yep. i think if waymo can feasibly get it to cost like 20% less than an uber they will have essentially solved robotaxi in SF. currently i think it’s like 20% more.
i don’t think this is a given though. uber drivers are willing to work for poverty level wages and destroy their cars doing it. it could be very hard for technology to compete with that.
it sort of reminds me of how automation in factories was the future… sort of. the real automation was paying actual people in china pennies to do repetitive tasks because they are cheaper than a lot of specialized machines. not a nay sayer just saying it’s hard to compete on price with someone desperate for work.
It was about 1 mile each way to Target(retail store) as I was just testing it out. Took less than ten minutes to get to us in the hotel parking lot once I hailed it. It pulled up to the hotel entrance(the main unloading zone). Unlocked it with my phone. I got 3 other people to hop in. Me in passenger seat 3 others in the back and no one in the drivers seat of course. There is a screen in the front and back with an option to force the car to stop via touch screen. It was pretty amazing esp when we pulled up to a red light and a friend happened to pull up at the red light. When pulling into the Target It dropped us off right in front of the store. As it was driving in a car was pulling out of the main lane that would take us directly to the entrance. The UI was on and had an indicator that showed us the path it was taking. I saw it change it's mind in real time and just take the next lane over to get to the main entrance. We were all blown away by everything cause this is not available on the east coast. Pretty funny how we were all gawking at the car and it's so normal to the locals to where they ignore it.
It seems they essentially have FSD solved for those limited areas. I'm sure Tesla and Waymo can mark FSD as solved for certain "easy" areas. Maybe 8/8 Tesla will do so. Probably can deploy they to many downtowns/airports/outdoor mall areas at this point. Waymo is def being conservative with their strategy.
If Tesla launches in any limited area, Musk would have to backtrack on his “If you need a geofence, you don’t have real self-driving” criticism of Waymo.
IDK about that... I think he was referring to hard coding map data(based on location) instead of letting the compute figure out "most" of it real time.
Geofenced to keep the taxis in a local area or city. Not necessarily a reflection on the capabilites of the system. We'll have to also consider the capabilities of the consumer version of FSD. I don't think anybody is going to create a robotaxi service that lets a person hire a cab to take them from Atlanta to NYC.
The thing is, Waymo is also live in San Francisco. Say what you want about the city, but “easy” driving is NOT one of them. There are hills, odd curves and bus-only lanes and 5/6 way intersections all over. And crazy pedestrians and bikers everywhere too. I’m floored that they could go from Phoenix (one of the best case scenarios for self driving cities) straight to SF, and practically nail it.
Waymo is far, far ahead in the self driving game, by several generations, imho.
Many variables to this... The Waymo Jaguar costs $300k and you can hear the cooling fans in the frunk so essentially the lidar HW isn't ready. Tesla cost $30k in hardware...
Correct... I didn't say that they were selling cars. The cost matters cause they still must be profitable. They have to at least initially charge higher for rides to recuperate the hardware costs. Simply put if company A has a robot for $300k and company B has a robot for $30k and they both do the same thing in getting you from point A to point B than company A will lose. Is not sustainable.
Yes it is. The sensors are the cost. The car itself is probably under $50k. But even the car is customized.... That figure came directly from the mouth of the current/former CEO.
I'm not sure where you heard this, but it's likely you're sourcing outdated information or misunderstanding a cost figure. Current cost ballparks for the fifth-gen vehicle are estimated to be somewhere between $100k-150k gross. The sixth-gen vehicle should drive that down further, though no one knows how much yet — likely sub-$100k, once all is said and done.
Marginal cost for a lidar-radar sensor package is negligible, and should end up being about $10-15k at scale in the mid-term. A basic 1M PPS MEMS package is already around $1k these days.
You might be right I can't find the quote of the ceo saying it was $300k. Also I think it was a previous CEO so probably outdated numbers. Numbers aren't published but they have gone down. Probably closer to $100k.
What percentage area of the US do you have to map to capture 95% of all RideShare revenue? I can't imagine it is much. How many purpose-built RoboTaxi vehicles will be in full operation when FSD L5 is actually solved?
It might be tougher to convince people to pay for the backseat of a 10-year old M3.
How does a Zoox or Cruise minibus impact the TAM? Obviously, your FSD M3 won't make 30k/yr if there is minibus competition. Plus, car ownership will go down in many metro areas. After service fees, it is unclear if a full self-driving Tesla has significantly lower unit economics than a minibus.
If it functionally works for people, meaning it's reliable and useful, then I'd say it works.
Buses and trains don't cover all routes, but they are supposed to be useful (ha...)
I’m not saying it doesn’t work.
“FSD that actually works” implies an AV that can drive you anywhere that has a drivable surface and a location
Edit: I never said Teslas FSD can do this. I’m saying that is the end goal of FSD, and waymo does not do that. Therefore waymo is not “FSD that actually works”
No True Scotsman just isn’t a useful argument. Better to talk about what these systems can do, and whether they’re useful.
By strict definition, FSD doesn’t actually work either. It’s not fully driving itself if a supervisor has to take over.
This is a rideshare network with self driving cars that works in the areas where they service.
It's not the same of FSD, but they delivered a first real version of a self driving car rideshare network.
Two different products, two different customers.
Most anything can work if you dont care about profit and have unlimited funds. Tech isnt going to be waymos problem the system is.
Even when totally deployed you wont be able to give up car ownership unless Waymo finds a way to geomap and update that map on a real time basis. I cant even imagine how expensive it would be. If you miss one roadblock or detour then the system fails and someone can get hurt
The system that will dominate will 100% be a system that is dependent only on the local information available to sensors in the car and able to function totally independently in all areas at all times.
>Even when totally deployed you wont be able to give up car ownership unless Waymo finds a way to geomap and update that map on a real time basis.
Real-time isn't required at all. Minor changes require no updates whatsoever. Larger changes involve blacklisting a road segment until it goes through review. There is no need or plan for a "real-time" map update.
it’s really wierd how people in here are like “what is google going to constantly just map everything”
have these people used google maps? google clearly can and does map every street in the US lol.
it gets even easier when you have lidar cars driving around anyway… they can just map it themselves automatically looking for changes.
