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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

#511

Post by speedplane »

scarmig wrote: post #103
sliverstorm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we have a good signal that truly indicates Waymo has more advanced tech? Or could they simply have a bigger appetite for risk?

Just as a contrary response to everyone else pointing to Waymo's (real) historical tendency to be very risk-averse... Waymo has been feeling a lot of pressure from Uber and other companies, who have developed their autonomous car programs faster than Waymo did, even if Waymo is still momentarily ahead. Waymo's legal attempt to sidetrack Uber's program seems to have failed. So Waymo's executive may be at the point whe…

Uber strikes me as a company that'll spend a ton of money, try it out for a year or two, show off a few prototypes and back off once they see how hard it is. In the meantime they may produce a few vehicles with flaky autonomous capability that will hopefully not get anyone killed. The company has money, muscle, and can-do drive, but the company isn't rooted in nerdy tech the way Google is.

Makes far more sense for Uber to license Google's tech and integrate with vehicles.

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

#513

Post by speedplane »

strin wrote: post #166
sudhirj wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Also, the challenges involved in "scheduling, routing, supply-demand management, optimal vehicle distribution, pooling" are far easier to replicate than self-driving capabilities. Don't think this'll be a huge challenge for Google to do themselves.

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

#514

Post by speedplane »

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.

In NYC, another large cost is the real-estate to park the vehicle when not in use (~$300/mo). This could presumably be reduced or eliminated as well.

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

#515

Post by speedplane »

jacksmith21006 wrote: post #342
wpietri wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think Waymo is much better off selling shovels to prospectors than trying to mine all the gold themselves. A lot of people will try to get into the ridesharing business, some of them much better capitalized than Waymo.

Better capatilized than Waymo? Alphabet has over $100b cash with less than $4b debt and over 40% on shore. Only Apple has more with about $260b cash but over $100b debt and over 90% offshore so tax liability yet to be paid. What better capitalization are you speaking? Also realize Alphabet could also raise additional capital bpver easily. They are the only ones truly able to so level 4 and they are miles and miles ah…

Seriously, if Google wanted to actually build it's Waymo car, it could just buy Chrysler, probably in cash for ~$8-15B. It doesn't need anyone... then again, I get a sense that they have no interest in getting into that market due to the lower margins.

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

#516

Post by speedplane »

konschubert wrote: post #487
greeneggs wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My impression was that tesla is years behind Waymo.

That is also my impression, and it scares me that they have been so aggressive getting something "autonomous" to market.

If flaky products are released that end up killing drivers (or worse, pedestrians), it'll set the entire self-driving tech sector back 5 years or longer.

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

#517

Post by speedplane »

maxerickson wrote: post #119
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…

These aren't hard questions in the long term though. Non responsive passenger->follow protocol that emergency services prefers (or even legally requires). Fist fight->stop car, inform passengers that car won't transport them further. Rape->turn over recordings of vehicle interior to police. I suppose for the last one you have to take it as a given that they are making such recordings (probably on a rolling basis), bu…

I like where this thread is going. If the car is responsible for the passenger and what happens to them inside the car, they could conceivably act as an ambulance. Maybe it could even diagnose you on the way to the hospital.

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

#518

Post by mavhc »

rrhd wrote: post #352
mavhc wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I envisage systems of standardised storage lockers, you can pull the whole locker into your car, 4 fit in the car for 4 users, you can wheel them into work, or lock into cabinets around the place, when there's no car parks they'll be lots of free space, 1% can be for storage lockers.

Why would there be no car parks? People tend to travel at similar times. Your total number of cars required is still going to be high.

Because it's just a drop off point as all cars are now taxis

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

#519

Post by cjalmeida »

vkou wrote: post #309
zjaffee wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Car pool lanes will likely be a big reason people choose to pool in autonomous cars. I imagine that self driving cars will make traffic much worse, and we will see a movement where cities create more and more HOV lanes to reduce traffic in such situations.

There's a radical idea that could be looked into - have a very large autonomous car, carrying 20-100 people. With enough of them, we could reduce traffic, save money (Compared to the cost of private vehicle ownership) - and the best part is, from the perspective of the riders, it will be self-driving. Why should we invest into self-driving carpools, when buses are cheaper, and more efficient?

Fixed routes and last mile. Buses are particularly poor on that.

I'm thinking on mini buses, 10 to 20 pax, with flexible dispatching. A service where you tell where you live, where you want to get to every workday at what time. Algorithms pool people and make sure you don't have to walk more than a few minutes. Nor wait for long before journey or arrive too early.

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

#520

Post by speedplane »

gok wrote: post #226
Animats wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

IMHO, the big difference between the Uber/Tesla approach and the Waymo approach is that Waymo seems to understand that this is an extremely hard problem to solve. Uber/Tesla seem to be happy with getting 90% of the way there and make headlines. I don't think either Uber or Tesla have really committed to the technology the way Waymo has.

As far as the legacy auto-makers, it's really unclear what they are up to. I think they appreciate the difficulty, but probably don't have the skills to move faster than Google.

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