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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

#201

Post by Gargoyle »

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…

I'm mostly curious what you imagine happens now in your scenarios with owner-driven cars and taxis. It's not like they now lead to better outcomes.

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

#202

Post by carapace »

samstave wrote: post #28
samstave wrote: post #14

I do a hit and run on a driverless car, assume its on its way to pickup a passenger, so no humans involved. I hack a driverless car, again with no passengers, and make it do my bidding (hit that other [thing]) I follow driverless car back to its charging base and slash its tires? I rearend a driverless car then leave the scene? (same as option 1 I guess - but could be applied differently) A driverless car gets into i…

OK - im replying to my comment because I find all these answers to be bullshit and here is why: So what these answers say is that you "no longer have any expectation of privacy while driving out and about" -- which is a fine argument to make in a police state, are we a police state - because guess what: this is now saying that any self driving car company has the ability to license plate scan you and take your pictur…

I've thought about these issues for a long time.

TL;DR: I don't think the tech is going to stop; we are going to have ubiquitous surveillance whether we like it or not; so we have to have laws and enforcement that we can live with (as opposed to work around, as so much of our lives today function.)

I wrote up my view, and I'd be interested to know what you think:

http://firequery.blogspot.com/2013/10/total-surveillance-is-...

(Here's an anecdote: One of my favorite local cafes has a little tub of brown sugar for the coffee. They used to cover it with a piece of plastic wrap. This didn't work well at all, and there were flies. One day I came in and they had gotten a proper lid for it. I mentioned that to the owner and he started complaining about the Health Department getting on his case and making him do it. All I could think was, "God bless them. It's a shame we need them, but there it is." This guy wasn't a bad person, he just didn't give a shit about preventing disease vectors. That's why we have to have Health Departments, collect taxes and pay people to go around wiping the other fellow's ass for him. Law is a hell of a thing. As the tools we have available become god-like, we're going to have to learn how to live with it in a way that's, uh, livable.)

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

#203

Post by sidcool »

TheCoreh wrote: post #150
sidcool wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are level 4 vehicles?

> Level 0: Automated system issues warnings but has no vehicle control. > Level 1 (”hands on”): Driver and automated system shares control over the vehicle. An example would be Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) where the driver controls steering and the automated system controls speed. Using Parking Assistance, steering is automated while speed is manual. The driver must be ready to retake full control at any time. Lane…

Thanks.

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

#204

Post by blurbleblurble »

jfoster wrote: post #98
sliverstorm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If anything, Waymo's risk appetite has seemed cautious to me. How many years have they been at it? How many millions of miles have they tested on? Every company that has something good in this race (Waymo, Tesla, Mercedes, etc.) seems to want to show it off. It seems pretty definite that Waymo is in the lead.

I hope the "race" your referring to doesn't include any "race conditions" D*8

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

#205

Post by sirclueless »

ElijahLynn wrote: post #190
peoplewindow wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would self-ownership ever be the goal though? I can see people just moving en-masse to Lyft/Uber type services that use a mix of people and machines, with people eventually being phased out, and simply giving up their own cars (except for those who genuinely enjoy driving).

Keeping your stuff in the car. Kinda nice not to have to unload/load for every ride.

There is certainly a lot of comfort in knowing the car will be exactly where you left it last night so you can load your kids up to go to school, go to the hospital, evacuate in an emergency etc.

Also, cars are status symbols. Everyone has a phone with a clock on it, but watches still haven't disappeared entirely. Going driverless won't suddenly convince everyone to stop liking their cars and prefer generic Uber vehicles.

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

#206

Post by jvolkman »

organsnyder wrote: post #109

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, apar…

I think there's more than that. The safety report they released recently indicates the vehicles also have redundant power systems, redundant braking systems, redundant steering systems, etc. I doubt that the stock configurations require as much redundancy.

