Waymo Robotaxis Are Coming To Tokyo In 2025 (techcrunch.com) 12
Waymo will begin testing its autonomous vehicles in Tokyo in early 2025, marking its first deployment outside the U.S. TechCrunch reports: The move to Japan is part of Waymo's "road trips," a development program that involves bringing its technology to a variety of cities and testing it -- with each city having different challenges. In Tokyo, the Waymo robotaxis will face left-hand driving and a dense urban environment. [...] Waymo said it will partner with taxi-hailing app GO and taxi company Nihon Kotsu as part of its Japanese "road trip." Nihon Kotsu will oversee the management and servicing of the Waymo vehicles, according to the company.
Initially, Nihon Kotsu drivers will operate the vehicles manually to map key areas of the Japanese capital, including Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Chuo, Shinagawa, and Koto. Waymo said it is working with Nihon Kotsu's team to train its employees how to operate Waymo's self-driving Jaguar I-Pace vehicles.
Initially, Nihon Kotsu drivers will operate the vehicles manually to map key areas of the Japanese capital, including Minato, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Chiyoda, Chuo, Shinagawa, and Koto. Waymo said it is working with Nihon Kotsu's team to train its employees how to operate Waymo's self-driving Jaguar I-Pace vehicles.
Gojira! (Score:2)
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with each city having different challenges. In Tokyo, the Waymo robotaxis will face frequent godzilla attacks
In Phoenix, it's race car drivers on the freeway. In San Francisco, it's abusive traffic lights that let out only one car per cycle. In relative terms, I'll take my chances with giant radioactive lizards. :-D
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RFK Jr. says they are good for you. They keep brainworms in check.
Fake it until you make it (Score:3)
Waymo said it is working with Nihon Kotsu's team to train its employees how to operate Waymo's self-driving Jaguar I-Pace vehicles
Well they so good at self-driving that you need to specially train employee to drive them.
Duopolies are Suckopolies (Score:2)
Now that GM dropped out of robotaxies, I don't like the idea of a duopoly of just Tesla and Google. Duopolies usually end up sucking due to lack of competition.
There are viable Chinese competitors, but hopping into a XiMobil gives too many the jeebies.
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Now that GM dropped out of robotaxies, I don't like the idea of a duopoly of just Tesla and Google. Duopolies usually end up sucking due to lack of competition.
There are viable Chinese competitors, but hopping into a XiMobil gives too many the jeebies.
You're assuming that both will make it.
Waymo's approach is viable, but slow to scale.
Tesla's approach scales quickly, but might be a dead end.
Even if one makes it it's hard to say both make it.
That being said, this is a race to be first, but I don't think it's a natural monopoly. Just like everybody jumping in once OpenAI showed that LLMs were viable, once one of Waymo or Tesla demonstrates that they can deploy a safe and profitable robotaxi a bunch of other companies will be ready to jump in using similar
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Because of safety concerns and press fallout, I don't see the robotaxi biz comparable to the LLM boom. It's a lot more domain-centric and probably requires building up a proprietary database/map of road gotcha's.
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Because of safety concerns and press fallout, I don't see the robotaxi biz comparable to the LLM boom. It's a lot more domain-centric and probably requires building up a proprietary database/map of road gotcha's.
Slower for sure, but the same principal applies. If company X proves that it's possible then you throw a lot of money at the problem and follow the same path.
Japanese Setting (Score:3)
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Will be extremely interesting to see how well Waymo will be able to handle extremely narrow Japanese streets in residential areas. Will they simply freeze up with all of the pedestrians and bicyclists sharing the road, or get stuck because the AI is too risk adverse to squeeze through a narrow spot that wouldn't stop a human driver?
Interesting question.
I imagine they will start by using vehicle models more commonly found in Japanese cities. Large American cars are pretty rare in Tokyo. People sometimes buy them for their unique appeal, but they would be super-inconvenient to actually use in a city like Tokyo. A bit like the popularity of hiking boots with ballet dancers.
As for the small streets, they are not generally used as thoroughfares, so the bulk of the journey could be made on larger roads, only venturing into small streets ver
Witness an increase in eye diseases (Score:1)