Waymo

[Doggydogworld]

With the new president of Alphabet coming in and cracking the whip, I doubt Waymo will enter tortoise mode.

Ruth Porat is a finance type. Bean counter, to use the pejorative. She thinks in terms of P&L and cost controls. She wants to reduce losses. Stop the bleeding. Expansion costs a lot of money and will increase losses. That's the opposite of what she wants.

Entrepreneurs need someone like Ruth to "crack the whip" in terms of cost discipline. But Waymo has no entrepreneurs in the first place. Ruth doesn't solve that problem. She probably makes it worse.

 

[diplomat33]

Ruth Porat is a finance type. Bean counter, to use the pejorative. She thinks in terms of P&L and cost controls. She wants to reduce losses. Stop the bleeding. Expansion costs a lot of money and will increase losses. That's the opposite of what she wants.

Entrepreneurs need someone like Ruth to "crack the whip" in terms of cost discipline. But Waymo has no entrepreneurs in the first place. Ruth doesn't solve that problem. She probably makes it worse.

We'll see. She will demand cost cutting yes but she will likely demand results too. So my point is that she will probably not let Waymo just go into "tortoise mode" and waste money. She will likely have that conversation with the Waymo co-CEOs, "show me what you are getting for each dollar you spend and show me your plan to be profitable and when". I am hoping it will push Waymo to do more. But it is certainly possible that it could Waymo to just cut costs and do less (tortoise mode). But I doubt it. That does not make any sense to me.

 

[bkp_duke]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/self-driving-car-crashes/

 

[DanCar]

Ruth Porat is a finance type. Bean counter, to use the pejorative. She thinks in terms of P&L and cost controls. She wants to reduce losses. Stop the bleeding. Expansion costs a lot of money and will increase losses. That's the opposite of what she wants.

Entrepreneurs need someone like Ruth to "crack the whip" in terms of cost discipline. But Waymo has no entrepreneurs in the first place. Ruth doesn't solve that problem. She probably makes it worse.

On the flip side, Waymo has been Larry and Sergey's baby. Waymo has been funded by increased valuation for Waymo.

 

[diplomat33]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/self-driving-car-crashes/

This probably belongs in the AV progress thread since it deals with crashes of all AVs in SF, not just Waymo.

 

[enemji]

We'll see. She will demand cost cutting yes but she will likely demand results too. So my point is that she will probably not let Waymo just go into "tortoise mode" and waste money. She will likely have that conversation with the Waymo co-CEOs, "show me what you are getting for each dollar you spend and show me your plan to be profitable and when". I am hoping it will push Waymo to do more. But it is certainly possible that it could Waymo to just cut costs and do less (tortoise mode). But I doubt it. That does not make any sense to me.

To be fair, what Waymo has achieved in terms of Self Driving capabilities is enviable. The question that Ruth needs to get an answer to is "How can we use that to make profits?" Unlike Mr. Musk who has an engineer like thinking who believes that money will follow if your product/service is useful and therefore focus more on the better product/service than a business plan to make money.

 

[diplomat33]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1697323466800644171

 

[diplomat33]

To be fair, what Waymo has achieved in terms of Self Driving capabilities is enviable. The question that Ruth needs to get an answer to is "How can we use that to make profits?" Unlike Mr. Musk who has an engineer like thinking who believes that money will follow if your product/service is useful and therefore focus more on the better product/service than a business plan to make money.

I see things slightly differently. I feel like Waymo really focused on the engineering problem of autonomous driving first, without considering cost or profit. They basically said "if money is no object, what do we need to solve autonomous driving?". So they gave the car HD maps, HD cameras, HD lidar, HD radar, to give the car every tool to be as reliable and accurate as possible. As a result, they got really good autonomous driving. But now they need to make it profitable. Tesla started from the other end, with the cost/profit problem first. Tesla basically said "we need hardware that is cheap to keep the cost of our cars down so we can make a profit selling these cars". That forced Tesla to go vision-only. Now they need to figure out how to solve autonomous driving given that tight constraint.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I see things slightly differently. I feel like Waymo really focused on the engineering problem of autonomous driving first, without considering cost or profit. They basically said "if money is no object, what do we need to solve autonomous driving?". So they gave the car HD maps, HD cameras, HD lidar, HD radar, to give the car every tool to be as reliable and accurate as possible. As a result, they got really good autonomous driving. But now they need to make it profitable. Tesla started from the other end, with the cost/profit problem first. Tesla basically said "we need hardware that is cheap to keep the cost of our cars down so we can make a profit selling these cars". That forced Tesla to go vision-only. Now they need to figure out how to solve autonomous driving given that tight constraint.

Well, they actually went radar and vision.

