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Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo
- KennyBlanken 2y ago[flagged]
- numpad0 2y agoThat explains a black Audi sedan and Toyota? SUV I've seen. I thought it didn't like an Autoware setup, and also that an euro car is an odd choice as they tend to be harder to rig for an SDC.
- matthewfelgate 2y agoThis gives me hope WayMo might come to the UK after Japan.
- travisporter 2y agoIs anyone working on autonomous busses or vans for public transport?
- AlotOfReading 2y agoYes, beep is probably the most well known of them, having two test locations in Contra Costa county you can ride if you're in the bay area. They're much less sophisticated than Waymo vehicles though, and the unit economics are much less favorable.
- cbdhsjshs 2y agoI'll be a self-driving believer when Waymo brings autonomous vehicles to New Delhi. edit - This wasn't ment as disparaging, but perhaps it came across that way. The traffic situation in New Delhi is NUTS. I wouldn't trust myself to drive there, a local driver is a requirement and not a convenience. Crossing major streets as a pedestrian is hard enough, they key is to make eye contact with the driver about to run you over and exchange your intentions through microexpressions. Repeat that 30 times until you reach the other side of the road. Viewing a major intersection from above is like viewing two schools of fish seemlessly swiming through each other. And some of those fish are animal-drawn carts. I'm in awe of the traffic situation on the subcontinent (as well as many other Indian things - like the word prepone!).
- EternalFury 2y agoThat’s such a show of confidence! It’s an entirely different driving world over there. Particularly in terms of what is expected outside of what is mandated. Looking forward to trying it.
- trhaynes 2y agoCan you elaborate on what is expected outside of being mandated?
- refactor_master 2y agoIn my experience the cars are highly regulated and very predictable on the main roads. Marked out lanes, low speed limits, many red lights. But pedestrians and bikes are everywhere, and they don't always obey the rules. I wonder how well collision detection handles sharing lanes with bikes without suddenly braking in the middle of the road.
- Flux159 2y agoI was in a Waymo last week in San Francisco that had a bicyclist cut in front of us, no hard breaking or jerk just a gradual decrease in speed. I would've hit the break relatively fast myself but Waymo handled it without issue in a very smooth way. Also see https://x.com/dmitri_dolgov/status/1868778679868047545 https://x.com/dmitri_dolgov/status/1868778679868047545 I don't know how it'll handle significantly more pedestrians, but I assume that they're confident enough in the models and have run enough simulations to expand to Tokyo.
- throwaway0729 2y agoI bike in SF regularly and I actually cut in front of Waymos intentionally since I know they will slow down gracefully vs regular drivers who might not see me for a number of reasons or trigger road rage. Several months ago a Waymo would over correct but now they're so good at anticipating where I'm heading.
- 2y ago
- dgrin91 2y agoNot a full rollout, just initial test drives. Still a big step. Good to see Waymo scaling up over time.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- theultdev 2y agoYeah that should be wonderful for the traffic over there...
- thatswrong0 2y agoLuckily public transit is amazing there.
- theultdev 2y agoYes it does. And there's still a lot of traffic. The two aren't mutually exclusive. The public transportation is not relevant for the discussion of personal vehicle transportation though.
- throwaway2037 2y agoAre you implying that Tokyo already has a lot of car/truck traffic? (It does not.) Or implying that Waymo meaningfully increases traffic? (I doubt it.)
- theultdev 2y agoAre you kidding me? I lived there for 5 years. Tokyo has an immense amount of traffic. And yes Waymo increases traffic. People in SF were putting cones on them to disable them because of it, there's tons of videos of them causing traffic jams. They are famously overly cautious and often stop and do strange maneuvers. Recently one held up Kamala Harris' motor brigade for quite a while until a cop moved it.
