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NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

nytimes.com

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Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#251

Post by philipwhiuk »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #99
olyjohn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does having no driver suddenly enable this? You can do all this now, you just need a driver. Why is that the part that needs to be eliminated before you can do all these things? All it is, is route planning based on demand. Uber, etc should be able to do all this now. Isn't that what Uber Pool was supposed to deliver? Nobody uses that shit for anything but a commute. Nobody wants to sit in a car with other random…

> Why does having no driver suddenly enable this? No-driver will make it more economical eventually because: 1. There is no hourly wage to pay a driver. 2. The car can be utilized 24/7 (or most likely 16/7 based on demand, but much better than 8/5 of a typical shift driver). > What is it about having no driver that suddenly makes cars green, free up space on the road, etc? A confluence of things: electric cars, the c…

> (or most likely 16/7 based on demand, but much better than 8/5 of a typical shift driver).

Or more practically 4/5 plus a small amount outside that.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#252

Post by [deleted] »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #99
olyjohn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does having no driver suddenly enable this? You can do all this now, you just need a driver. Why is that the part that needs to be eliminated before you can do all these things? All it is, is route planning based on demand. Uber, etc should be able to do all this now. Isn't that what Uber Pool was supposed to deliver? Nobody uses that shit for anything but a commute. Nobody wants to sit in a car with other random…

> Why does having no driver suddenly enable this? No-driver will make it more economical eventually because: 1. There is no hourly wage to pay a driver. 2. The car can be utilized 24/7 (or most likely 16/7 based on demand, but much better than 8/5 of a typical shift driver). > What is it about having no driver that suddenly makes cars green, free up space on the road, etc? A confluence of things: electric cars, the c…

[deleted]

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#253

Post by conjecTech »

froidpink wrote: post #247
conjecTech wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big urbanist (that also worked on AVs for a couple years), haven't owned a car for almost all of my adult life, and view it as a step in the right direction for a few reasons. 1 - I think the impact of parking is actually more insidious and detrimental than roads by themselves. AVs will have high utilization of a much smaller pool of vehicles and remove the need for the huge parking lots we currently have. The…

Wouldn't the reduction in cost of rides vs Uber create massive demand for self-driving car rides, increasing congestion?

There will definitely be induced demand. Most people don't just choose travel mode based on cost though. Travel time/convenience is the biggest factor, and AVs will probably not improve those significantly. The reality is that walking/biking/transit aren't competitive in terms of convenience in most US cities right now. If taking the train is faster than driving, people will do it. That is the fundamental issue that needs to be fixed to allow other options to be successful, and I view killing people's obsession with parking as the largest step in that direction.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#254

Post by reaperducer »

pirate787 wrote: post #149
3cats-in-a-coat wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realization a self-driving car is not infinitely exciting is how bubbles pop. This particular bubble was formed mostly by Tesla hyping up the coming of their fleet of millions of robotaxis that will turn every other car immediately obsolete, “like owning a horse”, and Teslas will 100x in price, and Tesla will be the most valuable company in the world. And all that, over a product they still can’t ship (and won’t)…

Your Luddite take is profoundly wrong, and has been consistently proven wrong at every single technological turn in history. We have more robots than even today, and yet a labor SHORTAGE. Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone. We will end the misery caused to millions from injury and tragedy, and the billions of dol…

Eliminating the tedious and dangerous task of driving is an enormous benefit to humanity that will save 30,000+ lives a year in the US alone. We will end the misery caused to millions from injury and tragedy, and the billions of dollars lost. We can rethink our cities and move parking to the periphery.... Humanity will benefit.

They said all these things about the Segway, too.

I think it's been ten years since I've seen anyone except a cop using a Segway. (And I'm not sure how my local PD is still using them [as of yesterday], since I thought they were discontinued.)

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#255

Post by dfxm12 »

_acco wrote: post #14

> My ride was so smooth, the novelty began to wear off, turning a trip to the future into just another journey across town. This is the only nod in the article to how futuristic and revelatory this innovation. The journalists sound so bored. I wonder if this is a function of how “around the corner” this tech has felt for so long? Have we somehow become jaded to this innovation before it has even arrived? Were journal…

Getting driven in a self driving car is not so much different from getting driven in a driver driven car. You get in, you check your email, you get out across town, etc. This is the same in both.

It's not really comparable to flying in the air to a different part of the world for the first time...

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#256

Post by idopmstuff »

chankstein38 wrote: post #241
_acco wrote: post #14

> My ride was so smooth, the novelty began to wear off, turning a trip to the future into just another journey across town. This is the only nod in the article to how futuristic and revelatory this innovation. The journalists sound so bored. I wonder if this is a function of how “around the corner” this tech has felt for so long? Have we somehow become jaded to this innovation before it has even arrived? Were journal…

I feel like it was literally just riding in a car. Sure the car had no driver but what I took from this article is that there was nothing significant or interesting about the whole experience, which is exactly what we'd want if the goal is a future where these are common.

I think this is it - the first time riding in an airplane is vastly different than anything you've ever experienced in your life. You're watching the first the ground, and then the clouds, recede below you.

Driving in a robotaxi is (if done well) exactly the same as riding in an Uber, just without the person sitting in front. The crazy part is the how, not the what, and we're pretty good at ignoring the magic that powers many of our otherwise mundane experiences.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#257

Post by habosa »

The technology is pretty amazing, but does anyone else feel like we (the public) got duped?

What I wanted was for my own car to drive itself so I could relax and make better use of car time. I also wanted some new novel ways of interacting with cars to make them feel more like public transit that would be enabled by driverless technology.

What we got was ... SciFi Uber. We are not going to be allowed to own the cars, and hiring them for trips will not be any cheaper or easier than Uber. And most will be owned by big companies with motives besides transportation.

The driverless future was so exciting in 2013. Now it's just ... there.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#258

Post by mlyle »

danmaz74 wrote: post #239
BurningFrog wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A robo-taxi driving 24/7 replaces 24 cars driving 1h/day, 23 of which are parked on average. This would be a huge improvement in resource efficiency.

Only if there weren't rush hours.

Yes, it was an overreach; we won't get 24x in utilization, but we could pretty easily get a few times. And the cars don't need to then park where people live.

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#259

Post by kalleboo »

habosa wrote: post #257

The technology is pretty amazing, but does anyone else feel like we (the public) got duped? What I wanted was for my own car to drive itself so I could relax and make better use of car time. I also wanted some new novel ways of interacting with cars to make them feel more like public transit that would be enabled by driverless technology. What we got was ... SciFi Uber. We are not going to be allowed to own the cars,…

This is why Tesla was valued beyond the top 10 car companies combined - the idea was to kill the idea of people just buying their cars and make it an overpriced subscription

Re: NY Times Rides in Waymo Robotaxis in SF

#260

Post by ttul »

bergie wrote: post #141
ttul wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution to homelessness too! No need to find a parking spot. Just drive all night. Could it drive very slowly and charge the batteries using solar? Hmmm

We saw an electric motorboat this summer, made out of an old archipelago fisher boat. Cabin top and bimini full of solar. Owner estimated that on a sunny day you can motor at 3kt without depleting batteries.

Solar “sailing” is increasingly practical; there are companies selling luxurious solar ocean cruisers [1] already. As a sailor, the idea has a definite appeal for long ocean crossings. Sunshine is very reliable in the open ocean whereas wind can die for days at a time. The idea of cruising around the world without having to worry about the wind - other than to avoid storms - is very attractive.

[1] https://youtu.be/FnYL3C9pWO4?si=gjBXcRac6SOOkdDT

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