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Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment
- circles_for-day 1y agoThis is what I needed to avoid buying a Tesla
- m463 1y agoI just need buttons.
- candiddevmike 1y agoEverything's computer not good enough?
- riskassessment 1y agoWould some dials be too much to ask for as well?
- m463 1y agoNext you're going to ask for stalks.
- londons_explore 1y agoWaymo has also partnered with a lot of the rest of the auto industry with little to show for it... I wonder if this time it'll be different now it looks like Tesla might finally get self driving to the mass market.
- rapind 1y ago> I wonder if this time it'll be different now it looks like Tesla might finally get self driving to the mass market. Source? Not just another Elon "next year" promise though right?
- delfinom 1y agoI mean this time he may actually release it. And anyone that survived or tries to sue due to massacres committes by self driving Teslas will be sent to the death camps in El Salvador for being domestic terrorists
- kotaKat 1y ago> little to show for it Wonder if there's any breakup clauses when the manufacturers want to do autonomy with other companies outside of Waymo and this is Alphabet casting a conflict-of-influence net across the industry, almost like a desperate man calling every divorce lawyer in the tristate area to deny his wife proper justice.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoWhat other companies? Is anybody else even close to waymo?
- sorcerer-mar 1y ago> now it looks like Tesla might finally get self driving to the mass market. What year is it?!
- mynameisvlad 1y agoStardates will be a thing before FSD actually is released as originally advertised. I used to own a Model 3 with FSD, so before anyone comes in with "you simply haven't tried it", no, I have, and I stand by what I said.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoI think part of Elon's strategy is announcing <something> being around the corner in order to scare off competitors and investment into alternatives because, well, Telsa is already so far ahead. This is why Tesla's "actuals" are delivered so many years after the dates of the initial pronouncements (for those few things that have so far been delivered at all).
- qaq 1y agoIn what way Tesla is ahead of Waymo ?
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoThat is the impression those pronouncements are intending to give. My point is that it may not reflect reality; it's trying to present "we are way ahead", whether they are or not, as reality, in order to incentivise investment in their company, rather than in a competitors, whilst at the same time scaring away those thinking about attempting to compete by making the moat look wider than it is. I legitimately don't know who's ahead of who and where the state-of-the-art currently sits, but I do know that I hear far more about Tesla's vision roadmap than Waymo's or Uber's or anyone else's.
- qaq 1y agoWell I'd wager since the only company operating actual robotaxi service at the moment is Waymo they appear to be ahead
- adrr 1y agoThey been saying it’s coming next since 2017. Baby steps and fix the vision only automatic wiper controls first.
- lobochrome 1y agoA bit thin. Seems like they got the MoU done first - without solving any of the hard questions. Also - big warning that they're highlighting "wave" and Toyota Technologies in general.
- kyrra 1y agoThis is the choice quote from the article: "Toyota and Waymo aim to combine their respective strengths to develop a new autonomous vehicle platform. In parallel, the companies will explore how to leverage Waymo's autonomous technology and Toyota's vehicle expertise to enhance next-generation personally owned vehicles (POVs)."
- jes5199 1y agoToyota has been way, way behind on electrification. I suspect they’ve been Innovator’s Dilemma’d are are in a death spiral that they haven’t even noticed yet
- dekhn 1y agoToyota makes hybrids that are excellent. I don't think they want to go full EV.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoThey can pretend that hybrids are enough but many markets are going full EV regardless while Toyota only has a half baked solution.
- thehappypm 1y agoNot everyone wants an EV, especially in America. Unless EV’s can jump to 500 mile range and ubiquitous five minute charging, a lot of people are just gonna want a hybrid.
- throwaway48476 1y agoI want a range extended EV with a easily removable power pack. Unfortunately the EPA doesn't consider it an EV so no one will make one because there's no tax credit.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoMy dream is a little trailer gas generator. Give you infinite range for longer trips. Day to day, just leave it disconnected.
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoIsn’t that the BMW i3 range extender?
- convenwis 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoThe world would be a lot better off if Tesla and Uber get smoked on this. Tesla's public testing of beta quality industrial control software and Uber's attempt to lilypad jump across the backs of financially unsophisticated drivers are contemptible. I'd be very glad to see neither strategy actually work in the end.
- quickslowdown 1y agoHear hear
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoIsn't waymo already partnering with Uber on offering rideshares in different markets?
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoSure. Can you describe what leverage Uber actually has in those partnerships? That's a deal of convenience for Waymo, trading a bit of margin for some velocity. It (or similar deals) are downright existential to Uber.
