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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

#241

Post by ilaksh »

debt wrote: post #138

I think they're massively underestimating the general public's reaction to something like this. I as a nerdy tech dude think this is very tight and if I was much younger this would blow my mind, but I think this also might frighten many people. I don't know if that's being considered at all here or maybe the transition will be slow enough to allow people to cope with the change.

They have been doing a series of incremental steps and press releases over the last several months. They started the early rider program in April. Recently they have been ramping up the press and public information program. They released a large 'safety report'. They have been working on self-driving education programs with organizations like MADD and NSC. They even put up billboards in Phoenix related to self-driving safety/education. They also did a big press event just recently inviting like 40 major media outlets including NY Times, WSJ etc. to their test track to give journalists rides and announce they would be launching soon.

Surprised you haven't heard about this stuff. They have been working pretty hard to publicize and market it.

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

#242

Post by LrnByTeach »

saurik wrote: post #230
bitL wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 agree, there are good % of people like you for all right reasons to have a their OWN CAR "same CAR" every day.

There will be different flavors of pricing for needs like yours, like 'Keeping CAR With you'. How about this pricing

Option 1: The CAR will be in serving people 10 streets around your Home, will be available whenever you want but costs you $300 /month ( It will have two Locker boxes in the Truck to keep your Items ALL the time, and your LOCKER BOX opens only with your Smart Phone ).

Option 2: you lease Autonomous car, it is all yours to keep, but the price is like $500/month Lease .

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

#243

Post by ghaff »

sirclueless wrote: post #205
ElijahLynn wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vehi…

Even if it's not a status thing you buy vehicles with the features you want, equip them for outdoor sports, store gear in them, etc. And, as you say, if I really need a vehicle in a hurry because of an emergency or just because I'm running late I really don't want to fiddle with a mobile app.

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

#244

Post by [deleted] »

jedberg wrote: post #239
bitL wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

My car doubles as a "everything I need when I take the kid out" storage. We always have: - diapers - changing pad - strollers - extra clothes - kids movies for the tv in the van, queued up to where we left off Sure, people in places like NYC just carry all that stuff with them when they take the kid out, but they also take the kid out less often or move to the burbs because it's a huge pain in the butt. I'd much rath…

[deleted]

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

#246

Post by ghaff »

majani wrote: post #229
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Electric and small/utilitarian vehicle economics can apply equally well to a car you own or a rideshare service with a driver.

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

#247

Post by Ajedi32 »

harpastum wrote: post #238
Ajedi32 wrote: post #66

Wow! Waymo is now confident enough in their vehicles that they're willing to risk letting the public use them completely unsupervised? This seems like a huge milestone for self-driving car tech. I wonder what their current disengagement rates are for Chandler; at this point it has to be really close to zero, right?

No public rides quite yet: "The current passengers for this test are Waymo employees, however, so it’s not as if the Alphabet-owned company is throwing caution to the wind; instead, it’s showing that it’s ready to move to the next major phase of operations after around a decade of working on this incredibly complex problem."

I'm referring to this part:

> while the trial is starting with employees first, it’s soon going to expand to the existing members of the Chandler driverless ride hailing service trial that Waymo kicked off at the beginning of 2017. When that happens (sometime in the next “few months,” per Krafcik, Waymo will be operating a fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel, a major first for the industry in terms of realizing the dream of making commercial self-driving available to the public at large

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

#248

Post by krisroadruck »

LrnByTeach wrote: post #234
bitL wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is no Ownership, it is Summon only When I said, $200/month for 1000 miles/month is one time pay, there is NO per ride PAY. It is like you pay your Cell Phone Bill. Use those 1000 miles in that month whenever you want .

But do you get rollover miles?

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

#249

Post by macintux »

pmoriarty wrote: post #149
samstave wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The public will accept the perceived risks in driverless rides. This is what I am trying to highlight - what, specifically, are these risks that people need to be made aware of? 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, and the person had to call the call center to get help and guess what... calling the call center…

"So now we have driverless cars effectively classified as emergency ambulances - so assuming the CARNOC is paying attention, they then drive the car to the hospital - and have to have a mechanism to contact said hospital" They don't necessarily need to drive the person to the hospital. They could just call a real ambulance and wait in place for it.

Yeah, I suspect the liability issues arising from trying to take the person to the hospital would prove too steep. Ambulance + EMT assistance is a safer bet, even with the initial delay.

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

#250

Post by LrnByTeach »

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.

It is Summon only, no ownership.

when I said $200/month SUBSCRIPTION for 1000 miles, no Per RIDE pay

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