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Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

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Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#161

Post by ehsankia »

anonymousCar wrote: post #112
ehsankia wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the only way to know how well it's doing is for it to get enough "interesting" miles, and then compare the success rate of those miles to similar human-driven miles. Right now Waymo is past 8 million miles driven. Miles driven is a better and normalized metric, with comparable real world statistics, unlike time.

Waymo is past 8 million miles total, how many miles on the latest version of the software? Certainly there are new features that are there in the last half than the first half? I think miles count is a bad metric and if it wasn't, Tesla would be the front runner.

All those miles are recorded, fuzzed and replayed in simulation, where they've driven over 5 billion miles. I assume they retest all the miles + fuzzed versions on every version release.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#162

Post by ehsankia »

abruzzi wrote: post #149
ehsankia wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the only way to know how well it's doing is for it to get enough "interesting" miles, and then compare the success rate of those miles to similar human-driven miles. Right now Waymo is past 8 million miles driven. Miles driven is a better and normalized metric, with comparable real world statistics, unlike time.

Miles driven is a less valuable number if the miles are largely along "easy" paths. What interests me is challenging events, perhaps what you call "interesting miles" because the more of those that cars successfully navigate, the more real-world ready the autonomous vehicles will be. There are hundreds of different types of these situations that are common enough that these vehicles will have to react appropriately (…

I did explicitly say "interesting" miles, but we shouldn't mix up Phoenix miles with New York miles or Canada miles. No one claims they are ready to run anywhere in the world, but they have enough miles in Phoenix that they're confident they've seen almost all interesting miles there.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#163

Post by fipple »

a-wu wrote: post #84

I can’t wait for wheelchair accessible vehicles to be equipped with this technology. It looks like they’re using Chrysler Pacificas which already have wheelchair ramp conversions from VMI and Braun. Since the self driving equipment seems to be on the top of the vehicle, it seems trivial to mount it on a converted Pacifica. As a quadriplegic who doesn’t drive (yet), the possibilities with this excite me greatly.

Sadly, one big barrier to this is that a lot of regulations prevent them from charging more money for this than for a regular ride in many jurisdictions. It’s obviously more expensive to provide so many companies don’t bother. An Uber is almost never accessible for a wheelchair van.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#164

Post by tonyquart »

I have read a little bit about this topic at https://www.lemberglaw.com/self-driving-autonomous-car-accid.... I think it's interesting to talk about this future tech. However, I personally won't risk myself to ride inside one of these prototype. It needs to be 99% safe before I would by one of it.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#165

Post by eloff »

fipple wrote: post #163
a-wu wrote: post #84

I can’t wait for wheelchair accessible vehicles to be equipped with this technology. It looks like they’re using Chrysler Pacificas which already have wheelchair ramp conversions from VMI and Braun. Since the self driving equipment seems to be on the top of the vehicle, it seems trivial to mount it on a converted Pacifica. As a quadriplegic who doesn’t drive (yet), the possibilities with this excite me greatly.

Sadly, one big barrier to this is that a lot of regulations prevent them from charging more money for this than for a regular ride in many jurisdictions. It’s obviously more expensive to provide so many companies don’t bother. An Uber is almost never accessible for a wheelchair van.

In Vancouver Canada, the government mandates taxi companies have x% accessible vehicles. I don't see why they can't do the same to Waymo, since they own the vehicles (note we still don't have Uber here.)

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#166

Post by URSpider94 »

zjaffee wrote: post #153
cromwellian wrote: post #47

Keeping the safety drivers in the beginning, scaling up, and getting a year or more worth of actual real world use, before slowly scaling back the drivers is what I'd call a very responsible choice. IMHO, to do less would be reckless showboating that could do unimaginable damage to the AV industry, as well as end up endangering lives. In the tech industry, we don't like to wait, we like moving fast, taking risks, shi…

The real question about self driving cars though and safety isn't about how much practice these vehicles have, but when they get in an accident, are people inside them still safe. If the computer gets screwed up in an accident, could it end up accelerating randomly all over the place, pull itself to the side of the road and do a safety check of the people inside. It's also very possible that there is a safer design f…

Problems like these are easy to optimize out. For instance, you can put in fuses that disconnect the traction power or ignition in the event of a collision. If you’re worried about the computer getting scrambled, put in two CPU’s and compare the output - if they are different by a significant amount, then stop driving. Most of the prototypes I’ve seen also have a manual e-stop in the cabin.

As for getting rid of glass: safety glass is actually pretty darned safe. It pulverizes into shards in a collision. And, there are a lot of people, myself included, who will not be able to ride down the highway without a view out the front - otherwise, it will be barf-bag city.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#167

Post by notatoad »

Skunkleton wrote: post #152
notatoad wrote: post #129

I'm confused as to what they're actually launching here. If i'm reading correctly, their existing service which was branded as an "early rider" program has been renamed to "waymo one", but the service hasn't actually changed at all and is still limited to the same region and to existing users of the early rider program?

Maybe they will start charging money?

ah, that's probably it. it does seem like they're charging now, i didn't realize they weren't before.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#168

Post by imtringued »

jbob2000 wrote: post #107
pliny wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I haven't seen enough large-scale corporate failures (and the associated damage control, which is how it seems you are characterizing this post), but it feels like you're making this prediction on the basis of not enough data. I can imagine there are other scenarios where Waymo PR makes this post, even though Waymo has not totally failed at producing self-driving cars, but perhaps I'm being insufficiently cynic…

Yes, I agree that I don't have enough data. But previous to this article, I was really supportive of Waymo. When I read the headline about "next steps", I thought we'd hear about some great new systems being rolled out or advancements towards the goal of self-driving, NOT about safety safety safety, drivers drivers drivers. This is how MBAs speak, not engineers.

Uber has poisoned the well with the type of reckless behaviour you are talking about. Self driving cars are no longer assumed to be safe by default. They kill people just like human driven cars, prrhaps they are even worse than humans at driving. So far Waymo has kept it's reputation as one of the few self driving companies that hasn't killed any of it's passengers.

Calling Wqymo an Uber with employees is a pretty big insult to the most advanced sdc company so far. Uber's self driving attempt has failed. Uber is nothing without it's drivers.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#169

Post by Fricken »

ehsankia wrote: post #98
Ajedi32 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that line is going to a bit more blurry than you think. Waymo has already done fully driverless testing during the early rider program, with plans to roll that out to Waymo One in the future[1]: > We’re never done learning, and our early rider program will continue as a way for a select group to give us ongoing insights. They’ll help test early features before those new capabilities graduate to Waymo One. For…

Right, the real milestone was when they set Waymo cars with no safety drivers on the streets a few months ago. This milestone realistically is just that the riders don't have an NDA anymore, unlike the previous ones. It's still a cool step forward, but it's still a "private beta". At least now we can start getting photos and videos from the users though which is cool.

That real milestone was passed in 2013, not a few months ago.

Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey

#170

Post by brianbreslin »

asdkhadsj wrote: post #74
brianbreslin wrote: post #64

I hope they roll this out in Miami soon. Miami has some of the laxest AV regulations in the country. Also would happily pay to not drive in this mess every day.

As excited as I am for self driving, it makes me sad that I get car/motion sick. I can't exploit self driving to do laptop work, reading, gaming, etc without getting sick - all I can do is sleep basically lol. It will be bittersweet in a self driving car realizing that since I don't have to pay attention, I can do so much more with my time!.. and then promptly stare out the window for an hour.

oh I didn't think about that. But I could also benefit from taking a nap when I would otherwise be driving...
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