Am I the only one getting a 404 on this URL?
Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
81–90 of 769 posts
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a particular reason to think Uber is going to be last to autonomous vehicles? I can see a good argument that they're head of the pack today, between Tesla's not-really-autonomous vehicles and Google's perpetual inability to execute.
This is a fair point. Uber has yet to ship any hardware, and really any software aside from an app that is a couple steps above "Uber for X" that are whipped out in a weekend. I know they gobbled up a bunch of researchers, but moonshot engineering feats like autonomous driving is not (yet) in their DNA. And their current business model is not profitable and will die the moment they go up against an autonomous service…
>yet to ship any hardware
Except for the fleet of Ford Fusions and XC90's covered in very nicely implemented custom sensor rafts http://theincline.com/2016/12/12/three-months-of-self-drivin...
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#83I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…
a whole industry of workers will be out of the job. How will society react? Will we have a socialist revolt? Want to stay clear from politics... but seriously why isn't anyone talking about the socioeconomic impact this will have once drivers are put out of the job?
IMHO this is the reason Trump won the election, because there is no plan for these people.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#84I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…
> 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. Or, if everyone has a self-driving car of their own (or one that can be converted to self-driving), people will rent out their cars AirBnB-style when they aren't using them. I mean, why not? You've already got a garage, a driveway, etc. Might…
Two sides of the same coin. If you can rent your neighbour's car, why own your own?
Heck, why have driveways? In cities, at least, I could fully imagine new townhouse developments operating more like apartment buildings: one central parking lot for the "pool" of (mostly) driverless cars. Your car drops you off at your door and then parks in the pool; then comes back out to get you in the morning.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a particular reason to think Uber is going to be last to autonomous vehicles? I can see a good argument that they're head of the pack today, between Tesla's not-really-autonomous vehicles and Google's perpetual inability to execute.
This is a fair point. Uber has yet to ship any hardware, and really any software aside from an app that is a couple steps above "Uber for X" that are whipped out in a weekend. I know they gobbled up a bunch of researchers, but moonshot engineering feats like autonomous driving is not (yet) in their DNA. And their current business model is not profitable and will die the moment they go up against an autonomous service…
I don't particularly care for Uber, but they do have prototype self driving cars on the street in Pittsburgh. So it's not quite fair to say they're failing at this.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#86On days like today, when there are several inches of snow on the ground and more to come, I always wonder how autonomous vehicles will handle such situations. What happens when snow (or mud, etc) accumulates on the camera or sensors? I don't doubt that a computer can react quicker and with more precision in an "event", but what about when it simply can't "see"? I don't see a steering wheel in these videos, so I guess…
These cars will likely have many sensors of different types at overlapping locations, its not likely to keep going if all are completely unusable. But I wonder about the snow though. How does the car know where to go when there are no identifying lane features? Maybe its not as hard of a problem as I believe it to be?
I really don't get these questions. "How will the car drive in whiteout conditions where the road is frozen over and not at all visible?" Same way a (smart) human drives: it will pull over.
For substantially less crazy conditions, you can infer where the lanes would be by (a) looking at the spots of the road you can see, (b) prior knowledge of the road from experience, and (c) looking at oncoming cars and the flow of traffic, and driving in a way that doesn't surprise them. Though it's likely the case that you shouldn't be driving in these conditions anyway.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#87I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…
Uber will continue to hold a lot of the chips in this race. Consider the Tesla or GM examples - a regression in revenue will not be acceptable. So if they're currently selling x cars at y $ a year they will need to continue that revenue without actually selling cars. This means they'll have to get really good at understanding how many rides over the span of a vehicle will continue that revenue and provide just the right amount of vehicles to meet a regions needs. Uber has that information in spades.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#88I'm interested to see where all the major players end up in 5yrs: • Tesla bootstrapping a ride service on the backs of buyers • Waymo directly rolling their own fleet • Uber trying to get a self-driving fleet up, burning mountains of money to maintain their "monopoly" on Uber for rides • Lyft working with GM to get a fleet up • All of the other car manufacturers trying to get autonomous vehicles going, presumably hop…
> 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. Or, if everyone has a self-driving car of their own (or one that can be converted to self-driving), people will rent out their cars AirBnB-style when they aren't using them. I mean, why not? You've already got a garage, a driveway, etc. Might…
But why have a garage and a driveway in the future? If you can "hail" a self driving car within 5 minutes then having one in your house becomes a waste of valuable space.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#89On days like today, when there are several inches of snow on the ground and more to come, I always wonder how autonomous vehicles will handle such situations. What happens when snow (or mud, etc) accumulates on the camera or sensors? I don't doubt that a computer can react quicker and with more precision in an "event", but what about when it simply can't "see"? I don't see a steering wheel in these videos, so I guess…
Presumably the cars won't continue driving if their systems are inoperable or unsure how to proceed. One could also argue that riding around in several inches of snow is a bad idea regardless of who's driving, human or computer.
Re: Waymo: Google's self-driving car company
#90On days like today, when there are several inches of snow on the ground and more to come, I always wonder how autonomous vehicles will handle such situations. What happens when snow (or mud, etc) accumulates on the camera or sensors? I don't doubt that a computer can react quicker and with more precision in an "event", but what about when it simply can't "see"? I don't see a steering wheel in these videos, so I guess…
The sensors are primarily radar based. Mud/snow won't really affect them.
False -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clutter_(radar)
Anyways, if this is true, it's a grim future then. Radar is incredibly trivial to interfere with.