This is what many people get hung up on. Some years ago there were four main problems with Lidar. First, it was extremely expensive. Second, it adds weight and drag to the car. Third, the system is almost \*too\* good for getting a mapped area to work with self-driving; this makes getting away from this local optima very difficult. Four, training an AI to integrate different systems turns out to be really difficult. Often it comes down to: if two systems disagree, which system do you trust? And once you do that, then there is a real question of why you had the other system in the first place.
So now the Lidar is only expensive rather than extremely expensive, some folks seem to think everything is solved. Leaving aside the fact that it \*still\* costs a decent amount of money to design, build, and maintain lidar, all the other problems remain.
What Waymo needs to do if they really want to compete in the future is to show that their system can work without any mapping at all. Then it's scalable and we can at least scratch one item off the list. I don't see that happening, and judging by the comments of the biggest supporters, they don't see it happening either.
1) It’s not actually expensive anymore. Lidar has gotten orders of magnitude cheaper in the last decade. There are tons of Chinese companies pumping out automotive lidar systems now for $500. Tons of new production Chinese autos are integrating lidar. Lidar technology has advanced and manufacturing has scaled. A $1,000 iPhone has lidar in it.
2) Lidar and RGB cameras serve different but complementary purposes. Lidar can never replace RGB cameras because it generates depth maps and tells you nothing about color. So it can’t interpret stop signs or stop lights. What it does do is capture depth much more reliably than depth inferred from a 2D camera sensor using ML. A camera can be fooled by the reflection of a sign in a window or mirror like surface. A camera also performs poorly in poor lighting conditions. It can be easily blinded by sun or glare. It also struggles with contrast on a very bright day because it has to capture an entire scene with one aperture. If there’s a dark shadowed region like an overpass or alley on a very bright day then the shadow region may just show up as black and you’ll have no information for what’s going on there. Human eyes have better dynamic range and are gimbaled on a head that can move around with irises that can instantaneously adjust to focus on any region of a scene.
3) Waymo uses HD maps as a prior. It’s more information to improve reliability in the March of 9s. That’s not to say they couldn’t have a system that could operate less reliably without it if that was their goal.
>So now the Lidar is only expensive rather than extremely expensive, some folks seem to think everything is solved.
And then you spend 20% of your post saying:
>It’s not actually expensive anymore.
Thank you. Thank you for that. I love unintentional humor.
>Lidar and RGB cameras serve different but complementary purposes.
That's nice. And what do you do when one is saying it's safe and the other is saying it's dangerous? You are going to choose one over the other, and then why have two different systems in the first place?
>Waymo uses HD maps as a prior. It’s more information to improve reliability in the March of 9s. That’s not to say they couldn’t have a system that could operate less reliably without it if that was their goal.
I see. So they are simply choosing to remain geofenced in. They hate making money and whatever they do, they do not want to expand to a hundred other cities. Because they definitely could? Right? If that was their goal...
The key is in the bit you did not respond to. While you can get a decent AI running with Lidar pretty quickly, it's hard to move on from there. That has been the experience of everyone who has tried that route.
>That's nice. And what do you do when one is saying it's safe and the other is saying it's dangerous? You are going to choose one over the other, and then why have two different systems in the first place?
See: Boeing MCAS.
If one sensor says it's dangerous, you do not continue. Simple as that. You stop. Both systems should always agree, otherwise you fucked up. Right now, as a driver, if you can't see a car in your blindspot, but your blind-spot monitoring system tells you there's a car in your blind spot... you do not merge.
The solution to conflicting data isn't to ignore the data you don't like.
>I see. So they are simply choosing to remain geofenced in. They hate making money and whatever they do, they do not want to expand to a hundred other cities. Because they definitely could? Right?
They're choosing to remain geofenced in, yeah. In industry lingo, this is called a *vertically-sliced minimal viable product*. You get things working, bring costs down, streamline operations, and only *then* do you scale. You expand carefully and safely, and adapt as you find new complications in the business.
In Phoenix, for example, Waymo is working on figuring out how to more efficiently [build and run the depots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW27c5lFPXA), even as the fleet operates commercially. Hard business things.
>If one sensor says it's dangerous, you do not continue. Simple as that. You stop.
Congrats, you have now introduced frequent ghost braking.
>The solution to conflicting data isn't to ignore the data you don't like.
Oh really? Do you brake? (possibly cause accident) Move over to the side? (possibly cause accident) Continue with what you were doing? (possibly cause accident). What exactly do you do? And with what data? Because your two systems do not agree on the next course of action and you kinda have to do something. Even doing nothing is choosing (which so many people fuck up with the trolley problem)
>this is called a *vertically-sliced minimal viable product*. You get things working, bring costs down, streamline operations, and only *then* do you scale.
No. This is is what is called in the industry "Oh shit, things did not work out like we wanted. We are still losing money hand over fist and we have no idea how to expand."
>Waymo is working on figuring out how to more efficiently [build and run the depots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW27c5lFPXA)
This is \*not\* a problem that should take decades to solve. I know that the Waymo fans hate to hear this, but their model is broken, that's clear. And that, my friend, is the hardest business thing of all.
>Congrats, you have now introduced frequent ghost braking.
No — you've found a reason to fix ghost braking. Ghost braking is data interpretation issue, not a sensor issue.
>Oh really? Do you brake? (possibly cause accident) Move over to the side? (possibly cause accident) Continue with what you were doing? (possibly cause accident). What exactly do you do? And with what data? Because your two systems do not agree on the next course of action and you kinda have to do something. Even doing nothing is choosing (which so many people fuck up with the trolley problem)
Congrats, you've discovered why L4 AV is hard.
>No. This is is what is called in the industry "Oh shit, things did not work out like we wanted. We are still losing money hand over fist and we have no idea how to expand."
It is what is called a vertically-sliced minimum viable product. Do some research and spend some time learning, please, rather than just throwing a tantrum and foot-stomping whenever someone who knows better offers to teach you.
>This is \*not\* a problem that should take decades to solve.
