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Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

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Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#201

Post by AngryData »

bhelkey wrote: post #109

Maybe a dumb question, why do electric cars have issues with water? My understanding was that ICE cars have trouble because water get's drawn into the engine. Water in the engine causes it to stall. And the engine must have air in flow and out flow. An electric car doesn't need air in the same way (no oxygen to ignite with gasoline, no air to compress and expand). Shouldn't electric cars to much better at driving thr…

You also have to consider the bouyancy of wheels and body panels not yet filled with water which will kill traction, or if the water is moving it doesn't take a lot to push vehicles around.

Most cars crossing water don't get stuck because the intake is blocked by water but because they either floated or get pushed away by the flow (or slammed into the water hard enough to break stuff). If you maintain forward movement and dont float most cars will keep going in water 4-6 inches above the intake height because of the wake and bubble of the engine compartment. You only really benefit from a snorkel if you are offroading through water where there may be unseen holes because submerging your entire engine and drivetrain that deep is still a horrible idea even with a snorkel.

Also if you don't have a direct motor on each drive wheel you still have to worry about water entering differentials and transfer cases even if the electronics are perfectly sealed.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#202

Post by autoexec »

srdjanr wrote: post #196
autoexec wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "responsible adults" know that chasing perfection gets you nowhere fast. I wouldn't call being prepared for very common life threatening events experienced by drivers "chasing perfection". The people with stalled cars are the lucky ones. Most of the drowning deaths in floods come from people who drove right into them. I'll give them credit for over-correcting before deciding to pull out until they figure out ho…

I wouldn't call floods "very common"

"Floods are the most common and widespread of all weather-related natural disasters...Flooding occurs in every U.S. state and territory, and is a threat experienced anywhere in the world that receives rain." (https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/floods/)

If they were going to plan for any kind of dangerous weather, flooding should have been very high up on that list.

People tend to take flash flood warnings way less seriously than tornado or severe thunderstorm warnings. I guess that people think of dangerous floods as being something much more obvious and dramatic than a street puddle just one foot deep, but flooding is no joke.

"Turn Around Don't Drown" PSA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI6mIlHKrVY)

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#203

Post by thrownthatway »

marcosdumay wrote: post #194
grumbel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a little worried that this is still a problem after 20 years. Don't they have simulators to test every weird and unexpected road condition offline? And flooded roads aren't exactly an unusual event to begin with.

It can just mean that nobody though about flooded streets, what's way more reasonable than it seems because of the birthday paradox. But that also means they need a long time to adapt to a new situation. That may be very bad depending on how fine grained a situation is defined, or it may mean nothing and in a few months they'll be back without problems.

> It can just mean that nobody though about flooded streets

No one who works for them thought of flooded roads.

That’s reassuring.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#204

Post by thrownthatway »

outside2344 wrote: post #152
grumbel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a little worried that this is still a problem after 20 years. Don't they have simulators to test every weird and unexpected road condition offline? And flooded roads aren't exactly an unusual event to begin with.

The fact that they aren't a usual event is probably exactly the challenge here.

Floods aren’t a usual even.

Have you ever even been outside?

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#205

Post by WorkerBee28474 »

autoexec wrote: post #181
overfeed wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is only the 10th city they've deployed to, all in the south, and nowhere there's significantly inclement weather You may be relieved to hear Waymo is rolling out to Portland, Oregon. It's not in the south, and with over 150 rainy days per year, it ranks among the rainiest US cities.

I'll be relieved when I hear that they did it without killing anyone. Considering they didn't bother to work out how to handle floods before they put people's lives at risk everywhere else, it's not all that reassuring that they're now going to YOLO it in Portland

Nobody has ever been killed by a Waymo. You're being dramatic.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#206

Post by manwe150 »

burkaman wrote: post #163
manwe150 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That title sounds so much more dramatic than it seems it actually was. I imagine headlines like: “Billions of python 3.14.4 programs were recalled today when a bug was found in the core itself. No word yet on whether the successor product, Python 3.14.5, will avoid a similar fate. How long will we tolerate being used as test subjects in the developer’s risky games?”

How would you phrase the headline? I think it's pretty accurate, they have pulled thousands of vehicles out of service and completely stopped service in two cities, and the reason is literally that one of their cars was swept into a creek (in addition to other flood-related incidents). I can't think of a way to make the headline any more clear. This isn't like other software "recalls" where the result is just an over…

> This isn't like other software "recalls" where the result is just an over-the-air update or a request to bring your car to a dealership when you have time, in this case they have actually physically removed the recalled vehicles from the road.

But that is what it was: the remedy in the recall was an over-the-air update and was already universally applied several weeks time before the recall was actually formalized.

Also seems linguistically complex, since the dictionary meaning of recall is an "official order to return item to a manufacturer", but Waymo doesn't sell the vehicle itself.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#208

Post by EA-3167 »

grumbel wrote: post #151
dhbradshaw wrote: post #123

To me this doesn't seem like a disaster but just the kind of thing that happens as you role out a service and expose it to new challenges. Presumably they haven't had the chance to do a lot of flood training but now they have that chance. The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitch…

I am a little worried that this is still a problem after 20 years. Don't they have simulators to test every weird and unexpected road condition offline? And flooded roads aren't exactly an unusual event to begin with.

It’s been clear for a while to anyone without money riding on this that the relatively “easy” part fooled a lot of people into assuming that the last push to full self driving wouldn’t be radically greater challenge.
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