California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment • Hacker News Board

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#791

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:03 AM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #533

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bus had dynamic routing, so it could show up where I am when I’m ready, and take me where I want to go, I’d be a huge fan. I don’t mean this ironically! I think dynamically dispatched, self-driving buses and vans will eventually save public transit. They’ll enable a much higher quality of service than current bus systems. Which drive around mostly-empty stopping every few blocks so it takes forever to get anyw…

You don't want dynamic routing. You want frequent predictable routing. Dynamic means you call and 1-15 minutes later a bus comes. Then it takes you to your destination, but you have no idea when you will get there because sometimes it takes long detours for someone else. Frequent predictable routing means when you feel like leaving you just walk out the door confident that the bus will be there soon (even if you see…

The problem is for the bus to stop near you, it has to stop often. To stop often, it has to move slowly, which means it will take forever to get to your destination. A separation of local and express busses you transfer between could possibly help. But if the theory is that you’re going to take a local, to get to an express, to get to a local near your destination, then you’ve wasted a ton of time on transfers. Good luck getting to your destination in less than an hour.

I’m a fan of public transit and have experienced many good public transit systems. The unfortunate truth is that in any neighborhood with less-than-extreme population density, you have to shape your life around the system by living and working near core transit lines to get reasonable travel times. That works great for people who can do that (I’ve done it myself!), but a better system could aim higher to serve the entire public. The American built environment simply can’t be adequately served by traditional bus networks.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#792

Post by saagarjha » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:05 AM UTC

wsinks wrote: post #762

saagarjha wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah San Francisco has some of the best traffic lights in the Bay Area when it comes to predictive signaling and synchronization

I'm not arguing with you, but is there any documentation of SF's predictive signaling and synchronization and how it's the best?

I don’t have any, unfortunately. This is just anecdotal from driving around.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#793

Post by xnx » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:05 AM UTC

freeone3000 wrote: post #362

freedomben wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the potential future where humans are freed from doing anything for their transportation (no driving, no pedaling, no steering, no danger, no waiting in traffic, etc) is worth some short term pain while we develop the tech? Was the pain and suffering during the industrial revolution days that have led to our current high tech world worth it? (I'm not just asking this rhetorically, I'm really interested i…

I disagree on the endpoint. I think active transit is healthy for humans, and removing it causes people to need to excercise deliberately much more — and people don’t, causing obesity and a ton of health concerns. Walking 2-3km a day would be great for most people, and much better than sitting in an auto-pod.

Would it then also be better if people had to churn their own butter? Obviously not. Exercise is fantastic and should be encouraged. I think nothing would do more to facilitate human-powered transportation (walking and biking) than replacing distracted and dangerous human drivers with attentive and safe autonomous ones.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#794

Post by Gigablah » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:06 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #663

fhub wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fun anecdote. When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way - the windshield wipers swipe once (I'm not sure they still do this). But it wasn't implemented very well at some point since the Waymo I was in was behind another one for many blocks. The wipers went at least 17 times. As an earlier adopter I provided lots of feedback. Even little things like I…

> When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way I hate “whimsical” stuff like this. Part of maturity/adulthood is coming to the realization that you don’t have the right to conscript other people into your sense of humor.

"When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to appear very grown up" - CS Lewis

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#795

Post by fhub » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:09 AM UTC

05 wrote: post #724

fhub wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another fun anecdote. When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way - the windshield wipers swipe once (I'm not sure they still do this). But it wasn't implemented very well at some point since the Waymo I was in was behind another one for many blocks. The wipers went at least 17 times. As an earlier adopter I provided lots of feedback. Even little things like I…

> When a Waymo is in the vicinity of another Waymo they acknowledge each other in a whimsical/cute way - the windshield wipers swipe once Pretty sure that's just lidars messing with Jaguar's rain sensors.

That explains a lot. Thank you.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#796

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:11 AM UTC

ajross wrote: post #436

brightball wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally decided to turn on the Tesla full self driving this month and it’s been a mixed bag. Some over-cautious stuff like mentioned above but also some lane changes and adjustments that were better than what I would do. I still prefer to drive myself so I’ll probably turn it back off at the end of the month, but I’ve got high hopes for when I’m older.

That's my experience, having been on FSD beta for almost two years now. It's still "un-human-driver-like" in a bunch of surprising ways, but the actual meat and potatoes "does it do more or less stupid stuff" is I think ahead of my own driving at this point. At this point I trust its microdriving (lanekeeping, distance management, speed control, collision/obstacle avoidance, etc...) more than my own for sure. The hig…

Can it detect stationary obstacles at freeway speeds? Do we have good evidence? Because autopilot couldn't.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#797

Post by jiveturkey » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:13 AM UTC

hot_gril wrote: post #683

cogman10 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you rank others? Tesla, ford, Mercedese, etc?

The others aren't fully autonomous.

Mercedes is fully autonomous below 40MPH, which is most city driving. Including, they accept insurance liability for any accident -- since human isn't involved and isn't required to be alert/attentive/intercede/etc.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#798

Post by Dylan16807 » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:14 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #516

fhub wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my perspective, as a relatively early adopter of Waymo (60+ rides). I have zero gripes with the driving itself. In fact I've seen Waymos do things that no human would be able to do*. Drop-offs and pickups I'd like to see improvements made like getting a bit closer to the curb. Occasionally the route selections make no sense at all. * Waymo made a right turn up a steep hill. Two lanes each way. It then pulled a b…

Based on this recent-ish YT [1] video Waymo is also crap, just as Cruise is, as any car that stops at a green light, on the left-lane, is a danger to all the other drivers it shares the road with. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Rxvl3INKSg

That looks like a big annoyance, but I wouldn't call that stop dangerous.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#799

Post by xnx » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:15 AM UTC

I'm glad that it's becoming clear to more people that Cruise and Waymo are at very different levels of maturity. Waymo is so far ahead that it's hard to see anyone catching up. We really need some alternative so there isn't a pure monopoly 10 years from now. I'm not sure there are any mergers that would bring anyone close ("two turkeys don't make an eagle" and all that).

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#800

Post by monkaiju » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:19 AM UTC

foota wrote: post #445

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #34

As a pedestrian I'm not a fan of being an unwitting part of a private company's beta testing. Before this devolves into whatboutism vs the safety of human drivers, my opposition is to adding yet another unknown safety layer to walking down the street. Usually when private companies are developing products that could kill, drugs for example, it is on the company to exhaustively prove the safety and effectiveness befor…

How do you propose they do so?

They dont. This technology, aside from being infeasible at the level it would need to be to bring the claimed benefits, doesn't actually even have real benefits worth this dangerous development. If anything its a desperate attempt to keep private automobiles as the primary transportation system despite more communal, and public, systems being superior.

Its also a USian obsession. Some other places have been able to actually invest in superior public infrastructure but the US is so focused on techno-solutionism it, as usual, misses the extant and superior solutions. Self driving does nothing to mitigate the sprawl and atomization that wreaks havok on our society, but trains and busses, and density that cannot be achieved with car-dependence does.