The discussion started with this:
That's certainly one of the definitions. It seems context dependent.
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Waymo
- Thread starter Daniel in SD
- Start date
EVNow
Well-Known Member
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Waymo announced that due to the fast growth of their team this year, they are adding 170,000 sq ft to their HQ in Mountain View. The new space will be a unified campus that includes outdoor work spaces, cafeteria, fitness center, volleyball court and more:
Doggydogworld
Active Member
"Thanks to these advances, we can now incinerate cash 28% more rapidly" added a company spokesperson
Meanwhile, Tesla collected another 3.5m (est) in cold, hard cash today from rich FSD donors without lifting a finger or hiring anyone. And will collect another 3.5m tomorrow, and the next day....
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
"Thanks to these advances, we can now incinerate cash 28% more rapidly" added a company spokesperson
You got to spend money to make money. Waymo is spending money to "solve FSD" faster. When they do, they will be able to make money hand over fist.
Tesla was in a deficit for years before they became profitable. They spent billions to build new factories. Waymo is simply investing in their workforce since their workforce is growing so quickly. People need places to work effectively as well as places to eat and play on their time off to keep morale high. It helps keep productivity high.
It's easy to just take money from people without actually solving FSD.
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EVNow
Well-Known Member
Interesting when companies are thinking of giving up space because most people WFH.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Yeah, it is interesting. Some jobs like machine learning engineers can probably do a lot of work from home since they basically just need a computer. Obviously, other jobs like safety drivers can't work from home. We know Waymo wants to expand testing so they probably need more safety drivers. So it is possible that a lot of the new jobs are jobs that can't be done from home.
It is also interesting to me that the new Waymo campus will feature amenities like a basketball and volleyball court. Maybe Waymo is betting that providing such amenities will entice workers not to work from home? And, there are some jobs where work from home is great but for many jobs, in-person is still better. I know when I worked from home during the covid lockdown, I was able to basically get stuff done, but it was not the same as coming into the office. Being in the office was just better in many ways. For Waymo, I could see working from home not being ideal. For example, having engineers physically together, working on the hardware in-person, taking the cars out for a test, collaborating in-person, etc... is just better. AV companies like Waymo really benefit from lots of real world testing which you can't do working from home. So, Waymo may be thinking that in-person work is better and therefore it is to their advantage to create a campus with a good work environment that will encourage in-person work.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
Yes - still it is interesting. Definitely they won't go back to 100% in-person work ....
Anyway, it looks like they are unifying multiple office spaces. They may not be expanding space per se .... they will give up some other office space.
I think Tesla is fully in-person.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Waymo is now opening their trusted tester program to the public in downtown Phoenix. The public can apply to join the trusted tester program from the app.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
For reference, Waymo launched the trusted tester program in SF in August and announced that they were starting driverless rides in SF in March of the following year. So it took about 7 months to go from the start of the trusted tester program to the first driverless rides. 7 months from now would be Dec 10. So, if they keep to that same timeline, it is possible that they could do the first driverless rides in downtown Phoenix by the end of this year. It will be interesting to see how long it takes Waymo to go from trusted tester program to driverless in downtown Phoenix. Another data point to measure their progress towards scalability.
@Bladerskb how long do you think it will take Waymo to go from trusted tester program to driverless in downtown Phoenix?
@Bladerskb how long do you think it will take Waymo to go from trusted tester program to driverless in downtown Phoenix?
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
JJ Ricks is filling out the application to join the Trusted Tester Program for downtown Phoenix. Here is part of the application that asks you what types of trips you would take if you were in the program.
Their timeline is getting shorter and shorter with each major announcement of an expansion of the service area. I think the trend will continue but they won't fully scale until the next 2 or so generations of hardware advancement and cost reduction.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
That makes sense. I think I mentioned this to you in our private conversation. I think the software part is very good now. Of course, Waymo will continue to solve edge cases and improve the Planning. But I agree that Waymo will likely want to further miniaturize the hardware and reduce the cost of the hardware before true mass scaling. I am curious what the final production version of the Zeekr robotaxi will look like. The concept art seems to suggest the hardware will be smaller and slimmer. I don't think the hardware needs a lot more generations. Waymo may not even call it the 6th Gen. It may still be the 5th Gen, just in a smaller package.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
We don't know if the two areas will be connected. If they are connected, then you would be able to go from Chandler to downtown.
In Chandler, anyone can call a ride. In downtown Phoenix since Waymo is testing in that new area, they are doing a trusted tester program for that new area.
EVNow
Well-Known Member
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
Here is map of downtown Phoenix service area and Chandler area. They are not connected.
Not exactly ADS-related but this should give an idea at what scale Google can use machine learning to process millions of photos to create environments in maps.
diplomat33
Average guy who loves autonomous vehicles
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