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

sfchronicle.com

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

#221

Post by senordevnyc »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #120
mechagodzilla wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true? There's a ton of overhead required to have any presence in a city (all of the fueling/cleaning/repairing/storing/etc depots) that you need to amortize over lots of cars. If they can keep the cars busy, I think they'd much rather have 5,000 cars in one city than 500 cars in 10 cities (with 10x the overhead).

They have a big upfront cost to add a new city, but once they add it, their marginal revenue per car will be higher there (partly because they can be sure to keep those cars busy and partly because they can charge a higher premium). They have to prepare the infrastructure anyway in all the cities to get to the scale they want to get to, but each new car built is going to be sent to the least scaled city so far.

Does that make sense from a consumer brand perspective though? If everytime I check Waymo there's no capacity or it's super expensive, pretty soon I won't even bother checking it.

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

#222

Post by huppeldepup »

unshavedyak wrote: post #161
ssl-3 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man. My daughter's head would sometimes detach from her body and fly around the room by itself. Strapping her down in a car seat and taking her for a drive usually rectified the situation. I look forward to a future where this process can become more automated. (/s, sorta)

My father said the same for me. To this day, sleeping in the car is the easiest sleep i get. It's so soothing. Which is problematic considering i'm the sole driver for my household hah.

Has anyone ever attempted putting a bed on actuators to emulate a driving vehicle?

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

#223

Post by teractiveodular »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #178
alex_lav wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsure where you’ve lived but in Philadelphia/New York/LA/SF/Seattle/Portland public transit is pretty disgusting, troublesome passengers or not.

> in Philadelphia/New York/LA/SF/Seattle/Portland public transit is pretty disgusting In New York right now. Subway stations are dinghy. But the cars themselves are fine. Hop on the Metro-North or LIRR and they're on par with European cleanliness standards. (If not behavioural.)

Dingy/dinghy is a great one for the Eggcorn Database!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720548

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

#224

Post by teractiveodular »

twoWhlsGud wrote: post #180
KennyBlanken wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't hold people accountable for dangerous driving, 1)more people will drive dangerously while doing lyft/uber and 2)you are indirectly endangering vulnerable road users (people on foot and on bike, motorcycles, etc.) Trust me, you'd feel very differently if you were on a bike regularly in the city. The lyft/uber drivers are the most dangerous drivers in the city. Have been since almost the very beginning of…

This is the aspect that makes me most excited about Waymo and the like –the prospect of no longer having to tolerate terrible driving because removing someone's license is akin to an economic death sentence. Fully commercialized, self-driving should provide an economic alternative to humans driving themselves. And we should be able to leverage that to stop the worst drivers ever getting behind the wheel again.

So instead of penalizing unsafe drivers, we'll penalize all drivers by replacing them with robots?

I'm actually a Waymo fan but this particular argument doesn't really hold water.

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

#225

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

acchow wrote: post #90
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…

Does that 10% markup account for the Uber/lyft driver tip?

You guys are tipping your Uber drivers? IIRC you couldn’t even tip until a few years ago.

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

#226

Post by mupuff1234 »

crazygringo wrote: post #92
wanderingstan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience they are very strict about finding a “safe” place to pick up and drop off, which often means turning onto a small side street or looking for a gap in parked cars. They won’t block traffic like a Lyft/Uber driver might.

> They won’t block traffic like a Lyft/Uber driver might. Wow, then I don't know how they'd ever expand to NYC. In most areas there's no such thing as a "safe place" that doesn't block traffic. If there are sides of the road that aren't traffic (or bicycle) lanes, then they're taken up by parking. Taxis, Ubers, delivery trucks -- literally everything just stops in the street (or bicycle lane) and traffic temporarily…

They'll just have to change the behavior, I assume the current behavior is just out of caution not some technical limit.

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

#227

Post by level1ten »

serf wrote: post #211
senordevnyc wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rear-ending someone going slower than you is not their fault.

>Rear-ending someone going slower than you is not their fault. who gives a shit who is at fault when they're in an accident? the goal is to avoid the event all together, not to have a scapegoat.

The type of people who see a "lane ends ahead" and immediately merge, blocking up traffic and wasting a half mile of empty lane. "I'm in my assigned place and I did what I was supposed to!!"

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

#228

Post by jessriedel »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #111
jessriedel wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They announced that for Phoenix in January, but I think freeway driving is still only available to employees or maybe some special customers. https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/watch-waymos-self-driving... I tried it in Phoenix in May and it wouldn’t take the freeway. And it’s definitely not generally available in the Bay area. (I take them every week or two.)

> I think freeway driving is still only available to employees or maybe some special customers Not a special customer, can't even get access in LA. Waymo took the freeway in Phoenix in March.

> Waymo took the freeway in Phoenix in March.

Do you mean they were doing testing with employees and special customers? Or do you mean anyone who had gotten off the waitlist could ride on the freeway in Phoenix?

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

#229

Post by jessriedel »

sbuttgereit wrote: post #215
sbuttgereit wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also haven't had Waymo assign a car and then decide to assign it elsewhere sometime before arrival. I have had Uber/Lyft cars that were going to come to me and then some time before picking me up, they change their mind and I get to start a new wait for a new car/driver... worse, I've had that happen a few times in a row on some occasions. I've seen more in the 10% premium ballpark for most Waymo rides (for just th…

As an aside, Waymo does have a feature which allows you to add stops that, if within certain parameters like the trip being within 30 minutes (I believe) that it kinda treats it as one trip which is rather cheaper than multiple independent trips. So, for example, I had to pick up my kid from school the other day and found out last minute I wouldn't have a car. So I booked a Waymo, selected my destination, and then al…

This feature exists on Uber and Lyft too, although iirc it’s buried underneath some ads

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

#230

Post by nmca »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #16

Waymos are fantastic, I actually look forward to riding them every time. It's a quiet, peaceful space where you can relax for a bit on the way to your destination. Haven't had any issues with them except for one time where the car was super hot on the inside for whatever reason and the AC was not working.

I had the same temperature bug recently despite changing the AC, hot air was coming from the vents. Not a hot day. Very odd.
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