Waymo

[diplomat33]

Waymo has applied for a permit to start charging for autonomous ride-hailing rides in CA. This is a first step towards Waymo expanding robotaxi ride-hailing in CA soon.

Waymo and Cruise hope to charge for autonomous rides in California - Electrek

Autonomous rideshare rivals Waymo and Cruise have both applied for permits to charge passengers for self-driving rides in San Francisco.

electrek.co

 

[EVNow]

Waymo has applied for a permit to start charging for autonomous ride-hailing rides in CA. This is a first step towards Waymo expanding robotaxi ride-hailing in CA soon.

Waymo and Cruise hope to charge for autonomous rides in California - Electrek

Autonomous rideshare rivals Waymo and Cruise have both applied for permits to charge passengers for self-driving rides in San Francisco.

electrek.co

I vaguely remember them applying for this kind of permit earlier too ...

 

[diplomat33]

I vaguely remember them applying for this kind of permit earlier too ...

According to CA DMV regulations, you have to apply for 2 different permits. One permit is for testing autonomous cars. The second permit is for charging the public to ride in one. Waymo got the first permit awhile back and now they are applying for the second one. You have to apply for one permit before the other. You can't apply for both permits simultaneously. It is one of the regulations that AV companies hate because they feel it unnecessarily delays the deployment of autonomous cars.

 

[EVNow]

The second permit is for charging the public to ride in one.

This is the one I remember seeing - will have to search.

 

[Tam]

This is the one I remember seeing - will have to search.

It must be very recent within about 6 months because the California Public Utilities Commission just announced on 11/19/2020 that it would start allowing Autonomous Vehicle companies to charge rider fares to customers.

 

[Doggydogworld]

Waymo has applied for a permit to start charging for autonomous ride-hailing rides in CA. This is a first step towards Waymo expanding robotaxi ride-hailing in CA soon.

Waymo and Cruise hope to charge for autonomous rides in California - Electrek

Autonomous rideshare rivals Waymo and Cruise have both applied for permits to charge passengers for self-driving rides in San Francisco.

electrek.co

Waymo - Safety driver, 24x7, up to 65 mph
Cruise - No safety driver, evening and early morning, up to 30 mph

 

[diplomat33]

Waymo - Safety driver, 24x7, up to 65 mph
Cruise - No safety driver, evening and early morning, up to 30 mph

Yes. That is correct.

I like Waymo's strategy better than Cruise's. Offering ride-hailing 24/7 will have more opportunities for revenue than just offering ride-hailing evenings, nights and early mornings. And 30 mph is pretty low. It makes me think that Cruise will only offer limited driverless on slow city streets or residential streets. It seems Waymo will offer their ride-hailing in a larger area as they mention SF and parts of San Mateo county. Waymo also mentions speeds up to 65 mph and on ramps. And I assume Waymo will eventually remove the safety driver once they feel comfortable it is safe enough. But the strategy will allow them to deploy sooner, make revenue sooner and validate the FSD all at the same time.

In any case, it is nice to finally see some concrete steps taken towards expanding ride-hailing in new areas.

 

[EVNow]

Waymo to lose its CFO and head of automotive partnerships

Waymo's chief financial officer Ger Dwyer and its head of automotive partnerships and corporate development Adam Frost — two longtime executives at the autonomous vehicle company — are leaving this month, departures that comes amid some executive shuffling following CEO John Krafcik's exit...

news.yahoo.com

 

[mikes_fsd]

Waymo to lose its CFO and head of automotive partnerships

Waymo's chief financial officer Ger Dwyer and its head of automotive partnerships and corporate development Adam Frost — two longtime executives at the autonomous vehicle company — are leaving this month, departures that comes amid some executive shuffling following CEO John Krafcik's exit...

news.yahoo.com

Rats leaving the sinking ship...

 

[diplomat33]

Waymo to lose its CFO and head of automotive partnerships

Waymo's chief financial officer Ger Dwyer and its head of automotive partnerships and corporate development Adam Frost — two longtime executives at the autonomous vehicle company — are leaving this month, departures that comes amid some executive shuffling following CEO John Krafcik's exit...

news.yahoo.com

So? Execs leave companies all the time. Doesn't necessarily mean anything bad. Execs have left Tesla too.

 

[mark95476]

CEO, CFO, ...etc... Yup. I'd say they're clearing the dead-weight for something significant.

