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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

#411

Post by KenSF »

UltraSane wrote: post #184
KenSF wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should not forget this is the same company that had an amazing lead on everyone in the electric car market 3 decades ago with the EV1. See "Who Killed the Electric Car [0] [0] https://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/

replacing a gas engine with an electric motor and installing a battery pack is not hard. The EV1 was a pretty bad car. The real secret sauce of modern electric cars is cheap Lithium Ion battery packs.

The EV1 predated the Roadster by a decade. Had GM been improving the EV1 for those 10 years, including Lithium Ion batteries, GM would have been far ahead of everyone . . . had they just kept going with a technology that was inevitable. Where would Cruse be today had they continued with this new technology that is inevitable?

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

#412

Post by Rohansi »

gf000 wrote: post #269
Rohansi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always see this argument but from experience I don't buy it. FSD and its cameras work fine driving with the sun directly in front of the car. When driving manually I need the visor so far down I can only see the bottom of the car in front of me. The cameras on Teslas only really lose visibility when dirty. Especially in winter when there's salt everywhere. Only the very latest models (2025+?) have decent self-clean…

"works fine" as in can follow a wide asphalt roads' white lines. That is absolutely trivial thing, Lego mind storms could follow a line just fine with a black/white sensor. This vision clearly doesn't scale to more complex scenarios.

No, works fine when it's snowing and roads are covered with snow (no lines visible). At least on the latest HW+SW.

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

#413

Post by UltraSane »

red75prime wrote: post #409
UltraSane wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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] h…

You are grossly misinformed. Waymo self driving never disengages the way Tesla FSD does. It is active at all times. In novel situations humans will provide instructions on what path to take but this is relatively infrequent. Tesla Robotaxis are so bad they need a safety driver in every single car at all times ready to take control when the car does something stupid. The small number of robotaxis without safety drives are limited to a tiny area and not open to the public.

Waymo works while robotaxi doesn't.

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

#414

Post by youarentrightjr »

small_model wrote: post #384
youarentrightjr wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None, it's just obvious to anyone who has a high school level of business knowledge. That's a highly ironic statement given your position on "cost per mile". With a small amount of business acumen, you'd know that betting on technology staying expensive is a bad idea. This is seen in all industries, but especially electronics, where there are many competitors continuously optimizing for cost. E.g., we're at the poi…

Phones were about $400-500 years ago now they are over $1k which is not 'a few hours of wages' well not for most of us. I agree technology prices decreases over time but Waymo is starting at 5x the cost, by the time a Waymo costs even the same price as a Model Y, let alone a Cybercab it will be too late. That's my prediction, I could be wrong though, maybe Elon and Tesla are lying and so are all the users of least ve…

> Phones were about $400-500 years ago now they are over $1k

https://www.walmart.com/ip/ST-MOTOROLA-XT2413V-CDMA-LTE-BLUE...

Try to avoid cherry picking if you want to have a discussion where you or the other person learns something. All the Elon stans on this site that I've encountered are highly disingenuous, starting to think that's not a coincidence.

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

#416

Post by TulliusCicero »

throw310822 wrote: post #407
TulliusCicero wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You can't, because the only actually autonomous cars right now are robotaxis.

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

#417

Post by throw310822 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #416
throw310822 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You can't, because the only actually autonomous cars right now are robotaxis.

Ah, and why so? Why are they introduced city by city?

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

#418

Post by red75prime »

UltraSane wrote: post #413
red75prime wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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] h…

You are grossly misinformed. Waymo self driving never disengages the way Tesla FSD does. It is active at all times. In novel situations humans will provide instructions on what path to take but this is relatively infrequent. Tesla Robotaxis are so bad they need a safety driver in every single car at all times ready to take control when the car does something stupid. The small number of robotaxis without safety drives…

> Waymo self driving never disengages the way Tesla FSD does. It is active at all times

Consumer version of FSD can park a car if a driver doesn't take contol[1]. Waymo seems to require a remote command to initiate parking instead of just standing there with hazard lights on[2].

> Tesla Robotaxis are so bad they need a safety driver in every single car at all times ready to take control

Every single robotaxi in Austin doesn't have a driver behind the wheel. So a driver can't be ready to take control. Stop lying. I no longer believe that you are misinformed.

[1] https://youtu.be/VU3i1Pgk4M0?t=1460

[2] https://waymo.com/blog/2025/12/autonomously-navigating-the-r... "We directed our fleet to pull over and park appropriately"

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

#419

Post by Rover222 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #402
Rover222 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah it’ll happen this year. Please mark my words.

Waymos get stuck in weird situations every day. They need intervention, even on their guardrails. FSD is of course not perfect, but yes they have obviously cracked the code (it’s obvious if you use it or get beyond the groupthink here), and are being cautious with turning off supervision requirements. As they should.

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

#420

Post by jessriedel »

xnx wrote: post #33
jessriedel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruise was being operated as a separate company though. As a default, GM could have just not done anything and let Cruise operate as if it were independent. Any synergies (personnel, manufacturing expertise, etc) would have just been a bonus. And if they didn't want the financial exposure, they could have spun it out again. Instead they chopped it up for spare parts, specifically, sending some Cruise personnel to wor…

Reputational risk to GM from the cavalier/shameful way Cruise/Kyle Vogt operated. Tried to hide the fact they dragged a person.

If that were really the risk they would spin them out.
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