Waymo

[Bitdepth]

I am hopeful that as waymo resolves these issues, Waymo will get even closer to being able to do reliable driverless in all conditions.

This was such a good video showing some advanced perception, planning and control on the fly route adjustment by assessing the environment. I wish they could've let the driver finish the entire drive but I guess they didn't want to block traffic after the crossing guard.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Waymo ride (with safety driver) in the rain with lots of situations, including several construction zones, rerouting through parking lot and one disengagement when the car was slow to respond to a cross guard waving the car forward, and a "computer issue" that prevented re-engagement of the autonomous driving.

0:00 Introduction
0:17 Start of Ride
0:51 Passing a road closure sign
1:11 Right turn with pedestrian in crosswalk
3:12 Driving through intersection with cones
3:46 Lane closed by cones
4:07 Taking right of way at a stop sign
4:31 Pullover for waypoint
5:28 Creeping for unprotected intersection
6:12 No reaction to to flying birds
6:18 Slowing for pedestrian in street
6:29 Slowing for right of way violator
7:05 No reaction to flashing work truck
7:28 Construction mayhem begins: lane shift
8:14 Snaking through the parking lot
9:43 Remote assistance is watching
10:52 Seeing Machines driver monitoring
12:20 Passing a vehicle waiting to make a turn
13:10 Inactive emergency vehicle
13:52 Slow to proceed
14:06 Pulling over for a waypoint
14:18 Alert for car behind
14:47 Many pedestrians & crossing guard
15:06 DISENGAGEMENT: Slow to proceed with hand signals
15:38 Unable to re-engage (“Computer Issue”)
16:00 Remote assistance monitoring for construction
17:08 Stale status on vehicle operator’s phone
17:46 Infotainment draw distance
20:43 Light rail detection
21:01 Active emergency vehicle
22:30 Misc infotainment exploration
23:13 Arriving at final destination

Overall, I feel the car did handle the rain pretty well. At 7:35, I am not sure if the waymo needed to turn left. It seems it could have followed the white car. Maybe the waymo rerouted because of the "road closed - detour" sign? The waymo then reroutes again when it detects the construction zone and the worker moving cones. The waymo does handle snaking through the parking lot really well IMO.

There is the disengagement when the car was not going when the cross guard waved to go. Perhaps the car would have moved but was just too slow? We know waymo does have hand gesture recognition but clearly this is a data point they need to train on to improve the system.

Not sure what the computer issue was that prevented the car from re-engaging the autonomous driving but we see the path planning on the screen was still responding to things. So the autonomous driving seemed to still be working "in shadow mode".

I am hopeful that as waymo resolves these issues, Waymo will get even closer to being able to do reliable driverless in all conditions.

I'm not sure the safety drivers can restart autonomous mode. I can think of several reasons to prevent that. Safety drivers aren't engineers and might not fully understand the reasons for the disengagement. Waymo may also want to freeze the computer state at the point of disengagement (as much as possible).

 

[diplomat33]

I'm not sure the safety drivers can restart autonomous mode. I can think of several reasons to prevent that. Safety drivers aren't engineers and might not fully understand the reasons for the disengagement. Waymo may also want to freeze the computer state at the point of disengagement (as much as possible).

That makes sense. Thanks.

 

[diplomat33]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603077069696602113

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603077073928699906

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603077146133643264

 

[diplomat33]

Waymo is scaling!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603785705024638976

 

[Bitdepth]

If i'm not mistaken, someone had inquired how many vehicles do Waymo operate in Phoenix

Waymo opens Phoenix airport rides to the public, doubles downtown service area | TechCrunch

Members of the general public will be able to take a Waymo robotaxi between downtown Phoenix and the airport starting Friday.

techcrunch.com

Of course, with a new airport service, there will be issues with demand and wait times, so expect Waymo to go through some growing pains. Panigrahi said Waymo has practiced moving supply to more in-demand locations and that the company has “hundreds of vehicles there to be working with.”

