[HN Gopher] DMV approves Cruise and Waymo for commercial service... ___________________________________________________________________ DMV approves Cruise and Waymo for commercial service in parts of Bay Area Author : ra7 Score : 157 points Date : 2021-09-30 19:12 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.dmv.ca.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (www.dmv.ca.gov) | black_13 wrote: | Auto-de-fe : Zelazney https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-da- | Fe_(short_story) | asdff wrote: | Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving car? It | was always a joke in college how the dream was to get hit by a | university bus and have your tuition paid off in a huge | settlement. I'd imagine if a waymo car made its way around the | more desperate parts of the bay area like the tenderloin and | liability ends up shifting to huge company with billions of | dollars, we might end up with a Russia sort of situation in terms | of rampant insurance fraud. Maybe waymo et al will just respond | by never servicing these areas, which will no doubt open an | entire can of worms in the press and among the most virtuous | online. | 0_____0 wrote: | The cars themselves are studded with every kind of camera and | sensor you can imagine, it'd be pretty hard to pull of an | insurance scam | notatoad wrote: | >a russia sort of situation | | in russia the rampant insurance fraud ended in everybody | getting dashcams to defend themselves. waymo and cruise have | _way_ more than just a dashcam - if you can successfully commit | insurance fraud while being recorded on a dozen cameras as well | as lidar and infrared sensors, you probably deserve the | settlement. | asdff wrote: | Set a mark, people will aim for it. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving | car?_ | | Short answer: in the U.S., it will depend on the facts and | circumstances. Common law has many drawbacks. But organic | adaptability is one of its advantages. | whimsicalism wrote: | I mean, any pedestrian fatality will have a full 360 lidar | recording of the context. I suspect fraudulent claims could be | caught pretty easily. | asdff wrote: | How would you even discern fraud from the real thing? You | could just get drunk and act drunker then stumble onto the | road, you'd blow wet on the breathalyzer and the story is | plausible enough that a public jury will side with you, the | innocent guy on a night out or the guy down on his luck, over | scary robot car company, then a precedent will be set. | dragonwriter wrote: | > Who is liable when someone gets hit with a self driving car? | | While this is not exclusive of other liability, probably one or | both of: | | (1) The person hit, if they were breaking the law in a way | which made it unreasonable to expect a driver to avoid hitting | them, | | (2) The manufacturer of the self-driving vehicle, under normal | defective product liability principles. | | The owner and/or, where different, operator of the vehicle, as | well as other people in the chain of commerce may _also_ be | liable, especially when (2) applies. | amirhirsch wrote: | Can this be used to move cargo from place to place without people | in the car? | Vargohoat wrote: | Walmart already has a delivery pilot with an AV company (I | think in AZ?). I'm not sure if it's without safety drivers yet | though | somehnacct3757 wrote: | Given the hours of operation, I wonder what happens when your | self-driving car shows up with puke in the upholstery from a | previous rider | joe463369 wrote: | Open up your app. Hit 'Cancel ride', hit 'Unsanitary', wait for | the replacement taxi. Really, it's the same problem Amazon had | with delivering high value goods when people weren't in. If | something goes wrong, assume the customer is telling the truth | and try to make it right, but if they're at it, ban them from | your service. | bennyg wrote: | I'm sure they have a process for "car unsafe" arrivals. | asdff wrote: | Ironic how by 'saving money' without the human driving the car, | they end up probably spending a mountain more on engineers | debugging this software constantly along with cleaning staff | and maintenance for the entire fleet, legal staff for | regulatory issues, and no doubt a huge insurance bill to pay. | Sunk cost is a strong fallacy to see past I guess. | bagels wrote: | One driver, one car. One engineer, thousands of cars? | cromka wrote: | I don't think you grasp the scale of this change. You think | that this "mountain of engineers" will equal to the | (eventual) number of taxi drivers displaced? WORLDWIDE? | | Also, you think those engineers, capable of creating an | autonomous car, somehow will find it too difficult to install | liquid detectors all over the car and combine them with | cameras inside to would allow for instantaneous, remote | inspection of the car and imposing the penalties/taking the | car offline - all of which are possible with existing | technology? | asdff wrote: | All I'm saying is that when you look at other sectors with | low cost labor, smart money like mcdonalds had the tech | stack to replace their burger flippers with robots just | like the auto industry in the 1970s, so there's probably a | good reason why they still have human burger flippers | today. | jamez1 wrote: | It is logical to assume self driving cars start off in low risk | areas, prove their concept, and gradually take on more and more | use cases. Things like retirement villages and so on, where this | incremental approach has already had success. Skepticism is easy | when thinking about the grand scale but this incrementalism will | surely win out in the end. | kvogt wrote: | Cruise founder here. This is kind of confusing. Short version: | | - Cruise permit is for robo-taxi service, available to public | (fully driverless, nobody in the car) | | - Waymo permit is for robo-taxi service, available to public | (human safety driver behind the wheel at all times) | | - Nuro permit is for robo-delivery, available to public (no human | passengers) | guiomie wrote: | will you not have a robo-taxi service with human safety driver | at first? | [deleted] | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: | > The DMV has now approved three deployment permits. | | Waymo, Cruise, and who? | tschwimmer wrote: | Seems like Nuro.