13 ms·

This seems to leave Lyft in a bad spot?

by edgefield 3y ago

smt88 3y ago
This won't be in widespread use for quite a while. Places with weather still aren't great candidates for Waymo.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  There's VERY few population centers in the US where it's raining heavily >10% of the time. The vast majority of rides in the US - and even in a place like Florida that's a swamp where it rains literally every day - happen under just fine conditions for Waymo. This is fine for a taxi service. If you make 10x as much profit in the vast majority of cases - you'll let someone else pick up the scraps in the edge cases. It's almost as if Waymo & Uber considered weather...
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I'm not sure how one gets to anything like 10x. Uber drivers maybe making minimum wage driving their own cars are just not that expensive.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    Automotive EE here, I could not disagree with you more on the state and expectations of self-driving vehicles. I can tell you with confidence they have not really put effort into weather and it’s a problem “to be solved later”. It’s all a joke. If we actually wanted this, it would be long haul A to B routes. Turning semi trucks into rail. Self-driving was already slowing down before the era of free money. So I expect this is just PR to set expectations for Uber and prepare for a scenario where Uber is eventually swallowed by someone else. The article to me (an Automotive EE/CE of 20 years) that “Fairy dust makers combine efforts to bring genie wish program forward”.
    - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
      But have they solved the Trolley Problem?
      - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
        Mercedes got flack for it, but ultimately they had the right answer. When a sort of pitch was made to an exec where the car has to crash into a tree or a cyclist, he said the bike. Because you aren’t going to pay $80,000 for your car to choose your death. If you look at car ownership as owning a weapon, it does only make sense that you’ll have to prioritize for the owner. But really, we aren’t even remotely to trolley problem. The systems BARELY detect and react properly to single issues, let alone detecting multiple and selecting between them. I honestly think it’s a scam that was popular in the era of Free Money, and I’m so glad that is temporarily on pause.
        AlotOfReading 3y ago
        The trolley problem is functionally irrelevant to AVs, but even if it wasn't, it's still prohibited if you ever plan to pursue type certification in Europe per 2022/1426, section 2.1.1.
      - astrange 3y ago
        There's no need because 1. cars have brakes 2. programming this into a car would make it more dangerous, because it might decide to trolley-program-sacrifice a grandmother when nobody was actually in danger.
    - minwcnt5 3y ago
      "I can tell you with confidence they have not really put effort into weather" Ah, the Internet, where people who know absolutely nothing about a topic make bold assertions about it with 100% confidence. https://blog.waymo.com/2022/11/using-cutting-edge-weather-research-to-advance-the-Waymo-Driver.html https://blog.waymo.com/2022/11/using-cutting-edge-weather-re...
      - 3y ago
  - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    There’s no way to get 10x unless human drivers are earning 90% of the price currently which is clearly very far from the case.
  - smt88 3y ago
    > There's VERY few population centers in the US where it's raining heavily >10% of the time. First, you're utterly wrong about how rainy cities are[1]. Most of the population of the US lives in a place that has more than 100 rainy days per year. The Northeast Corridor by itself has 50 million people and 120+ annual rainy days. It also doesn't need to be "raining heavily". It can also be raining lightly, snowing, foggy, dusty, or smoky. But even if you're right and it's 10%, the predictability becomes a huge issue. I've spent my whole life on the East Coast, and you never know if it's really going to rain until it does or doesn't. The forecast changes literally minute to minute. 1. https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-precipitation-by-city.php https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-pre...
    - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      > First, you're utterly wrong about how rainy cities are[1]. Most of the population of the US lives in a place that has more than 100 rainy days per year. The Northeast Corridor by itself has 50 million people and 120+ annual rainy days. First, you are utterly wrong with your facts. 100 rainy days per year does not equal 2400 hours of rain per year. It's closer to 500 hours of rain per year = 5.7% of the time. Realistically, you're looking at the VAST majority of cities Uber being able to operate in 99% of the time. Additionally - "rain" does not equal downpour. Waymo can drive in light rain. And guess what - when it's downpouring, people crash MUCH MORE (fun fact - my father almost killed my hyrdoplaning in a downpour to get to my brother's basketball game). Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world if people aren't on the roads nearly dying in the middle of The Perfect Storm (<1% of the time) to get places they probably don't really need to get to in the first place...
- minwcnt5 3y ago
  Why not? It seems to work fine in rain - as evidenced by all the "bomb cyclones" in San Francisco this past rainy season. There are a lot of places they can go that don't have snow.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> seems to leave Lyft in a bad spot Suggests a natural partnership with Cruise.

