It will be interesting to see how Lyft's partnership with Waymo evolves given this tech announcement and Waymo's acknowledgment that they plan to offer their own ridesharing service.<p>Lyft's approach to self-driving partnerships in general seems to rest on the assumption that self-driving providers will catch up to each other before any of them can fully handle everything a human driver can do. If this assumption is correct, Lyft ends up in the great position of being compatible with all major self-driving providers before any of them can feasibly launch a standalone service without Lyft's driver network (who wants to take a car service that doesn't take you downtown? Or doesn't work in the rain?). Ideally, this means Lyft can negotiate favorable terms with all the providers and maintain their position as marketplace brokering between riders and ride providers (either human or robot).<p>But, if this announcement means Waymo is truly way ahead of the competition, is Lyft aiding and abetting its own demise by covering Waymo's short-term holes (weather, urban areas, etc) up until the day that Waymo can cut Lyft out and run their own service? If Waymo is the only self-driving game in town, and they solve the urban case, why do they need Lyft? I wonder if we'll see any tension develop between the two if leadership at Lyft starts to get concerned about this scenario being a likely outcome.
>>> "Waymo will be operating a fully autonomous ride hailing service without any humans at the wheel ... Waymo wants to broaden the geographic scope of its trial, starting with expansion in the near-term to cover the entire Phoenix metro area, which represents more acreage than the whole of the Greater London area, he noted"<p>My family is mostly in Tempe / Mesa area (near Chandler, AZ) and during my last few visits I've seen an increasing number of these autonomous (driver-at-the-wheel) cars on the streets. Note that Uber / Lyft also are very popular in the area.<p>Waymo's transition to a general-public/driverless service in the whole Phoenix area will be the first time that automated ride-hailing services go up against human-driven ride-hailing services. This will be a very interesting and perhaps disturbing experiment. I predict Waymo will price their service competitively, will ramp up to a large fleet, and that after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble. The public will accept the perceived risks in driverless rides.<p>Over a longer term it will be interesting to see what impact there is on car-buying, congestion ... I wonder whether Waymo will provide ride-sharing as well.<p>EDIT: clarification; ride-sharing; car market; traffic congestion. ( Hmmm, also adding that "... after a few months Uber / Lyft will be in trouble" is probably too compressed, it realistically will take a longer time. )
If Waymo's tech is years ahead of the competition (say 18-24 months ahead minimum) then I think a lot of the self-driving companies and car manufacturers in the US will be having cold sweats. This may not be a winner-take-all market (I don't know honestly...) but I see this lead up enabling Waymo to capture significant market share in the US in regions where laws towards autonomous vehicles are friendly.<p>One way the competition could attempt to mitigate Waymo's lead is to test and launch in areas where Waymo are not currently active (other states in the US, or other countries altogether). They could of course accelerate development of their self driving tech but that's easier said than done I presume.<p>I also worry Uber & Lyft's valuations and usage will drop with the introduction of driverless vehicles, unless they somehow manage to strike long-lasting partnerships with Waymo.<p>Regarding OEMs (i.e. car manufacturers), I can't tell what will happen with them: do they continue shunning Waymo and pursuing their own self-driving car efforts or come back begging for some sort of deal? I presume we will see both attitudes play out depending on how confident each company feels about its own self-driving tech ability and acquisition potential.<p>It's hard to foresee the consequences of this announcement, but I feel Waymo has upped the stakes tremendously today, and the pressure on everyone (including Waymo) to deliver is on, more than ever.
It'd be interesting to see how this compares in overall efficiency to properly implemented and comprehensive mass transit systems in a dense urban environment. The Tokyo metro alone (not including the JR trains, Tokyo Subway—a separate but compatible subway system, and other train transit systems which totals over 40 million daily users) handles 6.8 million passengers daily just in <i>one city</i>.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Greater_Tokyo</a>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway</a><p>It seems like if it scaled to the point where even there are no drivers, there's no way such a system can support a large number of users in a dense area at the same efficiency of a train. For Taxi's the issue isn't the cost of the driver, but actually the space and traffic constraints. Medallion supplies weren't constrained due to corruption and cronyism but to prevent the overpopulation of Taxis. Removing the driver may lower costs of Taxi's but there will still be a minimum floor to Taxi prices as you can't just infinitely supply a city with driverless cars.<p>The area where I do see driverless taxis flourishing is suburban point-to-point transport. The current use case in SF where basically Uber and Lyfts have supplanted public transit is unique to the city, flush with money and short on public transit options.
