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Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

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Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#141

Post by skybrian »

themafia wrote: post #131
dhbradshaw wrote: post #123

To me this doesn't seem like a disaster but just the kind of thing that happens as you role out a service and expose it to new challenges. Presumably they haven't had the chance to do a lot of flood training but now they have that chance. The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitch…

If your premise is "robotaxis are so much better than human drivers" then this is almost a disaster. This is only the 10th city they've deployed to, all in the south, and nowhere there's significantly inclement weather. It does not bode well for their expansion plans.

It's a delay. The question is how long? Doesn't seem unfixable.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#142

Post by thunderfork »

bhelkey wrote: post #109

Maybe a dumb question, why do electric cars have issues with water? My understanding was that ICE cars have trouble because water get's drawn into the engine. Water in the engine causes it to stall. And the engine must have air in flow and out flow. An electric car doesn't need air in the same way (no oxygen to ignite with gasoline, no air to compress and expand). Shouldn't electric cars to much better at driving thr…

Another reason water and ICE cars don't mix is the wiring harness. Even if you don't flood the engine, you'll be having trouble with the electrical for the rest of the car's life. (Or, at least, that's the conventional wisdom)

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#143

Post by fragmede »

aerhardt wrote: post #138
etempleton wrote: post #90

This is really my bear case against AI. I am not against it. I actually think it is really neat! But we have been working on driverless cars for how long and spent how much? And still things like a flooded roadway completely throw them. Tesla failed to deliver driverless cars but now is pivoting to the much more complex fully autonomous robots. And we can’t get AI to stop hallucinating facts, but any day we are going…

I’ve just been to Austin where self-driving cars are everywhere but found to my disappointment that they can’t do trips to the airport. To your point, knowledge work, as a whole is a much larger and complex domain than self-driving.

The reason they can't do trips to the airport is regulatory and not technical.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#144

Post by bell-cot »

nutjob2 wrote: post #104
ge96 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just get a jeep snorkle

What happens when you you start floating? I guess water propulsion... and a rudder?

A decent welder should be able to turn out a trailer hitch outboard motor bracket in under 15 minutes. It's not like you'll need much more than a modest fishing outboard to get through flooded spots.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#145

Post by toast0 »

VoidWhisperer wrote: post #8
jvanderbot wrote: post #5

Snark aside, there will probably always be conditions in which waymo is not the right answer. Are they going to do hurricane evacuation? I think removing the driver just necessitates this.

While this is going to be an overly optimistic scenario: Imagine how smooth a hurricane evacuation would go if _everyone_ used a self-driving car to do the evacuation - atleast there might be less gridlock than there is during any usual hurricane evacuations. And assuming the self driving cars don't do something stupid that causes every car behind it to essentially lock up and stop moving That said, I know a scenario…

> atleast there might be less gridlock

I've never lived in a hurricane area, but when I think of news coverage of problematic evacuations, they're showing people stuck on highways, not people stuck in urban traffic grids.

It's a throughput problem. Computer controlled "car trains" with shorter following distances can boost traffic throughput, but I don't think that would be enough to make evacuation of large cities actually feasible. The highway system is simply not built for that use case. Especially since evacuation often occurs during inclement weather that reduces capacity.

AFAIK, most places try to figure out how to make shelter in place work, because mass evacuation is likely to end up with many people facing the weather event while on the highway.

You could theoretically do better with busses and trains, things, but there's likely not enough busses that are setup for long distance travel available: lots of municipal bus fleets are setup for alternate fuels which is great for emissions but makes it hard to travel to a neighboring state, because there may not be appropriate fueling opportunities on the way. Etc, etc.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#146

Post by liveoneggs »

etempleton wrote: post #90

This is really my bear case against AI. I am not against it. I actually think it is really neat! But we have been working on driverless cars for how long and spent how much? And still things like a flooded roadway completely throw them. Tesla failed to deliver driverless cars but now is pivoting to the much more complex fully autonomous robots. And we can’t get AI to stop hallucinating facts, but any day we are going…

I actually took a waymo down North Ave (where one got stuck) a few weeks ago and it was very pleasant.

I'm pretty conservative about this stuff but the waymo is genuinely nice to ride in.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#148

Post by Rebelgecko »

Jabrov wrote: post #12
VoidWhisperer wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While this is going to be an overly optimistic scenario: Imagine how smooth a hurricane evacuation would go if _everyone_ used a self-driving car to do the evacuation - atleast there might be less gridlock than there is during any usual hurricane evacuations. And assuming the self driving cars don't do something stupid that causes every car behind it to essentially lock up and stop moving That said, I know a scenario…

Why would there be less gridlock if people were in a driverless car instead of a regular car?

Self driving cars don't panic and drive recklessly. I don't live in hurricane country, but most accidents around here are caused by drivers who are on their phones/spacing out or driving super aggressively.

Most traffic jams are caused by accidents or people slamming the brakes

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#149

Post by fragmede »

abfan1127 wrote: post #140
ge96 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just get a jeep snorkle

jeep snorkels are for air intakes for engines. electric cars don't have air intakes. they have air cooling for batteries... I suppose you could snorkel those.

Depends on the EV. Some of them have liquid cooling for their battery pack.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#150

Post by themafia »

skybrian wrote: post #141
themafia wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your premise is "robotaxis are so much better than human drivers" then this is almost a disaster. This is only the 10th city they've deployed to, all in the south, and nowhere there's significantly inclement weather. It does not bode well for their expansion plans.

It's a delay. The question is how long? Doesn't seem unfixable.

I would assume that after the very first instance you would start moving to fix it. To be in a position where you have to roll back your plans doesn't seem like a simple "delay."

The question is: why haven't you fixed this already?

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