- tkgally 2y agoThis will be interesting. As an aging nondriver living in Yokohama, I’ve been both hoping that self-driving cars become available here before I develop mobility issues and wondering how feasible they will be. Since I don’t drive, I don’t have a sense of what the roads here are like from the vehicle’s perspective. But many of the streets, including in the neighborhood where I live [1], are narrow, have no sidewalks, and are shared by cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Very different from, say, Phoenix. [1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/CVDYknAXeeA6u4DP8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/CVDYknAXeeA6u4DP8
- aitchnyu 2y agoI admire Japanese taxis for mounting mirrors on the bonnet so they dont stick out. I'm Indian and I'm glad I had a choice of 170ish cm wide Japanese sedans meant for Asia and hate the new 180ish cars. The Jaguar is 213 cm wide.
- k99x55 2y agoDon't fall on the trap of self-driving cars will make our lives better. They won't. Building cities for people first is what will improve our lives. Watch: How Self-Driving Cars will Destroy Cities (and what to do about it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=040ejWnFkj0
- tkgally 2y agoThe city where I live—Yokohama—is very different in layout and density from the U.S. cities shown in that video. My neighborhood consists of many small plots of land, each with a different owner, separated by narrow streets. Unless it all gets wiped out by a tsunami, it’s never going to be rebuilt or have its layout changed—the landowners, many of whom live on their plots of land, would not stand for it. My house is on the side of a steep hill. If in a few years—I am now 67–I become unable to walk up that hill, the only way I will be able to go anywhere is by calling a taxi. (No one in my family here knows how to drive.) Because of demographic trends, there is a shortage of human taxi drivers now and that shortage is likely to get worse. If I do become significantly less mobile five or ten years from now, I will be able to keep living in my home only if self-driving taxis are available. So for me, in that very likely scenario, self-driving cars would make my life better. In Japan, there are millions of people in similar situations to mine.
- rester324 2y agoI guess the biggest challenge is gonna be not to get stuck in those narrow alleys that they call streets in Japan. Some of them can hardly take a kei car, let alone a sedan I can already see in my imagination all the jijis swearing when they see those cars stuck :)
- KennyBlanken 2y agoThey can barely change lanes: https://youtu.be/spw176TZ7-8?t=88 https://youtu.be/spw176TZ7-8?t=88 ...and are completely flummoxed by a couple of traffic cones closing off a lane: https://youtu.be/fMFzs0NZ_Mc?t=56 https://youtu.be/fMFzs0NZ_Mc?t=56
- minwcnt5 2y agoThese videos are from three and six years ago, lol.
- keerthiko 2y agoThe average motorcar still operating in japan is approximately 2/3rd the mass, and presumably volume, of the average personal vehicle in america. They also don't allow street parking on those "alleys". Effectively they can be between 1/6th (2-lane) and 2/9th (1-lane) the width of a typical one-way american street and still have room for pedestrians along the side.
- opdahl 2y agoGoing to be very interesting to see how the Japanese people react to this. The service the taxi drivers provide when you take the taxi in Japan is on another level, such as waiting for you with the open door and closing the door for you as you enter. A driverless car will never be able to copy that. Japan also has very good public transportation reducing the need for a car for day to day travel so cost might be less of a factor.
- xarope 2y agoalso, wearing white gloves, and actually helping you with luggage
- RavlaAlvar 2y agoIt is unbelievably expensive though, a 40 minute ride from Osaka city to KIX airport could cost you 30k yen.
- Aeolun 2y agoI did a hours ride from my home to the airport for 10k. How do you get to 30k?
- fldskfjdslkfj 2y agoJapan loves its robots, i'm expecting they'll love these robots.
- sedatk 2y agoEh, spent two weeks in Japan in mainly Tokyo and Kyoto a couple weeks ago, and I can safely say that the quality of taxi service varies a lot. Fantastic ride from and to the airport with the driver handling all our luggages. But, taxi drivers who didn't speak English and who couldn't read romanized addresses were common. It was a problem because Google Maps defaulted to romanized addresses on our phones due to our phone language being English. A taxi we called up using Uber (Uber can only call taxis in Japan) even delayed cancelling our ride passive-aggressively long enough that we missed other rides and lost a lot of time. My friends had even met with a rude taxi driver (I know impossible, in Japan, right?) that refused to take them to a place that he deemed too close in Kyoto. We also had numerous great experiences with taxis too: accomodating our stops, having lovely conversations, giving out touristic information and they tried really hard to go accross the language barrier. Great people overall. But, having said that, as a tourist, I'd take a Waymo any day over a taxi in Japan just because I think it would be less friction for me.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Animats 2y agoMakes sense. High-tech country, robot-friendly, declining young population.