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

#207

Post by smeyer »

mrlase wrote: post #191
smeyer wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of taxis are already run 24 hours a day, switching off between drivers at shift changes. The per-mile gas, maintenance, and depreciation (ignoring any fixed per-day or per-year costs) are already much more than 10% of the total cost of a ride. I came across a (possibly outdated) Uber pricing model for LA of a $5.60 minimum fare and a $0.90 per mile charge, and among other fees, NYC cabs are $2.50 per mile. Comp…

The fare for NYC is incorrect -- $2.50 is the base price and $0.505/mile and $0.50/minute the car is stopped (i.e. in traffic if they're waiting). There's also a $1 surchage between 4-8pm on the weekdays. http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/passenger/taxicab_rate.shtm...

>$2.50 is the base price and $0.505/mile and $0.50/minute the car is stopped

Sorry, I was going off "Plus 50 cents per 1/5 mile" to mean $2.50 per mile. Where are you getting $0.505/mile from your link?

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

#208

Post by 3pt14159 »

Animats wrote: post #116
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…

Waymo does seem to be ahead technically. They've been working on the hard cases for years, while the other guys are still struggling. They are trying hard to get good situational awareness. One of the few neutral measures we have are CA DMV's disconnect and accident reports, and in those, Waymo has been consistently ahead. Waymo is hooked up with FCA (Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles), of all things. Uber is "fake it 'til y…

One question I can't seem to find a good answer for is this:

Why doesn't the self-driving tech hand off control to a remote driver if the internet connection is good enough and there is enough warning?

Even with a couple seconds notice a primed human could take the wheel and do the right thing when the sensors aren't making sense.

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

#209

Post by aecs99 »

peoplewindow wrote: post #174
aecs99 wrote: post #137

This, indeed, is a major step for Waymo. While some people may be skeptical about the safety of these rides, we all saw this coming. This has been a part of the ambitious goal most self-driving companies set out when they start. The reason I say "part of the goal", is because the end goal is L5 - to handle more complex scenarios which I assume Waymo is still working on. Taking the ninety-ninety rule or the rule of cr…

Why would self-ownership ever be the goal though? I can see people just moving en-masse to Lyft/Uber type services that use a mix of people and machines, with people eventually being phased out, and simply giving up their own cars (except for those who genuinely enjoy driving).

Interesting question. Like you, I too believe that a large population may prefer Lyft/Uber type services instead of dealing with the concerns of owning one (e.g., parking, requiring space for parking, insurance, time spent in fueling, maintenance, etc.).

However, I tend to think that there still may be a decent size of population who'd prefer owning. Others mentioned the convenience of using cars for storage, being readily available, lower cost of owning, reduced insurances, customizations, etc. Along with these, I believe some other factors exist.

In context of self-driving cars, we typically tend to picture urban transportation first. However, there will still be needs for long distance commuting, or taking long trips for pleasure. There will always be places where people frequent less compared to major spots/suburbs in a city.

People may not always want to hop into a random car every time they take a trip. The cost/time involved in flagging a car of your choice may not be worth the effort for some. Also, keep in mind that many think of cars as a statement, another way of expressing their beliefs. Take for example, preferring German vs. American vs. Japanese, some prefer minimal space, others may like to exhibit opulence.

All in all, there will be a large shift towards not-owning cars, but there may always be a market for owning (at least for a long while).

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

#210

Post by seanmcdirmid »

smeyer wrote: post #169
strin wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's a lot of other factors to work out like scheduling, routing, supply-demand management, optimal vehicle distribution, pooling etc These things come along the way. If there is a service that's 10x cheaper than Lyft, I could imagine most people would churn to that service. The technology shift from human to completely autonomous driving is so huge that it could just disrupt the current market structure.

>If there is a service that's 10x cheaper Why would a ride service based on autonomous cars be 10x cheaper? It's not like 90% of the current revenue or costs are human labor. I'm not sure the exact ratio of driver labor vs. gas/maintenance/depreciation, but I'm pretty sure it's less than 10:1.

Using china as an example, taxis (and Uber equivalents) are much cheaper there to use than the USA while non labor costs (gas and cars) are actually more expensive than in the states. So I would guess labor is a large part of the cost, or it doesn’t really make sense. Maybe not 10x cheaper, but half as much is probably reasonable.
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