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Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

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

#311

Post by Rebelgecko »

orbisvicis wrote: post #24
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…

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?

Fwiw there is a checkbox if you want to absolutely minimize walking. It'll often do things like drive around the block so you don't have to cross the street yourself.

One thing I actually think is really cool about the Waymo ux (full disclosure, I work for Google but not Waymo) is how it elevates the pickup/dropoff locations to feel like more of a first class feature (compared to just typing in an address and your Uber driver dropping you off in the general area).

I don't think I've ever had to walk more than 30 feet to a pickup location, but I have had it drop me off at the nearest cross street (usually on streets where it would've had to double park in front of my exact drop-off location)

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

#312

Post by ra7 »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #308
ra7 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those NDAs ended a long time ago. Waymo has given close to 2 million rides since then. Everything’s out in the open.

The NDA's ended when they were confident enough in their system that the good press would outweigh the bad. So essentially we're comparing footage from Waymo when it was at the end stages of its development to footage from Tesla at the early stages of its development.

We agree that Waymo's and Tesla's development stages are wildly different at this point.

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

#313

Post by Rebelgecko »

xeromal wrote: post #7
taylorlapeyre wrote: post #3

Living here for the last 10 years, it's been jarring how just in the last few years, driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" The Waymos are genuinely good drivers. I look forward to taking them every time.

I was riding a bike yesterday with a Waymo behind me and was impressed with how much confidence it gave me that it knew I was there.

One thing that really impressed me about riding Waymo is that when you start to open the door, it'll give really good warnings if you're potentially opening the door into traffic. Even specifying if there's a passing car/bike/scooter

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

#314

Post by crossroadsguy »

jeffbee wrote: post #125
999900000999 wrote: post #61

This is both amazing and horrifying. I'm actually confident this automation will save lives. Well of course any system can fail, Uber drivers are often distracted by 30 things, they're fiddling with the app, on personal calls, while navigating tricky traffic situations. However I predict within a decade or so we're going to get to a point where gig work is no longer feasible. It'll take a bit of trickery, but I'm sur…

Gig work is already not feasible. The only reason anyone undertakes it is financial illiteracy. Uber is largely funded by the irrational sacrifice of numerous individuals of the residual value of their own cars.

When the option is a choice between going possibly hungry for the day, you and your family, and not going hungry then that is not called financial illiteracy.

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

#315

Post by standardUser »

fragmede wrote: post #296
standardUser wrote: post #294

The big hope to me is the idea of cheap, cheap rides due to the lack of labor expenses, tipping and eventually gas. I don't see how that happens if there isn't competition, but I don't see how it doesn't happen if there are competing companies that can offer a similar service.

They've invested untold billions into getting this to work and now they need to recoup their investment. They'll get "cheap" eventually, but don't hold your breath.

All it takes is one competitor in a hot space to get companies offering venture-subsidized prices, like we've seen when rideshare and delivery companies. And though the upfront investment may be huge, the price per trip can end up close to zero, unlike rideshares and delivery which have a much higher floor.

Not that there's any competitor that seems even close to Waymo.

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

#316

Post by diebeforei485 »

the-rc wrote: post #272
diebeforei485 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo does have safety drivers, they're just driving the vehicle remotely when it's in certain areas instead of being in the vehicle. So it isn't "full" self driving either. > Tesla, who use cameras only, have not demonstrated full self driving There are entire youtube channels with hours of continuous video showing Teslas driving around SF, but also other parts of California, with no human intervention.

Are you saying that there are times when a Waymo car's ability to respond to events is at the mercy of a random Internet connection? What happens if the safety driver is steering remotely, from another town, and there's packet loss for a couple of seconds in the middle of a curve?

In that case if the car isn't able to decide what to do, it stalls in the middle of the street. Happens all the time in SF.

It's probably not accurate to say that the remote operator is "steering" though. It's more like pathfinding.

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

#317

Post by diebeforei485 »

kajecounterhack wrote: post #271
diebeforei485 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymo does have safety drivers, they're just driving the vehicle remotely when it's in certain areas instead of being in the vehicle. So it isn't "full" self driving either. > Tesla, who use cameras only, have not demonstrated full self driving There are entire youtube channels with hours of continuous video showing Teslas driving around SF, but also other parts of California, with no human intervention.

No, Waymo is not driving remotely. Remote operators can only answer simple questions. They're at the point of commercialization so it's all about unit economics. There's no point in driving remotely especially since it does not scale cost-wise. Waymo is geofenced, but within its geofence it requires zero human intervention. Tesla on the other hand is famous for mistaking the moon for a traffic light. Saying "Tesla ha…

I don't see why Tesla can't handle those scenarios if they also use remote operators. I wouldn't be surprised if they do.

Btw Waymo is nowhere near achieving unit economics. Their cars cost like 5 times what Teslas cost, and the sensors require a lot of upkeep and maintenance.

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

#318

Post by foota »

majormajor wrote: post #305
Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the cleanliness will be maintained over time? Presumably this requires humans to physically clean periodically, and it seems like this would suffer when the company starts to squeeze costs to improve margins.

The biggest problem with cleaning is that compared to Uber where there's a human driver, the autonomy factor will almost certainly lead to more people fucking shit up simply because they can. Look at anything else that goes unattended in the public way: ebikes, delivery bot things, scooters... nasty combo of "I want to fuck with The Man" and "haha nobody is here watching I don't need to be as careful with my messy sa…

It's probably a little bit better since a car is a closed environment. That won't save it entirely, but it'll at least mitigate the issue I expect as compared to e.g., a public bus.

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

#319

Post by throwaway2037 »

pengaru wrote: post #63
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…

So smooth they apparently opt to blow red lights instead of stopping abruptly. source: I commute by skateboard in SF daily. Just yesterday an empty Waymo cruised straight through a fresh red, narrowly missing my entry into the crosswalk. But don't get me started on what I've seen human drivers do on the same streets. Just annoyed that Waymo's aren't better.

I would like to see video of an equivalent incident.

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

#320

Post by meowkit »

majormajor wrote: post #305
Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the cleanliness will be maintained over time? Presumably this requires humans to physically clean periodically, and it seems like this would suffer when the company starts to squeeze costs to improve margins.

The biggest problem with cleaning is that compared to Uber where there's a human driver, the autonomy factor will almost certainly lead to more people fucking shit up simply because they can. Look at anything else that goes unattended in the public way: ebikes, delivery bot things, scooters... nasty combo of "I want to fuck with The Man" and "haha nobody is here watching I don't need to be as careful with my messy sa…

Thats silly. The cars are private property and full of cameras being monitored by a tech giant.

I’m sure the account agreement is going to require you to to accept being charged egregious bills for damaging or dirty-ing the cabin

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