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Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

techcrunch.com

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Re: Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

#31

Post by Sad90sNerd »

timmg wrote: post #21
Sad90sNerd wrote: post #19

I don't understand why people are so eager to give up autonomy. I doubt the software is certified in any meaningful way (see DO-178B), the algorithms are unknown, and the NHTSA sits on its hands whenever these vehicles have accidents. Here is a litmus test: would you allow Waymo to drive schoolbuses with your children? I know I certainly will never allow my family or myself to get into a metal box going 80 mph withou…

Aren’t many/most airline flights auto-landed? (Certainly autopiloted.) Does that bother you?

It does actually, my father was a pilot for Delta and he saw the automation come thru and there are horror stories there too.

On top of this, the software quality is certified, built over decades, and continuously tested on each plane regularly - and of course the pilots are still there ; )

Re: Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

#32

Post by Sad90sNerd »

gosub100 wrote: post #20
Sad90sNerd wrote: post #19

I don't understand why people are so eager to give up autonomy. I doubt the software is certified in any meaningful way (see DO-178B), the algorithms are unknown, and the NHTSA sits on its hands whenever these vehicles have accidents. Here is a litmus test: would you allow Waymo to drive schoolbuses with your children? I know I certainly will never allow my family or myself to get into a metal box going 80 mph withou…

think of the children!

think of yourself! the point of the analogy is to replace yourself (which you might not regard if you are a risk taker) with someone you care about.

Re: Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

#33

Post by callalex »

firloop wrote: post #11
tomblomfield wrote: post #7

I’m a big Waymo fan. Some of my thoughts; Waymos are one of the first things that my visitors to SF want to try. It feels like living in a science-fiction future. The ride and navigation feels very smooth - after the novelty of having no driver in the front seat wears off, you become accustomed to the experience surprisingly quickly. In comparison, I found the Cruise driving experience pretty uncomfortable and stress…

As I've mentioned on another thread, I just wish Waymo drove faster. They often don't keep up with the pace of traffic.

Maybe it is the traffic that is wrong? Vehicle-induced injury and death is still a huge issue, and marginal speed increases make no difference to overall trip times.

Re: Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

#35

Post by xnx »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #16

Expecting this to go well generally because freeways are pretty much always easier to self-drive than city streets!

I thought this as well, but I think it emerged in an Waymo interview that any weird thing that can happen on city street can also happen on a freeway and the reaction time is lower and the consequences higher on a freeway.

Re: Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

#36

Post by neom »

saddlerustle wrote: post #5
xnx wrote: post #3

The gap between Waymo and all other competitors in the self-driving space continues to widen.

AutoX and Pony.ai in China have been been offering rides to the public with no safety driver for much longer than Waymo

South Korea has some stuff going on too, but not longer than Waymo. http://www.smobi.ai/ - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-68823705

Re: Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

#37

Post by kibwen »

EcommerceFlow wrote: post #29
aantix wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen FSD 12.5.1.3?

He obviously hasn't. The tech community is in for quite a shock with Tesla robotaxi's come out in a year or so and blow out the competition. One factor not discussed often is how much smoother FSD is compared to all other self driving. Especially noticeable when going from FSD to the free AutoSteer or GM Supercruise.

> The tech community is in for quite a shock with Tesla robotaxi's come out in a year or so

FSD has been set to come out in a year or so since 2014. At this point nobody should be foolish enough to give Tesla the benefit of the doubt; if they have a self-driving car, then they'll take legal liability for its actions, and if they won't take legal liability for its actions, they don't have a self-driving car. This is as true for any company as it is for Tesla, although Tesla is the only one who's seen fit to lie about it for a decade.

Re: Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

#38

Post by tracerbulletx »

Sad90sNerd wrote: post #19

I don't understand why people are so eager to give up autonomy. I doubt the software is certified in any meaningful way (see DO-178B), the algorithms are unknown, and the NHTSA sits on its hands whenever these vehicles have accidents. Here is a litmus test: would you allow Waymo to drive schoolbuses with your children? I know I certainly will never allow my family or myself to get into a metal box going 80 mph withou…

Does your family ride roller coasters, is that not giving up your autonomy? Waymo has done enough rides to have statistically significant risk data, and they are very safe and SF strikes me as hard a city to drive in as almost anywhere with all the rain fog pedestrians traffic, and weird routes and elevation changes.

Re: Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

#39

Post by SoftTalker »

SECProto wrote: post #18
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #16

Expecting this to go well generally because freeways are pretty much always easier to self-drive than city streets!

Freeways are much, much less forgiving of abrupt speed changes and braking, which is something waymo (used to) have quite an issue with. Moving to freeways shows they are confident that won't be an ongoing issue.

Yes I was driving on a freeway last week and traffic went from 80mph to dead stop about as fast as I could stand on the brakes. I didn't hit the car in front of me with only a few feet to spare, and fortunately the driver behind me was also paying attention. The jam eventually cleared, and there was absolutely no indication of what caused it.

Re: Waymo to begin testing on San Francisco freeways this week

#40

Post by pnw »

Sad90sNerd wrote: post #26
bigyikes wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me the statistics. If there is data which shows that autonomous vehicles are significantly safer than than the 90th percentile driver, then I absolutely will put my children in it. In fact, it might be irresponsible for me not to. School buses are an interesting case because they drive fixed routes, so you can imagine some intense mapping and route planning process which makes them even safer than a normal auton…

[dead]

I've seen that study before and it's not exactly hard numbers. There's nothing to show the data set used ("Researchers analyzed tens of millions of QuoteWizard by LendingTree insurance quotes") is suitable for such an analysis.

If you want actual crash data, it's here: https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics

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