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"obeys" is an alternative spelling for proves. There is no "following a command" if the vehicle made the decision to go based on anything but the command. Anyway, point taken that this is an enthusiast forum and not a technical one and I failed, twice, to consider that in my response.

Edit: for clarity my issue is with the word "proof" which has a very specific meaning. Saying "this video demonstrates Waymo responding to hand signals" is perfectly acceptable. Since the video data can be interpreted in other ways it is not proof. I'd love to see the debug data for this...

That video doesn't show any understanding of hand signals. It's coincidental, just like various Tesla videos on the same topic. Ignore the arms. There are other indications Waymo is using to go (pedestrian has moved out of the way, and the intersection cleared). If you watch very carefully...

Hasn't started yet. They did a bunch of trips in November for a baseline and planned to return in January to capture the snow version. In addition, it didn't snow in December. Much of the month was +5C.

Short answer is no. They were doing some data collection in November with intention of doing snow testing in January. Presumably they will drive the same routes and compare snow-weather output to good-weather output...

One minor nit. The maps are an abstraction, not a direct save of sensor data. There's no reason to believe the abstraction is specific to one sensor kit. They would want to reconfirm the maps simply due to time passing and maps becoming partially outdated: this applies whether using the same...

Almost certainly could in clear weather when all hardware is functional. The real question is can they remove cameras when some are already out of order due to obstruction or damage. True reliability requires airline type efforts: a very sensitive smoke alarm to catch smokers but still having a...

It's a Mobileeye product (Chauffeur) that Polestar purchased and is integrating at the factory. It likely has numerous limitations but whatever Polestar licensed already exists. Polestar is not launching an inhouse R&D project.

2 reasons off the top of my head. 1) Variety of data: there are at least 13 different types of snow (based off Inuit language translations) and no single location gets them all. Some types pack, some don't, some are sticky, some are slippery, some are more like sand, etc. Temperature, humidity...

It probably is for data points specifically related to weather. They'll need enough data to create a skilful model of traction, vision issues, sensor reliability, etc. for simulations, but more cars in a single region will not add to that does not increase the variety of data (different weather...

They've done cold weather testing in different parts of Michigan and New York state for several years. I think Buffalo is new though.

Closest thing to a standard for automatic electric vehicle charging are bus pantographs, but it's quite a bit of infrastructure compared to a lvl 2 charger and a minimum wage employee. https://bus-news.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2023/04/Screenshot-2023-04-26-at-09.46.52.png Frankly, I'm...

IIRC stopping is only required for same-direction traffic as the bus in mainland China. I think it only applies to certain roadway types and even then compliance is pretty low. Failure to give buses priority is strictly enforced. That basically means letting the bus in and out of traffic when...

Agreed. Though this type of addition would strongly indicate a genuine intention of achieving a Level 4 system at some point in the future.

Likely nothing. Perhaps they install a downward facing radar near the front of the vehicle. It seems prudent to have a method for detecting unexpected obstructions under the vehicle for autonomous snow operations anyway. When there are 6 inches of fresh snow in the parking lot (on early Monday...

Google Glass is dead at Google but the tech is still around and being developed. Swim goggles (FORM and FINIS) are the best use-case I've seen thus far. Watches get in the way and you need to pause to read the information. Even if Waymo bails, Chinese competitors like Baidu will likely have...

No. We decided decades ago Engineers are at fault, and they have legal authority to ensure the job is done correctly. CEOs often don't have the technical skillset needed to ensure work is done correctly. This mechanism has proven effective for civil works projects; few bridges fall due to a CEO...

Oddly enough, there are weeks in my neighbourhood when this happens hundreds of times per day. The person behind the wheel is completely incapable (or at very least unwilling) to continue without assistance from a 3rd party giving them directions. The city hires ~50 people to give directions...

This will depend entirely on maintenance requirements of the vehicles, including unusual events like retrieving them when they're stuck or broken. If vehicles can almost always be unstuck by remote assistance, and vehicles are able to drive themselves to a large maintenance facility then the...

I completely missed changes to planning due to changes in traction (ice). This problem exists a bit for rain (hydroplaning) or loose gravel (do any Waymo areas have a gravel road?) but not to the same degree. Ice, particularly black-ice, isn't avoidable in colder climates. Manoeuvring and...

Agreed that snow in the air is isn't frequent, though taking the fleet out of service for 12 days per year would not result in a rider-friendly service. This is a guaranteed way to get bad press. Snow/slush, or even just snow fighting tools (salt, sand) on the ground obscuring lines is also a...

Probably snow related more than anything else. Chicago, Boston, DC, Seattle are also strong taxi markets but require mostly solving the snow problem for a commercial deployment to be successful. There's easier opportunities, commercially, in Florida and Texas to implement first.

4-way and 3-way stops are common. 6-way stops are exceptionally rare. This will require a fair amount of testing to confirm generic training applies it's knowledge correctly; that it hasn't over-fit. Creating and implementing a new test in their virtual environment takes some manual effort...

You're both largely right. Waymo is generalized and probably 99% of everything will work fine out of the box, however, there are also going to be some very local laws or quirks which require a bit of additional time investment by staff. At very least things written in state or municipal...

Cruise doesn't need a profit: GM does. GM and Honda will show a solid ROI on Cruise Origin vehicles within days of them rolling out of the factory. Honda will build out Japan. If the service fails financially, Cruise goes bankrupt and the GM/Honda keeps the pieces, the software and hardware...