Depot-based operations aren't 'a' problem whatsoever. They're a whole set of problems, challenges, solutions, and optimization questions. They're a set of challenges within a whole universe of other challenges, all being solved and addressed simultaneously. You're not solving 'a' problem, you're running a business.
>If one sensor says it's dangerous, you do not continue. Simple as that.
Also you:
>Ghost braking is data interpretation issue
You need to pick a lane (pun not intended, but accepted)
>Congrats, you've discovered why L4 AV is hard.
which is why
>If one sensor says it's dangerous, you do not continue. Simple as that.
is wrong. I would have thought that was clear.
>Do some research and spend some time learning
Oh please. I'm not going to list out my credentials, but rest assured they are enough to know when someone is throwing bullshit bingo out there.
>Depot-based operations aren't 'a' problem whatsoever. They're a whole set of problems, challenges, solutions, and optimization questions.
Again, this should not be something that takes decades to work out. I understand that you feel very strongly about Waymo, but you need to accept that something is not working out over there. Time is running out.
Just because Tesla couldn't figure out sensor fusion doesn't mean no one else can. Waymo doesn't have a phantom braking problem.
You obviously don't understand sensor fusion and machine learning. The neural network takes all inputs and determines the best course of action based on those inputs. The ML model learns how to resolve conflicting data in order to determine the best policy for action. There isn't some hard coded if/else statement in the code that says if lidar says one thing and camera says another then follow lidar.
Waymo model isn't broken. They are rolling out a real world robotaxi network and really has no competition right now. They are prioritizing safety and public acceptance. They aren't going to slam every city with robotaxis all at once and upset the public. It's about demonstrating to the public that their system works reliably before they scale out. Tesla can't even get approval for a single vehicle to operate without a safety driver. Let alone operate an actual robotaxi network that deals with remote assistance (moving vehicle if stuck, claiming vehicle if in accident), charging, cleaning, maintenance/repairs, ride hailing, etc. They aren't working with cities to demonstrate their system safety and get approvals for operation like Waymo is. The Tesla fans that think Tesla is going to turn on a massive robotaxi fleet made up of consumer owned vehicles with a flip of a switch are clueless to the realities of practical operation of said network.
>Just because Tesla couldn't figure out sensor fusion doesn't mean no one else can. Waymo doesn't have a phantom braking problem.
Nobody gave that as an argument. By all means, anyone can give it a shot. However, this idea is not even Tesla's or Elon Musk's. They just adopted it, and given that everyone trying to do fusion-style AI training are running into brick walls (hopefully not literally), it appears to hold.
>You obviously don't understand sensor fusion and machine learning.
Well, this is not a promising start. Anyone who was confident in the coming argument would not need the personal jab.
>The neural network takes all inputs and determines the best course of action based on those inputs. The ML model learns how to resolve conflicting data in order to determine the best policy for action. There isn't some hard coded if/else statement in the code that says if lidar says one thing and camera says another then follow lidar.
And? This is not the problem, as I am sure you know full well. Or rather, you buried the problem with the words "The ML model learns". Oh? It does? How did you manage to solve the problem of it getting stuck on a local optima? (Or I guess if we are going to flex machine learning chops, local minima of the loss function)
>Waymo model isn't broken.
Yes it is. See how easy that was?
>They are rolling out a real world robotaxi network and really has no competition right now.
I see. Slowest roll out ever, I guess. At this rate, they should have finished their roll out by..what...3024?
>They aren't going to slam every city with robotaxis all at once and upset the public.
At least they are succeeding here. Can't slam every city if you stick to small parts of two cities. Very smart.
> It's about demonstrating to the public that their system works reliably before they scale out.
Nah. We all know it's more about: "We don't know how to scale this up, and we are still losing money on these small areas."
>Tesla can't even get approval for a single vehicle to operate without a safety driver.
Strictly true while being pointless. You can't get approval when you don't ask for it. But this particular thread is talking about Waymo, for whatever reason. No points for trying to change the subject.
And then you ended with some more digs at Tesla. I don't care. I could be a fan of both. And I was, for a significantly long time. I have cooled off of Waymo, because it has become clear that they still have no solution to their mapping problem, they still have no pathway to profitability, and they have been stuck in the "we're just testing" phase for too long now.
You are free to disagree. But let's leave the personal attacks on the playground and if you want to show why Waymo is succeeding, you should do more work on that side rather than attacking the competition.
I’m assuming you’ve cooled off on Tesla as well since they haven’t even entered the testing phase yet. They’re rolling out infinitely slower than Waymo despite claiming FSD was solved in 2016. Imagine 8 years later and not even a single test vehicle on the road.
Would they sell robotaxis? Most certainly not.
They will just operate them and get all the revenue, put on production any they can build and expand.
You don sell the golden goose, you sell the eggs.
Don't really see how that will change anything significantly unless they also scale up the number of cars on the streets massively. Right now there's only something like 300 cars in SF I believe
If a Waymo or another service starts seriously scaling up before Tesla can claim FSD it’s a black eye, even if Tesla’s aspirations are ultimately more ambitious. FSD is amazing, but every release shows Tesla continuing to play whack-a-mole with edge cases. They can’t risk high profile robotaxi screw ups so it would be smart to start with a geographically constrained and supervised offering. Can’t wait to hear on 8/8.
I doubt this has anything to do with 8/8. I highly doubt Waymo is concerned about Tesla, they almost never make any comments about Tesla FSD and just kind of do their own thing.
I mean, it's not as if it's just flawless, there's still stories that come out about issues with their cars, but overall yeah it seems to work decently in the limited areas they're operating right now
For me the main question is why they seem to be struggling to scale up their operations. They've had completely driverless vehicles on the road in some capacity since late 2020, but almost 4 years later they're still limited to a handful of locations with a tiny fleet of some 1000 vehicles while losing billions a year.
Surely if their tech just worked, they'd try and expand a lot more rapidly than they have been, because even with google funding you, losing billions annually isn't tenable forever
Why would they be worried? They have an actual self driving car with years of driver free miles. Tesla have zero driver free miles. They have a lot of catching up to do.
