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Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

waymo.com

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Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#4

Post by trhaynes »

EternalFury wrote: post #2

That’s such a show of confidence! It’s an entirely different driving world over there. Particularly in terms of what is expected outside of what is mandated. Looking forward to trying it.

Can you elaborate on what is expected outside of being mandated?

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#6

Post by refactor_master »

trhaynes wrote: post #4
EternalFury wrote: post #2

That’s such a show of confidence! It’s an entirely different driving world over there. Particularly in terms of what is expected outside of what is mandated. Looking forward to trying it.

Can you elaborate on what is expected outside of being mandated?

In my experience the cars are highly regulated and very predictable on the main roads. Marked out lanes, low speed limits, many red lights.

But pedestrians and bikes are everywhere, and they don't always obey the rules. I wonder how well collision detection handles sharing lanes with bikes without suddenly braking in the middle of the road.

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#8

Post by tkgally »

This will be interesting. As an aging nondriver living in Yokohama, I’ve been both hoping that self-driving cars become available here before I develop mobility issues and wondering how feasible they will be. Since I don’t drive, I don’t have a sense of what the roads here are like from the vehicle’s perspective. But many of the streets, including in the neighborhood where I live [1], are narrow, have no sidewalks, and are shared by cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Very different from, say, Phoenix.

[1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/CVDYknAXeeA6u4DP8

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#9

Post by Flux159 »

refactor_master wrote: post #6
trhaynes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what is expected outside of being mandated?

In my experience the cars are highly regulated and very predictable on the main roads. Marked out lanes, low speed limits, many red lights. But pedestrians and bikes are everywhere , and they don't always obey the rules. I wonder how well collision detection handles sharing lanes with bikes without suddenly braking in the middle of the road.

I was in a Waymo last week in San Francisco that had a bicyclist cut in front of us, no hard breaking or jerk just a gradual decrease in speed. I would've hit the break relatively fast myself but Waymo handled it without issue in a very smooth way.

Also see https://x.com/dmitri_dolgov/status/1868778679868047545

I don't know how it'll handle significantly more pedestrians, but I assume that they're confident enough in the models and have run enough simulations to expand to Tokyo.

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