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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

#561

Post by falcolas »

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…

Vandalism.

Rocks thrown, sensors spray-painted over, side panels (and sensors) graffitied, interiors damaged, forced into stopping and their chassis stripped (or their occupants held up).

And while the police may be quickly notified, they will not be so quick to respond. Ask someone in a big city about the police's response time to their car being vandalized or stolen... Not to mention, all those fancy cameras? Ask a small business owner with CCTV how useful it is to catch robbers.

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

#562

Post by gambiting »

dx034 wrote: post #474
ashleyn wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The immediate benefit I can envision is being on the highway more than the city. I regularly do a three hour drive between two states and automating the highway portion alone would be a godsend. I've actually considered getting a Volvo S90 for this purpose, but apparently the tech still isn't really where I want it to be, which is: get on the highway, press a button, don't touch anything until the final exit.

The Audi A8 appears to be the one with the most advanced system sold this year. From the reports I read, auto pilot functions are a step ahead of Tesla. The big difference is that they don't require you to pay direct attention as they define the system as a level 3 car.

The problem is that most of the system is disabled in almost all markets while Audi waits for "regulatory approval".

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

#563

Post by falcolas »

sumeno wrote: post #381
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…

> Said service zones wouldn't include anyplace where increased crime is a concern. What? Is someone going to try to steal a car without a steering wheel?

How about forcing the car to stop and rob the occupants? Or stripping the car of all those expensive electronic components?

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

#564

Post by 60654 »

rsync wrote: post #413
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…

"If you are a pessimist about autonomous being bigger part of transpiration then add 2 years to DATES shown below." I think you drastically underestimate the possible values of pessimism. In my opinion, truly autonomous vehicles driving in arbitrary, real world, public roads in my lifetime sounds optimistic ...

Yeah, having done robotics in the past, I'm super skeptical of promises of level 5 autonomy in the real world, even in the medium term.

I mean, we were able to do level 5 trucks in the desert two decades ago! But the human world is much less benign, and the perception problem is hard. And the history of AI is littered with limited solutions that failed to scale.

So I'm more curious about the purported GM testing of level 4 in Manhattan, it's a much more realistic and far less forgiving driving environment.

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

#565

Post by CSMastermind »

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'd bet my left nut that by 2021 there won't be a self-driving car subscription service. I'd be surprised if your average consumer could buy them by then.

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

#566

Post by Noos »

sangnoir wrote: post #268
jedrek wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that it's impossible to make predictions, your example is a massive edge case.

I don't think it's an edge case: If an operator redesigns the interior of their fleet with large, comfortable reclining seats, long distance travel by road will become much more competitive with business-/first-class air travel. Boarding at my house and being dropped off at my destination and sleeping all the way (or working if you're a telecommuter, or watching movies) is quite appealing to me - the lack of TSA and/…

Do you drive?

Because motion sickness prevents a large amount of people from watching movies or doing work in a car, even if you could make a decent enough workspace. The start and stop mode of car traffic is much different from an airplane or even train, and the road surface varies so much by area that potholes would make sleeping, working, or what have you a nightmare.

A lot of this discussion seems dominated by people who don't use a car or understand driving.

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

#567

Post by illirik »

mschuster91 wrote: post #542
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…

> where I grew up a single school bus cost the district over $1m What? Per year or once? If per year I wonder what amounts of corruption must be going on. A simple 31-seater bus from Mercedes costs approx. 285.000€ to buy new ( https://www.busplaner.de/omnibusmagazin/omnibustest/10035/Me... ), which means over a 5y life it's 57k/y... add the same for insurance premiums and the driver, and still I can't get anywhere c…

In the US, school buses are typically 70-80 seaters; when I was in high school ~4 years ago, I rode a Blue Bird Vision (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bird_Vision). These will get around ten miles to the US gallon of diesel and cost around $110,000 US. The lifespan of these buses is typically around 20 years; each school day, they might be driven a hundred miles or more. $1m over 20 years seems reasonable.

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

#568

Post by semi-extrinsic »

IanCal wrote: post #489
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 adoptatio…

> 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. That's assuming a monopoly. > Why would anyone price a self-driving ser…

No, that's not what happens. This is a classic situation with a stable Nash equilibrium where the best for all competitors is to keep the price high. They know the current price is affordable enough that people will keep paying.

Think about gasoline prices back when crude oil prices suddenly fell off a cliff. Did gas prices at your local station drop? No, not one cent. All of the competing stations kept the prices roughly where they were and raked in increased profits.

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

#569

Post by tlrobinson »

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…

I agree, in the short term.

In the long term a critical mass of well-behaving self-driving cars may be able to regulate traffic much more efficiently than humans currently can.

In the medium term we may also see dedicated self-driving car lanes with higher speed limits.

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

#570

Post by kozak »

andrewtbham wrote: post #285
sangnoir wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's an edge case: If an operator redesigns the interior of their fleet with large, comfortable reclining seats, long distance travel by road will become much more competitive with business-/first-class air travel. Boarding at my house and being dropped off at my destination and sleeping all the way (or working if you're a telecommuter, or watching movies) is quite appealing to me - the lack of TSA and/…

Yeh things will change... you sorta already see stuff like this in Asia where drivers are common... people have vans with offices in the back and work while their driver takes them to places.

Would be interesting to see some photos of such vans.
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