“I think the pool of hundreds of vehicles gives us enough flexibility to be able to dynamically increase the number of available fully autonomous vehicles at times of demand, and in other times, just make sure we’re getting value from test mileage and other kinds of experiments we’re running,” he said.

 

[diplomat33]

If i'm not mistaken, someone had inquired how many vehicles do Waymo operate in Phoenix

Waymo opens Phoenix airport rides to the public, doubles downtown service area | TechCrunch

Members of the general public will be able to take a Waymo robotaxi between downtown Phoenix and the airport starting Friday.

techcrunch.com

This is great news. It shows Waymo is not doing just 5-10 driverless cars in Chandler. They can deploy hundreds of driverless cars to meet demand. And they have doubled their downtown Phoenix area and included the airport. With hundreds of driverless cars servicing the airport and all of downtown, I think Waymo has a great business model.

 

[Bladerskb]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603784629093249024

 

[ThomasD]

I may have missed it. But how far can the Waymo take you around the Phoenix Metro area.

 

[diplomat33]

I may have missed it. But how far can the Waymo take you around the Phoenix Metro area.

This is the map of where you can go.

 

[diplomat33]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603893029525368832

 

[Bitdepth]

 

[diplomat33]

Great video. The Waymo handles the rain really well. I think Waymo will keep the safety driver as a precautious for a little bit longer, to collect more validation miles. But once Waymo has enough real world miles in the rain to be confident in the safety, then they will remove the safety driver. I think that will likely happen early to mid 2023. I also think that once Waymo does remove the safety driver in rain, it will be a huge boost to their commercial service because it will mean they can scale to areas that get a lot of rain and they can provide even more rides. Overall, I am very optimistic about Waymo because they have very safe and reliable autonomous driving in urban and suburban environments and they are close to expanding the ODD to rain and highways. Once they do driverless in all 4 domains (dense urban, suburb, highway and rain), they will be able to scale to a lot of places.

 

[enemji]

This is great news. It shows Waymo is not doing just 5-10 driverless cars in Chandler. They can deploy hundreds of driverless cars to meet demand. And they have doubled their downtown Phoenix area and included the airport. With hundreds of driverless cars servicing the airport and all of downtown, I think Waymo has a great business model.

I usually come in a couple with 2x50lb bags with me. Does the trunk have space for my luggage?

 

[diplomat33]

I usually come in a couple with 2x50lb bags with me. Does the trunk have space for my luggage?

The Waymo I-Pace has 25.3 cubic feet of cargo space. So if your 2x50 lb bags are less than 25.3 cubic ft then yes.

 

[Doggydogworld]

I also think that once Waymo does remove the safety driver in rain, it will be a huge boost to their commercial service because it will mean they can scale to areas that get a lot of rain and they can provide even more rides.

They can't really scale anywhere until they pull rain drivers. It's not viable to have a thousand safety drivers on call.

So "opening our ride-hailing service between Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport" actually means serving the SkyTrain terminal and not the airport itself? That's a reasonable approach, but makes the announcement a bit misleading.

Looks like there's a long wait list in SF, but at some riders were released from NDAs. I've seen a few non-curated videos pop up. Not JJRicks level camera work, but better than nothing.

I think the pool of hundreds of vehicles gives us enough flexibility to be able to dynamically increase the number of available fully autonomous vehicles at times of demand,....

They had a pool of hundreds of Pacificas in Phoenix for years. They only used about five in their actual service. That should change with downtown/airport service. Hope so.

 

[EVNow]

This is the map of where you can go.

So "opening our ride-hailing service between Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport" actually means serving the SkyTrain terminal and not the airport itself? That's a reasonable approach, but makes the announcement a bit misleading.

Does that mean they use freeways ... ?

 

[Doggydogworld]

Does that mean they use freeways ... ?

No. Apparently they're starting to test freeways again, at least a little, but they won't talk about timetables.

 

[ThomasD]

Is it a long ride from Downtown Phoenix to the train terminal that goes to the Airport

 

[ThomasD]

Is the Train actually at the Airport and it just takes you from a parking lot at the Airport to the Terminal?