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Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

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Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#101

Post by [deleted] »

eggpy wrote: post #82
Fricken wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cars are a familiar sight in Phoenix, they've been testing there for a couple years now. They started up an early rider program in the spring, with real people volunteering to be guinea pigs while they refine the human UI and logistics. This isn't coming out of the blue.

I'm aware, I live in Phoenix :) I'm referring to this bit > I predict Waymo will price their service competitively, will ramp up to a large fleet, and that after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble Waymo vehicles are far less ubiquitous than either Lyft/Uber vehicles. I expect to see a growth in Waymo cars, I just mean that I don't think we will see a huge ramp up in the number of driverless Waymo vehicles so…

[deleted]

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#102

Post by michaelt »

sliverstorm wrote: post #78
edshiro wrote: post #68

If Waymo's tech is years ahead of the competition (say 18-24 months ahead minimum) then I think a lot of the self-driving companies and car manufacturers in the US will be having cold sweats. This may not be a winner-take-all market (I don't know honestly...) but I see this lead up enabling Waymo to capture significant market share in the US in regions where laws towards autonomous vehicles are friendly. One way the…

Do we have a good signal that truly indicates Waymo has more advanced tech? Or could they simply have a bigger appetite for risk?

We know Waymo started well before most other players in this space.

We know they hired a bunch of people from teams that did well in the DARPA Grand Challenge - such as Sebastian Thrun.

We know that Google Maps has some of the best map data on the market, including high-resolution images of a great many streets; and that ReCAPCHA regularly asks people to identify cars and street signs - which they do free of charge.

And finally, there are autonomous vehicle accident reports [1] which tell us they've driven a great many miles with very few manual interventions; and that their competitors are either doing orders of magnitude less driving or are doing so badly they won't even release their figures.

Of course, there's no reason this should be a winner-take-all market.

[1] https://www.wired.com/2017/02/california-dmv-autonomous-car-...

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#103

Post by scarmig »

sliverstorm wrote: post #78
edshiro wrote: post #68

If Waymo's tech is years ahead of the competition (say 18-24 months ahead minimum) then I think a lot of the self-driving companies and car manufacturers in the US will be having cold sweats. This may not be a winner-take-all market (I don't know honestly...) but I see this lead up enabling Waymo to capture significant market share in the US in regions where laws towards autonomous vehicles are friendly. One way the…

Do we have a good signal that truly indicates Waymo has more advanced tech? Or could they simply have a bigger appetite for risk?

Just as a contrary response to everyone else pointing to Waymo's (real) historical tendency to be very risk-averse...

Waymo has been feeling a lot of pressure from Uber and other companies, who have developed their autonomous car programs faster than Waymo did, even if Waymo is still momentarily ahead. Waymo's legal attempt to sidetrack Uber's program seems to have failed. So Waymo's executive may be at the point where Alphabet is asking them, "we've poured literally billions of dollars into you: when are you going to produce something beyond good marketing?"

FWIW, I think Waymo is still significantly more risk-averse than Uber and ahead of it technically, but you can't project its historical hyper-caution into the present or future indefinitely.

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#104

Post by stephengillie »

Fricken wrote: post #40
hardtke wrote: post #26

What happens if these cars get in a situation where there is no legal way to move? For instance, the other day I was driving down the street and it was closed because of a Farmers market. Will they just sit there for hours? In gridlock, there is often no way to move without "blocking the box."

Waymo and Cruise automation are building out call centres, where remote human monitors will be available to help out the vehicles when they get hung-up. The monitors won't be able to make safety-critical interventions, but they'll be able to give the cars and passengers instructions, kind of like a backseat driver, I guess. So if there's an accident scene, for example, the human monitor will judge whether to stop and…

Ah, the cat is out of the proverbial bag! These cars are not really "self-driving" at all! They are merely remote-control cars with adaptive cruise and lane assist.

So it's somewhere between a Lyft and remote surgery. What happens if the car loses internet?

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#105

Post by Ajedi32 »

samstave wrote: post #97
kllrnohj wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So now we have driverless cars effectively classified as emergency ambulances That's quite a huge leap you made there. Care to back up and explain how a drunk person calling an uber magically turns the uber into an emergency ambulance?

