But who cares? They convinced us somehow that self driving cars are important, but it’s just self-important, gets the investors attention and money. Now time to move on to the next big thing.
Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
211–220 of 634 posts
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
There's no good reason; it's likely what they'll do.
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#213I was really excited, until I read that the change they made is not to have no employee in the car at all. They moved the safety employee from the front to the back.
> until I read that the change they made is not to have no employee in the car at all
Where does it say this? Going by this article, it sounds like the only employees involved will be those using the service themselves during the trial period. (And those working in the customer service call center.)
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#214It will be interesting to see how Lyft's partnership with Waymo evolves given this tech announcement and Waymo's acknowledgment that they plan to offer their own ridesharing service. Lyft's approach to self-driving partnerships in general seems to rest on the assumption that self-driving providers will catch up to each other before any of them can fully handle everything a human driver can do. If this assumption is c…
Here is the most probable scenarios I foresee.
If you are a pessimist about autonomous being bigger part of transpiration then add 2 years to DATES shown below.
2021 : Electric Self-driving on-demand FLEET Car 1000 miles/month SUBSCRIPTION from Google, DiDi, Uber, Renault/Nissan,Tesla, VW,Toyota,GM for $400/month
2024 :same 1000 miles/month SUBSCRIPTION $200/month
At $200/month Subscription price for 1000 miles/month (which is average US driver car mileage/month), savings are so big as average car ownership is around $400/month ( AAA Estimate ) , all inclusive of
- Car depreciation
- Insurance cost
- gasoline cost
- Repairs & maintenance costs
- extra 1 hours/day you get in NOT-Driving
(EDIT: This Model I mentioned is Summon only, there is NO OWNERSHIP of the Car, is it monthly pay instead of per RIDE Pay . In this Model, All the Major CAR Manufactures of today offer these FLEETS with monthly pay of 1000/miles month SUBSCRIPTIONS.
Being a) no-driver Cost b) ELECTRIC c) RIDE Sharing d) mass adoption -- is the key for Lower price tag of $200/month )
The above is Phase 1, in Phase 2 starting 2025 Google will be supplying only "end-to-end Autonomous vehicle Software system" for a fee of $5000/year per car for ALL the CAR FLEET companies .
Google will run small FLEET of Autonomous CARs for the purpose of "Reference implementation of Software" much like "Pixel Android Phones" to showcase the Reference implementation of Android ( for all other Android Vendors )
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#215Earlier 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?
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 whe…
> Waymo has been feeling a lot of pressure from Uber and other companies, who have developed their autonomous car programs faster than Waymo did
Did the other companies develop their autonomous car programs faster than Waymo did or have they just hyped their programs up more than Waymo did when they started?
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Lol I read that completely wrong. Time for more coffee, I suppose -- that definitely means $2.50/mile.
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#217Neither here nor there, but I found that the construction "hard to understate" is either wrong or super confusing.
Apparently I'm not alone http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=11177
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#218>>> "Waymo will be operating a fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel ... Waymo wants to broaden the geographic scope of its trial, starting with expansion in the near-term to cover the entire Phoenix metro area, which represents more acreage than the whole of the Greater London area, he noted" My family is mostly in Tempe / Mesa area (near Chandler, AZ) and during my last few visits I'…
Why bother with ride sharing when the cost per mile would be so cheap?
From the provider's perspective it means they can serve the same number of customers with fewer cars, and from a public infrastructure perspective it means they can do so with less total road capacity. For both, it makes sense to create price incentives to encourage people to pool, especially at peak times.
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Car pool lanes will likely be a big reason people choose to pool in autonomous cars. I imagine that self driving cars will make traffic much worse, and we will see a movement where cities create more and more HOV lanes to reduce traffic in such situations.
Over a short term, yes, but there's likely to be work done on co-operation + communication standards between autocars. If a cars at an intersection are all auto, a quick Raft election can decide who goes first, so they'll all get to go through much faster. Broadcasting intention can also help with overtaking, trailing, etc. And if road train standards get built in they can all run much faster and more efficiently on…
You're assuming all cars will be automatic or somehow able to communicate with each other?
How does a circa 2010 human driven car in this scenario complicate or invalidate your routing algorithm proposal?
Would human driven cars need to be outlawed in order to get the efficiency gains you mention?
Re: Waymo now testing its self-driving cars on public roads with no one at the wheel
#220But who cares? They convinced us somehow that self driving cars are important, but it’s just self-important, gets the investors attention and money. Now time to move on to the next big thing.
You don't think self driving cars are important? Can you elaborate on why not?