Earlier quoted context omitted.
c.f. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom)
Come on, you’re reaching here.
The subway lines in Japan that are owned by private companies are still considered public transport.
Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
81–90 of 96 posts
Re: Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple doesn’t own any factories to make their hardware. Their vertical integration goes as far as hardware design and software. Pretty much exactly what companies like Waymo are trying to do.
It's fair to say that Tesla's vertical integration is even deeper. Might Microsoft Windows or Google Android be a better example than Apple? Does Waymo actually specify the entire vehicle (i.e. have it's own engine design) or just the systems added to the vehicle?
Indeed, Windows or Android are a better example than Apple. Waymo only designs the systems added to the vehicle, but they do have input over some parts of the vehicle design. Geely (Zeekr) is building a purpose-built robotaxi for them that's based on their SEA-M platform, but with Waymo customizations.
I'm not sure Tesla level vertical integration is really necessary.
Re: Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you taken a Waymo before? The car and ride in general is much nicer than your average Uber or Lyft ride.
I have not and I believe you. But seriously, the incentive for automating anything is cost. Even if it's nicer, the removal of the driver does not make it a "premium" service, it makes it an automated service. The expectation is lower cost not higher. I know that supply and demand and competition right now might be at a place where the same price for eventually the same service is expected. But still "at no additiona…
Anecdotally, I use rideshare every workday for last-mile transit from the train station, and I’ll pick the $13 Waymo over the $7 Uber every time. There are some inherent advantages to the self-driving, like improved safety [0] and not having to talk to the driver, but the main benefits are that it’s just a consistent experience with nice quiet cars, ~90%-ile driving quality, and much more accurate time estimates.
I look forward to competition bringing prices down, but on pure quality and willingness to pay, the premium price seems to make sense.
[0] https://waymo.com/research/do-autonomous-vehicles-outperform...
Re: Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is true only for contrived examples comparing the vehicles directly. Comparing the real-world throughput of a highway vs. a rail line (in the US) and the density advantage goes away. Does it? Can you post some information to back that up?
I'm not a transportation analyst, but this might be a reasonable comparison. In Chicago there's a commuter rail-line that carries 6,171,000 passengers per year (~17,000/day). There's a tollway that runs roughly the same route that carries 240,000 vehicles per day. Even if you divide that across 8 lanes you get 30,000/day. That number would go up if since there's often more than one person per vehicle. Trains and rail…
>self-driving lanes where cars could safely go 100+ mph
Japan is building a bunch of these! They're called rails.
Re: Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
#85I love that this is landing in Austin before the cybercab. I think it will really drive the competition for Tesla to put out an (actual) self driving car. Or maybe they pivot to the next hype train.
I don't want to be the one sitting in a Waymo when it decides to clusterfuck up traffic.
Re: Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
#86As a consumer, I think this is great. As for its impact on society, I worry. Famous investor Jeremy Grantham said recently "If the government does not smooth out the benefits of AI, you will have either starvation or revolution." Huge numbers of people rely on driving for their income. More importantly, automated driving can only lead to even more concentration of wealth. With human drivers, most of the income genera…
A thing we could do is tax everyone who uses or makes software and give the money to people who used to use paper processes. For example, we could pay DMV workers 10x what they currently make by placing a small $1k tax on everyone in tech in the US.
UBI for DMV
Re: Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
#87I love that this is landing in Austin before the cybercab. I think it will really drive the competition for Tesla to put out an (actual) self driving car. Or maybe they pivot to the next hype train.
Well at the very least it will be interesting to see the fallout when the lidar-less Tesla robotaxi flattens its first pedestrian.
Waymo published details of a new model recently that only uses cameras.
Re: Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s the advantage of owning the full stack? Some margin on the base machine? Is that that huge a factor?
Ask Apple?
But the point there is that by controlling the stack Apple can improve the overall UX, from encryption to battery life or what have you. What’s the equivalent in self-driving cars? Better handling?
Re: Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, you had to call service to "get out"? What if there is an emergency and you need to get out?
"get it out" where "it" is the Waymo vehicle - that is, the passenger could have (if safe) left the vehicle at any point but they encountered a situation where the software was unable to proceed and needed a human to control the vehicle
The human never controls the Waymo directly. The remote operator looks at the situation, labels the environment as needed and the AI driver remains in control.
Re: Ride into the Future with Waymo on Uber in Austin
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ask Apple?
But the point there is that by controlling the stack Apple can improve the overall UX, from encryption to battery life or what have you. What’s the equivalent in self-driving cars? Better handling?
Perhaps. More broadly, reduced constraints. Written differently, being able to choose the layer at which you solve the problem.
An example of this is that in robotics, the ability to properly insert a piston into an engine block without damage to the piston or block was an unsolved problem for some time in robotics. Doing so using machine vision and robotics control theory required engineering constraints that resulted in a too slow and expensive a mechanism for mechanized assembly lines.
Because of the total control of the assembly line, this problem was solved in the physical space through a reactive physical assembly using two connected planes (I'm sorry but I'm having a hell of a time tracking down a reference) rather than in software.