Waymo
4 HN mentions · mentioned in 3 months, 2018–2020
2:48 · 2M views · Nov 7, 2017
Waymo's 2017 announcement that its fully autonomous vehicles are test-driving on public roads with no one in the driver's seat. It gives a short overview of the project's history and plans.
Cited as evidence of Waymo's progress in Arizona and its lead over competitors.
4 comments from Hacker News
Waymo cars are all over Chandler and Tempe in Arizona. I see many on a regular basis with a good portion self-driving. It is neat to see all the roads you normally drive in the self-driving videos and it is almost taken for granted that they are here [1][2]. Chandler has always been in early on technology due to many reasons but that lots of programmers/engineers work here due to intel historically, projects like Iridium started here, also one of the first places to get cable/broadband internet in the 90s. With that said, Chandler is very easy to drive, square roads, good weather, clean roads, clearly marked and kept up, minimal freeway needed etc. It is a great place to start but still lots for the cars/algos to learn, however it IS happening and I see it everyday. Many of the videos are around Chandler downtown that is a bit busy and has lots of movement/pedestrians[3], so that is good that it is able to navigate that, it is close to busy urban environments. [1] this video [2] [LINK] (360 degree experience) [3] [LINK]
> The point is that when it comes online, they will have a huge fleet. This might be correct in a world with full-self-driving, though as others might point out, we're quite far away from that. Waymo is probably closer to full-self-driving than Tesla is [1]. If you're talking about just raw Tesla car ownership, then ride-sharing operations still requires a human being to be sitting in the driver's seat that expects to be fairly compensated, at which point you have the same supply growth problem that Uber/Lyft have. [1] this video
As to "tech people" falling for the hype, it all depends which particular hype but: "surprised if we saw fully self driving cars any time in the next 50 years." a couple of years after there have been self driving cars driving around Arizona this video reminds me of quotes like "The aeroplane will never fly." — Lord Haldane, 1907 a while after the Wright brothers had done many flights. You could argue both the Wright brothers planes and the Arizona Waymos were a bit rubbish but these things tend to improve rapidly.
The same UI is shown in the Pheonix promotional video: this video It seems like the it's the real UI currently used.