41–50 of 175 posts
We still do not have much clarity on the price point. The screenshot (see gniv’s link) shows that a 24-min ride could cost around $8, with an apparent 20% rebate. I suspect that they won’t try to under-cut Uber too dramatically but the long-term costs are bound to be much lower if you don’t need to pay a driver. That illustrative price seems to match this. They certainly have copied Uber’s focus on identifying the be…
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That's a prediction, but why do you think that's how it'll turn out?
The news would be different. This news item is focused around the driver and safety. They are slowly changing their messaging from being about self-driving to being about safe-driving. They can't come out right away and say "guys we failed at self driving, it doesn't work", that would tank the personal careers of everyone important in the company. They have to slowly move the needle away from self driving, and then t…
If Google believes its tech is that far ahead, it makes way more sense to minimize risks associated with the public perceiving Waymo's system is dangerous, and let people get comfortable with being in a self-driving car.
I know this is a heated debate, but it's interesting to see the divergent approaches that are being taken to achieve self driving. In one corner, it's lidar-based, equipping vehicles produced by other companies, organically and incrementally growing the navigation technology. In the other, it's video-based with now 100s of thousands of vehicles feeding data to a massive neural net. Each has very well thought-out argu…
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Why though? Even in places with cheap labor (so cheap drivers), they still don’t have things like that, taxis are just cheaper.
Because if I'm Safeway and I can get elderly people to come to my business (for shopping, prescriptions, etc.) they won't be shopping somewhere else. The business gains/retains the clientele by providing the driving service.
Ok, so it’s an interesting idea to use personal transit, but it could be done already without self driving vehicles, it might be economical. But it would be pretty niche.
I know this is a heated debate, but it's interesting to see the divergent approaches that are being taken to achieve self driving. In one corner, it's lidar-based, equipping vehicles produced by other companies, organically and incrementally growing the navigation technology. In the other, it's video-based with now 100s of thousands of vehicles feeding data to a massive neural net. Each has very well thought-out argu…
The link at the bottom of that article is pointing to another Medium post with details of the launch: https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164... Notably, "At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise our vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience." Edit: Re-reading my comment, it sounds negative, so I want to acknowledge that I think this is a big deal. No matter how "s…
The milestone to mark is the day when you or I can, at least theoretically, download the the fricken app and request a ride in an autonomous vehicle that has no safety driver.
IMHO, to do less would be reckless showboating that could do unimaginable damage to the AV industry, as well as end up endangering lives.
In the tech industry, we don't like to wait, we like moving fast, taking risks, shipping MVPs, learning by shipping, etc. And for the next great Camera filter app, perhaps that makes sense, but not for cars, planes, or medical equipment.
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Mark these words, "At the start", because we'll be hearing them for the next 10 years until Waymo closes up shop. That they are going to market with drivers in the car means that the business has pivoted from "can we do driverless taxi" to "can we make money as uber-but-with-employees". The next announcement from Waymo will be that they are cutting staff "mostly from R&D". The announcement after that will be that the…
Mark these words. In 10 years time we'll still be hearing the same comments about Waymo & their competitors because there still will be certain combinations of passenger, route & conditions that Waymo will refuse to take without a safety driver along. But since Waymo will handle the vast majority of rides we'll just tune out those comments. Handling all rides & conditions is a very hard problem and it'll take decades…
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The milestone to mark is the day when you or I can, at least theoretically, download the the fricken app and request a ride in an autonomous vehicle that has no safety driver.
That car would probably be called Windows Car (not to be confused with your car's windows), stop irregularly at weird places to allow for mandatory updates, and report your height and weight to Microsoft.
> Waymo One is rolling out in the Metro Phoenix area first. Over time, we hope to expand to new places and more people. You can sign up to express interest using the form at the bottom of this page[1] (asks for your gmail address, zip code and type of phone). P.S. Why is the mobile experience on Medium so frustratingly bad? Between the permanent heading plus the "please download our app" heading I find it maddening.…
Because they really want you to: "please download our app".
See also, Reddit