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Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

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31–40 of 221 posts

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#31

This sounds familiar. Here's an article from 2 years ago saying the same thing: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/7/16615290/waymo-self-drivi... Hopefully this time it's the real deal. I remain skeptical.

Agreed.

FTA:

> "are on the way"

> "soon you may experience"

Vague promises without any concrete dates attached make this seem like output from PR rather than engineering

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#32
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla has the biggest online cheerleading section and an "autopilot" that behaves as a low-budget adaptive cruise control with lane keeping that sometimes works, and a pretty big body count I don't think you're being very accurate there. There are lots of videos of people commuting 50+ miles to and from work every day without touching anything while on the interstates, including interchanges. It's doing a lot more…

I disagree. It’s completely fair. Handling basic tasks on nice freeways is exactly what adaptive cruise control + lane keeping is for. Last I checked, autopilot couldn’t even stop for a stop sign unless you count “shadow mode” claims.

I have never seen another TACC implementation that doesn’t ping from side to side.

Which cars have you drive with a superior cruise control implementation?

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#33
post #27

Waymo is so far ahead in this game. Tesla has the biggest online cheerleading section and an "autopilot" that behaves as a low-budget adaptive cruise control with lane keeping that sometimes works, and a pretty big body count. Uber has a dead pedestrian and a major lawsuit. Cruise has a lot of people on staff but virtually nothing to show for it. Lyft exists. Waymo is in production revenue service.

While Tesla is far behind Waymo and probably never will catch up, especially because of CAPTCHA, I think your description is unduly harsh. Autopilot works much better than every other TACC out there and is the best thing on the market you can get.

Since it lets you fall asleep as long as your hand (or something) is on the wheel, I'm not sure it's the best thing you can get. Cadillac SuperCruise seems better from a driver awareness standpoint, given that this is "predictable abuse" otherwise.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#34
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla has the biggest online cheerleading section and an "autopilot" that behaves as a low-budget adaptive cruise control with lane keeping that sometimes works, and a pretty big body count I don't think you're being very accurate there. There are lots of videos of people commuting 50+ miles to and from work every day without touching anything while on the interstates, including interchanges. It's doing a lot more…

I disagree. It’s completely fair. Handling basic tasks on nice freeways is exactly what adaptive cruise control + lane keeping is for. Last I checked, autopilot couldn’t even stop for a stop sign unless you count “shadow mode” claims.

What other vehicle will change lanes by itself, and take on/off ramps through interchanges to take you where your navigation is routed, without you touching a single thing?

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#36
How to predict:

1) Say what but don't say when.

2) Say when but don't say what.

Never, ever, ever bet tempted to say something specific will happen in a bounded time range.

Flying cars are on the way! That disease you hate, a cure is coming! Next year will be a big year for other breakthroughs not mentioned here.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#37
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that, but now I agree with George Hotz. Tesla uses machine learning to map inputs to control outputs. Google is using it just to build a model of the world and then use program logic to decide the control action to take. The problem with the latter approach is the long tail of real life variety doesn't lend itself to a fixed set of programmed rules. You'll always have more edge cases. I think Waymos a…

Not sure there is enough evidence in support of those claims about Tesla. Tesla doesn't collect anywhere near enough data from its customer fleet to support the kind of massive training being claimed. In contrast Waymo and Cruise vehicles are regularly in the depot where each car offloads terabytes of data. Who has the bigger training set?

On top of this, Waymo has the full force of Google’s CAPTCHA behind it.

It is already full self driving in some cities, whereas my Tesla cannot even detect stop signs.

I love my Tesla but I harbor no illusions about the eventual victor of this self-driving race.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#38
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It’s completely fair. Handling basic tasks on nice freeways is exactly what adaptive cruise control + lane keeping is for. Last I checked, autopilot couldn’t even stop for a stop sign unless you count “shadow mode” claims.

I have never seen another TACC implementation that doesn’t ping from side to side. Which cars have you drive with a superior cruise control implementation?

Tesla will "ping" you straight into a concrete wall at full speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z8v9he74po

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#39
post #18

Waymo is so far ahead in this game. Tesla has the biggest online cheerleading section and an "autopilot" that behaves as a low-budget adaptive cruise control with lane keeping that sometimes works, and a pretty big body count. Uber has a dead pedestrian and a major lawsuit. Cruise has a lot of people on staff but virtually nothing to show for it. Lyft exists. Waymo is in production revenue service.

I used to think that, but now I agree with George Hotz. Tesla uses machine learning to map inputs to control outputs. Google is using it just to build a model of the world and then use program logic to decide the control action to take. The problem with the latter approach is the long tail of real life variety doesn't lend itself to a fixed set of programmed rules. You'll always have more edge cases. I think Waymos a…

I think it's the other way around: Direct mapping of inputs to outputs will work great for a subset of conditions, but the last N% is infeasible without explicit logical programming.

Re: Waymo to customers: “Completely driverless Waymo cars are on the way”

#40

Waymo is so far ahead in this game. Tesla has the biggest online cheerleading section and an "autopilot" that behaves as a low-budget adaptive cruise control with lane keeping that sometimes works, and a pretty big body count. Uber has a dead pedestrian and a major lawsuit. Cruise has a lot of people on staff but virtually nothing to show for it. Lyft exists. Waymo is in production revenue service.

That said, seems like Tesla will still benefit from Waymo being the first out of the gate. While Tesla plays catchup in technology, Waymo will take all the early criticism, while ostensibly making driverless cars more palatable to mainstream society. Similar to how Lyft benefitted from Uber being the first to bully local governments into legalizing non-taxi app-driven car service.
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