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Waymo's big self-drive car report

arstechnica.com

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Re: Waymo's big self-drive car report

#21

Post by SSLy »

Roritharr wrote: post #19
nopinsight wrote: post #3

Waymo's car safety systems engineered in from the ground up bode well for their reputation and also distinguish their system from other vehicles with self-driving "tacked-on". The latest statistics suggest that Waymo's car requires about an order of magnitude fewer interventions from safety drivers. If these systems are a key reason for that or will further boost their safety records, it will be a long while before c…

I wonder how the different error modes are detected so the redundant systems can take over.

mutual watchdogs?

Re: Waymo's big self-drive car report

#22

Post by ManuPop »

jfoster wrote: post #4
CamelCaseName wrote: post #2

Can anyone comment as to how realistic the last line is? >But it's clear that Waymo is aiming to bring its product to market soon—likely in 2018, if not this year.

They've had cars driving all over the place for years. If they've got the driving part "done", the other parts of it are about product stuff; how to request rides, in-ride experience, etc. They definitely would've had that all happening in parallel with refining the autonomy tech. I don't have any information, but it seems plausible to me that it could be 2018.

They have mostly been driving in sunny areas with very nice weather. Driving with strong weather hasn’t really been tackled by anybody yet. Additionally the legal side is still not (officially) resolved.

Re: Waymo's big self-drive car report

#23

Post by Roritharr »

SSLy wrote: post #21
Roritharr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how the different error modes are detected so the redundant systems can take over.

mutual watchdogs?

But what do they look at? If the failure mode for example is that the steering signal always signals half a degree more to the left in left turns than necessary, would the watchdog see that and takeover? How does it know that IT'S sensing mechanism isn't broken?

Re: Waymo's big self-drive car report

#24

Post by CreepGin »

MrQuincle wrote: post #20

How will people react? I think it's too early. + Jealous cap drivers, truck drivers, neighbors can easily put some chewing gum or paint on one or a few sensors. The system will be too brittle to cope with that, so all the time your/the sweet self-driving car doesn't even want to start. + Joyriding and pranks. Put your silly little brother or the dog who you've to babysit in the car. Bye bye! + Criminality. Just put y…

All of these can apply to existing public transportation or car rentals.

In Waymo's case, they can solve or alleviate these problems with live cameras and strict passenger screening process.

Re: Waymo's big self-drive car report

#25

Post by imron »

nopinsight wrote: post #3

Waymo's car safety systems engineered in from the ground up bode well for their reputation and also distinguish their system from other vehicles with self-driving "tacked-on". The latest statistics suggest that Waymo's car requires about an order of magnitude fewer interventions from safety drivers. If these systems are a key reason for that or will further boost their safety records, it will be a long while before c…

> are shielded from, and inaccessible from, the vehicle's wireless connections and systems."

Does this mean totally isolated with no connection or generally inaccessible but only really at the software level and if you overflow the right buffer with the right bytes you might be able to connect.

Re: Waymo's big self-drive car report

#27

Post by [deleted] »

Zaheer wrote: post #16

From this report I get the sense that Tesla, Cruise, et. al. are years behind compared to Waymo. Can anyone that has more knowledge comment on the state of self-driving companies today? Ex. The level of failure redundancy they highlight I haven't seen by Tesla which promises the current Model S's etc they sell have full autonomy capability. I may be missing something though...

[deleted]

Re: Waymo's big self-drive car report

#29

Post by skywhopper »

pgodzin wrote: post #9

It's certainly smart to start this as a ride-sharing service rather than DTC ownership model. By being able to choose which trips it is confident in taking, it removes a lot of the remaining question marks that would come up by a car owner trying to take it anywhere.

The question is: can this be a viable commercial product if it doesn’t actually do what people expect from a taxi service? And how extensive is the deployment going to be that people will choose to use Waymo over just driving? If I have to plan ahead or wait 15 minutes for a car to arrive, I’m a lot less likely to even try the service.

Re: Waymo's big self-drive car report

#30

Post by taneq »

nopinsight wrote: post #3

Waymo's car safety systems engineered in from the ground up bode well for their reputation and also distinguish their system from other vehicles with self-driving "tacked-on". The latest statistics suggest that Waymo's car requires about an order of magnitude fewer interventions from safety drivers. If these systems are a key reason for that or will further boost their safety records, it will be a long while before c…

Wow, finally someone taking vehicle system security seriously! I always find it terrifying that most car manufacturers seem to have no problem with tying safety-critical systems in with the entertainment system and pushing OTA updates to them.
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