They manage to climb in, they OD/go into arrest, cant climb out. What then? So the uber now has to either get a person or take that car to a hospital - how do they know to do such? So is uber running a massive call center that watches every driverless ride and monitors the situation? Are they monitoring if people get into a fight in the car? That actually happened to me, where I took an uber pool, and the two other r…

> So the uber now has to either get a person or take that car to a hospital - how do they know to do such?

It does? Why? What if the person passed out in their own, manually driven car? Would you expect that car to automatically call an ambulance?

Just because you theoretically could have some kind of elaborate system that detects when the user falls unconscious and carries them to the hospital, doesn't mean that's _required_.

> Are they monitoring if people get into a fight in the car?

No. Why would they be? What makes you think that's necessary?

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#106

Post by notahacker »

foolfoolz wrote: post #92
bluetwo wrote: post #77

The interstate highway system is an enormous and expensive asset paid for by the taxpayers of the US. Shouldn't we have a conversation about the rights of citizens before allowing corporations to set a precedent that we will not be able to roll back later?

what rights are you worried about? commcerial vehicles operate on our highways all the time. corporations are also tax payers in the US

If the driver of a commercial road vehicle makes a mistake which causes a serious accident or behaves in a way deemed reckless or inattentive, they can go to jail. Similarly, I was under the impression that the humans who took over Waymo vehicles according to very conservative engagement protocols (and according to Waymo's calculations prevented several accidents) had responsibility for the road vehicle

Who goes to jail if Waymo vehicles behave in a similar manner?

Assuming the answer is "nobody", how did this get greenlighted with so little discussion?

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#107

Post by sharemywin »

samstave wrote: post #93
Johnny555 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now, in addition to everything, there will come a day when a person is stranded some-place as the driverless car couldnt exactly find them Ahh, if you think this is a new problem, you're too young to remember the fun of calling a cab by pay phone to some obscure address, then alternating between going inside and calling the dispatcher and then running out to the street to try to flag down the cab. At least with a…

im 42, so no not too young - and I appreciate your point. I feel that people are latching onto their opinions about driverless car tech and not talking about the wider implications. That is the point, I am poorly, making, apparently.... I just think that not all the questions have been asked about what it means to be a "driverless car" and that we need to run through all the risks -- and thats the one thing I find re…

did you not read the terms of service when you opened the car door? they are not responsible.

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#108

Post by jacquesm »

aroman wrote: post #35
jpm_sd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can read street signs, even hand-held STOP signs in the hands of construction workers. And the cars are continuously mapping their surroundings. But they ALSO use a shared, extremely high quality map database for first-level path planning. edit: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/insid...

And it can even see and understand the hand gestures (e.g. turn signs) of cyclists.

It's the cyclists that don't do hand gestures that are the problem. Which is - where I live - the vast majority of them.

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#109

Post by organsnyder »

I own the same model of vehicle as Waymo is using (2017 Pacifica PHEV). It's cool to see how little they've had to visibly modify the car (apart from the sensors)—the interior looks 100% stock, other than the row of buttons on the ceiling. Given the level-1 autonomous features in the vehicle (self-parking, etc.), all of the integrations are probably done over CAN-bus, with no additional hardware required (again, apart from the sensors and the computing power).

Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel

#110

Post by kllrnohj »

rayiner wrote: post #67
joshuamorton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After one or two get backed up, they alert the others that traffic is stopped and to go another way? In general the answer to all of these whacky what ifs is "whatever a human driver, or group would do, but with more efficient communication".

These aren't "wacky what ifs." I don't know what things are like in the Valley, but here on the east coast something unexpected changes my commuting route a couple of times a month (multiply that by tens of thousands of drivers). "Do whatever the human would do, but more efficient" isn't an answer. These cars can't get on WTOP the day before and listen to the warning that the Pope is visiting and X, Y, Z streets will…

> "Do whatever the human would do, but more efficient" isn't an answer. These cars can't get on WTOP the day before and listen to the warning that the Pope is visiting and X, Y, Z streets will be blocked off.

Well yes, they can. Planned closures like that are the easiest ones to handle. They are planned and broadcasted. They can simultaneously listen and account for all planned & broadcasted road closures. That's easy.

The harder ones are going to be things like after a storm with a bunch of trees knocked down and random obstructions all over the place.

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