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

211–220 of 651 posts

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

#211

Post by [deleted] »

jessriedel wrote: post #124
TulliusCicero wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm typically very skeptical of Tesla's strategy here, but to play devil's advocate for a moment: Waymo has shown they can make robotaxis work, but the big catch so far is that it takes them a long time to open in a new city. They have several phases before they open fully, from what I've seen it seems to be: safety driver no passenger testing, safety drivers with employee passengers, driverless with employee passeng…

> They have several phases before they open fully: safety driver no passenger testing, safety drivers with employee passengers, driverless with employee passengers, limited rollout to paid passengers under NDA, wider rollout but with waitlist, and finally getting rid of the waitlist. It's certainly true that they need to do a bunch of extensive mapping for each city, but I don't think we should expect their roll-out…

[deleted]

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

#212

Post by kajecounterhack »

mlyle wrote: post #198
bangaladore wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, another claim that a brain or AGI is required to drive a car. Does anyone have any research to cite that establishes this seemingly known fact?

I am not sure that the vision in Teslas is adequate with -any- amount of processing to drive a car. Spatial resolution is limited, as is seeing distant vehicles during merges, etc. Secondarily, there is no guarantee that the amount of processing is enough, because the extant human systems use much more. “Cheating” by using more sensors to simplify out complexities and to cover for the shortcomings of other sensors in…

> “Cheating” by using more sensors to simplify out complexities and to cover for the shortcomings of other sensors in the suite seems wise.

Also, "cheating" is just a necessary step to build baseline metrics. You need ground truth.

It may very well be the case that cheating is needed to generate the training data necessary to stop cheating...someday.

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

#213

Post by sangnoir »

ModernMech wrote: post #200
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…

I’d say the same, maybe. But yesterday I had an Uber with a guy that had a degree in history and a love for SF lore, and told me about the tomb of Starr King, and then I went on a quest to find it with my friend. Just saying that there’s magic out there that’s not technological.

> Just saying that there’s magic out there that’s not technological.

Dark magic too, I've been on one too many rides where the driver insists on monologuing on topics that range from detestable (politics) to alarming (the driver was armed, and had picked me up from the airport)

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

#214

Post by smugma »

ducttapecrown wrote: post #29
orbisvicis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another comment, another thread mentioned that Waymo requires more walking than an equivalent Uber ride - to the pickup location, from the drop-off location. Anyone know why this might be true?

I'll hazard a guess: because Uber drivers are sometimes willing to stop for a minute in an illegal spot to park to do a quick pick up or drop off, and Waymos are never willing to do that (presumably).

I’ve seen a Waymo stop and pick up a rider at Octavia and Linden. If you look at a map, you can see that it’s totally blocking all traffic.

Double parking is legal (in some cases) in California, but this wouldn’t be allowed under any reasonable interpretation.

I’ve also seen Waymos double parked on both sides of the street, which blocks other cars from going around them.

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

#215

Post by itsoktocry »

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…

I love how we've gone from "Taxis are gross and dirty, that's why I love Uber!" to"Ubers are gross and dirty, that's why I love Waymo!" in the span of 5 years.

What do you think comes next? These cars are literally unsupervised.

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

#216

Post by itsoktocry »

aresant wrote: post #91

Genuine question -> - Elon (and his pro-analysts) heavily weight the future of the co's valuation on their ability to deploy a taxi network and has been promising it just around corner for years - Alphabet via Waymo seems to have "solved" robotaxis for city-proximity driving and has deployed as a business. Beyond the obvious "reality distortion field" argument is Tesla actually in a position to win here due to their…

There was an episode of The All In podcast a month or two ago. Friedberg brought up driverless Waymo being available in San Fran. Chamath hadn't even heard of it. He looked it up live and it blew his mind.

These guys are all about tech and couldn't believe there were companies ahead of Tesla, what do you think the normies know?

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

#217

Post by zooq_ai »

jonny_eh wrote: post #105
zooq_ai wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as a Alphabet and Tesla shareholder, this is what is important. The rate of innovation at Tesla > Waymo The cost of building Tesla FSD = 1/100 * cost of building Waymo FSD The cost of delivering Tesla FSD = 1/10 * cost of delivering Waymo FSD Tesla has economies of scale. Waymo has all the details figured out. Waymo can never get to the scale of Tesla (it can never buy 5 Million FSD cars, while Tesla is delivering th…

> Larry/Sergei left Waymo at a limbo state because they don't think in terms of economics, just coolness. Larry/Sergei didn't create the Cybertruck

They wish they had

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

#218

Post by Turing_Machine »

vdnkh wrote: post #62
Turing_Machine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the future, when you're old and quite possibly disabled, you might rethink the whole "walkable cities" thing. I mean, it's easy to say "just walk (or ride a bike)" when you're 22 years old and in prime health, but the population in most First World countries is rapidly aging.

Yeah I wonder what people do, and have done, around the world in walkable communities predating the car. Perhaps people in these communities are on average more mobile into old age because they frequently walked?

[flagged]

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

#219

Post by shkkmo »

zooq_ai wrote: post #98
aresant wrote: post #91

Genuine question -> - Elon (and his pro-analysts) heavily weight the future of the co's valuation on their ability to deploy a taxi network and has been promising it just around corner for years - Alphabet via Waymo seems to have "solved" robotaxis for city-proximity driving and has deployed as a business. Beyond the obvious "reality distortion field" argument is Tesla actually in a position to win here due to their…

as a Alphabet and Tesla shareholder, this is what is important. The rate of innovation at Tesla > Waymo The cost of building Tesla FSD = 1/100 * cost of building Waymo FSD The cost of delivering Tesla FSD = 1/10 * cost of delivering Waymo FSD Tesla has economies of scale. Waymo has all the details figured out. Waymo can never get to the scale of Tesla (it can never buy 5 Million FSD cars, while Tesla is delivering th…

Tesla is still stuck at Level 3 while Waymo has been operating at level 4 for years.

If Tesla does manag to jump straight from level 3 to level 5, they have a chance to compete, but that seems unlikely. They also might move to level 4 and be able to expand level 4 coverage faster, but that still remains to be seen.

Waymo has years of experience with the other hard part of self driving taxis: actually picking up and dropping off people without a human driver.

Anti-musk partisanship frustrates me, but I suspect it is your fan-boy talking points that drive the downvotes of your comment

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

#220

Post by Turing_Machine »

a_c_s wrote: post #59
Turing_Machine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the future, when you're old and quite possibly disabled, you might rethink the whole "walkable cities" thing. I mean, it's easy to say "just walk (or ride a bike)" when you're 22 years old and in prime health, but the population in most First World countries is rapidly aging.

The biggest reason people loose muscle mass as they age is due to lack of use, so a built environment that encourages walking is going to help keep people in shape to walk as they age.

[flagged]
Post reply on HN