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Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

blog.waymo.com

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Re: Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

#51

Post by johncena33 »

lhorie wrote: post #19
Judgmentality wrote: post #2

https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr... > We’ll start with those who are already a part of Waymo One and, over the next several weeks, welcome more people directly into the service through our app So...this is just an extension of what they currently do where it's not really open to the public? Waymo One is something you have to apply for and almost nobody gets in. It's not clear to me what "w…

Would it be too cynical to assume this whole thing is going to get shutdown after a few years due to failing to gain enough traction (due to people being wary of Google's track record of doing so with their in-google properties)?

Every Google related thread is infested with comments like this. We get it. Google shuts down products. How many times we have to have this discussion? Can we now discuss something new?

Re: Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

#52

Post by nwsm »

advisedwang wrote: post #23

What is the actual advantage to consumers over an Uber? Novelty will wear off, and so to survive Waymo will actually need to be better in some way. Can anyone in Phoenix answer if Waymo is cheaper? Is Waymo hoping people will choose Waymo for safety?

Why does Waymo need to prove viability but Uber does not? Uber cannot lose $8B/yr forever.

The obvious advantage will be price, if Uber even still exists.

Re: Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

#53

Post by lhorie »

vkou wrote: post #25
lhorie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be too cynical to assume this whole thing is going to get shutdown after a few years due to failing to gain enough traction (due to people being wary of Google's track record of doing so with their in-google properties)?

Do you really care about the longevity of the taxi company whose cars you are riding in? Half the time, I don't even know which company that is. Or the longevity of the particular farm from which your grocery's tomatoes have been sourced from? This isn't e-mail. The cost and hassle of switching to a competing service is nearly zero.

> Do you really care about the longevity of the taxi company whose cars you are riding in?

I mean, look at McDonalds and Coca-Cola, for example. I'm skeptical about the idea that simply having the SDV technology somehow also translates to being in a leadership position in terms of regulation, customer support, branding/marketing/being-installed-on-peoples-phones, etc etc.

Uber already had to fight uphill regarding regulation in many places so it definitely has some moat now (see, e.g. Uber and Ola in London). Waymo is on completely uncharted territory, regulation-wise.

I'm also curious about how the economics and logistics will play out. One criticism of existing ride sharing is not accounting for vehicle depreciation and wear and tear (and this on mass produced vehicles). Waymo vehicles have a lot more expensive technology on board, so I'm curious how that balances out in terms of lidar/etc shelf-life + specialized tech inspections vs ROI.

Also, cost of switching goes both ways. If this forces the hand of the other players to roll out SDV (via Cruise partnerships for example), Waymo doesn't necessarily stand to dominate the market, since it's already so crowded w/ well-funded/well-positioned players from all sorts of directions.

Re: Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

#55

Post by jrockway »

scotth wrote: post #43
fullshark wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue Tesla has the lead. Perhaps their approach has technical limitations that make full self-driving impossible so it's moot but they have the lead.

...so in what way do they have the lead?

I guess they have the lead in the sense that you can drive to a Tesla dealership today and buy a car that will kind of sort of drive you home. That's something!

Re: Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

#56

Post by yowlingcat »

bpodgursky wrote: post #42
yowlingcat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope grandma has good life insurance!

That is neither accurate not constructive.

Constructive? Maybe not. But accurate [1]? I think it is a valid concern and one which Tesla is facing. For all intents and purposes, driverless vehicles present a potential public health hazard and a moral dilemma. Do you not agree with that?

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2020/05/16/lawsuit-a...

Re: Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

#57

Post by twmahna »

yowlingcat wrote: post #39

Who foots the bill when a pedestrian inevitably gets run over?

Based on the precedent set by Uber, Waymo will be held financially responsible, but won't face criminal charges. I'd be interested in reading more about the liability insurance coverage Waymo has for its self-driving program, but can't find info anywhere.

Source: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2019/03/08/uber-got-off-the-hook...

Re: Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

#58

Post by javagram »

yowlingcat wrote: post #56
bpodgursky wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is neither accurate not constructive.

Constructive? Maybe not. But accurate [1]? I think it is a valid concern and one which Tesla is facing. For all intents and purposes, driverless vehicles present a potential public health hazard and a moral dilemma. Do you not agree with that? [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2020/05/16/lawsuit-a...

Tesla sells a driver assistance system comparable or a bit better than competing technologies from MobileEye or GM.

Their innovation is branding this ADAS as “self driving” and claiming they will eventually release a software update that makes it more like Waymo’s existing technology. They also have avoided safety features like eye tracking that prevent misuse of the ADAS as if it were a self driving system.

Waymo and Tesla really aren’t facing the same issue because the high-profile Tesla crashes are blamed by Tesla on the driver not properly overseeing the ADAS, while Waymo cars are on the road with no safety driver and have never had a major accident, and won’t be able to blame the non-existent driver if they do.

Re: Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

#59

Post by evanlivingston »

whimsicalism wrote: post #30
advisedwang wrote: post #23

What is the actual advantage to consumers over an Uber? Novelty will wear off, and so to survive Waymo will actually need to be better in some way. Can anyone in Phoenix answer if Waymo is cheaper? Is Waymo hoping people will choose Waymo for safety?

I mean, if they can make this work well then you cut out the driver - which is very cost-saving. It also lets you a. optimize exactly where cars are driving to maximize ride share revenue, b. have the cars ready to pick someone up 24/7. It's going to be a much more efficient use of car capital than hiring a person to drive it.

Is it though? will autonomous vehicles ever get to point where there is even close to less than one engineer for each vehicle? Engineering salaries are substantially larger than driver's salaries. Also, there is the cost of years and years of extremely expensive research that needs to be offset, cloud infrastructure costs, hardware costs + costs of retooling factories for integrating the large numbers of sensors + compute. I can't imagine (without doing any actual math) that there's a cost savings within 200 years

Re: Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix

#60

Post by pb7 »

fullshark wrote: post #37
actuator wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo was started in 2009, they have existed for half of Google's existence. The amount of research and money that has gone into it is not comparable to things like Google Reader. Also, they seem to have the lead over most and the market opportunity is huge.

I'd argue Tesla has the lead. Perhaps their approach has technical limitations that make full self-driving impossible so it's moot but they have the lead.

Tesla has the lead in marketing only, which may be why you think they have the lead, because marketing works.
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