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...
> 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.
> 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...
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”.
Even more so, if they "have not really put effort into weather" then apparently they didn't need to, there are videos of Waymo drives through SF at night in rain for example, it seems to work fine whether it took "real" effort or not
Ah, the internet where people who know absolutely nothing cite a PR blog directly from a company providing bold assertions that then give them 100% confidence.
I’ve been in at least four fully self-driving dev / S0 / drivable buck vehicles and they are absolute garbage imo. We had one planned demo that was delayed because of fog in 2020, not road fog, but crap on the LiDAR glass. How many have you directly worked with?
You’ll be happy to know it isn’t just weather that makes this all fake though.
Road crown, even minor, but especially major in the northwest. Reflections, refractions. Lights and electronic billboards. Potholes. Missing road paint. ANY sort of road work at all. “Unhomed” people washing windshields. Squirrels (day) and mice/rats (night). Other bad drivers. Just plain dirty vehicles, self and others. Dust.
It’s all garbage. If we were serious it would be long haul, V2V V2I (vehicle to infra/vehicle). But yea yea, Waygo says they solved weather so just post their claim and you win! Reality can’t compete with marketing, except it always does.
I'm not the person you're responding to, but I've ridden inside probably dozens of AVs at this point (and my work product is in hundreds). I can't relate to your experiences at all. That's weird, because if you're an EE at one of the major AV companies, we're likely within 1 degree of separation.
Every serious company has put significant effort into testing with weather (note: not all weather conditions and not the same testing as traditional automotive). They've also put effort into handling all the other scenarios you've mentioned. Waymo does pose estimation to better handle construction workers and traffic cops, for example.
Also the TAM numbers should make it clear why long distance freight isn't getting as much attention. Surely your employer has shared their outlook internally?
There are people taking rides in rain and fog, albeit only in SF and Phoenix. You can claim they haven’t put any effort into weather driving all you want, but the evidence suggests otherwise.
That blog is a great example about how they have no solution to the weather problem. Their heading image is a light drizzle, and they talk about "predicting" the weather, as if their cars being unable to manage an unpredictable situation is an okay product.
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.
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.
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.
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...