- chipgap98 1y agoUber is acting as an aggregator for all types of rides. Customers have the direct relationship with Uber. Unless Waymo completely runs away with autonomous driving then I think Uber has a lot of leverage.
- throwaway48476 1y agoIt's been a few years and so far no one but waymo is offering public rides. If there are fast followers they need to launch soon.
- wbl 1y agoWaymo already has an app.
- incognitojam 1y agoYou can have autonomous driving on your Toyota today using openpilot
- mocana 1y agoSo? Big deal. Tesla is going to have FSD this year. Elon said so.
- leesec 1y agoWhen companies partner like this it's implicit that they're both heavily lacking something
- dismalaf 1y agoI mean, Waymo doesn't make cars. Not exactly shocking.
- thehappypm 1y agoSo only fully vertically integrated companies are “not lacking”?
- floxy 1y ago>"Toyota Motor Corporation (“Toyota”) and Waymo reached a preliminary agreement to explore a collaboration focused on accelerating the development and deployment of autonomous driving technologies. " The current HN title seems too definite.
- bendoy 1y agoTook me a minute to find it, but the title seems accurate to me based on the second paragraph in the blog post from Waymo. "In parallel, the companies will explore how to leverage Waymo's autonomous technology and Toyota's vehicle expertise to enhance next-generation personally owned vehicles (POVs)."
- jader201 1y agoNot really. I feel that’s still a far cry from “bring[ing] autonomous driving to personal vehicles”. “Enhance next-generation POVs” could be accomplished by bringing Toyota’s autonomous driving to the same level as Tesla’s, give where they are today. And they’re not definitively “bringing” it. They’re just exploring bringing it.
- bdangubic 1y agobringing Toyota’s autonomous driving to the same level as Tesla’s Toyota would not ever be getting into something to get to “Tesla-level” - like if they were hoping their kids end up C students ;)
- loeg 1y agoSeems close enough modulo HN character limits.
- dang 1y agoOk, we've reverted the title to that of the article now. Thanks! (Submitted title was "Waymo partners with Toyota to bring autonomous driving to personal vehicles")
- matt3210 1y agoIf I can’t sleep while it drives me to work it’s not autonomous
- caminanteblanco 1y agoThat's the kind of autonomous that'll make a difference
- UncleOxidant 1y agoI don't think we get there until we have all of the nearby vehicles on the road communicating.
- slg 1y agoI can order a Waymo from my phone right now and sleep in the backseat while it drives me across town.
- pier25 1y agoAnywhere in the world under any conditions? (rain, snow, etc) We're at least a decade away from that.
- slg 1y agoThose goalposts moved pretty fast from "sleep while it drives me to work" which I can do today to the extreme of being able to drive "Anywhere in the world under any conditions". And I see no reason to believe "all of the nearby vehicles on the road communicating" is the solution to bridging that gap.
- pier25 1y ago> "sleep while it drives me to work" People work all over the planet during all seasons, don't they?
- Retric 1y agoWant I’d want to see is a focus on level 5 autonomous driving from day 1. (Edit: Even if the system is level 4 to start with.) Yes the current coverage area is limited, but if you live in one of those cities the coverage area is easily large enough to be useful. Oddly enough I think this is one of the few times when a subscription model makes sense. The current approach has a fallback call center which can give the cars driving directions in unexpectedly situations, which could be supported by either a monthly subscription or low hourly fee. Similarly move out of the coverage area and stop paying etc.
- jareds 1y agoAs someone who's blind I've made this argument in the passed. I don't need 100% success as long as the failure mode won't injure me. Seven years ago I would have loved a car that would have driven me to and from work 95% of the time, and refused to take the other 5% if the weather forecast was bad enough that the self driving wouldn't work correctly. I'd also be fine with the car pulling over to the side of the road if it got confused and waiting for someone remote to take control and drive until it was out of the situation where autonomous driving wouldn't work. Given the fact that I now work remote and am married to someone who drives if you told me I could by a car with autonomous driving for $50000 now I don't think I'd do it. I'm interested to see just how good autonomous driving gets and if it drives down the prices of taxi services. At this point I'd rather see an autonomous taxi service offering lower rates then Uber instead of buying my own car with autonomous driving.
- achatham 1y agoI think you may mean Level 4. The difference between 4 and 5 is that 5 doesn't have any territory/environmental constraints, but you said you don't mind those.