Is that a fire hose across the roadway? The fire chief specifically complained about cruise vehicles running over firehoses didn't they, and here they've put them out seemingly with the expectation that everyone would drive over them. That's a complicated set of heuristics for the learning...

That's just it. A truck pulling over on the highway without immediately (IIRC within 5 minutes) deploying flares/cones/lights is illegal in every state AFAIK. I'd like to know how they manage to handle this failure mode without having a human already very close to the truck, or receiving a...

Do you know how? Chase vehicle? Multi-truck trains: single human for multiple trucks operating as a single unit? Did they manage to get an exemption to those laws? I'm not sure how you do driverless trucks in USA on public highways without a human nearby, and look forward to seeing how Aurora...

Trucking also has a few non-trivial obstacles that cars do not. Road flares: It's impossible to deploy them as legally required without a human driver. Changing this requirement means lobbying every state they might drive through. Where long-distance trips are the most profitable, this also...

Yeah, you can get an order of magnitude out of that technique, which is why I suggested they only needed 10,000 real-world samples. A parked delivery vehicle is really hard to differentiate from a stopped delivery vehicle or just a flat-bed with an odd load (glass or granite held vertically on...

Expanded legal commercial autonomous operating zone in Beijing: from 60km² to 500km². "On Friday, authorities in Beijing made a policy decision to allow eligible companies to operate driverless taxis without safety supervisors on board and charge passengers for the rides, marking a definite...

Some of the additions, like the south-west edge, are quite subtle on the map. I would guess they intended to include at least some of this area in their expansion 2 months ago, but had technical issues preventing it at that time. Old: New:

Putting cones into traffic might count as Disturbing the Peace, but it would be at the lowest end of that charge ($200 fine, no jail time). However, purposefully removing traffic cones from a construction site is Theft and might get a Reckless Endangerment charge if enough are removed, which...

That's interesting. Seems like a quirk of local law which should be addressed. Around here if a FexEx vehicle (for example) went through a red-light and the officer got the plate but was unable to give them a ticket, it would be sent to the registered owner of the vehicle (FexEx in this...

Agreed. Those 1 in a million bugs take a long-time to resolve, especially if they can go undetected when they do occur. 2 a) Waymo safety driver, remote staff, the customer, and general public (pedestrians) did not notice (or complain) that the Waymo vehicle ran through the stop-sign either...

Agreed. However, if San Francisco police had ticketed Waymo vehicles for that behaviour, this would have been included as part of their complaint. Instead they basically said Waymo might be a problem because Cruise does have problems. We can be fairly sure that Waymo vehicles do not regularly...

A short-term dip helps the cash-rich buyer. I don't believe this is the case, but the pump-and-dump has also has the bash-and-buy to go with it.

Seems an obvious high-volume destination to work towards.

Not sure what a Waymophile is, but yes, that's true of any automated vehicle or human driver. Humans also have the most accidents in areas they're least familiar with too (on a per mile driven basis). Having a high certainty of what is behind visual obstructions (like transport trucks, garbage...

Optical illusions will be an issue with any neural net based system* which a second source of measurements can help disambiguate. * Either you require very high threshold for classification and fail to classify many objects, or you accept incorrect classification of some objects will happen...

Waymo Distribution Centre modifications in central SF halted. Waymo's conditional authorization and permits claimed it was converting it into a 44 space parking garage, and the union claims Waymo intends to use the warehouse for goods (package) handling too. While it doesn't impact vehicle...

It's mostly the accounting differences. For GM, the capital is the portion of factory line (robotics, building, ...) allotted to building that vehicle type. Input parts and labour they put into creating the vehicle are operations. In short, the amount GM needs to borrow to build 10k vehicles on...

IIRC, the purpose built Zeekr deliveries were expected to begin late this year. As for how many Waymo deploys, I imagine that is entirely up to Cruise/GM as their expansion path (Origin deliveries also start end of 2023) is likely much more capital efficient. Waymo, however, cannot afford to...

Guesses about Waymo expansion to Scottsdale were right. "Driving the news: Waymo's Phoenix expansion will connect its existing downtown and East Valley territories, the company said Thursday. The larger operating zone will include Scottsdale for the first time — and will cover nearly all of...

Kinda. The Chinese Association of Automotive Manufacturers is expecting a much slower growth curve but still about 25% more EVs sold this year than in 2022 (8 million vs 5.9 million respectively). Year-over-year growth had been over 50%. They're also buying more cheaper domestic and fewer...

They announced 1 million trips in August 2022, so 6 to 7 months for 1 million paid trips. At ~5300 trips per day they're well beyond the prototype stage (from a commercialization standpoint).

There is a point where it is exactly that simple. The vehicle should know it's minimum stopping distance and begin braking immediately outside that threshold. It should always stop short of the obstruction, even if that's optimized to be within an inch of it but not yet touching. Outside of...

An empirical fog density measure also tells them how reliable optical sensors are at a given distance. This type of data might be used to adjust the driving speed during poor visibility. Extracting that information from purely optical sensors should be possible but I'm having a hard time...

Agreed. AFAIK there are still legal obstacles such as deploying the required flares and cones when a truck pulls over for 10 minutes.

Interesting. I don't think that's common here. Everything is taken out either tossed into the wash (uniform/training clothes) and the bag with gear is put into the basement. Winter probably reinforces this behaviour as putting on frozen gear is rather unpleasant.