Waymo

[JJRicks]

How long do you have to wait from the time you order one until it picks you up? Is Waymo going to put the new sensor suit on their Pacificas

Sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 50 minutes. Depends on time of day and a bit of luck
Though to be fair the last time I saw a 50 minute wait time was two years ago at 3am

 

[diplomat33]

Sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 50 minutes. Depends on time of day and a bit of luck
Though to be fair the last time I saw a 50 minute wait time was two years ago at 3am

What was the average wait time? Or what was the most common wait time?

 

[JJRicks]

What was the average wait time? Or what was the most common wait time?

When I was a more active rider, around 10-15 minutes

 

[Doggydogworld]

Is Waymo going to put the new sensor suit on their Pacificas

Doubt it. Their Pacificas are hitting the 5 year mark. That's pretty much EOL/fully depreciated for commercial vehicles. These have been lightly used, so maybe they keep them around, but throwing new money at retrofits is another matter. Heck, might as well retrofit them to BEV while they're at it -- PHEVs are ideal for commuters but worthless as taxis.

The Jaguars make no sense, either. Waymo will return to a sliding door design, like the Geely van below, if/when they scale up. Maybe in 3-5 years.

 

[diplomat33]

The Jaguars make no sense, either. Waymo will return to a sliding door design, like the Geely van below, if/when they scale up. Maybe in 3-5 years.

View attachment 870618

Not sure if @ThomasD was referring to the 5th Gen or something else when he asked about a new sensor suite on the Pacificas. AFAIK, the 5th gen is the latest sensor suite in deployment. The I-Paces use the 5th Gen now. The image of the Geely robotaxi does appear to show a new sensor suite that looks different than the 5th Gen but my understanding is that it is a concept drawing. So it is unclear if the sensor suite will actually look like that in final production. And it could be the 5th Gen just in a different form factor to fit the Geely vehicle, not necessarily a new generation of sensors. AFAIK, Waymo has not said anything about a 6th Gen sensor suite.

 

[diplomat33]

Looking at the ride-hailing map in the app, it looks like Waymo has expanded to cover all or almost all of SF now:

 

[ThomasD]

Is that just the city itself or the whole San Francisco Metro area

 

[diplomat33]

Is that just the city itself or the whole San Francisco Metro area

Look at the map yourself.

 

[diplomat33]

I highly recommend people read this article. It talks about what goes into the decision to pick a city for a robotaxi ride-hailing service.

Some key highlights:

• Waymo’s initial goal was to find a city that made it semi-challenging, but not impossible, to roll out a commercial service. And for those purposes, Phoenix had “the perfect sweet spot of difficulty”.
• Kampshoff said that some of the cities McKinsey has worked with tend to dislike the possibility of empty robotaxis clogging up roadways, so as a result, there may eventually be a “zombie tax” for empty robotaxis on a per-mile basis, Kampshoff added, or even a carpool-based ride-hailing service akin to Lyft Line or UberPool.
• Kampshoff also echoed the idea that complexity can make testing difficult but pointed out that it can also provide a strong opportunity for companies—making high-density cities the best case for profitability but also the most complicated case for safety.
• But whatever cities decide with respect to adopting AVs, Engel said the tech isn’t a silver bullet.
• This complex balancing act—weighing company goals and technical needs versus a city’s goals as well as its physical, regulatory, and social environment—may help explain why robotaxi companies are beginning to find and focus on goldilocks cities, per Kampshoff.

Why some robotaxi companies are looking for their Goldilocks cities

It’s all a financial, technical, social, geographical, and political balance.

www.emergingtechbrew.com

 

[diplomat33]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1590080025961058304

 

[diplomat33]

The California Department of Motor Vehicles approved an amendment to Waymo’s existing deployment permit Wednesday to include driverless, as well as drivered, operations. Now, Waymo will be able to charge for usage of its autonomous vehicles, which will operate without anyone in the driver’s seat, for services like food and grocery delivery.