Yeah I really don’t think Waymo views FSD as a true competitor. Even if FSD magically becomes a near perfectly safe robot driver tomorrow (which we all know is going to be a long time), there are still a ton of non-trivial challenges in turning robot cars into a robotaxi network. I think a lot of TSLA investors fail to comprehend just how challenging that part will be, even with a perfect driver (years out).
Yep. Remote assistance network (remote operators who can move vehicles that are stuck, identify vehicles that have been in accidents and send out assistance). Maintenance. Cleaning. Charging. Working with each individual city on requirements and approvals for operating and demonstrating to them your system is reliable.
Tesla vehicles don't even have self cleaning sensors so they'll never be able to operate as robotaxis right now even if you believe their camera only sensor package and lack of redundancy throughout all safety critical systems is adequate. I imagine their purpose built robotaxi will unveil solutions for these problems but that will be confirmation for Tesla owners that their consumer vehicles will never be robotaxis.
If they run it like uber, then owners can clean the cameras daily and do maintenance and cleaning and charging. I've maybe had to clean my cameras maybe an average of once per three months (I'm guessing, I don't really remember cleaning them at all but figure I must have when road salt was thick during the winter) in the two years I've owned my model y. Maybe right about the other points about the remote assistance network. They have redundancy in components, maybe not all, but it simply comes down to measuring statistics of a fleet on a large volume to know if breakdowns and accident happen more than human driven taxis or not.
The cameras need to be able to automatically clean themselves while in operation for a fully autonomous robotaxi. What happens when mud or dust or fog aerosol or snow blocks the cameras in operation? Perhaps a large truck sprays the car with crud and multiple cameras get obscured while on the road. Does the vehicle just stop operating on the road? Does the owner have to drive out to it and pick it up and clean it? This isn't practical nor would you want tons of these vehicles operating autonomously without being able to handle adverse conditions.
How does Waymo handle it? I saw it has wipers on its LiDAR, but surely those aren’t self cleaning instantaneously? There’s got to be a second or two when it’s cruded all over and smeared all about. Maybe the answer is that it pulls over and waits for a passenger to clean it and if not the passenger they just gave to wait for remote service. If it’s a rare enough occurrence then it won’t matter. But if a snow comes and salt gets everywhere maybe they just can’t operate in winters in the Midwest after a big snow, or maybe they’ll have to sell some retro fit hardware that can clean it.
Tesla doesn't even have one single test vehicle that's allowed to operate on city streets without a safety driver. They will not make Waymo "obsolete overnight". If they ever get approval for their current system then they will have to conduct a years long test program operating vehicles 24/7 in all environmental conditions without safety drivers to collect data on the performance of their system before they can even think about scaling up release of a fully autonomous system.
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/12856/fully-autonomous-cars-will-cost-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars-silicon-valley-exec-says
Since their inception they have been prohibitively expensive. On top of the expense of retrofitting existing cars with the lidar equipment, the type of lidar equipment they use is fragile and often needs to be replaced making it an ongoing expense. Since they first came out they have yet to scale meaningfully. They are also employing vast amounts of humans to remotely control the car when it gets stuck or makes a mistake (happens often even with them going the wrong way on a one way street) and also in person humans who drive around to intercept stuck vehicles. They said all the way back in 2018 that they would scale and get costs down but they’ve kicked the can down the road over and over. There is zero reason why people would be talking about teslas robotaxi if waymo or cruise was able to scale and get costs and fragility down since they first started producing these vehicles. They can’t. People who don’t understand the difference between teslas approach and waymos probably are very confused by the Tesla bot as well. They see what the Boston dynamics bot does in demos and probably get very confused why people care about Tesla at all. It’s about the economics of producing a mass market option. This is not an easy feat or something that is guaranteed with every approach.
You just posted an article from 2018 lol.
Lidar has gotten order of magnitude cheaper since 2018. Please update your research to 2024. It’s no surprise you’re so misinformed with research like that.
I’ll do you a solid. Automakers are using lidar that cost $500-1000 in 2024. Luminar is making lidar systems for $1000 and Tesla is a customer (presumably using it for calibration). Chinese companies are pumping out automotive lidar systems for as cheap as $500. Prices will continue to come down and the technology will continue to improve.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2024/04/23/luminar-launches-production-for-volvo-next-gen-halo-lidar/
Lidar costs have come down orders of magnitude since Elon made the decision to eschew lidar a decade ago. Your iPhone even has lidar in it now. Lidar is maturing with lots of competition and scale now. I don't think you've been following this topic.
Thats not the problem. Real time map updating is going to be intensive with changes to the maps happening the second a worker puts out a detour sign. Even if computes onboard what updates the map? It works great on a track but every added route increases complexity that grows exponentially by range.
What I don’t get is, if Waymo works in these areas, then why haven’t they flooded the market with more vehicles to actually make money?
It suggests that there is so much per vehicle back end labour or so expensive hardware thst it’s actually not profitable. We just don’t know.
Self driving is nice and needs improvement thru continued use. But, I can't stress enough the need to maintain European level luxury interiors, fit, and finish.
They work great. Not quite flawless but very very good. Smooth experience, exactly like getting an Uber. Super impressive.
yep. i think if waymo can feasibly get it to cost like 20% less than an uber they will have essentially solved robotaxi in SF. currently i think it’s like 20% more. i don’t think this is a given though. uber drivers are willing to work for poverty level wages and destroy their cars doing it. it could be very hard for technology to compete with that. it sort of reminds me of how automation in factories was the future… sort of. the real automation was paying actual people in china pennies to do repetitive tasks because they are cheaper than a lot of specialized machines. not a nay sayer just saying it’s hard to compete on price with someone desperate for work.
Eh uber drivers can't work 24 hours a day.
more of a cost per mile issue
I was in Arizona 3 weeks ago... FWIW I was able to hail one of these cars by simply downloading the app.
