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Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

thelastdriverlicenseholder.com

61–70 of 514 posts

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#61
post #10

all of this time and money wasted on driverless cars has been a complete failure. companies and cities should be investing their time into improving public transportation and designing our cities to be more walkable and make alternate modes of transportation more feasible. the US culture of using a car for everyday transportation is fucking insane, wasteful, and contributes to the rising cost of living across the US…

Public transportation could take the form of government-owned fleets of self-driving electric cars :) I love going directly from point A to B in a private space and I'm not ashamed to admit it. This provides value to my life in the form of comfort and convenience, factors that are so frequently waved away as irrelevant by anyone screaming "car culture". However, it's admittedly obscene that for this privledge, my veh…

> Public transportation could take the form of government-owned fleets of self-driving electric cars

It absolutely could not, here simply is not enough space for all those cars. A heavy rail metro line can carry up to 60 thousand passengers per hour per direction, which is the equivalent of a 30 lane highway.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do Teslas update themselves while driving, or only when they're parked? It seems like a bad idea to deploy an update to a vehicle in traffic.

Only while parked. And they never update "themselves" except in rare specific circumstances. They have to be told to update by the owner.

Except for when Tesla find out you've bought it 2nd hand, and revoke the FSD...

(Or, you know, when you get into a Twitter shitslinging match with Elon...)

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#63
post #3

Could this just be a simple case of GPS jamming?

Could be but a much more likely cause is a software update that went bad. Likely the cloud rained on them.

> ...the cloud rained on them.

I've yet to hear this expression. Love it! I will be using this!

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#64

It would be more efficient and safer to have wires buried beneath roads which show correct positioning and transmit info regarding which road it is, direction etc in case of gps position errors or failures

Self-driving becomes orders of magnitude easier when you start making these sorts of changes to road infrastructure, yes. The conceit that needs to be made is that it isn’t going to happen

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#65

It would be more efficient and safer to have wires buried beneath roads which show correct positioning and transmit info regarding which road it is, direction etc in case of gps position errors or failures

I think something like this is inevitable. It would also make it much easier for cars to do basic things like following the road, without having to rely wholly on cameras and/or lidar. I definitely expect road infrastructure to change somewhat to accommodate driverless cars, better and more standardized striping if nothing else.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#66
post #10

all of this time and money wasted on driverless cars has been a complete failure. companies and cities should be investing their time into improving public transportation and designing our cities to be more walkable and make alternate modes of transportation more feasible. the US culture of using a car for everyday transportation is fucking insane, wasteful, and contributes to the rising cost of living across the US…

Public transportation could take the form of government-owned fleets of self-driving electric cars :) I love going directly from point A to B in a private space and I'm not ashamed to admit it. This provides value to my life in the form of comfort and convenience, factors that are so frequently waved away as irrelevant by anyone screaming "car culture". However, it's admittedly obscene that for this privledge, my veh…

Same observed facts but different conclusion… As a commitment device I now put junk food on top of my shopping. The judgment of my fitter fellow train riding citizens helps me realize my aspirations of health.

That said, I paid a lot to live right by a good stop on a good line b/c I too like directness.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#67
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about adding bike lanes. That's cool I guess but you still need a car for every day life. Not everyone is a young single person that can just go to a food co-op every few days, throw some organic produce in their backpack and ride home.

> Not everyone is a young single person that can just go to a food co-op every few days, throw some organic produce in their backpack and ride home. In places with good bicycle infrastructure like the Netherlands pretty much everyone cycles (93% cycle at least once per week). In fact the mode share for bicycles is lowest in the 30-40 age range with the 2nd highest being 65 and up - highest is under 18. The biggest us…

[deleted]

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#68

Any industry insiders know how Cruise is doing compared to Waymo and Zoox in SF? It seems Cruise is hyperfocused on SF.

It seems Cruise is hyperfocused on SF

There are three Phoenix-area Wal-Marts from which one can order delivery from a Cruise vehicle: https://www.getcruise.com/walmartdelivery. I also see what I assume are Cruise test vehicles out and about.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#69
post #8

People may get annoyed at cruise for this, but imo it’s still not as bad as the constant blocking of bike lanes and stopping in the middle of the road by human ride share drivers.

Serious question: Do the police know how to ticket a robotaxi?

AFAIK: no. Most PD are very against use of photo-based retroactive citations, and that's what this would require. Of course in theory they have the authority to do so, it just never seems to happen.

Re: Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"all of this time and money wasted on driverless cars has been a complete failure." That's quite a stretch. If you think the money would be better spent elsewhere, ok. But to call it a failure is silly. Personally, I think driverless taxis making car ownership less necessary will be a huge plus. It will also make life a lot better for those due to age (too young or too old) or other issues not being able to drive. I…

>but to get away from that you need gradual steps Given that you bring up the space program in the same post I'll stick with the metaphor and point out that you can't go to the moon by climbing up trees, or as Russ Ackoff said, doing the wrong thing right is worse than doing the right thing wrong, because making the wrong thing more efficient just makes things worse. If you want fully automated, efficient transport t…

>If you want fully automated, efficient transport this technology already exists, it's train and subway systems

You still need cars for going from point A to the train station and from the other train station to point B.

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