Can Waymo scale up its fleet fast enough to match Tesla?
Tesla doesn't have an actual robotaxi fleet at all yet, they're still in the testing phase with safety drivers/monitors.
Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
321–330 of 456 posts
Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
Waymo is overly conservative last time I checked. Driving the speed limit basically means getting to your destination twice as slow.
"Twice as slow" is not even slightly accurate. If you're driving 45 in a 40, that may sound like 12% faster, but once you add traffic, lights, stop signs, turns, etc - you'll find that the 12% all but evaporates. Even if you're really pushing it and going 15 over, at most speeds and for most typical commutes, it saves very little. Most of the time speeding ends up saving on the order of seconds on ~30 minutes or shor…
Twice as slow was probably accurate when comparing Uber with freeways vs Waymo (which wasn't using freeways yet).
But now that Waymo is gonna use freeways, that major speed difference is gonna evaporate.
Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps. But if you have a taxi or car service driver who's not willing to ever break any traffic laws in New York, you will not arrive at your destination in anything approaching a reasonable amount of time. For example, getting at the back of the line for an exit rather than trying to go to the front and cut your way in could be a multi-hour mistake.
This is absurd, and it's a**hole behavior you're defending. You don't need to break any laws to get to where you're going, what are you even talking about? And you think that just because you're in a taxi you should get to magically cut to the front of a line of cars, made of the vast majority of New Yorkers who actually respect each other? What could possibly make you feel so entitled? And if you think waiting in li…
Americans are increasingly adopting the kind of mindset Israelis have, where following the rules makes you a sucker.
https://www.thejc.com/judaism/jewish-words/freier-fa15k306
Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
#324I was in SF a few weekend ago and rode both Waymo and normal Lyft style taxi cars. the Waymo was a better experience in every single way. One of the Lyfts i was in drove on the shoulder for a while like it was a lane. The Waymos were just smooth consistent driving. No aggressive driving to get you dumped off so they can get to the next fair.
I feel like I won the lottery whenever I have an aggressive driver that knows the city well. It makes me wonder if breaking the law will be the main value proposition of human drivers at some point.
That is dumb. Go to a developing country and see what happens when everyone is aggressive. Everyone cuts off everyone else and drivers brake a lot (none of this waiting for a gap before entering from a side street, for example, the understanding is they'll brake for you). The end result is much more slower traffic.
Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
#325I was in SF a few weekend ago and rode both Waymo and normal Lyft style taxi cars. the Waymo was a better experience in every single way. One of the Lyfts i was in drove on the shoulder for a while like it was a lane. The Waymos were just smooth consistent driving. No aggressive driving to get you dumped off so they can get to the next fair.
Waymo is overly conservative last time I checked. Driving the speed limit basically means getting to your destination twice as slow.
Waymo may be currently safer than human drivers, but this right here is why I don't believe for a second they'll stay that way. People will complain it took to long to get somewhere because "stupid car was following all the rules!" and they'll be programmed to become more aggressive and dangerous (and due to regulatory capture they'll get away with this of course). I've already noticed this in San Francisco.
Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Freeways are easier than surface streets. The reason they held off allowing highways is because Waymo wants to minimize the probability of death for PR purposes. They figure they can get away with a lot of wrecks as long as they don't kill people.
It sounds like you are saying freeways are easier than surface streets if you don’t care about killing a reasonably small number of people during testing. Really it’s a common difficulty with utilitarianism. Tesla says “we will kill a small number of people with our self driving beta, but it is impossible to develop a self driving car without killing a few people in accidents, because cars crash, and overall the prog…
It's not just slightly more expensive. And you have to consider substitution effect. If you take the more expensive route and it takes 10 years longer to deploy, then there will have been another 400K car collision deaths in just the US, and over 10 million in the world in those 10 years that could have potentially been saved. So was the delay for the safer product worth it? The only reasonable answer to this question is "I don't know" because you can't predict how much safer the expensive system will be and how much longer it will take.
Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
Highways are on average a much more structured and consistent environment, but every single weird thing (pedestrians, animals, debris, flooding) that occurs on streets also happens on highways. When you're doing as many trips and miles as Waymo, once-in-a-lifetime exceptions happen every day. On highways the kinetic energy is much greater (Waymo's reaction time is superhuman, but the car can't brake any harder.) and…
I don't have any specific knowledge about Waymo's stack, but I can confidently say Waymo's reaction time is likely poorer than an attentive human. By the time sensor data makes it through the perception stack, prediction/planning stack, and back to the controls stack, you're likely looking at >500ms. Waymos have the advantage of consistency though (they never text and drive).
> I don't have any specific knowledge about Waymo's stack, but I can confidently say Waymo's reaction time is likely poorer than an attentive human.
Wait, so basically, "I don't know anything about this subject, but I'm confident regardless"?
Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
#328Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many, many, many airports to which it is easier to travel via public transit from their associated city than it is from Manhattan to JFK. For example, all of these global-top-25 airports have single-train access: London Heathrow (LHR) Tokyo Haneda (HND) Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) Frankfurt (FRA) Dubai (DXB) Seoul Incheon (ICN) Guangzhou (CAN) Shanghai Pudong (PVG) New Delhi (DEL)…
I don't get the gripe. AirTrain gets you to A,E,J,Z, and LIRR, all of which get you to "Manhattan" or a significant number of intermediate destinations in about an hour. LGA is far worse.
Having to take AirTrain beyond the terminals at all is annoying. LIRR should just go to JFK directly. AirTrain is slow as molasses, and the fact that it costs money is absurd. It works and I'm glad it exists, but it's nothing like e.g. the Paris RER connecting CDG.
You generally never want to take A/E/J/Z because they're sooo much slower than LIRR, unless you live along them.
Yes, LGA is far worse.
Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like I won the lottery whenever I have an aggressive driver that knows the city well. It makes me wonder if breaking the law will be the main value proposition of human drivers at some point.
In NY city, I've noticed that taxi drivers will get agressive when we are stuck in traffic. They will start honking, yelling, or changing from one almost stopped lane to another almost stopped lane. I always thought it was theatrical, to show me that they were trying hard, and not just letting the fee increase while they sat stopped in traffic.
I think this is too much credit given for emotional labor. NY has an intrusive din and these people live in their cars all day. They evolve toward chronic irritation alleviated with impotent shows of force.
Re: Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix
#330Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds me of the time I was driving on 101 south of SF and saw a sea lion flopping across the road ( https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/seal-otter-on-freeway... ). It took my brain quite some time to accept that I was seeing what I was seeing. Felt like a real edge case.
There's videos of waymos absolutely decking delivery robots
Robot on robot violence.