to be walkable.

tayo42 2y ago

How much do these cost? Is it cheaper then uber/lyft, taxis? Muni? That would be pretty crazy

elforce002 2y ago
$300,000 per car. They're burning billions trying to go mainstream.
- ra7 2y ago
  4 year old quote from their former CEO: "It costs as much as a moderately equipped S-class". That's around $150,000.
  - gary_0 2y ago
    That's what I've read, about $150-200k: https://blog.dshr.org/2023/11/robotaxi-economics.html https://blog.dshr.org/2023/11/robotaxi-economics.html
hot_gril 2y ago
Whatever it costs now, it could be cheaper later.
TulliusCicero 2y ago
They're not cheaper right now. Might be possible as they scale up. A lot of people seem to prefer them to Uber/Lyft even as it is, though.

swozey 2y ago

Do these need a significant amount of local infrastructure (parking, charging, etc) specific to Waymo that would make them moving into a new city (Austin is next) a big investment? Like will there need to be a big Waymo fleet center/office built in each city? I'm not sure if these park and someone plugs them in or what, who maintains the actual Jaguars, etc. Can't wait to never have to drive a car again.

mdorazio 2y ago
Depends on your definition of “significant”. They require at least one depot in each city where they operate. The depot handles charging, cleaning, inspection, repair, and parking during low-demand times. Each depot is different since they are generally leased buildings or lots in light industrial areas. You can search on YouTube to see them.
- swozey 2y ago
  Thanks! Found the perfect video. He talks about the depots here, there are some that are full service and some that are not. These are actually a lot bigger than I was expecting and have a bunch of staff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZ3e7mWD9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QZ3e7mWD9E

petters 2y ago

The app is not available in my region (EU). But I visit SF from time to time. What should I do?

Ambroos 2y ago
Alternative Apple ID / Google account with region set in US. Always useful to have! For Android it's much easier, I have a bunch (for every country I've lived in) set up on my phone simultaneously and I can just switch in the Play Store.

999900000999 2y ago

This is both amazing and horrifying. I'm actually confident this automation will save lives. Well of course any system can fail, Uber drivers are often distracted by 30 things, they're fiddling with the app, on personal calls, while navigating tricky traffic situations. However I predict within a decade or so we're going to get to a point where gig work is no longer feasible. It'll take a bit of trickery, but I'm sure you could have restaurants opt in to putting their own food in the backseat of these. And then as a consumer you would just get your own food from the car . So think about every delivery driver, and every Uber driver, and many other gig workers. All of these people are going to be out of work very soon. Plus tons of creatives will be replaced by AI. AI will reduce the need for junior software engineers . I don't think the modern economy is ready for this. If I had one wish, it would be to at least decouple employment from health care. As is, let's say you have a serious illness that requires you to resign or otherwise not have employment for an extended period of time. You're now stuck with a serious illness and no health care. Depending on the state unless you're a child or parent you're not qualifying for Medicare period. Has anyone figured out, who exactly gets sued when one of these Waymo's hits someone.

dventimi 2y ago
If gig work is such a good job perhaps you should consider doing it.
- 999900000999 2y ago
  A lot of people depend on those job to survive. We need some type of off-ramp if we're going to just wipe out a large section of the economy . I've worked horrible jobs before, and I needed the money to survive. Not everyone can write Ruby code and make 300k a year.
  - dventimi 2y ago
    > We need some type of off-ramp Now, we're talking. Often, there will be handwringing about low-wage jobs from people who wouldn't dream of working low-wage jobs and who benefit from the existence of low-wage jobs. Often, that will be invoked as a rebuke to automation. But, automation in general isn't a threat to workers or well-being. In fact it's productivity gain which benefits well-being by lowering costs and raising living standards. If a portion of those productivity gains aren't used to help the people they displace, that's a matter of policy not of technology.

michaelbuckbee 2y ago

For anyone else curious about the exact service area: https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/9059119?hl=en https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/9059119?hl=en

jessriedel 2y ago
To be clear: Waymo can take you to basically any address in those city limits, but it doesn't do so by taking the freeways like 101 and 280 that pass through it.
- LeoPanthera 2y ago
  I saw a Waymo on 280 the other day. Maybe it was being driven by hand, but the lidar was spinning.
  - metadat 2y ago
    It's always good to collect up to date map data. If I were the architect, I'd make sure we were always collecting.
  - TulliusCicero 2y ago
    They've announced that they've started testing fully driverless on freeways IIRC. No passengers yet though, I think.
  - jessriedel 2y ago
    Yes they’ve been testing them with drivers for a while. We were discussing the actual operating envelope of the deployed pay service.

