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California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

cpuc.ca.gov

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Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#261

Post by iaseiadit »

tempest_ wrote: post #24
austinkhale wrote: post #8

Fantastic news. I use them all the time in Phoenix. My mom uses them to get to her doctor appointments. I think people underestimate how much of a quality of life improvement these are for people even when compared to Uber/Lyft.

> people underestimate how much of a quality of life improvement these are for people even when compared to Uber/Lyft I do underestimate it. What are quality of life improvements? Seems to be the same thing from a customer perspective. I guess if you are concerned for your safety from the uber driver it is an improvement but it is the only one that comes to mind.

I usually have a good experience, but just in the last few weeks it’s been bad:

- Driver started watching TikTok videos on his dashboard-mounted phone while driving

- Driver going way over the speed limit in stormy weather

- A driver was clearly sick, coughing and sniffling and sneezing the whole ride

- Got in a car and it reeked of marijuana

- Got in a car and it reeked of BO

At this point I’d probably prefer a robot driver.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#262

Post by __loam »

hacker_newz wrote: post #59
ra7 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the safe driving alone is a big improvement. Every time I get into an Uber, I hope and pray the driver isn’t aggressive and erratic. You always know what you’re going to get with a Waymo. Plus, nice and clean Jaguar I-Pace vehicles. No person to talk to and no tipping.

You trust an entity you can't interact with over a human being?

You can call their customer support line if you have a problem.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#263

Post by cj »

_acco wrote: post #117

I love Waymo and use it all the time. One aspect I'd still like to see them figure out: As a bike commuter, I share the road with Waymo often. When cycling, you're always checking the eyes of other drivers to confirm if they see you. I've had a couple incidents where I was a little thrown/unnerved because I couldn't confirm if a Waymo was registering me. It ultimately behaved fine, but I had to put my guard way up be…

Ditto as a motorcyclist.

Making eye contact with drivers makes riding a lot easier. You know they see you.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#264

Post by JumpCrisscross »

fragmede wrote: post #107
standardUser wrote: post #70

I was very bummed on a recent trip to SF to find there was a waitlist for Waymo and I couldn't use the service! But I've since been 'accepted' so my next West Coast trip I'll definitely be taking a driverless car. I was a long time SF resident so I'll use my local knowledge to choose the most ratchet route possible. The potential for self-driving cars to bring down the cost of rides is very exciting to me. I've been…

I don't know about bringing down costs. The amount of money that's been invested in this wants to get paid back, so they're gonna be charging as money they can for this to be worth it.

> amount of money that's been invested in this wants to get paid back, so they're gonna be charging as money they can

As they should be. They’re currently competing with Uber and Lyft, and charging a novelty/quality premium. There will be a halcyon period as they scale and print money, but others will notice and start fighting that monopoly.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#265

Post by vlovich123 »

gretch wrote: post #203
barbazoo wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Waymo is public transport Is it? Doesn't "public transit" at least somewhat imply that it's a business that has to operate under the rules of some democratically elected institution? Waymo will ban you, price you differently based on who/where/when you are, etc. I wouldn't expect any of that from "public transit".

>price you differently based on who/where/when you are, etc public transit already does this https://www.bart.gov/tickets/discounts -Seniors 65 and over get 62.5% off -Youth 5-18 years old get 50% off

Muni is free for seniors and youth.

That's a different kind of price segmentation than the kind of price discrimination that these companies can do. Also even without discounts public transit is substantially cheaper than taxi services (like 1/10th the cost). Some arguments I've seen is that the city should just make public transit free as you can offset the hit by getting rid of fare enforcement / fare machines.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#266

Post by fragmede »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #27
clay_the_ripper wrote: post #9

As a resident, I don’t support this at all. Waymos are annoying to have on the road - they go extremely slowly (with good reason) and make weird traffic moves. Do we want our roads getting clogged up with super slow taxis that steal jobs from ordinary people and give them to the tech industry?

>> Do we want our roads getting clogged up with super slow taxis Can't we just pass some laws that require Waymos to drive above the speed limit at all times, like normal drivers?

Or, we could recognize how farcicle it all is, and abolish the limits and make them guidelines, with tickets still being given for being reckless. If we're all safely doing 79 mph anyway, because it's not the 1950's and technology has advanced, just let us do that without risking a ticket.

