Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

waymo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 769 posts

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#641

Post by nialv7 »

dilemma wrote: post #548
nialv7 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They need to reliably deal with an almost infinite number of edge and corner cases, each quite different from the last. It doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be better than average human drivers. Sure there will be cases it can't handle. But the same is much more true for human.

Red herring. It doesn't need to be perfect; it needs to handle an infinite number of edge cases. Humans can, machines cannot.

Strictly speaking, it needs to handle an infinite number of edge cases _in a very limited amount of time_

Machines might not be able to, humans definitely can't.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#642

Post by marssaxman »

Trundle wrote: post #634
marssaxman wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on where you live, "can pass a standard driving test" isn't necessarily saying very much. In any case, I'm not talking about whether it "should be allowed to drive", I'm talking about the level of capability an autonomous car would have to reach in order to become a viable product.

Seeing as there are already people trying to use their Tesla autopilot as autonomous capabilities, I'm pretty sure they'll be viable as soon as they are road legal.

Viable for what, exactly?

It is very clear that autopilot will be a successful feature and we can reasonably expect continued improvement in human-driver-assist technologies for years to come.

But people keep on handwaving past the very important gap between "automation which assists a human operator" and "autonomous vehicle which gets around on its own", as though doing well at the first problem necessarily makes the achievement of the second problem inevitable.

Driver assist technologies make all kinds of sense but they do not fundamentally change the nature of our transportation systems. They just make it easier to do a better job as a human driver.

Getting to the point where most wheeled vehicles are self-piloted autonomous robots with no human driver interaction...? I still think that's a really hard problem.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#643

Post by Shivetya »

walrus1066 wrote: post #339

It feels there's a mountain of hype around autonomous vehicles. I think the core challenges to a fully autonomous vehicle (with no human backup), are still far from solved. They need to reliably deal with an almost infinite number of edge and corner cases, each quite different from the last. For example: - communication with other human drivers. In London, this is required all the time, like when parked cars block th…

I am still waiting for the at night in full on rain demos on unmarked roads or such.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#644

Post by Ph0X »

tim333 wrote: post #575
grecy wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the videos on YouTube, I would say Tesla are already shipping that.

Tesla say you should look where you're going still.

Yes, I believe they have an L2 but are working towards and L4. Google is still going straight for L5, which is the only case where you can fully remove the steering wheel. It's a huge bed, and a bit silly, honestly. I feel like at this point, they've definitely got L4 down.

L4 basically says the car can drive itself without attention in most cases. Driver only needs to take over in extreme cases where the computer can't figure it out (something on the road blocking, sever weather, super abnormal situation).

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#645

Post by mypalmike »

aetherson wrote: post #523
mypalmike wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of variations that you propose is a fast geometric progression. Only if you're an engineer. To a marketing person, you bundle groups of features together and price them at various tiers.

Er, I wasn't talking about pricing complexity, I was talking about the ability to actually get the vehicle that meets your needs. It doesn't do you any good to know that "a vehicle with three or more constraints costs $1.50/mile" if you get a vehicle whose three constraints are "4WD, Bike rack, Dog area" when what you wanted was "carseat1, carseat2, large storage area." And if the fleet can successfully meet arbitrar…

Car rental companies already manage this quite handily. Roughly speaking: economy, midsize, full size, SUV, 4WD SUV.

"4WD, Bike rack, Dog area" -> 4WD SUV.

You'll probably have to snap on your own accessories (kayak/ski/bike rack) when the vehicle arrives. Or if you order in advance, you can pay extra to have a specific accessory configuration prepared and set up for you (vehicle drives itself to local servicing point to get configured).

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#646

Post by Ph0X »

metakermit wrote: post #22

More business info in this Forbes article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2016/12/13/googles-s... TL;DR: > “We’re now an independent company within the Alphabet umbrella,” > Google is currently equipping a fleet of 100 hybrid Chrysler minivans with its sensors and computing gear that will soon join its nearly 60 prototype autonomous vehicles. The company hasn't yet disclosed when and how it will begin genera…

I still finding it silly that they are trying to go straight for L5 (which is the only case where you can fully remove the steering wheel).

