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

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#801

Post by coryrc » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:20 AM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #770

runarberg wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If feel like Seattle needs an all day and weekend Sounder service, more than it needs self driving robo-taxis. 1.5 hours away you might be at the edge or beyond Sounder reach so this may not help you much unless you get a local bus to your closest station, but you can probably still just drive to your closest station and not having to have to deal with driving in the city. If the Sounder would run like the ferries do…

I am staring aghast with European eyes at a city of 4 million people where the commuter rail doesn't run outside peak hours. How do you get home if you go out for a couple of drinks with colleagues, or stay late for a call? You shouldn't be asking for a couple of trains between 8pm and midnight. They should be every half hour, or more! Midnight until 6am on Saturday and Sunday could be every hour or two. (I live in C…

We taxpayers already spend >$30 per person-trip for the Sounder. It currently doesn't connect well to transit on either end (most users drive to it), and half the city is fighting to make sure it doesn't connect directly with the new "light rail" station. Also our light rail is longer end-to-end than the Paris metro and half the stations are on the freeway with massive parking garage and no pedestrian amenities. Riding transit in the Seattle area is insulting and demeaning.

I've ridden the train in Copenhagen. The stops are near things! Stores and parks! Apartments and hotels! Shopping malls! Like, actually right there! There's a few stops like that in Seattle, but they're also the ones with junkies nodding off, con men "looking for some gas money", and other anti-social behavior.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#802

Post by jiveturkey » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:21 AM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #538

paxys wrote: post #310

I had an epiphany about self driving recently late at night on the streets of San Francisco. It was a somewhat deserted part of town, and the roads were empty. There was a lone Cruise car chugging along and constantly stopping at red lights. The signals were so badly optimized that the car would be the only one waiting at a completely empty intersection for minutes at a time, only to be stopped again at the next one,…

Most intersections in the Bay Area have magnetic sensors underground to detect cars and expedite a green when appropriate. Where was this mile-long stretch? 3rd street?

inductive, not magnetic

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#803

Post by mike_d » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:21 AM UTC

BoorishBears wrote: post #607

filoleg wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yeah, when something doesn’t conform to your narrative, it surely is an astroturf. All coming from accounts that are many years old and have thousands of karma points that leave meaningful posts on all types of topics. But the second they post about Waymo in a positive light, that instantly means astroturfing and not their true opinion based on their lived experiences.

Realistically, there are a lot of Googlers and Xooglers on Hacker News. One of the messages in this thread is literally stating they have special knowledge of the behinds the scene workings of Waymo. I work in the AV space and I honestly don't think there's much of a competitive mentality between the companies in the space, but at the same time there is a tendency of people to psudeo-astroturf these brands: where the…

> One of the messages in this thread is literally stating they have special knowledge of the behinds the scene workings of Waymo.

I may have hinted as such (being an ex-Googler), and I know this thread has gotten kinda buried but I wanted to address the implication anyway.

When I left Google I sold all of my stock. My investment portfolio is independently managed and I do not advise any specific positions except for the exclusion of my current and former employers. I do not stand to gain financially from any company in the AV space.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#804

Post by minwcnt5 » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:21 AM UTC

mayneack wrote: post #773

I just started seeing Cruise cars driving around Santa Monica this week. Are they already paused in SF and we're somehow later or is pausing just a SF thing?

Are you sure those were Cruise and not Waymo?

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#805

Post by tivert » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:26 AM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #197

tivert wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For sure, but if we try to avoid any and all pain then we could still be nomadic people. Maybe life satisfaction then was higher, but certainly life expectancy wasn't. Just the death rate of babies and women alone was pretty dangerous. You're presenting a false dichotomy. Giving self-driving car companies free reign to cheaply experiment on the public is not the same as "avoid[ing] any and all pain" or avoiding all…

> You're presenting a false dichotomy. Giving self-driving car companies free reign to cheaply experiment on the public is not the same as "avoid[ing] any and all pain" or avoiding all technological progress. I'm not presenting a dichotomy at all (unless you think the spectrum is binary and is only zero pain or non-zero pain, which I don't), let alone a false one. I'm not talking about just self-driving car companies…

> I'm not presenting a dichotomy at all (unless you think the spectrum is binary and is only zero pain or non-zero pain, which I don't)

Then why are you saying things like "if we try to avoid any and all pain then we could still be nomadic people"? That seems pretty binary to me.

> This is a broader philosophical discussion about technology in general, and how much pain is tolerable for progress.

No, it's about who bears that pain. Is it the public or the investors? Obviously the investors and their apologists would prefer to externalize as much as the cost ("pain") as possible onto the public, and shame the public into accepting it.

> Do you disagree with the premise that on the other side of self-driving cars is a world where humans don't have to labor for their transportation?

That's actually an irrelevant distraction, especially if for someone who rejects ends-justify-the-means logic. Do you disagree with the premise that on the other side of unrestricted and unethical experimentation on humans is a world where many more diseases are cured and life is greatly extended (for some, at least)?