This seems to leave Lyft in a bad spot?

smt88 3y ago

This won't be in widespread use for quite a while. Places with weather still aren't great candidates for Waymo.

onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
There's VERY few population centers in the US where it's raining heavily >10% of the time. The vast majority of rides in the US - and even in a place like Florida that's a swamp where it rains literally every day - happen under just fine conditions for Waymo. This is fine for a taxi service. If you make 10x as much profit in the vast majority of cases - you'll let someone else pick up the scraps in the edge cases. It's almost as if Waymo & Uber considered weather...
- ghaff 3y ago
  I'm not sure how one gets to anything like 10x. Uber drivers maybe making minimum wage driving their own cars are just not that expensive.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  Automotive EE here, I could not disagree with you more on the state and expectations of self-driving vehicles. I can tell you with confidence they have not really put effort into weather and it’s a problem “to be solved later”. It’s all a joke. If we actually wanted this, it would be long haul A to B routes. Turning semi trucks into rail. Self-driving was already slowing down before the era of free money. So I expect this is just PR to set expectations for Uber and prepare for a scenario where Uber is eventually swallowed by someone else. The article to me (an Automotive EE/CE of 20 years) that “Fairy dust makers combine efforts to bring genie wish program forward”.
  - shrimp_emoji 3y ago
    But have they solved the Trolley Problem?
    - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
      Mercedes got flack for it, but ultimately they had the right answer. When a sort of pitch was made to an exec where the car has to crash into a tree or a cyclist, he said the bike. Because you aren’t going to pay $80,000 for your car to choose your death. If you look at car ownership as owning a weapon, it does only make sense that you’ll have to prioritize for the owner. But really, we aren’t even remotely to trolley problem. The systems BARELY detect and react properly to single issues, let alone detecting multiple and selecting between them. I honestly think it’s a scam that was popular in the era of Free Money, and I’m so glad that is temporarily on pause.
      - AlotOfReading 3y ago
        The trolley problem is functionally irrelevant to AVs, but even if it wasn't, it's still prohibited if you ever plan to pursue type certification in Europe per 2022/1426, section 2.1.1.
    - astrange 3y ago
      There's no need because 1. cars have brakes 2. programming this into a car would make it more dangerous, because it might decide to trolley-program-sacrifice a grandmother when nobody was actually in danger.
  - minwcnt5 3y ago
    "I can tell you with confidence they have not really put effort into weather" Ah, the Internet, where people who know absolutely nothing about a topic make bold assertions about it with 100% confidence. https://blog.waymo.com/2022/11/using-cutting-edge-weather-research-to-advance-the-Waymo-Driver.html https://blog.waymo.com/2022/11/using-cutting-edge-weather-re...
    - 3y ago
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  There’s no way to get 10x unless human drivers are earning 90% of the price currently which is clearly very far from the case.
- smt88 3y ago
  > There's VERY few population centers in the US where it's raining heavily >10% of the time. First, you're utterly wrong about how rainy cities are[1]. Most of the population of the US lives in a place that has more than 100 rainy days per year. The Northeast Corridor by itself has 50 million people and 120+ annual rainy days. It also doesn't need to be "raining heavily". It can also be raining lightly, snowing, foggy, dusty, or smoky. But even if you're right and it's 10%, the predictability becomes a huge issue. I've spent my whole life on the East Coast, and you never know if it's really going to rain until it does or doesn't. The forecast changes literally minute to minute. 1. https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-precipitation-by-city.php https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-pre...
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    > First, you're utterly wrong about how rainy cities are[1]. Most of the population of the US lives in a place that has more than 100 rainy days per year. The Northeast Corridor by itself has 50 million people and 120+ annual rainy days. First, you are utterly wrong with your facts. 100 rainy days per year does not equal 2400 hours of rain per year. It's closer to 500 hours of rain per year = 5.7% of the time. Realistically, you're looking at the VAST majority of cities Uber being able to operate in 99% of the time. Additionally - "rain" does not equal downpour. Waymo can drive in light rain. And guess what - when it's downpouring, people crash MUCH MORE (fun fact - my father almost killed my hyrdoplaning in a downpour to get to my brother's basketball game). Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world if people aren't on the roads nearly dying in the middle of The Perfect Storm (<1% of the time) to get places they probably don't really need to get to in the first place...
minwcnt5 3y ago
Why not? It seems to work fine in rain - as evidenced by all the "bomb cyclones" in San Francisco this past rainy season. There are a lot of places they can go that don't have snow.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> seems to leave Lyft in a bad spot Suggests a natural partnership with Cruise.