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Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

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Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#141

Post by noonespecial »

hackerboos wrote: post #73
vivekd wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, Uber and Lyft CEOs both said they envision a future where we don't own cars and just call self driving taxi services via app when we need them. They both envision this happening in less than a decade. This seems to be coming true, millennials have the lowest rate of car ownership and it seems to be the best explanation for why both companies are willing to bleed money to expand market-share as quickly a possible…

It'd be nice if we could get to the point where my self-driving car is earning cash as a taxi whilst I'm doing my 9-5.

A year after the tech is available, I'd expect a thicket of regulations and permits to emerge that make it economically unviable for anyone but a large company fielding thousands of cars to profit.

Sort of like how you couldn't open your own payment processor for the few hundred people in your neighborhood today.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#142

Post by linkregister »

autotune wrote: post #88
amelius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that the next user would just tap a button on their smartphone saying that the car is dirty, upon which the car drives back to a service center and the user receives a new car (not the same car).

The problem with this is, as a rider, I personally would not want to have to be constantly expecting a dirty car. If one out of every 3 cars has vomit or syringes in it or feces, I would personally stick with a service that has human drivers at the wheel.

This is remedied with a service charge for the responsible person.

Unlike a Tenderloin sidewalk, deterrents are easily enforced under a scheme like this.

Uber and Lyft currently charge $100 for a cleaning fee to the driver when their passengers soil a car's interior with vomit, etc. I don't see why Waymo, Tesla, or Uber would be any different.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#143

Post by saosebastiao »

trvlngwlbry wrote: post #132
saosebastiao wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood why people think traffic will move faster with self driving cars. The status quo is drivers driving well beyond the physical capabilities to stop given the conditions at hand. Sure, they might be able to cut down on reaction time, but they still can't do anything about physics. Given that these vehicles will shift the risk model from driver to manufacturer, and subsequently programmed to obey th…

The video you linked to was interesting - thanks for sharing - but I didn't follow how that's related at all to self-driving cars driving around looking for parking. The video seems like more an example of what happens when individual households all own cars and don't carpool when taking their kids to school. If the kids being dropped off at that school started using self-driving Uber Pools, then that video would be…

The relation is that instead of driving around looking for parking, they queue up at their new bottleneck: loading and unloading. Nobody in the video needed to park, and yet traffic within that area was still moving slower than 3-4mph. Place this phenomenon on city streets where they won't have space for conveniently designed queuing areas, and cars will stop in the road, blocking anybody who is trying to move by. Downtown traffic during rush hour will be moving at a snails pace.

I'm open to the idea that carpooling might increase, but where will it come from? If it is coming from public transit, that would be a net increase in congestion. If it is coming from cars, it would be a net win...but self-driving cars should make ubers cheaper, not more expensive, and the relationship with supply/demand at lower cost would suggest that people would move away from uber pools and towards uberx. I would imagine that the more flexible ride-matching of uber pool (compared to traditional carpooling) would make it easier to use uberpool than it currently is to carpool, and with the right incentives (congestion charges that are waived for carpooling?), we could probably make it work pretty well. I don't know though, the complexity of the dynamics here makes it pretty hard for me to predict with any confidence.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#144

Post by jedberg »

saosebastiao wrote: post #127
bigtones wrote: post #61

Actually these Uber Volvo self driving cars have been picking up passengers using UberX in San Francisco for weeks. They're easy to spot because they have a huge lidar contraption on the roof and a lot of camera's mounted on the roof, rear vision mirrors, and the rear tailgate of the vehicle. The depot they use is on Harrison and 3rd so you see a lot of them driving around the area just south of Market Street, which…

I've never understood why people think traffic will move faster with self driving cars. The status quo is drivers driving well beyond the physical capabilities to stop given the conditions at hand. Sure, they might be able to cut down on reaction time, but they still can't do anything about physics. Given that these vehicles will shift the risk model from driver to manufacturer, and subsequently programmed to obey th…

The idea of traffic reduction is twofold. First is the fact that there can be a lot more carpools because you don't need the owner of the car to be inconvenienced to make the carpool work, so there will be an overall reduction of cars on the road.

Second, and more importantly, when you have only autonomous vehicles on the road, you can make assumptions that all drivers are perfectly rational, and then your safety margins can be smaller, allowing closer travel at higher speeds.