[0] | | [0]https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry- | services/auto... | badkitty99 wrote: | Get these robot cars off the road, no thank you | TrainedMonkey wrote: | > The California DMV said in a separate release that Cruise | driverless "vehicles are approved to operate on public roads | between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at a maximum speed limit of 30 miles | per hour." | | At night only testing at super low speed. It's a good way to get | started, but definitely not an autonomous taxi that title | implies. | grandmczeb wrote: | The speed limit for most residential and commercial streets in | SF is 25mph - something like 97% of all street segments in SF | have a limit of 30mph or lower. | jeffbee wrote: | Yes but it means a Cruise would not be able to jump on 280 | and take you to SFSU or whatever. | jonfromsf wrote: | Thats the easy part of self driving. | [deleted] | m463 wrote: | I think one interesting property about nighttime driving is | that lots of objects and markers are high contrast. Lights of | other cars, highway markings, what can be illuminated by | headlights/etc | | (aside from folks crossing the street in non-reflective dark | clothing) | | I think the worst time to drive - as a human - is right when | the sun is coming up or going down, or under tree cover when | you go into and out of shadow. | dreamcompiler wrote: | Some recognition tasks might be easier at night but I expect | that's not the reason permission was granted for those hours. | It's almost certainly because there's less other traffic (and | fewer pedestrians) at night. | nielsbot wrote: | Aren't they relying on LIDAR tho? Night/day all (roughly) | same. | cromka wrote: | I'd imagine they use both to improve accuracy. | akira2501 wrote: | > I think the worst time to drive - as a human - is right | when the sun is coming up or going down, or under tree cover | when you go into and out of shadow. | | Fatal accidents do indeed spike around these times, although | they seem to be worse in the evenings than mornings, and more | pronounced in southern states than northern ones. | Retric wrote: | 30MPH isn't super low speeds, it's plenty fast for collisions | to be dangerous. | heavyset_go wrote: | For reference, a fall from about 30ft would take about 1.4 | seconds and you'd reach a velocity of 30mph. | vkou wrote: | For car-pedestrian, car-bicycle, and car-motorbike | collisions, yes. | | For car-car collisions, not really. Yes, getting into a head- | on 30-30 MPH collision is pretty bad, but you're more than | likely going to walk away from it, especially if you're in | the back seat. | [deleted] | google234123 wrote: | "Pitt et al. (1990) examined about 1,000 urban crashes with | pedestrians younger than 20 years of age taken from NHTSA's | Pedestrian Injury Causation Study (PICS) data. They found | that, compared to crashes with vehicle travel speeds of 10 | - 19 mph, the risk of serious injury (or death) was 2.1 for | speeds of 20 - 29 mph, 7.2 for speeds of 30 - 39 mph, and | 30.7 for speeds of 40 mph or more." | | https://one.nhtsa.gov/people/injury/research/pub/hs809012.h | t... | mym1990 wrote: | Have been a statistic in all of these buckets, can | confirm that hitting things at faster speeds causes more | injuries heh | appletrotter wrote: | Really not sure how valid this 30 year old study is | anymore! | bagels wrote: | I think that is a good point, as materials and pedestrian | safety features of cars have changed. Seems unlikely the | relationship between speed and severity would change too | though. | zerocrates wrote: | Presumably from the title it's about a car hitting a | pedestrian... I doubt there's been much significant | innovation in that kind of safety since the 90s. | | Features to prevent/alert to collisions, sure, but I'd | assume this is about hitting someone when going X speed; | surely that's pretty similar now and then. | darwinwhy wrote: | In fact it's probably gotten worse with the growth in | size of US cars. Larger cars kill pedestrians and | cyclists at higher rates. | renewiltord wrote: | There were active changes to cars to reduce pedestrian | harm. The most visible is probably the ban of pop up | headlamps. | | Not taking a position on the study. Just felt like | sharing. | tialaramex wrote: | I actually bounced off a car with modern safety maybe 10 | years ago or so, trashed a good jacket but I wasn't even | shaken enough to bother getting looked over at an Urgent | Care, I continued walking to lunch. Not a high speed | collision of course, it was a quiet inner city street and | I looked the wrong way (one way street, I looked where | cars should be if it was a two way street, oops), but I | suspect a 1970s car would have been markedly worse for a | pedestrian. | | One key trick other than the pop-up headlamps going away, | was a gap between the bodywork and harder internal | surfaces. As I understand it that goes something like | this: | | Think about a large steel panel such as a car bonnet | (hood?), obviously it's no comfort blanket, smacking into | that isn't a good idea, but it will bend and absorb lots | of energy during impact. Now, think about an engine | block, that's not going to bend at all. In a desire to | give a more stream-lined look, older cars would mount | that large panel almost touching the engine block and | other large stiff elements, because why not. Well, dead | pedestrians is why not. If you add a gap that gap absorbs | lots of energy that otherwise is going to cause injuries | to a pedestrian. I can't prove it, but I credit that for | the difference between walking away with a damaged jacket | and spending the rest of my working day in A&E being told | I'm not dying so can't cut to the front of the queue, but | I'm also not OK and so mustn't leave yet. | zerocrates wrote: | Crumple zones (or their British English equivalent if | there is one) are a definite change from "classic" | designs but my feeling is they were mostly in place by | the 90s... but I could be misremembering. | heavyset_go wrote: | There are also changes that increase pedestrian harm, | like the arms race in the height of front ends of SUVs[1] | and trucks. | | Recent trends in vehicle purchases also increase | pedestrian harm, as the popularity of sedans has waned in | favor of SUVs and trucks. These days 72% of vehicle sales | are for SUVs and trucks[2], and the trend is expected to | continue into the future. | | [1] https://www.codot.gov/safety/traffic-safety- | pulse/2019/march... | | [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/business/suv- | sales-best-s... | akira2501 wrote: | 1/6 of fatal accidents are vehicle vs. pedestrian. I don't | have great data on motorcycles, but speed and or alcohol | are the most common factors in those accidents as opposed | to other vehicles. | KorematsuFredt wrote: | If it is San Fransisco city than 30 MPH is not bad at all. I do | not imagine other cars driving > 40mph. | spike021 wrote: | People have been crushed and killed just when their stopped