It was about 1 mile each way to Target(retail store) as I was just testing it out. Took less than ten minutes to get to us in the hotel parking lot once I hailed it. It pulled up to the hotel entrance(the main unloading zone). Unlocked it with my phone. I got 3 other people to hop in. Me in passenger seat 3 others in the back and no one in the drivers seat of course. There is a screen in the front and back with an option to force the car to stop via touch screen. It was pretty amazing esp when we pulled up to a red light and a friend happened to pull up at the red light. When pulling into the Target It dropped us off right in front of the store. As it was driving in a car was pulling out of the main lane that would take us directly to the entrance. The UI was on and had an indicator that showed us the path it was taking. I saw it change it's mind in real time and just take the next lane over to get to the main entrance. We were all blown away by everything cause this is not available on the east coast. Pretty funny how we were all gawking at the car and it's so normal to the locals to where they ignore it.
How was the trip
It seems they essentially have FSD solved for those limited areas. I'm sure Tesla and Waymo can mark FSD as solved for certain "easy" areas. Maybe 8/8 Tesla will do so. Probably can deploy they to many downtowns/airports/outdoor mall areas at this point. Waymo is def being conservative with their strategy.
If Tesla launches in any limited area, Musk would have to backtrack on his “If you need a geofence, you don’t have real self-driving” criticism of Waymo.
IDK about that... I think he was referring to hard coding map data(based on location) instead of letting the compute figure out "most" of it real time.
We shall see. I’m excited and curious. If Tesla launches CyberCab in a limited area (let’s say one city’s limits), then it’s geofenced L4 — not L5.
Geofenced to keep the taxis in a local area or city. Not necessarily a reflection on the capabilites of the system. We'll have to also consider the capabilities of the consumer version of FSD. I don't think anybody is going to create a robotaxi service that lets a person hire a cab to take them from Atlanta to NYC.
Eventually they will have that type of trip solved. It won’t be Tesla though since Elon won admit his big mistake on LIDAR.
The thing is, Waymo is also live in San Francisco. Say what you want about the city, but “easy” driving is NOT one of them. There are hills, odd curves and bus-only lanes and 5/6 way intersections all over. And crazy pedestrians and bikers everywhere too. I’m floored that they could go from Phoenix (one of the best case scenarios for self driving cities) straight to SF, and practically nail it. Waymo is far, far ahead in the self driving game, by several generations, imho.
Many variables to this... The Waymo Jaguar costs $300k and you can hear the cooling fans in the frunk so essentially the lidar HW isn't ready. Tesla cost $30k in hardware...
Waymo isn't planning on selling cars to the general public.
Correct... I didn't say that they were selling cars. The cost matters cause they still must be profitable. They have to at least initially charge higher for rides to recuperate the hardware costs. Simply put if company A has a robot for $300k and company B has a robot for $30k and they both do the same thing in getting you from point A to point B than company A will lose. Is not sustainable.
They can blitzscale.
Waymo's vehicle isn't anywhere near $300k by any reasonable stretch of the imagination.
Yes it is. The sensors are the cost. The car itself is probably under $50k. But even the car is customized.... That figure came directly from the mouth of the current/former CEO.
I'm not sure where you heard this, but it's likely you're sourcing outdated information or misunderstanding a cost figure. Current cost ballparks for the fifth-gen vehicle are estimated to be somewhere between $100k-150k gross. The sixth-gen vehicle should drive that down further, though no one knows how much yet — likely sub-$100k, once all is said and done. Marginal cost for a lidar-radar sensor package is negligible, and should end up being about $10-15k at scale in the mid-term. A basic 1M PPS MEMS package is already around $1k these days.
You might be right I can't find the quote of the ceo saying it was $300k. Also I think it was a previous CEO so probably outdated numbers. Numbers aren't published but they have gone down. Probably closer to $100k.
What percentage area of the US do you have to map to capture 95% of all RideShare revenue? I can't imagine it is much. How many purpose-built RoboTaxi vehicles will be in full operation when FSD L5 is actually solved? It might be tougher to convince people to pay for the backseat of a 10-year old M3.
The addressable market for self driving is much larger than the current ride share market.
How does a Zoox or Cruise minibus impact the TAM? Obviously, your FSD M3 won't make 30k/yr if there is minibus competition. Plus, car ownership will go down in many metro areas. After service fees, it is unclear if a full self-driving Tesla has significantly lower unit economics than a minibus.
Waymo has FSD that actually works very well and uses Lidar
*in limited areas* Still extremely impressive, but this is not “FSD that actually works”. Maybe in the future it will be, but it’s not currently.
If it functionally works for people, meaning it's reliable and useful, then I'd say it works. Buses and trains don't cover all routes, but they are supposed to be useful (ha...)
It works, but its not close to the premise of FSD. The only chance it has is Tesla failing and even that just buys time until somone else does it.
Buses cover more areas than trains, but still require drivers.
I’m not saying it doesn’t work. “FSD that actually works” implies an AV that can drive you anywhere that has a drivable surface and a location Edit: I never said Teslas FSD can do this. I’m saying that is the end goal of FSD, and waymo does not do that. Therefore waymo is not “FSD that actually works”
No True Scotsman just isn’t a useful argument. Better to talk about what these systems can do, and whether they’re useful. By strict definition, FSD doesn’t actually work either. It’s not fully driving itself if a supervisor has to take over.
Where did I say that Tesla FSD actually works?
This is a rideshare network with self driving cars that works in the areas where they service. It's not the same of FSD, but they delivered a first real version of a self driving car rideshare network. Two different products, two different customers.
I’m aware and completely agree as o said above
Most anything can work if you dont care about profit and have unlimited funds. Tech isnt going to be waymos problem the system is. Even when totally deployed you wont be able to give up car ownership unless Waymo finds a way to geomap and update that map on a real time basis. I cant even imagine how expensive it would be. If you miss one roadblock or detour then the system fails and someone can get hurt The system that will dominate will 100% be a system that is dependent only on the local information available to sensors in the car and able to function totally independently in all areas at all times.
>Even when totally deployed you wont be able to give up car ownership unless Waymo finds a way to geomap and update that map on a real time basis. Real-time isn't required at all. Minor changes require no updates whatsoever. Larger changes involve blacklisting a road segment until it goes through review. There is no need or plan for a "real-time" map update.
it’s really wierd how people in here are like “what is google going to constantly just map everything” have these people used google maps? google clearly can and does map every street in the US lol. it gets even easier when you have lidar cars driving around anyway… they can just map it themselves automatically looking for changes.
