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Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

waymo.com

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Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#401

Post by jerlam »

small_model wrote: post #329
throw-qqqqq wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And given that in Austin they just reached parity with Waymo Tesla is far behind Waymo on all meaningful measures. Waymo sells more than 450k rides every week. Tesla is nowhere near that number. Waymo offers rides in six cities. Tesla does two. According to https://robotaxitracker.com/ Tesla has ~250 taxis in total. Waymo has +2500.

Well Tesla just launched their robotaxi 6 months ago whereas Waymo has been going for a decade? Just looking at a point in time is a bit silly, look at the change over time. The bottom line is cost per mile and Waymo can't complete here, there is also style, Waymo's vehicles are extremely ugly looking cars vs the Cybercab. Tesla also has integrated everything from the chip up. Waymo is a cobbled together solution fro…

> Is the consumer going to pick a more expensive, ugly, non integrated vehicle for their trip?

The consumer does not care about which car picks them up or what hardware integration it has. The consumer cares about which car is available in their service area, how quickly it will arrive, how much it will cost, how quickly it can get to their destination, and that it will do so safely.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#402

Post by TulliusCicero »

Rover222 wrote: post #380
TulliusCicero wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not actually autonomous until it can be more or less trusted to handle itself, without constant human supervision. Until then, it's just prototype or testing miles. Tesla's current robotaxi deployment is also geofenced and monitored by humans -- moreso than Waymo, even -- but of course Tesla superfans always conveniently leave that out of the narrative.

I don't think you understand that the level of autonomy that anyone with FSD currently has. It drives itself for hours with 0 interventions. Someone did a coast-to-coast drive with no interventions. Yet yeah somehow I'm just a confused fan and you're not biased by politics? They will turn of the supervision requirements soon, and suddenly there will be hundreds of thousands of teslas that can drive themselves. The sk…

> Yet yeah somehow I'm just a confused fan and you're not biased by politics?

Yes, because you're confusing "can generally make the decisions necessary to drive by itself" with "can be trusted to drive by itself with a non-attentive human occupant".

> They will turn of the supervision requirements soon

Oh, totally; this year, right?

The complete lack of self awareness is absolutely astounding.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#403

Post by TulliusCicero »

throw310822 wrote: post #332
TulliusCicero wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The initial moat will be enormous, because it's such a difficult problem. Eventually, it will become more of a commodity-level task, but by then most of the big incumbents will already be very established.

Yeah, that's basically the opposite of what I'm saying. The problem is enormously difficult, but it won't be solved as a problem in itself, it will suddenly become solved as a side effect of better AI, exactly like numerous cognition-related problems got suddenly solved with the advent of LLMs. And we've seen that there are many players working on better AI, and the main ones all maybe one/ two years away from each o…

It's already been solved city by city, so I don't know what you're talking about.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#404

Post by bonsai_spool »

bonsai_spool wrote: post #306
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grew up in the midwest and still visit... never seen it. Doesn't even pass the sniff test vs the weather.

> Grew up in the midwest and still visit... never seen it. Doesn't even pass the sniff test vs the weather. Well, I guess you are not as well traveled in the Midwest as you think.

There are even laws about this: https://www.cityofdelafieldwi.gov/678/Golf-Cart-Permit

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#405

Post by CyberDildonics »

rayiner wrote: post #327
rbbydotdev wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m imagining these vehicles on a sort of track, this way if the automation fails, it can still be guided. Also, the track could even potentially deliver power. The vehicle can be any number of connected pods.

Anything that isn’t point to point transit, or requires interacting with the public, is a non-starter for most people in the developed world. Even in Japan, half of commutes are by car and that number has been growing.

Not sure where you are getting this information. Where there are trains, people take the trains far more.

In Tokyo, the vast majority of passengers rely on the extensive and efficient train system, which is often considered the best in the world. Cars are less commonly used due to high parking costs, traffic congestion, and the convenience of public transportation options like trains and subways.