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#806

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:26 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #481

Lonestar1440 wrote: post #120

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

I live in the Bay Area and I largely agree with this, but I should also add that the design of most San Francisco streets is stupid, turn-only lanes sneak up on you without advance notice, there are too many individual garages and too few parking structures, there are homeless encampments everywhere, there is always the crazy-new-scooter-contraption-of-the-week being ridden everywhere, there are too many construction…

Sneaky turn-only lanes is one area that SDVs should do better than humans because they've already mapped out the whole city

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#807

Post by runarberg » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:26 AM UTC

Symbiote wrote: post #770

runarberg wrote: post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If feel like Seattle needs an all day and weekend Sounder service, more than it needs self driving robo-taxis. 1.5 hours away you might be at the edge or beyond Sounder reach so this may not help you much unless you get a local bus to your closest station, but you can probably still just drive to your closest station and not having to have to deal with driving in the city. If the Sounder would run like the ferries do…

I am staring aghast with European eyes at a city of 4 million people where the commuter rail doesn't run outside peak hours. How do you get home if you go out for a couple of drinks with colleagues, or stay late for a call? You shouldn't be asking for a couple of trains between 8pm and midnight. They should be every half hour, or more! Midnight until 6am on Saturday and Sunday could be every hour or two. (I live in C…

I agree. I actually live a bit closer to Seattle then OP, only 40 min on bus + boat (add 20 outside of commuter hour for a second bus). The Sounder doesn’t actually run anywhere near me, (well I could take the 118 south to the Tahlequah ferry terminal, 10 min boat to Point Defiance, a Pearce transit bus to Tacoma, and ride the Sounder from there; which urbanists call the “long way”). so this doesn’t affect me personally.

But you are absolutely right, Tacoma and Everett are 3rd and 4th largest cities in the state and are in the same metro area as Seattle. The north line is actually worse, only 2 trains a day (plus 2 Amtrak Cascade trains) even though there is major Ferry terminal connection at Edmonds (and a smaller but significant at Mukilteo). The Sounder service is dismal and needs to be improved (thankfully we are getting more service on the Amtrak Cascades which runs the same corridor but goes all the way to Portland and Vancouver BC. but not nearly enough)

That said, the bulk of the population in the Seattle metro area is serviced with the Link light rail. They are almost done with an extension east to Bellevue (turns out building rail on a floating bridge is hard) and eventually it will reach both Tacoma and Everett. Then they will get the frequency they deserve.

As for me, how do I get home. My ferries actually run all night (although with up to 3 hour gaps in the middle of the night) and frequently enough. If there isn’t a bus on the island, I usually just call my partner and she picks me up at the terminal, sometimes I also meet someone I know in the ferry.

The funny bit is that I actually immigrated here from Europe, and my tiny European island in the North Atlantic actually has way worse public transit system as Seattle. So for me this is a huge improvement. I’m actually going home to visit and am planning to see a friend of my play at a concert it a town 40 min from the capital, but there are no buses, so I actually have to call my mom to pick me up when the concerts are done.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#808

Post by hiddencost » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:27 AM UTC

actinium226 wrote: post #786

Lonestar1440 wrote: post #120

From my perspective as a person who lives in San Francisco and also drives a LOT (10-20k miles per year, and many small drives within the city): Cruise cars do not perform acceptably. They manage to avoid collisions by driving extremely conservatively, but the way they traverse, say, a left turn against traffic is absurd. They slow everyone down, including emergency vehicles and public transit, by performing far belo…

I love that we're at a point in time where we can compare and contrast two different self driving systems.

From somewhat random consumers!

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#809

Post by minwcnt5 » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:28 AM UTC

foota wrote: post #457

b33j0r wrote: post #142

I know that the geography of North America and the timing of industrialization basically made this a pipe dream… Yet, trying to create near-peer artificial human driving intelligence—just so cities can continue to be designed around horseless carriages, minivans, and truck nuts—well, that may not have been the best solution to the problem. Ideally, autonomous driving would be for “the edge” of a transportation networ…

I'm hoping personally that driverless cars will enable new build out of mass transit by allowing for greater freedom in last mile transport, we'll see :)

Greater density in cities too because fewer car owners means less need for parking. And probably fewer people will want to live in suburbs, today owning a car makes the suburbs a little more appealing because you don't have to deal with city driving and parking.

Re: California suspends Cruise's autonomous vehicle deployment

#810

Post by edge17 » Wed, Oct 25, 2023, 3:29 AM UTC

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #771

edge17 wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple math? Assuming a fixed number of cars on the road, more lanes will increase the flow. The cable cars are novelty transportation for tourists that residents of the city don't actually use for commuting. In case it's not clear, I'm refering to California st starting downtown and going all the way up the hill.

Increasing flow often increases the number of cars on the road, particularly with dynamic routing apps, so the first assumption is invalid.

No problem, so what is your argument for utilizing a whole lane for a mode of transportation that consumes a significant public resource without providing much benefit?