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Waymo is doing alright in San Francisco as well. That's not directly comparable to Tokyo, either, but I expect it's a much less distant of a comparison than Phoenix.
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https://waymo.com/blog/2024/11/waymo-one-open-to-all-in-los-...
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?
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, a…
Individual autonomous cars will solve all transportation issues. What's that? Trains? Trams? Efficient urban fabric? Things that Tokyo, gasp, already has? Bull. /s.
I wonder how much this service costs. If it is as expensive as taxi services in Tokyo, it could fail. While I don’t think it’s possible for the cost to match that of a train, if this service materializes successfully, it could become the most disruptive innovation in Japan. How about California or Phoenix?
I think the killer feature for this will be if it's readily available at night, for reasonable prices. I love living here, but the "do we go home or stay out all night?" decision at ~23:30 when out sucks. If I could get across town for ~3000 JPY at 2AM without having to wait 50 minutes for a cab around Shinjuku, I'd be ecstatic.
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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 live in rural Japan, and in my experience, drivers are also crazy: * They stop on the side of roads and streets whenever they feel like it without worrying about blocking the traffic. * They don't turn the lights on no matter how bad the weather is. Super fun to be in the middle of a snow storm and people are driving white cars with the lights off. * Whenever someone wants to turn right at an intersection, the cars…
To be fair, that's also true of pedestrians in this country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Waymo is doing alright in San Francisco as well. That's not directly comparable to Tokyo, either, but I expect it's a much less distant of a comparison than Phoenix.
I saw a video of a bunch of Waymos backed up on each other being too hesitant to make a turn. Kinda reinforced a fear I have of these things. Not to mention I would hate to try and wave one of these things to turn before me... or wink my headlights. IDK, like I get the appeal for driverless cars, I just still don't like them.
Besides, if that is common, Waymo will have data on it and if it’s common enough, they’ll fix it.
I’ve sat in Waymos on 2 occasions, each on a separate ride, in which the car avoided collisions that would have happened due to bad human drivers. Your fear is worth examining closely as it’ll hold you back from enjoying this amazing technology.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the killer feature for this will be if it's readily available at night, for reasonable prices. I love living here, but the "do we go home or stay out all night?" decision at ~23:30 when out sucks. If I could get across town for ~3000 JPY at 2AM without having to wait 50 minutes for a cab around Shinjuku, I'd be ecstatic.
Taxis are readily available, but the price after hours is why people don't take them. I doubt waymo will be able to bypass taxi pricing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Waymo is doing alright in San Francisco as well. That's not directly comparable to Tokyo, either, but I expect it's a much less distant of a comparison than Phoenix.
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As far as I can tell, that literally didn’t happen. Instead, they both got approved for a major expansion this year and have no new restrictions on any future expansions.
CPUC approved a major expansion this year, some local agencies raised issues and called for a rehearing, and CPUC reheard it and approved it again. There’s a member of the state legislature that has proposed a bill changing the process for such expansions to a less favorable one in the past who talked about maybe reintroducing it this session in response, but nothing like that passed that I can find.
Going to be very interesting to see how the Japanese people react to this. The service the taxi drivers provide when you take the taxi in Japan is on another level, such as waiting for you with the open door and closing the door for you as you enter. A driverless car will never be able to copy that. Japan also has very good public transportation reducing the need for a car for day to day travel so cost might be less…