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Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

blog.waymo.com

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Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#271

Post by rwmj »

drusepth wrote: post #72
icey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here (downtown Phoenix area) -- the driverless Waymos have been awesome. Occasionally they get confused but it seems pretty rare. They're better than a lot of the other drivers on the road out here. I'm mostly excited that they upped the allowed passenger count from 3 to 4. Usually we take a car if we're going out to dinner with friends but the 3 passenger limit made taking one of these a pain in the ass or impo…

Does the fourth passenger sit in the "driver's" seat, or is it a three-packed-in-the-back kind of situation? Never seen a self-driving-car in person, but I assume it's the standard 4-seater sedan layout, right?

I wonder if there's some regulation behind why they haven't got rid of the traditional front-facing layout entirely and replaced it with train carriage style seats around a table?

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#272

Post by gamblor956 »

ilaksh wrote: post #88
jeffbee wrote: post #48

The Waymo approach has proven itself. Targeted testing, running the driver in hard mode as much as possible, is better than the Tesla approach. Tesla’s plan was essentially “machine learning underpants gnomes”. Collect ten billion miles of data from guys driving down 280 -> ??? -> profit. Didn’t work and now Tesla is recognized as being dead last in the game, behind dozens of no-name Chinese players. Now what I wonde…

I have always been a huge proponent of Waymo and obviously Tesla doesn't have something comparable to them now. But if you look at videos of recorded Tesla autopilot drives on Youtube you will see a huge amount of success in terms of getting people to their destination without crashing or killing anyone. And there is constant gradual improvement. If Tesla can get another 2-3% improvement, they may actually be able to…

Tesla's advanced-driving systems (AP and FSD) lead the world in terms of deaths. It's not even close: Tesla has more fatalities than every other advanced-driving system in the world, combined.

Even massaging the data in the light most favorable for Tesla, a Tesla is still 3x more likely to be in an accident resulting in injuries than the next worst advanced-driving system, and is more than 50x more likely to be in an accident causing injuries than Toyota's or GM's advanced driving systems.

A 2-3% improvement still means that Tesla is the most dangerous advanced driving system on the roads.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#273

Post by George83728 »

ajcp wrote: post #122
austinkhale wrote: post #5

I live inside the original area in Phoenix where they did their training. I have to give kudos where it's due. I originally _hated_ their cars constantly driving around our neighborhood, but I was persuaded to try one a few weeks back. It completely changed my mind. They are now my favorite way to get around. I am a very happy, frequent customer and hope they keep adding coverage and more cars. This is absolutely the…

I live downtown PHX (Roosevelt Row) and beyond riding in them I MUCH prefer them driving around on the streets than actual human drivers. There isn't a day goes by that I don't see drivers make up 4-way stops, disregard the 4-way stops, flip a youey in the middle of an intersection, etc. Contrast that to the ever predictable Weymo, just quietly going about their little self-driving existence. Only problem I've seen w…

> If a Waymo sees a human on the corner that looks like they will cross it will stop and wait until the heat-death of the universe for them to cross.

I've had humans do this, when I had no intention of crossing the street because I was just standing at the corner waiting to meet somebody. At least the humans give up after a few seconds, with exacerbated expressions like I'm the one who did something wrong. It would be pretty funny to see a robot car sit there for minutes.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#274

Post by George83728 »

dymk wrote: post #169
abecedarius wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a 20th-century mass transit system actually preferable to robocars once the technology is mature? My guess is it's the cities like Austin, planning new transit systems without designing for synergies with robocars, who are failing at urban planning.

Good public mass transit is absolutely superior. Waymo cars don't solve traffic, it only partly solves parking and paying a human. Having (on average) a single person take up 40 square feet of space on the road for travel is horribly inefficient. You do a few orders of magnitude better with a full train car or bus.

Good public mass transit presumably involves cops kicking out the smelly homeless people, right? I don't think that would fly in most places these days though, it isn't humane. Yet it's the only way to make public transit tolerable.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#275

Post by revelio »

pizzalife wrote: post #28
bushbaba wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not really when you consider their burn rate. Say each of those trips gross 10$. That’s just 100k/week or $5.2 million/year. They’d need to likely 10,000x the ride volume to even be close to profitability. Uber does 7.64 billion rides per year. And they are not profitable. The waymo cars sure ain’t cheap, and scale of operations will take a ton of cash. I wonder if waymo would ever be profitable.