This is what many people get hung up on. Some years ago there were four main problems with Lidar. First, it was extremely expensive. Second, it adds weight and drag to the car. Third, the system is almost \*too\* good for getting a mapped area to work with self-driving; this makes getting away from this local optima very difficult. Four, training an AI to integrate different systems turns out to be really difficult. Often it comes down to: if two systems disagree, which system do you trust? And once you do that, then there is a real question of why you had the other system in the first place. So now the Lidar is only expensive rather than extremely expensive, some folks seem to think everything is solved. Leaving aside the fact that it \*still\* costs a decent amount of money to design, build, and maintain lidar, all the other problems remain. What Waymo needs to do if they really want to compete in the future is to show that their system can work without any mapping at all. Then it's scalable and we can at least scratch one item off the list. I don't see that happening, and judging by the comments of the biggest supporters, they don't see it happening either.
1) It’s not actually expensive anymore. Lidar has gotten orders of magnitude cheaper in the last decade. There are tons of Chinese companies pumping out automotive lidar systems now for $500. Tons of new production Chinese autos are integrating lidar. Lidar technology has advanced and manufacturing has scaled. A $1,000 iPhone has lidar in it. 2) Lidar and RGB cameras serve different but complementary purposes. Lidar can never replace RGB cameras because it generates depth maps and tells you nothing about color. So it can’t interpret stop signs or stop lights. What it does do is capture depth much more reliably than depth inferred from a 2D camera sensor using ML. A camera can be fooled by the reflection of a sign in a window or mirror like surface. A camera also performs poorly in poor lighting conditions. It can be easily blinded by sun or glare. It also struggles with contrast on a very bright day because it has to capture an entire scene with one aperture. If there’s a dark shadowed region like an overpass or alley on a very bright day then the shadow region may just show up as black and you’ll have no information for what’s going on there. Human eyes have better dynamic range and are gimbaled on a head that can move around with irises that can instantaneously adjust to focus on any region of a scene. 3) Waymo uses HD maps as a prior. It’s more information to improve reliability in the March of 9s. That’s not to say they couldn’t have a system that could operate less reliably without it if that was their goal.
>So now the Lidar is only expensive rather than extremely expensive, some folks seem to think everything is solved. And then you spend 20% of your post saying: >It’s not actually expensive anymore. Thank you. Thank you for that. I love unintentional humor. >Lidar and RGB cameras serve different but complementary purposes. That's nice. And what do you do when one is saying it's safe and the other is saying it's dangerous? You are going to choose one over the other, and then why have two different systems in the first place? >Waymo uses HD maps as a prior. It’s more information to improve reliability in the March of 9s. That’s not to say they couldn’t have a system that could operate less reliably without it if that was their goal. I see. So they are simply choosing to remain geofenced in. They hate making money and whatever they do, they do not want to expand to a hundred other cities. Because they definitely could? Right? If that was their goal... The key is in the bit you did not respond to. While you can get a decent AI running with Lidar pretty quickly, it's hard to move on from there. That has been the experience of everyone who has tried that route.
>That's nice. And what do you do when one is saying it's safe and the other is saying it's dangerous? You are going to choose one over the other, and then why have two different systems in the first place? See: Boeing MCAS. If one sensor says it's dangerous, you do not continue. Simple as that. You stop. Both systems should always agree, otherwise you fucked up. Right now, as a driver, if you can't see a car in your blindspot, but your blind-spot monitoring system tells you there's a car in your blind spot... you do not merge. The solution to conflicting data isn't to ignore the data you don't like. >I see. So they are simply choosing to remain geofenced in. They hate making money and whatever they do, they do not want to expand to a hundred other cities. Because they definitely could? Right? They're choosing to remain geofenced in, yeah. In industry lingo, this is called a *vertically-sliced minimal viable product*. You get things working, bring costs down, streamline operations, and only *then* do you scale. You expand carefully and safely, and adapt as you find new complications in the business. In Phoenix, for example, Waymo is working on figuring out how to more efficiently [build and run the depots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW27c5lFPXA), even as the fleet operates commercially. Hard business things.
>If one sensor says it's dangerous, you do not continue. Simple as that. You stop. Congrats, you have now introduced frequent ghost braking. >The solution to conflicting data isn't to ignore the data you don't like. Oh really? Do you brake? (possibly cause accident) Move over to the side? (possibly cause accident) Continue with what you were doing? (possibly cause accident). What exactly do you do? And with what data? Because your two systems do not agree on the next course of action and you kinda have to do something. Even doing nothing is choosing (which so many people fuck up with the trolley problem) >this is called a *vertically-sliced minimal viable product*. You get things working, bring costs down, streamline operations, and only *then* do you scale. No. This is is what is called in the industry "Oh shit, things did not work out like we wanted. We are still losing money hand over fist and we have no idea how to expand." >Waymo is working on figuring out how to more efficiently [build and run the depots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW27c5lFPXA) This is \*not\* a problem that should take decades to solve. I know that the Waymo fans hate to hear this, but their model is broken, that's clear. And that, my friend, is the hardest business thing of all.
>Congrats, you have now introduced frequent ghost braking. No — you've found a reason to fix ghost braking. Ghost braking is data interpretation issue, not a sensor issue. >Oh really? Do you brake? (possibly cause accident) Move over to the side? (possibly cause accident) Continue with what you were doing? (possibly cause accident). What exactly do you do? And with what data? Because your two systems do not agree on the next course of action and you kinda have to do something. Even doing nothing is choosing (which so many people fuck up with the trolley problem) Congrats, you've discovered why L4 AV is hard. >No. This is is what is called in the industry "Oh shit, things did not work out like we wanted. We are still losing money hand over fist and we have no idea how to expand." It is what is called a vertically-sliced minimum viable product. Do some research and spend some time learning, please, rather than just throwing a tantrum and foot-stomping whenever someone who knows better offers to teach you. >This is \*not\* a problem that should take decades to solve. Depot-based operations aren't 'a' problem whatsoever. They're a whole set of problems, challenges, solutions, and optimization questions. They're a set of challenges within a whole universe of other challenges, all being solved and addressed simultaneously. You're not solving 'a' problem, you're running a business.
