Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

sfchronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 449 posts

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#41

Post by athoun »

standardUser wrote: post #37
athoun wrote: post #26

In my experience Waymo has been much worse compared to Lyft/Uber for longer rides. A big problem with Waymo in its current state is how its routes are terribly inefficient. It purposely avoids freeways and higher speed roads, opting to take more inefficient routes without regards to the number of stop signs, hills, and other factors which will inevitably lead to a longer travel time. It's almost like it's using a wor…

Does it do a decent job of estimating the ride time?

I believe it is fairly accurate at estimating the ride time. The first time I took it though, I mistakenly thought it would take the same amount of time to get to my destination as Google Maps estimated since that is usually the case for Uber/Lyft.

So I was pretty annoyed after I got into the car and then realized that the route it selected was going through a bunch of hills and side streets that would take twice as long as the most direct route (via Google Maps) and there's nothing I could do to change that once the ride started.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#42

Post by standardUser »

AzzyHN wrote: post #17
ortusdux wrote: post #5

I'm still surprised that they, and most of their competitors, chose to start off in such difficult to navigate regions. I would have started off in a retirement community or the like.

They did some driving in some Arizona suburbs too, iirc. The reasoning for having so much driving in SF is twofold 1. Silicon Valley, both for the workers and the general public's willingness to embrace fancy new tech 2. SF is DIFFICULT to drive in. If you follow all driving laws & drive super defensively, you'll never get anywhere on time. If an AI can learn to effectively navigate around traffic, construction, stop…

SF gets mild rain and mild fog, which may be even better for early testing than places with more severe weather.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#44

Post by tanvach »

perfectstorm wrote: post #9
tanvach wrote: post #7

We recently started using Waymo more often: - Quality of Lyft and Uber rides have gone down significantly. - Consistently spacious, clean and quiet cars. You know what you'll get. - AC always works and not up to the whim of the driver. - No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby. Negatives: - Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber. - Pick up and drop off tend to be a small walk from requested locations…

do you have to tip the 'driver'? jokes aside, i would be happy to take them once the expand to SFO region so i can have a consistent experience.

Worth trying to sign up now. The waitlist takes a while.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#45

Post by eyeareque »

tanvach wrote: post #7

We recently started using Waymo more often: - Quality of Lyft and Uber rides have gone down significantly. - Consistently spacious, clean and quiet cars. You know what you'll get. - AC always works and not up to the whim of the driver. - No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby. Negatives: - Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber. - Pick up and drop off tend to be a small walk from requested locations…

Doesn’t the price end up being the same if you factor in tips with Lyft?

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#46

Post by RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u »

tanvach wrote: post #7

We recently started using Waymo more often: - Quality of Lyft and Uber rides have gone down significantly. - Consistently spacious, clean and quiet cars. You know what you'll get. - AC always works and not up to the whim of the driver. - No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby. Negatives: - Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber. - Pick up and drop off tend to be a small walk from requested locations…

> - Consistently [...] clean [...]

I don't expect this to hold true once Waymo become generally available, alas.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#47

Post by throwaway48476 »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #19
tanvach wrote: post #7

We recently started using Waymo more often: - Quality of Lyft and Uber rides have gone down significantly. - Consistently spacious, clean and quiet cars. You know what you'll get. - AC always works and not up to the whim of the driver. - No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby. Negatives: - Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber. - Pick up and drop off tend to be a small walk from requested locations…

I'm curious why they can't pick up and drop off at exact locations, as long as the location is in their operating boundaries.

They should have flashing lights and stop in the middle of the road like school busses do.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#48

Post by rainsford »

firloop wrote: post #18
tanvach wrote: post #7

We recently started using Waymo more often: - Quality of Lyft and Uber rides have gone down significantly. - Consistently spacious, clean and quiet cars. You know what you'll get. - AC always works and not up to the whim of the driver. - No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby. Negatives: - Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber. - Pick up and drop off tend to be a small walk from requested locations…

A rarely discussed negative to Waymo is that they drive slower than human drivers. Anecdotally they can be 10-25% slower than the rest of traffic, and it's not uncommon to see human drivers do unsafe moves to pass a Waymo.

Is that a negative of Waymo or a negative of the aggressive/illegal way many humans drive? My assumption is the anecdotal speed difference you notice is Waymos actually following the speed limit, and I imagine Waymo isn't really looking to program their cars to break the law while they're trying to expand their ability to operate.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#49

Post by babyshake »

rainsford wrote: post #48
firloop wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rarely discussed negative to Waymo is that they drive slower than human drivers. Anecdotally they can be 10-25% slower than the rest of traffic, and it's not uncommon to see human drivers do unsafe moves to pass a Waymo.

Is that a negative of Waymo or a negative of the aggressive/illegal way many humans drive? My assumption is the anecdotal speed difference you notice is Waymos actually following the speed limit, and I imagine Waymo isn't really looking to program their cars to break the law while they're trying to expand their ability to operate.

Not just humans, but Uber/Lyft drivers. It is very common for an Uber driver to perform unsafe and illegal maneuvers while driving me. I don't report them because I don't want to get them fired. Usually I don't even remark on it, unless I think they did it in a way that was especially unsafe.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#50

Post by ra7 »

tanvach wrote: post #7

We recently started using Waymo more often: - Quality of Lyft and Uber rides have gone down significantly. - Consistently spacious, clean and quiet cars. You know what you'll get. - AC always works and not up to the whim of the driver. - No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby. Negatives: - Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber. - Pick up and drop off tend to be a small walk from requested locations…

> Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber.

Waymo says they are a premium service like Uber Black because they have nice cars (Jaguar I-Pace), plus the novelty and safety of being driverless. They’re not trying to be competitive with Uber X or shared rides for in their current form.

Post reply on HN