
Waymo Launches Its Self-Driving Armada - stablemap
https://www.wired.com/story/waymo-launches-self-driving-minivans-fiat-chrysler/
======
ChuckMcM
I am looking forward to self driving cars, and keep hoping they will get here
before my parents lose their ability to safely drive themselves.

Back in the mid 70's there was a 'personal rapid transport' or PRT system
proposed which was individual 'cars' on a rail system that were smart enough
to stop at a station. The idea was that the rail line had switches where a PRT
unit (4 or 8 passenger) could go into a station when called with an elevator
like button. You would get in, and then it would head out on the track and not
stop again until your destination station.

The idea was that it eliminated the two biggest issues with 'public
transportation' which were pickup and drop off schedules that forced waits
when you transferred from one line to another, and the fact that the train/bus
would make all stops forcing it to be slower than a point to point bus/train.

I believe you could implement that system safely on a dedicated 'self driving
car' road. And such roads would be less expensive to build than a rail
infrastructure.

~~~
dxbydt
I graduated from wvu and apart from “#1 party school” tag, its claim to fame
was/is the PRT. fun to ride, not fun when your cabin gets stuck in middle of
the track with nobody to call.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Tr...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Transit)

~~~
specialist
My father worked on this system.

Last time we checked, there's still a plaque in the office warning about
"Rotten Ralph" (his nickname). Many family stories. My sis and bro would ride
unattended, monitored from the control room. They loved helping reboot the
system by manually entering the hexidecimal codes.

I remain disappointed we don't have PRTs every where.

------
mentos
What do you guys think of a solution where the driverless leg of the trip is
also passengerless. In v1 of the system the passenger is required to have a
license and will follow route guidance from the car to navigate to their
destination. After arrival the car will return to autonomous mode and take
much safer precautions to the next customer.

~~~
Balgair
As they loaded Kayleigh Hutschins, age 36, onto the stretcher, it waited. Rick
was a new EMT. He just got his certs about 3 weeks ago. He was told of the
'shadows' in classes. But seeing one was still a bit un-nerving. Daniel, the
more veteran EMT was marking the time, but knew there was no rush to get to
the hospital.

'Yeah, they freaked me out at first too' Daniel said into the ambulance's
sterile white lights, he looked back at the freshie.

'They go all the way to the hospital, right behind us, yeah?' Rick wondered if
the stories were true.

'Yeah, as long as her credit card still works, it'll be right on our ass'

'What happens then? When we get to the back door?'

'Follow us right in, thank God John Muir's not a blind road and has an exit.
UCSF just has a loading dock, damn things block us in all the time and we have
to call SFPD to get em moved out of the way.'

'How long do they stay for?'

'In the parking lot? They'll stay until her card is cancelled or the family
does something. Homelanders like y'all can't pinch two nickels, so the
family'll likely never contact the card company cus they'll hound them for
years about her debts.' Rick looked at her glowing green fingernails,
perfectly manicured.

'After 30 days John Muir or the other hospitals just calls the car company and
gets them to move. All at once. It's a laugh riot.'

As they loaded her into the bay, the shadow inched forward the exact same
amount.

