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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

#131

Post by r00fus »

rootusrootus wrote: post #102
xnx wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was worried about that back in 2018 when it was announced but having heard hundreds of backup sounds (luckily mine is silent as it's from before 2019), they are all chill and mostly imperceptible.

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

#132

Post by dangus »

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…

A hopefully not-too-annoying reminder that this isn’t a future that is sustainable or desirable to live in compared with alternatives. It’s really just better than the automotive hellscape you are used to.

Phoenix is one of the most car-centric places to live in the country. The only reason anyone needs a service like this is because of the area’s complete failure in urban planning.

Car-focused infrastructure is incredibly expensive per capita compared to alternatives that prioritizing walking, cycling, and public transit. It maximizes the amount of public utilities (roads, sewers, etc) needed to serve one family.

One pair of train tracks can serve more human commuters than a 12-lane highway. One bus can replace 30-40 cars, and neither option needs fancy automation to be more cost and carbon efficient than a robotaxi.

Waymo might band-aid the transit situation where you live but it’s doing nothing to address the fundamental problems with large urban areas that require the use of personal vehicles.

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

#133

Post by abawany »

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.

that and rolling coal - I see at least one per month in texas.

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

#134

Post by jeffbee »

isubkhankulov wrote: post #121
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…

Thanks for those links. This claim in the Forbes article doesn't make sense to me: " It doesn’t need the money but it does want to learn from how riders interact with a service they are paying for." Alphabet has been pressured to show more tangible financial results by activist shareholders[1]. Waymo has 2,500 employees. Waymo's annual budget for headcount alone include stock based compensation is over $1B by my esti…

Imagine believing that anyone at Alphabet gives a fuck what a 5% shareholder wants.

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

#135

Post by tbruckner »

sprout20 wrote: post #93

I've had access in SF for the past few months and have been really impressed! The Waymo rides I've taken have been confident + a bit conservative (e.g. driving at the speed limit when traffic is flowing more quickly), but overall the team's done a great job with the experience. It's free for now so I've been using it regularly during commuting/rush hour and casual drives. Some quick thoughts: Advantages over Uber/Lyf…

How is pricing?

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

#136

Post by jeffbee »

chroma wrote: post #126
tedivm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'm suspicious of that paper. The largest source of non-exhaust emissions comes from brake pad wear[1] and EVs use brakes far less than combustion vehicles. Also the amount of particulate matter put into the air is highly dependent on vehicle speed. Densely populated areas have more traffic, which means cars drive slower and create less non-exhaust pollution. And it's no longer true that EVs are heavier than comparab…

As I understand it a large component of the particulate emissions from cars is resuspended road dust, so it doesn't really matter than an EV or hybrid has little of its own brake dust. The brake dust is already on the ground.

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

#137

Post by dangus »

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…

It blows my mind that someone living downtown in a city the size of Phoenix (relatively large) needs to use a car at all. It’s really a shameful failure of urban planning.

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

#138

Post by agnosticmantis »

xnx wrote: post #91
agnosticmantis wrote: post #74

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? An…

> How many people know the name of their CEO? CEOs (plural)

Well, my point exactly ;)

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

#139

Post by xnx »

arecurrence wrote: post #97
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…

Does it prompt for a tip?

No

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

#140

Post by danans »

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…

> If Tesla can get another 2-3% improvement, they may actually be able to launch a robotaxi service.

2-3% improvement in what metric exactly? Disengagement rate? Tesla has a long way to go there in anything but highway driving.[1]

YouTube videos are not proof of the safety of an autonomous vehicle. Tesla autopilot is currently very optimistically at level 2.5. 2-3%, even across all metrics won't get them to level 3, much less level 5.

I don't blame the people working in their self-driving program. The expectations that have been placed upon them are unreasonable given the constraints on equipment cost and aesthetic design.

1. https://twitter.com/TaylorOgan/status/1458169941128097800

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