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Transportation Google United States

Waymo Gets the Green Light To Test Fully Driverless Cars In California (theverge.com) 63

Posted by BeauHD from the ready-set-go dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, has been granted permission to operate fully driverless cars without human drivers behind the steering wheel on public roads in California. The company is the first to receive a driverless permit in the state. Waymo will restrict its driverless test cars to the neighborhoods of Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, and Palo Alto. "We know this area well," the company said in a statement, noting it includes its own headquarters (housed within Google's X lab) as well as Alphabet's main campus. If it seeks to expand its testing, Waymo says it will notify the new communities first and obtain permission from the DMV.

Waymo's permit includes day and night testing on city streets, rural roads, and highways with posted speed limits of up to 65 mph. "Our vehicles can safely handle fog and light rain, and testing in those conditions is included in our permit," the company says. "We will gradually begin driverless testing on city streets in a limited territory and, over time, expand the area that we drive in as we gain confidence and experience to expand." Waymo won't offer rides to the public right off the bat; the company is close to launching its first commercial taxi service using its fleet of autonomous minivans in Phoenix, Arizona. "Eventually, we'll create opportunities for members of the public to experience this technology, as we've done in Arizona with our early rider program," Waymo says.
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Waymo Gets the Green Light To Test Fully Driverless Cars In California More

Waymo Gets the Green Light To Test Fully Driverless Cars In California

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  • Impressive (Score:5, Funny)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @08:50PM (#57565495) Homepage Journal
    Fully autonomous cars are right around the corner.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      In the mean time Tesla’s shit auto pilot system crashed again [arstechnica.com].

      • It's a problem with all cars equipped with 'autonomous' tech:

        "To be fair to Tesla, this problem isn't unique to the company. Most emergency braking systems on the market today won't stop for stationary objects at freeway speeds. These systems are not sophisticated enough to distinguish a stationary object on the road from one that's next to or above the road. So to make the problem easier to handle, the cars may just ignore stationary objects, assuming that the driver will steer around them." -Ars

    • ...and down the street.

      Look out for that bicyclist!

      • ...and down the street.

        Look out for that bicyclist!

        Or else it's Whamo!

        • For a sec I thought they were saying the toy company Wham-O was involved.

        • See. They already have opportunities for members of the public to experience this technology.

          "Eventually, we'll create opportunities for members of the public to experience this technology, as we've done in Arizona with our early rider program," Waymo says.

      • ...and down the street.

        Look out for that bicyclist!

        Self-driving cars are much better at seeing bicyclists than human drivers are. They look in all directions all the time, never get tired or distracted and can even see through some obstacles that block visible light.

        Well, unless their collision avoidance systems are turned off. Human stupidity can defeat the best technology.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fisted ( 2295862 )

          And, as with any such system, they occasionally fail, produce false positives, false negatives, you name it. Yes, that also goes for humans. But I think it's dangerous to make that claim of yours unqualifiedly.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            Occasionally? Quite often, actually. In 2018.42.2, mine has taken to driving off the right side of the road. On my drive Monday, on roads that I've driven on AutoSteer on numerous occasions, it suddenly veered off the right side of the road (across clearly painted lane markers) twice. One of those times, it actually hopped a small asphalt curb in the half second between when I realized it had gone nuts and when I yanked the wheel back to the left. Fortunately, I avoided crashing into the telephone pol

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Fully autonomous cars are right around the corner.

      So they get permission to be tested in Sunny, calm, nice wide highway California... and they're right around the corner.

      Wake me when they can navigate the A327 in Berkshire (that's in the UK) without stopping for no reason in peak hour... And I'll let you do that in the middle of summer.... The A327 isn't even a bad road either.

  • ...when this division is renamed to WHAMMO.

    ....I'll just see myself out.

  • The rule requires constant human monitoring while the car is in use. There's still a "driver", just not in the car. This is more of a publicity stunt than a real change.

    • Re:Remote monitoring... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @10:43PM (#57565945) Homepage

      The rule requires constant human monitoring while the car is in use. There's still a "driver", just not in the car. This is more of a publicity stunt than a real change.

      You're missing a couple essential words [medium.com]:
      "Continuously monitoring the status of test vehicles"

      "If a Waymo vehicle comes across a situation it doesn't understand, it does what any good driver would do: comes to a safe stop until it does understand how to proceed. For our cars, that means following well-established protocols, which include contacting Waymo fleet and rider support for help in resolving the issue."

      The way I read it is that there must be people on staff to make sure no car is stuck and help the cars get going again via remote operation, but there's no dedicated safety driver. It now depends on the car to alert the fleet operator that it needs help. If you got a clearer description that says other way please give a source, the master is probably the DMV site but it seems to be down right now.

  • Two years ago I had an argument with multiple SDC proponents who were claiming that Waymo had already been running driverless for six months.

    I have not seen this large a difference between hype and substance since the first dot-bomb. SDC progress has been minimal over the last few years.

    • So, it took two years after some random internet stranger had an argument with multiple other random internet strangers about things they weren't really informed about, to have fully driverless cars. You're right, that's hardly any progress.

      • So, it took two years after some random internet stranger had an argument with multiple other random internet strangers about things they weren't really informed about, to have fully driverless cars. You're right, that's hardly any progress.

        Actually, IIRC, you were one off those random internet strangers two years ago who claimed that waymo was already doing a taxi service without drivers.

        Bet you don't feel so smart right now, do you?

      • They don't have driverless cars. They got the permit to test them. My guess is when they do test them they will have safety drivers. This is just hype.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Two years ago I had an argument with multiple SDC proponents who were claiming that Waymo had already been running driverless for six months.

      It depends on your definition of "driverless". Presumably those SDC proponents meant "driven by the computer full-time during normal operation." You meant "the vehicle never needs a licensed driver to manually take control if the computer gets stuck."

  • Does this mean we can expect to see Waymo driverless cars on the road?

    I'll be here all week. Try the fish!

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