151–160 of 235 posts
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How so? You realize there are people who cannot legally drive for whom a robotaxi is a life changing achievement?
The people I know who can’t legally drive also need help getting into the car, so a robotaxi would be a kick in the teeth.
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>> though in my personal experience I saw far more of the Highlanders than the custom robotaxis and all of them seemed to have a driver behind the wheel. The robotaxis have a steering wheel? I thought they had campfire seating with 2 backward facing seats.
I think that comment meant that the Highlanders have drivers.
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oh the humanity, maybe on the order of a few minutes. that changes nothing. we should be inconveniencing human drivers more, if anything. that you feel obligated to use words like "sophistry" tells me everything i need to know about you.
> oh the humanity, maybe on the order of a few minutes. that changes nothing. we should be inconveniencing human drivers more, if anything. > that you feel obligated to use words like "sophistry" tells me everything i need to know about you. You are evaluating one traffic light in a long series of traffic lights. At this moment, the grocery store is 2.8 miles and 17 minutes from my house. This is a typical short trip…
i'll be sure to wave at the other drivers next time i'm in town in a zoox or waymo and then go back to doing literally anything else than driving.
I was just in Vegas and saw these rolling around. They seem to have a mix of robotaxis (like the ones pictured) and decked out Toyota Highlanders that look like Waymos but not as well "packaged", though in my personal experience I saw far more of the Highlanders than the custom robotaxis and all of them seemed to have a driver behind the wheel. Vegas is an interesting place to launch IMO (and I believe they only oper…
>> though in my personal experience I saw far more of the Highlanders than the custom robotaxis and all of them seemed to have a driver behind the wheel. The robotaxis have a steering wheel? I thought they had campfire seating with 2 backward facing seats.
We don't really know what a special robotaxi hardware would look like.
These little front-back symmetric buses (as well as engineering-outfitted minivans) are pretty common in the mission in SF as well. I see them all the time in a very small (four or so blocks around 16th and folsom where my pottery studio is) area, but I think they're all still just test driving. As a waymo user, I'm looking forward to a little more competition in the market. I quite like waymo, but driving price down…
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#1 place cabbies have tried to scam me. #2 being Boston. Uber is such a blessing
San Francisco, too. I'm so glad for Uber. One downside to Uber in Vegas is that airport pickups happen in some hot parking garage far from the terminals.
The most useful thing I expect from robotaxis is speed regulations. What's considered normal for humans, driving higher than the speed limits, will not for automatic cars.
I disagree wholeheartedly. I think the most useful thing about robotaxis is that you can count on them to pay attention and react within a given timeframe and that speed limits will either be expanded greatly, eliminated or calculated as a function of the capabilities of the individual hardware in question rather than our best guess as to how an average person would probably react. I'm looking forward to driverless c…
The most useful thing I expect from robotaxis is speed regulations. What's considered normal for humans, driving higher than the speed limits, will not for automatic cars.
A robotaxi doesn’t care where it can or can’t drive. It just follows graph search and speed limits.
That means we can design cities around how we want them to look, instead of bending everything around today’s messy car infrastructure.
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It absolutely targets a problem that exists. Even in places with pretty great public transit, there is some demand for taxis/Uber/etc. Oftentimes even moreso, because if I don't need a car for 90% of trips, I might not have a car at all. So I use an Uber or a taxi when a certain trip demands it. By far the worst part about said Ubers and Taxis is the driver. They're an unpredictable element in a situation where I gre…
> It absolutely targets a problem that exists. Even in places with pretty great public transit, there is some demand for taxis/Uber/etc. Oftentimes even moreso, because if I don't need a car for 90% of trips, I might not have a car at all. So I use an Uber or a taxi when a certain trip demands it. This says nothing about self driving cars > So I'm not used to simply pretending this person I'm sharing a space with doe…
I very literally did not make that assumption. I pointed out, in a sentence you quoted yourself, that public transit can drastically reduce the amount of point-to-point personal transportation an individual wants or needs. However, sometimes, you really can't beat the convenience of "I am at point A, I want to be at point B, and I don't want to deal with a series of stops and transfers to get there". Maybe your starting or ending point is an unusual location. Maybe it's an unusual time of day. Maybe you're wearing a tuxedo or a cast and don't want to do the amount of walking public transit normally requires.
In any case, point-to-point transit is sometimes worth the expense. And when it is, self-driving taxis are fantastic. Compared to driving myself, I don't have to commit at least 75% of my attention to not killing myself or others. I can just read a book, or watch a movie, or do the morning crossword. Compared to taxis or Uber, I don't need to deal with a driver.
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> What it isn't is fundamentally true or revealing. Well, they are not a solution to transport problems, or to traffic jams. Yes, they can be complementary to other types of transportation. Yes, companies will enshittify them beyond measure if/when they reach a certain proportion of cars. > It's recognising that humans have diverse and varying needs for interaction and privacy. No. I don't think this was even uttered…
> they are not a solution to transport problems, or to traffic jams Nor to world hunger. > companies will enshittify them beyond measure A hypothetical applicable to every mode of transit, private and public. > don't think this was even uttered by any of these companies Things can be true without being in a corporate press release. (Also, you're the one who originally argued these services' "entire social context is…
Ah, the good old ad absurdum.
These companies literally hail themselves as "future of transportation".
> A hypothetical applicable to every mode of transit, private and public.
These are private companies looking for profit. These are not hypotheticals given what is happening to other cars and car manufacturers.
> Also, you're the one who originally argued these services' "entire social context is 'never encounter another human as you go from A to B'."
These are literally robo taxis. A taxi is literally a car that is taking you from A to B. And they are also removing the driver from them. Oh, and don't forget the existing of things like Boring Co. which exists almost solely to undermine public transport.
Their intended future is nothing but endless roads with isolated vehicles going from A to B. There's no other "social context".