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Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

blog.waymo.com

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Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#51

Post by CPLX »

stouset wrote: post #43
austinkhale wrote: post #5

I live inside the original area in Phoenix where they did their training. I have to give kudos where it's due. I originally _hated_ their cars constantly driving around our neighborhood, but I was persuaded to try one a few weeks back. It completely changed my mind. They are now my favorite way to get around. I am a very happy, frequent customer and hope they keep adding coverage and more cars. This is absolutely the…

I'll contrast this with Cruise, which are driving autonomously in San Francisco. I hate them. At least in the area I'm in (the Inner Sunset), they often cruise around with no passengers while waiting for a request. While doing so, they circle around idling at 10-15mph, pausing for 30 seconds or more at stop signs. It's long enough where just when you decide they've completely stopped and start to go around, they "wak…

Visualizing this situation happening in New York City, where I live, is causing me to chuckle out loud.

It’s hard not to envision the nearest construction vehicle casually lifting the thing into the east river while a couple NYPD guys laugh and take pics for their friends.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#52

Post by icey »

trgn wrote: post #37
austinkhale wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- The cars are very safe, very conservative drivers - The interiors are nice, well air conditioned and don't smell - You don't have to talk to a person, which I don't always hate but have had some bad experiences. This just removes the roll of the dice from the equation entirely. - They are currently at par or cheaper with Uber/Lyft prices and typically it's faster for the car to arrive - You get to play your own mus…

> - The cars are very safe, very conservative drivers So great to hear. Seeing videos of self-driving Tesla made me fear for the worst.

Here's one concrete example -- these cars almost never take left hand turns. They'll route multiple right hand turns to get somewhere, which makes it feel much less risky when pulling onto a busy street from a neighborhood, for example.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#53

Post by inferiorhuman »

stouset wrote: post #43
austinkhale wrote: post #5

I live inside the original area in Phoenix where they did their training. I have to give kudos where it's due. I originally _hated_ their cars constantly driving around our neighborhood, but I was persuaded to try one a few weeks back. It completely changed my mind. They are now my favorite way to get around. I am a very happy, frequent customer and hope they keep adding coverage and more cars. This is absolutely the…

I'll contrast this with Cruise, which are driving autonomously in San Francisco. I hate them. At least in the area I'm in (the Inner Sunset), they often cruise around with no passengers while waiting for a request. While doing so, they circle around idling at 10-15mph, pausing for 30 seconds or more at stop signs. It's long enough where just when you decide they've completely stopped and start to go around, they "wak…

  In one instance, a left-turning Muni bus was unable to complete the turn due to
  a Cruise vehicle coming from that direction. The Cruise vehicle had entered too
  far into the intersection before stopping. There's paint on the intersection to
  indicate that cars need to stop further back, and the Cruise had failed to obey
  this.
Yeah that tracks. My last run in with Cruise was towards the end of April when their vehicle (Gnome) decided to just wait for the light to turn green… in the fucking crosswalk. This was on Market, so it's not like it's a small, easy to miss crosswalk.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#54

Post by sidibe »

jeffbee wrote: post #48

The Waymo approach has proven itself. Targeted testing, running the driver in hard mode as much as possible, is better than the Tesla approach. Tesla’s plan was essentially “machine learning underpants gnomes”. Collect ten billion miles of data from guys driving down 280 -> ??? -> profit. Didn’t work and now Tesla is recognized as being dead last in the game, behind dozens of no-name Chinese players. Now what I wonde…

> Collect ten billion miles of data from guys driving down 280 -> ??? -> profit.

It's actually

Profit -> Collect ten billion miles of data from guys driving down 280 -> ???

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#55

Post by threeseed »

austinkhale wrote: post #21
kccqzy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us not located in areas where Waymo is available, do you mind elaborating on why this is your favorite way to get around? As compared to Uber, Lyft, etc.

- The cars are very safe, very conservative drivers - The interiors are nice, well air conditioned and don't smell - You don't have to talk to a person, which I don't always hate but have had some bad experiences. This just removes the roll of the dice from the equation entirely. - They are currently at par or cheaper with Uber/Lyft prices and typically it's faster for the car to arrive - You get to play your own mus…

> You don't have to talk to a person

My partner has been propositioned and harassed over a dozen times by Uber drivers.

