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

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

#391

Post by refulgentis »

zaroth wrote: post #328
surfpel wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is the autonomous driving division of Alphabet. Alphabet has 190k employees Tesla’s autopilot team has ~300 people. Both teams have done incredible work.

I didn’t realize Tesla’s team was so small. Both companies have truly done incredible work! It’s funny watching HN comments trying to tear down Musk and Tesla while their software—which has driven billions of miles—continues to just get better and better. I love that we have these companies all investing billions of dollars on trying to solve this problem in very different ways. Truly a beautiful example of capitalis…

Is it funny? I empathize, but maybe I'm too soft?

A lot of people bought cars based on bad, lying, PR. Appreciating assets, $30K/year robotaxi service next year, we'll rent out your car for you. Coast to coast in 9 months, again, again, again, and again.

It's sort of the opposite of what OP praised: loud, not quiet, scrambling in public, not head's down.

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

#392

Post by inferiorhuman »

xnx wrote: post #385
inferiorhuman wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already bike from one part of SF to another, investment in bicycle infrastructure would make that easier and safer. Or, you know, public transit. Individual vehicles suffer from massive inefficiency compared to nearly any other form of transportation – look at Elon's fully autonomous tunnel.

> Individual vehicles suffer from massive inefficiency compared to nearly any other form of transportation I though this too until I looked at the true dollar costs or carbon impact per passenger mile. That doesn't even account for the externalities of particulate pollution and road wear. The buses in my city are also filthy diesel, belching thick, noxious, clouds of soot as they accelerate away from the stop, right…

That sounds like a problem with your city. I've not seen a diesel car or truck belching smoke out here in decades. San Francisco phased out the two stroke diesels in the late 00s, and even those were a lot cleaner than the two strokes of my youth.

  still do heavy damage to the road surface: rutting and exacerbating potholes.
Sure, the wear goes up exponentially with the weight (and axle loading). OTOH you need significantly more cars than buses to move people around. Investing in mixed-use development and better pedestrian infrastructure means that fewer people need to use mechanized transport.

Look at lord Elno's autonomous vehicle tunnel – individual vehicles simply don't scale.

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

#393

Post by subarctic »

bjork wrote: post #276
bmelton wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never tried to spell the phrase "flip a youey" before. As a former Scripps spelling bee contestant, I've developed a low-grade allergy to commonplace onomotopeic words with no obvious, agreed-upon spelling. Recently I struggled with zhuzh (which has the bonus terror of having an alternate spelling, 'zhoosh') - but I commend OP for having chosen a phonetically parseable spelling over one of your (arguably mor…

*onomatopoeic

I thought it was onomatopoetic?

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

#394

Post by surfpel »

esalman wrote: post #326
surfpel wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bay area also has historically mild climate Bay Area yes. San Francisco less so. Sure it doesn’t get snow but it is often rainy and foggy. Beyond that, the drivers are very aggressive along with pedestrians and cyclists. It is not a very easy place to drive. Are you suggesting that they should start development in a more extreme climate right off the bat?

Yes. What's the point of developing something that is suitable for sunny climate only? This is how bias creeps into Al/ML systems.

You start with the easy case then gradually make the model more robust by increasing the difficulty.

What you’re suggesting is akin to trying to develop a jetliner before building propeller aircraft. Too hard too soon and you don’t really know what the target even is. Much learning happens before you can successfully execute a complex plan like that.

Plus it’s better from a business standpoint because you can achieve probability profitability sooner with your MVP.

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

#395

Post by surfpel »

gamblor956 wrote: post #380
surfpel wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for these claims? > Toyota's or GM's advanced driving systems What advanced driving system? Do you mean lane assist with adaptive cruise control? That’s not even remotely comparable.

It doesn't matter what advanced driving systems you compare; Tesla is the world's worst in terms of accidents, injuries, and fatalities. For sources: NYT and WaPo both have a series of articles covering this; the NHTSA has released a report documenting over 100 Tesla advanced driving accidents.

> It doesn't matter what advanced driving systems you compare

It doesn’t matter? Sorry, but this is absurd. There are no other advanced driving systems on any production vehicles that is comparable to what Tesla is doing.

This kind of unbacked, vague, hand-wavey, arm-chair cynicism holds society back from making real progress. No thanks.

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

#396

Post by surfpel »

zaroth wrote: post #328
surfpel wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo is the autonomous driving division of Alphabet. Alphabet has 190k employees Tesla’s autopilot team has ~300 people. Both teams have done incredible work.

I didn’t realize Tesla’s team was so small. Both companies have truly done incredible work! It’s funny watching HN comments trying to tear down Musk and Tesla while their software—which has driven billions of miles—continues to just get better and better. I love that we have these companies all investing billions of dollars on trying to solve this problem in very different ways. Truly a beautiful example of capitalis…

Exactly this. You can find so many videos of various self driving vehicles safely traversing the roads, highlighting the truly incredible work they’re all doing.

It’s gross how many people ride the bandwagon of anti-Tesla or anti-self driving because it’s not coming out as fast as the next iPhone revision. It’s a damn hard problem that’s going to take a bit of time and deliver serious rewards to our society.

This must be what it felt like in the early days of automobiles or other highly disruptive, society changing innovations.

