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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

#81

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

Adding:

- they’re cheap. $5/ride.

- they’re fun. It’s a self-driving car! That’s cool! I genuinely had fun every time I was taken around in one.

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

#82

Post by xnx »

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.

It's understandable, but very unfortunate that people group Waymo, Cruise, and Tesla together. Waymo is at least 5-10 years more advanced.

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

#83

Post by adrr »

icey wrote: post #52
trgn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - 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.

I wish my navigation supported that feature.

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

#84

Post by theLiminator »

iinnPP wrote: post #41
aidos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which jobs are you thinking? Bus drivers? Taxis? Car production? Which loss of freedom are you referring to? I can’t help thinking that the potential upside will far out-way the cost. London streets are littered with dormant vehicles. Most just sit there taking up room and dominating the city. It would be a whole other city if we could change that dynamic.

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…

> There are options to solve problems that don't require a change in the outcome you desire. 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. So the job market can be unaffected.

Essentially removing most economic incentive to deploy self-driving cars at all?

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

#86

Post by eep_social »

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 were vans: https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/13559409?hl=en

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

#87

Post by iinnPP »

tyingq wrote: post #62
genghisjahn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truck drivers mainly. There are LOTS of truck drivers. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/05/382664837/map-...

If they get over-the-road trucking automated, that also trickles down to many roadside workers...gas stations, restaurants, motels, and so on. Then, some back office functions associated with routing, driver compliance, hiring drivers, etc. I'm sure there's more. It would be a big adjustment.

Not just financial either. When more people are perpetually online in an internet populated by an even larger population of bots designed for engagement, what happens?

Many of the jobs you are referring to are socially fulfilling to some people. It's an escape from a poor home situation or from an addiction.

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

#88

Post by ilaksh »

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…

I have always been a huge proponent of Waymo and obviously Tesla doesn't have something comparable to them now.

But if you look at videos of recorded Tesla autopilot drives on Youtube you will see a huge amount of success in terms of getting people to their destination without crashing or killing anyone. And there is constant gradual improvement.

If Tesla can get another 2-3% improvement, they may actually be able to launch a robotaxi service. The trick will probably be that you need to have a driver's license and sit in the front seat at first. But after X months they will probably allow sitting in the back, especially for certain vetted trip regions.

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

#89

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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?

Arizona is a nuclear and natural-gas state [1], with most of the coal (No. 3) being retired in the coming years [2].

[1] https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Ar...

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