I’m looking forward to the day when the cost of taking one of these falls to somewhere 20% above the cost of fuel and wear and tear on the vehicle, making it incredibly cheap to take a ride anywhere you’d reasonably want to be driven to.
California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
21–30 of 167 posts
Re: California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
#22why is there an approved map? like i get having a pilot somewhere but once that goes well (and we're way past that point), why isn't it just blanket approval everywhere. Why would one county be allowed waymos but not another. I get that they might not be approved in the high sierras but just make that a deny list not allow list. Or even just deny the specific conditions you're worried about (snow).
I suspect it's limited by what the request was for. Waymo has to create the high res map before they can offer service.
I think laypeople vastly overestimate how much the maps are a bottleneck compared to boring things like infrastructure to charge, people to clean the vehicles, integrating with local governments to allow things like disabling Pickup/Dropoff in certain areas at certain times, etc.
Even with local partners that all takes a lot of time.
Re: California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
#23why is there an approved map? like i get having a pilot somewhere but once that goes well (and we're way past that point), why isn't it just blanket approval everywhere. Why would one county be allowed waymos but not another. I get that they might not be approved in the high sierras but just make that a deny list not allow list. Or even just deny the specific conditions you're worried about (snow).
There's an approved map because the approval process requires the manufacturer to specify both areas and conditions they are applying for, and documents supporting that the vehicle is ready to be operated autonomously in those areas and conditions (which doesn't just include technical readiness, but also administrative readiness in the form of things like a law enforcement interaction plan, etc.)
> like i get having a pilot somewhere but once that goes well (and we're way past that point), why isn't it just blanket approval everywhere.
Because “everywhere” isn't a uniform domain (Waymo is kind of way out in one tail of the distribution in terms of both the geographical range and range of conditions they have applied for and been approved to operate in, other AV manufacturers are in much tinier zones, and narrow road/weather conditions.) And because for some AV manufacturers (if there is one that can demonstrate they don't need this, they'd probably have an easier lift getting broader approvals) part of readiness to deploy (or test) in an area is detailed, manufacturer specific mapping/surveying of the roads.
Re: California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
#24why is there an approved map? like i get having a pilot somewhere but once that goes well (and we're way past that point), why isn't it just blanket approval everywhere. Why would one county be allowed waymos but not another. I get that they might not be approved in the high sierras but just make that a deny list not allow list. Or even just deny the specific conditions you're worried about (snow).
More of the state is not allowed than is... at least by geography.
Also, there's a practical element. If I have to specify where they can't go, the default position is they can go anywhere... if I inadvertently leave an area out of my black-list where it really ought to exist: the default is "permission granted". With a white-list, the worst case is a forgotten or neglected area can't be operated in as a default and the AV provider will have an interest in correcting.
But also politics. It's a very different message to say we're going to white-list a given AV operator to exist in different areas vs. black-listing them from certain areas.
Re: California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
#25The effectiveness with which AVs have been able to test and spread despite local municipalities being fairly luddite about them does provide positive evidence for the idea that states are the right level of government for many of these decisions. If this had been entirely up to Bay Area municipalities it would have been infeasible, and this outcome and the lives consequently saved will be due to state-level decision-…
Maybe. It would still not be governed by Japanese politicians...
Re: California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
#26I didn’t think I’d be so pro Waymo but anecdotally I had a fantastic experience with one recently.
I was at a music show very late ~1-2am in SF and walked out to grab an uber to the airbnb I was staying at. I kept getting assigned an uber, then I’d wait 10 minutes, then they’d cancel. Rinse and repeat for 30 minutes, mind you I even resorted to calling Lyfts at the same time and nothing bit. Then I say screw it and download Waymo. 1 minute and it’s accepted my ride, and I know it’s not going to cancel because it’s a robot. 3 minutes and it picks me up. The car is clean, quiet, I can play my own music in it via Spotify, and it’s driving honestly more safely than some uber drivers I’ve had in SF. It’s one of the few things where the end result actually lives up to the promise from a tech company.
Re: California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
#27This is super awesome but to set expectations it appears that Waymo is quite limited by fleet capacity in all of its current operating zones, so as a practical matter it may be months or years before it operates in all these areas.
If you're interested in this stuff I highly recommend this podcast, not affiliated with it I genuinely think it's a great source to hear about the behind the scenes of fleet operations to meet demand: https://www.roadtoautonomy.com/autonomy-markets/
(Edit) I prefer using the apple podcast app, here's a direct link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/autonomy-markets/id177...
Re: California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
#28Re: California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
#29I didn’t think I’d be so pro Waymo but anecdotally I had a fantastic experience with one recently. I was at a music show very late ~1-2am in SF and walked out to grab an uber to the airbnb I was staying at. I kept getting assigned an uber, then I’d wait 10 minutes, then they’d cancel. Rinse and repeat for 30 minutes, mind you I even resorted to calling Lyfts at the same time and nothing bit. Then I say screw it and d…
Curious why didn't you try Waymo until then? Was it just that it never had a reason to, or was something holding you back?
From my experience, lot of people actively seek out Waymo if it is available.
Re: California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations
#30Waymo has so far been awesome, can't imagine choosing an Uber/Lyft over a Waymo when both are available options. I wonder how much they are bottlenecked by vehicle production though.