I think for many this is going to be a killer feature.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#56

Post by [deleted] »

stouset wrote: post #43
austinkhale wrote: post #5

I live inside the original area in Phoenix where they did their training. I have to give kudos where it's due. I originally _hated_ their cars constantly driving around our neighborhood, but I was persuaded to try one a few weeks back. It completely changed my mind. They are now my favorite way to get around. I am a very happy, frequent customer and hope they keep adding coverage and more cars. This is absolutely the…

I'll contrast this with Cruise, which are driving autonomously in San Francisco. I hate them. At least in the area I'm in (the Inner Sunset), they often cruise around with no passengers while waiting for a request. While doing so, they circle around idling at 10-15mph, pausing for 30 seconds or more at stop signs. It's long enough where just when you decide they've completely stopped and start to go around, they "wak…

[deleted]

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#57

Post by shiftpgdn »

tedivm wrote: post #38
melling wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10,000 trips in electric vehicles. Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate and the air quality.

Climate yes, but air quality not by as much as you'd think. Multiple studies have come out showing that the weight of EVs puts more pressure on tires and breaks, which in turn increases the particles they dump in the air. > As a result, total PM10 emissions from EVs were found to be equal to those of modern ICEVs. PM2.5 emissions were only 1–3% lower for EVs compared to modern ICEVs. Therefore, it could be concluded…

I feel like this is a nonsense study. They used a 2013 study that measured gas cars and then just extrapolated that out based on weight for EVs and did nothing to account for regenerative breaking, specialty EV tires, etc. Also the numbers are from the Simons 2013 study seem to be dubious as well.

Anyone who has been to Oslo understands EVs are a huge benefit for urban air quality.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#58

Post by SoftTalker »

melling wrote: post #3
alphabetting wrote: post #2

> "we are now serving over 10 thousand trips per week to public riders, not including employees. With this latest expansion, we intend for those numbers to accelerate rapidly to 10 times that scale by next summer" they've been pretty cautious on predictions after the AV hype boom and bust a couple years ago. 10x in a year is an ambitious goal.

10,000 trips in electric vehicles. Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate and the air quality.

What is the power source for charging these EVs? In Phoenix, I could imagine it might be solar but the cars probably want to charge at night during low-demand times?

If it's utility electric, from what fuel source is it generated?

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#59

Post by stouset »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #53
stouset wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll contrast this with Cruise, which are driving autonomously in San Francisco. I hate them. At least in the area I'm in (the Inner Sunset), they often cruise around with no passengers while waiting for a request. While doing so, they circle around idling at 10-15mph, pausing for 30 seconds or more at stop signs. It's long enough where just when you decide they've completely stopped and start to go around, they "wak…

In one instance, a left-turning Muni bus was unable to complete the turn due to a Cruise vehicle coming from that direction. The Cruise vehicle had entered too far into the intersection before stopping. There's paint on the intersection to indicate that cars need to stop further back, and the Cruise had failed to obey this. Yeah that tracks. My last run in with Cruise was towards the end of April when their vehicle (…

In their defense, this is how human-operated vehicles act on Market too. :)

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#60

Post by inferiorhuman »

melling wrote: post #3
alphabetting wrote: post #2

> "we are now serving over 10 thousand trips per week to public riders, not including employees. With this latest expansion, we intend for those numbers to accelerate rapidly to 10 times that scale by next summer" they've been pretty cautious on predictions after the AV hype boom and bust a couple years ago. 10x in a year is an ambitious goal.

10,000 trips in electric vehicles. Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate and the air quality.

  Self-driving EV’s in all major cities would be a big win for the climate
  and the air quality.
Counterpoint: no, they wouldn't. Moving towards self-driving automobiles merely props up an inefficient mode of transportation. Imagine sinking all that money that's being blown on self-driving cars into pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. The problem with cars is cars, not drivers.
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