Waymo might be expanding its autonomous taxi services to northern cities like Minneapolis and Detroit, but back in Santa Monica, the company’s strained relationship with local residents has reached a breaking point.
According to the Santa Monica Daily Press, the city council has issued a formal demand that Waymo end overnight operations at two charging facilities there. City counselors unanimously approved the measure, which doesn’t mention Waymo by name, but instead orders two lots the company uses to charge and dispatch vehicles to cease nighttime operations.
Such a clickbate title.
Two dispatch lots won’t be operating at night because the noise is disturbing people who need to sleep.
Honestly, the city should’ve never permitted this spot to begin with. You shouldn’t do cab dispatch in residential neighborhoods.
not even a video about the honking parking lot?
Linking with a timestamp to the end of the video (no more honking) is quite the comedic turnaround
What the hell even is the point mandating a back up alarm for self driving cars ? Backup alarms literally only exist because visibility to the rear is worse, and to warn pedestrians that a vehicle nearby is moving with very poor to no visibility, but that only applies to human operated vehicles. Autonomous vehicles use 360° sensors, they can “see” just as well in reverse as in forward. Be that good or bad, it’s equal in every direction, so mandating an alarm just for reverse seems enormously pointless. Especially since the cars tend to be slower in reverse, so if anything it’s less necessary then, vs. when they’re moving forward.
Fixxd: Back up alarm turned into active drive alarm.
Current full self driving cars terrify me. Someone gets in a car, runs a red, shatters a grandma, flattens her dog, they can be held accountable. An officer comes and apprehends them. No big deal.
A software bug compels a waymo to do the same and the company apologizes, pays a fine, and continues its activity. Possibly before the end of the day. Executives are too immune to prosecution for e-taxis to be a reasonable proposition to me.
It’s odd that the thing that terrifies you is that nobody is able to be punished. Grandma and her dog are dead in both scenarios. We want whatever will cause that scenario to happen the least.
I’d rather 1 grandma is run over without a clearly responsible party than 10 grandmothers be killed while 10 drivers are sent to prison.
A person who’s not paying attention or drunk is always going to exist no matter how many grandmas are flattened. The software bug can be fixed and sensors can be improved.
Self-driving cars are the worst they will ever be and they will only get better. Human drivers are not going to improve.
Until it’s no longer more profitable to make their cars safer, companies will make their cars safer, I agree. That’s the summation of my reasoning. As companies attempt to relieve themselves of their need for humans, the math becomes murkier. “Because they’ve become safer over time, they’ll continue to do so indefinitely” doesn’t work for me.
Until it’s no longer more profitable to make their cars safer, or regulation requires they make their cars safer, or a competitor decides to take market share by making their cars safer.
“Because they’ve become safer over time, they’ll continue to do so indefinitely” doesn’t work for me.
That’s fine because that’s not what I said.
Which of these do you disagree with?:
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Human driving capability has shown no indication of improving.
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Autonomous vehicle capabilities are showing indications of improving.
It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to recognize that these measures of performance will eventually intersect (unless you think there’s something fundamentally special about human driving that is impossible to replicate).
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It’s a systemic issue with Waymo and any all the taxi “disruptors.” Choices are made to put people in danger in order to extract profit by using cars AT ALL that is the problem, not who or what is operating them. Technology jesus isn’t going to save grandma.