MichaelNolan 2y ago

While it’s still a drop in the bucket compared to human driven taxis, it’s remarkable that Waymo will like reach 50 million passenger only miles this year. And will surpass 100 million passenger only miles sometime in 2025. With that much data the safety case should become very clear.

greenthrow 2y ago
Except that they have remote humans monitoring every vehicle so the whole thing is an illusion and we don't know the truth of how safe truly autonomous vehicles are (since they don't exist.)
- kajecounterhack 2y ago
  1:1 remote human monitoring would not scale from a unit economics perspective, and even if they did that, the remote operators can't drive the car, only offer small feedbacks. So the car is really driving itself. The safety story is an interesting one. Companies like Cruise and Waymo are not forthcoming with their incident data. They share infrequently and through spreadsheets that do not capture every incident. It's pretty ass, and I'd be wary of trusting their self-reported data. I imagine their insurance companies have slightly better data than the gov't, but even then maybe not.
  - jessriedel 2y ago
    Spreadsheets are the best and most open way to share data because it lets other people analyze it. But they put out plenty of their own research if you want to read that. I'm really not sure what you mean by "infrequently". They release new raw data every 3 or 6 months or something, and every single accident is trumpeted in the news. What other industry has more publicly accessible safety data?
    - kajecounterhack 2y ago
      Every software release is a totally new driver. If they release software at a cadence of say, 6 or 8 weeks, would you feel comfortable riding? You don't know how safe the car was during that time -- any part of the driver can regress. You're basically trusting that they know how to do simulation, that they bore the cost of running that simulation, and that their simulator is realistic enough to yield trustworthy statistics. Sadly, our regulatory agencies are currently set up for very delayed decisionmaking. Since every company can release software at any time, you could imagine a regulatory platform that tracks software releases and their corresponding safety statistics in real time.

hypeatei 2y ago

I can't imagine this turning out well if there is any social media movement around these cars. It's reminding me of that one robot travelling across the country which ended up getting destroyed by some people.

jebby 2y ago
It will turn out well once the newness and novelty of messing with them wears off eventually.
jessriedel 2y ago
They have been slowly expanding service in SF for several years. Tens of thousands of people have taken a ride. Actually, they give more than 10k rides a week, so probably over a hundred thousand people. Scaling up to the whole city (pop: 800k) is not that big of a jump.
yunwal 2y ago
People already have gone around putting traffic cones over the car sensors. https://www.npr.org/2023/08/28/1196487085/anonymous-protestors-immobilize-driverless-cars-using-traffic-cones#:~:text=Its%20newest%20target%20has%20been,sensors%20and%20shuts%20it%20down https://www.npr.org/2023/08/28/1196487085/anonymous-protesto....
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Just as a comparison, the people who did that also do highway protests. There's a video if you'll scroll down a little https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/08/activists-block-san-francisco-freeway-ramp-traffic/ https://sfstandard.com/2023/06/08/activists-block-san-franci...
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    I don't agree with this, but gotta hand it to them, the WWE thing is funny and well-done.
TulliusCicero 2y ago

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Is much known about the science behind Waymo? I am impressed that the cars can operate autonomously in real life when I see them around me. At the same time, they have an enormous number of sensors like multiple spinning LIDARs (?). I also read that they have to map everything ahead of time to be able to operate in an area. That seems a bit like cheating to me. It may work and may even be valuable to customers, but it doesn’t seem like as big a breakthrough as achieving autonomy with the same sensors as humans.