The upgraded DMV permit is a prerequisite to launching a fully autonomous commercial ride-hail service in San Francisco, as its main competitor Cruise did this summer. All Waymo needs now is a driverless deployment permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to finally start charging for rider-only autonomous rides in the city. The company will be eligible to apply for that permit once it has operated its driverless cars on public roads for at least 30 days.

Waymo can now charge for fully driverless services in San Francisco | TechCrunch

Waymo's permit with the CA DMV now includes "driverless" deployments, which means the company can charge for fully autonomous deliveries.

techcrunch.com

These CA regs are a mess IMO. So they can charge for driverless deliveries but they still need another permit from CPUC to charge for driverless ride-hailing? Sheesh. Looks like Waymo has to wait 30 days to apply for the permit to charge for driverless ride-hailing.

 

[Bladerskb]

Waymo can now charge for fully driverless services in San Francisco | TechCrunch

Waymo's permit with the CA DMV now includes "driverless" deployments, which means the company can charge for fully autonomous deliveries.

techcrunch.com

These CA regs are a mess IMO. So they can charge for driverless deliveries but they still need another permit from CPUC to charge for driverless ride-hailing? Sheesh. Looks like Waymo has to wait 30 days to apply for the permit to charge for driverless ride-hailing.

Wait so its 30 days after this permit approval or does the 30 days before this permit approval qualify?

 

[diplomat33]

Wait so its 30 days after this permit approval or does the 30 days before this permit approval qualify?

Not sure. I interpret this quote to be saying that Waymo has to do 30 days of driverless AFTER this permit approval before they can apply for the second permit.

All Waymo needs now is a driverless deployment permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to finally start charging for rider-only autonomous rides in the city. The company will be eligible to apply for that permit once it has operated its driverless cars on public roads for at least 30 days.

 

[diplomat33]

Waymo opening up their rider-only to the general public in downtown Phoenix. We can also see the ride-hailing map. And JJ videos in the I-Pace coming soon!

https://twitter.com/x/status/1590766237419819009

https://twitter.com/x/status/1590773904867745792

 

[diplomat33]

Here is a map of both Waymo rider-only ride-hailing in Phoenix that are now open 24/7 to the entire general public:

 

[diplomat33]

Waymo CEO shares about some of the driving challenges in downtown Phoenix that the Waymo Driver can handle smoothly.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1590778662751981570

 

[kabin]

Nice. It would be nice if they offered short introductory round trip rides.

 

[diplomat33]

JJ Ricks first video in 5th Gen I-Pace, 1 hr driverless in downtown Phoenix.

Watching it now, it looks really smooth and the driving looks good. It handles lots of turns, heavy traffic, roundabout, pedestrians, etc safely. JJ chats with a Waymo employee with some good info too. There is one moment around the 44 mn mark where a "remote operator" apparently suggests a different path to help the car. But it was very seamless. The path just changed on the screen and the ride continued. The car stayed in autonomous mode the whole time.

 

[Bladerskb]

Doubt it. Their Pacificas are hitting the 5 year mark. That's pretty much EOL/fully depreciated for commercial vehicles. These have been lightly used, so maybe they keep them around, but throwing new money at retrofits is another matter. Heck, might as well retrofit them to BEV while they're at it -- PHEVs are ideal for commuters but worthless as taxis.

The Jaguars make no sense, either. Waymo will return to a sliding door design, like the Geely van below, if/when they scale up. Maybe in 3-5 years.

View attachment 870618

It depends on what you mean by scale.
To Waymo, getting to scale could be adding 1,000 cars to their driverless SF fleet.

1,000 cars operating in SF would bring in around $170 million dollars of revenue per year. Around ~$472,500 per day. $3,307,500 per week
This would surpass any one time retrofit cost.

Obviously the long-term goal is to keep reducing your costs.

 

[enemji]

I am really curious to see in the day to day driving how many times:
1. Real time sensor data used over HD maps
2. How many times each sensor was used to make the final decision ie was the decision made by vision, radar or lidar?