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NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

nytimes.com

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Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#121

Post by seanmcdirmid »

olyjohn wrote: post #88
quickthrower2 wrote: post #23

A concept I look forward to is not just a driverless car, but driverless "various size vehicles" from a 1-person car to a 100-person bus. In this future we could get the advantages of public transport and car-free living into rural and suburban areas, while in the city these systems could adjust and use AI to find optimal routes that are a lot less slower than current buses (or even trains that require 2 or 3 connect…

Why does having no driver suddenly enable this? You can do all this now, you just need a driver. Why is that the part that needs to be eliminated before you can do all these things? All it is, is route planning based on demand. Uber, etc should be able to do all this now. Isn't that what Uber Pool was supposed to deliver? Nobody uses that shit for anything but a commute. Nobody wants to sit in a car with other random…

There are cities on earth where taxis are ubiquitous and relatively affordable (even to locals making local wages). So nothing really changes there when the driver is eliminated (except maybe better traffic flows). But driverless might make ubiquitous taxis affordable in developed countries, it is a valid way of living. When I lived in Beijing, I used to commute to and from work by taxi, and used it for lots of other trips around town as well, and ya, not stressing about traffic was a bonus (but I changed my schedule so I would miss Beijing’s hellish rush hour).

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#122

Post by notahacker »

nwiswell wrote: post #22
paulcole wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? We have what, like 50+ years of certainty as to how dangerous people are as drivers? They’re a known quantity and we know we can keep making cars safer to reduce the danger to drivers and passengers. Instead we’re going to YOLO a half-baked tech-bro fantasy onto the roads and hope for the best? Also “meatbags” has the same tone as “sportsball” imo.

> We have what, like 50+ years of certainty as to how dangerous people are as drivers Yes, the answer is "very". Over one percent (1 in 93, National Safety Council, 2021[1]) of Americans will die in a car crash. That is insane. The data so far is clear that autonomous vehicles are safer, and it isn't close. > Also “meatbags” has the same tone as “sportsball” imo. We're comparing humans to computers. Sue me. [1]: http…

> The data so far is clear that autonomous vehicles are safer, and it isn't close.

The data so far on fatality rates is near nonexistent. There' a fatality every 75 million miles in the US with a human at the wheel, with significant proportions of those fatalities considered to be humans operating so far below the threshold for acceptable human driving we jail them for it. Waymo hit 1m autonomous miles this year.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#123

Post by [deleted] »

abhayhegde wrote: post #57

> Though there’s no driver, each ride is supported by staff at a Waymo site that can be summoned if a car runs into trouble. Unless they have multiple rides looked after by a staff, what are they planning to save by not offering a driver? Also, is there any path to profitability given how many billions were poured into the technology? Not that I care so much though, Alphabet has enough profitable ventures to recoup o…

[deleted]

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#124

Post by refurb »

dekhn wrote: post #49
davidgay wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... The US is #5 (of 26 countries for which the statistic is available) in fatalities / km. That's only "awfully damn good to me" if your goal is to kill more people.

What does our relative position amongst a group of countries matter to my argument? The best countries see 150M miles between traffic fatalities. If we roll out self-driving cars and they continue to work as well as they have so far, the US numbers will get better.

Agreed. If a risk in super low, being worse than other countries doesn’t change the fact the risk is super low.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#125

Post by fastball »

prawn wrote: post #106
fastball wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, definitely want the RV to be electric. Plus would cover the roof in solar to get a bit of extra charge.

I don't think the rooftop solar makes a dent in the vehicle's power needs, but maybe that changes with time. I've driven a lot of the US, a lot of national parks, and the driving is the trivial bit. Everything else is a pain, IMO!

The solar is less for the driving and more for the daily usage, so that if I'm parked somewhere in the middle of nowhere I don't need to be plugged in.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#126

Post by refurb »

keenmaster wrote: post #64
dekhn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? """The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has released its latest projections for traffic fatalities in 2022, estimating that 42,795 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes. """ """The number of vehicle-miles traveled on all roads in the United States decreased by some 1.55 percent to approximately 3.17 trillion in 2022. " Ignoring some important details, that means americans drive 75 million…

If a couple drives 10,000 miles each for 50 years, that’s 1 million miles. In a neighborhood with 75 houses, each inhabited by such a couple, 1 person will die from driving in those 50 years. And when they die, they usually had many more years to live otherwise. That’s to say nothing of injuries.

