
Uber Says Waymo Autonomous Vehicles Outperforming 99% of Human Drivers in Austin 107
Waymo's autonomous vehicles operating on Uber's platform in Austin are completing more trips per day than over 99% of human drivers in the market, according to Uber's Q1 2025 earnings report [PDF] released Wednesday. The fleet of approximately 100 autonomous Waymo vehicles, launched exclusively on Uber in March, has "exceeded expectations," CEO Dara Khosrowshahi stated in the report.
He cited the performance to "Waymo's safety record and rider experience coupled with Uber's scale and reliability." Uber has rapidly expanded its autonomous vehicle operations, reaching an annual run-rate of 1.5 million mobility and delivery AV trips across its network. The company plans to scale to hundreds of vehicles in Austin in the coming months, while preparing for a launch in Atlanta by early summer. Khosrowshahi said that autonomous vehicle technology represents "the single greatest opportunity ahead for Uber."
He cited the performance to "Waymo's safety record and rider experience coupled with Uber's scale and reliability." Uber has rapidly expanded its autonomous vehicle operations, reaching an annual run-rate of 1.5 million mobility and delivery AV trips across its network. The company plans to scale to hundreds of vehicles in Austin in the coming months, while preparing for a launch in Atlanta by early summer. Khosrowshahi said that autonomous vehicle technology represents "the single greatest opportunity ahead for Uber."
Doubt (Score:3, Insightful)
I had a waymo use a left turn lane to pass stopped traffic on the left and jump two lanes to the right, so no lol.
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You ever saw a human driver do something stupid too?
Remember that the goal isn't perfection - its performance better than human drivers.
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You ever saw a human driver do something stupid too?
Remember that the goal isn't perfection - its performance better than human drivers.
... better than American drivers.
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Have you ever driven in Italy?
I've driven in Italy, I've also driven in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Delhi, Manila and several major cities in China, Italy is a dream compared to all of them. So Uber has managed to make a car that is supposedly better than 99% of drivers in Austin Texas, good for them, they have a car that can navigate a high end urban infrastructure with well marked streets where everybody for the most part obeys the traffic ordinance and there is no congestion. Meanwhile, I have also driven in all kinds of other plac
Re: Doubt (Score:1)
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where everybody for the most part obeys the traffic ordinance and there is no congestion.
Have you driven in the US, much less a place like Austin? People are speeding, tailgating, doing reckless lane changes and passes, and generally acting like sociopaths the entire time.
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Of course the technology will be ready for typical cities and weather conditions, before it will be ready to drive in Kuala Lumpur in a snowstorm. What's your point? That technology is worthless until it's perfect? That nobody should use a technology until everyone can use it? That there are no possible use-cases unless EVERY poss
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
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Considering some of the crap I've seen people do that's a very low bar to clear.
Remember; the automatic car doesn't have to be better than the BEST person. It has to be better than the AVERAGE person.
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This includes turn lanes, highway merge lanes, slip roads, etc.
You left off sidewalks... But only 2 wheels. 4 wheels is just reckless.
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Anecdote: I have observed, at least in this area, that many drivers will quite easily use *any* available lane to pass
Slow traffic is supposed to keep right unless they are turning. I hate passing people on the right, but no sense in being the only person on the road who knows the rules, there is no joy in being right and still stuck behind backmarkers.
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Anecdotally I'm used to seeing people use the opposite side's turn lanes and main road even where passing is not allowed as long as they 'feel' they can make it.
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
Re: Doubt (Score:5, Insightful)
Being better than human drivers means not making any mistakes a human driver would never make.
Not necessarily. Because these systems approach problems in a different way, their types of mistakes may be very different in nature than mistakes humans would make. The types of mistakes isn't really important. Its the rate of the mistakes, the severity, and the safety record over time.
If an AI can drive with a record that results in less traffic injuries and/or fatalities, and either fewer accidents or an accident total that is lower in monetary cost, then they're doing better than human drivers, even if they occasionally might make a mistake a human driver wouldn't. By the same token the AI will never fall asleep or crash into the back of another vehicle because a pretty girl came jogging by.
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
And then... (Score:1)
Re: And then... (Score:2)
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Tell that to the pedestrian who got dragged because the self driving's cars sensors didn't detect them bouncing off the hood.
To be fair, that was GM's Cruise, not Waymo, and nobody is saying that Cruise is better than 99% of drivers. :-D
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
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So waymo detects a collision on the hood?