car | starts moving because it wasn't parked in gear or with their | parking brake engaged. | | Speed being "slow" or "fast" here is unrelated. | stooliepidgin wrote: | Anton Yelchin | spike021 wrote: | Exactly who I was thinking of as a well-known example. | toufka wrote: | Of course speed is related to safety. See page 2 for the | actual data: | | https://www.littlerock.gov/media/2484/the-relation- | between-s... | spike021 wrote: | My point, however, was that the parent poster didn't seem | to think so. | sfblah wrote: | I signed up for the waitlist to use this in San Francisco. Anyone | here work at Waymo and know when/if I might get approved? I'm | curious to try it out. | stooliepidgin wrote: | Driverless cars with passengers operating on the streets with | pedestrians, insane taxi drivers, and the prototypical BMW cell- | phone-shouting suit with a buzz-cut who just drive around | everyone like they're not there. How could this possibly go | wrong? | zabzonk wrote: | How mad would you have to be to get into one of these? | raldi wrote: | This is what people once said about elevators, airplanes, | bicycles... | | How mad would you have to be to keep riding in human-driven | taxis after the data shows AVs to be safer? | asdff wrote: | Honestly for the early ones those people were right. | raldi wrote: | If, after a year of testing, autonomous taxis prove to be | exactly half as dangerous as human-driven taxis, would you | ride in one? | asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: | At 30mph max in the back seat with the belt on? Not that mad I | reckon. | zabzonk wrote: | As opposed to having one with a human driver? | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _As opposed to having one with a human driver?_ | | Given some of my recent Uber drivers in the Bay Area, I | reckon a blender would be a safer ride. | asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: | I dunno? I guess I'd have to look at the statistics. My | sense is that the Waymo vehicles at least are statistically | safer than a human driver at these speeds, although not as | competent. (I.e. they are less likely to cause an accident, | but more likely to encounter a situation they can't handle | and get stuck.) | asdff wrote: | I'd love to see these vehicles handle situations where | pedestrians or debris are all over the road. Like in | front of a busy bar, construction area, or homeless camp. | To the best of my knowledge the environments they've been | test driving in have been pretty controlled and orderly | and they still manage to find people to run over. | EchoAce wrote: | Wait, I see them everywhere in SF and in completely | random places too... | young_unixer wrote: | For reference: 30 mph [?] 48.2 km/h | mike_d wrote: | "In order to receive a deployment permit, manufacturers must [... | Develop] a Law Enforcement Interaction Plan that provides | information to law enforcement and other first responders on how | to interact with the autonomous vehicles." | | So they get to write the rules on how law enforcement interacts | with their vehicles? Can I do that too? | slownews45 wrote: | Yes - you may be able to. | | This involves automatically pulling over and stopping the | vehicle when a cop is behind the car and flashes their lights. | The vehicle will also roll down its windows so the cops can | access the interior of the vehicle and have easy access to | passengers. | | This also links in rider support automatically to communicate | directly to law enforcement / rider support can also provide | various commands to vehicle then. | | They can also open a door, which triggers a an autonomos | driving cutout. They can also contact these folks directly to | gain access (ie, remote unlock etc). | | To retrofit your vehicle so that law enforcement has this type | of direct access may take some effort, but I doubt you'd have | much objection - there currently is a real issue with drive | offs and law enforcements ability to respond to those under | vehicle chase rules. If you can set up your vehicle to override | your drive-off efforts that will probably be welcomed, | especially if it pulls over, stops, can unlock doors to provide | LEO access to your person etc. | | Separately, rider support can give permission for a vehicle | search as the owner of the vehicle, so you'd want to register | vehicle with a service that would give consent automatically | and then provide instructions on where to find registration and | insurance in vehicle. Waymo I beleive does it on the visors. | | I'm not sure you fully grasp the implications of Law | Enforcement Interaction Protocol efforts. In the future, the | car may be able to drive you to a "safe" location for a car | search and your arrest. | mike_d wrote: | Which should be codified into law based on police | requirements with an eye as to what is legal. | | Police procedures should not be developed by way of an | agreement between the state and a private company, who is in | a position to error on the side of cooperation because they | need a license. It is similar to the state granting a | locksmith a license to practice under the condition that law | enforcement be provided with copies to every key just in case | they need them. | | There are some serious Fourth Amendment considerations when | traveling in a vehicle for hire without a driver. Is a Waymo | closer to a private automobile with implied consent, or is it | similar to a bus where you can deny consent to a search? Is | the provider (or virtual driver) in a position to consent to | a search of your property? Is the virtual assistant that | opened the doors and consented to a search now in a position | to be charged with transporting narcotics for distrubtion? | Who's license gets dinged if the passenger has no seatbelt? | bpodgursky wrote: | Do you really think this is helpful (much less a charitable) | interpretation? | | This is asking the manufacturers for a user manual, like how to | disable auto-piloting etc. | mindslight wrote: | At a time when it seems that police are unwilling to | interface with regular human drivers, to the point they | suggest that drivers need to preemptively place both their | hands on the wheel so officers don't become spooked, it's | reasonable to ask why companies get to specify deliberate | procedures. As in, why isn't the attack first and ask | questions later standard good enough for them too? | wutbrodo wrote: | > to the point they suggest that drivers need to place both | their hands on the wheel so officers don't become spooked, | it's reasonable to ask why companies get deliberate | procedures. | | I don't understand. Isn't "place both hands on the wheel, | show