I don't think anyone believes AV company timelines anymore... At least I hope not!
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Waymo
- Thread starter Daniel in SD
- Start date
As a FSDbeta users, I certainly like how Tesla is releasing and deploying software builds every ~2 weeks.
These other AV companies are seemingly trying to counter by spinning more marketing spiel and press releases.
These other AV companies are seemingly trying to counter by spinning more marketing spiel and press releases.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
The other AV companies also deploy new software updates on a regular basis. It's just that we the public don't see them because the updates are internal, to a fleet with employee safety testers instead of public beta testers.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
If you can't see them, how do you know they deploy every two weeks ?
BTW, still waiting for links to the claims that Waymo mapping is all automated.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
If you can't see them, how do you know they deploy every two weeks ?
I did not say Waymo's updates are every 2 weeks, just that they are regular.
In any case, it's great that Tesla is doing FSD Beta every 2 weeks. I like getting frequent updates.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Yes, when the release is internal - really doesn't matter whether the releases are every hour or once a year.
What matters are the FSD Beta releases.
But definitely there are some "interested parties" in the media / competitors (is there a difference ?) who try to portray 2-week releases as evil.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
I don't know if there are newer blogs about mapping from Waymo. But this a year old blog is on their site ...
blog.waymo.com
Nowhere do they claim the mapping and labelling is entirely automated, like some of the folks here do.
The Waymo Driver Handbook: How our highly-detailed maps help unlock new locations for autonomous driving
For any emerging technology to be trusted, it helps to first be understood. In the past, people could see how their cars worked, looking under the hood and tinkering with them with the help of a user manual. In 2020, vehicles have so much technology that they’ve become difficult for the general...
blog.waymo.com
Nowhere do they claim the mapping and labelling is entirely automated, like some of the folks here do.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
I don't know if there are newer blogs about mapping from Waymo. But this a year old blog is on their site ...
The Waymo Driver Handbook: How our highly-detailed maps help unlock new locations for autonomous driving
For any emerging technology to be trusted, it helps to first be understood. In the past, people could see how their cars worked, looking under the hood and tinkering with them with the help of a user manual. In 2020, vehicles have so much technology that they’ve become difficult for the general...
Nowhere do they claim the mapping and labelling is entirely automated, like some of the folks here do.
Correct. Waymo says in the blog that "most" of the map updating is automated. So it is highly automated but not fully automated.
But in context, it is talking about updating the HD map, not the original creation. But we can assume that the creation part is similarly highly automated, but maybe not completely automated.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
I saw that - but didn't quote it because it only referred to some updates.
Since a lot of people apparently are very confident that the whole mapping & labelling is "fully automated", surely there are better links stating so ?
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
For those who might be curious, Waymo will be speaking at the Machine Learning for Autonomous Driving NeurIPS 2021 virtual workshop on Dec 13.
Waymo also submitted a paper on some new ML they are doing.
Waymo also submitted a paper on some new ML they are doing.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Here is the abstract of Waymo's paper:
Full paper: https://openreview.net/pdf?id=OMNRFw1fX3a
It sounds like Waymo found a way to make 3D object detection better.
Full paper: https://openreview.net/pdf?id=OMNRFw1fX3a
It sounds like Waymo found a way to make 3D object detection better.
willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
I'm glad they're talking about this topic. So often you see folks assume that LIDAR automatically equals 3D object detection, but it's just a cloud of data points. It looks impressive because you can show people a visualization of the data points and they go "Wow! I can see all the details in that object over there!" but that's taking human-level intuition to composite that point-cloud into distinct 3D objects.
Doggydogworld
Active Member
Of course each version is more scalable, more accurate, less expensive, etc. They said they same thing about Gen 4 and will say it about Gen 6, Gen 7, etc.
Gen 4 was never designed to scale to millions or even 100s of thousands. They knew they'd have Gen 5 by then. But Gen 4 was designed to scale to 10s of thousands. Their words and actions show it.
You don't stagnate your fleet at 5-10 operational cars because your tech can't scale to millions. You do stagnate your fleet if you realize you can't attract enough customers to make a viable business.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Its funny how Waymo scaling reflects another area Google promised a lot and delivered little - Google Fiber - but I guess for totally different business reasons.
I think Stadia is their latest. It was perplexing how quickly they bailed. I spend more time watching stuff on YouTube than (TV + Netflix + Prime + etc.) put together.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
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Waymo has tens of thousands people on San Francisco robotaxi waitlist, co-CEO says
Waymo has given hundreds of people robotaxi rides since its test rollout in San Francisco in August, with tens of thousands more residents on a waitlist, the Alphabet Inc company's co-chief executive said on Friday at the Reuters Next conference.
www.reuters.com
Tens of thousands of people are on the waitlist to use Waymo in SF! So the demand is clearly there. As soon as Waymo is sure the autonomous driving is safe in SF, I hope they deploy a much bigger fleet than they have in Chandler to tap into that demand.
Doggydogworld
Active Member
Even bigger than the 5-10 cars deployed in Chandler? WoW!
(I know they have more cars there for R&D, but the support guy said the Waymo One service itself only uses 5-10).
Unlike Phoenix, though, there are definitely plenty of customers assuming they can solve the more difficult technical and operational problems. Here's hoping it doesn't take them too long.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Ofcourse there will be a lot of people in SF. Its the nerd-capital of the world
Besides, very difficult to park - that means a lot of people come there in mass transit / uber. May be not that many now with a lot of offices still closed ... but by the time Waymo is ready probably even Covid may be over !
willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
Does Waymo have an issue with hiring good safety drivers? Or maybe it's difficult to transition from monitoring an autonomous system for several hours to driving manually?
Statement from Waymo PR about another incident where a vehicle was being driven manually:
Statement from Waymo PR about another incident where a vehicle was being driven manually:
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