But they may have been thinking a bit differently to what you said. They may have said "If we can solve it, others can solve it, so we need to solve it at the lowest cost otherwise we'll still lose to cheaper competitors. And if we have low cost hardware, we can include the hardware on all cars and sucker a bunch of people into buying itsell it as driver assistance during development, so even if it's impossible, it could still be profitable.

 

[enemji]

I see things slightly differently. I feel like Waymo really focused on the engineering problem of autonomous driving first, without considering cost or profit. They basically said "if money is no object, what do we need to solve autonomous driving?". So they gave the car HD maps, HD cameras, HD lidar, HD radar, to give the car every tool to be as reliable and accurate as possible. As a result, they got really good autonomous driving. But now they need to make it profitable. Tesla started from the other end, with the cost/profit problem first. Tesla basically said "we need hardware that is cheap to keep the cost of our cars down so we can make a profit selling these cars". That forced Tesla to go vision-only. Now they need to figure out how to solve autonomous driving given that tight constraint.

I agree with you in most aspects. In addition to that, Elon felt an urge, a calling to solve the FSD challenge the way we humans did by driving with just using the eyes and brains. In all respects, I am currently running 11.4.4 and it is doing a fantastic job. I have not had to take over in the 10 days of driving over 350 miles all over the metroplex.

 

[hooty]

I agree with you in most aspects. In addition to that, Elon felt an urge, a calling to solve the FSD challenge the way we humans did by driving with just using the eyes and brains. In all respects, I am currently running 11.4.4 and it is doing a fantastic job. I have not had to take over in the 10 days of driving over 350 miles all over the metroplex.

Start facing the wrong way in a dead end street.
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Its just too easy......

 

[enemji]

Start facing the wrong way in a dead end street.
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Its just too easy......

I don't live in shtty areas with dead end streets so unfortunately cannot test it out. That said, when selected "Home" FSDb drives up to my garage via the service alley (I hope you know what those are).

 

[hooty]

I don't live in shtty areas with dead end streets so unfortunately cannot test it out. That said, when selected "Home" FSDb drives up to my garage via the service alley (I hope you know what those are).

3 point turns are an edge case

 

[flutas]

This probably belongs in the AV progress thread since it deals with crashes of all AVs in SF, not just Waymo.

I mean, I find it interesting that of the reported collisions, Waymo has almost half of them (107 / 241, or ~44.4%) when the narrative lately has all been "Cruise is so bad" even though they come in at "only" 26% (64 / 241 or ~26.6%).

Realistically I don't know why there is even a separate Waymo thread, when none of the others seem to have their own threads here.
Especially since we're apparently supposed to post anything negative that involves Waymo in the AV thread, but anything that puts them in a positive light here.

 

[diplomat33]

I mean, I find it interesting that of the reported collisions, Waymo has almost half of them (107 / 241, or ~44.4%) when the narrative lately has all been "Cruise is so bad" even though they come in at "only" 26% (64 / 241 or ~26.6%).

You have to look at total driverless miles and severity of accidents too. Just posting total number of accidents is meaningless because it lacks context.

Realistically I don't know why there is even a separate Waymo thread, when none of the others seem to have their own threads here.
Especially since we're apparently supposed to post anything negative that involves Waymo in the AV thread, but anything that puts them in a positive light here.

Waymo is the AV leader. So it makes sense IMO to have a dedicated thread for them rather than burying their news among dozens of other AV news. But I would be happy with a dedicated Cruise thread since they are an important player. I also wish we had a separate Mobileye thread too.

And these threads are for all news, positive or negative.

 

[hooty]

Waymo is the AV leader.

They are also the leader in cognitive dissonance production

 

[Larry Hutchinson]

https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/self-driving-car-crashes/

Not sure how to do this link, but here is a very through analysis of Waymo and Cruse safety:

Are self-driving cars already safer than human drivers?

I learned a lot by reading dozens of Waymo and Cruise crash reports.

arstechnica.com

That was easy, just paste it. At least using copy-paste on an iPad, may have done more than plain text.

 

[flutas]

You have to look at total driverless miles and severity of accidents too. Just posting total number of accidents is meaningless because it lacks context.

I mean, I agree...but there's zero context even with the reports.

Let's take a look at the latest report from Waymo for example:

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_08172023-pdf/

The Waymo AV was traveling northbound on Bayshore Boulevard. As the SUV was passing the Waymo AV to the left, it initiated a right lane change. The front of the SUV made contact with the rear of the Waymo AV. At the time of the impact, the Waymo AV’s Level 4 ADS was engaged in autonomous mode. Both vehicles sustained damage, and the SUV left the scene without exchanging information.

Is all we have, aside from the following facts distinguished by check marks:

Clear, Daylight, Dry, No Unusual Conditions, (Waymo) Proceeding Straight, (Car that caused it) Changing Lanes, Side Swipe.

Cool, but what led to this, what was exactly going on in the situation?

