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Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

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Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#331

Post by decimalenough »

YinglingHeavy wrote: post #322
jimbo808 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The huge disadvantage they have over people is that their cars cost $250k, require a workforce of people to retrieve and repair them, maintain them, clean them, monitor them, etc. They are more expensive to operate than a normal car with a human driver, so far. The break-even point requires a lot of problems to be solved, and even then, the upside is not looking to be astronomical in the best case.

They will lose to Tesla cabs, due to price and not having full control of their supply chain.

Tesla has a grand total of 39 unsupervised cabs operating. Waymo has literally 100x more with 3800 and growing.

https://robotaxitracker.com/?provider=tesla

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#332

Post by fragmede »

aerhardt wrote: post #178
fragmede wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason they can't do trips to the airport is regulatory and not technical.

What they told me and I can read online is that they don’t because they can’t operate on the Austin highways. Have you read anything that’s more detailed?

As far as the technology goes, they're able to operate on California highways. That's what I'm going off of.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#333

Post by stephenr »

cheeze wrote: post #220
48terry wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A part of growing up is learning to put up with "good enough". "I feel content with good enough in this case." - quote from child whose body got folded in half by a Tesla Your growing up and adulthood sounds a lot like settling for mediocrity from those who push shit on us without asking if we ever wanted it. Floods aren't a special edge case, they happen all the time. The people making these are so stupid and blin…

... which is different from the child whose body got folded in half by someone looking at their phone? I think "good enough" ends up being okay. I _like_ driving. I would do manual mode often still just because I enjoy it. But I'd be completely fine with the option of autopilot in good conditions. Reality is that 99% of the time, my commute is boring and in good conditions. I don't need a self driving mode that can h…

If a child is "folded in half" by someone looking at their phone, no one accepts that as "good enough", and there is a direct action: the driver responsible will lose their licence and likely end up in prison. If it happens often enough, laws are changed.

What happens when a Tesla does the same thing? Besides them lying and hiding information I mean. What remedial action is taken to reduce that specific risk from reoccurring?

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#335

Post by gensym »

grumbel wrote: post #151
dhbradshaw wrote: post #123

To me this doesn't seem like a disaster but just the kind of thing that happens as you role out a service and expose it to new challenges. Presumably they haven't had the chance to do a lot of flood training but now they have that chance. The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitch…

I am a little worried that this is still a problem after 20 years. Don't they have simulators to test every weird and unexpected road condition offline? And flooded roads aren't exactly an unusual event to begin with.

Yeah, it makes me wonder about their planned rollout to more of Southern California, where flooded roads aren't uncommon, especially in some of the valleys.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#336

Post by Detrytus »

stephenr wrote: post #333
cheeze wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... which is different from the child whose body got folded in half by someone looking at their phone? I think "good enough" ends up being okay. I _like_ driving. I would do manual mode often still just because I enjoy it. But I'd be completely fine with the option of autopilot in good conditions. Reality is that 99% of the time, my commute is boring and in good conditions. I don't need a self driving mode that can h…

If a child is "folded in half" by someone looking at their phone, no one accepts that as "good enough", and there is a direct action: the driver responsible will lose their licence and likely end up in prison. If it happens often enough, laws are changed. What happens when a Tesla does the same thing? Besides them lying and hiding information I mean. What remedial action is taken to reduce that specific risk from reo…

>If a child is "folded in half" by someone looking at their phone, no one accepts that as "good enough"

But of course we do. Yes, we punish the individual driver that did it, but we still allow humans to drive cars. We accept the fact that driving a car carries sone risks, but we value the convenience of getting to our destination easily more than we value lives of those kids that will get killed from time to time.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#337

Post by jimbo808 »

JimTheMan wrote: post #303
jimbo808 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The huge disadvantage they have over people is that their cars cost $250k, require a workforce of people to retrieve and repair them, maintain them, clean them, monitor them, etc. They are more expensive to operate than a normal car with a human driver, so far. The break-even point requires a lot of problems to be solved, and even then, the upside is not looking to be astronomical in the best case.

Hard disk drives were the size of washing machines. I don't see how they will ever be practical!

Not comparable at all. Autonomous driving isn't obviously a viable business. It's not because computer programs can't drive well, it's because the and workforce infrastructure required to maintain and operate the expensive fleet may be less efficient than a human maintaining their own vehicle.

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#339

Post by __m »

bluGill wrote: post #228
themafia wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your premise is "robotaxis are so much better than human drivers" then this is almost a disaster. This is only the 10th city they've deployed to, all in the south, and nowhere there's significantly inclement weather. It does not bode well for their expansion plans.

Human drivers are very very bad. Being better than humans is a low bar with plenty of room to be bad as well.

It still seems to be a high bar to achieve

Re: Waymo pauses Atlanta service as its robotaxis keep driving into floods

#340

Post by indianbunghole »

dhbradshaw wrote: post #123

To me this doesn't seem like a disaster but just the kind of thing that happens as you role out a service and expose it to new challenges. Presumably they haven't had the chance to do a lot of flood training but now they have that chance. The huge advantage they have over people in general is that ideally if they figure this out then it will stay figured out. Then they can slowly role out and watch for the next hitch…

*roll out
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