Waymo to lose its CFO and head of automotive partnerships

Waymo's chief financial officer Ger Dwyer and its head of automotive partnerships and corporate development Adam Frost — two longtime executives at the autonomous vehicle company — are leaving this month, departures that comes amid some executive shuffling following CEO John Krafcik's exit...

news.yahoo.com

Rats leaving the sinking ship...

 

[mark95476]

CEOs? Oh right, Elon is the longest serving CEO at any major auto manufacturer. All of the others CEOs, including Waymo's former/current CEOs, are essentially noobs.

So? Execs leave companies all the time. Doesn't necessarily mean anything bad. Execs have left Tesla too.

 

[MP3Mike]

So a couple cones in the road and the Waymo Driver freaks out and blocks traffic:

And it seems they don't have a very good process for road side assistance, as in one case it drove away as the road side assistance driver was approaching the vehicle.

 

[diplomat33]

So a couple cones in the road and the Waymo Driver freaks out:

That's a bit of an exaggeration. It wasn't a couple of cones in the road. And Remote assistance gave the Waymo Driver bad information about how to handle the lane that was coned off. It's likely that with the right information, the Waymo Driver would have been fine. In any case, Waymo will learn from this edge case and make the Waymo Driver even better. Developing FSD is a learning process.

I do agree though that remote assistance is not working as well as it should.

Honestly, I think trying to do driverless with remote assistance is not a good idea. For one, it costs money. And second, if the driverless car gets stuck, you have an awkward situation of trying to get a remote operator to give the car instructions or waiting for road side assistance to catch up to the car. I think it might be better to keep safety drivers a bit longer until the autonomous driving is better. Safety drivers are in the car and can handle the problem much quicker than road assistance.

 

[MP3Mike]

That's a bit of an exaggeration. It wasn't a couple of cones in the road. And Remote assistance gave the Waymo Driver bad information about how to handle the lane that was coned off. It's likely that with the right information, the Waymo Driver would have been fine.

I don't think it is an exaggeration. If it hadn't freaked out at the cones in the first place it wouldn't have asked for help and gotten bad information.

 

[diplomat33]

I don't think it is an exaggeration. If it hadn't freaked out at the cones in the first place it wouldn't have asked for help and gotten bad information.

Freaking out would be crashing into the cones or something like that. It just stopped at the intersection. The car saw the cones and was unsure what the correct lane was. That's why it asked for guidance. That's not freaking out.

 

[EVNow]

So? Execs leave companies all the time. Doesn't necessarily mean anything bad. Execs have left Tesla too.

Only significant because the CEO left recently.

Google could be trying to shake things - or - people leaving because they sense a big change.

ps : Generally execs leave Tesla because because of burn-out (and zero work/life balance) or new hires not fitting with Tesla culture. I don't think thats the reason with Waymo.

 

[diplomat33]

Only significant because the CEO left recently.

Google could be trying to shake things - or - people leaving because they sense a big change.

Hopefully, the change will be good. I am hoping Waymo is able to execute a better business plan and expand soon. The plan under Krafcik was not working. I am cautiously optimistic that with the permit to charge for ride-hailing in SF that Waymo is starting to move in the right direction. Waymo has amazing FSD. I want to see Waymo launch a successful autonomous ride-hailing service in multiple cities. Hopefully, they will launch ride-hailing in SF with safety drivers soon.

 

[EVNow]

Waymo has amazing FSD. I want to see Waymo launch a successful autonomous ride-hailing service in multiple cities.

We all do - but Waymo apparently disagrees with you on how amazing their FSD actually is ...

I mean - forget charging - they haven't opened public robotaxi outside of that one small area of the suburb in 4 years !

Waymo - Wikipedia

In April 2017, Waymo launched an early rider program in Phoenix, Arizona, which signed up 400 users to try out a test edition of Waymo's transportation service. Over the next year, 400 riders used the Waymo service, providing feedback.[133] In May 2018, Waymo announced that it plans to allow everyone in Phoenix to request a driverless ride before the end of the year.[134][135] On December 5, 2018, the company launched a commercial self-driving car service called "Waymo One"; users in the Phoenix metropolitan area use an app to request a pick-up.[1] By November 2019, the service was operating autonomous vehicles without a safety backup driver, the first autonomous service worldwide operating without safety drivers in the car.[2][3][4]

ps : Tesla started their own AP only in Oct-16 !

 

[willow_hiller]

Just had a chance to watch the disengagement video myself. An interesting detail is that the safety driver says "I don't know why this construction zone wasn't taken off the map."

I suppose that means they generally avoid any construction zones as soon as one vehicle in the fleet spots them.