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

#397

Post by surfpel »

refulgentis wrote: post #391
zaroth wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t realize Tesla’s team was so small. Both companies have truly done incredible work! It’s funny watching HN comments trying to tear down Musk and Tesla while their software—which has driven billions of miles—continues to just get better and better. I love that we have these companies all investing billions of dollars on trying to solve this problem in very different ways. Truly a beautiful example of capitalis…

Is it funny? I empathize, but maybe I'm too soft? A lot of people bought cars based on bad, lying, PR. Appreciating assets, $30K/year robotaxi service next year, we'll rent out your car for you. Coast to coast in 9 months, again, again, again, and again. It's sort of the opposite of what OP praised: loud, not quiet, scrambling in public, not head's down.

Not sure what the last paragraph is saying, but it is regrettable how consumers were led to believe that this problem would be quickly solved.

In their defense, the whole AI industry was convinced of this. It’s known as the long tail. An absurdly huge number of small edge cases to fix before it’s a solved problem.

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

#398

Post by zaroth »

refulgentis wrote: post #391
zaroth wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t realize Tesla’s team was so small. Both companies have truly done incredible work! It’s funny watching HN comments trying to tear down Musk and Tesla while their software—which has driven billions of miles—continues to just get better and better. I love that we have these companies all investing billions of dollars on trying to solve this problem in very different ways. Truly a beautiful example of capitalis…

Is it funny? I empathize, but maybe I'm too soft? A lot of people bought cars based on bad, lying, PR. Appreciating assets, $30K/year robotaxi service next year, we'll rent out your car for you. Coast to coast in 9 months, again, again, again, and again. It's sort of the opposite of what OP praised: loud, not quiet, scrambling in public, not head's down.

I see it completely differently. Up until Tesla made it possible, no one would ever even imagine buying a car based on functionality that would be added later. It was simply never done.

Tesla pioneered the model of a unified fleet software with constant updates and new features. And with that architecture they consistently deliver incremental value to every Tesla owner on a regular basis.

I’ve been an M3 owner since 2018 running software that had barebones visualization, basic lane keeping, TACC, and not even a dash cam or sentry mode, or the ability to automatically change lanes on the highway.

Today I drive FSD beta 11.3.6 on the same car which regularly brings me door to door, drives impeccably on and off the highway, handles lane changes, off-ramps, unprotected left turns, etc.

Truly hands off, unsupervised, self-driving is the target. Owners see Tesla’s relentless drive towards this goal, and FSD Beta gets better with each release.

Elon did think he would get there sooner. He did say at the 2019 Autonomy Day he thought it would be feature complete by 2020. But Tesla never promised it would be done then, and Elon even said his biggest criticism - and he said it’s a fair one - is he gets the time wrong. “Sometimes I’m not on time. But I get it done.”

Honestly it remains to be seen if they will pull it off. The level of improvement in the last year has me more optimistic than I have been previously. In the meantime a Tesla is still the best car and by far the best value on the market.

I appreciate the scale of the challenge; what Tesla is trying to do with FSD, and what it will mean for the world if they succeed. Turing awards and Nobel prizes alike.

I personally don’t begrudge that it’s taken longer than Elon hoped to achieve one of humanity’s most ambitious and meaningful technological breakthroughs. I love being part of the process and contributing to its success.

Frankly it’s the people who would never by a Tesla who complain about the timeline. The fact is that the vast majority of actual owners are extremely satisfied with their purchase. Consumer Reports surveys found Tesla was the #1 brand for customer satisfaction several years now.

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

#399

Post by zaroth »

surfpel wrote: post #396
zaroth wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t realize Tesla’s team was so small. Both companies have truly done incredible work! It’s funny watching HN comments trying to tear down Musk and Tesla while their software—which has driven billions of miles—continues to just get better and better. I love that we have these companies all investing billions of dollars on trying to solve this problem in very different ways. Truly a beautiful example of capitalis…

Exactly this. You can find so many videos of various self driving vehicles safely traversing the roads, highlighting the truly incredible work they’re all doing. It’s gross how many people ride the bandwagon of anti-Tesla or anti-self driving because it’s not coming out as fast as the next iPhone revision. It’s a damn hard problem that’s going to take a bit of time and deliver serious rewards to our society. This mus…

Sadly I think it’s just human nature. Problems always look easy from the outside. Underdogs which are at first rooted for, if they succeed enough, become reviled. New things that challenge the status quo are scary and vilified.

In the end… if the day comes that I install a new update on my Model 3 and it boots up with full-release FSD with an Enable Robotaxi button, fact is people will still hate on them.

I recognize it as hugely advanced, world changing technology. If they truly nail it, every other passenger car is obsolete.

The idea that such powerful technology would be locked up and controlled by Google of all companies… on highly customized vehicles that only they own… you would think HN in particular would realize how badly that future turns out.

What Tesla is doing in entirely laudable, and they’re doing it in a way that democratizes rather than monopolizes the technology. And this fits with Elon’s entire ethos of tackling challenges he sees as necessary as a way to protect humanity.

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

#400

Post by saagarjha »

rcme wrote: post #336
jeffbee wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your interpretation of these facts is rather loose.

How so? Here are the facts: 1. TCI writes a letter to Google saying that they should layoff employees. 2. A few weeks later, Google lays off employees. 3. Literally the day the Google layoffs are announced, TCI writes a letter to Google saying "I have appreciated our recent dialogue concerning Alphabet's cost base. I am encouraged to see that you are now taking some action to right size Alphabet's cost base and under…

“Investor makes themselves feel more important than they actually are”
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