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Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

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Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#71

Post by aitchnyu »

tkgally wrote: post #8

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…

I admire Japanese taxis for mounting mirrors on the bonnet so they dont stick out. I'm Indian and I'm glad I had a choice of 170ish cm wide Japanese sedans meant for Asia and hate the new 180ish cars. The Jaguar is 213 cm wide.

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#72

Post by theultdev »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #55
theultdev wrote: post #7

Yeah that should be wonderful for the traffic over there...

Are you implying that Tokyo already has a lot of car/truck traffic? (It does not.) Or implying that Waymo meaningfully increases traffic? (I doubt it.)

Are you kidding me? I lived there for 5 years. Tokyo has an immense amount of traffic.

And yes Waymo increases traffic. People in SF were putting cones on them to disable them because of it, there's tons of videos of them causing traffic jams.

They are famously overly cautious and often stop and do strange maneuvers.

Recently one held up Kamala Harris' motor brigade for quite a while until a cop moved it.

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#73

Post by theultdev »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #28
theultdev wrote: post #7

Yeah that should be wonderful for the traffic over there...

Luckily public transit is amazing there.

Yes it does. And there's still a lot of traffic. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

The public transportation is not relevant for the discussion of personal vehicle transportation though.

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#74

Post by bamboozled »

signatoremo wrote: post #44
leonheld wrote: post #20

Individual autonomous cars will solve all transportation issues. What's that? Trains? Trams? Efficient urban fabric? Things that Tokyo, gasp, already has? Bull. /s.

There are about 50,000 taxis in Tokyo. What are they doing there?

I don't know but Tokyo doesn't need more cars on the road, that's for sure.

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#75

Post by numpad0 »

jdeibele wrote: post #22
opdahl wrote: post #11

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…

What I've read is that some/most taxis in Japan have an automatic back door for the passenger. https://musa4trip.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/taxis-in-japan-do... Searching, I see references to automatic doors preventing robberies but no explanations as to how that would be. Perhaps the barriers between the back seat passengers and driver prevent knife threats? I wouldn't expect robbers in Japan to have guns, like they w…

The classic implementation used mechanical link rods, which no one knew how to operate against driver's will. So there used to be occasional comedic stories around that, like attempted free rider taken to police or man fleeing scene tripping on the door.

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#76

Post by nephanth »

jjallen wrote: post #70
KennyBlanken wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.the-independent.com/tech/waymo-driverless-taxi-b... > One of the world’s first fully-driverless taxi firms has been blocked from expanding its business in California, where several of its vehicles have recently been involved in accidents. > Waymo, which is the driverless car division of Google parent Alphabet, currently operates in parts of San Francisco. Attempts to roll-out its robotaxi service to Sunny…

Why do humans get a pass but computers don’t? Why do computers have to be perfect but it’s perfectly legal for humans to kill someone if the sun was in their eyes? Make a list of those stuff for humans every day and it would be gigabytes of records. Almost all goes unpunished.

My very personal opinion is maybe it shouldn't be ok for humans either. Maybe the benefits of cars absolutely don't outweigh the contant risk of deaths and injuries they pose (especially in metropolitan aeras where they are easily replaced by other modes of transportation)

Reality is "because humans can take responsibility for their actions". And it seems the way our society is built, we'd rather have individuals take responsibility than question the system

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#77

Post by RavlaAlvar »

opdahl wrote: post #11

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…

It is unbelievably expensive though, a 40 minute ride from Osaka city to KIX airport could cost you 30k yen.

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#78

Post by minwcnt5 »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #66
rester324 wrote: post #10

I guess the biggest challenge is gonna be not to get stuck in those narrow alleys that they call streets in Japan. Some of them can hardly take a kei car, let alone a sedan I can already see in my imagination all the jijis swearing when they see those cars stuck :)

They can barely change lanes: https://youtu.be/spw176TZ7-8?t=88 ...and are completely flummoxed by a couple of traffic cones closing off a lane: https://youtu.be/fMFzs0NZ_Mc?t=56

These videos are from three and six years ago, lol.

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#79

Post by numpad0 »

sushid wrote: post #53
ryan_lane wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you elaborate for those less informed? Is there a higher fare after the trains stop?

There are late night fees, and taxis in general are 3-10x expensive relative to trains.

Trains in Japan cease operations during nights, and last stops of trains move progressively towards core Tokyo to position vehicles for morning operations. This means you can't just stay at the table until stations close and catch the very last one, but people have varying time limits for train rides home.

So binge drinking train riding bar goers has to know the absolute latest time they must give up their mugs, which they're going to miss anyway, but will still try anyway, to be stuck mid-way to queue up for a taxi. Or they can be smarter and get stuck at Shinjuku, queueing for a taxi. The smartest ones hit 24/7 places like McD, karaoke, or internet cafe. Or get couples of cans at 7-11 and raid a friend's apartment. None of them are smart, they're all drunk.

I've never taken a taxi in that kind of situation, but I imagine the experience wouldn't be great. Waymo at midnight is certainly going to be a game changer to them.

Re: Waymo will bring autonomous vehicles to Tokyo

#80

Post by carom »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #38
GoatOfAplomb wrote: post #21

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.

[flagged]

They're all over LA. I have taken one a few times. They drive safer than I do.
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