greenthrow 2y ago
Nobody knows the details, e.g. how many humans are monitoring per car. It came out at one point that Cruise was using >1 human per car. What is Waymo doing? We dunno, we just keep seeing these absurd puff pieces.
Heliosmaster 2y ago
But...they are a company, their goal isn't to make breakthroughs. Their goal is (eventually?) to make a profit. They'll simply use the technology and breakthroughs that allow them to get there faster. That's not cheating.. that's business
TulliusCicero 2y ago
> it doesn’t seem like as big a breakthrough as achieving autonomy with the same sensors as humans. As far as I know, nobody is currently attempting to do that. Even Tesla has way more cameras on their cars than you have eyeballs, covering far more angles than your head can. There is that one org that does L2 automation with just a phone IIRC, but I don't think they're trying for full autonomy. Realistically, it's hard for the car to be as smart as the human mental model while driving, and so having vastly superior sensors helps compensate for that.

aresant 2y ago

Genuine question -> - Elon (and his pro-analysts) heavily weight the future of the co's valuation on their ability to deploy a taxi network and has been promising it just around corner for years - Alphabet via Waymo seems to have "solved" robotaxis for city-proximity driving and has deployed as a business. Beyond the obvious "reality distortion field" argument is Tesla actually in a position to win here due to their manufacturing capability / current deployment of Tesla's? Disclaimer - I am an Alphabet & Tesla shareholder

greenthrow 2y ago
1) Waymo has not "solved" robotaxis as a business. They are not profitable and the vehicles are not truly autonomous (the humans monitoring the vehicles are merely remote. We don't know how many humans are needed per vehicle.) 2) Tesla has zero even remotely monitored, let alone autonomous, miles driven. So no, there is no reason to believe Tesla is close to true robotaxis.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  Really, you can't repeat this point enough. Tesla has zero experience in autonomous operation. Their vehicle has not ever driven itself any distance, under any circumstances. There is no reason to believe their software is on the cusp of a sudden improvement. They simply release new major version numbers that have different sets of flaws.
- shkkmo 2y ago
  You are correct, Waymo has not solved the economics of robotaxis yet. However Waymo does have a huge head start on the solution. Waymo has been able to manage their scale growth to manage the cost of finding these solutions. It seems like a competitor that hasn't had that will have to pay a lot more to catch up.
zooq_ai 2y ago
as a Alphabet and Tesla shareholder, this is what is important. The rate of innovation at Tesla > Waymo The cost of building Tesla FSD = 1/100 * cost of building Waymo FSD The cost of delivering Tesla FSD = 1/10 * cost of delivering Waymo FSD Tesla has economies of scale. Waymo has all the details figured out. Waymo can never get to the scale of Tesla (it can never buy 5 Million FSD cars, while Tesla is delivering them every 2 years) Mathematically, Tesla has an upper hand over Waymo and it'll play out as that. Larry, Sergei are extremely poor capital allocators. Musk is brilliant (despite him being a narcisstic a*hole). Larry/Sergei left Waymo at a limbo state because they don't think in terms of economics, just coolness. Waymo is successful enough to not kill it, but also not a cash-flow positive to scale it up Edit : Tch, Tch expected HN anti-Musk hate showing up in downvotes.

jonny_eh 2y ago

Can they drive over steam yet? https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1dm3cqf/selfdriver_stopped_by_steam_how_do_they_handle/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/1dm3cqf/se...

LeoPanthera 2y ago
Is it stopped for the steam? Or for the person holding the camera directly in front of it?
- dymk 2y ago
  > “When I first saw it before filming, it was all alone, no peds, no other moving traffic. So, I don’t think it was yielding for any of the peds, just stopped for the steam.”

amelius 2y ago

They solved the wrong problem. I still have to sit in a car for 30 minutes after work. If instead they made a robotic chef cook, that would actually save me 30 minutes every day.

