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

Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

waymo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 651 posts

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#71

Post by ra7 »

lucianbr wrote: post #69
ra7 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assistance != taking over. It's driverless by definition because... there's no driver in the seat. The car is in control and is responsible for its safety at all times.

Regardless of the definition, I can't buy and own such a "driverless car" because I don't operate a supervision center with people available to "assist" the car. Whatever "assist" means. Nor can any company that's not large enough to operate the infrastructure. I'm sure at least some of the hype is in regards to people owning such "driverless" cars. It's driverless by definition because it does not have a driver, but…

These cars are not meant to be owned. They're part of a fleet.

They are driverless and specifically L4 autonomous, which is the best autonomy you can get right now. The vehicles that can operate without any help doesn't exist. You'll be waiting for a long time if that's your expectation.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#72

Post by lucianbr »

xnx wrote: post #55
lucianbr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any kind of limit to them besides the geofence? Can you get a Waymo at night? In the rain? I suppose it never snows there. How about roadworks? How do they react to vehicles with emergency signals? Can they follow directions of a cop in the street?

No. Yes. Yes. Waymo's have been taught to handle construction and emergency signals. Waymo's can follow hand directions from a cop in the street.

Are there no freeways inside the geofence? Someone in the thread mentions that they will be adding freeways soon, so I understand it can't do those now.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#73

Post by ramonverse »

lucianbr wrote: post #53
prasoonds wrote: post #14

I highly recommend everyone try it out if you're in SF. It's an incredibly smooth and sure ride. The cars are really nice too (Jaguar I-Pace electric cars), clean and spacious. The first time you ride in one, it feels truly sci-fi. But within 5 minutes, you're almost bored of it - that's how good it is. If I had to choose between an Uber of questionable cleanliness and driver temperament and a Waymo with a slightly l…

Is there any kind of limit to them besides the geofence? Can you get a Waymo at night? In the rain? I suppose it never snows there. How about roadworks? How do they react to vehicles with emergency signals? Can they follow directions of a cop in the street?

While they pick up in almost every location the drop off is sometimes "close by" like 3min walk to final destination (the app tells you in advance tho so you can decide to order or not). This is quite annoying sometimes and I picked uber instead.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#74

Post by dventimi »

lucianbr wrote: post #70
Stevvo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could rent/purchase a vehicle without a steering wheel, would you not want there to be someone available who can help out when the system runs into trouble? As long as there is no driver in the car, does it matter how it drives? Is that not just an irrelevant implementation detail that has no bearing on your passenger experience?

As long as it requires some humans to be available to "assist", I'm not sure anyone would sell or buy such a vehicle. Or rent in the "car rental" sense. Taxi service is what makes sense. If I own the car, and I'm sending it to do errands for me while I work or sleep, seems like the cost of someone being available to "assist" it at short notice would be prohibitive. Unless it requires assistance once a month or so.

If you're sending it to do errands, you might consider also sending it out to take riders, as a side hustle. Do that, and you're now a taxicab service.

Point being, I suspect many people don't want to own any vehicle, whatever level of automation it has (which could be none). The reason we do is that taking taxis everywhere is too expensive. If that cost can be brought down, however it's done (computer brain, cab driver, capuchin monkey, whatever), many people will be happy to forgo owning a vehicle.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#75

Post by lucianbr »

ra7 wrote: post #71
lucianbr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of the definition, I can't buy and own such a "driverless car" because I don't operate a supervision center with people available to "assist" the car. Whatever "assist" means. Nor can any company that's not large enough to operate the infrastructure. I'm sure at least some of the hype is in regards to people owning such "driverless" cars. It's driverless by definition because it does not have a driver, but…

These cars are not meant to be owned. They're part of a fleet. They are driverless and specifically L4 autonomous, which is the best autonomy you can get right now. The vehicles that can operate without any help doesn't exist. You'll be waiting for a long time if that's your expectation.

No, what you explained is 100% what I expected. Driverless cars for Google. For me, I'll be waiting a loong time.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#76

Post by lucianbr »

dventimi wrote: post #74
lucianbr wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it requires some humans to be available to "assist", I'm not sure anyone would sell or buy such a vehicle. Or rent in the "car rental" sense. Taxi service is what makes sense. If I own the car, and I'm sending it to do errands for me while I work or sleep, seems like the cost of someone being available to "assist" it at short notice would be prohibitive. Unless it requires assistance once a month or so.

If you're sending it to do errands, you might consider also sending it out to take riders, as a side hustle. Do that, and you're now a taxicab service. Point being, I suspect many people don't want to own any vehicle, whatever level of automation it has (which could be none). The reason we do is that taking taxis everywhere is too expensive. If that cost can be brought down, however it's done (computer brain, cab dri…

I think you meant to reply to the person I replied to.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#77

Post by kungito »

dventimi wrote: post #51
kungito wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no doubt that Google is waiting for more adoption before starting to cut costs everywhere and before you know it your puked out ride will direct you to www.waymo.hr/help to find an article which resolves your issue

Why would that be any different from Uber? Doesn't Uber also want to cut costs?

Uber has partner drivers which have their own companies, their own rating, and can be punished for their behaviour. Once a company completely vertically integrates (like Google would like), meaning they have their own cars, they no longer want to punish themselves for bad behaviour/cars. Since they have to choose between short term cost of higher maintenance fee or long term cost of loss of quality of service their managers will start to optimize for quarterly results: cutting short term costs. What they want is to first entrench the market, push out competitors, introduce complex regulation and fees which prevents new competitors into the market and then start cutting costs everywhere they can and increase prices.

Since you mention Uber, I can definitely see in my city how the quality of cars decreased and they started using almost inclusively cheap immigrants who realistically couldn't pass a drivers exam in my country and have on multiple occasions driven into wrong directions/ran red lights etc.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#78

Post by cwillu »

dventimi wrote: post #47
tapoxi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the Ubers potentially be cleaner? Who's cleaning the Waymo between rides?

I've taken 38 Waymo rides so far. Every one of them has been very clean, cleaner than the average Uber ride.

Is that a function of the limited population in the beta though?

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#79

Post by dventimi »

lucianbr wrote: post #76
dventimi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're sending it to do errands, you might consider also sending it out to take riders, as a side hustle. Do that, and you're now a taxicab service. Point being, I suspect many people don't want to own any vehicle, whatever level of automation it has (which could be none). The reason we do is that taking taxis everywhere is too expensive. If that cost can be brought down, however it's done (computer brain, cab dri…

I think you meant to reply to the person I replied to.

At this point I have no idea who's who in this thread anymore. Sorry.

Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

#80

Post by xnx »

lucianbr wrote: post #72
xnx wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Yes. Yes. Waymo's have been taught to handle construction and emergency signals. Waymo's can follow hand directions from a cop in the street.

Are there no freeways inside the geofence? Someone in the thread mentions that they will be adding freeways soon, so I understand it can't do those now.

Good point. Not sure what the status is in SF. They're working on it in Phoenix: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/01/from-surface-streets-to-freew...
Post reply on HN