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Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

blog.waymo.com

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Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#71

Post by refulgentis »

testfoobar wrote: post #59
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.

I don't understand the division of CEO roles into two CO-CEOs. Is this generally effective? I would imagine this would make tough decision making nearly impossible? Who takes the blame for bad decisions vs. good decisions? Anyone have some history on why Waymo has two CEOs?

This is a really good question...its unusual but I didn't process it as such because it read as a smart & effective split. Last CEO was from Detroit, co-CEOs are effectively technical lead and ops lead. Makes sense for what is a one of kind tech lab hitched to a ride hailing business.

You also made me think deeper about the unusual situations where I've seen co-leads at a FAANG. Honestly? I think it helped.

There's a very strong "bullshit" culture that can set in. It is a mere step beyond your average upper class Americans cultural mileu, so its underrated how degenerate it turns with that one more step: suddenly, leadership is never leading, and being extremely territorial about general subject matter while never doing anything ambituous enough to fail can leads to cylical ineffectiveness.

With two leads, there's two people to appeal to, and two people who need to argue and agree eventually. They can't sidestep that conflict is a crucial part of polishing.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#72

Post by jeffbee »

moralestapia wrote: post #62
melling wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially in Los Angeles where 14% of land is for parking. https://la.curbed.com/2015/11/30/9895842/how-much-parking-lo... The air quality is particularly bad in LA too. If more people used WayMo EV’s there would be a noticeable difference. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/local-2/report-says-la-has-mos...

>air quality [...] If more people used WayMo EV’s there would be a noticeable difference. How come? A car's emissions shouldn't change drastically whether it has a driver or not.

I believe you'll find that the difference between a machine and a human driving the same car can be dramatic. A lot of humans just drive like complete dicks. Switching the throttle map on my car to "eco" and driving in a sensible way gets me +50% MPG compared to setting the throttle map to "sport" and driving like a teenager.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#73

Post by jeffbee »

aantix wrote: post #69
ra7 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not as it’s not a meaningful comparison. One is completely driverless (L4) and the other requires a driver with hands on the wheel ready to take over (L2). Removing the driver (safely and reliably) is like 99.99% of the problem in self driving. That means FSD has to work only once for a YouTube video, but a Waymo has to work every single time as there’s no driver to rescue when things go wrong. So apples to…

That's still a meaningful comparison as it would highlight the disparity between FSD and Waymo.

The difference is that Waymo works and FSD does not work, so it's going to be a short video. FSD cannot take a trip without a man behind the wheel, full stop. It is not any more "self driving" than any other car.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#75

Post by GaylordTuring »

jeffbee wrote: post #73
aantix wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's still a meaningful comparison as it would highlight the disparity between FSD and Waymo.

The difference is that Waymo works and FSD does not work, so it's going to be a short video. FSD cannot take a trip without a man behind the wheel, full stop. It is not any more "self driving" than any other car.

But the person can just sit there and not continue to drive after an intervention. I don’t see why this video wouldn’t be possible or interesting.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#76

Post by yazaddaruvala »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #60
TremendousJudge wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. And autonomous vehicles solve none of the issues of regular cars, except maybe injury rate. The rest is the same -- emissions, inefficiency, expense, noise, traffic congestion, unwalkable cities, and so on.

They're electric, so that solves the emissions and noise problems. Once self-driving cars are common people will figure out that it's safe to jaywalk in front of them, and nobody minds inconveniencing a robot, so I expect jaywalking to rise substantially too. A self-driving hire car isn't idle 23 hours a day like a normal car so that should solve some of the inefficiency and expense issues. All I'm left with on your…

> All I'm left with on your list is congestion, and that'll remain

Smart car sized AEVs, rather than Hummer sized AEVs. Individual "pods" the size of motor cycles, rather than cars.

Today we all buy "peak usage cars". i.e. "Once a quarter I drive 300+ miles", "Once a week I drive my whole family to the park/hike/...", "I'm not yet an off-roading type of person, but might as well spend the extra $10k just incase I wanna get into it. (never gonna get into it)", "What about something that will go fast on the track, just incase I need that". Then 99% of the miles this giant 5+ person car with storage will ever drive is 1 person trips to and from work bumper to bumper.

When the car isn't owned, you don't need to buy "peak usage cars". You can order a car sized for the usecase.

This will reduce a lot of congestion!

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#77

Post by dameyawn »

They mention unprotected left turns. I'm really curious how this will be handled in LA because there are a lot, and if you aren't at least a little aggressive, you will miss lights constantly. And some lights are miserable if the cars turning left in front of you are passive, and only one makes it through per light change.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#78

Post by akomtu »

testfoobar wrote: post #59
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.

I don't understand the division of CEO roles into two CO-CEOs. Is this generally effective? I would imagine this would make tough decision making nearly impossible? Who takes the blame for bad decisions vs. good decisions? Anyone have some history on why Waymo has two CEOs?

I guess that when the last CEO was leaving, he had two candidates to replace him, but both treatened to leave if the other is made the boss, so that CEO made the solomon decision: he made them both "ceo".

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#79

Post by solarkraft »

I expect the cultural impact of launching in the world's media capital to be high. If they're good it'll be strong advertising and everyone will want it. If there are prominent things to criticize you can be sure they'll be criticized heavily.

I assume (hope) they're now reasonably sure the service doesn't suck and preparing for further expansion.

Re: Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles

#80

Post by bergenty »

testfoobar wrote: post #59
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.

I don't understand the division of CEO roles into two CO-CEOs. Is this generally effective? I would imagine this would make tough decision making nearly impossible? Who takes the blame for bad decisions vs. good decisions? Anyone have some history on why Waymo has two CEOs?

I think it’s a great idea. Also a great model for benevolent dictators.
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