- Retric 1y agoBy focus on I mean that should be the goal. If they require high speed cellular service then the system can’t scale to level 5 driving. Add a Starlink dish on top and the hardware could eventually scale to the entire continental US etc.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- sans_souse 1y agoEverything is terrible.
- jofzar 1y agoThis is probably the biggest car news in a long time
- mikrotikker 1y agoIt's horrifying. Many sci Fi movies have shown why self driving cars are a nightmare.
- zetazzed 1y agoOk, I appreciate that timelines in this space are long. But the opening phrase: "Toyota Motor Corporation (“Toyota”) and Waymo reached a preliminary agreement to explore a collaboration focused on accelerating the development..." reads a bit like a parody of corporate speak about a project nowhere close to happening. Did they agree to deploy? Or reach an agreement to collaborate? No, that's too strong. They will EXPLORE collaborating on ACCELERATING development.
- WorldWideWebb 1y agoThis headline brought to you by the marketing department.
- AustinDev 1y agoSay everything and nothing in less than nine words.
- pelagic_sky 1y agoFeels more like the typical battle amongst PR, Marketing and Legal.
- timewizard 1y ago"We've agreed to let the engineering staff from both companies directly exchange information in a place and form that we would not normally allow to occur. Hopefully they work out a way to glue our two stacks together."
- xmprt 1y agoDon't forget that this is also a PRELIMINARY agreement. So it's not clear what the terms even are.
- cryptoegorophy 1y agoWhat kind of development? LiDAR on every Toyota? Would be very interesting. If every car on the road was self driving we would not need a giant chunk of code to work around human behavior
- deleted 1y ago
- htrp 1y agohurry up and give me a self driving rav4!
- getnormality 1y agoI can't overstate how hopeful I am about Waymo. They are already literally 10x safer than human drivers [1] and they'd become vastly safer still if they completely replaced human drivers on the road. This would also make commuting a much more pleasant experience, which I think could greatly relieve the housing crisis in high-demand cities. Parents would have an alternative to hours of driving kids to activities. I can't think of another pipeline technology that is both this proven and this impactful. [1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/12/new-swiss-re-study-waymo https://waymo.com/blog/2024/12/new-swiss-re-study-waymo
- xyst 1y agoAnything Toyota latches themselves to eventually dies. Toyota and hybrid vehicles - very weak entry into the market Toyota and hydrogen powered vehicles - dead on arrival Toyota’s failure to electrify fleet Now they want autonomous vehicles? Wonder who backs out first? Waymo or Toyota once they realize what a joke Toyota is. Well at least they are not collaborating with Nissan.
- sidibe 1y agoBest selling company year after year. Hybrids are growing faster than EVs.
- floxy 1y agoThis source seems to show that hybrid and EV sales are pretty comparable? https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63904 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63904
- hightrix 1y ago> Toyota and hybrid vehicles - very weak entry into the market This statement doesn't seem to track with reality. The Prius was one of the first major hyrbids and it sold like hotcakes. You see them everywhere. Their current offerings include more hybrids than ever, in fact it seems a majority of their vehicles have a hyrbid option today, including the Tacoma and Tundra.
- 3vidence 1y agoIsn't the rav4 hybrid the best selling non truck in the US? The comments on this story amaze me with how inaccurate people are about Toyota hybrids.
- caycep 1y agoI think Toyota has some sort of subsidiary who's bailiwick was this sort of thing? Woven or some other name?
- diggernet 1y ago"Woven by Toyota will also join the potential collaboration as Toyota’s strategic enabler, contributing its strengths in advanced software and mobility innovation."
- ugh123 1y agoThey really need to slim down the design and obviousness of a sensor-ridden car. These vandalism issues on Waymos is not going away anytime soon
- UmGuys 1y agoI would believe Elon about the robotaxi stuff if they partnered with Waymo. This is a smart partnership.
- senordevnyc 1y agoAs someone who never wants to give Elon a cent and is 100x more interested in Waymo’s tech than Elon’s trust-me-bro FSD bullshit, this would have been devastating.
- standardUser 1y agoI know we Americans just love to own cars, what with the rapid depreciation, constant maintenance and massive storage requirements. Who could resist? But isn't the promise of self driving vehicles that we don't all need to own, maintain and operate a 4000lb machine? I know it's hard to resist dropping the $30k, $40k or even $50k and paying that monthly insurance we all love. But wouldn't it be better if we could just summon whatever vehicle we need for the hour and then get on with our lives? And more importantly, don't we all want the benefits that will come from having mostly robo-cars on the road - such as fewer accidents and injuries, less traffic, faster trips and more parking?