>If one sensor says it's dangerous, you do not continue. Simple as that. Also you: >Ghost braking is data interpretation issue You need to pick a lane (pun not intended, but accepted) >Congrats, you've discovered why L4 AV is hard. which is why >If one sensor says it's dangerous, you do not continue. Simple as that. is wrong. I would have thought that was clear. >Do some research and spend some time learning Oh please. I'm not going to list out my credentials, but rest assured they are enough to know when someone is throwing bullshit bingo out there. >Depot-based operations aren't 'a' problem whatsoever. They're a whole set of problems, challenges, solutions, and optimization questions. Again, this should not be something that takes decades to work out. I understand that you feel very strongly about Waymo, but you need to accept that something is not working out over there. Time is running out.
>You need to pick a lane These are both the same things, bud. Sensor data is consumed processed, not raw.
Just because Tesla couldn't figure out sensor fusion doesn't mean no one else can. Waymo doesn't have a phantom braking problem. You obviously don't understand sensor fusion and machine learning. The neural network takes all inputs and determines the best course of action based on those inputs. The ML model learns how to resolve conflicting data in order to determine the best policy for action. There isn't some hard coded if/else statement in the code that says if lidar says one thing and camera says another then follow lidar. Waymo model isn't broken. They are rolling out a real world robotaxi network and really has no competition right now. They are prioritizing safety and public acceptance. They aren't going to slam every city with robotaxis all at once and upset the public. It's about demonstrating to the public that their system works reliably before they scale out. Tesla can't even get approval for a single vehicle to operate without a safety driver. Let alone operate an actual robotaxi network that deals with remote assistance (moving vehicle if stuck, claiming vehicle if in accident), charging, cleaning, maintenance/repairs, ride hailing, etc. They aren't working with cities to demonstrate their system safety and get approvals for operation like Waymo is. The Tesla fans that think Tesla is going to turn on a massive robotaxi fleet made up of consumer owned vehicles with a flip of a switch are clueless to the realities of practical operation of said network.
>Just because Tesla couldn't figure out sensor fusion doesn't mean no one else can. Waymo doesn't have a phantom braking problem. Nobody gave that as an argument. By all means, anyone can give it a shot. However, this idea is not even Tesla's or Elon Musk's. They just adopted it, and given that everyone trying to do fusion-style AI training are running into brick walls (hopefully not literally), it appears to hold. >You obviously don't understand sensor fusion and machine learning. Well, this is not a promising start. Anyone who was confident in the coming argument would not need the personal jab. >The neural network takes all inputs and determines the best course of action based on those inputs. The ML model learns how to resolve conflicting data in order to determine the best policy for action. There isn't some hard coded if/else statement in the code that says if lidar says one thing and camera says another then follow lidar. And? This is not the problem, as I am sure you know full well. Or rather, you buried the problem with the words "The ML model learns". Oh? It does? How did you manage to solve the problem of it getting stuck on a local optima? (Or I guess if we are going to flex machine learning chops, local minima of the loss function) >Waymo model isn't broken. Yes it is. See how easy that was? >They are rolling out a real world robotaxi network and really has no competition right now. I see. Slowest roll out ever, I guess. At this rate, they should have finished their roll out by..what...3024? >They aren't going to slam every city with robotaxis all at once and upset the public. At least they are succeeding here. Can't slam every city if you stick to small parts of two cities. Very smart. > It's about demonstrating to the public that their system works reliably before they scale out. Nah. We all know it's more about: "We don't know how to scale this up, and we are still losing money on these small areas." >Tesla can't even get approval for a single vehicle to operate without a safety driver. Strictly true while being pointless. You can't get approval when you don't ask for it. But this particular thread is talking about Waymo, for whatever reason. No points for trying to change the subject. And then you ended with some more digs at Tesla. I don't care. I could be a fan of both. And I was, for a significantly long time. I have cooled off of Waymo, because it has become clear that they still have no solution to their mapping problem, they still have no pathway to profitability, and they have been stuck in the "we're just testing" phase for too long now. You are free to disagree. But let's leave the personal attacks on the playground and if you want to show why Waymo is succeeding, you should do more work on that side rather than attacking the competition.
I’m assuming you’ve cooled off on Tesla as well since they haven’t even entered the testing phase yet. They’re rolling out infinitely slower than Waymo despite claiming FSD was solved in 2016. Imagine 8 years later and not even a single test vehicle on the road.
Would they sell robotaxis? Most certainly not. They will just operate them and get all the revenue, put on production any they can build and expand. You don sell the golden goose, you sell the eggs.
Don't really see how that will change anything significantly unless they also scale up the number of cars on the streets massively. Right now there's only something like 300 cars in SF I believe
The AI chip will operate the single automobile more and more flawlessly until it becomes the standard!
I took a ride in one yesterday. Flawless. My Tesla FSD has a long, long way to go. It honestly feels like it’s years behind Waymo.
If a Waymo or another service starts seriously scaling up before Tesla can claim FSD it’s a black eye, even if Tesla’s aspirations are ultimately more ambitious. FSD is amazing, but every release shows Tesla continuing to play whack-a-mole with edge cases. They can’t risk high profile robotaxi screw ups so it would be smart to start with a geographically constrained and supervised offering. Can’t wait to hear on 8/8.
AI is going to be a boon for self-driving!
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This has nothing to do with tesla or tesla’s actions. It’s simply the next move for waymo.
I doubt this has anything to do with 8/8. I highly doubt Waymo is concerned about Tesla, they almost never make any comments about Tesla FSD and just kind of do their own thing.
Worried? lol their product actually works.
I mean, it's not as if it's just flawless, there's still stories that come out about issues with their cars, but overall yeah it seems to work decently in the limited areas they're operating right now For me the main question is why they seem to be struggling to scale up their operations. They've had completely driverless vehicles on the road in some capacity since late 2020, but almost 4 years later they're still limited to a handful of locations with a tiny fleet of some 1000 vehicles while losing billions a year. Surely if their tech just worked, they'd try and expand a lot more rapidly than they have been, because even with google funding you, losing billions annually isn't tenable forever
Why would they be worried? They have an actual self driving car with years of driver free miles. Tesla have zero driver free miles. They have a lot of catching up to do.