Did the Waymo stop for an unknown reason to the driver, so they went to drive around it and the Waymo started driving while they were doing this?

Was the Waymo vehicle following the speed limit (or driving under it), even though the speed of traffic was higher (causing road rage).

There are plenty of questions I could throw together for any of the reports that aren't answered but could make it a different case. I would honestly be shocked if these reports don't go through a PR cycle before they are submitted to make sure the language is as good for Waymo as possible.

Let's look at another one where it 100% is PR speak.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_07252023-pdf/

The Waymo AV was parallel parked along the curb on eastbound Harrison Street at 2nd Street when it began to pull away from the curb and into traffic. As the Waymo AV pulled away from the curb, a pickup truck that was traveling behind the Waymo AV then made contact with the rear of the Waymo AV. At the time of the impact, the Waymo AV’s Level 4 ADS was engaged in autonomous mode, and a test driver was present (in the driver’s seating position). Both vehicles sustained damage.

Aka: The Waymo pulled out in front of a car, causing the car to rear end the Waymo. But it's clearly worded to blame the other driver... "truck that was traveling behind the Waymo AV" vs "car we pulled out in front of"

We also really have no report on the severity of injury from the collisions. I searched all the reports from Waymo in 2023, and only found one reference to injuries, and it's literally worded as "A passenger in the Waymo AV reported injuries".

Now to highlight some reports I read checking for the injury info.

Waymo hit's a parked car: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_050623-pdf/

That dog everyone knows about: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_052123-pdf/

Waymo crowds out someone trying to parallel park, tries to recover then just stops in the path of them backing up (and gets hit): https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_042823-pdf/

Pothole pops a tire (lol): https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_032023_2-pdf/

Waymo on the freeway hits tire scraps: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_031623_1-pdf/

Waymo get's clotheslined by a chain: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_030123-pdf/

Hitting cardboard has to be reported, apparently: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_021523-pdf/

 

[Bitdepth]

I mean, I agree...but there's zero context even with the reports.

Let's take a look at the latest report from Waymo for example:

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_08172023-pdf/

Is all we have, aside from the following facts distinguished by check marks:

Clear, Daylight, Dry, No Unusual Conditions, (Waymo) Proceeding Straight, (Car that caused it) Changing Lanes, Side Swipe.

Cool, but what led to this, what was exactly going on in the situation?

Did the Waymo stop for an unknown reason to the driver, so they went to drive around it and the Waymo started driving while they were doing this?

Was the Waymo vehicle following the speed limit (or driving under it), even though the speed of traffic was higher (causing road rage).

There are plenty of questions I could throw together for any of the reports that aren't answered but could make it a different case. I would honestly be shocked if these reports don't go through a PR cycle before they are submitted to make sure the language is as good for Waymo as possible.

Context is the description of the accident and the location of the damage. Waymo was hit (side swiped) at the rear by the left fender or quarter panel. Which means the driver of the SUV changed lanes into Waymo while they were following too close and not paying attention to the lane they were changing into. Happens all the time especially when they are not paying attention and don't want to miss a turn, so they rush into the correct lane so as not to miss the turn.

Let's look at another one where it 100% is PR speak.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_07252023-pdf/

Aka: The Waymo pulled out in front of a car, causing the car to rear end the Waymo. But it's clearly worded to blame the other driver... "truck that was traveling behind the Waymo AV" vs "car we pulled out in front of"

We also really have no report on the severity of injury from the collisions. I searched all the reports from Waymo in 2023, and only found one reference to injuries, and it's literally worded as "A passenger in the Waymo AV reported injuries".

It's not PR speak, if you hit someone from the rear you are at fault in California. Even curious is that there was a test driver in the driver seat and who would have seen if the road wasn't clear. In this instance waymo was not side swiped which would be closer to the middle or front left quarter panel if they were just pulling out, but they were fully rear ended which means they were all the way out on the road before being hit. It has happened to me before, I hit someone who pulled out of the median section of the highway while it was raining. I was at fault.

Now to highlight some reports I read checking for the injury info.

Waymo hit's a parked car: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_050623-pdf/

That dog everyone knows about: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_052123-pdf/

Waymo crowds out someone trying to parallel park, tries to recover then just stops in the path of them backing up (and gets hit): https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_042823-pdf/

Pothole pops a tire (lol): https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_032023_2-pdf/

Waymo on the freeway hits tire scraps: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_031623_1-pdf/

Waymo get's clotheslined by a chain: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_030123-pdf/

Hitting cardboard has to be reported, apparently: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/file/waymo_021523-pdf/

Waymo reports everything which inflates the accidents numbers. They report even minor things like side swiping the curb when making a right turn as an accident.

 

[bkp_duke]

Bosch is withdrawing from the development of lidar sensors​

Handelsblatt

app-handelsblatt-com.translate.goog

That won't help the cost of Lidar.