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A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

waymo.com

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Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#41

Post by NicuCalcea »

cyberax wrote: post #29
realo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 people in 30 waymos vs 30 people in an electric bus? No contest.

An average bus load in the US is around 18 people. So if you just compute the raw bus emissions, then an electric bus is maybe about 2x more efficient than personal EVs. But wait, there's so much more! A single bus/subway ride costs about $20, which is a surprisingly consistent figure for various US cities. In NYC it's $17, for example. I'm talking about the _true_ cost, as in: "yearly operational budget divided by t…

Most of the cost comes from paying the drivers, but also cost is a proxy for emmissions?

Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#42

Post by rootusrootus »

lanstin wrote: post #20
xnx wrote: post #5

Apologies for repeating myself, but it's hard to convey how far ahead Waymo is in every area: sensors, vehicles, training data, markets served, simulation, infrastructure, operations, regulatory. They're growing fast, but I do wonder what they see as the bottlenecks: municipal approval, training, manufacturing? It's really unfortunate that lobbying is slowing self-driving rollout in some of the biggest and most impor…

I just took a Waymo in San Jose, having taken a few from San Francisco - it dropped me off in a place that would have made sense in SF (across the street from my destination at a light, avoiding a U turn) but was terrible in the suburban streetscape where the road was literally 10 lanes 4 / 4 / 2 turning and no one would ever drop someone off like that instead of U turning so they didn't have to cross scary giant tra…

That seems like something not hard to fix, I am surprised they haven't already addressed it. Uber, as a comparison, absolutely narrows down the drop-off & pickup to the side of the road you want. I would demand the same of Waymo.

Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#43

Post by cyberax »

NicuCalcea wrote: post #41
cyberax wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An average bus load in the US is around 18 people. So if you just compute the raw bus emissions, then an electric bus is maybe about 2x more efficient than personal EVs. But wait, there's so much more! A single bus/subway ride costs about $20, which is a surprisingly consistent figure for various US cities. In NYC it's $17, for example. I'm talking about the _true_ cost, as in: "yearly operational budget divided by t…

Most of the cost comes from paying the drivers, but also cost is a proxy for emmissions?

Yes? Why is this strange?

Drivers emit a lot of CO2, just like every person in the US. A driverless car allows these emissions to be reallocated to other more productive areas.

Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#44

Post by cyberax »

fwip wrote: post #40
tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's different where you live, but 95% of the buses I see driving around here are completely empty.

Are you near the city center, or out near the suburbs? It's common for a bus to be crowded on one part of the route and nearly empty at the end.

And this is a fundamental issue with transit. It _has_ to travel as mostly empty on avereage to be useful.

Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#45

Post by nxc18 »

munificent wrote: post #36

Interesting that the article uses "ML" everywhere instead of "AI". I'm sure some marketing person chose that term deliberately, and I wonder what went into that decision.

All of the industry leaders of AI can’t stop bragging about how their AI is committing what would be felonies if a human did it, warning that it’s about as likely as not that AI will literally lead to human extinction, and threatening that it will erase all white collar work (or not depending on the day) and investing resources in a manner that will only be worthwhile if it actually does.

I don’t think there’s any mystery as to why AI is not a good marketing term.

Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#46

Post by rootusrootus »

malnourish wrote: post #34
phoghed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different 30 people in the US. I’d drop my car if Waymo was around and financially made sense. You’ll never catch me wasting my time on a bus though. We’ll never even be close to Europe or elsewhere wrt where public transit was even decades ago in those places. People here only ride the bus when there’s no other option for them. Waymo could make a bus too anyway, especially after they’ve been in an area a while and h…

Bus was just fine in Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco.

> Bus was just fine in Portland

Yes, if you live within about 1 mile of downtown and also work there. If you live downtown and your job is in Beaverton, you're likely in for a 90 minute commute. Or if you live in Beaverton and your office is downtown. Portland's mass transit is adequate for a subset of people and completely impractical for most.

Source: I've lived in and around Portland for 50 years. Worked downtown much of it, and have lots of friends and former colleagues who used public transit. You have to really want to not have a car because the time commitment is real.

Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#47

Post by tfehring »

rootusrootus wrote: post #42
lanstin wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just took a Waymo in San Jose, having taken a few from San Francisco - it dropped me off in a place that would have made sense in SF (across the street from my destination at a light, avoiding a U turn) but was terrible in the suburban streetscape where the road was literally 10 lanes 4 / 4 / 2 turning and no one would ever drop someone off like that instead of U turning so they didn't have to cross scary giant tra…

That seems like something not hard to fix, I am surprised they haven't already addressed it. Uber, as a comparison, absolutely narrows down the drop-off & pickup to the side of the road you want. I would demand the same of Waymo.

Waymo also lets you pick, but only from a predetermined list of pickup/dropoff locations. Sometimes there's not a spot on the side of the street you'd want, other times it will default to a spot on the other side of the street but you can override.

Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#48

Post by xnx »

egypturnash wrote: post #21
xnx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but I can't think of why Waymo should be prohibited but not Uber or taxis.

Taxis and barely-legal app taxis both require a human to drive. Someone who's earning a living doing this, and paying taxes to NYC. Waymo is driven by a robot, owned by a company out in California, who has a lot of lawyers doing their best to avoid as much financial and legal liability as possible. Not that Uber and its ilk isn't doing the same thing but they've still got a tax-paying citizen in the loop. The current…

Allow Waymo and leave the choice up to residents. If they want to pay a driver they can.

Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#49

Post by laurencerowe »

xnx wrote: post #18
realo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 people in 30 waymos vs 30 people in an electric bus? No contest.

No contest when the bus is full, but the overall efficiency (/"greeness") of the system is much less clear considering: buses are rarely full, most buses are diesel, heavy buses tear up the pavement on their routes (especially near stops), and buses don't take riders directly to/from their destinations.

Most of the city buses in my UK home town are now battery electric double deckers. These carry up to 85-90 people (with 25 standing), weigh 11 tonnes, and is 10.5m long.

A typical jaguar Waymo usually carries up to 4 people (usually just one), weighs 2.1 tonnes and is 5.2m long.

So the double decker bus should be more environmentally efficient with maybe 5 passengers making independent journeys, though operational costs for paying a driver probably make the Waymo more financially efficient in that situation.

I suspect robotaxis will become very important in suburban areas with distributed jobs where buses don’t work well. In busy cities there simply isn’t the roadspace to replace buses with robotaxis (or any other form of car) for commuting.

Re: A look under our trunk: what's in our compute

#50

Post by xnx »

classictraffic wrote: post #26
xnx wrote: post #5

Apologies for repeating myself, but it's hard to convey how far ahead Waymo is in every area: sensors, vehicles, training data, markets served, simulation, infrastructure, operations, regulatory. They're growing fast, but I do wonder what they see as the bottlenecks: municipal approval, training, manufacturing? It's really unfortunate that lobbying is slowing self-driving rollout in some of the biggest and most impor…

FWIW they started actively testing in Chicago a few months ago. I frequently see them around town now

Yes! I've seen cars as far north as Evanston and as far west as Oak Park.
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