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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

#381
post #63

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 think it’s legal to enter an intersection on yellow and exit on red in CA. Thats why.

Human drivers speed up to avoid red, and yay you avoided red but the suddenly higher speed is far more dangerous for everyone around.

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

#382
post #282
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These cars are literally unsupervised. Unsupervised in what sense? There's internal cameras that are periodically checked. Weight and seatbelt sensors that give alerts if a passenger is or puts objects in the drivers seat, or if too many individuals get in the car. I'd be shocked if a similar or greater level of observability doesn't also exist outside the car.

I've had a dude with a Tagalog accent take over the speakers in my car and asked me and the folks I was inside with to leave because I decided to clown car it with friends visiting from out of state. With that said, there for sure is someone monitoring, but it's similar to how checkout at Amazon Go stores went. I'd be curious to know how this monitoring scales over time.

We have computers that can drive a car in city traffic and you're worried that we can't have a computer look at the inside of a car and tell me if someone's left a mess? A non-ML model background subtraction algorithm from the 2000's could tell you that.

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

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by the type of people who will be riding in them?

That new group is people who aren't at the frontier of trying out new tech. The way this will manifest is the drunk idiot who'll puke all over the car. The bored asshole who carves his initials in the seat. The edgelord who gets their jollies out of destroying other people's stuff. Good chance you had some in the original group as well, but early adopters are usually mostly people who deeply understand tech. Once tha…

I don't know what 'deeply understanding tech' has to do with any of that. Plenty of people who 'deeply understand tech' get drunk and puke in places. Honestly, you sound like a Victorian-era petty lord looking down his nose at 'commoners'.

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

#384
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During one of my last Waymo rides the car stopped on Powell between Bush and Sutter (facing South stopping on the regular lane a bit before the Powell/Sutter crossing). This caused other drivers to drive on the cable car tracks to go around the Waymo (which are separated from the driving lane with a double yellow line) and it caused a truck to do a right turn directly from the cable car tracks (as there wasn't enough…

Honestly, it’s almost always legal to stop in a lane. Regardless of the fact that other drivers had bad behavior, that was the right thing to do. Some of the future of all this is that we will need to install curbs in places we don’t have them now to prevent bad human behavior.

This is absolutely false in California, please don't spread dangerous misinformation.

See CVC 22400(a):

No person shall drive upon a highway at such a slow speed as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic unless the reduced speed is necessary for safe operation, becauseof a grade, or in compliance with law.

No person shall bring a vehicle to a complete stop upon a highway so as to impede or block the normal and reasonable movement of traffic unless the stop is necessary for safe operation or in compliance with law.

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

#385
post #219
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…

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 d…

A fan-boy would never call Musk a narcisstic a*hole.

Technology progress is non-linear. Yes, Tesla is at L3 and Waymo at L4.

But, you completely missed the point of rate-of-innovation, which was why I made that as first point.

My GOOG holdings are 4x than TSLA. But in terms of who will deliver FSD at better margins, it's hands down TSLA. It's simple Math and Elon's obsession about cutting material costs & process to it's barest minimum. Waymo has no such discipline or culture.

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

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are starting to obstruct bike lanes just like Ubers, I’ve seen this happen 3-4 times and it’s documented here: https://sfba.social/@SafeStreetRebel/112634004752866771 Years ago they were very respectful and conservative of basic road markings but clearly they have now ‘expanded capabilities’

California law says vehicles can enter the bike lane whenever they feel it is safe to do so.

This is false. Please don't spread dangerous legal misinformation.

See CVC 21209(a):

No person shall drive a motor vehicle in a bicycle lane established on a roadway pursuant to Section 21207 except as follows:

(1) To park where parking is permitted.

(2) To enter or leave the roadway.

(3) To prepare for a turn within a distance of 200 feet from the intersection.

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

#387
post #98
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…

"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"

This seems like one of the key assumptions, but is not proven out at all because Tesla does not even have a level 4 vehicle. So the cost of delivering one comparable to waymo is infinite right now!

Your other key assumption is "Waymo can never get to the scale of Tesla (it can never buy 5 Million FSD cars, while Tesla is delivering them every 2 years)".

Both the assertion in the first part and the second part seem like super-strange assumptions, and not obviously true at all, yet are also critical to your analysis.

Waymo could get to the scale of tesla. It may or may not be too expensive to do. It could in fact, buy 5 million FSD cars. It may or may not be too expensive to do.

"Mathematically, Tesla has an upper hand over Waymo and it'll play out as that."

Or you know, if needed, Waymo could change?

It's funny to watch someone say "this one company will be able to adapt in every possible way to it's advantage, and nobody else can or will"

That almost never happens.

Your retort is then that you are getting downvoted because of anti-musk hate.

Have you considered that maybe you just don't have that good of an argument instead, and that your comment comes off as more of a tesla fanboy (regardless if you are) than a useful contribution?

I could write the literal opposite comment of what you did, in favor of Waymo. That would not be a useful contribution either for the same reasons.

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

#388
post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

A fan-boy would never call Musk a narcisstic a*hole. Technology progress is non-linear. Yes, Tesla is at L3 and Waymo at L4. But, you completely missed the point of rate-of-innovation, which was why I made that as first point. My GOOG holdings are 4x than TSLA. But in terms of who will deliver FSD at better margins, it's hands down TSLA. It's simple Math and Elon's obsession about cutting material costs & process to…

"A fan-boy would never call Musk a narcisstic a*hole."

FWIW - You definitely come off as as irrationally in favor of tesla, regardless of reason.

Nobody missed any of your points, they just don't agree with most them or believe the rest follow from your points.

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

#389

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…

They're worth trying once, but they're not ready to replace Lyft/Uber. The cost is similar or sometimes even more for Waymo, and the trip often takes longer thanks to the car's skittishness. The ride length estimates are also quite optimistic which can lead to arriving later than one intends. I don't see a real compelling reason to keep using them.
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