Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

blog.waymo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 116 posts

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#31

Post by yupper32 »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #26
crazygringo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is known for a lot of things, like cancelling products, but "dark patterns" is definitely not one of its things. Of course they'll squeeze out maximum profit, like every other company does. Fortunately, you can just check out the Wikipedia article on "profit maximization" to understand why maximum profit doesn't come from maximum prices, but generally comes from a middle price that attracts more customers. In…

> but "dark patterns" is definitely not one of its things. I think you're improperly informed; let me present you just one of many instances that prove my point [0]. [0]: https://www.extremetech.com/internet/330907-google-accused-o...

More likely than other large companies to not have dark patterns, is probably the more correct sentence. It's especially correct with some of their similarly "non-core" products.

I remember moving off of Google Fi a couple years ago and it being incredibly easy to cancel and move my number. I didn't even have to call anyone. A few clicks and it was done. If you've ever tried to do anything with another phone service, you'll know that's unheard of.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#32

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

melling wrote: post #17
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's surprisingly low. Houston is ~64% streets and parking: https://oldurbanist.blogspot.com/2011/12/we-are-25-looking-a...

“Houston, TX Surface parking: 21.3% Garage parking: 3.7%” Parking is 25%, which is a more apples to apples comparison. More garages in LA?

I'm assuming "surface parking" is mainly parking lots - and not counting street parking - which is close to half of all street & sidwalk surface area.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#33

Post by ra7 »

Great news! It does seem like the 5th gen hardware will enable scale and real revenue generating operations for Waymo.

The videos coming out of driverless rides in SF [1][2] and Downtown Phoenix [3] (both employee-only currently) look very impressive. So I don’t doubt they can crack LA.

It will be interesting to see how Waymo progressively reduces deploy time in a new city.

[1] https://youtu.be/ZBvce_eC28A

[2] https://youtu.be/qPDkKUXkQYk

[3] https://youtu.be/rGfV_3HPnYE

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#34

Post by ra7 »

hervature wrote: post #18

> When we think about our next cities, Los Angeles jumps out,” said Waymo’s co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana. “LA is a remarkable, vibrant place – and Waymo’s experience leaves us best positioned to tackle its driving complexity. That's a funny way to say the next biggest place with 300 days of sun per year.

But more importantly:

> With approximately 13 million residents, the Los Angeles metropolitan area is one of the largest ride-hailing service areas in the world and the third largest in the U.S., with an estimated market opportunity of $2 billion in 2022. As a commercial opportunity, Los Angeles is the equivalent of a dozen smaller U.S. ride-hailing market opportunities combined.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#36

Post by tomjakubowski »

stirlo wrote: post #7

A big move for sure. The LA demographics are much less tech heavy than other cities. Hopefully they succeed and have a model where transportation become cheaper and more efficient and an individual owning a car becomes an option rather than a necessity.

What does the size of the local tech industry matter?

(Besides the point - LA does have a large tech industry. Along with the startups, video game developers and megaco satellite offices, there's also aerospace and the film business. https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/documents/areas/ctr/forecast/r... )

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#38

Post by j_kao »

bergenty wrote: post #6
whalesalad wrote: post #4

people are going to light these things on fire

Then they get recorded and dealt with by the law just like burning any random parked car.

To be frank, especially for anyone who hasn't lived in LA, the LAPD doesn't do anything for the public unless it's something involving guns and/or gangs.

It's not unlike how developers mark most bugs as "won't fix".

I've seen active break-ins and robberies in LA, and called the police only to have nothing being done in those situations. While anecdotal, I'm afraid this is a really common experience that has only gotten worse with COVID-flation.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#39

Post by tyingq »

alphabetting wrote: post #30
tyingq wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some precedent for other unattended things like rental scooters. If it becomes a nuisance for the police, they may choose to ignore self-driving car vandalism.

Scooters are like $150 a piece. These six-figure cars. Doubt that gets ignored.

The solve rate for grand theft auto is almost always the lowest rate across felony crime types, just below other property theft. The highest solve rate is for murder, and LA hovers around 50% for that.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#40

Post by j_kao »

porphyra wrote: post #14
j_kao wrote: post #13

This will be interesting to see if they can crack LA - drunk and overly aggressive drivers, crack addicts running around the streets, and vandalism. You can already see this "tragedy of the commons" type of behavior with the unusable public transport system (it's a nightmare to use the trains between Koreatown and DTLA, especially for women) and in the private sector with Lime and Bird scooters. Very exciting if it w…

Regarding crack addicts, LA isn't that much worse than SF where they have been testing for a while. Yes, LA is bigger and has more crack addicts, but the density of crack addicts per square kilometer is about the same between the Tenderloin and Skid Row. Waymo will probably just geofence out the worst areas anyway.

That's true, there are definitely ways to make this work if we're confining these to very restricted spaces with active monitoring.

I look forward to a future LA where car ownership is optional. There's a lot of aggressive urban planning that needs to happen and implemented for it to work. Downtown Culver City is a good example.

Post reply on HN