skulk 2y ago
Best we can do is include a small kitchen in the back seat of the waymo so you can cook while you would have been driving.
mrastro 2y ago
Just work in your car using a mobile hotspot and leave work 30 mins earlier. Works for any white collar job assuming you have a reasonable employer.
- crossroadsguy 2y ago
  Then why go to office in the first place? :P
  - yazaddaruvala 2y ago
    Because, employers are mandating a certain amount of office time. Silly and sad, but real :(
TrueSlacker0 2y ago
Giant chain hamburgers coming to a waymo near you. Available in all rides longer than 7 minutes.

lopkeny12ko 2y ago

You can definitely feel the fear from Tesla's competition recently, just ahead of Tesla's robotaxi unveil on 8/8 :) * Uber CEO dumps $70 million of shares this week * Google tries to steal the Tesla's media thunder by opening Waymo to everyone * GM brings in new leadership to revitalize Cruise * Rivian gets a huge cash injection

georgeecollins 2y ago
Fear of what? I am not disagreeing with you, I just don't know what is happening at Tesla that you are referring to.
- lopkeny12ko 2y ago
  "Tesla Robotaxi unveil on 8/8" https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1776351450542768368 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1776351450542768368
  - georgeecollins 2y ago
    Thank you. I didn't know about that. That's a little vague, is there any more information? Like is this a special model of Tesla or a technology or software package for an existing model? Just wondering because I bet there are people here who have insight.
ra7 2y ago
Seems like a massive stretch to insert Tesla into the conversation. Waymo has been building up to this for years in San Francisco. Cruise has been looking for a new CEO for many months. Rivian has been in well known financial trouble. I don’t think anyone’s worried about a Tesla robotaxi. It’s another vaporware in their long list of vaporwares. Going by their FSD track record, that thing won’t exist for a number of years.
zamadatix 2y ago
"Rivian gets a huge cash injection" seems more like it belongs in the opposite list.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

webwielder2 2y ago

Does Uber regret shutting down its autonomous efforts? The problem has emerged as a tractable one. Or were they just too far behind and the capital expenditures too high to even remotely consider continuing? Does Uber exist in ten years?

bragr 2y ago

Couple of anecdotal data points from a new rider. Here's the first time rider spiel they give you [1]. Overall experience is pretty polished. It's handled some tricky situations with confidence like this left hand turn from a two way stop on the inside of a blind curve [2]. Then other times it drives like the most cautious newbie driver. Maybe it didn't like me being so closed to the road, but this time it awkwardly failed to pull close enough on pickup [3]. Definitely got some stink eye from drivers trying to squeeze by. [1] https://photos.app.goo.gl/apNmS7JNbQ4Cau8dA https://photos.app.goo.gl/apNmS7JNbQ4Cau8dA [2] https://photos.app.goo.gl/JdUYkTYkJJZYmUt99 https://photos.app.goo.gl/JdUYkTYkJJZYmUt99 [3] https://photos.app.goo.gl/USvznpWqRrY3fnqL9 https://photos.app.goo.gl/USvznpWqRrY3fnqL9

standardUser 2y ago

The big hope to me is the idea of cheap, cheap rides due to the lack of labor expenses, tipping and eventually gas. I don't see how that happens if there isn't competition, but I don't see how it doesn't happen if there are competing companies that can offer a similar service.

fragmede 2y ago
They've invested untold billions into getting this to work and now they need to recoup their investment. They'll get "cheap" eventually, but don't hold your breath.
- standardUser 2y ago
  All it takes is one competitor in a hot space to get companies offering venture-subsidized prices, like we've seen when rideshare and delivery companies. And though the upfront investment may be huge, the price per trip can end up close to zero, unlike rideshares and delivery which have a much higher floor. Not that there's any competitor that seems even close to Waymo.

hackernoteng 2y ago

I dont get why anyone cheers shit like this. It just takes jobs away from more people. You will just get more homeless and drug addicted people. And more rich techies. And it will make no difference to the rider - they get where they need to be either way. It's just another bit wealth transfer from poor to rich. Yet this is cheered.