I suspect in the future, much like how when we transitioned from horse drawn carriage to motor vehicle, at first they will share roads, but then there will be autonomous only roads where the speeds will be higher.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#145

Post by serge2k »

saosebastiao wrote: post #127
bigtones wrote: post #61

Actually these Uber Volvo self driving cars have been picking up passengers using UberX in San Francisco for weeks. They're easy to spot because they have a huge lidar contraption on the roof and a lot of camera's mounted on the roof, rear vision mirrors, and the rear tailgate of the vehicle. The depot they use is on Harrison and 3rd so you see a lot of them driving around the area just south of Market Street, which…

I've never understood why people think traffic will move faster with self driving cars. The status quo is drivers driving well beyond the physical capabilities to stop given the conditions at hand. Sure, they might be able to cut down on reaction time, but they still can't do anything about physics. Given that these vehicles will shift the risk model from driver to manufacturer, and subsequently programmed to obey th…

> The status quo is drivers driving well beyond the physical capabilities to stop given the conditions at hand.

because that's not the most efficient way to move traffic. Yes, a road at it's limit is going to be worse off. Perfect merging and other better habits will help in a lot of places. Just think of all the times you see some idiot merge in at 50 way before the end of the lane.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#146

Post by rwmj »

drcode wrote: post #63
bigtones wrote: post #61

Actually these Uber Volvo self driving cars have been picking up passengers using UberX in San Francisco for weeks. They're easy to spot because they have a huge lidar contraption on the roof and a lot of camera's mounted on the roof, rear vision mirrors, and the rear tailgate of the vehicle. The depot they use is on Harrison and 3rd so you see a lot of them driving around the area just south of Market Street, which…

If you think self driving cars are cool, wait until two years from now when you're stuck behind them in your morning commute every day, while they drive 15 miles under the speed limit.

I look forward to the day when there are only careful, fully aware, sober, non-facebooking drivers on my morning commute.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#147

Post by jedberg »

saosebastiao wrote: post #137
kabes wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of traffic jams are so called shockwave/phantom traffic jams and a lot of other ones are where lanes have to merge in each other. Those could be avoided with self driving cars. Maybe in the beginning they will be too cautious for that, but after some time and experience, I'm sure these optimizations will be implemented. It may not make the traffic in downtown SF faster, but it sure will make the traffic on the…

Those won't go away. They might be mitigated, but once again, you can only mitigate the portion that is due to driver error, and the major problem in those scenarios is physics. The shock wave phenomenon is one caused by physics (it literally is modeled by fluid dynamics simulation), exacerbated by limited visibility, and exacerbated once again by human reaction times. You can only get rid of the human reaction times…

Those traffic waves are in large part psychology though. If every car traveled at the average speed you wouldn't have them. If even just 10% are self driving and have data on average speed for that section of road, they can not only avoid the wave but break them up, making traffic better for everyone.

I've even done this myself. I see a standing wave in front of me and slow to what I know is about average for that time of time. People cut in front of me as the gap gets bigger, but by the time I get to the choke point the wave dissolves as I pass through, and everyone behind me who was pissed about my slow speed is suddenly happy.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#148

Post by usrusr »

pm90 wrote: post #125
hackalaugh wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems potentially unlikely that a consumer could own and (auto-)operate a self-driving vehicle at a rate competitive with Uber & Lyft (or whatever corp.), who could purchase in bulk and have their cars operate for significantly less.

That's only if you think that people are 100% OK with using a random car every time they want to travel. I think they would be willing to pay a little extra to own a car to keep their stuff in at all times (e.g. I always leave my Sunglasses in the car)

As a city dweller, I would take random car over random parking spot every single time. Certainly does not apply to those who already pay a little extra for private parking though.

Re: Uber’s self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco

#149

Post by hagbarth »

aetherson wrote: post #64
rtx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, If I have an AI good enough to drive safely. There are many other places where I can use them more profitably.

Currently, self-driving AIs are kind of like chess AIs, or the Watson AI that won at Jeopardy: they have some inhuman strengths that mostly compensate for their sub-human understanding of inputs. So, for example, chess AIs are better chess players than humans because they have longer lookahead, even though they're worse at analyzing a given board. The Watson AI didn't understand questions as well as a human, and had…

Yes, but there are lots of applications for driving capabilities, that are not getting people from a to b. Like transporting cargo at an airport, dumpers at a pit mine, even long haul trucking (see Otto).
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