It detects traffic cones on the hood, so presumably. :-D
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I'm not going to defend cruise but...
Tell that to the pedestrian who got dragged because the self driving's cars sensors didn't detect them bouncing off the hood.
Are you telling me no human driver has ever mown down a pedestrian and just kept on going? Look, if you cherry pick the worst self driving vehicles and compare to the worst humans, well humans aren't going to come out well.
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
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find me an example of a pedestrian literally rolling across a person's hood and having that person continue to drive totally oblivious that it happened.
You mean like a hit and run from a drunk driver?
Plus, why does obliviousness matter? The outcome for the pedestrian is the same either way.
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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/u... [nbcnews.com]
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...or crash into the back of another vehicle because a pretty girl came jogging by
If they are trained on real world driving data they very well might... ;)
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There's not a single mistake that a human has never made. Literally none. We have broken every rule on the dumbest and most insane ways.
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
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Remember that the goal isn't perfection - its performance better than human drivers
But if they are driving way more miles, then it probably is a net loss for Austin. Remember, the likelihood of an event is the probability of the event times exposure. Adding hundreds of cars driving around all day and all night, even if they are fairly high performing, will likely result in more damage and death than without them.
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Remember that the goal isn't perfection - its performance better than human drivers
But if they are driving way more miles, then it probably is a net loss for Austin. Remember, the likelihood of an event is the probability of the event times exposure. Adding hundreds of cars driving around all day and all night, even if they are fairly high performing, will likely result in more damage and death than without them.
Not necessarily. Remember that Waymo cars aren't currently owned by individuals. They drive around a large number of people in a given day. If those people would have driven themselves, then that one car drove more miles than any one driver would have, but it took 10x, 50x, or even 100x as many drivers off the road, and probably drove only a few percent more miles than the sum total of those drivers would have.
Also, people who rarely drive are likely to be out of practice, and therefore are likely to be
Re:Doubt (Score:4, Insightful)
Their growth goal is "better", but their financial goal needs to be "nearly perfect".
If Waymo or any other autonomous vehicle company wants to survive being responsible for harming and killing people (as they eventually will be), they need to be damn near perfect. Consider:
Currently: 42,000 road deaths per year. All of those liabilities are distributed among 42,000 responsible drivers.
Future: Waymo controls 30% of vehicles on the road and road deaths have dropped 70%. They're also responsible for 400 road deaths per year. Can they survive that kind of liability? 300 deaths? 200? 100?
How perfect will they need to be to financially survive? "Damn near perfect."
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
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Re: Doubt (Score:2)
I can believe it, because I've driven in Austin.
Every year when it first rains there are literally hundreds of accidents because Austinites forget it makes roads slippery.
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I had a waymo use a left turn lane to pass stopped traffic on the left and jump two lanes to the right, so no lol.
That's an anecdote.
The statistics are that Waymo is about 5x safer than human drivers, and this is consistent whether you measure number of collisions with injuries, with property damage, the number of insurance claims against it, the number of airbag activations etc https://arstechnica.com/cars/2... [arstechnica.com]
BTW, I rode in a couple waymo's in SF some months ago, and my own anecdotal data point is that it drove very well, somewhat defensively, and felt safer than many drivers I've ridden with.
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
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I had a waymo use a left turn lane to pass stopped traffic on the left and jump two lanes to the right, so no lol.
I've not seen humans do that. I've seen humans continue down the oncoming lane, turn left and then get hit by a truck though. Your anecdote is meaningless and it's absolutely shameful that someone modded you insightful.
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I had a waymo use a left turn lane to pass stopped traffic on the left and jump two lanes to the right, so no lol.
When the Uber CEO talks about "exceeding expectations" and exceeding human performance, he's not talking about safety but rather about productivity. After all, machines don't need bathroom or meal breaks or mental/physical rejuvenation time. For Uber, safety only matters if productivity is impacted, e.g., if there is a collision or a traffic ticket (hmm, how does a policeman give a robotaxi a ticket?).
One other thing. Robotaxis don't drive for both Uber and Lyft, so that's another reason the CEO would lo
Re: Doubt (Score:2)
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How many humans have you seen do that? (likely a tonne)
It's easy to see a waymo on the road and notice it.
Also, one anecdote doesn't override large aggregate data, it forms one single data point.
I once saw a magpie that only swooped men. Does that mean I doubt that magpies swoop women?