kick_in_the_dor 2y ago
I love coming to HackerNews to see exactly this type of salt. "Guys it's the future! Self-driving cars actually exist!" "Fuck you, here's why this is awful"
shawabawa3 2y ago
I agree, we should go back to have women and children working 14 hours a day at the loom spinning cloth, I can't believe we automated away those jobs
- thrance 2y ago
  Your clothes are still mainly made by women and children, working 14 hours a day. They just don't live in the US anymore...
machiaweliczny 2y ago
Before Uber taxis were basically unaffordable for me. You had to call them and wait in queue till somebody send you one. Check if they aren't cheating etc. I think now much more people are using them due to convenience. Robotaxis can possibly expand market similar how Uber have done it.
rangestransform 2y ago
> rich techies nice, i love the creation of robotics jobs

foxylad 2y ago

How long before you have to stop and spend 5 minutes in a store on your route? Google is an advertising business, and can now literally drive traffic to your store.

zamadatix 2y ago
The cost of the extra drive time would seem counter to that kind of thing vs just serving more drives. It takes next to nothing to e.g. show a business with more emphasis on Google Maps so cheap ads for emphasizing your business are palatable for customers to buy and Google to serve. I'd expect something more like that (recommended destinations, recommended side stops) where the showing the option and getting a decline has basically no impact to the operation but you still have a chance to get the bite anyways.

ingend88 2y ago

This is so so huge and one where a tech ten years ago had an incredible interest and since then the companies started folding and only waymo survived. That's vision..10x

00_hum 2y ago

i drove for uber around 7 years ago. it was the first time that i experienced first-hand a mass delusion. more on that later though. at the time i had just read the first samples of GTP output from openai and i immediately understood that we were probably going to experience an explosion of AI progress. and it weighed on me because i was afraid that the economic disruption caused by the resulting automation would ruin my life. i remember sitting in my car thinking that its completely pointless because they are just going to automate ubers… so today is a funny day for me because this really is the death of human uber drivers in SF, even if generative AI isnt at play here. that day has come where people who need a job to tide them over for a few years wont be able to drive ubers. one less option. driving an uber costs about 20 cents per mile accounting for everything including gas, maintenance, replacement, insurance. including tips you are often paid around a dollar per mile. its just dead simple math. the idea that ubers lose money is a mass delusion fueled by outrage culture, echo chambers and the media. i made tons of money doing it. im screaming into the void and it wont change anyones mind

vasilipupkin 2y ago
What’s the definition of tons of money in this context ?

greekanalyst 2y ago

Let the robotaxi wars begin!

EcommerceFlow 2y ago

Comments are really underestimating Tesla FSD in here. As an owner and user of FSD, it's scary how quickly their new Neural Net version is improving. There's a reason Elon and other internal Tesla engineers are so bullish on it, they've seen the data on 12.5 and beyond. Once their 100,000 GPU cluster is complete this year, how many iterations until FSD is comparable to Waymo? One year? Maybe 3 years? The reason Waymo should be worried is because once FSD hits that "crossing", a flick of a switch at Tesla and 3-8 million robo taxis could hit the market all at once. For comparison, Waymo has around 1,000 cars. It's cool what Waymo's doing, but as an actual FSD user it's plainly obvious "vision only" will work, which does not bode well for all the other car companies + waymo.

flippyhead 2y ago
Not to mention that Tesla's hardware costs are considerably less -- they're doing it with "just" a few cameras.
- ra7 2y ago
  Except they are not "doing it" as long as it requires driver supervision. They are doing something that's few levels below Waymo. Removing the driver is the whole problem domain, which Waymo has done years ago. There's a reason Tesla hasn't been able to remove the driver (or even let them take their eyes off). It's because the car has "just" a few cameras.
bryant 2y ago
Is it gonna be good enough for Tesla to own and insure-for liability?
claaams 2y ago
With Elon, these types of massive changes are always just a year or two away and somehow never come or are not delivered as promised. They're bullish because it makes the stock price go up.
anonymousab 2y ago
> a flick of a switch at Tesla and 3-8 million robo taxis could hit the market all at once Assuming this is a feature that car owners (and presumably, states/provinces/countries) have to opt into, what does the insurance and liabilities look like for this? I can't believe that Tesla wouldn't shove all of it onto the end car owner, even if (or rather, when) they take a sizeable cut.

timcavel 2y ago

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