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Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

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Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#261

Post by walrus1066 »

bb611 wrote: post #244
cjcole wrote: post #68

"The average US city gets 26 inches of snow per year." http://www.bestplaces.net/climate/city/california/mountain_v... "Snowfall is 0 inches." http://www.bestplaces.net/climate/city/arizona/phoenix "Snowfall is 0 inches." http://www.bestplaces.net/climate/city/texas/austin "Snowfall is 1 inches." http://www.bestplaces.net/climate/city/washington/kirkland "Snowfall is 4 inches." I hope they are driving far enough from…

Everyone working on autonomous vehicles is facing a similar issue, and it's also one that human drivers are pretty bad at. Most people solve it by not going outside as frequently with snow on the roads. Tesla's goal is high fidelity GPS mapping of roads and their landmarks, so that the car can navigate down a lane in the absence of normal visual signals (i.e. clear road markings). It will be interesting to see how ev…

The weather problem needs to be solved if you want fully autonomous vehicles with no human on standby, otherwise when it snows you'd have a bunch of autonomous vehicles stood still, blocking the road not knowing what to do.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#262

Post by 1_2__3 »

arijun wrote: post #116

I still don't understand why every company doing self driving cars is focusing on consumer cars while no major player is doing interstate trucking. Interstate trucking could pretty much be done now, and has several advantages. Driving on interstate freeways is orders of magnitude easier than driving in a city with pedestrians, bikes, cars parked in the road, etc. And there is a great monetization scheme--no driver me…

Because it's all marketing bullshit. In fact that's a good indication that it's marketing bullshit - the fiction that the tip of the self-driving car spear will be consumer vehicles.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#263

Post by tedajax »

kmkemp wrote: post #208
sbov wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always? No. Will autonomous cars change it? Doubtful. In fact, it could make it worse, because who cares if your commute is 3 hours instead of 2 as long as you can watch American Idol while you're doing it.

I'd love to see what the average household pays for vehicles. If you don't think that money is high on the motivational list for people, you need only look at what happened the last time gas prices were $1/gallon higher than today. In any case, I doubt car ownership will "fall off a cliff". It will be a gradual change. Many people won't trust the software, there will be a few incidents that get tons of media coverage…

The thing is that even in rural areas the logistics of autonomous cars allow you to get away with just one for an entire family. The fact that the car can come back home and pick someone else up later means that even if there are still people who own cars (and I suspect lots of people still will) sharing amongst small groups will likely decrease overall count of owned vehicles.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#264

Post by kbenson »

nerfhammer wrote: post #247
stormbrew wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber is literally all over the world, though. Google can barely launch a keyboard app outside the US. Or a payment system. Lyft is still constrained entirely to the US and a handful of large Asian cities. I think people severely underestimate Uber's worldwide push in preparing themselves to be a force to be reckoned with when the autonomous vehicle takes off.

Why wouldn't Toyota just launch Toyotas On Demand? If the cost of the car and fuel are the only significant costs, Toyota could probably do it more cheaply than Uber. Uber's network effect is its driver network. It will find it a lot harder to compete if you no longer need drivers, when it has to compete with real car companies that could be able to undercut them on cost.

> Toyota could probably do it more cheaply than Uber.

I agree. The fact that autonomous cars will likely reduce ownership will put a squeeze on car companies, and it might make sense for them to branch into service areas, as they can get the cars at cost. I guarantee that for 10,000 Camrys purchased by Uber and 10,000 Camrys built and shuffled to a ride service division by Toyota, Toyota's ride-sharing division will get the sweeter deal on price.

Put another way, it's much easier for Toyota to start a ride service company than it is for Uber to start manufacturing cars to get them at cost.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#265

Post by virmundi »

allannienhuis wrote: post #234
virmundi wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you entirely. I have no idea how to solve this problem. My cousin's husband is a truck driver. He makes a six figure income running between Indy and Chicago (bang, bang). He's going to retire before they can get rid of him, but this is a huge issue. I tried to explain this problem to my father, who's a CPA. I've pointed out that his firm can get by with a dramatically smaller office than it use to due to tec…

Isn't the whole point of UBI to be Universal? People don't lose the benefit if they earn additional income and everyone gets it so it shouldn't have an inherent stigma to receiving it. I'm not actually sure its a practical option, but I don't see 'enslavement' as being one of it's downsides - where's the 'lock in'?

My concern is what happens if a block of people start to become disenchanted with UBI. Will the State cut their funding? Can the State, as the sole employer, lock the group out of the political discourse?

In general I'm not a fan of going to the United States government hat-in-hand. Look at Scotland. They do that with the Brits. They're kicked around all the time.

Here's an example. South Dakota v Dole, the Supreme Court said the government could tie general funding to states to enacting state laws. In this case the states had to raise the minimum drinking age to 21 if they wanted road funding. What's to stop the government in a UBI world, from putting different life-rules on its people.

The government goes from working for the people to providing for the people. That's a massive power imbalance. I don't know of any government I want to give that power. I do know it's not the United State's.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#266

Post by maxerickson »

mschip wrote: post #87
joeguilmette wrote: post #49

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…

Uber will continue to hold a lot of the chips in this race. Consider the Tesla or GM examples - a regression in revenue will not be acceptable. So if they're currently selling x cars at y $ a year they will need to continue that revenue without actually selling cars. This means they'll have to get really good at understanding how many rides over the span of a vehicle will continue that revenue and provide just the ri…

This means they'll have to get really good at understanding how many rides over the span of a vehicle will continue that revenue and provide just the right amount of vehicles to meet a regions needs.

And a pox on all of us if we hand firm control over regions to single players.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#268

Post by walrus1066 »

ilaksh wrote: post #226
cr0sh wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have my doubts that any of the current systems out there - even Google's - work well in extreme inclement weather. I doubt many work well in even "normal" inclement weather (ie - light rain or snow). The biggest problem is sensors. I am not a self-driving car expert (software or hardware). Nor am I an expert in ML, computer vision, etc. But I do have minor experience in each of those. Currently, I am enrolled and t…

Google and Nvidia and maybe Tesla (probably just using Nvidia's system) as well as perhaps a few others _have_ solved those prpblems using things like deep learning, LIDAR and sensor fusion.

Any references? To my knowledge these issues still haven't been resolved.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#269

Post by emptyfile »

1_2__3 wrote: post #262
arijun wrote: post #116

I still don't understand why every company doing self driving cars is focusing on consumer cars while no major player is doing interstate trucking. Interstate trucking could pretty much be done now, and has several advantages. Driving on interstate freeways is orders of magnitude easier than driving in a city with pedestrians, bikes, cars parked in the road, etc. And there is a great monetization scheme--no driver me…

Because it's all marketing bullshit. In fact that's a good indication that it's marketing bullshit - the fiction that the tip of the self-driving car spear will be consumer vehicles.

This... so much this

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#270

Post by Animats »

joeguilmette wrote: post #49

I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…

Five years from now:

* All the big auto manufacturers are shipping self-driving cars. Volvo is the first to ship a Level 3 system to real customers.

* Tesla is doing OK, but the big electric car brand is Chevy.

* Waymo is a Tier I supplier to Fiat/Chrysler.

* GM and Ford are using their own self-driving technology.

* Uber is still around, but is out of investor cash, and has to be profitable to pay back its loans. The service is much more expensive to use. Their self-driving thing never works out for them because they can't spend big money to buy cars, build garages, and staff up for maintenance.

* Lyft is still around, about the same as it is now.

* The mini autonomous bus people have some installations, but they're rare outside airports and campuses.

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