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How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

fortune.com

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Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#251

Post by mgiannopoulos »

swsieber wrote: post #235
marcusverus wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author's opinion is based on one intervention from one trip: > "The version of FSD I tried in March [of 2024] was clearly not ready for driverless operation. For example, I had to intervene to prevent the Model X from running over a plastic lane divider, a mistake Waymo would not have made in 2020. So while FSD 12.3 seems superior to Waymo’s technology circa 2018, it’s not as good as Waymo’s technology at the end…

While true, if you go to page 1 of the article you find this: > During a 45-minute test drive in a Tesla Model X, I had to intervene twice to correct mistakes by the FSD software. In contrast, I rode in driverless Waymo vehicles for more than two hours and didn’t notice a single mistake. That seems pretty significant.

A 45’ drive is not sufficient data for a serious review.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#253

Post by grecy »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #136
jseliger wrote: post #3

I just left a version of this in another thread—I live in Phoenix and now take Waymo regularly, and it seems like we're close to a world in which most people take self-driving cars most of the time, crash rates plummet, and these kinds of articles come to resemble articles from 1910 about horse-related problems. Humans suck at driving: https://jakeseliger.com/2019/12/16/maybe-cars-are-just-reall... Waymos avoid many…

> I live in Phoenix and now take Waymo regularly, and it seems like we're close to a world in which most people take self-driving cars most of the time I live in a big city (larger population than Phoenix) in the Uk and I've never even seen a self-driving car. Anywhere. I don't even think such a thing exists on public roads in my country. That Gibson quote about the future not being evenly distributed, etc. Just a da…

Sure, it's also worth pointing out nobody in Pheonix has ever seen a person with universal healthcare or free university education.

Countries develop at different rates on different things.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#254

Post by skipkey »

arconis987 wrote: post #125
jseliger wrote: post #3

I just left a version of this in another thread—I live in Phoenix and now take Waymo regularly, and it seems like we're close to a world in which most people take self-driving cars most of the time, crash rates plummet, and these kinds of articles come to resemble articles from 1910 about horse-related problems. Humans suck at driving: https://jakeseliger.com/2019/12/16/maybe-cars-are-just-reall... Waymos avoid many…

I live in SF, and I take it daily. It's cheaper than paying for the parking garage near the office. And it's cheaper than Uber: the base rate is similar to Uber's, but there is no need to add a tip. Waymo sometimes does weird, unexpected things - but safely. Once it seemed to change its mind about the optimal route a few times over the course of 10 seconds, switching safely between two lanes back and forth a few time…

I have video from my dashcam of a Waymo taxi doing a sudden three lane change, in moderately heavy traffic, to do a left turn to enter a freeway. This was a month or so ago. I really hope a human was involved in that. If not, there’s no way I would consider riding in one. If an officer had seen it, they would likely have written a ticket to a human.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#255

Post by krisoft »

grecy wrote: post #250
a_c_s wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is still years behind Waymo: "FSD 12.3 seems superior to Waymo’s technology circa 2018, it’s not as good as Waymo’s technology at the end of 2020" https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/05/on-self-driving-waymo-i...

> at the end of 2020 It seems silly to analyze a 4 year old version of something that is changing extremely rapidly. Both Waymo and FSD have come a very long way since 2020.

You are misunderstanding the quote.

FSD 12.3 is the current version of Tesla's self driving software. The article is comparing that current version of FSD to Waymo's 2020 state and saying that Tesla's self driving code today is worse than Waymo's 4 year ago. That is, according to the quote, Tesla is more than 4 years behind.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#256

Post by boc »

dboreham wrote: post #240
boc wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waymos do the same thing in SF where the streets are much denser, traffic is weirder, hills are way steeper, and the roads aren't in perfect shape by any means. The amount of impressive navigation I've seen around delivery trucks, weird construction patterns, etc has been pretty wild. They seem way ahead of the other options on the road.

Could some of that impressive driving have been done by remote human operators?

Not from what I've seen - it happens in real-time just like most human drivers. I don't believe that a remote controlled operator is even permitted, but I could be wrong.

Waymos drive fairly fast and aggressively in rush hour traffic too, which is why I enjoy sharing the road with them. I was initially worried they'd drive like a grandma but that hasn't been the case. Also as a cyclist I enjoy riding near them because they know I'm there and they give you enough space in the bike lane.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#257

Post by dataflow »

zellyn wrote: post #107

This seems silly. It’s been obvious even to casual observers like myself for years that Waymo/Google was one of the only groups taking the problem seriously and trying to actually solve it, as opposed to pretending you could add self-driving with just cameras in an over-the-air update (Tesla), or trying to move fast and break things (Uber), or pretending you could gradually improve lane-keeping all the way into auton…

> IIUC, Cruise has pretty much also always been legit?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cyrusfarivar/2023/12/04/judge-a...

Not sure if you count this as "legit" or not, but I haven't seen similar incidents from Waymo. (Perhaps I've just missed them - if so, links welcome!)

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#258

Post by jwagenet »

skipkey wrote: post #254
arconis987 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in SF, and I take it daily. It's cheaper than paying for the parking garage near the office. And it's cheaper than Uber: the base rate is similar to Uber's, but there is no need to add a tip. Waymo sometimes does weird, unexpected things - but safely. Once it seemed to change its mind about the optimal route a few times over the course of 10 seconds, switching safely between two lanes back and forth a few time…

I have video from my dashcam of a Waymo taxi doing a sudden three lane change, in moderately heavy traffic, to do a left turn to enter a freeway. This was a month or so ago. I really hope a human was involved in that. If not, there’s no way I would consider riding in one. If an officer had seen it, they would likely have written a ticket to a human.

Human drivers cross multiple lanes if heavy traffic all the time and certainly aren’t ticketed.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#259

Post by whatever1 »

saalweachter wrote: post #184
hossbeast wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also that they suck on average.

Also, the really fantastic ones will be excellent for years and years, and then one day they're slightly sleepy.

And that one day they will take the taxi.

Averages don't work for risk evaluation.

Re: How Waymo outlasted the competition and made robo-taxis a real business

#260

Post by shkkmo »

jefftk wrote: post #233
zellyn wrote: post #107

This seems silly. It’s been obvious even to casual observers like myself for years that Waymo/Google was one of the only groups taking the problem seriously and trying to actually solve it, as opposed to pretending you could add self-driving with just cameras in an over-the-air update (Tesla), or trying to move fast and break things (Uber), or pretending you could gradually improve lane-keeping all the way into auton…

> I find it hard to believe that the Tesla and Auto Manufacturer positions aren’t knowingly deceptive. The auto manufacturer approach is also showing progress. In CA and NV you can buy and operate a Mercedes with Drive Pilot, which is Level 3 certified. In the right (very restrictive conditions which essentially come down to "sitting in highway traffic on your commute") you legally do not have to pay attention to the…

That 'level 3' is still basically lane keeping and auto cruise control, the driver still has to be ready to immediately takeover, if you don't the car will stop in it's current lane with it's blinkers on.

This is about the peak of what you can get with automated lane keeping and braking. I don't see any route from this point to anything like level 4.

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