me your license", etc precisely a "deliberate | procedure"? It sounds like your complaint is that police | are too procedural instead of engaging on a human level, | but then you complain that theyre not _more_ procedural | with humans? | mindslight wrote: | I'm talking about who is setting the procedures, not | simply their existence. | | With autonomous vehicles, they're asking how to interface | with them politely. Like if they signal one to stop and | it's not stopping, here is a phone number to call where | someone can gracefully shut it down. As opposed to just | deploying spike strips or ramming as is their default. | | Whereas human drivers don't get the luxury of specifying | any such protocols. And rather than reform their own | procedures, police are attempting to compensate by | creating protocols drivers are supposed to know and | follow before an officer is even at the car. | | As a motorist I'd love to be able to choose a protocol | that police would follow when pulling me over. Perhaps: | call this phone number first rather than just walking up | to me and risking yourself getting spooked and me getting | killed. | modeless wrote: | Information, not rules. | hardwaregeek wrote: | Has there been any attempts to make hybrid autonomous train-cars? | Like some sort of enclosed road/track highway or a caravan? Seems | like a more safe goal versus the chaos that is urban | environments. | heavyset_go wrote: | Electric trolleys existed in many cities in the past. | asdff wrote: | There are already automatic subway systems. You could make BRT | autonomous pretty easily too since it runs on its own separated | grade in a fixed route. You could throw down some sensors in | the road surface and call it a day like the technology used in | the new disneyland star wars ride. | apendleton wrote: | As another responder said, lots of subways are autonomous, but | if you're thinking of a car- _sized_ thing on a train guideway, | these have been proposed but only a small number of actually | been built: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit | gumby wrote: | The point release says they have issued three permits. Which is | the third? | czr wrote: | nuro https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry- | services/auto... | gumby wrote: | Thanks. I see them driving around the neighborhood but | haven't noticed anyone in the back seat, driver only. | Animats wrote: | Nuro has little self-driving delivery vehicles. But someone | has to come out to them and take the stuff out, so they're | not all that useful. | darkwizard42 wrote: | Hm. Not sure I would say that... there really isn't a one- | size fits all unloading mechanism across trucking/delivery | and there will be a human involved in that process till we | really really standardized. | | The value is now cutting the labor number by 1/3rd. Need a | loader and unloader, no more driver. In food delivery this | essentially removes your labor cost since the restaurant | and consumer are the loader/unloader. | philovivero wrote: | Zero comments? | | When the robotic overlords take over, it will not be to | thunderous applause nor loud protestations, but rather quietly | beneath the surface silence of billions of people distracted by | something more interesting or enticing. | reidjs wrote: | It's self driving cars, not autonomous governments. Considering | how distracted and impaired the average driver is, this might | be a godsend. | Falling3 wrote: | You think no comments within 20 minutes of posting is enough to | make that kind of claim over? | yalogin wrote: | > Verifying the technology is capable of detecting and responding | to roadway situations in compliance with the California Vehicle | Code, and a description of how the vehicle meets the definition | of an SAE Level 3, 4 or 5 autonomous technology. | | How does the company prove this? Are there detailed criteria | listed somewhere that these companies should then prove to meet? | AFAIK, its all self reported. I mean, if the company is confident | it can do it, I guess it's a good thing, but is it enough? | sykseh wrote: | Johnnycab: Hello I'm Johnnycab, where can I take you tonight? | Doug Quaid: Drive, drive! Johnnycab: Would you please repeat the | destination? Doug Quaid: Anywhere, just go, GO! Doug Quaid: SHIT, | SHIT!!! Doug Quaid: SHIT, SHIT! Johnnycab: Im not familiar with | that address, would you please repeat the destination? | tlb wrote: | Having to verbally specify your destination address was always | a lousy UX. Uber's UX where you enter it in an app is much | better and allows using your address book, upcoming calendar | entry, or searching by name. | obilgic wrote: | > https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1442706542839701510 | | And Tesla is rolling out FSD beta to cars based on drivers' | safety score. | esturk wrote: | Marketplace actually had a segment this morning on this and why | it's misleading. https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace- | tech/teslas-fu... | adfrhgeaq5hy wrote: | Have you watched the footage of the current "beta"? It's a | scam. It runs into stationary objects. It drives into oncoming | traffic. It runs red lights, makes illegal turns, drives | straight toward other cars, and can't stay on the road. And | that's footage _recorded and edited by Tesla 's biggest fans_. | | "Full Self Driving" does not exist. Every indication is that it | never will. | | I still can't believe no one's gone to prison over this. | Tesla's "self driving" features are probably the biggest fraud | in history with a body count to match. | dzader wrote: | lol | colinmhayes wrote: | People are terrible at driving. Releasing a half baked | product to get data needed to improve it makes complete sense | and deserves to be encouraged, even if people die. Because it | the end it's likely that many lives will be saved. | adfrhgeaq5hy wrote: | You don't get to smash a 4,000 pound explosive into a | preschool because you want to gather data. | colinmhayes wrote: | If that data saves more lives it seems like a positive to | me. | adfrhgeaq5hy wrote: | If you ever find yourself in a position of power, please | write these thoughts down. The prosecutor will find them | helpful. | | We aren't dealing with hypothetical scenarios here. We | are dealing with a real company that is really killing | people in cold blood. People do not have the right to | kill others because they guesstimate it's worth it. On | planet Earth, not planet PH101, that's called murder. | | And that's being charitable. I don't believe for a second | that Tesla's victims are sacrifices for the greater good. | Tesla's technology is a dead end and the