Transportation Options in Tokyo Train Passengers

    Rail Network: Tokyo has the most extensive urban railway network in the world, with 40 million passengers daily.
    Frequency: Trains run every two to three minutes during rush hours, ensuring minimal wait times.
    Accessibility: Major stations are equipped with elevators and clear signage in multiple languages, making it easy for tourists to navigate.
Car Usage

    Driving Conditions: Driving in Tokyo can be challenging due to narrow roads, heavy traffic, and limited parking availability.
    Parking Costs: Finding parking can be difficult and expensive, with many areas lacking sufficient parking lots.
    Rental Considerations: Renting a car may incur additional costs such as tolls and drop-off fees, especially if returning the car to a different location.*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#406

Post by Alive-in-2025 »

lacker wrote: post #111
Alive-in-2025 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using tesla valuation is not useful. It's a meme stock, has AI bs overvaluation over it. It's value is completely unconnected from reality. The car business is declining steadily. It's a good day when the famous CEO doesn't do something incredibly destructive to the brand name. It's just going down. At the same time, if Musk went away, the stock would crash back to reality but a non-idiot leader could just do impossi…

It's funny to use "the market value of all taxi companies combined" as a proxy for how valuable the self-driving market will be, because that's exactly the reasoning that led people to underestimate Uber. The market value of all taxi companies combined was pretty small when Uber started. That said, you could be right! Maybe self-driving will never be worth more than that. It's really hard to tell what business models…

Of course a new genre defining company can do what existing companies did and vastly increase the market if they make it better, more efficient, easier whatever. All taxi companies are not all transportation needs, not even on the road. Busses, planes, etc. There will be really new market niches, how about if your RV lets you sleep comfortably and drives all night, you never need to pay or stop (if you can sleep in a moving vehicle), gas or charge itself up.

I was thinking it won't be just one company with this tech, so they'll compete and reduce the value of driverless cars down, by attacking the profit of each other. That would be healthier than having pseudo monopoly power because there are only 2 of them - like say ios and android are basically the world of cell phones, with a few very tiny other companies.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#407

Post by throw310822 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #403
throw310822 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's basically the opposite of what I'm saying. The problem is enormously difficult, but it won't be solved as a problem in itself, it will suddenly become solved as a side effect of better AI, exactly like numerous cognition-related problems got suddenly solved with the advent of LLMs. And we've seen that there are many players working on better AI, and the main ones all maybe one/ two years away from each o…

It's already been solved city by city, so I don't know what you're talking about.

Cool, so where can I buy a car in which, wherever I am, I can comfortably sit at the back knowing that it will take me to destination like a good driver? Or that I can summon to come to pick me up?

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#408

Post by devmor »

standardUser wrote: post #105
devmor wrote: post #66

Is this one going to stop parking on the side of city streets with the hazards on the middle of rush hour? For all the impressive technological advances Waymo makes (and don’t get me wrong, they are impressive), their cars are still a constant obnoxious menace to drivers.

Maybe the menace is the drivers. That's indisputable when you look at injuries per mile.

I don’t see many injurious car accidents in dense inner-city streets.

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#409

Post by red75prime »

UltraSane wrote: post #394
red75prime wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read Electrek articles with a mouthful of salt. Fred Lambert’s “robotaxi is 10x worse than a human” estimate is based on his personal statistical reasoning, which somehow arrived at 200,000 miles per accident for humans. Minor accidents that Tesla reports for robotaxis (such as low-speed collisions with stationary objects) do not make it into publicly available statistics, so his estimate might be significantly off.

Not a single waymo requires a "safety driver" and the self driving never disengages the way it does on Teslas.

Waymo routinely uses safety drivers, sorry, "autonomous specialists" when expanding to new cities[1][2]. Waymo cars occasionally contact the remote support. If support is not available, the cars just stay where they stopped[3].

Tesla has rolled out a small number of cars with no safety driver[4].

In short, you are either grossly misinformed or intentionally lying. Is it a political echochamber you are stuck in?

[1] https://waymo.com/faq/ "Our vehicles are primarily driving autonomously, but you’ll sometimes notice that our cars have autonomous specialists riding in the driver’s seat. These specialists are there to monitor our autonomous driving technology and share important feedback to help us improve the Waymo experience."

[2] https://waymo.com/waymo-in-uk/ "Our autonomous specialists who are present in the vehicle during testing are highly trained professionals."

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c36zdxl41jro

[4] https://youtu.be/03e5ixbXIa4

Re: Beginning fully autonomous operations with the 6th-generation Waymo driver

#410

Post by lorenzo1860 »

p-e-w wrote: post #225
thefounder wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but imagine how hard robotics are if we can’t make a dam thing to just speed and turn correctly(I.e 2 params). You also seem to overestimate the inertia of the tech advantage. Being first is not always the most important thing. See google AI as prime example.

The failure of self-driving cars has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with regulation. It’s been demonstrated time and again that statistically, self-driving cars are safer than human-driven cars.[1] Autonomous driving is a solved problem. The fact that self-driving cars are not permitted on most of the world’s roads is 100% the fault of regulators and those who vote for them. [1] https://www.nature…

Do you have some insight we don't have?

I mean yes, there are really good systems, but the heavy, long tail is still not solved.

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