This test of Tesla’s self-driving tech is tough viewing: what Mark Rober did the fun way with his Wile E Coyote test of a fake wall in the middle of the road, the team over at The Dawn Project are doing the hard way by testing self-driving Teslas’ ability to stop for pedestrians at flashing […]
I just can’t see how Tesla self-driving taxis will be safe for unsupervised use any time soon.
Truly autonomous driving (on general purpose roads) is a lot further off than the hordes of venture capitalists want you to believe. Not sure which state is letting them loose, but I can’t imagine it’ll end well.
From what I’ve read, Waymo isn’t doing too bad of a job at it. They obviously aren’t perfect, but have succeeded at being much safer than human drivers. But those cars have a bazillion different sensors bolted on them, while Tesla is trying to do the same with nothing but a few cameras and computer vision systems.
It’s worth noting these companies try to capture & record every inch of a city before entering the market there. Without these models the vehicles would drive significantly worse. This isn’t really a scalable business model from what I’ve read
I mean, we probably shouldn’t concern ourselves TOO much with the profitability of a Google subsidiary and the pet project of the world’s richest man. I think they’ll figure out the monetization side of things. We should be laser focused on safety, which Waymo is certainly doing to a much higher degree than Tesla.
Texas in a couple weeks and California has some trials in San Francisco. Waymo is expanding to other cities, though. They are 100% not ready for live testing, yet here we are
They’re assuming that just because they can bullshit legal authorities to get the things on the road, that’s a fait accompli. Once the services is operating and generating income it’s untouchable.
Thing is, they’re going to cause problems that will affect people, they will cause traffic jams, they will piss people off, they will cause accidents. These vehicles are, by design, unattended, sure they have cameras, but, anyone with nondescript clothes and a face covering can sabotage these vehicles without much risk of legal consequence.
The cost of maintaining a fleet of these vehicles in the face of road rage induced sabotage will sink these companies even if they are able to bribe every politician in every major city.
Oh, they are already causing traffic issues in California. Plus the Waymos have been doing a lot of cacophonous honking when they try to park for the evening. Just chaos every where they go
And of course this is all definitely worth it so checks notes we can become dependent on a handful of private companies to move us through our highly car dependent society and dismantle what little public transit is left.
Truly autonomous driving (on general purpose roads) is a lot further off than the hordes of venture capitalists want you to believe. Not sure which state is letting them loose, but I can’t imagine it’ll end well.
From what I’ve read, Waymo isn’t doing too bad of a job at it. They obviously aren’t perfect, but have succeeded at being much safer than human drivers. But those cars have a bazillion different sensors bolted on them, while Tesla is trying to do the same with nothing but a few cameras and computer vision systems.
It’s worth noting these companies try to capture & record every inch of a city before entering the market there. Without these models the vehicles would drive significantly worse. This isn’t really a scalable business model from what I’ve read
That feels… very responsible?
I mean, we probably shouldn’t concern ourselves TOO much with the profitability of a Google subsidiary and the pet project of the world’s richest man. I think they’ll figure out the monetization side of things. We should be laser focused on safety, which Waymo is certainly doing to a much higher degree than Tesla.
Texas in a couple weeks and California has some trials in San Francisco. Waymo is expanding to other cities, though. They are 100% not ready for live testing, yet here we are
They’re assuming that just because they can bullshit legal authorities to get the things on the road, that’s a fait accompli. Once the services is operating and generating income it’s untouchable.
Thing is, they’re going to cause problems that will affect people, they will cause traffic jams, they will piss people off, they will cause accidents. These vehicles are, by design, unattended, sure they have cameras, but, anyone with nondescript clothes and a face covering can sabotage these vehicles without much risk of legal consequence.
The cost of maintaining a fleet of these vehicles in the face of road rage induced sabotage will sink these companies even if they are able to bribe every politician in every major city.
Oh, they are already causing traffic issues in California. Plus the Waymos have been doing a lot of cacophonous honking when they try to park for the evening. Just chaos every where they go
And of course this is all definitely worth it so checks notes we can become dependent on a handful of private companies to move us through our highly car dependent society and dismantle what little public transit is left.
Yup, totally a good idea and definitely worth it.