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Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

blog.waymo.com

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Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#141

Post by jcranmer »

Lammy wrote: post #67
ra7 wrote: post #19

It's fantastic to see Waymo's progress. SF is a real nightmare to drive. If they can nail it there, that's 2/2 for busy, urban street driving (SF) and "boring" suburban driving (Chandler, AZ). They've been quietly very confident of their tech, but this is a real test. Tangentially, I've also noticed that Waymo has picked up pace ever since the recent leadership changes. They are publishing more blog posts, offering m…

> SF is a real nightmare to drive. 'cause they decided not to build most of the roads: https://www.cahighways.org/maps/1955trafficways.jpg

Cities that did decide to tear up urban areas for freeways aren't really any better. Consider places like Los Angeles, Dallas, or Houston.

What makes SF difficult to drive in (from my perspective of only ever being a pedestrian there) is a) extremely hilly terrain, b) the general difficulty of a dense urban environment anywhere, and only a distant third is c) traffic, which is merely an added stressor to the complex choreography that is an urban street.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#142

Post by lifekaizen »

aRandomCynic wrote: post #45

It is heartwarming to see that Google is doing its part to solve San Francisco's homelessness problem.

Yes, haha. To be fair it's more of a government role and they do support the government with "2.1 billion in state income taxes" https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/04/15/which-bay-area-compan...

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#143

Post by gruez »

hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #126
sandworm101 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of rail-based transports that have no driver (Vancouver's SkyTrain is the largest iirc). They seems to get by without being ripped apart by passengers.

The other passengers serve as the social discouragement in that instance. Most human-driven rail transit isn't monitored by rail employees.

What about elevators? Sure it's sometimes shared, but you can also ride alone.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#144

Post by ra7 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #121
ra7 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, just a reminder that Waymo in Phoenix is nowhere close to being level 5 Because they are not even trying to be level 5. They've made it very clear that will only ever be a level 4 company and level 5 is not feasible.

Level 5 isn't feasible as much for legal reasons as technical ones. I don't think any company wants to sign off on the notion that their software will handle all classes of problem, even ones they have no data for at all.

Except Tesla, who are going to be "L5 by the end of the year" every year!

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#145

Post by sidibe »

jefftk wrote: post #118
hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #85

I wonder if the cars will always have a human chaperone. Not as a safety driver, but to prevent riders from trashing the car.

They don't in Phoenix; the article links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdrV9wqXyH0 as an example. (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself.)

It's interesting the number of comments I've seen since it launched many months ago that completely ignore that this has been deployed somewhere without safety drivers. However unimpressive you find the geofence/HD maps/lidar etc., you'd think more people would know about it

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#147

Post by godot »

hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #126
sandworm101 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of rail-based transports that have no driver (Vancouver's SkyTrain is the largest iirc). They seems to get by without being ripped apart by passengers.

The other passengers serve as the social discouragement in that instance. Most human-driven rail transit isn't monitored by rail employees.

I imagine truly autonomous rides without a specialist on board will have plenty of cabin cameras with clear view to identify the passengers. With consequences in mind, does that work in a similar way to the social discouragement of other passengers?

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#148

Post by hammock »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #59

“All rides in the program will have an autonomous specialist on board for now” This tells me that we’re still a long way from full level 4 (and certainly level 5) autonomy in a busy city like San Francisco. The edge cases requiring immediate human attention are still too frequent for the human safety driver to be remote, as is the case in Phoenix. Also, just a reminder that Waymo in Phoenix is nowhere close to being…

>“All rides in the program will have an autonomous specialist on board for now” This tells me that we’re still a long way

Did you expect something different? I can't really see a boardroom writing a roadmap that goes straight from

  test rides (no passengers) with a backup driver onboard
to

  actual rides with passengers - no backup driver onboard
with no in-between steps.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#149

Post by 0-_-0 »

ra7 wrote: post #136
0-_-0 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, Level 3 can be more "advanced" than Level 4.

How? Level 3 requires a driver who needs to take over when alerted. Level 4 is fully driverless.

No. It's fully driverless in geographically limited areas.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#150

Post by hn_go_brrrrr »

jefftk wrote: post #118
hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #85

I wonder if the cars will always have a human chaperone. Not as a safety driver, but to prevent riders from trashing the car.

They don't in Phoenix; the article links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdrV9wqXyH0 as an example. (Disclosure: I work for Google, speaking only for myself.)

Thanks! I'd love to see their data on rider behavior. AIUI, they have hand-selected a group of riders into their pilot program there. I suspect those people probably behave better than your average taxi passengers. Either way, fascinating to see.
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