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

Next stop: Miami

waymo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 319 posts

Re: Next stop: Miami

#71

Post by NoLinkToMe »

entropi wrote: post #60

I feel like at this point someone needs to take a step back and think about the general vision and overall goals of this whole fully automated ride-hailing service thing. I mean, what is the exact problem that's being solved here? I don't mean "problem" like "solving the technical problem of making a car move autonomously in a chaotic city" sense. I mean what is the need that's being addressed here, exactly? Ride-hai…

1. The global Taxi market is one that does a quarter trillion dollar revenue per year.

2. the biggest cost component is labour. The biggest safety component is labour. The biggest service component is related to labour.

3. if you cut down cost of labour, make it more safe than before, and provide a quiet and private ride allowing private calls, conversations, music, you can beat other market participants

So yes it's commercially interesting and that's all it needs to be.

As for efficient and sustainable transport, there are certainly criticisms to be had. But these must be addressed via regulation, in my view. You can't expect taxi companies to disappear. You can add a tax to fuel to encourage a transition to electric. You can put a tax on noisy cars to encourage silent ones. You can put a tax on size, to encourage 1-person taxi pods for 1 person which will be 80% of the self-driving taxi fleet, and encourage 100% utilisation of self-driving busses for a small portion of the fleet. But you can't expect companies to simply not do business in the taxi industry because cars are imperfect from a sustainability/transport point of view.

I'm not sure what's disgusting to you.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#72

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

entropi wrote: post #60

I feel like at this point someone needs to take a step back and think about the general vision and overall goals of this whole fully automated ride-hailing service thing. I mean, what is the exact problem that's being solved here? I don't mean "problem" like "solving the technical problem of making a car move autonomously in a chaotic city" sense. I mean what is the need that's being addressed here, exactly? Ride-hai…

> If the problem is efficiently moving people around in a city; well to be honest I find this premise a bit ridiculous. Call me a European, but I find the idea that moving 1-2 people in private vehicles on roads being superior than public transit -preferably on rail- simply absurd.

Much of the US like Huston and Miami is extremely lacking in public transit, and will likely never build the infrastructure.

> Ride-hailing workers were already often working for less than minimum wage.

~50% of your fare goes to the driver.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#73

Post by david-gpu »

RivieraKid wrote: post #66
david-gpu wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect service to be canceled while it is pouring down. Do we have reasons to believe that they have the ability to ride safely during heavy rain? I haven't been keeping up.

They can handle heavy rain, see time 6:00: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bm1A3aaQnh0 From their August 2023 blog post: > During this past winter season in California with its record rain, high winds, and thunderstorms, we were able to maintain 99.4% fleet uptime

Thank you, that was fascinating.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#74

Post by stemlord »

ecesena wrote: post #35
fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #17

This is important if nothing else because Miami sees much more rain than SF and Phoenix: Miami: 57 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... SF: 25 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... ) Phoenix: 7 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... )

Interesting random fact: when it rains, waymo turns on the windshield wipers

Plenty of south florida rain is not helped by windshield wipers. Anyway I wonder if waymo sensors actually have better visibility in such conditions than people do

Re: Next stop: Miami

#75

Post by pengaru »

ecesena wrote: post #35
fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #17

This is important if nothing else because Miami sees much more rain than SF and Phoenix: Miami: 57 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... SF: 25 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... ) Phoenix: 7 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... )

Interesting random fact: when it rains, waymo turns on the windshield wipers

> Interesting random fact: when it rains, waymo turns on the windshield wipers

The jaguar i-pace does this independent of the waymo use case.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#76

Post by rangestransform »

entropi wrote: post #60

I feel like at this point someone needs to take a step back and think about the general vision and overall goals of this whole fully automated ride-hailing service thing. I mean, what is the exact problem that's being solved here? I don't mean "problem" like "solving the technical problem of making a car move autonomously in a chaotic city" sense. I mean what is the need that's being addressed here, exactly? Ride-hai…

At least for me the goal is to have me seated, heated/cooled, separated from smelly hobos and showtimes, not breathing in crack smoke, not breathing in brake dust in subway tunnels, not breathing in other peoples diseases. Anyone who tells me my individual wants are disgusting will not get my vote.

For society, building rail infrastructure in the US is so eye watering expensive and time consuming that transporting everyone by electric AV might actually be an easier way to decarbonize transport.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#77

Post by jayd16 »

ecesena wrote: post #35
fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #17

This is important if nothing else because Miami sees much more rain than SF and Phoenix: Miami: 57 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... SF: 25 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... ) Phoenix: 7 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... )

Interesting random fact: when it rains, waymo turns on the windshield wipers

They would probably have to go out of their way to disable the auto-wipers, no?

Re: Next stop: Miami

#78

Post by skybrian »

Philpax wrote: post #46
comte7092 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day that isn’t a technical problem but a unit economics one. Removing the driver from a taxi doesn’t bring down costs that much . Self driving cars aren’t going to change the uber/taxi model at a fundamental level. They have a finite fleet that they need to deploy. Urban centers mean that fleet utilization is high, and relatively less time and miles are spent driving with no one on board. In rural a…

Hmm, I'm not sure about that - fully autonomous taxis wouldn't be subject to the limitations of human drivers in terms of availability / reliability / endurance. You could ostensibly leave a few taxis around to service otherwise underserved areas and have them run without having to secure a driver each time. That being said, there is still the cost of maintenance and cleanup, but that can be mitigated (the taxis for…

They won’t have to pay for the driver when idle, but owning cars ties up capital and the fewer rides they do, the longer it takes to pay off. This isn’t specific to cars - all capital equipment works that way. Lower utilization is sometimes unavoidable, but it still means less revenue which can be the difference between a profit and a loss.

How much this matters depends on the price of the car. We don’t know how much a Waymo costs, but they’re probably not cheap.

To be profitable with lower utilization, they’ll need to work on reducing how much each car costs somehow.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#79

Post by maybelsyrup »

timerol wrote: post #51
deadbabe wrote: post #38

It will be a showdown of man vs machine in the city with the worst drivers in the nation. Interesting times.

Did you know that almost every city believes this about their local drivers? I've gotten it in LA, Boston, NYC, DC, SF, Philly, Atlanta, and Austin. Adding Miami to the list.

Yes, that’s true, but in this case they’re all actually wrong. I’ve driven or lived in all of those cities, and they’re all placid next to Miami. It’s not even close.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#80

Post by bushbaba »

ecesena wrote: post #35
fngjdflmdflg wrote: post #17

This is important if nothing else because Miami sees much more rain than SF and Phoenix: Miami: 57 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... SF: 25 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... ) Phoenix: 7 in. ( https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/us-climate-normals/#dataset... )

Interesting random fact: when it rains, waymo turns on the windshield wipers

Rain + lidar = challenges
Post reply on HN