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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

#101

Post by JumpCrisscross »

iinnPP wrote: post #94
theLiminator wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Market dominance would still allow for it to be profitable. Is money to goal or is it a better society? Less pollution, less waste, more social interaction, and increased safety. Less colored paper. Surely the government has an interest in financially incentivising this development. Especially given a decrease in road wear and tear, lower climate impact and surely any number of other benefits.

> money to goal or is it a better society

More people taking cheaper trips in cleaner vehicles is a better society in my book.

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

#102

Post by rootusrootus »

xnx wrote: post #26
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.

And noise! I will rejoice when idiots are no longer allowed to speed and operate clearly illegal (in terms of emissions and noise) vehicles on public roads.

Don't worry, the gov't is here to make sure you don't miss out. Newer EVs and hybrids are required to make noise at <20mph. Never mind that a properly muffled ICEV is only audible when completely stopped. My neighborhood is getting louder as we all switch to EVs.

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

#103

Post by ok_dad »

ilaksh wrote: post #88
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…

> The trick will probably be that you need to have a driver's license and sit in the front seat at first

Rental cars? Lame.

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

#104

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

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…

It seems to have recently gotten worse too. I'd never had a bad experience driving near them until recently, and all of a sudden every time I'm near one it's doing something annoying/worrying.

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

#105

Post by JumpCrisscross »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #60
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.

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.

> Imagine sinking all that money that's being blown on self-driving cars into pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure

This does jack squat for getting across San Francisco or from corner to corner of Phoenix.

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

#106

Post by xnx »

oh_sigh wrote: post #98
threeseed wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 feel like once they start rolling out to more and more locales, we will be hit with a spate of news stories like "creepy guy wouldn't let my car drive away by standing in front of it and leering at me"

Another benefit to Waymo vehicles: Full video recording of all road interactions

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

#107

Post by SanderNL »

It’s all smoke and mirrors.

There’s surely someone driving it remotely or hidden under the hood.

Self-driving is a hoax meant to distract us.

AI is snake oil, Dreyfus, hype train. Stochastic parrot. Confabulations. Unredeemable and based on intellectual mistakes.

Stochastic.

Stochastic.. parr..

…

fizzles out

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

#108

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bushbaba wrote: post #16
sgarrity wrote: post #7

10,000 trips / week is impressive. How many vehicles is this?

It’s not really when you consider their burn rate. Say each of those trips gross 10$. That’s just 100k/week or $5.2 million/year. They’d need to likely 10,000x the ride volume to even be close to profitability. Uber does 7.64 billion rides per year. And they are not profitable. The waymo cars sure ain’t cheap, and scale of operations will take a ton of cash. I wonder if waymo would ever be profitable.

> Uber does 7.64 billion rides per year. And they are not profitable

Uber is profitable in many cities before Uber Eats. An urban-only strategy should be profitable for Waymo.

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

#109

Post by JumpCrisscross »

boulos wrote: post #40

For folks that are interested, the discussion at /r/selfdrivingcars [1] picked out some of the salient numbers. Brad Templeton also did his own write up at [2]. I mainly hope that people take away that this service exists now. You can download the app and just use it in Phoenix. As mentioned in the post, we're doing thousands of trips per week of non-employee rides. There are some great (and not so great!) examples p…

Does each city have an independent wait list? Or once you’re in, you’re in?

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

#110

Post by bombcar »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #64
stouset wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, at least in this instance, the traditional vehicles were all stopped in the appropriate place.

Human vehicles also eventually fix problems by bending or breaking the law if necessary.
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