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Waymo

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That will work awesome for people like you and me. The rest of the world loves to chit chat and get a personal touch (?)
Obviously, its not a big deal for a lot of people. I personally don't care. I've enjoyed the conversation sometimes - but kept mum at others. I don't think it will be a driving factor in adoption, one way or another.

Which brings back part of the labor cost it was supposed to reduce, cutting away the profits.
Ofcourse it will reduce labor cost - just not make it zero. Its not expensive to get a few min wage workers clean the vehicles when they are charging.

That is one reason why I have never used Air BnB.
Cleaning charges at Air B&B kill their business. Sometimes it is more than the rental charges if you are staying for just a day or two. Air BNB makes sense if you are going in a larger group and stay for a week or so ...

Finally it will come down to the price & service - like in so many retail services. Currently it is simply cheaper to own a car and drive around (if you are in the suburbs). If RT gets cheap enough to get around without the need of owning a car, it has a big market. Especially, the younger folk who will not need to learn to drive or own a car, ever.
 
This is where individual RT companies can differentiate themselves from others. Better companies will have lots of places where the RTs will go to charge & get cleaned in every market.
and each of these companies will have to have huge investments for the AV assets as well as the software platform and then fight to survive and ensure that they are not the dry leaves that get shaken off the tree.

I am looking forward to it but am very curious as to who really is gojng to be the winner. Will it be a new startup that comes up with a brilliant offering or will it be another large corporation that such as Marriott or AirBnB that is already in such a business of managing public service assets.
 
How about privacy and no awkward conversations plus no pressure to tip and NO tipping at all. So you get a known point to point price.
Tipping is something we should just get used to adding to get the full price when comparing.

Privacy .... I'm not sure. RTs will have cameras and presumably can record your actions (and words). You have no privacy when you are in a public space.
 
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Is there any precedence for automation to have completely failed and people went back to manual labor ?
Flufferbot?

I've soured quite a bit on the Robotaxi business model. Even Uber/Lyft replacement, which seemed like a slam dunk, is going to be a long road. There are just so many weird things with pickup/dropoff, parking lots, multi-stop, etc. that cause problems long after you've figured out how to drive safely and non-obnoxiously. And only Waymo is close to the latter.

Then you've got low utilization off-peak, which is about 70% of the time. Proponents talk about delivery, but that creates a whole new set of issues.

Uber/Lyft replacement is roughly a million car market. Call it 200k cars/year. 2nd/3rd car replacement is the big win, but real world Robotaxi costs are nowhere near being viable for that.
 
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Flufferbot?

I've soured quite a bit on the Robotaxi business model. Even Uber/Lyft replacement, which seemed like a slam dunk, is going to be a long road. There are just so many weird things with pickup/dropoff, parking lots, multi-stop, etc. that cause problems long after you've figured out how to drive safely and non-obnoxiously. And only Waymo is close to the latter.

Then you've got low utilization off-peak, which is about 70% of the time. Proponents talk about delivery, but that creates a whole new set of issues.

Uber/Lyft replacement is roughly a million car market. Call it 200k cars/year. 2nd/3rd car replacement is the big win, but real world Robotaxi costs are nowhere near being viable for that.
That in itself means they need to start with designated areas for pickup and dropoff, just like a bus stop
 
Flufferbot?

I've soured quite a bit on the Robotaxi business model. Even Uber/Lyft replacement, which seemed like a slam dunk, is going to be a long road. There are just so many weird things with pickup/dropoff, parking lots, multi-stop, etc. that cause problems long after you've figured out how to drive safely and non-obnoxiously. And only Waymo is close to the latter.

Then you've got low utilization off-peak, which is about 70% of the time. Proponents talk about delivery, but that creates a whole new set of issues.

Uber/Lyft replacement is roughly a million car market. Call it 200k cars/year. 2nd/3rd car replacement is the big win, but real world Robotaxi costs are nowhere near being viable for that.

Fluffer Bot was a technical issue.

But the robot was simply not very good at performing this delicate task. Its botched efforts held up production, and eventually led to its removal from the Model 3 assembly line,​
There are obviously a lot of hurdles to overcome. But mostly technical (like how & where to pickup and drop off people). Low utilization is a current issue too ... thats why lot of Uber/Lyft drivers just go home and relax during off peak. I expect RTs to be charging / getting cleaned. Also I think there is a possibility that centrally managed fleets will be more optimal than individually optimized (Uber/Lyft drivers decide whether to pickup a ride or not) and can be strategically placed based on expected demand. May be they provide for the base demand and human drivers pick up the excess demand during peak times.
 
Why? They could do this to a human driver today? all the rules apply except the RT will have video.

Yes but the human driver has self autonomy and can decide if they feel that their life is in danger and decide what to do (and can be tried and found not/ or guilty criminally). A rider in a RT has no self autonomy except for exiting the vehicle, which may be an even more dangerous situation to them.

To clarify as well, I'm wondering if there will be some framework that would allow the RT *specifically* in situations where it determines there is an extreme threat/danger associated with the disruption to continue regardless of the danger to others, or perhaps something as simple as a "gtfo" button inside the cars that the rider has to press would work to manage this while also shifting the liability to the rider.

To put it in less elegant terms, the robotaxi will sit patiently while someone tries to break in, the human driver likely wouldn't.
 
Yes but the human driver has self autonomy and can decide if they feel that their life is in danger and decide what to do (and can be tried and found not/ or guilty criminally). A rider in a RT has no self autonomy except for exiting the vehicle, which may be an even more dangerous situation to them.

To clarify as well, I'm wondering if there will be some framework that would allow the RT *specifically* in situations where it determines there is an extreme threat/danger associated with the disruption to continue regardless of the danger to others, or perhaps something as simple as a "gtfo" button inside the cars that the rider has to press would work to manage this while also shifting the liability to the rider.

To put it in less elegant terms, the robotaxi will sit patiently while someone tries to break in, the human driver likely wouldn't.
So then you are getting into the very rules that Asimov contemplated


Can you imagine...what a mind. 1942. So we are simply late to an 80 year old conversation Asimov was having with himself.
 
I posted in the FSD V12 Thread last night might as well post it here since applicable.

Waymo vs Tesla 12.3.6: Even starts with nice/hard UPL across 5 lanes from a Stop sign. They were pretty carful to pick a route that the Navigation of both would likely follow to keep the cars together. So not super challenging but VERY interesting and an excellent comparison. And the winner is............

 
And the winner is............
The one without a safety driver, duh.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic and no, I'm not a member of the "Tesla is L2, stop even talking about it" club. But people don't seem to grasp how good a system must be to remove the safety driver. Waymo did 10 separate 100 mile loops without intervention in 2009. That was 6 years before they removed the safety driver on an easy street with a lead car, 8 years before they tested driverless across a small area and 11 years before deploying a very limited low speed public robotaxi service in a modern suburb with wide streets, ideal weather and virtually no pedestrians.

Tesla has still hasn't reached the starting line.
 
The car that can do it without an intervention 10000x in a row all times of day, with more traffic and in most types of weather. Also the car that is designed to in "fail immediately".
A race winner is NOT determined by how many races they can run? It is determined by the clock and rules in that ONE race. 🤣 Also it was just a "throw away" joke and a fun comparison. NOT to be taken literally.
 
Waymo blog on how their remote assistance works with some examples of the remote assistance tools that I don't think we've seen before:


I thought it was pretty informative.