<a href="https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-driverless.html" rel="nofollow">https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr...</a><p>> We’ll start with those who are already a part of Waymo One and, over the next several weeks, welcome more people directly into the service through our app<p>So...this is just an extension of what they currently do where it's not really open to the public? Waymo One is something you have to apply for and almost nobody gets in. It's not clear to me what "welcome more people directly into the service through our app" means.<p>Waymo is terrible at PR. I can't even tell what they're trying to say here. But there is no date. There is no definitive statement. It's just another vague press release about how they're going driverless "soon"
I know the community is generally very negative/skeptic on this (at least based on the 21 comments so far below), but this is an amazing technical & business accomplishment. Congratulations!<p>The blog post is relatively clear that ramp up will take a few weeks - "we’ll start with those who are already a part of Waymo One and, over the next several weeks, welcome more people directly into the service through our app"<p>before you comment watch: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLkX2VaQs4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLkX2VaQs4</a>
I'd say Waymo has taken a measured, conservative approach and their lack of major incidents is a huge advantage. They're taking it slow because they're far ahead of their competitors, they already have SDCs up and carrying passengers in exchange for payment. Yes, it's an easy geographic region, but it's hard to deny their tech and business is ahead of their competitors.
Pretty misleading title, but I think this is not an expansion of Waymo to the general public, but a getting rid of the safety drivers for some people participating in the closed-invite only preview but no longer under NDA. Seems like another incremental step forward. Google turned off the PR firehouse on Waymo over the past year, so I think many were starting to think the tech had hit a wall and wasn't ever going to be able to get rid of the safety driver. I suppose this makes me cautiously optimistic. I don't think self driving needs to handle all roads in all conditions to be economically useful.
Fantastic. The reality is that good mapping and some level of lidar (which is getting cheaper faster for low res/angle sensors) is somewhat game changing in terms of self driving vehicle reliability.<p>Tesla will miss out I think by not taking advantage of doing even the cheapest possible one sensor lidar to augment their existing system.<p>$500 -> in the future $100 for the data lidar gives you is gold.
Just a few months ago, I recall many skeptics on HN claiming that full driverless technology was 10-20 years away.<p>Do those people still think that it's going to take 10-20 years for this tech to reach say, New York, now that it's live in Phoenix?
Direct link to the announcement: <a href="https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-driverless.html?m=1" rel="nofollow">https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr...</a>
> Later this year, after we've finished adding in-vehicle barriers between the front row and the rear passenger cabin for in-vehicle hygiene and safety, we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, which will add capacity and allow us to serve a larger geographical area.<p>Makes it sound like the pandemic was a significant factor in expanding this to people who are not under NDA. Because if they were doing 5-10% before fully driverless and it was working, then there is a big issue with needing to retrofit the cars with infectious disease barriers, its going to make a lot more sense to just reduce the number of drivers entirely if you can.<p>But one thing that might be a little misleading is that I am reading this announcement as saying that they are actually only letting in Waymo One people now which have had to apply and be accepted, and then in a non-specific number of weeks the public can try to get in via the app. But you still basically have to be on a wait list in the app.<p>So the real difference today is letting people in the program already who are not under NDA ride without the safety driver.<p>But it's very exciting. And necessary to have some wait-list because it is actually possible that the thing could become viral (sorry) and turn into driverless ride tourism and then you could have 30,000 tourists standing around at the same time cussing at an app that says "Service at capacity" all day.
Ahhh, the bi-annual Waymo's "expansion" PR. I think I've been seeing these for about last 5 years. Every few months they are "just about to be publicly tested" yet every user is carefully picked and signs NDA ;D
Which is the safer option at the moment, a driverless car with their current safety record including the incidents that have happened, or getting into an Uber/taxi with a human driver and possibly catching Covid?
Let's place skepticism aside for a second and assume that full driverless tech will be fully operating in major metros soon.<p>What does that mean for the rideshare business? Are Uber/Lyft basically dead if they are years behind Waymo?
So the self-driving argument has always been winner take all. Does this mean competitors now have an existential threat unless they catch up immediately? I’m thinking Uber, Lyft, Cruise, etc.
Can anyone knowledgeably speak to what these gizmos can and can't do? Can I tell it to "please back into the driveway on the left side, but not so close that I can't open the garage door, and open the trunk, so I can easily load a box of my stuff"? Or "please go around to the back entrance where they deliver the to-go orders"? "No, down there where that guy is standing." Etc.
>> In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless. We expect our new fully driverless service to be very popular, and we’re thankful to our riders for their patience as we ramp up availability to serve demand. Later this year, after we've finished adding in-vehicle barriers between the front row and the rear passenger cabin for in-vehicle hygiene and safety, we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, which will add capacity and allow us to serve a larger geographical area.<p>I'm struggling to understand what this meas. On the one hand "In the near term, 100% of our rides will be fully driverless", but, on the other hand, "Later this year, ..., we'll also be re-introducing rides with a trained vehicle operator, (...)". So "the near term" is at least next year?<p>Anyway it's difficult to understand exactly what is changing with this announcement. The (original) title makes it sound like <i>everyone</i> in Phoenix ("...the general public in Phoenix") will be able to hitch a driverless ride, but the text on the announcement makes it sound like only Waymo One members -and their relatives- will be able to do so ("Beginning today, October 8, we’re excited to open up our fully driverless offering to Waymo One riders. Members of the public service can now take friends and family along on their rides and share their experience with the world.").
Can Waymo cars do left turns into traffic? A few years ago I saw a Waymo car in Mountain View attempting a left turn across Rengstorff and the traffic was pretty bad. I would personally be terrified if I had to trust an algorithm to properly navigate that situation.
What is the actual advantage to consumers over an Uber? Novelty will wear off, and so to survive Waymo will actually need to be better in some way.<p>Can anyone in Phoenix answer if Waymo is cheaper?<p>Is Waymo hoping people will choose Waymo for safety?
Is Phoenix because self driving cars can't handle any kind of inclement weather? Or is there some other reason to choose Phoenix over Denver or Milwaukee?
Waymo's raison d'etre within Alphabet is that they solved self driving. They need to show Alphabet that they can deploy self driving at scale. Unfortunately, they only solved the problem when the car is supervised by a remote driver. Which is more expensive than hiring a human to drive a stock car. So they keep saying they're expanding the service without actually deploying at scale in the hope of postponing the inevitable moment at which Alphabet's board will realize that it's been taken for a ride.
Url changed from <a href="https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1314235663248699393" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/Waymo/status/1314235663248699393</a>, which points to this.
I know everyone loves the idea of self-driving cars but the reality of self-driving cars is really ugly. We need repetitions driving vehicles in order to operate them effectively. If you don't have enough repetitions driving a vehicle when something goes wrong you're not going to be able to operate the vehicle at all.<p>Furthermore, I'm skeptical that driverless vehicles can factor in all the ways in which someone might maliciously cause accidents or damage to these vehicles. I want to see what happens when someone figures out how to provide false input to the sensors on the vehicle.