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Waymo
- Thread starter Daniel in SD
- Start date
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
powertoold
Active Member
On the day (within few hours of the SB), I'd be surprised if they provide any public rides in a 5 mile radius of the super bowl.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
powertoold
Active Member
"On Sat, there were more @waymo trips in one day than we’ve had since launching our fully autonomous service in 2020!"
Super Bowl LVII Game Day Information ; Date: Sunday, February 12 ; Kickoff: 4:30pm (MST) ; Stadium Gates open: 12:30 PM (MST) ; Gameday Experience: 12:30 PM (MST).
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
What's your point? We know Waymo did not actually do rides to the Superbowl itself. That's not news. Waymo never said that they would service the Superbowl itself. Waymo's plan was always to do rides to events related to the Superbowl festivities in downtown Phoenix. And they did great. They saw a big spike in demand, handled an all time high of trips per week with no major issues and kept the average wait time to around 5 minutes. It is a huge win for Waymo. IMO, this is a really good sign for Waymo's ability to scale.
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diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
No, they did not.
Waymo has no ride-hailing in Las Vegas or New Orleans so they would need to start a ride-hailing service in those cities first. Waymo could do it of course but we have no indication that they are planning to. Zoox has been testing in Las Vegas and I think Motional already has a robotaxi service in Las Vegas. So I would bet on those companies trying to do something for the Superbowl when it comes to Las Vegas next year.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
I'm guessing that car was being manually driven, collecting data. It's not centered in the lane.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
The tweet says it is with a safety driver. But it shows that Waymo is testing on LA freeways which hints that they are planning to eventually do driverless on LA freeways in the geofence which would be significant IMO.
I can't speak for Waymo, but while automating other tasks that humans traditionally performed you learn that significantly improved accuracy and precision, such as always hitting the exact centre of the lane, is often problematic. Uneven wear of parts is the most obvious issue encountered, but you can also get sudden and undesired congestion if multiple independent automatons select the same solution to an unexpected problem. For example, multiple vehicles selecting an identical backup route when encountering a closed street would cause congestion and not make ideal use roadway infrastructure.
AI (and automation in general) developers often spend a fair amount of time adding some level of randomness back into the system. Instead of always choosing the top calculated option they may choose randomly from any option which meets the acceptable threshold of success. For tools like ChatGPT, this creates a much more human-like speech; choosing only the best next-word leads to repetition in the produced text.
All that that is to say, the car might be driving a little to the left because the software considered it an acceptable option.
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EVNow
Well-Known Member
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Waymo expanding service in SF! They added Mission, Dogpatch and Potrero Hill to the public area. (see map below). Dark blue is the service area available to the public that are in the Waymo One Program. Light blue is the area that is only for employees and guests:
My thoughts: the expansion is good news. Waymo is getting closer to coverage of all of SF 24/7. But I think the updates are just as important. The ability to parallel park for pick ups and drop offs should help reduce incidents of blocking traffic that upset the SFMTA. Additionally, being able to more easily navigate around double parked cars and construction should also help reduce incidents that require remote assistance. So these updates should help Waymo provide a more reliable service. Waymo seems to be leaving the hardest parts of SF for last. But once Waymo is able to cover even the hardest parts of SF and they get their CPUC permit, they should be able to scale a big ride-hailing service in all of SF.
- Waymo's service is currently only available to riders in its limited Waymo One program.
- Areas like Russian Hill, Chinatown, downtown and South Park are still restricted only to Waymo employees and their guests.
- Waymo also rolled out some new updates, enabling its autonomous vehicles to parallel park during pickups and dropoffs, and more easily navigate around double-parked cars and construction.
My thoughts: the expansion is good news. Waymo is getting closer to coverage of all of SF 24/7. But I think the updates are just as important. The ability to parallel park for pick ups and drop offs should help reduce incidents of blocking traffic that upset the SFMTA. Additionally, being able to more easily navigate around double parked cars and construction should also help reduce incidents that require remote assistance. So these updates should help Waymo provide a more reliable service. Waymo seems to be leaving the hardest parts of SF for last. But once Waymo is able to cover even the hardest parts of SF and they get their CPUC permit, they should be able to scale a big ride-hailing service in all of SF.
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Waymo expanding service in SF! They added Mission, Dogpatch and Potrero Hill to the public area. (see map below). Dark blue is the service area available to the public that are in the Waymo One Program. Light blue is the area that is only for employees and guests:
Source: Exclusive: Waymo expands service in San Francisco
- Waymo's service is currently only available to riders in its limited Waymo One program.
- Areas like Russian Hill, Chinatown, downtown and South Park are still restricted only to Waymo employees and their guests.
- Waymo also rolled out some new updates, enabling its autonomous vehicles to parallel park during pickups and dropoffs, and more easily navigate around double-parked cars and construction.
My thoughts: the expansion is good news. Waymo is getting closer to coverage of all of SF 24/7. But I think the updates are just as important. The ability to parallel park for pick ups and drop offs should help reduce incidents of blocking traffic that upset the SFMTA. Additionally, being able to more easily navigate around double parked cars and construction should also help reduce incidents that require remote assistance. So these updates should help Waymo provide a more reliable service. Waymo seems to be leaving the hardest parts of SF for last. But once Waymo is able to cover even the hardest parts of SF and they get their CPUC permit, they should be able to scale a big ride-hailing service in all of SF.
Come on CPUC!!!!
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
No kidding! What are they waiting for? But considering what a big ride-hailing market SF is, the wait might be worth it because once Waymo is allowed to do driverless at scale, 24/7, in all of SF, that will offer a big potential for profit.
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