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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why wouldn't they just take a taxi driven by a human? Or a bus (also driven by a human)?
> Why wouldn't they just take a taxi driven by a human? Because the humans in New York, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Francisco frequently cancel rides, get lost, drive unsafely, pitch me on their religion and smell. (They also must be tipped, at which point the Waymo is the same price or cheaper than the human-driven ride.) When I have the option of a robotaxi, I pay a premium for it. It’s novel. It’s fun. But most i…
How I wish I was in a Waymo right now! I've never had remotely such a poor experience in a SF robotaxi.
I have a good sense of what Waymo and Tesla’s capabilities are, but not Zoox. Can anyone here clue me in on how Zoox compares?
Zoox is funded by Amazon and is built from the ground up to be a robotaxi fleet with a custom car. There is no steering wheel afaik. Announcement: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation/zoox-headquarter...
Amazon owns it, not just funded them.
> There is no steering wheel afaik
Maybe the control is in a remote centre then
Hopefully some genius will figure out a way of joining lots of these together into a 'gigapod'. That might have enough capacity to actually work at city scale.
I am getting so unbelievably tired of this smug comment. It reeks of reddit spam. We all know trains would be nice. Unless you have some plan to rework our government into something that will allow for innovation here, then I prefer to see progress, even if it's not ideal.
It's a dumb comment. But I find it interesting in how it reveals opportunities to leverage bridging expertise.
The infamous Dropbox comment [1] illustrated the complete lack of domain knowledge in marketing, sales and generally how non-tech people work that was commonplace among coders. A lot of people made a lot of money, and made a lot of other peoples' lives better, but bridging that gap.
This bus meme, on the other hand, illustrates a complete lack of domain knowledge around marketing and, in all likelihood, how governments and public transit work in the real world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps maybe we add common places where it regularly stops and you can get on/off?
I understand that you're being glib about buses or trains, but the driver is a large part of the operating costs of a bus, and additionally driverless buses might make more frequent but smaller buses more economical.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps maybe we add common places where it regularly stops and you can get on/off?
I understand that you're being glib about buses or trains, but the driver is a large part of the operating costs of a bus, and additionally driverless buses might make more frequent but smaller buses more economical.
There are so very many opportunities for a better surface transport system than buses. Dynamic routing and scheduling, capacity somewhere between a city bus and a taxi, and potentially better economies of scale all make this far more appealing than what exists today.
Also – and I know acknowledging this will not go over well in some circles – requiring an app and a credit card will go a long way toward keeping riders of a certain disposition off the vehicles. No, it's not a perfect proxy for who will and won't make riding unpleasant or unsafe, but riders will intuitively understand it even if they don't want to think about it, and it will make a difference.
Hopefully some genius will figure out a way of joining lots of these together into a 'gigapod'. That might have enough capacity to actually work at city scale.
You say this in jest, but Uber is trending towards this right now: https://www.uber.com/us/en/ride/uberx-share/ Convergent Evolution happening in realtime- it's almost as if community pooled forms of transportation are the most efficient...
I've tried the current basic share option and it's not great, and I say that as someone who used pre-pandemic UberPool. You typically don't save much off a standard UberX ride, it's only available for exactly one person, the arrival estimates are wildly optimistic, and if the other rider isn't in the car they seem to never be ready when you get to their pickup location.
It's unfortunately, but the current pricing model seems to attract passengers who really don't want to be paying for an Uber but at least this way they can save a couple of bucks, which means they're typically in a stressful situation. Very different vibe from the old, social and wildly cheap UberPool, but that probably was never sustainable.
do these things self-clean? a free private shuttle service along the strip sounds like a bunch of private vomit-pods on wheels.
there are cameras inside, and they can see who made a mess inside the car
I have a good sense of what Waymo and Tesla’s capabilities are, but not Zoox. Can anyone here clue me in on how Zoox compares?
I was just in Vegas and saw these rolling around, we actually got stuck behind one trying to make a right turn onto LV Boulevard (the strip) and seemed to be far to cautious.