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Next stop: Miami

waymo.com

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Re: Next stop: Miami

#141

Post by ecocentrik »

danielvaughn wrote: post #86

I’m sure they know much more than me and have thought this through, but it feels like Miami is an absolutely awful choice. Traffic is notoriously chaotic there. I’ve driven in LA, Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia, SF, Miami, etc. It’s by far the worst place to drive, moreso even than Manhattan.

Miami is a challenging place to drive for most Americans with drivers from dozens of different countries on the roads at any given time, very bad traffic that makes drivers impatient and sometimes aggressive. Driving in Manhattan was way more chaotic than anything I experienced in Miami but that was back in the days of yellow cab dominance and those bastards made full use of their bumpers as offensive implements.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#142

Post by sixQuarks »

bbor wrote: post #41
mg wrote: post #23

our service – which already provides over 150,000 trips per week across Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Austin Interesting. That's about 8 million rides per year. I wonder how close they are to being profitable? As soon as they are getting close to being profitable, they will probably scale this up super fast. I don't know how much Google invested into Waymo so far. Something like $10B? If they at some point…

I imagine it's hard to quantify "profit" with such a research-driven org. It's like penciling out the profitability of the metaverse after years of $XX billion dollar losses. In general I get the sense that Waymo is more of a diverse investment than a pure ride-hailing play; for example, as of 2020 they were working for Volvo, Chrysler, Jaguar, and Nissan[1], presumably for $$$. It's also worth remembering that Zoox…

[flagged]

Re: Next stop: Miami

#143

Post by rddbs »

danielvaughn wrote: post #86

I’m sure they know much more than me and have thought this through, but it feels like Miami is an absolutely awful choice. Traffic is notoriously chaotic there. I’ve driven in LA, Chicago, NYC, Philadelphia, SF, Miami, etc. It’s by far the worst place to drive, moreso even than Manhattan.

The unique difficulties of driving in Miami might be the reason this is a good choice, not the reason it’s a bad one.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#144

Post by phantom784 »

ecesena wrote: post #70
falcor84 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this relevant? Are any of its cameras/sensors behind the windshield? Or are there wipers directly on the external cameras?

I think it's just for passengers' experience

Probably also a legal requirement to run them during rain, even if it's not actually needed for the self-driving cars to work.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#145

Post by AlotOfReading »

IshKebab wrote: post #123
timmg wrote: post #3

I wonder when they will be able to provide service in northern cities (that get snow). Once they can do that -- and (I guess) can prove profitable -- they could expand non-stop across the country.

Based on what I saw in SF they're still pretty limited to noob-level driving. I expect driving difficulty will be way more of a barrier than snow.

If twin peaks and downtown are your definition of "noob-level driving", what's normal difficulty? Mumbai rush hour? An active war zone?

Re: Next stop: Miami

#146

Post by whamlastxmas »

Rebuff5007 wrote: post #134

I'm so curious about how the internal dev teams feeling about all this scaling. Four cities across 3 states -- surely there are differences in road signs, lane markings, emergency procedures, etc. Let alone the sheer volume of data of doing hundreds of thousands of miles ever week! Massive kudos to them if they are able to do all this without things being aflame on the inside...

My understanding is they have to make extremely detailed maps of where they operate and at great expense, and everything sort of breaks when anything changes. So lots of work indeed!

Re: Next stop: Miami

#147

Post by kemotep »

timerol wrote: post #51
deadbabe wrote: post #38

It will be a showdown of man vs machine in the city with the worst drivers in the nation. Interesting times.

Did you know that almost every city believes this about their local drivers? I've gotten it in LA, Boston, NYC, DC, SF, Philly, Atlanta, and Austin. Adding Miami to the list.

In my experience it is a State wide problem. I95 seemed to be a speed minimum of 95 if you didn’t want to get run off the road by everyone else for going too slow. I-4 (Daytona to Tampa, through Orlando) had over 400 deaths caused by traffic accidents one year. More than 1 death per mile of road. I don’t think 75 was any better, of course it was rough in Atlanta too, but still.

My experience with Florida driving was not a great experience for the few years I lived there.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#148

Post by sixQuarks »

comte7092 wrote: post #26
schiffern wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone know the timeline for Waymo expanding to northern areas outside urban centers? Or are these underserved populations forever stuck waiting hours for an Uber that still cancels half the time?

At the end of the day that isn’t a technical problem but a unit economics one. Removing the driver from a taxi doesn’t bring down costs that much . Self driving cars aren’t going to change the uber/taxi model at a fundamental level. They have a finite fleet that they need to deploy. Urban centers mean that fleet utilization is high, and relatively less time and miles are spent driving with no one on board. In rural a…

I can’t believe the level of ignorance I’m seeing in these comments.

The driver is THE overwhelming cost of a taxi/uber. What are you talking about?

Your problem is you’re not seeing past the costs of a Waymo vehicle with all its sensors and LiDAR, plus all the costs of keeping high definition maps updated, and having teleoperaters on hand.

Tesla doesn’t have those costs. Their FSD version 13 already drives close to a Waymo of not better in some circumstances. its a done deal, Tesla has won this game

Re: Next stop: Miami

#149

Post by threeseed »

fixprix wrote: post #85

Waymo is cool, but I have no idea how it is going to compete with the tsunami coming that is CyberCab. Tesla will be mass producing this smaller, cheaper vehicle like nothing else. Covering the entire country with self driving vehicles. I don’t know how Waymo can possibly compete with that. Their deployment by city is slow, their hardware is expensive, slown to produce, and not purpose built for self driving.

Waymo doesn't make the cars. Geely does.

And they make the same number of cars each year that Tesla does.

Also deployment by city exists because each state will have different regulations.

Re: Next stop: Miami

#150

Post by rsanek »

sixQuarks wrote: post #142
bbor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's hard to quantify "profit" with such a research-driven org. It's like penciling out the profitability of the metaverse after years of $XX billion dollar losses. In general I get the sense that Waymo is more of a diverse investment than a pure ride-hailing play; for example, as of 2020 they were working for Volvo, Chrysler, Jaguar, and Nissan[1], presumably for $$$. It's also worth remembering that Zoox…

[flagged]

in what markets is tesla able to drive autonomously without any driver in the seat? from what I've read, none.
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