~~~
shostack
What's this from?

~~~
Balgair
Aiden was bouncing around with Peppa Pig singing songs. The grass was green
and he was in the iPad too! So much fun Aiden and Peppa! Wee!

But then Aiden was awake.

The softness under the nylon of his car seat smelled good, like rain on
Daddy's driveway. All Aiden could see was darkness and the blue and orange
glow of the car. It was night now. They weren't at Daddy's anymore, but he
wasn't at Mommy's house yet either.

There were noises outside, a man's voice, deep. Not Daddy's. Aiden was
confused. Aiden was scared

The front door opened. The man got in, well, he more fell in. Aiden was very
scared. Where is Mommy? Where is anyone?

The man smelled strange too, like Uncle Greg. That bread-like smell when Uncle
Greg drank Parent's Soda.

Aiden was so scared. He just wanted to be back with his iPad dancing with
Peppa! Aiden started to scream and cry! Mommy! Peppa!

'Aw fuck, therhss a kidh n thsss fuckher!' The man tried to say, but his mouth
sounded like it was full of drool or sand. He smelled really bad now.

Aiden kept screaming for Mommy. Hot tears and snot.

The man turned around, his eyes were red and poofy. His hair was stringy and
he was sweating a lot. He looked at Aiden but his eyes kept drifting and he
kept tilting his head.

'Ssssshhhhhhh. sssalll right kiddao. Weell get ya basck hhhome. S'll call the
Pawlice nn get sha basck to yer Mawmy' The man slurred a lot and got back out
of the car.

The man slumped down on the side of the car and took out his phone, Aiden
could see over the side of his carseat. He was so scared. Where was Mommy? Who
is this man?

After a long time of crying for Mommy flashing lights came by the car. The
blue and red colors were so bright. The man stood up and went over to the
lights, but fell down a lot. A police lady came to the car and opened it after
talking to the man.

'You ok, sugar? How are you feeling.' Aiden looked at her, this wasn't Mommy.

'It's ok now sugar, your Mommy is coming real quick, OK? Were you on the way
from your Daddy's to Mommy's?' Aiden nodded and gripped the belts of his
carseat tighter.

------
lovelearning
Do you think self-driving cars will have different shapes in future, or is the
existing typical look of cars the optimum shape?

TBH, I can see lots of problems even in existing cars for people - too many
blind spots, too uncomfortable to get in and get out, more dangerous for those
sitting on the driving side.

I wonder if all these problems will go away with self-driving cars, or are
they necessary consequences of an optimum design to meet safety regulations.

~~~
unreal37
I think the "uncomfortable to get in and out" needs to be addressed. Without
the steering wheel, perhaps the seat can swivel, or perhaps passengers can
exit from the front or back.

I doubt, at typical car speeds, aerodynamics is a big factor. It's not like a
jet.

~~~
kuschku
An interesting idea that Mercedes showed in their self-driving prototypes
(which only ran on a hardcoded loop for that test) was having all seats face
the middle, so the passengers could look at one another.

That's a lot more comfortable, and already common for the rear two rows in
larger cars.

~~~
IntronExon
It sounds fun, but I know at least two people who would be violently carsick
in that situation.

~~~
munificent
Most trains I've ridden on have seats like this and it seems to work out OK.
If you're one of the people who gets motion sickness if not facing forward,
just grab one of the forward-facing seats.

~~~
icebraining
Trains generally make much wider curves, so the effect is minimized.

------
princess-aslaug
I wonder if the FCA plan to be the platform for Google's self driving AI,
instead of trying to develop their own AI like other car vendors are doing,
make sense. In some way it seems very hard and costly to build your own AI,
even Tesla appears to be lagging behind Waymo. On the other hand I'm not sure
how much replaceable the position of FCA is. Currently trivially replaceable,
but maybe in the future as they develop more and more skills about building
the platform for autonomous driving vehicles (minus software), it could be a
good position to be in.

~~~
kyrra
Waymo is also working on courting other manufacturers, but nothing else has
been announced outside of Honda[0] (which hasn't gone anywhere).

Car manufacturers today can be seen as integrators of various technologies.
Most all of the driver assist tech out there today comes from companies like
MobileEye and Bosch. It tends to make sense from an expense perspective to let
that type of tech be developed outside of car manufacturers so the development
costs can be more easily be recouped.

[0] [https://www.recode.net/2016/12/21/14046496/waymo-alphabet-
ho...](https://www.recode.net/2016/12/21/14046496/waymo-alphabet-honda-
partnership)

~~~
princess-aslaug
Thanks. The question will be if owning the best or first autonomous driving
logic, good enough that can be mass deployed, will be such a big advantage to
make the fact you can make a good car almost irrelevant compared to that.

------
savrajsingh
What cities? Article light on any details

~~~
ocdtrekkie
This article is actually just about them buying the cars. But currently their
service operates in a small area in Arizona... A state chosen because they
decided not to require Waymo to disclose safety statistics that other states
like California require of self-driving cars.

~~~
robkop
Waymo's "on the road" page [0] says that they're also currently testing in
Mountain View, CA, Austin, TX and Kirkland, WA.

Their early rider program is only in Phoenix AFAIK.

[0]: [https://waymo.com/ontheroad/](https://waymo.com/ontheroad/)

~~~
rwmj
If someone is familiar with the US, are these cities all mainly wide freeway,
low traffic? Or do they include cities with difficult, narrow, busy streets
and also country lanes?

