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

techcrunch.com

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

#161

Post by casylum »

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…

I think traffic will get worse with self driving cars. If you don't need to be in the car, it can run errands for you during the day. Remember how computers were supposed to lead to a paperless office?

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

#162

Post by anigbrowl »

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…

I don't really agree, though as someone who also walks everywhere I'd be glad if you were right. My guess is that as self-driving cars take off to the point of being generally accepted rather than a curiosity, there'll be less and less incentive to operate a car of your own - much as you can still in theory get around by horse but it's so much hassle to own one that hardly anyone bothers to do so.

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

#163

Post by Jarwain »

estefan wrote: post #85
cstejerean wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is no reason to guess and make baseless claims, the article already addressed this topic. A permit is not required because a safety operator is on board at all times. Skirting regulations and paying fines has nothing to do with it.

That's only because of Uber's interpretation. From the FT article: > California law defines an autonomous vehicle as one that is able to drive “without the active physical control or monitoring by a human operator”. > Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer who leads Uber’s driverless car efforts, said the fleet would be “self-driving” but not “autonomous”, making an unusual semantic distinction. A pretty tenuo…

My understanding of the law is that an autonomous vehicle does not require control or monitoring. However, Uber's car has an operator monitoring the car's activity, although not actively controlling the car. Because of this, it is not considered autonomous by California law.

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

#164

Post by imgabe »

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.

Pretty tough to get stuck behind a car for very long while on a bike, so I'm not too worried.

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

#165

Post by imgabe »

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.

1 in 3 seems ridiculously high. I'm not sure what the vomit-rate is currently for Ubers and taxis, but I'm pretty confident it's not even remotely close to 33%.

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

#166

Post by beambot »

ASinclair wrote: post #122
Fricken wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, Uber just wants people to think they provide better service at lower prices than their competition; and the tricksters, they're doing it by working to provide better service at lower prices than the competition. Feeling peckish? Ignore it. It's just the McDonald's corporation trying to raise the value of it's stock.

> Ya, Uber just wants people to think they provide better service at lower prices than their competition; and the tricksters, they're doing it by working to provide better service at lower prices than the competition. The prices are lower because they're subsidized with invested money and debt.

> they're subsidized with invested money and debt.

So are public utilities, public resources, and all levels of government (local, state, & federal)...

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

#167

Post by hsitz »

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)

Using a random driverless car will be much cheaper than owning (perhaps roughly as expensive as taxis would be if there were no taxi driver who needed to get paid). Random cars can be in use virtually all-the-time every day. The portion of costs a single passenger pays will thus be small fraction of the total costs. For a car you own, at least as it works now, you generally pay 100% of costs. So it's not going to cost just "a little extra" to own your own car; as it works now owning a car results in huge levels of waste, while the expensive item sits doing nothing, occupying a (valuable) parking space.

I suppose you could own a driverless car and have it continuously deployed as an income-producer moving other people when you're not using it. That creates a lot of additional headaches and problems, though. E.g., how to make sure it's always available whenever you decide you want it? Or, will it be safe to leave your items in the car when it's used by others? (I would guess not).

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

#168

Post by JimboOmega »

mseebach wrote: post #66
drcode wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

15 mph under the speed limit during SF morning commute is ~30 mph faster than today, so that'll be awesome.

But the speed limit in almost all of SF is 25?

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

#169

Post by sampo »

jonknee wrote: post #113
samfisher83 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use trains or buses. Thousands of cars compared to a single train seems inefficient.

The age old last mile problem. I don't think anyone is suggesting getting rid of mass transit and in fact self driving cars could be the best thing ever happen to mass transit (no need to park at the train station if coming from the suburbs). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile_(transportation)

When a whole suburb is taking self-driving car every morning to get to the train, I guess someone will innovate and start offering rides in a minibus or even a bus.

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

#170

Post by Florin_Andrei »

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…

> I've never understood why people think traffic will move faster with self driving cars.

Because there's a huge difference between individual agents trying to maximize their own benefit to the detriment of everyone else (while also operating based on limited, local sensor data, and with limited processing power and slow reaction times), and a fully integrated traffic flow where fast, powerful agents communicate with each other, share sensor data and telemetry, and are able to make global optimizations.

Scenario #1 often produces pathologic outcomes that are way below global optimum. Scenario #2 can optimize traffic to the extent that human drivers would be unable to keep up with it (think rush hour traffic moving at legal speed limit nearly bumper to bumper with no accidents).

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