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Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco

waymo.com

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

#361

Post by foota »

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…

Since the assist doesn't require real time response (e.g., the failure mode is the car not moving, not you dying unlike a tesla) it seems like a non taxi version could simply set you up as the assist monitor.

If you fall asleep or don't respond it's fine, you're just stuck.

I don't think Google plans to do this for a variety of reasons, but I don't think there's fundamentally any reason they couldn't.

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

#362

Post by gnicholas »

Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #261
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 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.

I wonder if they'd ever offer riders a discount for taking trash out that was left behind by other riders. They could even include a vacuum and give people a couple bucks off for cleaning it out during/after their ride.

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

#364

Post by darth_avocado »

dventimi wrote: post #256
darth_avocado wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drunk party goers on a Friday night, people smoking in the car on their way to Dolores, petulant teenagers…

I've been riding MUNI for 25 years. The only assault I saw was a drunk office worker on his way home on the 31AX.

I Guess you must not be riding it as much as you think you do. I’m an infrequent rider and I’ve seen 2 altercations and multiple (10+) disturbances since January.

The funniest (or not if you’re not from SF) was a guy boarding a full bus with a 7 foot long dining table with the legs attached, arguing and threatening anyone who protested. Eventually he dropped the thing on someone’s foot and starting an altercation which delayed everyone by 15 mins.

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

#365

Post by kick_in_the_dor »

hackernoteng wrote: post #354

I dont get why anyone cheers shit like this. It just takes jobs away from more people. You will just get more homeless and drug addicted people. And more rich techies. And it will make no difference to the rider - they get where they need to be either way. It's just another bit wealth transfer from poor to rich. Yet this is cheered.

I love coming to HackerNews to see exactly this type of salt.

"Guys it's the future! Self-driving cars actually exist!"

"Fuck you, here's why this is awful"

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

#366

Post by diebeforei485 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #356
diebeforei485 wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Older versions of Tesla FSD tended to make steering adjustments that were short in duration, but at a higher turn angle. Human drivers in a similar situation would turn the wheel slightly but keep it turned for longer before returning to centerline. People saw the steering wheel turn and perceived it to be the system going haywire, or thought that "the car was about to crash" as you put it, and intervened. The newer…

Yes, every year Tesla fans talk about how much it's improved, and every year it's still failing on basic driving tasks. And there's definitely cases where the Tesla in question just tries to run into parked cars or similar for no apparent reason, but Tesla fans always have some excuse about why that's irrelevant, especially if it's not on whatever the absolute latest version is. Then they accuse the people horrified…

I actually watched the entire video in the article.

There were some private driveway situations where the uploader intervened to back out to go to a new destination (but Waymo drops you off half a block away and makes you walk instead of entering your driveway, so it's not possible to compare). And there were some situations where a human driver honked - this has happened to me in Waymo as well. There was one situation where the Tesla didn't seem sure if it could proceed, but Waymo in that scenario would ask a remote operator (this has happened to me in both Waymo and Cruise) and presumably Tesla robotaxi can also have remote operators.

The only case where he actually disengaged was at a stop sign with a slip lane, and the car turned right at the stop sign instead of turning right using the slip lane. He went there again at the end of the video and the car used the slip lane. I don't see this as an unfixable problem, because clearly the car can use slip lanes to turn, it just needs to be taught to always prefer slip lanes when turning.

So, your own video disproves what you're saying. It isn't failing at basic driving tasks.

I think the mistake you're making is assuming that they will never be good enough. A lot of people said the same thing about Google/Waymo until they actually rode in one.

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

#367

Post by dotBen »

tapoxi wrote: post #17
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…

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

No one but they have to return to base to recharge pretty quickly, whereupon someone can clean and tidy them.

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

#368

Post by hyfgfh »

wetpaws wrote: post #229
itsoktocry wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>What do you think comes next? Public transport, hopefully.

And mingle with the masses? in SF?

Maybe if they re-invent trains or buses again

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

#369

Post by the-rc »

ladon86 wrote: post #323
the-rc wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Again, they don’t drive or steer remotely. What sometimes happens is a multiple choice question is presented to the operator in an ambiguous situation: Can I drive through here? [Yes] [No] When this is happening, the car is stopped and lets the passenger know that it’s reaching out for remote help to figure out what to do. For me this has happened two times across my 125 Waymo rides (571 miles) so far, and was resolv…

I agree with you, I was just highlighting for the other poster how difficult/crazy/riskier remote driving would be.

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

#370

Post by gyudin »

ra7 wrote: post #179
bangaladore wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only selling point of FSD (Supervised) is that it (can) work "everywhere." This is because it only relies on navigation information and what the car can see. Waymo and similar companies all use HD Mapping. Ignoring the specifics, it can be thought of as a centimeter-level perfect reconstruction of the environment, including additional metadata such as slopes, exact lane positions, road markings, barriers, traffic…

> HD Mapping is great when it's accurate and available. But it requires a ton of data and constant updating, or the car will get "lost," and realistically will never be implemented in general, at best in certain cities. Waymo have said time and again they don’t rely on maps being 100% accurate to be able to drive. It's one of the key assumptions of the system. They use it as prior knowledge to aid in decision making.…

Wasn’t it Waymo that had troubles navigating in winter and not seeing bike racks and other obstacles due to poor HD mapping?
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