Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
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Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
#2The link at the bottom of that article is pointing to another Medium post with details of the launch: https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164...
Notably, "At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise our vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience."
Edit: Re-reading my comment, it sounds negative, so I want to acknowledge that I think this is a big deal. No matter how "soft" this launch, it's still a historic moment.
Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
#3> Waymo One is rolling out in the Metro Phoenix area first. Over time, we hope to expand to new places and more people.
You can sign up to express interest using the form at the bottom of this page[1] (asks for your gmail address, zip code and type of phone).
P.S. Why is the mobile experience on Medium so frustratingly bad? Between the permanent heading plus the "please download our app" heading I find it maddening. I also find the UX around reading comments to be unnecessarily confusing.
Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
#4The link at the bottom of that article is pointing to another Medium post with details of the launch: https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164... Notably, "At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise our vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience." Edit: Re-reading my comment, it sounds negative, so I want to acknowledge that I think this is a big deal. No matter how "s…
Mark these words, "At the start", because we'll be hearing them for the next 10 years until Waymo closes up shop. That they are going to market with drivers in the car means that the business has pivoted from "can we do driverless taxi" to "can we make money as uber-but-with-employees".
The next announcement from Waymo will be that they are cutting staff "mostly from R&D". The announcement after that will be that they are opening up the Waymo app for anyone to be a driver. The announcement after that will be that they are closing up shop or being sold to Uber.
Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
#5I know this is a heated debate, but it's interesting to see the divergent approaches that are being taken to achieve self driving. In one corner, it's lidar-based, equipping vehicles produced by other companies, organically and incrementally growing the navigation technology.
In the other, it's video-based with now 100s of thousands of vehicles feeding data to a massive neural net.
Each has very well thought-out arguments for the approach they are taking, and I expect that both would ultimately 'work' by reducing the inherent risks of taking a car ride by a substantial amount (90%?). I think the winner will be the one who gets to that milestone soonest.
It's entertaining to watch.
Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
#6The link at the bottom of that article is pointing to another Medium post with details of the launch: https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164... Notably, "At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise our vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience." Edit: Re-reading my comment, it sounds negative, so I want to acknowledge that I think this is a big deal. No matter how "s…
Mark these words, "At the start", because we'll be hearing them for the next 10 years until Waymo closes up shop. That they are going to market with drivers in the car means that the business has pivoted from "can we do driverless taxi" to "can we make money as uber-but-with-employees". The next announcement from Waymo will be that they are cutting staff "mostly from R&D". The announcement after that will be that the…
That's a prediction, but why do you think that's how it'll turn out?
Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
#7I know this is a heated debate, but it's interesting to see the divergent approaches that are being taken to achieve self driving. In one corner, it's lidar-based, equipping vehicles produced by other companies, organically and incrementally growing the navigation technology. In the other, it's video-based with now 100s of thousands of vehicles feeding data to a massive neural net. Each has very well thought-out argu…
You forgot radar. Most startups are using a combination of all the perception approaches, especially vehicle manufacturers.
Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mark these words, "At the start", because we'll be hearing them for the next 10 years until Waymo closes up shop. That they are going to market with drivers in the car means that the business has pivoted from "can we do driverless taxi" to "can we make money as uber-but-with-employees". The next announcement from Waymo will be that they are cutting staff "mostly from R&D". The announcement after that will be that the…
That's a prediction, but why do you think that's how it'll turn out?
The news would be different. This news item is focused around the driver and safety. They are slowly changing their messaging from being about self-driving to being about safe-driving.
They can't come out right away and say "guys we failed at self driving, it doesn't work", that would tank the personal careers of everyone important in the company. They have to slowly move the needle away from self driving, and then they'll give us the bomb drop, "we could only build better safety systems, not self-driving systems" and nobody will care because they are happy with safe-driving.
If they truly had self-driving tech, they'd be doubling down on that with their messaging. Not only to let everyone know there's a new sheriff in town (bye Uber!), but also to let their competitor's know to start their death clocks.
Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
#9The link at the bottom of that article is pointing to another Medium post with details of the launch: https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164... Notably, "At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise our vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience." Edit: Re-reading my comment, it sounds negative, so I want to acknowledge that I think this is a big deal. No matter how "s…
From what I can tell, they won't actually be driving most of the time.
Re: Waymo One: The next step on our self-driving journey
#10The link at the bottom of that article is pointing to another Medium post with details of the launch: https://medium.com/waymo/riding-with-waymo-one-today-9ac8164... Notably, "At the start, Waymo-trained drivers will be riding along to supervise our vehicles for riders’ comfort and convenience." Edit: Re-reading my comment, it sounds negative, so I want to acknowledge that I think this is a big deal. No matter how "s…
Mark these words, "At the start", because we'll be hearing them for the next 10 years until Waymo closes up shop. That they are going to market with drivers in the car means that the business has pivoted from "can we do driverless taxi" to "can we make money as uber-but-with-employees". The next announcement from Waymo will be that they are cutting staff "mostly from R&D". The announcement after that will be that the…
You realize those drivers won't actually be driving most of the time, right?