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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

#281

Post by nradov »

arsome wrote: post #229
VelkaMorava wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder where "a country road with no lanes which barely fits 1.5 car in winter in the Czech republic" is on your scale... Something like this, just imagine the snowdrifts around it https://www.google.com/maps/@49.080269,16.4569252,3a,75y,307...

From what I've seen of Tesla's solution at least - even busy city centers and complex parking lots are very difficulty for present day autonomous driving technologies. The understanding level necessary just isn't there. These things are excellent - undeniably better than humans at the boring stuff, highway driving, even major roads. They can rightfully claim massive mileage with high safety levels in those circumstan…

Would you describe Tesla's tendency to crash full speed into stopped emergency vehicles during highway driving as "excellent"?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/16/business/tesla-autopilot-fede...

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#283

Post by espadrine »

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.

> Level 5 isn't feasible as much for legal reasons as technical ones.

That point is taken into account under J3016_202104 § 8.8:

“There are technical and practical considerations that mitigate the literal meaning of the stipulation that a Level 5 ADS must be capable of ‘operating the vehicle on-road anywhere that a typically skilled human driver can reasonably operate a conventional vehicle,’ which might otherwise be impossible to achieve. For example, an ADS-equipped vehicle that is capable of operating a vehicle on all roads throughout the US, but, for legal or business reasons, cannot operate the vehicle across the borders in Canada or Mexico can still be considered Level 5, even if geo-fenced to operate only within the U.S.”.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#285

Post by _ea1k »

bobsomers wrote: post #230
marcellus23 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay... let me know when their market is the contiguous United States.

Surely this is just moving the goal posts. If they can launch in Chandler and in San Francisco then a huge amount of the contiguous United States is on the table.

I completely agree. I was pretty critical of them when they were just a tiny slice of Arizona, but going from n to n+1 is really major progress.

The fact that the +1 is a city as complex as SF is a really good sign as well. If they can handle SF, they can handle Charlotte, Atlanta, LA, and many other major metros just as "easily".

I'm a lot more optimistic for their rollout now.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#286

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> 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.

I think its in part regulatory relating to paid rides in autonomous vehicles in CA, which is why Cruise is dodging it with passenger-carrying but unpaid rides that are fully driverless. I can't find a good summary of the rules, but I infer from the coverage I've seen that the threshold for having no safety driver when offering paid passenger rides is different from that without paid passengers.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#287

Post by matchbok »

lifekaizen wrote: post #166
matchbok wrote: post #43

Great, they built a smaller, more expensive, less flexible, and less useful BUS. No city should be encouraging this. Every trip that this would solve for is also solved for by public transit. So silly.

Point to point goes where you want, when you want. Buses can be better for taking more people at once, cheap to the riders (if subsidized), but here in SF the service is so erratic it is difficult to use for anything on a schedule, and then with Covid-19 people want more space than mass transit provides

Cities don't have the room for everyone to be driving a single occupancy vehicle point-to-point. There just isn't room.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#288

Post by _ea1k »

darkwater wrote: post #181
ericye16 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between SAE level 4 and 5 is explicitly whether the autonomy is geographically limited or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-driving_car#SAE_Classific...

Am I the only one seeing the change between l4 and l5 abysmal? Also L5 description, at least in the Wikipedia article, is much more vague than the rest

There is a full document available on the SAE website with full descriptions and technical details. Its much better than the common summaries.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#289

Post by keewee7 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #54

Why does Waymo use a niche British luxury car for their platform? Must be very expensive and what are the benefits?

Is Jaguar still a niche brand?

Most taxis in Denmark and Germany are Mercedes-Benz so it's not uncommon for the taxi industry to use luxury brands.

Re: Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco

#290

Post by Lammy »

pfarrell wrote: post #217
Lammy wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the "Southern Crossing"! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Crossing_(California) It would have probably been the continuation of I-980 had that bridge been built: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_980#History At one point it was also planned to be just north of SFO. Have you ever taken I-380 east instead of one of the exits to 101N/S? There's a huge multi-lane road that dwindles to basically an air…

Oh man, thanks for those links. TIL. A causeway or something that extends off of Alameda? It's wild to think about what that would have done to the area.

On the north side there was also a plan to bridge San Francisco / Angel Island / Tiburon! Part of it still exists as Route 131.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4047626058/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4047626054/

https://www.cahighways.org/ROUTE131.html

Here you can see an idea of doubling-up the Bay Bridge, plus a view of the Southern Crossing / I-980 alignment: https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/4247129432/

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