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

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

blog.waymo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 520 posts

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

#71

Post by sgtnoodle »

austinkhale wrote: post #15
dopamean wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you hate them at first? What about the experience of using the service changed your opinion?

> Why did you hate them at first? I walk my dogs twice a day and the cars are constantly driving by with their array of sensors. Made me feel like I was being constantly filmed and recorded... which as I understand them to work I certainly was/am. Outside of that, I resented being involuntarily part of a science experiment that is objectively pretty dangerous all things considered. For example, I would never cross th…

Regarding the risk of stepping out in front of a Waymo vehicle, I personally wouldn't be too concerned about it as long as there's adequate stopping distance to begin with. You're most definitely being picked up by at least a few different sensors, even from hundreds of ft away. If the car is able to correctly categorize you as a pedestrian, it's constantly re-assessing the probability of you stepping into its path based on multiple visual cues, adjusting its behavior accordingly. If the car isn't able to categorize you, it's still seeing you as a large blob that isn't in its static world map, so it's going to aggressively stop out of caution rather than try driving through you.

The reliance on a static world map is a very big safety feature in my opinion. I wouldn't be as confident stepping into the path of a Tesla.

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

#72

Post by drusepth »

icey wrote: post #50
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…

Same here (downtown Phoenix area) -- the driverless Waymos have been awesome. Occasionally they get confused but it seems pretty rare. They're better than a lot of the other drivers on the road out here. I'm mostly excited that they upped the allowed passenger count from 3 to 4. Usually we take a car if we're going out to dinner with friends but the 3 passenger limit made taking one of these a pain in the ass or impo…

Does the fourth passenger sit in the "driver's" seat, or is it a three-packed-in-the-back kind of situation?

Never seen a self-driving-car in person, but I assume it's the standard 4-seater sedan layout, right?

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

#73

Post by drusepth »

threeseed wrote: post #55
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…

> 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.

I think a lot of Lyft's early "we're like Uber, but better for women!" marketing hints that this is a killer feature that will absolutely drive growth. Especially now that Lyft, too, is saturated to the point of equally-risky drivers as Uber was/is.

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

#74

Post by agnosticmantis »

Really love what waymo have been achieving with a relatively small team, but more importantly, they’ve had their heads down working and solving hard problems instead of opting for attention-seeking behavior, making ridiculously pompous claims and false promises (e.g. delivering robotaxies that make you $30k/yr by next year!), getting into ideological (sensor) wars, etc. (How many people know the name of their CEO? And yet they’re slowly and steadily marching along, hitting one milestone after another.)

Kudos to the hardworking waymonauts!

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

#75

Post by paxys »

hnburnsy wrote: post #68
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…

The baby steps makes sense, but you gotta admit Phoenix has to be thr easiest metro area to test with: Little inclement weather, little terrain change, newer infrastructure, streets mostly laid out in an east-west, north-south grid with consistent naming and numbering.

Waymo and Cruise have also been operating in San Francisco for a while, which is quite the opposite.

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

#76

Post by theobromus »

SoftTalker wrote: post #58
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.

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?

Waymo buys renewable energy for charging https://blog.waymo.com/2023/03/paving-way-toward-fully-elect...

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

#77

Post by ilaksh »

drusepth wrote: post #72
icey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here (downtown Phoenix area) -- the driverless Waymos have been awesome. Occasionally they get confused but it seems pretty rare. They're better than a lot of the other drivers on the road out here. I'm mostly excited that they upped the allowed passenger count from 3 to 4. Usually we take a car if we're going out to dinner with friends but the 3 passenger limit made taking one of these a pain in the ass or impo…

Does the fourth passenger sit in the "driver's" seat, or is it a three-packed-in-the-back kind of situation? Never seen a self-driving-car in person, but I assume it's the standard 4-seater sedan layout, right?

They are vans.

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

#78

Post by zizee »

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…

This is interesting/surprising and I would like to learn more, but the linked study is truncated behind a Paywall.

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

#79

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ilaksh wrote: post #77
drusepth wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the fourth passenger sit in the "driver's" seat, or is it a three-packed-in-the-back kind of situation? Never seen a self-driving-car in person, but I assume it's the standard 4-seater sedan layout, right?

They are vans.

> They are vans

I was in a Jaguar. The one they show on their site [1].

[1] https://waymo.com/phx/

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

#80

Post by iinnPP »

UncleEntity wrote: post #67
iinnPP wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in foster care. One of my guardians made a living driving a taxi. The guy was an absolute wreck of a human and I probably wouldn't break if he was crossing. It was what he used to survive though, and surely not all cab drivers would be the same. My brother in law drove Uber when he was illegally canned from his factory work and is the reason he got to eat. There are options to solve problems that don't requ…

> Mainly something along the lines of forcing the companies profiting from this to pay a person a reasonable wage to act as the social aspect that will be missing. Force them to hire someone to sit in a car all day and do absolutely nothing?

act as the social aspect that will be missing.

To act as a local for a traveler.

To recommend locations

To do nothing but sit there and look at their device or read

Or perhaps the answer is a tax on automation and everyone can sit at home perpetually online.

Im not claiming to have answers to this rapidly approaching problem. It's definitely a problem though. Even if it doesn't impact myself whatsoever at this time.

What is your job? If it is gone tomorrow and your education is useless, what will you do?

What about your family and friends?

Post reply on HN