motivation is | pumping the stock price. | gibolt wrote: | The difference is scalability. Tesla can manufacture full | equipped vehicles faster and for much cheaper. There are also | already 1.5mil vehicles that could be turned on. They do not | rely on HD maps. | | Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise, they can | quickly dominate the driverless market. | wutbrodo wrote: | > Even if they arrive 1-2 years later than Waymo/Cruise | | It's tough to anchor Tesla's arrival based on the rest of the | industry's progress. Cruise and Waymo are heavily dependent | on Lidar; Tesla is solving a fairly different technological | problem. | ra7 wrote: | > Tesla can manufacture full equipped vehicles faster and for | much cheaper. There are also already 1.5mil vehicles that | could be turned on. | | This sounds like premature optimization. The real unsolved | problem here is autonomous technology (software and | hardware), not manufacturing equipped vehicles. No point | having millions of vehicles if your self driving technology | doesn't actually work. | | > They do not rely on HD maps. | | Precisely why FSD doesn't work and is still level 2. The AV | players have shown fully autonomous driving needs HD maps and | (inconspicuously) the only one not to graduate out of level 2 | self driving is the one that's not using HD maps -- Tesla. | Creating/maintaining HD maps isn't nearly as hard as you | think it is, but the benefits are incredible for safe | driving. | [deleted] | serioussecurity wrote: | Tesla is 5 years behind and has no plans to begin work on a | number of the key challenges they're facing. | cheeze wrote: | What does this mean? Hasn't Tesla been selling FSD beta for | like 5 years now? | | I don't really trust anything Elon says anymore. I feel like | he's not followed through on commitments about FSD far too many | times. I'd personally never buy a TSLA until they get things | much more in order (build quality/fit and finish, and actually | deliver FSD) | jsight wrote: | This version is much more advanced than their previous | versions, but I generally agree with you. Its nowhere close | to being able to get you through most drives without | assistance. | dcow wrote: | For the vast majority of people Tesla's vehicles are a | practical, real, available, easy, modern, electric, car | experience that are _a near drop in replacement_ for ICE | vehicles because you can road trip with them. There are zero | competing offerings _available today_ that have the range of | a Tesla and an extensive associated integrated hi-amperage | charging network. The only gripe is that FSD hasn 't been | delivered on the projected timelines (and may never be). I | suspect you wouldn't buy a Tesla based on moonshot FSD claims | anyway, so what's holding you back? The Elon hate train? | rsj_hn wrote: | The reason why "the vast majority of people" are not | considering purchasing an electric vehicle have to do with | uncertainty about the charging experience and long term | maintenance and repair costs. It has nothing to do with | FSD. | | Once the costs of ownership are well understood, that | uncertainly will be resolved and the cars can be priced | correctly. That will take time -- if I buy a 10 year old | corolla with 100K miles I will know (after the usual | mechanic inspection) what my expected maintenance costs | will be, on average, for the next 5 years of ownership. | | You can't really say that for an out-of-warantee Tesla | because there isn't a large group of independent mechanics | that can service it and because there is a lot of | uncertainty about the battery life and service costs. Over | time, if Teslas remain popular, and if the company doesn't | DRM them out of existence, such networks will develop and | we will accumulate actuarial data on repair costs that will | reduce risk. | | Until then, this market will remain primarily one of price | insensitive or risk-insensitive customers -- e.g. wealthier | people and possibly government or other large corporate | fleet sales. That is exactly what you would expect for new | technologies. But for most people, a car is a major | proportion of their networth, one they need to get to work, | and so they are going to be risk averse (which is exactly | what they should be). | | My next car will most likely be a 10 year old Lexus or | Acura product. Even if it's a different manufacturer it | will be an ICE vehicle and not an electric vehicle. | Purchasing an out of warranty Tesla isn't remotely close to | a viable option as it's not possible for me to price it. | But used car prices drive new car prices because most | purchasers are not planning on driving the car until it has | zero value, they are counting on the used car market to pay | for half of their car purchasing costs. Really for new | technologies, Tesla should focus on leasing their cars if | they want to reach out beyond the price insensitive market. | dcow wrote: | I'm suggesting that people _are_ buying Teslas. I | honestly can 't go on a 5-10 min drive these days without | seeing one or two (more and more every week it seems | like) and I don't live in some particularly affluent | upper-middle-class area. Buying them just makes sense to | a lot of people for various reasons. Most aren't worried | about FSD and the track record so far for Tesla total | cost of ownership seems to lean in Tesla's favor. The | motor in a Tesla literally has one moving part... they | don't need regular maintenance like an ICE engine with | lubricants and sparkers and belts and fluids and | transmissions. Even the brakes don't wear the same way | because induction is breaking the car 99% of the time. | The only big question for me is when does the battery | lose so much charge that it affects the range quality of | life and if that were to happen does the price of | replacing it make sense (I am generally pretty optimistic | that battery prices will have dropped in 8 years) or does | it become a shorter range around town car (kept or sold | as such) and we get a new one with fresh range. Even at | half the range it's still directly competitive with all | other EVs out there today, so that's a thing too. | rsj_hn wrote: | What percent of car owners drive Teslas? There are ~300 | million vehicles on the roads in the US. Pre chip | shortage, ~17 million new cars sold each year. Of those, | electric vehicles are what, 2% of the new car market and | ~0.6% of the total market (used car market is twice as | large as the new car market)? That is not "the vast | majority of people". | | Where I live I see FJ cruisers, Porsches, and Bentleys | every day, but I understand that my area is not typical. | It's a wealthy area