Waymo: Google's self-driving car company • Hacker News Board

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

#671

Post by Trundle » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:16 AM UTC

marssaxman wrote: post #642

Trundle wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

>Viable for what, exactly?

Sales. That's what makes a viable product. One that will sell. Despite elsewhere in this comment chain you saying "I'm talking about product viability not technical" I can't help but think that your response to me was about technical viability.

People are already willing to buy and trust their cars to drive for them right now, when they're specifically being told "don't trust it to drive for you". The second it's legal to advertise "let it drive for you!" autonomous cars will sell regardless of their ability to perform well in unregular circumstances.

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

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Post by ClassyJacket » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:23 AM UTC

mhermher wrote: post #281

NolF wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that notion very frustrating. 30,000 people die on the road in the US every year and no one seems to bat an eye, a self driving vehicle has one and it's the end of the world. The expectations seems rather unrealistic and the media seems to love creating a controversy.

Well, in the former case, that is the fault of the driver (or another driver). In the latter case, it would be the fault of the manufacturer. It's not even remotely the same thing. Remember those out-of-control Priuses, where the manufacturers were at fault. Toyota got plenty of backlash for it.

I know it was a side mention, but I'm fairly sure the outcome of that situation was that the Priuses weren't out of control and it was driver error.

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

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Post by dzhiurgis » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:25 AM UTC

mypalmike wrote: post #645

aetherson wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 poin…

Once you are at your activity point it goes to grab your hot meal and meets you at the other side of your hike.

I would like that.

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

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Post by nojvek » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:30 AM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #384

robszumski wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a huge fleet of self-driving cars, there would be enough capacity to have permanently configured cars for child seats, bike racks, dog areas, etc. eg. "I need a 4wd vehicle for 2 adults and 2 bikes to take me to X park at 10am tomorrow."

Not without seriously increasing the costs for car rental. The cost savings for car rental are predicated on increased utilization. Increased utilization is predicated on each car having more people using it on any given day. And these things don't scale infinitely -- each car can only serve a particular locality. The number of variations that you propose is a fast geometric progression. Kids 0-12 months or so need d…

How about making your existing car self driving? Your stuff is always there in the trunk, but when you're not using it, it joins the fleet and earns you some money.

I really want to see a day, where I drive my car to work. It then drives other people around and picks me when I am finished.

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

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Post by dzhiurgis » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:33 AM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #536

robbiemitchell wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two kids. They need car seats. We often haul stuff between home and the in-laws. This makes perma-Ubering infeasible. We need a radically new car seat design, either: 1. Super portable and quick to install/remove, or 2. Built into the car, safe for all ages, easily extended/retracted.

1. is never happening. If you want a proper safe car seat for a 1-3 year old, it's going to weigh 30-40 lbs no matter what sintered pixie dust you build it from. And it has to be pretty huge since a small person has to fit almost inside it. Even the ones for babies, that people for some reason I can't fathom like to carry around in the supermarket, are actually also 20+ lbs, you've just left 15 lbs remaining in the c…

> I've already seen it on some long distance buses

Can we apply some if this science for making car seats for taller people. I am so unhappy when seat ends midway of my thigh or shoulders ram into headrest (mostly airplane problem).

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

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Post by chasing » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:33 AM UTC

kshitijl wrote: post #635

awful wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't add anything profound, but I will say that 40+ years ago I camped at Disney's Ft. Wilderness campground, with all my many brothers and sisters. The electric trams had a routine schedule that came around and stopped almost in front of your campsite, all of kids would simply jump on, go to anywhere in the park like the stores, the showers, the outdoor theater, and hop off again. It was incredibly liberating and…

This is what New York still feels like to me, 4 years after moving here. Don't own a car, hope I never have to.

It's one of my favorite things about living in NYC...