Speed limits in a school zone should be 15 mph, but we care more that the children are safe than some number. If we have robots that are able to react inhumanly fast and are proven to be able to stop and not run people over, then they should be able to go at whatever speed that has them not running people over.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#267

Post by Andrex »

bragr wrote: post #227
_acco wrote: post #117

I love Waymo and use it all the time. One aspect I'd still like to see them figure out: As a bike commuter, I share the road with Waymo often. When cycling, you're always checking the eyes of other drivers to confirm if they see you. I've had a couple incidents where I was a little thrown/unnerved because I couldn't confirm if a Waymo was registering me. It ultimately behaved fine, but I had to put my guard way up be…

Joking, not joking: Cylon scanner [1] at the top the windscreen that locks on to you when it's giving way [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faukADr0_6g

I have very little BSG in my head but I still jumped to this solution. Odd.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#268

Post by johnnyanmac »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #131
andrewprock wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you pay a lot for parking or don't use the car much this tracks. But if you have the volume, then owning a car is cheaper. An affordable mid size car costs roughly $6k per year total cost for a new car, and about 2/3 that for a used car. If you commute daily to work, that is 500 trips per year. Two weekend trips adds another 100 per year. Now we are talking about ~$10/trip if you own your car. When you add the pre…

>> An affordable mid size car costs roughly $6k per year Show your math.

Really? do you want to see every little receipt from the GP?

I'll give a rough cost with my small sedan pre-pandemic

- Gas every 2 weeks (30 mile commute to work), fillin up the car is about $60. so $120 for gas. 120/month is 1440/year

- DMV costs are $150 a year

- car wash every few months. Let's make it monthly and more expensive than my actual washes. $50/month, 600 a year

- oil change every 3 months or so (probably less, but let's be conservative here). $70/quarter, 280/year.

- occasional repairs due to being an old car. sporadic, but let's throw in maybe $300 a year total.

- Finally, $100/month for insurance. $1200/Year.

so, ~4000/year. Given that that was a daily commute along with other short travel, it's cheaper than the idea of relying on taxis. Even if it was as cheap as $10/ride, it'd cost $4800/year to get to work alone. For my commute, it'd be more like $40-50/ride. Not even close.

ofc the rub here is that these are the costs for a paid off car, so if you don't own a car you need to factor in car payments, or the one time cost grabbing a used car. I grabbed my car for $5k before the car market (and every other market) went to hell, so it still very quickly paid for itself.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#269

Post by somethoughts »

konschubert wrote: post #164
_acco wrote: post #117

I love Waymo and use it all the time. One aspect I'd still like to see them figure out: As a bike commuter, I share the road with Waymo often. When cycling, you're always checking the eyes of other drivers to confirm if they see you. I've had a couple incidents where I was a little thrown/unnerved because I couldn't confirm if a Waymo was registering me. It ultimately behaved fine, but I had to put my guard way up be…

As a biker, I feel MICH safer around self driving cars because I know they are paying attention. I don’t need to check if they see me. They do.

Going forward - I think it's important to not just categorically say all self driving cars are safer than human drivers. It's probably better to say I feel safer around Waymo and self driving cars.

With such complexity and unknowns within the codebase - there is likely going to be a much higher amount of variability w.r.t. safety and AI decision making. I'm not so sure I'd categorically say a self driving car from say Nikola or some SPAC'd startup would make me feel all that safe.

Re: California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

#270

Post by sowbug »

iaseiadit wrote: post #261
tempest_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people underestimate how much of a quality of life improvement these are for people even when compared to Uber/Lyft I do underestimate it. What are quality of life improvements? Seems to be the same thing from a customer perspective. I guess if you are concerned for your safety from the uber driver it is an improvement but it is the only one that comes to mind.

I usually have a good experience, but just in the last few weeks it’s been bad: - Driver started watching TikTok videos on his dashboard-mounted phone while driving - Driver going way over the speed limit in stormy weather - A driver was clearly sick, coughing and sniffling and sneezing the whole ride - Got in a car and it reeked of marijuana - Got in a car and it reeked of BO At this point I’d probably prefer a robo…

Some of these will still happen, even in a self-driving car, because of prior passengers. In fact they might be more of a problem because passengers won't have another human in the car inhibiting their impolite or gross behavior.

I look forward to Snow Crash's self-cleaning public restrooms.

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