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Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

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Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#71

Post by stordoff »

abalone wrote: post #15

> Still, Cruise says those drivers have had to take over manual control of vehicles engaged in Cruise Anywhere service only on a few occasions Not trying to pour cold water on this but.. it's all about those "few occasions". The difference between level 2 and level 4/5 autonomy is vast. Those "few occasions" would presumably be accidents without the intervention of the safety driver. A small corporate shuttle service…

> Those "few occasions" would presumably be accidents without the intervention of the safety driver.

I'm not sure that's a safe presumption. The car could have done the right thing but not been confident enough in the planned course of action. Still not great, but not a presumed accident either.

Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#72

Post by drawnwren »

JshWright wrote: post #40
drawnwren wrote: post #9

I've seen these driving around SF, they're still using the standard engineer in the driver's seat model. One almost hit me when I did the standard SF, 'drive around the person waiting to turn left in your lane' thing on 16th.

Did you have the right of way in that situation?

I think so? I don't know the law, but I do know if I'm turning left and someone else is turning left in the other lane - in sf, I need to make sure the cars behind them aren't going around them in the same lane.

Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#73

Post by dude3 »

Just an observation. There's this tricky corner in the Marina Fillmore/NorthPoint. It took the corner pretty fast and I was surprised (could have been under manual control). People cross there indiscriminately without looking and I have been caught in a few close situations in my car. A creeping system around corners blocked by cars could be helpful.

Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#74

Post by tonyedgecombe »

miheermunjal wrote: post #13

Can't believe I'm saying this... but what an acquisition for GM. Masterful potential future pivot

I wonder if it's a good idea to accelerate the progress towards a future that they may not be successful in. If all this is as disruptive as many people think then they may well be bringing forward their own demise.

Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#75

Post by JshWright »

drawnwren wrote: post #72
JshWright wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you have the right of way in that situation?

I think so? I don't know the law, but I do know if I'm turning left and someone else is turning left in the other lane - in sf, I need to make sure the cars behind them aren't going around them in the same lane.

I guess I'm not understanding the scenario. A car was stopped in your lane waiting to turn. Presumably you should wait until they have turned, or make a safe lane change to another lane to move around them?

Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#76

Post by gruturo »

guyfawkes303 wrote: post #4

This makes me so excited. I can't wait until the interiors of cars can change completely due to the safety brought by self driving cars. If all cars were self driving and communicated with each other, the risk of crash would be almost nonexistent (obviously there would still be wildlife and other issues). Given a near 0% chance of crash however, we could remove many of the annoying 'features' of a current car, like s…

Rear-facing seats are not illegal I think (obviously not allowed for the pilot, currently) - and they have been amply proved to actually be safer. They've been the standard on military planes (again, not for the pilot :-) ) for quite a few years. Once people get around the initial shock (something not to be discounted - it may kill the sales of a car) they are quite happy with them on planes.

Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#77

Post by shadykiller »

vm wrote: post #57
abalone wrote: post #15

> Still, Cruise says those drivers have had to take over manual control of vehicles engaged in Cruise Anywhere service only on a few occasions Not trying to pour cold water on this but.. it's all about those "few occasions". The difference between level 2 and level 4/5 autonomy is vast. Those "few occasions" would presumably be accidents without the intervention of the safety driver. A small corporate shuttle service…

I've seen ~10 Cruise cars around Mission Dolores and Soma in SF. 100% of the time the driver has his hands on the wheel and appears to be making the turns himself. I'm skeptical of how automated this service actually is. Maybe those are training runs or the drivers are letting the wheel guide them.

I have made the same observation in SOMA area. Not even once I saw the car being driven autonomously

Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#78

Post by Fricken »

msnanney wrote: post #60
pmichaud wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this, and I still think it'll happen in urban centers, but there are pretty big swaths of rural or just low density areas that wouldn't be well served by this, so it'd take a while (a couple decades extra maybe) to get local rideshare hubs going, and in some more remote places it maybe would never happen.

This ^ Exactly this. Now if every person in a rural area sold their car back to the manufacturer and then those cars were used to service those rural areas than there is a possibility. But cars will still be purchased because of rural areas. I live 120 miles from my job. My neighbor is a mile down from me. If I want to drive to nearest town, where a car service would most likely be located, I'm not waiting the 30 min…

If you don't drive, waiting 30 minutes for a robotaxi to show up is vastly better than having to rely on someone else to ferry you around or being stuck at home.

Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#79

Post by sdenton4 »

_up wrote: post #50
jorts wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was driving home a few months ago in the rain on Division in SF. Cars were stopped, and I immediately couldn't figure out why. When I passed the stopped vehicles I got my answer: there was seemingly a wall of water coming down from the freeway overhead and an autonomous car was stopped as it apparently didn't know how to handle the situation.

Couldn't they have something like a real Human remote driver. That can intervene, but also can oversee multiple cars.

Would need incredibly low latency for that to be safe, I think. FPS games use a pile of tricks to send minimal data over the network which wouldn't be available to an autonomous car: we don't have access to the game engine, after all...

Re: Cruise is running an autonomous ride hailing service for employees in SF

#80

Post by jorgen123 »

dude3 wrote: post #73

Just an observation. There's this tricky corner in the Marina Fillmore/NorthPoint. It took the corner pretty fast and I was surprised (could have been under manual control). People cross there indiscriminately without looking and I have been caught in a few close situations in my car. A creeping system around corners blocked by cars could be helpful.

Talking about creeping: I just saw a self-driving Chevy Bolt hold up traffic turning left from Franklin onto Lombard. It crawled through the turn like a panicked tourist. Granted that this is not a smooth turn, requiring a sharp adjustment at the end. I think this was a GM test or perhaps Lyft. The car was named "Wombat".
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