Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco • Hacker News Board

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#11

Post by nerdbaggy » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:01 PM UTC

fudged71 wrote: post #5

If a human driver is lost or in distress, the default behavior would be to find the nearest safe spot to pull over and put on your hazards. Shouldn't this be the default fallback behavior if a remote driver isn't responding?

Yup they do that. Just happened to pull off to the side in a crosswalk

> Cruise spokesperson Tiffany Testo provided a written statement that said the company’s vehicles are programmed to pull over and turn on their hazard lights when they encounter a technical problem or meet road conditions they can’t handle.

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#12

Post by salmonfamine » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #9

salmonfamine wrote: post #8

Self-driving cars are a solution for a problem that has already been solved. Build trains. But of course, this doesn't benefit automakers, requires a move towards high-density housing that NIMBY's and certain classes of investors oppose, so instead we'll create an entirely new class of problems by allowing these companies to unleash their insufficient technology on public roads.

Explain how trains solve the last mile problem? The thing that roads already solve?

Walk.

EDIT: or just drive, as you do now.

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#13

Post by AlotOfReading » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:07 PM UTC

salmonfamine wrote: post #8

Self-driving cars are a solution for a problem that has already been solved. Build trains. But of course, this doesn't benefit automakers, requires a move towards high-density housing that NIMBY's and certain classes of investors oppose, so instead we'll create an entirely new class of problems by allowing these companies to unleash their insufficient technology on public roads.

How do you plan to get permission/funding to build trams, metros, and trains in every city in America? The minuscule commercial deployments we've already seen in cities like Phoenix and SF cover vastly more area than the last 50 years of passenger rail construction in those same cities.

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#14

Post by salmonfamine » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

AlotOfReading wrote: post #13

salmonfamine wrote: post #8

Self-driving cars are a solution for a problem that has already been solved. Build trains. But of course, this doesn't benefit automakers, requires a move towards high-density housing that NIMBY's and certain classes of investors oppose, so instead we'll create an entirely new class of problems by allowing these companies to unleash their insufficient technology on public roads.

How do you plan to get permission/funding to build trams, metros, and trains in every city in America? The minuscule commercial deployments we've already seen in cities like Phoenix and SF cover vastly more area than the last 50 years of passenger rail construction in those same cities.

Well, that's the problem. Self-driving cars does not solve that problem.

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#15

Post by rnk » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:17 PM UTC

salmonfamine wrote: post #12

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain how trains solve the last mile problem? The thing that roads already solve?

Walk. EDIT: or just drive, as you do now.

so we build giant parking lots at our metro train stations? We need different transportation. The us is terrible at building needed train infra. But just like in Europe, you need different solutions at diff levels.

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#16

Post by aetherson » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:21 PM UTC

salmonfamine wrote: post #8

Self-driving cars are a solution for a problem that has already been solved. Build trains. But of course, this doesn't benefit automakers, requires a move towards high-density housing that NIMBY's and certain classes of investors oppose, so instead we'll create an entirely new class of problems by allowing these companies to unleash their insufficient technology on public roads.

I am willing to bet that if self-driving cars come along, they will see strong sales/rental/deployment, however they end up working in Europe, or Japan, or wherever else you have in mind as some place that has "already solved this problem."

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#17

Post by SECProto » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:22 PM UTC

rnk wrote: post #15

salmonfamine wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walk. EDIT: or just drive, as you do now.

so we build giant parking lots at our metro train stations? We need different transportation. The us is terrible at building needed train infra. But just like in Europe, you need different solutions at diff levels.

> so we build giant parking lots at our metro train stations

No. The comment you're replying to specifically said "walk", while the comment at top of thread specifically mentioned that building trains "requires a move towards high-density housing". High density housing, trains, and walking is a solved transportation solution for cities with much higher/denser populations than we have in North America.

Getting there from here is not such a solved solution, but the general process many places are working on goes:

build train (with park and ride at outskirts for current ridership) --> build high density mixed use near stations (which now doesn't need parking for each unit) --> rinse and repeat until city is more sustainable without blowing $$$,$$$,$$$ on road capital projects every year to deal with ever-increasing traffic

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#18

Post by jjulius » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

I can't wait for that point many moons in the future, where FSD is fully/widely-adopted, and where every Honda (or pick any mfg'er, really) on the planet stops right where it is because some key piece of their critical infrastructure went down.

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#19

Post by eric-hu » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:37 PM UTC

SECProto wrote: post #17

rnk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so we build giant parking lots at our metro train stations? We need different transportation. The us is terrible at building needed train infra. But just like in Europe, you need different solutions at diff levels.

> so we build giant parking lots at our metro train stations No. The comment you're replying to specifically said "walk", while the comment at top of thread specifically mentioned that building trains "requires a move towards high-density housing". High density housing, trains, and walking is a solved transportation solution for cities with much higher/denser populations than we have in North America. Getting there f…

What cities or countries did this successfully? Were they as dependent on cars as American cities tend to be?

Re: Cruise’s Robot Car Outages Are Jamming Up San Francisco

#20

Post by hansword » Fri, Jul 08, 2022, 10:43 PM UTC

37ef_ced3 wrote: post #3

From a customer's perspective, it isn't clear that a hardware/software taxi driver is in any way better than a human taxi driver, particularly with (human) driver assist preventing collisions and all the other warnings provided by a modern car. In both cases someone else is driving for the customer. With a human driver (plus driver assist braking and collision warnings) you have the most flexible, sophisticated intel…

I think your 'only advantage' is a bit premature.

3 seconds thought: Robotaxis can't get covid (or warthog-flu or whatever new pandemic the next years will bring), which might be an advantage to some customers.

Having said that, I don't drive nor use taxis, so I don't care much.