in which offroading is very popular. | I also see Teslas and BMWs (more Mercedes than BMW and | more BMW than Tesla). | | I also understand that those cars tend to be more | memorable, so it's foolish to pretend that FJ Cruisers, | Porsches, or Bentleys are suitable for _the vast majority | of the public_ just because they seem suitable for many | people in _my area_. In the same way, perhaps you should | recalibrate your expectations as well when extrapolating | based on what you see in _your_ area. | | Now what prevents a Porsche or Bentley from being | suitable is that these are for niche performance or price | insensitive markets. But what prevents something like the | Tesla from being suitable is the charging network and | repairability uncertainty. With a Bentley, you know you | will pay through the nose for repairs which is why | Bentleys depreciate so massively. But with Toyotas you | know their reputation for durability, which is why used | FJ Cruisers cost more than used Bentleys. But how much | should a used Tesla go for? I honestly don't know -- and | neither does anyone else right now. Unless you have a lot | of money to play around with, that's too much of a risk. | You don't spend 15-20% of your household net worth on | something that you can't price. | m463 wrote: | The "safety score" is a really really creepy thing. Not only | that they are using it for this, but that they're collecting | this data in the first place. | brianwawok wrote: | Uh, they only collect if you literally approve it on a full | page popup that explains what the safety score is and how | data is shared. | | Just to clarify your position, you want to hand over beta car | driving software to people that do not first pass a test for | safe driving? | basisword wrote: | Nobody can drive a car without passing a test demonstrating | they can drive safely. If passing the government approved | driving test doesn't make someone good enough to use your | software it probably shouldn't be allowed on the road. | EastOfTruth wrote: | Tesla is getting some real competition | brianwawok wrote: | You can buy the Waymo software as a consumer, and put it in | your own car right now? | EastOfTruth wrote: | no but I can't do that with Tesla software either .... I | can with comma.ai though.... | adfrhgeaq5hy wrote: | I'll sell you a self-driving car. Please be advised that it | will drive into walls, fail to brake for stationary | obstacles, drive straight off the road, and is in fact a | Saturn with a brick on the gas pedal. I didn't say it was a | _good_ self-driving car. | | Tesla doesn't have competition because they aren't in the | game at all. They do not make self-driving cars and | probably never will. | EastOfTruth wrote: | eventually, you won't have to buy a car... there will be | self-driving cars everywhere waiting for you to hop on. | modeless wrote: | Huh, Cruise got a permit for "between 10 PM and 6 AM" up to 30 | MPH, while Waymo got no time limit and 65 MPH. Presumably | Cruise's permit is actually for the 6 AM to 10 PM time period and | not the 10 PM to 6 AM one! | mindslight wrote: | Why presumably? 10PM-6AM is a much easier time to drive around. | And it's not like they'd be going for daylight hours the other | way. | modeless wrote: | Well, because this is a permit for commercial service, not | testing. They already have a testing permit. A commercial | service that only operates in the middle of the night would | not be very successful. | [deleted] | toast0 wrote: | A commercial service in the middle of the night would be a | great complement to scheduled public transit which tapers | off in the evening. | modeless wrote: | Public transit tapers off because demand drops off. There | will be a spike around closing time for bars but it seems | unlikely that you'd want to launch a whole commercial | service just based on that. | dragonwriter wrote: | Presumably, they want to launch a commercial service to | get some real-world data and a foot in the door; the | intent is to expand both time and geography. | bradlys wrote: | > Public transit tapers off because demand drops off. | There will be a spike around closing time for bars but it | seems unlikely that you'd want to launch a whole | commercial service just based on that. | | Public transit is also based on an order of magnitude | larger transport. You're talking about buses that are | made to move 50-100 people or trains made to move | hundreds... not a car that will be moving 1-3. The reason | many routes get cut down isn't because there's no demand | at all - it's because the demand is below the threshold | to run the service profitably. If you can cut down on the | cost to run the service by cutting the driver out, making | the vehicle cheaper to run the route, and so forth... the | route will come back. | | I think this service will do fine. This is one the issues | that SF has in a large part. Very hard to get around at | night because public transit is dead before midnight. | simfree wrote: | Busses rarely run at a profit, if your metro service is | very lucky user fares cover half the cost of bus service | (lookup farebox recovery ratio), hence some US bus | systems going fare free since it makes a minimal | difference financially. | bradlys wrote: | > Busses rarely run at a profit | | Semantics. Profit, net zero, sustainable with tax | dollars, etc. | | Doesn't matter. You get the idea dude. It's about routes | not being worthwhile because the damn transport option is | too costly for just a few people. Autonomous car is gonna | be more effective for these scenarios. | loeg wrote: | Sure, but they still care about cost and utility. | toast0 wrote: | Rather than profitability, perhaps the right metric is | utilization. | | Even if you don't care about the revenue, having only a | handful of people on the bus per run in the evening makes | it hard to justify the cost of operating the line. Having | other options to get home is great. | Vargohoat wrote: | > it seems unlikely that you'd want to launch a whole | commercial service just based on that. | | You're thinking about this the wrong way. There's immense | value in getting _any_ commercial service out there, not | just in PR but in a full end-to-end test of all the | ops/logistical/product/etc that come from having to deal | with customers in reality. A good chunk of a decade and | billions of dollars have been poured into the research | behind these services. I doubt anyone at Cruise or Waymo | cares or even expects these limited services to be | profitable, but that's entirely missing the point. | oblio wrote: | > great compliment | | Great complement. Otherwise your comment becomes very | confusing :-) | Vargohoat wrote: | > A commercial service that only operates in the middle of | the night would not be very successful. | | I doubt they're going straight for the meatiest market. A | commercial service of any sort would be a huge coup for a | self-driving car co (as the Tempe launch was for Waymo). In | SF's case, it also provides a foothold in a market that's | actually economically sustainable. Once the technology | reaches the point where more complex and crowded scenes can | be handled safely, expanding is relatively trivial compared | to spinning up from scratch. | mindslight wrote: | I see where you're coming from. Although it could still be | a type of scale-up testing or congestion control. What | would be the point of not permitting overnight service | though? | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _commercial service that only operates in the middle of | the night would not be very successful_ | | 10pm to 6am covers late evening to last call. | bberenberg wrote: | Waymo has a safety driver, Cruise does not. | bagels wrote: | They have recently been operating without one. | flappysolutions wrote: | They've been operating without safety drivers in Phoenix, | but not in SF. AFAIK, every Waymo car in SF has had a | safety driver in it. Cruise has been testing driverless | rides the past few months in that timeframe/speed limit. | modeless wrote: | This release does not indicate a requirement for Waymo to | have a safety driver. I don't think there is such a | requirement. | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: | Why does night seem less likely? I'd expect many of the sensors | work equally well or better (no sun interference) at night, and | there will be a lot fewer other cars to crash into/cause a | traffic jam when the car shuts down and has to be recovered. | colpabar wrote: | > _Cruise in March submitted the applications for driverless | operations, whereas Waymo in January applied for autonomous | vehicle deployment with safety drivers behind the wheel._ | | Wow, driverless actually means no driver here. But how does that | work? What if it makes a mistake? Is there some fallback pilot | somewhere that can take over and control it remotely? | tacomonstrous wrote: | According to the DMV press release (submitted elsewhere on HN), | this is incorrect: | | >Waymo is authorized to use a fleet of light-duty autonomous | vehicles for commercial services within parts of San Francisco | and San Mateo counties. The vehicles are approved to operate on | public roads with a speed limit of no more than 65 mph and can | also operate in rain and light fog. Waymo has had state | authority to test autonomous vehicles on public roads with a | safety driver since 2014 and received a driverless testing | permit in October 2018. | [deleted] | icyfox wrote: | Waymo has a similar approach in Phoenix. Passengers can't | directly intervene but can call tech support and they'll | dispatch roadside assistance to override the car and drive it | to safety. Will be interesting to see if Cruise copies this | same model. | kreeben wrote: | >> can't directly intervene but can call tech support | | "Hi, yeah, car's gone berserk, we're approaching a river, all | doors are locked, can't get out, need assistance." | | "Hi, thank you for calling. Please hold (your breath)." | raldi wrote: | What would be your plan if a taxi driver went berserk and | did that? | | What makes you believe the autonomous car is more likely | than a human driver to do that? | mountainboy wrote: | 1. not get in the car in the first place. unless proven | out by 10+ years of human guinea pigs not getting killed. | | 2. life experience, software expertise, common sense. | thenewwazoo wrote: | Lots of people used to feel this way about automated | elevators. | | https://medium.com/swlh/what-do-self-driving-cars-and- | elevat... | tialaramex wrote: | Right, it's eerily similar. People say this about | automated railways too. And as with the elevator on your | hundredth trip you are not thinking "Oh no, this is | automated, it might kill me", because _of course_ it 's | automated, you're thinking about whether Jim meant to | complement you or it was intended as an insult last | night, and did you bolt the back door? | ggreer wrote: | I've tried to find the original source of that claim and | come up missing. All of the online articles either don't | reference a source or they eventually link to an out of | print book.[1] | | At this point I'm pretty sure it's not true. If past | public sentiment was so against automatic elevators, | there would be at least one newspaper clipping or | digitized article. | | 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25585122 | dragonwriter wrote: | Wait, when in the history of taxis were there 10+ years | of humans not being killed by taxi drivers? | | Certainly not any _recent_ (consecutive) 10-year period. | dhosek wrote: | It's pretty rare though. It's far more likely that the | taxi driver will be killed by a passenger. | shkkmo wrote: | Isn't Waymo also starting the same service in parts of San | Francisco? | asah wrote: | with safety drivers = not the same | shkkmo wrote: | Nope, they announced driveless bay area testing several | weeks back. A recent press release confirms this. [0] | | Waymo is allowed to test at all hours, in rain and light | fog, within a limited geographic area. | | [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28710098 | andrewnc wrote: | Anecdata here, but every waymo car I've seen here in SF | for the past several weeks (probably 30+ cars) has had a | safety driver. | godelski wrote: | Didn't they have "chase" cars in the beginning? Maybe I'm | thinking of a different company. Cars that would follow | around the driverless cars and could respond immediately if | something happened. | TulliusCicero wrote: | Waymo also has remote driving navigators/coaches who don't | directly steer the car, but can tell it where to go | navigation-wise. | dobs_bob wrote: | How long does it take the "safety driver" to react at 65mph? | wutbrodo wrote: | Per TFA, they're limited to 30 MPH and will not have safety | drivers. | | And obviously the launch is conditioned on regulators' belief | that the system can handle reacting, to a degree of safety | that's similar to human drivers: otherwise they wouldn't get | the permit. The reaction time of safety drivers is not what | this approval pivots on. | | Though obviously the interesting question is: how did the | company and the regulators get to this level of confidence in | the system's safety | matttb wrote: | They are referring to the multiple parts in 'TFA' talking | about Waymo using safety drivers