> It's surreal watching driverless cars go by

Phillip_McCavity wrote:

Never get used to it.  I should get the app and try riding.

You haven't tried it by now?   It's old hat.   The time to have used it was when it was free.   You missed out.

BTW the speculation form the comments seems to be that a manhole cover had steam coming out of it and this is what confused the computer.  This shows the kind of stuff which can cause problems: the unexpected.  And a lot of that happens on the road-- especially in a big city.

wrote:

I took over 80 trips in Waymo.   Only twice it failed.  One time a road was closed out by Crissy field which was the only road to the destination so it ended up in a loop.   Other time was when some parade float was triple parked on Mission st and it gave up.

I guess it is good in that when it fails it can just stop and USUALLY be okay.  The problem is when failure is catastrophic.  And it is bound to happen.

Still I have to admit it has advanced way further than I thought it would in this time.  I am very impressed.

anon user #3 wrote:

What happened when it failed?  Did it send a human driver or basically just tell you that you would be refunded and to "Get out"?  I'm not in SF so no way to try for myself.

For the looping situation, I pressed the "Call Support" button on the screen.   I was close enough to my destination that I told them I could just walk.   They made the car pull over.

For the stuck car situation, they remote-controlled the car and backed it down the block.

There was a situation a few weeks where the road was blocked and it backed itself out of it, so it does learn.

wrote:

For the looping situation, I pressed the "Call Support" button on the screen.   I was close enough to my destination that I told them I could just walk.   They made the car pull over.

For the stuck car situation, they remote-controlled the car and backed it down the block.

There was a situation a few weeks where the road was blocked and it backed itself out of it, so it does learn.

That's interesting and I never considered that.  A lot of the footage we see of them going through certain situation could be the result of "remote control" operation.  It wouldn't even necessarily have to let the passenger know that is occurring either.

But the remote control option is definitely a good safety tool.  They could have some small group of remote drivers on standby at all times and when an ambiguous situation is encountered, switch to remote control operation.  That would be far preferable to just stopping somewhere for hours and backing up traffic/creating a hazard.

wrote:

It has better visibility than human drivers because the lidar scanner is up high on the roof of the car.   It tracks every pedestrian and bicyclist and you can see them on the screen.  Unlike Cruise it seems to do a good job of not running into things.

The biggest problems are now that word is out, they don't have enough cars.   If I request one now, it will probably be like a 30 minute wait.  Where Uber is less than 2-3 minutes.

I have a feeling google is going to cancel the whole thing because it is costing them a lot of money and they can't seem to source more cars (or maybe the state limits them).   

Their choice of base car is weird, too.  Low-volume Jaguar EV.


Anyway, my car can drive itself in traffic jams and on the freeway.  That's good enough for me for now.

It would be crazy to cancel the whole thing if it really is working that well.  But your input made me suspicious that what I spoke of could actually be occurring A LOT:  remote control operation.

If you think about it, that could be why they don't scale up: they need human drivers on standby to "take over" remotely.  If it is happening a lot it limits how many cars they can put out there.  I now wonder if they really have to disclose to anyone when a human takes over remotely?  I really suspect this might be happening way more than we know.

anon user #3 wrote:

That's interesting and I never considered that.  A lot of the footage we see of them going through certain situation could be the result of "remote control" operation.  It wouldn't even necessarily have to let the passenger know that is occurring either.

But the remote control option is definitely a good safety tool.  They could have some small group of remote drivers on standby at all times and when an ambiguous situation is encountered, switch to remote control operation.  That would be far preferable to just stopping somewhere for hours and backing up traffic/creating a hazard.

you definitely know when it is remote controlled.  It is slow and jerky, probably because of lag and the screen says self-driving has been disengaged.

I've seen it get through gnarly situations all by itself.  The one thing that impressed me was it seems to have an aggressiveness parameter.  If it is trying to pull out in traffic and nobody lets it in or people keep blocking it, it gets more and more aggressive to the point where it will pull out in front of someone that hesitates

anon user #3 wrote:

That's interesting and I never considered that.  A lot of the footage we see of them going through certain situation could be the result of "remote control" operation.  It wouldn't even necessarily have to let the passenger know that is occurring either.

But the remote control option is definitely a good safety tool.  They could have some small group of remote drivers on standby at all times and when an ambiguous situation is encountered, switch to remote control operation.  That would be far preferable to just stopping somewhere for hours and backing up traffic/creating a hazard.

Theyvare all being driven by remote control from India.

anon user #3 wrote:

That's what I am thinking...

Imagine what a scam that would be!!

Too much lag.   Their operations center is off Evans near the main post office in bay view.   There's a local ops center in every city they operate in.

Drop one of these cars in Boston.  Let’s see how long it lasts without an accident.