~~~
maxyme
Last I heard the only place they are currently truly driverless is Chandler,
AZ. A suburb of Phoenix. It has wide quiet roads and large freeways (I don't
think they autonomously drive on there, always have seen a driver). Also very
clean road lines and almost no weather.

------
provost
> The details are a bit sketchy. Ask "how many thousands," and you're told,
> ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

Off-topic: I was surprised to see that journalists are doing Unicode art in
articles now, and I don’t think that’s wise. Wouldn’t this confuse a blind
reader who is listening to a transcribed version?

~~~
garblegarble
I was impressed to discover that on macOS, asking it to speak '¯\\_(ツ)_/¯'
results in it saying "shrug". The exact form from the article without the
backslash for the left arm, though, results in it saying "comma" for some
(very) strange reason. For example:

    
    
      say '¯_(ツ)_/¯'
      say '¯\_(ツ)_/¯'

~~~
virgilp
Nope - neither of them say "shrug" on my laptop. High Sierra/ 10.13.2

[edit] And it "says" them exactly the same, regardless of backslash: "macron,
(unintelligible)letter two underscore slash, macron".

What is says is actually this: ¯ツ_/¯

~~~
garblegarble
Strange, I'm on 10.13.3... have you tried running the say commands at the
command-line? My speech settings are set to "Allison", so perhaps it's a
feature of the advanced voices?

~~~
virgilp
> have you tried running the say commands at the command-line

I don't know how else to run it :)

But you guessed it. I have 4 voices, Samantha/Victoria/Alex/Fred. I was using
Alex. Samantha behaves as you say, all others behave as I say. (Strangely
enough, now it says "Samantha (downloading)", so maybe after download it will
be 'fixed'?)

------
thebiglebrewski
Wow so much negativity in this thread and sarcasm. I for one welcome our self
driving overlords!

------
skarap
So what happens when one of these cars runs over someone?

Tough luck, 5 million dollars to the family?

~~~
notimetorelax
Do you prefer when there is someone to punish? What good does it bring?

~~~
IntronExon
I think the point is that there are still people to punish, but it will be
harder for people to make that connection. Humans wrote the algorithms which
“drive” the car; there’s nothing de novo here.

~~~
rocqua
When I drive a car, I am liable for all accidents made with me behind the
wheel. An acceptable risk.

When I write self-driving software, am I suddenly liable for all accidents
made by all of those cars when my software is driving? Because the stakes
there are quite a bit higher. Personally I wouldn't take the risk.

How to handle liability with a computer behind the wheel without strangling
innovation isn't a solved problem as far as I know.

~~~
andygates
The companies are taking responsibility, so yes, they're liable and they must
have faith in their code to go forward at this time.

The liability-handling is "deep corporate pockets". That's only a risk if
there's inadequate improvement.

------
Zigurd
Oh. So the "Self Driving Armada"is not a Nissan Armada. Maybe the next
headline could be "Waymo Has Self Driving Edge."

~~~
kome
So we will have a comment about how it's not a Ford Edge ;)

------
nukeop
"Waymo" was invented so that the press would stop calling them Google cars,
because in case things go awry, Google as a whole would be under fire. This
way "Waymo" (effectively a department of Google) can be thrown under the bus
effortlessly with no PR damage to Google.

They don't want people thinking of Google when their cars are holding up
traffic, turn out to be assholes when merging or changing lanes, or cause a
fatal accident. Thus, Waymo.

~~~
freehunter
And it worked. I must have missed the news when Waymo was spun off, because I
didn't realize they were former Google folks until like... last week. I kept
wondering where the hell these guys came from and how they suddenly had the
money to come up with this super-advanced tech by themselves.

~~~
icebraining
Which articles about Waymo did you read that didn't mention its relationship
with Google? I've yet to find one.

~~~
freehunter
I'm not actually all that interested in self-driving cars at this point in
their development (one can only be excited about a finite number of non-
existent things at once), so I haven't been scouring articles, merely skimming
(if even that). I've noticed the articles mention Google but figured they're
mentioning it because Google also has a self-driving car they're working on.

TBH most of the articles I've read that mention Waymo are in relation to their
lawsuit with Uber, and many of them say "Alphabet" and not "Google", and
Alphabet still doesn't register as Google in my mind.