And after wide straight roads with 90deg turnings. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not see how well it does in London, Paris, Rome or Delhi in the rush hour with narrow streets, drivers often ignoring the rules, having to push in from a turning as no one will let you in and frequent use of headlights to signal others (can the AI understand that yet?). It'll be lucky to make it to the destination at all in any reasonable time.
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Same reason it was only SF and Phoenix to start, those were the only cities to create openings in the laws that would allow them to stop operating. As far as I know places like those cities are not allowing Waymo type systems to pilot out much less run service in.
I think VW's Moia AV system is testing out in Germany though, it's just a wholly different regulatory environment.
You are right though in that transiting EU cities with their tight roads is a new challenge but I have no doubt Waymo will get there
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Also those cities don't have weather, to speak of. Would love to see one of those things operate in the wake of a nor'easter when lanes markings, crosswalks, road signs, and curbs are all invisible and you need to navigate around plows and people walking in the street because sidewalks are obstructed.
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Yeah when I have taken them in SF they worked well but I was thinking how it will feel when these are barreling down the highway at 75mph and you look at nobody in the driver seat. No reason it shouldn't work though.
The weather point ties into that ethos though, gotta be able to handle easy weather before you think about introducing the system to inclement weather. I think the drip by drip method here is obviously paying off than trying to tackle everything at once like Tesla is trying.
You can see that in
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Yeah when I have taken them in SF they worked well but I was thinking how it will feel when these are barreling down the highway at 75mph and you look at nobody in the driver seat. No reason it shouldn't work though.
I think we're still a long way from that. I'm told Waymo has been given permission to start training its vehicles on highways in California, but it has yet to do so. The company rolls its stuff out very carefully and thoughtfully, the way it needs to be.
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Which is interesting to contrast the approaches here, where Tesla seems to do well on highways and struggles in a city.
To be fair though the stakes are different when you know for sure there's a human in the seat at those velocities.
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One of the things that makes automated driving as a service (as opposed to a product) such a great idea, is that if the current weather makes the job too hard, then it can simply decide to not take the job. "Stupid storm. I'm not driving in this. [click click] Shit, Waymo doesn't want to drive in this either."
Same goes for other oddball situations that you might run into in places like Rome: just don't serve Rome, if you really think the place itself is too hard (e.g. narrow streets).
They aren't selling a g
Re: And after wide straight roads with 90deg turni (Score:2)
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Under those conditions, the people are already in a bad situation, whether Waymo exists or not.
Why would anyone care whether the driver who says "No" is a robot or a human? No means it matters even less than if they had said yes.
Re: And after wide straight roads with 90deg turn (Score:2)
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I don't know. In what city should human taxi drivers stop driving because of snow?
If the humans say yes and then kill some of their passengers, and Waymo says no and doesn't kill anyone, then I think Waymo wins some bragging rights. Or at least their liability lawyers would look pretty smug.
Just Say No is an underused strategy, and I'm really just trying to say that as a service, Waymo can use it when they think it's the right one for the moment, whereas someone like Tesla would have a much harder time. Hum
Re: And after wide straight roads with 90deg turn (Score:2)
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Something i noticed about at least of may 10-ish or so Waymo rides in SF is that I was surprised how aggressive it could be in the city and traffic areas. Not aggressive as in dangerous but the type you have to be to navigate in those spaces. SF isn't Rome but there were a ton of pedestrians and things like double parked cars, people cutting to get into lanes, you know, rush hour in a metro. It asserted it's space when it had to. A couple times I even had to say "Good for you Waymo"
My bet is when Waymo'
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Also those cities don't have weather, to speak of.
Phoenix has monsoon seasons and sandstorms, which can be pretty brutal, with zero visibility. San Francisco has torrential mists, which are a different kind of annoying to drive in, not to mention fog.
But you're right that neither has snow, typically.
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There are dozens of automatic cars under test in Germany. Most notable in the town Karlsruhe. However they are not "free roaming" but under human supervision. We have them since nearly 20 years, based on ordinary automatic driving and not on "AI".
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Interesting, I imagine based on the fact that German drivers seem to be well behaved (at least that's the impression I get) that they are gonna be fairly cautious about what they let on the open roads.
Is safer than humans in those same places (Score:2)
Probably Waymo can't handle Rome or Delhi right now, but it's already saving lives in the environments where it does operate.
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Why not see how well it does in London, Paris, Rome or Delhi in the rush hour with narrow streets
Why? What does that have to do with driving in America? What about we see how well it does on the moon? It's every bit as relevant of a whataboutism.
Re: And after wide straight roads with 90deg turni (Score:2)
Well good to know autonomous vehicles will be US only. Thanks for the heads up.
