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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

#221

Post by criddell »

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.

I think it could eventually be much cheaper but I don't know about 10:1.

If autonomous cars don't crash, the insurance will be super cheap. If they are electric, then maintenance and operating costs should be very inexpensive.

When cars don't crash, they don't need to be designed to crash, so you can start building the cars out of lighter materials. When the car is far lighter, then the drivetrain can be simpler and energy consumption should be less.

I could see taxis serving city centers that are more like a golf cart than a Crown Vic. So the cars should be cheaper to buy or lease as well.

Some of the same technology that's needed for autonomous driving could be applied to the maintenance and repair side as well. So when the cars do break, I think they could be repaired inexpensively by other robots.

I can imagine all the people involved in the taxi industry being replaced by taxi.py.

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

#222

Post by r00fus »

jamesjyu wrote: post #167
Fricken wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Upcoming Uber advertisement: "You don't even need a car! Work from home and drive from your mobile phone."

You could be Uber-driving while Uber-riding...

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

#223

Post by gregsadetsky »

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…

For those looking, Animats' past comment containing videos of Tesla crashes is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12942316

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

#224

Post by notahacker »

soared wrote: post #127
notahacker wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 j…

Whats your deal with putting people in jail, and why would you assume no on will be punished if something goes wrong? Obviously there will be repercussions for accidents, but we don't know what they are or how it will play out.

It's the government putting people in jail, not me. And the details of who is responsible for the car under what circumstances does seem like the sort of thing that should be worked out - in public - before you have a software program operating a car potentially beyond the effective (due to latency etc) control of its designated human driver (for legal purposes) and whilst corporate PR represents the vehicle as entirely autonomous.

Especially if there's a sneaking suspicion that the reason these trials are able to take place in this manner is that for any given driving error, officers and employees of corporations who have chosen to unleash experimental technology on public roads are less likely to be held liable for the consequences of their actions than a regular driver due to the dilution of responsibility.

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

#225

Post by bitL »

LrnByTeach wrote: post #214
a9a wrote: post #148

It 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…

Why would you want to own a self-driving car? You'll just summon it from the nearest parking lot when needed.

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

#226

Post by gok »

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…

Tesla's approach may really have fundamental problems, but it's impossible to compare the results from a driver assist system used by untrained consumers with an autonomous driving system that's only being used with professional safety drivers in conditions for which is expected to function properly.

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

#227

Post by Fricken »

sudhirj wrote: post #164
a9a wrote: post #148

It 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…

Think it's unlikely that Waymo will build out and operate a full fledged ride service - there's a lot of other factors to work out like scheduling, routing, supply-demand management, optimal vehicle distribution, pooling etc that they could just delegate to Lyft for. They might just build a service to the extent of push a button and a vehicle will come, and take you where you tap. That's enough to work inside a contr…

The thing is these rideshare companies: Lyft, Uber, Ola, Grab and Didi Mechagodzilla Chuxing, these companies all exploded out of nothing, they're all so young.

The software they run on is complex, but not so complex that it can't be replicated.

So if you're a company with the secret sauce, that being a validated autonomous OS, you would most definitely want to run the consumer facing end of the business yourself, because that's where the real profit margins are hiding. Back-end software, fleet maintenance, and harware: this stuff is all eventually going to become commoditized. Customer experience will be the differentiator.

A thing to keep in mind is that a fleet of sensor riddled robotaxis will gather far more granular data about the world than just a standard human driven taxi, so the potential is there to take fleet management logistics to another level that no conventional rideshare can hope to compete with.

Really, if you let your imagination run wild with what can be done with that kind of data about the world, well, oh my gosh. You're building a live action parallel universe made out of networked lidars and running annotated data through pattern recognizers.

The privacy implications would make the hairs on your back stand-up if conceptualizing the astronomical amount of data that's going to kicked around hasn't already made you dizzy. It varies from company to company, but a typical test vehicle gobbles up something in the neighbourhood of 4 terabytes a day. In the future that number will go up. Thousands and thousands of Robotaxis.

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

#228

Post by grkvlt »

thaunatos wrote: post #74
nawitus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the car have an emergency button to stop the driving?

I imagine that stopping the car remotely is the least of a teledriver can do. Unless you mean, is there a button inside the car? I don't know if that is of much importance, seeing as there isn't anyone physically there to press the button.

What about the passenger?

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

#229

Post by majani »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #210
smeyer wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

What if you go with small electric cars? Does that cut the cost further?

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

#230

Post by saurik »

bitL wrote: post #225
LrnByTeach wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would you want to own a self-driving car? You'll just summon it from the nearest parking lot when needed.

I store tons of stuff in my car so I can have it available at all of the various places I end up, and while I would happily believe I am not in the majority, this does not seem to be something that would be rare. While I don't feel the need to "own" a car (I literally rent a car continually, paying in 30-day cycles), it would be extremely annoying to not have consistent control over most of the storage space in a car (I often even have stuff in the back seat I am dragging around with me forever). And no: while I do love driving, I feel no need to drive, and would welcome a future where the car drove for me... but it will be a much more awkward arrangement to get me to be OK just summoning random cars temporarily.
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