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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

#451

Post by jessriedel »

chrischen wrote: post #408

It'd be interesting to see how this compares in overall efficiency to properly implemented and comprehensive mass transit systems in a dense urban environment. The Tokyo metro alone (not including the JR trains, Tokyo Subway—a separate but compatible subway system, and other train transit systems which totals over 40 million daily users) handles 6.8 million passengers daily just in one city . https://en.wikipedia.org…

> Medallion supplies weren't constrained due to corruption and cronyism but to prevent the overpopulation of Taxis. Removing the driver may lower costs of Taxi's but there will still be a minimum floor to Taxi prices as you can't just infinitely supply a city with driverless cars.

This is maybe true in exceptional cities like NYC and Tokyo, but for the vast majority of US cities the fraction of cars on the road that are taxis is negligible. Autonomous service will almost certainly increase the average number of passengers per vehicle, thereby greatly improving the efficiency of the road system. (Obviously a better/cheaper system can induce demand, increasing overall congestion, but this is the case with all improvements to transportation and simply signals that more value is being delivered.) Yes, small cars will have difficulty matching the passenger volume of trains, but autonomous vans and buses will come much closer and with vastly more flexibility than trains.

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

#452

Post by samstave »

notl4wy3r wrote: post #188
samstave wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

im 42, so no not too young - and I appreciate your point. I feel that people are latching onto their opinions about driverless car tech and not talking about the wider implications. That is the point, I am poorly, making, apparently.... I just think that not all the questions have been asked about what it means to be a "driverless car" and that we need to run through all the risks -- and thats the one thing I find re…

TBH, your objection seems like something that anyone would think of in ten minutes of considering pitfalls. To think that no one at Waymo (or Cruise, or Lyft, etc.) has considered it, you must have a very dim view of their competence.

Nope, not question their competence - I’m questioning where the answers are to the dialogue we should be having surrounding ai cars???? Where the fuck are the answers, what body owns them?

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

#453

Post by orasis »

landryraccoon wrote: post #332
aidenn0 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> Car usage will go up by an order of magnitude because a major cost of driving isn't the dollars, but the time. This is why I think self driving cars will make traffic worse, not better. The more comfortable it is to be inside a car and the less people mind long car rides, the more people will drive (self driving or otherwise). If road infrastructure is the same, that necessarily means a much higher density of cars…

This can be fixed quickly with congestion pricing.

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

#454

Post by so33 »

sdrothrock wrote: post #441
chrischen wrote: post #408

It'd be interesting to see how this compares in overall efficiency to properly implemented and comprehensive mass transit systems in a dense urban environment. The Tokyo metro alone (not including the JR trains, Tokyo Subway—a separate but compatible subway system, and other train transit systems which totals over 40 million daily users) handles 6.8 million passengers daily just in one city . https://en.wikipedia.org…

Toei[0] has been experimenting with it; the Nippori-Toneri line from Nippori is a driverless monorail. The trip is fairly normal albeit jerky. Awkwardly enough, many of the stations do not have attendants either, so if you have a problem with the gate, you have to call back to Nippori and ask for help, which is a huge problem when you can't hear well enough... [0] Toei (都営) is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government-operat…

Driverless trains have been around for a while. The world's longest fully-automated driverless metro system, moving close to 500,000 people every day, exists in none other than Vancouver, Canada:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_(Vancouver)

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

#456

Post by paddy_m »

wskinner wrote: post #306
titzer wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday nights driving for 12 hours (mostly sleeping) It's really sad that the United States has let passenger rail deteriorate to the point that people are forced into this situation. Really, really poor foresight.

Passenger rail in the United States probably doesn’t have the same economics as the other places you’re thinking of. I recently drove across part of the country, and it is shocking how much space there is with absolutely nothing there. There is a 100 mile stretch of I-80 without cell service or signs of habitation. If you live in a city, it’s easy to forget that the United States is much, much, bigger than Europe or…

That stretch is I-70 between Moab, UT and I-15 about 150 miles south of Salt Lake City. It's an absolutely breathtaking segment of road. I truly recommend visiting it.

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

#457

Post by GeneralMayhem »

criddell wrote: post #221
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.

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…

>When cars don't crash, they don't need to be designed to crash

No matter how good Waymo's driving is, unless they're the only things on the road, their cars will need to be collision-safe.

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

#458

Post by oasisbob »

theptip wrote: post #401
landryraccoon wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Car usage will go up by an order of magnitude because a major cost of driving isn't the dollars, but the time. This is why I think self driving cars will make traffic worse, not better. The more comfortable it is to be inside a car and the less people mind long car rides, the more people will drive (self driving or otherwise). If road infrastructure is the same, that necessarily means a much higher density of cars…

I agree that traffic will be "worse" in some sense, in that there will be more of it. But maybe not "worse" in the important sense of how annoying it is, since we won't be consciously piloting a machine through it. Instead we could be sleeping, playing video games, working on laptops, etc. I think that vehicle design will shift a lot once we start optimizing for these new use-cases, and this might make a big differen…

Agree that it's going to be harder to predict, and probably dependent on the individual.

When it comes to commuting in the Pacific Northwest, for most of the year an extra half-hour of available daylight at the end (or start) of the day is the difference between getting out climbing during the work week, or not.

Personally, I'd trade a comfortable commute for that extra time, no question. Of course, maybe a self-driving car could allow for working during the morning commute, and getting off earlier... Hmmm.

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

#459

Post by semi-extrinsic »

kjksf wrote: post #415
chiefofgxbxl wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To detail one particular addition of traffic to the roads: students - with self-driving cars, students from K-12 may much rather want to have the independence to hop in a car rather than ride a "stinky school bus". Parents may end up loving it, especially those who already drive their kids to school. And I'm sure the school districts would love self-driving cars, because it means they can pass the travel expenses ont…

The self-driving platform will financially nudge you in the right direction. Currently Uber charges more during rush hour. It's rather obvious that self-driving operator will implement similar price discrimination e.g. $10 if you drive alone, $5 if you share with one or more people. And the more they want you to share, the bigger the surcharge e.g. if $10 vs. $5 doesn't have desired effect then maybe $20 vs $5 will.…

Still, traffic will be worse when you compare one bus with 50 people vs. 12 self-driving cars with 4 people each. A bus is 14-15m long, whereas even a small car like the Chevy Bolt is over 4m. So parked bumper-to-bumper the cars produce >3x as much traffic, and then you add some gaps for actually driving you're up to 4x.

Personally I'm very skeptical of both the claim that a) self-driving cars will see huge adoptation at the cost of car ownsership and that b) self-driving cars will give less traffic, less pollution and be significantly cheaper than owning a car.

On the latter point, we have basic economic theory: say the average American today spends $600/month total on owning a car. Why would anyone price a self-driving service at $200/month? No, they'd go for an initial price of $400/month for a couple of years to get customers, then sneak back up to $600/month once they've caught most of the market.

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

#460

Post by nradov »

glangdale wrote: post #279
jedberg wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

... and someone else mentioned the car seat, too. Always fun! However: unless you are planning a very large family, this is a transitory phase. I noted as my kids matured the amount of crap you have to lug around drops precipitously. I can't see that many people needing to carry the stuff on the bulky end of this for years and years. I carried my kids sequentially in a back-pack (3 years separation, so #1 was walking…

Wait until your kids get involved in sports and you have to haul around a trunk full of equipment.
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