By the sound of it, they already have an L4 going (can drive itself in 99.99% of the situations, might need user take over in very rare cases).

Why not for now release an initial car with L4, and collect pile and pile of data, which is what they need to get over that last 0.01%.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#647

Post by erikpukinskis »

aetherson wrote: post #471
galdosdi wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Availability can be addressed with a dedicated option, where you pay extra (if a fleet) or get paid a bit less (if renting out your self driving car) to ensure there's always a car whose destination's time distance from you plus remaining trip length is less than some amount you specify such as 15min. * To address the mobile depot use case, I've heard of proposals to have storage areas (possibly trunk, but not nece…

Sure, availability can be addressed by paying more, but the entire value proposition here is that you pay less. Is there a sweet spot where you still experience significant cost reductions but the inconvenience is small enough that you don't mind it? Well, certainly, for some people! But I think the number of people is going to be a lot smaller than many commentators think. (The only cases I see where there's no incr…

> Is there a sweet spot where you still experience significant cost reductions but the inconvenience is small enough

It's not that hard. For one thing, you don't need to increase the price much, you just need to increase it a little so that you push cost-over-everything riders out of the queue. There are enough of those that whatever capacity is left should be plenty.

And you are worried those riders who were pushed out of the queue will go back to car ownership, but they are by definition cost-over-everything people, so of course they won't do that. If they could afford to own a car they could afford peak pricing.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#648

Post by MorePowerToYou »

legolas2412 wrote: post #602
MorePowerToYou wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing human decision making into the loop makes things messier. If any of these human decisions need to be made quickly in the interest of safety, then the driver needs to be paying attention at all times. That won't happen. This is very dangerous. This is also complex in terms of liability. If the car hits something while driving partially autonomously, where does the responsibilty lie? The software, the driver,…

But giving a computer complete control of the car with no human oversight is much more dangerous.

Agree 100%. This back and forth between fully-autonomous and partially-autonomous highlights the largest obstacles for "self-driving" car adoption.

The fully-autonomous route runs head-first into the inevitable, messy problems with software: security, maintenance, feature creep, complexity, unreliable networks etc. In theory, humans could nail all of these in car software. In practice, it's highly unlikely. The software industry can't even get basic security for IoT devices right.

The human-in-the-loop route runs directly into the only problem more daunting than reliable software: human nature. Human overrides for self-driving cars that need to be activated in a timely manner will not work. The drivers won't be paying enough attention to react in sufficient time. Note that overrides add even more complexity to an already fantastically complex system.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#649

Post by Ph0X »

rory096 wrote: post #358
haberman wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla already does fully autonomous driving, they released that video in November. That video, for reference, is: https://www.tesla.com/videos/full-self-driving-hardware-all-... I'm not super convinced by that video. That drive had almost no challenges/obstacles. No bicycles, no construction, basically no pedestrians, no other vehicles behaving erratically. Google has cars that can respond to everything from a cycl…

They released a video a month later (3 weeks ago) with a much more challenging route: https://www.tesla.com/videos/autopilot-self-driving-hardware...

Again, not to take away by the amazing feat Tesla has achieved, but Google has had similar videos going back 2-3 years, and they are still not ready to release.

So either the problem in practice is much harder than a simple video can show, or something else is up.

Though, I think the real issue is that google wants to go straight for L5 (meaning 100% automated, and you can remove the steering wheel). As compared to an L4, which is more like 99.9% automated, but you still need steering wheel for those rare edge cases.

Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company

#650

Post by mypalmike »

username223 wrote: post #556
nec4b wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that people who believe that private car ownership will fall are those who live in the urban centres and have little understanding of the needs and living styles of rural or suburban population. It could just as well be that the opposite will happen, because cars will suddenly become much more accessible for people who can't or don't know how to drive.

Or even those who live in urban centers but like to get out of them on weekends and vacations. I've tried living for years in western US cities both with and without a car. Going without was much cheaper, and I managed to find entertainment and not starve, but getting a car vastly improved my quality of life. Trains and an occasional rental would probably have worked nearly as well in parts of Europe, but the US just…

Who says you can't take an automated rental car to more remote locations?
Post reply on HN