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

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Post by crazy2be » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:37 AM UTC

kbenson wrote: post #624

linkregister wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone took a Lyft or Uber or Grab to work, then the congestion would be unbearable. San Francisco's BART takes about 400,000 would-be passengers off the road daily. Mass transit remains the most viable method of transporting people over dense, multi-mile terrain. The last mile and "normal" metros like Memphis, Baltimore, or Cleveland, where it is not dense enough to justify a comprehensive subway/light rail sys…

I actually wonder about this. Is it a matter of most cars being mostly empty, or is it inherently impossible to match the mass transit capacity. If we look at it as passengers carried over space required and time spent, here's how I see it: Rail mass transit does not as efficiently use the land it's on a occupancy basis (there's not always a train on a specific square foot of track). In peak times, cars are more effi…

Of course, you could have a separate pull-out track for train stations, and interleave the trains. Then you would be able to double your utilization :).

I can't really think of any reason why one technology is inherently higher-capacity than the other, it's mostly that private cars are very inefficient, not rubber tyres.

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

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Post by nojvek » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:39 AM UTC

Its great that waymo has its own brand now. I really wish udacity's open self driving car takes off as well. I predict there will be a linux of self driving car software/hardware kit that will be battle tested, reliable, secure and solid with contributions and test cases from all around the world.

I also really think someone should invent a solution to convert existing modern cars with brake, gas and steering from CANbus to self driving cars by installing a kit.

The current car manufacturers can simply make really good cars with cameras and sensors integrated. One can then install open software adapted for the region that is always getting updates. The test cases and lidar data is put in a giant shared repo whose ownership is the community. E.g OpenStreetMap and wikipedia.

Same software can be used for smaller robots to dispatch packages to the front door, or robotic lawn mowers, rubbish trucks, cleaning trucks e.t.c

That would be a fantastic future to be part of.

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

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Post by nradov » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:41 AM UTC

virmundi wrote: post #368

ryandrake wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't happen in the USA. Due to our puritanical obsession with "earning" a living through labor, we'll never see Basic Income. It would be more politically do-able to pay 1/2 the people to dig holes and the other 1/2 to fill them in, than to implement a sensible UBI system.

What I don't get, even now, is the lack of public works. Digging a ditch and then filling it is dumb. Why not have individuals on welfare work cleaning out the forests in California? Playing a role in sensible land management implements? There are many places that the unused labor could benefit the people. At least then there is a work/trade for the money. In the end, those people get life lessons that would benefit…

Right. Instead of just giving people money our governments at federal / state / local levels should become employers of last resort for everyone who has exhausted their welfare or unemployment benefits. Guarantee 30 hours / week at minimum wage to anyone who wants to work. Even if it's just trail maintenance or graffiti cleanup they will at least be maintaining basic employment skills, and have enough spare time to retrain for something better.

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

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Post by marssaxman » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 3:44 AM UTC

ageofwant wrote: post #664

marssaxman wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Driving" is not one single monolithic problem. "Driving" is a whole array of complicated problems. The "standard driving test" exercises a very limited subset. "Better than a human at driving" is a very broad and poorly-specified claim. Hell yes I will still be using a "non-autonomous transport appliance" in ten years - it's called a "motorcycle" :) - and I don't want your high-tech self-driving future if it has no…

Clearly 'driving' to you is an expression of personal freedom - not body transport. And that's good and well, but finding unrelated justifications to defend what is essentially a hobby is silly. People will continue to spend stupid amounts of money on hobbies. I'm not going not hand in the keys to my Landcruiser or my CRF250. But I don't leave those parked at the train station as a rule either.

You asked me a personal question, so I gave you a personal answer, somewhat flippantly as I disagree with your premise.

That remark was separate from and unrelated to the actual point I've been trying to make: there is a very significant gulf between the notion of a "self-driving car" as a form of automation built into a vehicle which is still under the control and responsibility of a human driver, and the notion of a "self-driving car" which is a fully autonomous robot built in the shape of a car, that must be capable of doing something reasonable in all situations without depending on a human. The latter is a much harder problem than the former, and we don't yet know whether it can be solved in a way that yields a practical, profitable transportation system of the sort many people like to fantasize about when they discuss (for example) Google's autonomous vehicle program.