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Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

techcrunch.com

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

#381

Post by timmmmmmay »

jsrozner wrote: post #307
robotresearcher wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the field, not at Waymo. Everyone in the business is acutely aware of weather, along with hundreds of other factors, many much less obvious. The engineers whose expertise you assume away are actually debating corner cases like the one we saw of someone carrying a bicycle on their skateboard. In fact the companies run test campaigns in shitty weather all over the country on purpose, at great expense.

Yeah maybe we should just stop doing that and invest in public transit infrastructure instead.

if you want people to use public transit, you need to make it not be a mobile homeless shelter. otherwise everyone who can afford to will insist on a private transport

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

#382

Post by charcircuit »

jsrozner wrote: post #307
robotresearcher wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the field, not at Waymo. Everyone in the business is acutely aware of weather, along with hundreds of other factors, many much less obvious. The engineers whose expertise you assume away are actually debating corner cases like the one we saw of someone carrying a bicycle on their skateboard. In fact the companies run test campaigns in shitty weather all over the country on purpose, at great expense.

Yeah maybe we should just stop doing that and invest in public transit infrastructure instead.

Roads are public transit infrastructure.

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

#383

Post by jimbo808 »

beering wrote: post #345
jimbo808 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not comparable at all. Autonomous driving isn't obviously a viable business. It's not because computer programs can't drive well, it's because the and workforce infrastructure required to maintain and operate the expensive fleet may be less efficient than a human maintaining their own vehicle.

Isn’t the implication there that Uber works because the drivers shoulder more costs and make less money, but Waymo won’t work because they have to shoulder all the costs?

I'm implying that drivers are more efficient at cleaning and maintaining, refueling, storing, repairing, and replacing their cars they own than the complex systems of personnel maintaining a much more expensive fleet of cars they don't own or give a shit about.

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

#385

Post by [deleted] »

cm2187 wrote: post #242
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…

The final boss will be driving in Rome

[deleted]

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

#386

Post by utopiah »

cm2187 wrote: post #242
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…

The final boss will be driving in Rome

Rome? How about Napoli or Palermo?

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

#388

Post by SR2Z »

QuercusMax wrote: post #192
burnte wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ATL this happens often enough that it's not a shock when it happens, we have lots of drainage problems here. I agree that I would have assumed Waymo had tested in events like this, but clearly not. So what I can say is running in ATL is a great test case for these events, and also the people who live here don't do a better job than Waymo did. There were dozens of people who ruined their cars yesterday trying to dr…

We had a story in the news this week about a Cybertruck driver who thought his Elonmobile was a boat because it has "wade mode" and deliberately drove into a lake! Humans are very stupid when it comes to driving through standing water!

To be fair if you take Elon Musk at his word the Cybertruck is supposed to have hermetically sealed powertrain components and be capable of exactly this.

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

#389

Post by SR2Z »

jsrozner wrote: post #307
robotresearcher wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the field, not at Waymo. Everyone in the business is acutely aware of weather, along with hundreds of other factors, many much less obvious. The engineers whose expertise you assume away are actually debating corner cases like the one we saw of someone carrying a bicycle on their skateboard. In fact the companies run test campaigns in shitty weather all over the country on purpose, at great expense.

Yeah maybe we should just stop doing that and invest in public transit infrastructure instead.

Who is "we?" The cost to develop self driving cars is not exactly being felt by society at large.

It certainly isn't stopping anyone from improving public transit, but it seems like you believe it's this and not any one of a bajillion actual factors to blame.

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

#390

Post by spaceman_2020 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #328
jimbo808 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The huge disadvantage they have over people is that their cars cost $250k, require a workforce of people to retrieve and repair them, maintain them, clean them, monitor them, etc. They are more expensive to operate than a normal car with a human driver, so far. The break-even point requires a lot of problems to be solved, and even then, the upside is not looking to be astronomical in the best case.

I think Google can handle paying for any number of $250k cars to get a good share of the future of transportation. I expect that in 10-20 years, all cars will be self driving.

I’ve heard that 10-20 years self driving spiel since Uber launched

I was also promised that I’d be 3d printing my shoes and living in the metaverse and AI will make me magical new products

All I really got was an endless social media feed

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