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

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

#121

Post by shiftpgdn »

persistent wrote: post #38
xvector wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's trying to center in an extremely large lane. An easy fix would be to not have a huge concrete wall jutting into the middle of the freeway without lane markers.

I feel like people forget human drivers hit those same barriers with alarming frequency.

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

#123

Post by ehsankia »

scottlocklin wrote: post #97
ehsankia wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even when they are they will still have a Waymo employee on board "initially". I think you're confused. They've been having customer rides with employee in the car for almost a year now. The email sent to customers today is saying that they will soon find rides with no employee inside. And again, rides without employee inside have been happening also since 2017, just not with customers inside.

Except they all have remote control "employee inside." https://www.wired.com/story/designated-driver-teleoperations...

That's a mandatory system they need to be on the street [0]

> But those cars won’t be operating completely unmanned — at least for now. Under these regulations, driverless cars being tested on public roads must have a remote operator monitoring the car, ready to take over as needed. That remote operator — who will be overseeing the car from a location outside of the car — must also be able to communicate with law enforcement as well as the passengers in the event of an accident.

That being said, the way Waymo does it is different from other companies. As HN can understand, adding the ability to remote access a car is very very risky. Waymo on the other hand has the ability to suggest a path to the car, and the car will itself locally evaluate to see if the suggested path is safe before executing it. So it's not quite a "remote control" access.

[0] https://www.vox.com/2018/2/26/17053898/driverless-cars-self-...

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

#124

Post by just42 »

(throwaway account to protect friends at Waymo) data points of 2: 1. took a ride, at one point a sudden violent sewering and breaking for no apparent reason - explanation from the backup driver - the truck in the next lane was too close. Then it couldn't take a left turn into the parking lot in front of Waymo HQ and was just stuck even though the maneuver was simplest to anyone. remote driver couldn't do it anything and backup driver had to do the 'normal driving'. 2: spoke to someone (again a waymo employee and her friend) just after the ride and the friend was visibly shaken and verbatim expression "worst ride of my life". This is all around the MV campus and in the last couple of months. So Waymo's claim seems way off unless they are talking about absolutely fixed paths, much like a public transit and maybe, just even then, a big maybe.

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

#125

Post by ehsankia »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #80
ehsankia wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> even when they are they will still have a Waymo employee on board "initially". I think you're confused. They've been having customer rides with employee in the car for almost a year now. The email sent to customers today is saying that they will soon find rides with no employee inside. And again, rides without employee inside have been happening also since 2017, just not with customers inside.

Maybe I am confused. I'm just going on what Waymo says. The point is that "soon" is meaningless in this context and Waymo very clearly states that "a Waymo employee would likely be present in the vehicle initially."

Like I said, a lot of different misleading statements are being confused people in this thread.

1. Waymo has been having rides with no one in the car for 2 years now.

2. Waymo has been having rides with real customers inside for 1 year now.

3. Waymo has told said customers in #2 that they may soon see rides with no employee inside

I agree that the soon in #3 doesn't mean much, but at the same time, this wasn't a press call, it was a private email sent to users, so it's not like they're showing off.

But 1 and 2 have already been happening for a long time.

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

#126

Post by gundmc »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #121
persistent wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla will "ping" you straight into a concrete wall at full speed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z8v9he74po

It's trying to center in an extremely large lane. An easy fix would be to not have a huge concrete wall jutting into the middle of the freeway without lane markers. I feel like people forget human drivers hit those same barriers with alarming frequency.

The lane markings looked pretty clear in this instance.

That being said, Tesla's cruise control capabilities are best in class, but it's misleading marketing-speak to call it true self-driving.

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

#127

Post by mdorazio »

alasdair_ wrote: post #28
mdorazio wrote: post #17

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.

>Last I checked, autopilot couldn’t even stop for a stop sign unless you count “shadow mode” claims. Perhaps you should check more frequently? Here is a video of a Tesla on Autopilot stopping for a stop sign: https://electrek.co/2019/05/29/tesla-autopilot-stop-sign-mak...

Perhaps you should confirm what it's actually doing in the video? Tesla itself says that stop sign and traffic light handling is in shadow mode only [1].

[1] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-autopilot-fsd-traffic-light-...

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

#128

Post by seanmcdirmid »

2bitencryption wrote: post #61
jonplackett wrote: post #42

I have very mixed feelings about autonomous cars. One side of me is so excited about the prospect and finds it all amazing and futuristic. I love reading about how Tesla and Waymo approach it differently. The other side of me is absolutely not ready to trust my life to a machine - even though I know I do that all the time in other ways in modern life. I think it will be people's emotional evaluation that will matter…

every now and then I do something while driving that, IMO, requires "human cognition". Not just image recognition, obstacle avoidance, rule following, etc. Like, I'm cruising along at 45mph and a plastic bag is blown in front of my car. Yes, I see an obstacle and need to make a decision about what to do - but I do this as a human who knows what a plastic bag is, and how it is far safer to drive right over it than sla…

How many parks in the USA have speed zones around them that aren’t restricted to 15-25mph? It is stupid easy to slow down for a kid chase ball scenario when you are already going slow anyways, the only reason it is such a problem at all is because human drivers prefer speeding so much.

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

#129

Post by mdorazio »

grecy wrote: post #34
mdorazio wrote: post #17

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.

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?

None, because every other manufacturer is more concerned about not killing people than they are about releasing beta features for cars. The most surprising thing to me about autopilot is that Tesla hasn't been sued into oblivion for it.

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

#130

Post by repsilat »

Causality1 wrote: post #112
esoterica wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would companies not sell autonomous cars if customers exist who are willing to pay a reasonable margin over manufacturing costs? The fact that autonomous taxis are viable doesn’t preclude personal car ownership.

Because they would make far more money adding the car to their own fleet. Why sell a car for $40,000 when it could generate $300,000 in revenue over a decade? Tesla has already said they'll stop selling to the public after they have autonomous driving completely safe and working.

> ...when it could generate $300,000 in revenue over a decade?

If markets are competitive the profits will be lower. If markets are not competitive (not many companies can make or license self-driving AI) the rest will sell cars with steering wheels.

The variable that is actually important is demand. If lots of people want their own car, or want to drive their car, the market will provide those things. If most people are content to rent, ownership might become an unusual luxury.

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