Waymo: Google's self-driving car company • Hacker News Board

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#101

Post by nickik » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

cphoover wrote: post #83

joeguilmette wrote: post #49

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…

a whole industry of workers will be out of the job. How will society react? Will we have a socialist revolt? Want to stay clear from politics... but seriously why isn't anyone talking about the socioeconomic impact this will have once drivers are put out of the job? IMHO this is the reason Trump won the election, because there is no plan for these people.

What? Everybody is constantly talking about it. I have heared almost as much about that, compared to the actual technology.

The answer is of course the same as with any other reason people lose jobs and have done so in the past. It really is nothing new. Neither in scale, nor in severity.

Also, every state already has system to deal with that stuff. The hole point of a generalised systems is that you don't have a major political crisis everytime insert suffers job loses.

That Trump won because of them is an assertion that is made often, but hard to proove or even show good evidence for.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#102

Post by XorNot » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 6:59 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #88

bdrool wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also: Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. Or, if everyone has a self-driving car of their own (or one that can be converted to self-driving), people will rent out their cars AirBnB-style when they aren't using them. I mean, why not? You've already got a garage, a driveway, etc. Might…

But why have a garage and a driveway in the future? If you can "hail" a self driving car within 5 minutes then having one in your house becomes a waste of valuable space.

Cleaning comes to mind as a serious, unsolved problem here. The reason I like my own car is because I know the history of its dirt.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#103

Post by cbr » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

jeffmcjunkin wrote: post #69

They have a number of blog posts that just launched on Medium: https://medium.com/waymo

It looks like they're converting many of their articles from https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/reports/ to Medium?

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#104

Post by mmbleh » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

treehau5 wrote: post #90

mmbleh wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sensors are primarily radar based. Mud/snow won't really affect them.

False -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clutter_(radar) Anyways, if this is true, it's a grim future then. Radar is incredibly trivial to interfere with.

From the "How it works" Google self driving car page: "Sensors Lasers, radars and cameras detect objects in all directions"

It uses many kinds of sensors. Yes I know about clutter, I've spent quite a lot of time in the radar industry. But by combining data from radars of multiple wavelengths, it becomes pretty feasible. Though yes, difficult.

https://www.google.com/selfdrivingcar/how/

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#105

Post by XorNot » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

boxcardavin wrote: post #32

Google's commitment to SDCs has always seemed half hearted so I wonder if this indicates that they are getting more serious about it. Moonshots at X have been getting the axe, the SDC stuff seems to be the only obviously viable one right now. To the surprise of many folks (myself included) it has turned out that SDC tech is probably for existing manufacturers to develop versus software guys learning how to build cars…

A $140k Mercedes is putting a lot more money into parts of the car that aren't traction and powerplant related.

The Tesla is putting most of your money into the tech.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#106

Post by dsymonds » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

shogun21 wrote: post #79

I feel like they're really getting on the cute-sy theme, from the car's friendly design to the name "Waymo". The lack of control is still kind of terrifying so I think they're trying to make it as non-threatening as possible.

I've seen what happens when humans have control of cars. It's not pretty.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#107

Post by bambax » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

joeguilmette wrote: post #49

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…

> Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive

But how is this going to work? In cities, everyone uses their car at exactly the same time: roughly, between 8-9 in the morning and 5-7 in the evening. If you don't own a car, chances are you won't get one when you need it to get to work on time.

Or, if there are enough cars for peak hours, then demand for new cars will not fall that much (although the structure of ownership may in fact change).

Other things that could change is the need for infrastructure (at least in Europe); you don't need highways and high speed trains that much if speed of travel matters much less. If your car drives itself during the night and you can sleep comfortably in it (or read, or watch movies, whatever), then the length of the trip is not paramount.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#108

Post by briandear » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 7:02 PM UTC

cphoover wrote: post #83

joeguilmette wrote: post #49

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…

a whole industry of workers will be out of the job. How will society react? Will we have a socialist revolt? Want to stay clear from politics... but seriously why isn't anyone talking about the socioeconomic impact this will have once drivers are put out of the job? IMHO this is the reason Trump won the election, because there is no plan for these people.

What happened when cars were first invented? What happened when interchangeable parts were invented? Every time some new tech gets close to being revolutionary, the same sky-will-fall arguments get repeated. New markets are created, new industries develop; the economy continues to grow and worldwide poverty continues to drop.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#109

Post by Animats » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 7:02 PM UTC

heywire wrote: post #55

On days like today, when there are several inches of snow on the ground and more to come, I always wonder how autonomous vehicles will handle such situations. What happens when snow (or mud, etc) accumulates on the camera or sensors? I don't doubt that a computer can react quicker and with more precision in an "event", but what about when it simply can't "see"? I don't see a steering wheel in these videos, so I guess…

Ford has been quietly testing in snow in Ann Arbor, MI.[1] Volvo tests in snow a lot. Volvo discovered that ice on the radars could be a problem. (So, de-icing heaters on the front of the sensors, like aircraft.) The big auto companies have tested their cars in bad conditions for many decades. They all have test tracks in awful locations and performance standards for bad weather. Even Google tests in Tahoe occasionally.

What's becoming clear is that the self-driving car industry will be the car industry. Autonomous driving equipment may come from suppliers, but they'll just be suppliers to the automakers. That's not a great place to be; the margins are low and suppliers are totally under the thumb of the automakers.

Volvo, which will deploy 100 self driving cars with actual customers in Gothenberg, Sweden in 2017, is way ahead on the user interface.[2] Volvo takes the firm position that, in autonomous mode, the driver is not required to pay attention at all, and if something goes wrong, it's Volvo's problem. They have redundant sensors, actuators, and computers.

Volvo is also way ahead on ads for self-driving.[3]

[1] http://www.volvocars.com/intl/about/our-innovation-brands/in...

[2] http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4di8ds

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDB6fFflTVA

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#110

Post by rudolf0 » Tue, Dec 13, 2016, 7:02 PM UTC

Really shallow of me, but the name kind of turns me off. "Uber" or "Lyft" are just whatever, but Waymo sounds like... something an infant would sputter out. Or "Lame-o".