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

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

#701

Post by gohrt » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 6:09 AM UTC

awful wrote: post #349

jcranmer wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also: Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive. Which probably means general demand for vehicles will fall off a cliff. I've seen this sentiment so many times now that I have to ask a serious question to anyone who echoes this sentiment: Do you own a personal car right now? If so, why? All of this... excitement over the transformations that self-driving vehicl…

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…

Yes, but Disney never solved the problem of how expensive it is to run that service -- they just got people to pay. Will self-driving cars be cheap enough? They save money on the driver, but cost money in the automation hardware and security against vandalism/theft.

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

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Post by arghbleargh » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 6:18 AM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #682

ams6110 wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've mentioned $1 a ride a couple of times. Where is this number coming from? It doesn't pass the smell test to me. Even bus fare is several times this amount.

Let's do some rough math here. Say initial cost of the electric self driving car is $50,000. It has life of 20 years. After 20 years, value will go to 0. Per year: $2500 Service per year: $2500 (HN mechanics, is this reasonable?) Miles travelled/ year: 50,000 (5x human utilization) Miles/Kwh: 3 (based on tesla efficiency) Avg electricity cost in US: 12c / Kwh Cost to drive 50,000 miles: $2000 Total / year: $7000 Cost…

50,000 miles/year * 20 years = 1,000,000 miles does not seem reasonable...

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

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Post by industriousthou » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 6:21 AM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #453

chefkoch wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's the part that limits the usable hours of a truck most. A self driving truck can pretty much drive 24/7 but the driver has to rest more than half the day. Truck drivers are allowed to work 70h per week.

I assumed all trucks stop at a truck stop and the driver sleeps while another driver continues the journey? That way the valuable truck and cargo never stop moving. Is that not typically the case?

In the US, sometimes truckers drive in teams and switch off, but I've never heard of them not sticking with their trucks. Trucks frequently sit idle while the driver sleeps.

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

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Post by gohrt » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 6:22 AM UTC

jfim wrote: post #320

Retric wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often you need a car to get to the subway which does not take that long. Slug lanes also become more useful with self driving cars. Combine the two and you get a self driving car to central location > car or public transit to city center > self driving car in the city. Remember parking is often 10+$ a day due to land value, so two ~4$ trips can be a net savings. Finally, even a 20-30% drop in demand would be huge in…

> Slug lanes also become more useful with self driving cars. And faster. A lot of the traffic on highways is caused by rubbernecking, which self-driving cars are mostly immune to.

If one driver in 20 is a rubbernecker, all the cars slow down.

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

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Post by gohrt » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 6:23 AM UTC

zzzzzzzza wrote: post #293

bambax wrote: post #107

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> Private car ownership is going to fall off a cliff shortly after autonomous ride services arrive But how is this going to work? In cities, everyone uses their car at exactly the same time: roughly, between 8-9 in the morning and 5-7 in the evening. If you don't own a car, chances are you won't get one when you need it to get to work on time. Or, if there are enough cars for peak hours, then demand for new cars will…

I think you overestimate the percentage of people that a. work b. work 9 to 5 jobs. there's plenty of cars on the road at other times. would be surprised if load was more than 2-3x as high at those peak times (which could easily be accommodated by ride sharing)

if people have so much flexibility, why does rush hour exist?

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

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Post by gohrt » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 6:23 AM UTC

sbov wrote: post #169

tedajax wrote: post #156

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Fully autonomous fleets of cars will push societal changes we can't yet predict. Right now everyone shows up to work at about the same time. Is that a fixed position society will always uphold? I don't know, there's a lot of things I don't know. The only thing I can predict is that in the same way the personal automobile upended the social structures of the day, autonomous vehicles will likely do something similar.

Always? No. Will autonomous cars change it? Doubtful. In fact, it could make it worse, because who cares if your commute is 3 hours instead of 2 as long as you can watch American Idol while you're doing it.

People with families or physical social obligations care.

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

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Post by gsam » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 6:45 AM UTC

trome wrote: post #491

lifeformed wrote: post #412

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How do humans tell how deep water is?

Humans generally look at it, make an informed guess and drive accordingly. The recent Tesla accident is a great example of how even the best optics can be blown out by environmental factors like sun, whereas a human would likely readjust their vantage point, lower the sunshade, put on sunglasses or even pull over if they are unable to cope. Comparatively, the car did not attempt to do any of this and actually didn't…

Which says a lot about relying specifically on optics. Readjusting vantage points from an autonomous vehicle is as simple as having multiple sensors and deciding to rely more on a particular sensor in particular conditions. In particular, Google has some of the most expensive arrays of sensors.

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

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Post by laurentoget » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 6:46 AM UTC

greedo wrote: post #636

JCzynski wrote: post #330

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Self-driving taxis are in principle way cheaper to operate than human-driven taxis. They never have to stop, they can operate at all hours, there's no cost to pay drivers, and if they do stop they can do it somewhere very cheap. And when self-driving cars are a viable option, insurance will strongly encourage it. And by strongly encourage it I probably mean "absurdly high fees for driving your own car", because peopl…

This is a frequent argument I keep seeing about the cost of insurance rising as autonomous vehicles are introduced. There's no reason they'll rise past what they're currently charging; insurance takes into account current risk. In the future, the risk if anything should decrease.

The risk may decrease but liability may increase, as this is a risk you are taking deliberately if you decide to drive your car instead of getting a safe self driving car like everybody else.

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

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Post by laurentoget » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 7:00 AM UTC

My real question is whether they will be able to convince american customers to give up one of their most prized status symbols. It feels from this webpage their main argument will be safety, so I guess we will find out how much human life weighs against the thrill of owning and controlling fast, expensive and shiny machines.

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

#710

Post by jedberg » Wed, Dec 14, 2016, 7:13 AM UTC

ams6110 wrote: post #660

jedberg wrote: post #276

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Wait five years. It'll almost certainly happen. The technology is solvable and lots of very big companies are spending billions to make it happen.

"Nuclear energy will be too cheap to meter"

That's still true, if not for government regulation. :) Wait for the new Republican admin to make nuclear cheap again.