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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

#421

Post by lddemi »

scirocco wrote: post #325
FreakyT wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like a car has greater potential for comfort than even a "comfortable" reclining bus seat. For example, right now the idea of a folding bed in a car isn't something you'll ever see as an option, since it would only really appeal to people trying to live in their cars, which probably don't overlap much with the "people who buy fancy cars with fancy extras" market segment. However, in a future where a car can au…

A bed. With seat belt :)

Imagine something like a modern first class cabin with the concept of 180 degree flat bed-seats.

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

#422

Post by seanp2k2 »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #333
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 love my cars. That being said it took 1.5 hours to drive the 30 miles to work today with traffic down the 17/85/101. I would sign up for this in a second and sell one of the cars.

IMO it's solving the wrong problem. Did what you do at work require you to be there, or could you just as well have done your work from home / a close co-working facility?

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

#423

Post by seanp2k2 »

Rotten194 wrote: post #194
sharemywin wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you not read the terms of service when you opened the car door? they are not responsible.

I'm just imagining opening the door and getting a 10 second long 2000wpm recording of someone reading the TaC.

The silkscreened-onto-the-headliner bright yellow non-removable warnings weren't enough.

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

#424

Post by kbenson »

seanp2k2 wrote: post #418
kbenson wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traffic might be worse, initially, but once people are okay with sharing seats in a van, you might see a massive rise in ad-hoc ride-sharing/carpooling. These services know where you're getting picked up and where you're going, so there's no reason that can't route close vehicles/riders designating as okay with sharing to have a higher rider ratio per trip. Even with increased total per-person trips, we might be able…

once people are okay with sharing seats in a van That's going to be a long wait in the US! People would rather pay 10x to sit in their own luxury bubble in traffic and have everyone see how fancy their luxury bubble is vs. /gasp/ sharing it with others. Most people here don't want mass transit, they want their big truck / SUV to haul 1-4 people ("it's safer for my kid").

I think that depends quite a bit on the people in question, and quite a bit on what types of vehicles come to market to support this usage. Compartmentalized vehicles with shutters of some sort might find quite a bit of use. People that don't own a car and want to get around cheaply might find quite a bit of use. Designated child-only vehicles for school shuttling might see quite a bit of use. A small stretch vehicle with lots of doors would be perfect.[1]

1: https://jalopnik.com/5344758/six-door-prius-limo-totes-kids-...

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

#425

Post by samstave »

TheCoreh wrote: post #141
maxerickson wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will have to handle the case where the passenger doesn't exit the vehicle somehow or another. But the fact that it is occurring in an automated vehicle shouldn't make anyone worse off.

Ya, this sounds like an easy problem to solve. If the passenger doesn't exit the vehicle after a set time, start a video call to a support central (perhaps the person is unable to get out because the doors won't unlock? or they fell asleep?) The attendant could then instruct the vehicle to go to a pre-specified location nearby where a human can intervene, call another vehicle or notify the competent authorities.

I suggest you do the math on this though since you think its so simple:

Ride is avg $10, vehicle is ~$30,000 satellite uplink is ~1200 per year. BOFH guy watching is ~$65k per year... insurance is ~$2400/ year...

so if we take that, we have an annual cost of (assuming life of care is 3 years) 10000+65000+1200+2400 - so ~80K per year per car... and / BOFH among his volume to monitor N cars....

but we extract the BOFH from the car model.

so we have a per car cost of 15K per year

and we have an avg rider value of 10 per ride, and a ride volume of 1,500 rides per month / BOFHs required / insurance claim / lawsuits

and we can suss out the model pretty well... but there are a lot more inputs.

and if this is going to be a service to public from multi-parties, we'd better understand this model....

and they'd better be standard on the CARNOC

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

#426

Post by Ajedi32 »

greedo wrote: post #341
bamboozled wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget off-road or very remote driving and camper vans.

And towing boats, or ATVs, or anything that won't fit in a small vehicle. Or going to Costco/Sam's Club and loading up on groceries. Sometimes I think many on HN live in an urban bubble without children, where everything is either ordered online or picked up at a bodega on the corner. For much of the US, life is nothing like that. There's a reason the Ford F-150 has been the most popular selling vehicle in the US for…

What makes you think you wouldn't be able to summon a self-driving Ford F-150 via the Waymo app? It's not like minivans are the only cars capable of being self-driving.

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

#427

Post by samstave »

sudhirj wrote: post #170
samstave wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that said metro attached to rails -- or does it take you along "lines" where you have to get out at a designated station and then walk 2 miles to you house -- or does it pick you up and take you directly to the market. Your comment is bullshit comparison if youre talking about comparing freaking rails with vehicles whos routes are 100% random per rider.

Mentioning rails and "100% random" turn up an interesting point - people are comfortable with autonomous vehicles when they behave in predictable, understandable and widely known ways. And it looks like the Waymo cars and other autocars in general will do just that. Once people learn to recognize an autonomous driving style, whether they'll be concerned or bored depends on how predictable the style is, not the fact t…

hmmm - should we require all autonomous vehicles to be "micro buses-on-deman"d until they are trusted - and follow beaconed bus lines rather than random routes for a while until trusted?

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

#428

Post by samstave »

elsewhen wrote: post #200
samstave wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They manage to climb in, they OD/go into arrest, cant climb out. What then? So the uber now has to either get a person or take that car to a hospital - how do they know to do such? So is uber running a massive call center that watches every driverless ride and monitors the situation? Are they monitoring if people get into a fight in the car? That actually happened to me, where I took an uber pool, and the two other r…

video camera monitored by a machine learning system, which escalates unknown or edge cases to a human dispatcher for a decision.

how many poor outcomes are required to train the MLV on what constitutes shitty situations?

How many lawsuits come from that?

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

#429

Post by jdminhbg »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #426
greedo wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And towing boats, or ATVs, or anything that won't fit in a small vehicle. Or going to Costco/Sam's Club and loading up on groceries. Sometimes I think many on HN live in an urban bubble without children, where everything is either ordered online or picked up at a bodega on the corner. For much of the US, life is nothing like that. There's a reason the Ford F-150 has been the most popular selling vehicle in the US for…

What makes you think you wouldn't be able to summon a self-driving Ford F-150 via the Waymo app? It's not like minivans are the only cars capable of being self-driving.

I think in a lot of places the low population density would mean the F-150 would be 20+ minutes away every time. You might get sick of that and be willing to pay to always have it.

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

#430

Post by greeneggs »

eggpy wrote: post #39
nwatson wrote: post #13

>>> "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'…

I dunno I can see this remaining small-scale for a while so Waymo can gather data about how people feel about the experience. I can see the backlash now if they were to suddenly unleash a battalion of fully autonomous vehicles on the unsuspecting public. I suspect keeping the numbers relatively low will be a good way to gather just how disturbing this is to the general populace without overwhelming people and ultimat…

On the other hand, there is also an advantage to moving quickly. Waymo seems to be far ahead, but if others (like Tesla?) release their self-driving vehicles prematurely, that would cause a backlash perhaps against the whole industry. (For example, Uber's self-driving cars running red lights in San Francisco I think helped result in tighter regulations across California.)

Moving quickly to show that the technology is safe might prevent a heavy-handed regulatory backlash.

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