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

blog.waymo.com

201–210 of 520 posts

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

#201
post #77

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.

Part of this announcement is the completion of retiring our Pacifica fleet. So while we used to have the vans on the road in Chandler, you'll now see the same vehicles that were in Downtown Phoenix and San Francisco.

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

#202
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The interiors are nice, well air conditioned and don't smell If they scale, that will become a problem: - people puking in car - people having sex in car - people eating greasy fries in car These happen in public transportation too (the sex one not as often, but puking, eating smelly/gross food definitely), but the big difference here is that users won't be anonymous. The next waymo rider (or waymo staff if the car…

Constant HD video logging of everything going on inside and outside the car doesn't eliminate these issues, but it should do a lot to minimize them. If you're looking to do stagecoach robbery, I'm not sure why you'd pick the one car that will clearly record your face and license plate, and which is networked with hundreds of other cars to watch every second of your getaway.

And yet... https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/caught-on-camera-teen-jump...

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

#203
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.

Tbh, you shouldn't compare Tesla "AutoPilot" with these full self driving options.

> Tbh, you shouldn't compare Tesla "AutoPilot" with these full self driving options.

Right. Because Tesla FSD “beta” is not guaranteed, even if you pay for the monthly subscription.

And even if you did have Tesla FSD beta, it’s a pile of shit. It’s gets worse every quarter as they continue to remove safety sensors from vehicles due to supply chain issues.

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

#204
post #199
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I very much liked the broader approach of solving the general problem, but this actually seems to be doing better. The general problem has insane amounts of edge cases, and is basically trying to do a pole-vault-height high jump; if you succeed, you own the world (or at least can automatically drive anywhere on it), but until then, you and your customers have lots of problems. Meanwhile, the approach of map-ever…

> The question is whether it'll ever get out of cities? While storage is constantly getting cheaper, but is it feasible to map and update the maps sufficiently for a cross-country trip? That's certainly the intent with Waymo Via for trucking, and we drive multiple routes today including say Dallas Houston for beer [1]. The video at [2] includes some footage of the trucks on a highway. [1] https://www.ttnews.com/artic…

Very cool - thx!

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

#205
post #125

With all the hype about AI this year, does anyone know whether it's translating in any meaningful sense into self driving? Can they use transformers? If so, is there a step change in performance? Has this already happened?

Yep! Our research team publishes a lot of work (waymo.com/research).

If you're interested in Transformers and attention in particular, the excellently named Wayformer [1] paper is pretty easy to follow and SWFormer is impressive on a lot of levels [2].

The main challenge for autonomous vehicles has been (large) multi-modal inputs, while delivering real-time inference performance on the road. Many of the large-language model things you see produce cool results, but would be much too slow or expensive for a real-time, safety-critical application.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.05844

[2] https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.07372

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

#206

As we Europeans are very far away from seeing any of those, I have a question: how is the refuel / recharge handled? These are EVs, right? Do they some how do that independently, too?

Today, they come back to the depot to be recharged. People plug them in and unplug them when done.

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never tried to spell the phrase "flip a youey" before. It might be the only word I use that I have never considered spelling, so I am grateful that you included it your comment. That said, I think you are wrong and it should be "uey", "uie," "u-ie," or any other spelling that emphasizes the "u" after which the term is named. Also "I do not know the answer but I am sure you are wrong" is the most internetish co…

Maybe "U-ey" or "U-ee"?

https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/tsvbh2y

> U-ie n.

> also U, U-ee, U-ey, U-turn, youie

> (orig. Aus.) a U-turn; thus chuck/bang a U-ie, to make a U-turn.

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

#208
post #13
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.

I agree but also worry about the job loss and the inevitable loss of freedoms that will inevitably be 'justifiable' when automatic driving is the norm. Basically, if the cost can be comparable to car ownership, reducing resource use by making car buying of any kind far more difficult. Which is admittedly entirely a thought experiment. Though it is a thought experiment many authors seem to arrive at. Edit: I wish I co…

Making transportation more affordable will provide a lot more freedom to most of society.

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

#209
post #163
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Phoenix is like LA without the positives

This is definitely not true.

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

#210
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The interiors are nice, well air conditioned and don't smell If they scale, that will become a problem: - people puking in car - people having sex in car - people eating greasy fries in car These happen in public transportation too (the sex one not as often, but puking, eating smelly/gross food definitely), but the big difference here is that users won't be anonymous. The next waymo rider (or waymo staff if the car…

Arizona is a shall-issue State.

Arizona is a permitless state since 2010.
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