This, indeed, is a major step for Waymo. While some people may be skeptical about the safety of these rides, we all saw this coming. This has been a part of the ambitious goal most self-driving companies set out when they start. The reason I say "part of the goal", is because the end goal is L5 - to handle more complex scenarios which I assume Waymo is still working on.<p>Taking the ninety-ninety rule or the rule of credibility into consideration, the remaining 10% of development will probably take 90% of the time. By this, I mean that reaching a stage where L5 cars are owned by consumers can take a long time (if at all people want to buy instead of sharing, but that's a separate topic). For example, running this project in Pittsburgh, Boston, or SF is much more difficult than in suburbs of Arizona. Conditions with rain, snow, uneven terrain, high population density are still difficult to handle.<p>Several challenges still remain, from both technical and legal perspectives. However, any of that may not undermine the tremendous opportunities for Waymo (or its partners). There are several areas/markets that are ready for this technology (e.g., ride sharing in suburbs, transportation of non-dangerous goods over passengers, etc.)
What happens if these cars get in a situation where there is no legal way to move? For instance, the other day I was driving down the street and it was closed because of a Farmers market. Will they just sit there for hours? In gridlock, there is often no way to move without "blocking the box."
Excited about the technology and expected this news eventually, but in less of a "Bam, we did it" and more of a "Coming Dec 2017... look for new autonomous vehicles, they'll be bright orange with flashing lights".<p>Following-up on the "How is this legal" question below, can anyone comment on:<p>1. For the 'autonomous engineers/technologists':<p>a) Is the technology mature enough that it can be utilized without an on-board driver such that public isn't at risk?<p>b) Does the sensor system provide the remote "monitor" have enough situational awareness?<p>c) What happens if whatever up-link that the vehicle is connected to disconnects? (for example: They're using Comcast)<p>2. For the 'lawyers':<p>a) Who's responsible if someone gets hurt or the vehicle breaks a law?<p>b) Is an Executive Order from the Governor the ideal channel for introducing the technology to the public (versus legislative action)? [I know subjective but curious]<p>3. For the 'marketers':<p>a) Any examples of technologies prematurely introduced that had negative impact on their growth or contributed to their demise?<p>Note: I realize some of these are subjective but thought would make for some great discussion.
Levels of driving automation is an ill-defined concept.<p>For example, L4 is defined as "mind-off". According to Wikipedia, "the driver may safely go to sleep or leave the driver's seat. Self driving is supported only in limited areas (geofenced) or under special circumstances, like traffic jams. Outside of these areas or circumstances, the vehicle must be able to safely abort the trip, i.e. park the car, if the driver does not retake control."<p>However, the difficulty of driving varies so much from case to case. City is significantly more complex than urban areas. If some company geofence the cars in urban areas and achieve level 4, it might be less impressive say a Level-3 system that works in complex city scenarios and extreme weather conditions.
Wow! Waymo is now confident enough in their vehicles that they're willing to risk letting the public use them completely unsupervised? This seems like a huge milestone for self-driving car tech.<p>I wonder what their current disengagement rates are for Chandler; at this point it has to be really close to zero, right?
There's a positive feedback loop that will happen: As they get more cars on to the road, the log more real world miles, which makes the cars better, which gets more cars onto the road which log more miles...<p>I wonder how valuable this is?
I own the same model of vehicle as Waymo is using (2017 Pacifica PHEV). It's cool to see how little they've had to visibly modify the car (apart from the sensors)—the interior looks 100% stock, other than the row of buttons on the ceiling. Given the level-1 autonomous features in the vehicle (self-parking, etc.), all of the integrations are probably done over CAN-bus, with no additional hardware required (again, apart from the sensors and the computing power).
Why are the videos always done in perfect conditions? I like drive.ai's approach a lot more where they demonstrated the capabilities at night and in heavy rain. It's much more impressive.
A lot of what if scenarios being asked. The key takeaway here is that anyone that drives a truck, taxi, uber, lyft, or any other vehicle for a living will highly likely be out of a job in the next 10-15 years. So roughly about 10-12% of the global workforce will be unemployed.
<i>Throws money at screen</i><p>Having said that I do love seeing these wide, straight American roads and wonder how well this will do on the tiny (often single track) winding country roads around here.