and a 65mph limit. | wutbrodo wrote: | Ah, thanks for clarifying. That makes way more sense. | | BTW, you seem to have been reading TFA as some sort of | snark. It's a pretty well-established bit of internet | jargon that's (at least in my experience) more winking than | aggressive at this pt. | unchocked wrote: | Between the noise of self-driving singularlists, and that of | self-driving impossibilists, it's great to see plodding, | sequential progress like this. | Animats wrote: | Yes. I've been saying that for a few years, as Waymo's | disconnect rate improved by a factor of 2 every 18 months or | so. This is a hard engineering problem. Now that the "fake it | til you make it" clowns have dropped out, there's real | progress. | ddp26 wrote: | The _reported_ disengage rate has improved a lot, but Waymo | only reports disengagements it classifies as "related to | safety", based on proprietary analysis and counterfactual | simulations it does not share. | kstrauser wrote: | What's the "disconnect rate"? | exporectomy wrote: | Disengagement rate. | klodolph wrote: | I believe it's how often the system requires human | intervention... e.g., once per 1,000 miles, or once per 250 | hours, or something like that. | oblio wrote: | I think most reasonable people aren't against self-driving, | they don't consider it impossible. | | They're generally against "create a self-driving startup in | 2021, IPO by 2024 at the latest". That's just snake oil | salesmanship. | smnrchrds wrote: | Also against the "move fast and crush into things, and | people" attitude some of them have. | smegcicle wrote: | that's one way to both increase and decrease the homeless | population | gfodor wrote: | Robocars shuttling around actual people in SF at night in 2021 | seems like it should surprise a lot of people who have been | skeptics. The road to full, global, universal autonomy will | probably take decades if we are going to use that as the | standard, but the standard of being certain that autonomy will | eat the world seems to be getting very close to being met. | mountainboy wrote: | until the first pedestrian gets killed... | summerlight wrote: | Tesla already did it. No one seems to care? | notatoad wrote: | I don't remember in incident where a Tesla killed a | pedestrian? | | I know Uber did, and now they don't have a self-driving car | program anymore. not necessarily causation, but it can't | have helped. | jefftk wrote: | _> not necessarily causation, but it can 't have helped_ | | I do think it was causal: when the official report came | out it was clear that their system was completely | inappropriate for autonomous driving. | https://www.jefftk.com/p/uber-self-driving-crash | jlmorton wrote: | Because we don't know if it did it. All we know is that a | Tesla was involved with a fatal crash involving a person | changing their tire on the Long Island Expressway. [1] | | There's been no confirmation whether Autopilot was enabled. | | [1] https://apnews.com/article/technology- | business-6127ae797c528... | summerlight wrote: | Just in case you're not aware of, Tesla has a long | history of fatal cases driven by Autopilot[1] with the | first case below: This entire incident | occurred without any actual input or action taken by the | driver of the Tesla vehicle, except that the driver had | his hands on the steering wheel as measured by Tesla's | Autosteer system. Indeed, the Tesla Model X was equipped | with an Event Data Recorder (EDR) which is intended to | enable Tesla to collect data and record information from | its vehicles and also provides information on various | processes of the vehicle's functioning systems when a | crash occurs. The information regarding vehicle speed as | extracted from the Tesla Model X provides proof of the | foregoing facts[2] | | [1] https://www.tesladeaths.com/ [2] | https://www.courthousenews.com/wp- | content/uploads/2020/04/Te... | peter422 wrote: | >10 pedestrians are killed each year by human drivers in SF, | and almost exclusively they are the drivers fault (not only | by definition, but also based on an impartial assessment of | the situations). | | People will not care, and I also do not think these automated | cars are going to kill any pedestrians anyways. | DamnYuppie wrote: | Agreed most people will not care. The legacy auto | manufacturers and their mainstream media lap dogs will jump | all over it. There will be an outpouring of fabricated | outrage. It is all so predictable I want to puke. | jjulius wrote: | Take a deep breathe, you're going to be OK. | wutbrodo wrote: | The legacy manufacturers are pretty invested in the self- | driving space at this point though, no? Cruise itself is | owned by Honda and GM, among others. I believe waymo has | similar investors. | | I think we'll see a situation more like nicotine vapes. | Instead of trying to crush the industry, big cigarette | manufacturers just bought them. | amznthrwaway wrote: | You "want to puke" because of a response to a problem, | where you're simply imagining both the problem _and_ the | response? | | Calm down. | ajsnigrutin wrote: | > People will not care | | I don't believe that. | | One pregnant woman gets hi, and she and her unborn child | die, and there will be so much anger and pressure on the | politcians, everything will get outlawed. | | Human drivers are individuals... John Doe killed someone, | blame John Doe. Autonomous car kills someone, blame all | autonomous cars! | vmception wrote: | Consensus is a gradient, and representative consensus is | multiple gradients. | oblio wrote: | Techies are a very narrow band in any of these gradients. | | Regular people are very wide bands, and there's a reason | horror sci-fi movies where robots kill humankind are | extremely popular. | gfodor wrote: | You're both right and wrong at the same time. The media | gets to decide, as always, what we're collectively | outraged about. Or to be more specific, the people who | control the media. So if you want to predict if people | are going to care when someone gets killed by a robocar, | it depends on who stands to make or lose money if they do | or don't. | bagels wrote: | People will care a disproportionate amount, I think. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | If you're setting the over-under at 0.5, I'll take the | over... | akira2501 wrote: | It's very easy to just distribute waste using these systems. | I'm still not convinced by the single-vehicle on-demand for | single-rider model. | | There's got to be a way to make public transportation stop | being the least attractive option in low to medium density | urban settings. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-09-30 23:00 UTC)