- leonheld 2y agoIndividual autonomous cars will solve all transportation issues. What's that? Trains? Trams? Efficient urban fabric? Things that Tokyo, gasp, already has? Bull. /s.
- xbmcuser 2y agoIn my opinion Individual autonomous vehicles will solve most transportation issues not Individual autonomous cars. Currently to transport 60-70 kg person we are moving 2 mton machines ie cars. And those 2 mton machines are in use for just 30-60 min a day.
- signatoremo 2y agoThere are about 50,000 taxis in Tokyo. What are they doing there?
- bamboozled 2y agoI don't know but Tokyo doesn't need more cars on the road, that's for sure.
- theultdev 2y agoTrains close at midnight. Taxis are mainly used after then and for more affluent people or people in emergencies / special occasions.
- philip1209 2y agoCurious whether they will open doors automatically. It's a faux pas to try opening a taxi door yourself in Japan.
- brandall10 2y agoAs someone mentioned in a comment up the chain, it's for liability reasons - if a passenger damages something with the door, the driver is on the hook. Seeing how an autonomous vehicle is similarly liable for its impact on the environment it stands to reason this can and will be easily dealt with.
- shidoYagi 2y agoI wonder how much this service costs. If it is as expensive as taxi services in Tokyo, it could fail. While I don’t think it’s possible for the cost to match that of a train, if this service materializes successfully, it could become the most disruptive innovation in Japan. How about California or Phoenix?
- Aeolun 2y ago> If it is as expensive as taxi services in Tokyo, it could fail. You mean cheap? How are taxi services in Tokyo expensive?
- klausa 2y agoI think the killer feature for this will be if it's readily available at night, for reasonable prices. I love living here, but the "do we go home or stay out all night?" decision at ~23:30 when out sucks. If I could get across town for ~3000 JPY at 2AM without having to wait 50 minutes for a cab around Shinjuku, I'd be ecstatic.
- ryan_lane 2y agoTaxis are readily available, but the price after hours is why people don't take them. I doubt waymo will be able to bypass taxi pricing.
- kalleboo 2y agoAt least where I live in Japan (not Tokyo), a huge portion of taxi drivers quit over COVID, and it can be impossible to get a taxi during many times of the day. This wasn't a problem at all 5 years ago.
- klausa 2y agoMy experience trying to get home from around 二丁目 says otherwise re/ availability, but I'll admit I might have given up too quickly.
- sushid 2y ago
- KennyBlanken 2y ago[flagged]
- _ea1k 2y ago> Let that sink in: people were so angry at their property, health, and safety put at risk as unconsenting "beta testers" that they set fire to one of the cars. Maybe the sort of person that would take that action isn't a credible actor.
- sushid 2y agoNot to mention it was some idiot who threw firecrackers in a Waymo. I don't think this person made a super calculated decision.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoNothing about autonomous vehicles has ever prevented municipalities from improving public transit and in all likelihood, never will. They're two entirely separate pots of money by two entirely separate sets of organizations. American transit sucks. It's sucked for decades. It's going to continue sucking as long as we keep playing this stupid game of "let's discuss maybe eventually building something in 50 years" that happens in every metro area. In the meantime, I'll keep commuting by public transit to my job developing autonomous vehicles.
- Foreignborn 2y agoActually all traffic modalities are tied together by relative or induced demand. Making one method easier induces demand for it. So perhaps not the same pot of money, but impacts it all the same.
- HPsquared 2y agoIt could even be counterintuitive. If people use autonomous taxis and sell their car, they might use buses etc more. Unlikely but eh, it's possible.