1. It's impossible! 2. It's possible but it's going to take forever 3. It's real and happening now but it's dangerous 4. It's not dangerous but it's annoying and blocking an intersection sometimes 5. It's not annoying but maybe they won't make money we are here. 6. It makes money but what about drivers 7. It works in cities but what about suburbs 8. It works in suburbs but what about rural areas 9. This city in Turkm…

Counterpoint: Concord, Google Glass, etc. Just because something can be achieved technologically, doesn't mean there is demand for it at the price you'd need to charge for it to make sense.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#276

Post by bjork »

bmelton wrote: post #260
StrictDabbler wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never tried to spell the phrase "flip a youey" before. It might be the only word I use that I have never considered spelling, so I am grateful that you included it your comment. That said, I think you are wrong and it should be "uey", "uie," "u-ie," or any other spelling that emphasizes the "u" after which the term is named. Also "I do not know the answer but I am sure you are wrong" is the most internetish co…

> I have never tried to spell the phrase "flip a youey" before. As a former Scripps spelling bee contestant, I've developed a low-grade allergy to commonplace onomotopeic words with no obvious, agreed-upon spelling. Recently I struggled with zhuzh (which has the bonus terror of having an alternate spelling, 'zhoosh') - but I commend OP for having chosen a phonetically parseable spelling over one of your (arguably mor…

*onomatopoeic

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#277

Post by _v7gu »

hansworst wrote: post #270
TulliusCicero wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars take up too much space. Relying on cars instead of mass transit means everything has to be more spread out, which makes walking and biking a lot worse.

If everyone can share a small fleet of self driving vehicles, they don’t need to take up a lot of space at all. I’m assuming you were talking about parking space; I don’t see how self driving cars would take up significantly more space than mass transit while on the road.

If a thousand people try to go to work at the same time, the car being driverless or not will not result in less than a thousand cars being driven, and the number of cars in the road is the biggest cause of congestion.

However, a bus can carry a hundred people comfortably. Ten buses instead of a thousand cars results in much leas congestion.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#278

Post by josefx »

austinkhale wrote: post #21
kccqzy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us not located in areas where Waymo is available, do you mind elaborating on why this is your favorite way to get around? As compared to Uber, Lyft, etc.

- The cars are very safe, very conservative drivers - The interiors are nice, well air conditioned and don't smell - You don't have to talk to a person, which I don't always hate but have had some bad experiences. This just removes the roll of the dice from the equation entirely. - They are currently at par or cheaper with Uber/Lyft prices and typically it's faster for the car to arrive - You get to play your own mus…

> You don't have to talk to a person, which I don't always hate but have had some bad experiences. This just removes the roll of the dice from the equation entirely.

Given that they are a Google/Alphabet company this seems like a missed opportunity for running ads on loop.

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#279

Post by UncleEntity »

iinnPP wrote: post #80
UncleEntity wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mainly something along the lines of forcing the companies profiting from this to pay a person a reasonable wage to act as the social aspect that will be missing. Force them to hire someone to sit in a car all day and do absolutely nothing?

act as the social aspect that will be missing. To act as a local for a traveler. To recommend locations To do nothing but sit there and look at their device or read Or perhaps the answer is a tax on automation and everyone can sit at home perpetually online. Im not claiming to have answers to this rapidly approaching problem. It's definitely a problem though. Even if it doesn't impact myself whatsoever at this time.…

> What is your job?

I drove cabs for nine years (right up until Covid).

Some people want to talk, some people don’t want to talk, some people just won’t stop talking and you have to tune them out.

What everyone had in common was the desire to get from point A to point B as cheaply as possible. They didn’t care about any social aspect, given the choice I suspect the majority of them would rather not have been paying for my livelihood if it meant the ride was cheaper.

How many people do you think fell for the Lyft “fist bump” BS over taking a VC subsidized ride for a discount over a taxi?

Re: Waymo One doubles service area in Phoenix, continues growing in SF

#280

Post by ctchocula »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #165
stouset wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll contrast this with Cruise, which are driving autonomously in San Francisco. I hate them. At least in the area I'm in (the Inner Sunset), they often cruise around with no passengers while waiting for a request. While doing so, they circle around idling at 10-15mph, pausing for 30 seconds or more at stop signs. It's long enough where just when you decide they've completely stopped and start to go around, they "wak…

Driving in a chaotic dense urban environment like San Francisco is much harder than driving in a giant suburb like Phoenix, which is among some of the most car-optimized, easiest places to drive in the world. Cruise also operates in Phoenix; it would be interesting to contrast its performance with Waymo there.

Waymo also operates in SF, except during the daytime unlike Cruise.
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