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Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

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111–120 of 397 posts

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#111
I can't overstate how hopeful I am about Waymo. They are already literally 10x safer than human drivers [1] and they'd become vastly safer still if they completely replaced human drivers on the road. This would also make commuting a much more pleasant experience, which I think could greatly relieve the housing crisis in high-demand cities. Parents would have an alternative to hours of driving kids to activities.

I can't think of another pipeline technology that is both this proven and this impactful.

[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/12/new-swiss-re-study-waymo

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who also purchased FSD, I was able to drive hundreds of kilometers without any disengagements even though my car is an older HW3 with 12.6. I fully believe that with some Waymo-like conservative route planning and teleoperator backup, they will be able to achieve their robotaxi goals this year.

Tesla is going nowhere without LiDAR.

O3 can now play geoguessr better than master level human players. It can also beat master level Codeforces competitive programmers. I wouldn't discount the ability of AI to make sense of images far better than humans possibly could, all the while beating them at logical thinking, especially in a restricted domain like driving.

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#113
post #8

Toyota has been way, way behind on electrification. I suspect they’ve been Innovator’s Dilemma’d are are in a death spiral that they haven’t even noticed yet

Actually, we should also realize that they've been super wildly successful at getting people to move towards clean energy vehicles. Prius is the world's highest selling Hybrid car, and it's been that for more than a decade now. This means Toyota has helped cut down emissions from consumer automobiles by a significant degree. It's not the 1000 EVs out of the 100k vehicles that matter, but rather the 10k hybrid vehicle…

Up until recently (~2022/23) Toyota had cumulatively sold more hybrids than all EVs sold by all manufacturers combined, globally. They arguably have the best hybrid drivetrain on the market, and it's gotten to the point where even the Camry (2025 onwards) are exclusively offered as hybrids now.

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone wants an EV, especially in America. Unless EV’s can jump to 500 mile range and ubiquitous five minute charging, a lot of people are just gonna want a hybrid.

Just yesterday in the coffee shop the person next to me was having a conversation about his buyer's remorse over recently purchasing a full EV instead of a hybrid or plug-in hybrid. It sounded like he hadn't anticipated how much of a hassle it is to charge on road trips. Something about having to carefully plan around the locations of fast charge stations, and it really being a drag when you're just trying to get out…

This is only a problem for non-Teslas or vehicles that can't utilize the Tesla supercharger network.

I don't think I have ever plugged into a supercharger more than 10/15 minutes.

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the kind of autonomous that'll make a difference

I don't think we get there until we have all of the nearby vehicles on the road communicating.

I can order a Waymo from my phone right now and sleep in the backseat while it drives me across town.

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#116
post #8

Toyota has been way, way behind on electrification. I suspect they’ve been Innovator’s Dilemma’d are are in a death spiral that they haven’t even noticed yet

Two car family with one plug in hybrid and one EV is a low stress setup. Only uses gas/petrol on road trips.

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#117
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday in the coffee shop the person next to me was having a conversation about his buyer's remorse over recently purchasing a full EV instead of a hybrid or plug-in hybrid. It sounded like he hadn't anticipated how much of a hassle it is to charge on road trips. Something about having to carefully plan around the locations of fast charge stations, and it really being a drag when you're just trying to get out…

>It sounded like he hadn't anticipated how much of a hassle it is to charge on road trips. A few years ago this was true, but now that Tesla has opened up their network of chargers, your destination probably has to be >100 miles away from most interstate highways before road trip charging becomes much of an issue.

Even if there are charging stations every ten miles along the exact route you were already planning to take, it’s just straightforwardly true that it’s more annoying to charge vs. get gas.

I can fill my tank and be back on the road in With an EV, I would be stopping anywhere from 10-30minutes (depending on the kinds of chargers available) (assuming I don’t have to wait for one to open up), and I’d be doing it twice as often.

It adds a very meaningful amount of time to long car trips.

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#118

Ok, I appreciate that timelines in this space are long. But the opening phrase: "Toyota Motor Corporation (“Toyota”) and Waymo reached a preliminary agreement to explore a collaboration focused on accelerating the development..." reads a bit like a parody of corporate speak about a project nowhere close to happening. Did they agree to deploy? Or reach an agreement to collaborate? No, that's too strong. They will EXPL…

This headline brought to you by the marketing department.

Say everything and nothing in less than nine words.

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#119
Anything Toyota latches themselves to eventually dies.

Toyota and hybrid vehicles - very weak entry into the market

Toyota and hydrogen powered vehicles - dead on arrival

Toyota’s failure to electrify fleet

Now they want autonomous vehicles? Wonder who backs out first? Waymo or Toyota once they realize what a joke Toyota is.

Well at least they are not collaborating with Nissan.

Re: Waymo and Toyota outline partnership to advance autonomous driving deployment

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who also purchased FSD, I was able to drive hundreds of kilometers without any disengagements even though my car is an older HW3 with 12.6. I fully believe that with some Waymo-like conservative route planning and teleoperator backup, they will be able to achieve their robotaxi goals this year.

Tesla is going nowhere without LiDAR.

I strongly disagree. Go look at the videos of the current iteration of FSD.
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