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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

#311

Post by Canada »

wpietri wrote: post #298
falcolas wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the following caveat, I'll bite: "Not available in adverse weather conditions or outside service zones". Said service zones wouldn't include anyplace where increased crime is a concern. The cars would also probably have to be inspected and possibly cleaned between each use... I'm also uncertain the tech is advancing quickly enough to justify a 5 year timeline. Not to mention ensuring society and the government i…

Why do you think crime is a big deal? If you just want to steal a car, cities are littered with them. If you want to rob people, humans are also not hard to find. And an autonomous vehicle will have excellent video recording, fast notification of police, and hard-to-disable vehicle tracking. Weather, though, is a giant issue. Chandler, AZ has 90% dry days and rarely gets more than an inch of rain per month [1], so I…

Automated cars will be better than most of us in these conditions. If you live somewhere that only snows a few days each year, you can't drive in it very well. You don't even have the right tires.

Fleets will change their tires for the conditions and the automated system will be just as good at driving in adverse conditions as it would be if it drove in them all year. The sensors will see things human eyes can't.

I don't know how long it will take to happen, but it's inevitable.

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

#312

Post by notahacker »

WalterSear wrote: post #294
notahacker wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on long distance buses with large, comfortable reclining seats and convenient pickup/dropoff points for 8 hour plus journeys more than most sane people I assure you it's not the human driver which means that most people strongly prefer other methods of transport.

I don't think the comparison is as apt as, for instance, a 1st class intercontinental seat on Singapore airlines. https://www.singaporeair.com/saar5/images/navigation/flying-...

Road travel is very rarely smoother than air travel though. I've actually been to Singapore on BA's lie flat beds, as well as bus seats that weren't far off in basic comfort, and train beds which were much more comfortable and generally smoother than both yet remain a very niche form of budget transport. Taking an order of magnitude longer than air travel means the overland options are still rarely a better fit (the sort of road trip that can be done overnight without interfering with schedules is also a nice short evening flight, and I'm happier emailing on the plane too). I can see the appeal to some demographics for some itineraries, but can't see people preferring a series of road trips amounting to 40hrs over a 4hr flight being a mainstream market.

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

#313

Post by robotresearcher »

aidenn0 wrote: post #232
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…

I still think that proper self-driving cars are such a paradigm shift that predictions of how it will work are still up in the air. For example, right now I live on the west coast and my parents live on the east coast. 4 kids, Minimum of 40 hour drive or $3500 flight. Here's one tiny example: I can work remotely for a few weeks and my boss doesn't mind. The kids sleep for 8+ hours at night. Friday, Saturday, Sunday,…

> for only the depreciation cost on my car

Ignoring fuel!

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

#314

Post by rictic »

strin wrote: post #171

Levels of driving automation is an ill-defined concept. For example, L4 is defined as "mind-off". According to Wikipedia, "the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat. Self driving is supported only in limited areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances, like traffic jams. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, i.e. park the car, if the driver…

It seems like it's not ill-defined, it's like all categorization schemes. It's suitable for some purposes and not others. The level system is important to the experience of the passenger, and to a number of design elements of the car, and, I would guess, to regulation. It's just not a total order on the capabilities or impressiveness of a self driving car project.

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

#315

Post by ugh123 »

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…

I think Google providing/licensing the software and tech to other manufacturers is risky and leaves open the possibility for a new provider to slide in and undercut with each car provider. Google should leverage their early position and corner the market where they'll be a sole player and dominate for the longterm.

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

#316

Post by robotresearcher »

ghaff wrote: post #243
sirclueless wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, I prefer that too. But do I prefer it by tens of thousands of dollars? Maybe not.

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

#317

Post by robotresearcher »

milesokeefe wrote: post #180
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).

Immediate access to the vehicle and monetary returns from renting it out when not using it.

Those goals interfere with each other.

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

#318

Post by ashayh »

Are these companies working on a Waze for self driving cars.

Shouldn't these companies, the DMV and other parties involved agree on a standard for inter-car communications?

Why should we wait for Lidar to tell my car about a crash 3 turns away, if a shared broadcast/receive system can do it faster?

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

#319

Post by djsumdog »

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).

You can't have self-ownership. It's not remotely possible due to the safety considerations. Self driving cars need to have more oversight than FAA/aircraft.

Even with self driving vehicles, America will still have terrible traffic. If anything, self driving vehicles will make things even worse, instead of America finally fixing its broken/non-existent mass transit system.

I wrote about this a while back. Basically even if you only had self-driving vehicles on an interstate, all of them filled to 4 people each, travelling at 120km, you still couldn't even get to the fraction of the capacity of a single rail line running at 5 minute intervals:

http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...

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

#320

Post by djsumdog »

punnerud wrote: post #270

The self driving (small)cars will almost be gone from every motorway within 20 years is my prediction. They will be replaced by self driving busses, trains and boats combined with a smart docking system where you automatically change “vehicle” at speed. This way we can travel at a fraction of the cost/emissions. We will se the first docking system on highway within 10 years, and the first prototypes within 5.

We already have self driving trains in much of the world. It's a solve problem and cars can't even remotely touch the capacity of a train line. Self driving cars are not a solution and yes, America needs to see a huge car reduction within the next 20 years to deal with gridlock. I've written about it before:

http://penguindreams.org/blog/self-driving-cars-will-not-sol...

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