This will be interesting. As an aging nondriver living in Yokohama, I’ve been both hoping that self-driving cars become available here before I develop mobility issues and wondering how feasible they will be. Since I don’t drive, I don’t have a sense of what the roads here are like from the vehicle’s perspective. But many of the streets, including in the neighborhood where I live [1], are narrow, have no sidewalks, and are shared by cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Very different from, say, Phoenix.
Waymo is doing alright in San Francisco as well. That's not directly comparable to Tokyo, either, but I expect it's a much less distant of a comparison than Phoenix.
In SF you still have clearly delineated sidewalks with curbs and crossing lights. Japanese side streets are basically equivalent to alleys and cars are guests. There aren’t too many streets like that in the US at all.
"Doing alright"? Fifty incidents of blocking the fire department and so many traffic violations and crashes that they were (eventually) barred from expanding their testing by the state.
They're headed to Japan because California has had enough of their shit.
Edit: since I'm now being downvoted by astroturfers from Waymo and people believing their lies:
> and so many traffic violations and crashes that they were (eventually) barred from expanding their testing by the state.
As far as I can tell, that literally didn’t happen. Instead, they both got approved for a major expansion this year and have no new restrictions on any future expansions.
CPUC approved a major expansion this year, some local agencies raised issues and called for a rehearing, and CPUC reheard it and approved it again. There’s a member of the state legislature that has proposed a bill changing the process for such expansions to a less favorable one in the past who talked about maybe reintroducing it this session in response, but nothing like that passed that I can find.
You're confusing us with Cruise. Lots of reporting did the same, but we're expanding a lot across California. For example, now anyone can use our service in Los Angeles:
> One of the world’s first fully-driverless taxi firms has been blocked from expanding its business in California, where several of its vehicles have recently been involved in accidents.
> Waymo, which is the driverless car division of Google parent Alphabet, currently operates in parts of San Francisco. Attempts to roll-out its robotaxi service to Sunnyvale and Los Angeles were suspended for up to 120 days following a ruling by the California Public Utilities Commission’s Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division (CPED).
Unable to respond to the instructions of a police officer and it taking a minute and a half for employees to manually control the car: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ix98jFVyGxs
...and then a few minutes later, illegally entering an intersection and stopping, then continuing to block the intersection because someone made a u-turn 30 feet in front of it while it was stopped: https://youtu.be/CHEtQ3Egt0c?t=474
And here's the icing on the cake: your company harassing reporters, calling the police on them because reporters were following it: https://youtu.be/spw176TZ7-8?t=170
My very personal opinion is maybe it shouldn't be ok for humans either. Maybe the benefits of cars absolutely don't outweigh the contant risk of deaths and injuries they pose (especially in metropolitan aeras where they are easily replaced by other modes of transportation)
Reality is "because humans can take responsibility for their actions". And it seems the way our society is built, we'd rather have individuals take responsibility than question the system
I literally just watched a video of a Waymo vehicle driving through and over the debris of a fresh car accident. Sorry, one day this technology will be ready for primetime but it currently is not. I think its complete BS that Waymo and others get to operate and test on public roads. The decision to prototype and test novel technology in public spaces where it can and will kill innocent people should be determined by a public referendum in elections, where I would vote NO.
I saw a video of a bunch of Waymos backed up on each other being too hesitant to make a turn. Kinda reinforced a fear I have of these things. Not to mention I would hate to try and wave one of these things to turn before me... or wink my headlights.
IDK, like I get the appeal for driverless cars, I just still don't like them.
Seeing something once doesn’t make it a real phenomenon.
Besides, if that is common, Waymo will have data on it and if it’s common enough, they’ll fix it.
I’ve sat in Waymos on 2 occasions, each on a separate ride, in which the car avoided collisions that would have happened due to bad human drivers. Your fear is worth examining closely as it’ll hold you back from enjoying this amazing technology.
I think you may mean something other than phenomenon ("an observable fact or event"). Seeing anything more than zero times makes it a phenomenon by definition.