The cars could be subject to vandalism, or at the very least really aggressive driving. The predictability of the driving and the lack of a driver is going to result in weird interactions with people.
I was really excited, until I read that the change they made is not to have no employee in the car at all. They moved the safety employee from the front to the back.
I think they're massively underestimating the general public's reaction to something like this. I as a nerdy tech dude think this is very tight and if I was much younger this would blow my mind, but I think this also might frighten many people.<p>I don't know if that's being considered at all here or maybe the transition will be slow enough to allow people to cope with the change.
Neither here nor there, but I found that the construction "hard to understate" is either wrong or super confusing.<p>Apparently I'm not alone <a href="http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=11177" rel="nofollow">http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=11177</a>
What simulators, if any, do these self-driving car companies use for testing and development? Is any of these simulators available to the general public (I'm guessing probably not)? I read about something called Carcraft in Waymo's case, but it doesn't seem available.
I saw they were/are offering free rides to anyone who wants to be one of the testers in my metro area. I'm all for free but I'm not too sure about being a human beta test lol.
> Waymo chose the Phoenix area for its favorable weather, its wide, well-maintained streets, and the relative lack of pedestrians. [1]<p>These are not very common conditions. So what is Waymo's plan for the rest of the world? And what wizardry is needed to make it happen?<p>1. <a href="https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/report-waymo-aiming-to-launch-commercial-driverless-service-this-year/" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/10/report-waymo-aiming-to-...</a>
I think it's also interesting that they are developing a car for this purpose alone. No steering wheel, no pedals.<p>As far as I know there is no other brand that does this.
Just a small point, but I'm curious if the road rights of way are significantly different there to the UK. I ask because in the video there's a bit near the end where the car pulls out of a smaller road in front of a red car that I'd normally have considered to have the right of way. Obviously they left it in intentionally, so is that kind of manouver simply not against the right of way there?
Great discussion, but what about the more human-based issues?<p>Like what happens if I forget my phone in one of these ride-sharing vehicles and someone else had jumped in right after me?<p>What happens when someone trashes a vehicle? Are there going to be cameras in these vehicles to track bad behavior? If so, what about the privacy implications?<p>I don't have answers to any of these questions, but I'd be interested to see what you all think
Are these companies working on a Waze for self driving cars.<p>Shouldn't these companies, the DMV and other parties involved agree on a standard for inter-car communications?<p>Why should we wait for Lidar to tell my car about a crash 3 turns away, if a shared broadcast/receive system can do it faster?
Wow.<p>Yesterday it seemed that most people on HN felt level 4 self driving on public roads was at least 5 years away.<p>Today that estimate needs to be revised. Seems the future is coming faster than we thought.
The self driving (small)cars will almost be gone from every motorway within 20 years is my prediction. They will be replaced by self driving busses, trains and boats combined with a smart docking system where you automatically change “vehicle” at speed. This way we can travel at a fraction of the cost/emissions. We will se the first docking system on highway within 10 years, and the first prototypes within 5.
Considering how often Google/Alphabet orphans products, I'm not holding my breath for this to occur in my lifetime, not counting all the technical issues that get handwaved away in any discussion of autonomous vehicles.
But who cares? They convinced us somehow that self driving cars are important, but it’s just self-important, gets the investors attention and money. Now time to move on to the next big thing.
The interstate highway system is an enormous and expensive asset paid for by the taxpayers of the US. Shouldn't we have a conversation about the rights of citizens before allowing corporations to set a precedent that we will not be able to roll back later?
I do a hit and run on a driverless car, assume its on its way to pickup a passenger, so no humans involved.<p>I hack a driverless car, again with no passengers, and make it do my bidding (hit that other [thing])<p>I follow driverless car back to its charging base and slash its tires?<p>I rearend a driverless car then leave the scene? (same as option 1 I guess - but could be applied differently)<p>A driverless car gets into its first fatal accident of a passenger, will that lawsuit result in the shutdown of the company? Who specifically will be held to account? Will the developer of the software? Will the engineer who didnt provide sufficient sensors? What if the driverless car looses traction due to black ice, and that results in the death of the passenger or another driver?<p>Im ubering from place A to place B and my phone dies early in the trip and the uber ride cant bill me?<p>What happens? There are a lot more questions that should be posed - and we should answer them all.