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Because they aren't trying to solve the problem of "replace every driver in every city in every circumstance".
This is like people saying no one should buy EVs because you can't go on a 2000km drive with only a 5 minute stop or two for fuel, or you can't tow the 3 tonne caravan you use once every 18 months.
Who are they comparing to? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Who are they comparing to? (Score:2, Funny)
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Oh, come on, I'm sure not all Texans drive BMW.
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Tone down the bragging (Score:2)
This wreaks of hubris, when you brag like this and there's even one accident .. the whole thing will be in jeopardy. Don't ruin the party for everyone.
The 1% (Score:5, Funny)
So? (Score:3)
This really isn't the concern. There are far greater concerns about the cost of operating AVs and the need for these companies to eventually recoup their investments. Once these things have reached a certain critical mass, these companies will start lobbying governments to ban human drivers in their markets of operation (mainly cities for now), under the guise of public safety, in order to establish their monopoly on transportation.
Re: So? (Score:1)
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Local and state governments have more say in this than the Feds do.
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I can see how that could lead to human drivers being banned from public roads at some distant point in the future, but I'd expect that well before that, manually driving your car will become a hobby rather than a practical necessity, and this hobby will become more niche and expens
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We do NOT need a future where our transportation is controlled by tech megacorporations. We will NEVER get personal AVs. The processing power they require and the underlying software is far too expensive for that. And again, this is NOT about safety. It's about liberty. If somehow the technology became cheap enough to have personally owned AVs, then sure, go nuts. But it's NOT going to go down like that.
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these companies will start lobbying governments to ban human drivers in their markets of operation
Oh I really hope so. Humans behind the steering wheel are just the worst. If you don't smoke and aren't obese a human behind the wheel is one of the most likely reasons your life will get cut short.
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No fuck off with that nonsense.
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I can't imagine that this is a serious question asked by a serious person.
Meaningless metric (Score:2)
In the summary it says that Waymo cars are "completing more trips per day than over 99% of human drivers". Of course they are. They can run 24/7 while humans need to take breaks. Number of trips per hour worked would be more useful. It does not say that the cars are better drivers than humans. I would not be surprised if the numbers were skewed with parameters like restricting coverage to the downtown area where quick trips are the norm as opposed to airport runs which may take at least an hour roundtrip.
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they can run 24/7.. maybe not as 1% humans are beating them... somehow
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Come on, give it a real test (Score:2)
Test the thing in New York City or Boston and then get back to me. I want to see video with sound so I can see how often it gets honked at, cut off, and given the finger.
Re: Come on, give it a real test (Score:2)
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I suppose it matters whose statistics you cite. This article says Texas is #5. https://www.dui.org/resources-... [dui.org]
That's not surprising, given that Texas has the 2nd largest population of any state. It seems natural that they might also have the 2nd most drunk driving incidents, even supposing your stat is correct.
"completing more trips" (Score:2)
That is a stupid metric.
We need to see the accidents per mile rate.
Why are they bullshitting us?
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Fortunately, because human drivers easily spot Waymo, they give them a wide berth, thus avoiding accidents, boosting Wamo's statistics.
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BS, many people try to challenge it actually. From what I have personally seen in San Francisco .. even pedestrians try to challenge it. I don't know if they are looking for a payout or what. It's a good thing there's camera coverage every place nowadays. Reference: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2... [arstechnica.com]
Useless metric and Misleading headline (Score:1)
Waymo vehicles can operate 24/7 with no breaks. According to a Princeton University study, 50% of Uber drivers work for less than 15 hours per week. In California, Uber drivers are limited to 12 hours in a 24-hour period and must take a 6-hour break once they hit that limit. So, of course, a Waymo vehicle is going to complete more trips in a day than 99% of Uber drivers. So what? What does that matter? I'd rather know if the trips were completed faster, if the on-time completion rate was better, or if the a
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I'd rather know if the trips were completed faster
That's not a question that mass/public transit proponents want answered. Their statistic is passenger miles per day. Not the duration of the rides. It all comes down to what your time is worth. That's why the wealthy opt for private vehicles, limo or helicopter rides and the poors get stuck with the public (I'm including Waymo) options.
But don't worry. The transit people will come back with an evaluation based on the labor theory of value [wikipedia.org] calculation.
Earnings Report "Statistics" (Score:2)
Self-Driving tested on human beings (Score:2)
No brakes (Score:2)
Correction (Score:1)