That's wider than the streets near me in San Francisco :). Lots of our "two way" streets, are only one vehicle wide, because we allow parking on both sides of the street, too.
I admire Japanese taxis for mounting mirrors on the bonnet so they dont stick out. I'm Indian and I'm glad I had a choice of 170ish cm wide Japanese sedans meant for Asia and hate the new 180ish cars. The Jaguar is 213 cm wide.
Going to be very interesting to see how the Japanese people react to this. The service the taxi drivers provide when you take the taxi in Japan is on another level, such as waiting for you with the open door and closing the door for you as you enter. A driverless car will never be able to copy that. Japan also has very good public transportation reducing the need for a car for day to day travel so cost might be less of a factor.
> waiting for you with the open door and closing the door for you as you enter
I know you meant more than this, but I'm sure automating opening and closing the doors will be a lesser challenge then developing autonomous self driving?
Taxi doors already automatically open and close in major Japanese metro areas.
There is a certain romance around good service, but the good service is not the reason why people use taxis here.
One could make a similar argument that self service restaurants serving revolving sushi, or tablet ordered sushi miss the good service of a great restaurant. Yet these places are wildly popular, because one goes there to eat.
Old Japanese sedan style taxis universally had a handbrake-like lever around front driver side door sill that opens rear passenger side door through a mechanical linkage.
Toyota JPN Taxi[1] replaced most sedan cabs, and it has electric sliding doors which is nicer than swing-out doors. Already opens and closes with electronic commands from driver seat. No big deal.
Searching, I see references to automatic doors preventing robberies but no explanations as to how that would be. Perhaps the barriers between the back seat passengers and driver prevent knife threats? I wouldn't expect robbers in Japan to have guns, like they would in the US.
Oh, maybe you mean the automatic doors are "waiting for you with the open door"? A lot of cars have hatchbacks that close using a remote, either on the dash or on a fob. It was big news that people were demonstrating the CyberTruck cutting carrots or hot dogs because people are used to hatchbacks closing and opening safely. It seems a lot simpler to automate doors opening and closing safely than autonomously driving in Tokyo.
The classic implementation used mechanical link rods, which no one knew how to operate against driver's will. So there used to be occasional comedic stories around that, like attempted free rider taken to police or man fleeing scene tripping on the door.
> such as waiting for you with the open door and closing the door for you as you enter
Most taxis in Japan have driver-controlled doors. The driver doesn't have to get off the seat at all. Given it is already automated, it is trivial for a driverless car to do.
I agree on the taxi experience being next level. I just wonder how the aging population will replace them. Have you ever seen a 20 something cab driver in Japan? I been many times and never have so wonder if there is a job shortage coming
That’s such a show of confidence! It’s an entirely different driving world over there. Particularly in terms of what is expected outside of what is mandated.
Looking forward to trying it.
In my experience the cars are highly regulated and very predictable on the main roads. Marked out lanes, low speed limits, many red lights.
But pedestrians and bikes are everywhere, and they don't always obey the rules. I wonder how well collision detection handles sharing lanes with bikes without suddenly braking in the middle of the road.
I was in a Waymo last week in San Francisco that had a bicyclist cut in front of us, no hard breaking or jerk just a gradual decrease in speed. I would've hit the break relatively fast myself but Waymo handled it without issue in a very smooth way.
I don't know how it'll handle significantly more pedestrians, but I assume that they're confident enough in the models and have run enough simulations to expand to Tokyo.
I bike in SF regularly and I actually cut in front of Waymos intentionally since I know they will slow down gracefully vs regular drivers who might not see me for a number of reasons or trigger road rage. Several months ago a Waymo would over correct but now they're so good at anticipating where I'm heading.
In San Francisco, pedestrians and bikes can appear anywhere around your car, at any speed in any direction. Including wearing all black, no light and taking 2 steps forward then turning around and taking 2 more steps forward (repeat but vary everything randomly). Or doing lasso circles with something heavy at the end of a rope in the middle of the street (last weekend). Just because this is not 100% of the time is not a license to run over ANY of them.