This isn’t accurate because the deaths include pedestrians (which could be someone outside of your neighborhood of 75)

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#127

Post by jrockway »

ericksoa wrote: post #95
barbariangrunge wrote: post #21

But… why couldn’t we just build more and better trains?

You know what is more controversial than letting robot cars drive around? Trying to make a new train line literally anywhere in the US. You are better off buying a bunch of robot cars, tying them together with a rope, and starting a company to run hacker trains on city streets and charge money. In fact, in SF, if the protestors were clever, they'd just get together tie a bunch of cars together and create their own tr…

I think that robot cars are likely the end of cars. They will lure people off of public transportation, especially those that don't have the up-front capital / borrowing ability to buy their own car, but whose commute times can be improved by driving. This will lead to a lot of congestion. And then congestion ruins it for everyone, humans and AIs alike. (Congestion is already what enables public transportation. No commuter rail system can compete with the speeds of a car on the freeway at 3am. But, people start work at 8am, and EVERYTHING competes with the speed of a car at 8am.)

Eventually people will say "you know what, I guess I'll just live closer to work". Congratulations, you just invented cities. With land being used for humans and not automobile storage, mass transit becomes more viable. Thus, the car's death warrant is signed.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#128

Post by belugacat »

taurath wrote: post #119
_acco wrote: post #14

> My ride was so smooth, the novelty began to wear off, turning a trip to the future into just another journey across town. This is the only nod in the article to how futuristic and revelatory this innovation. The journalists sound so bored. I wonder if this is a function of how “around the corner” this tech has felt for so long? Have we somehow become jaded to this innovation before it has even arrived? Were journal…

> I wonder if this is a function of how “around the corner” this tech has felt for so long? Have we somehow become jaded to this innovation before it has even arrived? The end customer experience is nearly identical to having a quiet driver. A taxi is still a taxi. Someone having their own self driving car would be a big change. Being able to not own a car because of cheap shared self driving vehicles would be intere…

> does anyone really believe anymore that it will be cheap, given how expensive ride share services are?

I used to own a car in SF, and I definitely spend way less money every month on Lyft + the occasional weekend Getaround than I did on insurance/gas/repairs/the occasional tow or parking ticket when I had my car (not even counting initial acquisition).

Obviously depends on a lot of factors, but it’s not that clear cut.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#129

Post by seanmcdirmid »

zdragnar wrote: post #39
barbariangrunge wrote: post #21

But… why couldn’t we just build more and better trains?

Trains aren't a panacea for transportation. They work well in some areas, less well in others, and not at all in many. You still have to get to and from the stations themselves, and the dependability of transportation arriving on time and proximity to your destination plays a big factor. The metro area I went to college in had a light rail train that ran from downtown to a popular tourist destination. To get there, t…

Back during my first trip to China, a bunch of retired military guys would hang out at subway stations offering rides from the station to your house for 5 jiao or one Kuai in a gas powered tuktuk. I imagine electric ride share bikes could do the same thing today if they weren’t being abused all the time.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#130

Post by mcny »

jeffbee wrote: post #74
unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a kind of Rube Goldberg contraption for getting around town..... The most complex gizmo possible for the most mundane of tasks.

In a city as hilly as sf getting around in an electric car is a real benefit that saves a great deal of effort. I’d rather have core bus lines that run on 2-3 minute headways instead, but I’ll take what I can get.

I wonder... Could we sort of mix this self driving car technology with an app that does something like Uber pool and put it on buses?

I am not thinking going to a different state. I'm just thinking local public transit. If we have enough buses and assuming there is no rain or snow, passengers just punch in where they want to go and one of the buses takes them there? I feel like there is so much valuable data getting wasted because Uber and Lyft are private companies with no interest in improving public transit. However, I think this data from my hypothetical bus pool could be used to alter bus routes or even to come up with maybe potential metro lines?

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