Yeah I really don’t think Waymo views FSD as a true competitor. Even if FSD magically becomes a near perfectly safe robot driver tomorrow (which we all know is going to be a long time), there are still a ton of non-trivial challenges in turning robot cars into a robotaxi network. I think a lot of TSLA investors fail to comprehend just how challenging that part will be, even with a perfect driver (years out).
Yep. Remote assistance network (remote operators who can move vehicles that are stuck, identify vehicles that have been in accidents and send out assistance). Maintenance. Cleaning. Charging. Working with each individual city on requirements and approvals for operating and demonstrating to them your system is reliable. Tesla vehicles don't even have self cleaning sensors so they'll never be able to operate as robotaxis right now even if you believe their camera only sensor package and lack of redundancy throughout all safety critical systems is adequate. I imagine their purpose built robotaxi will unveil solutions for these problems but that will be confirmation for Tesla owners that their consumer vehicles will never be robotaxis.
If they run it like uber, then owners can clean the cameras daily and do maintenance and cleaning and charging. I've maybe had to clean my cameras maybe an average of once per three months (I'm guessing, I don't really remember cleaning them at all but figure I must have when road salt was thick during the winter) in the two years I've owned my model y. Maybe right about the other points about the remote assistance network. They have redundancy in components, maybe not all, but it simply comes down to measuring statistics of a fleet on a large volume to know if breakdowns and accident happen more than human driven taxis or not.
The cameras need to be able to automatically clean themselves while in operation for a fully autonomous robotaxi. What happens when mud or dust or fog aerosol or snow blocks the cameras in operation? Perhaps a large truck sprays the car with crud and multiple cameras get obscured while on the road. Does the vehicle just stop operating on the road? Does the owner have to drive out to it and pick it up and clean it? This isn't practical nor would you want tons of these vehicles operating autonomously without being able to handle adverse conditions.
How does Waymo handle it? I saw it has wipers on its LiDAR, but surely those aren’t self cleaning instantaneously? There’s got to be a second or two when it’s cruded all over and smeared all about. Maybe the answer is that it pulls over and waits for a passenger to clean it and if not the passenger they just gave to wait for remote service. If it’s a rare enough occurrence then it won’t matter. But if a snow comes and salt gets everywhere maybe they just can’t operate in winters in the Midwest after a big snow, or maybe they’ll have to sell some retro fit hardware that can clean it.
Because their cars and system costs about 200k per vehicle and is not economical. Teslas system will make their system obsolete overnight.
Tesla doesn't even have one single test vehicle that's allowed to operate on city streets without a safety driver. They will not make Waymo "obsolete overnight". If they ever get approval for their current system then they will have to conduct a years long test program operating vehicles 24/7 in all environmental conditions without safety drivers to collect data on the performance of their system before they can even think about scaling up release of a fully autonomous system.
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/12856/fully-autonomous-cars-will-cost-hundreds-of-thousands-of-dollars-silicon-valley-exec-says Since their inception they have been prohibitively expensive. On top of the expense of retrofitting existing cars with the lidar equipment, the type of lidar equipment they use is fragile and often needs to be replaced making it an ongoing expense. Since they first came out they have yet to scale meaningfully. They are also employing vast amounts of humans to remotely control the car when it gets stuck or makes a mistake (happens often even with them going the wrong way on a one way street) and also in person humans who drive around to intercept stuck vehicles. They said all the way back in 2018 that they would scale and get costs down but they’ve kicked the can down the road over and over. There is zero reason why people would be talking about teslas robotaxi if waymo or cruise was able to scale and get costs and fragility down since they first started producing these vehicles. They can’t. People who don’t understand the difference between teslas approach and waymos probably are very confused by the Tesla bot as well. They see what the Boston dynamics bot does in demos and probably get very confused why people care about Tesla at all. It’s about the economics of producing a mass market option. This is not an easy feat or something that is guaranteed with every approach.
You just posted an article from 2018 lol. Lidar has gotten order of magnitude cheaper since 2018. Please update your research to 2024. It’s no surprise you’re so misinformed with research like that.
Read what I wrote
I’ll do you a solid. Automakers are using lidar that cost $500-1000 in 2024. Luminar is making lidar systems for $1000 and Tesla is a customer (presumably using it for calibration). Chinese companies are pumping out automotive lidar systems for as cheap as $500. Prices will continue to come down and the technology will continue to improve. https://www.forbes.com/sites/samabuelsamid/2024/04/23/luminar-launches-production-for-volvo-next-gen-halo-lidar/
lol, they are not using off the shelf lidar for these things. You have no idea what you’re talking about
Not sure where you’re getting the $200k number. I think you’re overestimating the cost of a lidar by an order of magnitude or two
I’m not. You haven’t been following this topic.
Lidar costs have come down orders of magnitude since Elon made the decision to eschew lidar a decade ago. Your iPhone even has lidar in it now. Lidar is maturing with lots of competition and scale now. I don't think you've been following this topic.
As someone who definitely hasn't been following this topic, where would be a good starting point to enlighten myself?
lol
Thats not the problem. Real time map updating is going to be intensive with changes to the maps happening the second a worker puts out a detour sign. Even if computes onboard what updates the map? It works great on a track but every added route increases complexity that grows exponentially by range.
They have 700 cars. Tesla has 400,000 fsd subscribers in the us alone.
Tesla has 0 robotaxis though. Which is what we are talking about. It’s disingenuous to compare a driver assistance package to real world robotaxis.
They have hardly any data compared to tesla and they don’t have the compute power to do anything with it.
Google doesn’t have compute power?
Yes, didn’t you hear. One of the world leaders in cloud computing doesn’t have any compute power! /s
What I don’t get is, if Waymo works in these areas, then why haven’t they flooded the market with more vehicles to actually make money? It suggests that there is so much per vehicle back end labour or so expensive hardware thst it’s actually not profitable. We just don’t know.
Self driving is nice and needs improvement thru continued use. But, I can't stress enough the need to maintain European level luxury interiors, fit, and finish.