This is a kind of environment that human drivers are NOT made for. All the more not while clicking around on their Uber app or changing the music track or trying to read street signs or understand a Nissan dashboard map. In San Francisco, computers with multiple sensors have a gross advantage over humans.
I live in rural Japan, and in my experience, drivers are also crazy:
* They stop on the side of roads and streets whenever they feel like it without worrying about blocking the traffic.
* They don't turn the lights on no matter how bad the weather is. Super fun to be in the middle of a snow storm and people are driving white cars with the lights off.
* Whenever someone wants to turn right at an intersection, the cars behind will pass it on the left, without worrying if someone is coming the opposite direction, which is really dangerous. I am not sure about the Japanese law, but in my home country (Spain) that is highly illegal.
* Many people watch TV or anime while driving. I even saw one guy reading a book while driving, somehow holding it open over the driving wheel.
Add to this the awful state of most streets and roads, and I can see more accidents here in one year that I saw in 33 years in Spain.
How would passing on the left would risk a collision with a car coming from an opposite direction? The opposite lane is on the right hand side (in Japan)?
I assume they mean: Given turning/waiting car A, passing car B that is going straight and car C coming from right going straight. Car B likely has right of the way as they are going straight and they are on the left from viewpoint of car C, but car C may not see behind car A (like due to it being truck for example). Both B & C might think they have right of the way. B due to fact they should normally only need to avoid people coming from left and he can see there is no one there, C due to fact he entered intersection when he only saw A who is waiting to turn. I don't know Japan law so I don't know actually has right of the way here (in Finland A would actually have right of the way in mirrored situation as you always need to yield those coming from right in equal intersection, even if they are turning left).
Yes, it is a question of visibility. You have two cars coming from opposite directions, both want to turn right (Japan drives on the left), and both think they can do it safely, but all of sudden another car pops from behind.
I have seen many near accidents due to this. That's why such a maneuver is forbidden in many countries.
True. It doesn't help that most streets don't have sidewalks and you are forced to walk on the road. And even when there are sidewalks, people ignore them...
Oh, I mean — that's a thing even in the densest parts of Tokyo, people (and not just tourists!) just have no concept of moving aside to not block the flow, frequently walk like 3/4-abreast and block the entire width of the stairs/sidewalk ;P
I guess the biggest challenge is gonna be not to get stuck in those narrow alleys that they call streets in Japan. Some of them can hardly take a kei car, let alone a sedan
I can already see in my imagination all the jijis swearing when they see those cars stuck :)
The average motorcar still operating in japan is approximately 2/3rd the mass, and presumably volume, of the average personal vehicle in america. They also don't allow street parking on those "alleys".
Effectively they can be between 1/6th (2-lane) and 2/9th (1-lane) the width of a typical one-way american street and still have room for pedestrians along the side.
That explains a black Audi sedan and Toyota? SUV I've seen. I thought it didn't like an Autoware setup, and also that an euro car is an odd choice as they tend to be harder to rig for an SDC.
I wonder how much this service costs. If it is as expensive as taxi services in Tokyo, it could fail. While I don’t think it’s possible for the cost to match that of a train, if this service materializes successfully, it could become the most disruptive innovation in Japan.
At least where I live in Japan (not Tokyo), a huge portion of taxi drivers quit over COVID, and it can be impossible to get a taxi during many times of the day. This wasn't a problem at all 5 years ago.
There are late night fees, and taxis in general are 3-10x expensive relative to trains.
Trains in Japan cease operations during nights, and last stops of trains move progressively towards core Tokyo to position vehicles for morning operations. This means you can't just stay at the table until stations close and catch the very last one, but people have varying time limits for train rides home.
So binge drinking train riding bar goers has to know the absolute latest time they must give up their mugs, which they're going to miss anyway, but will still try anyway, to be stuck mid-way to queue up for a taxi. Or they can be smarter and get stuck at Shinjuku, queueing for a taxi. The smartest ones hit 24/7 places like McD, karaoke, or internet cafe. Or get couples of cans at 7-11 and raid a friend's apartment. None of them are smart, they're all drunk.