- brummm 1y agoThat's already possible and called taxis/uber/etc. In what way would self driving cars incentivize not owning your own car?
- standardUser 1y agoCost, accessibility, convenience, reliability, safety. You can get all of that with a human driver too, if you're rich.
- brummm 1y agoWaymo is not cheaper than Uber. I don't buy the cost argument tbh.
- standardUser 1y agoExplain how a car with a human driver will be cheaper or have price parity with a car that requires no paid human driver. The driver is the most expensive part of every ride. And that's before tip.
- ac29 1y agoA Waymo has something like $100k of sensors and other hardware on top of the cost of the vehicle. That cost will almost certainly come down, but at the moment it is cheaper to just pay a human to drive a car with $0 of AV hardware.
- bhouston 1y agoWaymo has to start moving faster, and democratizing the space by making it available to all car makers is smart, because it seems that Elon Musk is pushing Tesla to make RoboTaxis their #1 priority: https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-elon-musk-prioritize-robotaxis-over-cheaper-vehicle-2024-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-elon-musk-prioritize-r...
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 1y agoHorrible. Hopefully this will keep the Prius line going though
- prhn 1y agoThe future of (public) transportation absolutely is driverless cars. Every time I'm stuck in traffic on an LA highway with 5+ lanes and I see the horrendously inefficient use of space this future becomes clearer. Waymos are also really confidence inspiring. They drive more safely and cautiously than any Uber/Lyft driver I've ridden with. If every car on the road was synced then they could drive more closely to each other and at much faster speeds. This would optimize road space, decrease congestion, and reduce transit times. So I'm happy to see more announcements like this. I hope the Waymo driverless tech becomes ubiquitous.
- iknowstuff 1y agoI love AVs, but It would do jack shit for traffic and the horrible use of space until they become autonomous buses on dedicated bus lanes, or trains. You still gotta have spaces for pedestrians, and cars still make cities ugly and unpleasant. Even electric autonomous ones. Tire friction still makes noise and pollutes the air with microplastics. They gotta supplement mass transit for dense cities, not replace it.
- kajecounterhack 1y ago> They gotta supplement mass transit for dense cities, not replace it. Full agreement here. AVs are great for last-mile transit. > horrible use of space until they become autonomous buses on dedicated bus lanes, or trains This is where we disagree. The whole point of AV TaaS is that they can go where bus lanes and trains can't. Last mile transportation. I also wouldn't say they do "jack shit" for traffic in the sense that they reduce the need for parking, and reduce accidents which are the source of a lot of unpredictable congestion. Surely there are tradeoffs. They indirectly incentivize sprawl and taking more taxi rides overall. And I get the tire residue argument (especially since AV fleets are mostly electric with high torque generating more tire wear). But is tire noise really a fair complaint? They're just going where cars already go and tires are engineered pretty well to minimize noise...
- acdha 1y agoTire noise is still quite substantial - use the NIOSH noise meter app on your phone to compare the sound levels on a city block when an EV goes by compared to just bikes and people – and there’s a growing body of evidence that noise levels correlate with worse health and sleep for residents. EVs help, but it’s only partial. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11297122/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11297122/
- smarklefunf 1y agono thanks. I like the fact that I drive MY car. I don't want a sass service dictating where I can and can't go or how fast i can get there.
- crazygringo 1y ago> or how fast i can get there. I sure do, because it sounds like you aren't driving at safe speeds, and I'd like you to not hit me with your car please.
- gitroom 1y agobeen watching this space forever, always cracks me up how we go from overhyped PR to endless hedging - nothing feels real till someone puts their name on the liability. anyone else think real change happens only when they truly risk something?
- MarceliusK 1y agoThis feels like a pretty natural pairing. Waymo brings the software + autonomy stack, and Toyota has the scale and track record for building reliable, safe vehicles. If this actually leads to autonomous tech in personally owned cars (not just robotaxi fleets), that would be a major shift from the current trajectory
- Zigurd 1y agoTo me, it looks as if Toyota is hedging their bets. Toyota has made public statements about their view of autonomous vehicle research. Their publicly stated belief is that active safety is their focus. Things like collision avoidance, and mitigation. On the other hand, Waymo has been at it for about 15 years. The Toyota people are smart enough to know they can't catch up in full autonomy within the next two or three product generations of vehicles. For their part, Waymo is looking for more vehicle platforms.
- Oneword 1y ago[flagged]