I've never taken a taxi in that kind of situation, but I imagine the experience wouldn't be great. Waymo at midnight is certainly going to be a game changer to them.
One thing to add, which is the thing that surprised me: not only the trains stop; _there are no replacement bus services_.
Where I'm from, where the rail services when they stop for the night, have _some_ replacement — you might need to wait 30 minutes for a bus, and then ride it along the U-Bahn tracks and the trip will take 45 minutes instead of 15; but there is _a_ way to get home before the trains resume.
Even in the US, every major city has overnight bus services. I live in Seattle and have taken the half hourly to hourly bus home at 3am before. It's wild to me that Tokyo has none.
As someone mentioned in a comment up the chain, it's for liability reasons - if a passenger damages something with the door, the driver is on the hook.
Seeing how an autonomous vehicle is similarly liable for its impact on the environment it stands to reason this can and will be easily dealt with.
Are you implying that Tokyo already has a lot of car/truck traffic? (It does not.) Or implying that Waymo meaningfully increases traffic? (I doubt it.)
Are you kidding me? I lived there for 5 years. Tokyo has an immense amount of traffic.
And yes Waymo increases traffic. People in SF were putting cones on them to disable them because of it, there's tons of videos of them causing traffic jams.
They are famously overly cautious and often stop and do strange maneuvers.
Recently one held up Kamala Harris' motor brigade for quite a while until a cop moved it.
Individual autonomous cars will solve all transportation issues. What's that? Trains? Trams? Efficient urban fabric? Things that Tokyo, gasp, already has? Bull.
In my opinion Individual autonomous vehicles will solve most transportation issues not Individual autonomous cars. Currently to transport 60-70 kg person we are moving 2 mton machines ie cars. And those 2 mton machines are in use for just 30-60 min a day.
Hot on the heels of causing traffic jams and so many crashes with pedestrians, cyclists, fire trucks...that the public were setting fire to them out of frustration from the lack of action by legislators whose pockets were stuffed full of cash from the self-driving car industry.
Let that sink in: people were so angry at their property, health, and safety put at risk as unconsenting "beta testers" that they set fire to one of the cars.
It wasn't a Waymo, but another self-driving car dragged a pedestrian who had been hit by another car, because it didn't have sensors that could detect something underneath the car. Either they decided it was too expensive, too challenging, or just didn't care.
If only there were some way to move people around with minimal labor. Oh wait, there is! A transit bus, which is one of the safest per-passenger-mile forms of transit there is.
If only there were some way to move people around without needing any labor, and with very high energy efficiency and safety. Oh wait, there is! automated subways, something that was being done in DC fifty years ago and had one crash.
I don't understand why people keep referring to self-driving cars as the "transportation of the future."
This not only doesn't solve congestion issues, it makes congestion worse by incentivizing the least energy and road-space efficient form of transportation there is.
Not only that, but there's the opportunity cost. What could we do with the tens of billions per year spent on these useless toys?
Answer: theoretically, ~10,000 electric transit buses per year. Or ~5-10,000 miles of high speed railway per year. That would be enough to build a complete ring of high speed rail around the country in one year - west coast, south and north borders, probably even down the middle of the country, etc. Both would have an immediate impact on the environment, equity in transportation, reduced congestion, and so on.
The United States: where we're the best at everything but have a long laundry list of all the things the rest of the world is doing that we have decided we can't do.
> Let that sink in: people were so angry at their property, health, and safety put at risk as unconsenting "beta testers" that they set fire to one of the cars.
Maybe the sort of person that would take that action isn't a credible actor.
Nothing about autonomous vehicles has ever prevented municipalities from improving public transit and in all likelihood, never will. They're two entirely separate pots of money by two entirely separate sets of organizations.
American transit sucks. It's sucked for decades. It's going to continue sucking as long as we keep playing this stupid game of "let's discuss maybe eventually building something in 50 years" that happens in every metro area. In the meantime, I'll keep commuting by public transit to my job developing autonomous vehicles.
[1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/CVDYknAXeeA6u4DP8
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