Waymo has a big lead in driverless cars—but here’s how they could lose it

Even if Waymo gets to market first, it'll face stiff competition from rivals.

Read the whole story

 

[afidel]

I think the problems of the arms length relationship is way overstated, upfitters have been moving thousands and thousands of customized production units for forever with little or no cooperation from the OEM. I don't think anybody is realistically looking at millions of units at this stage in the game, if it does look like Waymo's tech is up to that level of quality then I'm sure they'll be able to find a partner or somebody willing to buy them as an Alphabet spinoff.

 

[TheSkrobot]

The amazing thing to me is that we seem to have shifted from a "can they do it" to a "how do they do it" mindset around self-driving cars. Will it be hard? Yes. But no one seems to be arguing against the fact that in 5-10 years this will be a mostly solved problem. What a huge shift...

 

[peragrin]

I think the problems of the arms length relationship is way overstated, upfitters have been moving thousands and thousands of customized production units for forever with little or no cooperation from the OEM. I don't think anybody is realistically looking at millions of units at this stage in the game, if it does look like Waymo's tech is up to that level of quality then I'm sure they'll be able to find a partner or somebody willing to buy them as an Alphabet spinoff.

Not to mention the tech itself has to be mass produced.

ultimately until the end of the 2020's I don't expect self driving cars to be more an expensive taxi style service which means a million cars at the high end.

To get them into consumer hands requires the tech itself to drop Dollar wise. currently a self driving car is a $150k investment. With the car being only $35k of that(price of a pacifica).

That will be the big barrier to adoption.

 

[flunk]

If you're a long-haul trucker and you're not looking to retire in the next 5 years, I'd get started on retraining now. Skilled trades are a growth sector right now. Plumbing, carpentry, steam-fitting, electricity, any of those are a good plan and you'll make more money to boot. If you don't move on this soon you're going to find yourself without any good prospects.

Why? It's the easiest job to automate, keep those self-driving trucks on the big highways and it's much simpler than city driving. Automated long-haul trucks are going to be the first automated vehicles we see.

 

[JonathanSmith]

Slightly tangential, but I hadn't seen the Tesla article before. It's really interesting that they're bleeding like that, and I can't help but wonder if it's because of the management style.

In EVs and rockets, Tesla and SpaceX are the place to be. They're new, exciting, fast paced and nobody else is pushing the field forward, so engineers will put up with a lot of crap to be involved. But self driving cars? You have TONNES of options, and Tesla isn't really the place to be, autopilot notwithstanding. Google was one of the first heavyweights in the space, and now everybody is gathering teams. Why put up with the Tesla stress?

As for the taxi service, my bet is the last 1% or 0.1% of test cases is being an absolute bear to try and fix. And that's the real gotcha of self-driving cars, right? Ironing out the minor edge cases.

 

[waasoo]

The amazing thing to me is that we seem to have shifted from a "can they do it" to a "how do they do it" mindset around self-driving cars. Will it be hard? Yes. But no one seems to be arguing against the fact that in 5-10 years this will be a mostly solved problem. What a huge shift...

I don't know if technology is fast enough...I still have images of Jetsons in my mind... By those accounts, 2020 should see me flying to work in 2 mins as the crow flies and not 25 mins through traffic

 

[Muon]

Did a double-take looking at the article image. SHODAN behind the wheel would make me think twice about driverless cars, that's for sure.

 

[postadelmaga]

Google delivering real products always kind of disappointed ...
... I have this bias google is super good in innovation in all IT world but when it comes to the 'real' world there is always some issue and usually fails to deliver ( out of 10 project maybe 1 comes to life and becomes profitable )
Like nerd that is very good at pc but very bad at social interaction.

 

[Riddler876]

If you're a long-haul trucker and you're not looking to retire in the next 5 years, I'd get started on retraining now. Skilled trades are a growth sector right now. Plumbing, carpentry, steam-fitting, electricity, any of those are a good plan and you'll make more money to boot. If you don't move on this soon you're going to find yourself without any good prospects.

Why? It's the easiest job to automate, keep those self-driving trucks on the big highways and it's much simpler than city driving. Automated long-haul trucks are going to be the first automated vehicles we see.

Whilst I don't disagree in general, there are additional issues to be considered with long haul trucks.

Long hauling requires refuelling. How easily is that automated? Will it require specialised pit-stop areas?
Long hauling may require boat/train/air transportation for the cargo. That will require a system to navigate the port areas properly and some way to let controllers at those ports tell the trucks where to go just as they tell people.
People at the dock may need to get in and drive the truck for some reason (position under crane?), that will require some sort of secure way to let authorized users in. Presumably you're not just going to post loads of key copies to places, lest people copy them and hijack the trucks en route.
If your route crosses borders it needs to co-operate with customs and somehow let them into the cargo area (or they just cut and then not reseal the tamper evident cable). So what does the truck do?

These are all solvable problems, I'm just making the point that while long-haul trucking may be easier from a automated driving point of view, it offers other challenges city driving doesn't. Waymo can just have their cars return to the depot when their fuel is low and have a human refill it, long haul trucks can't and need an en-route refuelling process etc.

 

[peragrin]

If you're a long-haul trucker and you're not looking to retire in the next 5 years, I'd get started on retraining now. Skilled trades are a growth sector right now. Plumbing, carpentry, steam-fitting, electricity, any of those are a good plan and you'll make more money to boot. If you don't move on this soon you're going to find yourself without any good prospects.

Why? It's the easiest job to automate, keep those self-driving trucks on the big highways and it's much simpler than city driving. Automated long-haul trucks are going to be the first automated vehicles we see.

Whilst I don't disagree in general, there are additional issues to be considered with long haul trucks.

Long hauling requires refuelling. How easily is that automated? Will it require specialised pit-stop areas?
Long hauling may require boat/train/air transportation for the cargo. That will require a system to navigate the port areas properly and some way to let controllers at those ports tell the trucks where to go just as they tell people.
People at the dock may need to get in and drive the truck for some reason (position under crane?), that will require some sort of secure way to let authorized users in. Presumably you're not just going to post loads of key copies to places, lest people copy them and hijack the trucks en route.
If your route crosses borders it needs to co-operate with customs and somehow let them into the cargo area (or they just cut and then not reseal the tamper evident cable). So what does the truck do?

These are all solvable problems, I'm just making the point that while long-haul trucking may be easier from a automated driving point of view, it offers other challenges city driving doesn't. Waymo can just have their cars return to the depot when their fuel is low and have a human refill it, long haul trucks can't and need an en-route refuelling process etc.

Long haul truckers generally go from loading dock to loading dock.

they generally use a short run local truck driver to go from port to distribution point.

Refueling is easy if you can park in a spot and then pay extra for full service fueling. All that gets updated is the ordering process for fuel, and who pumps it in. Bonus full service fueling stops can also go over engine settings and levels to ensure proper operations.

 

[alexmoffat]

Amazon. I could see them buying or partnering with someone in self driving cars. They have both the software scale and the person/physical location scale, especially with the wholefoods purchase and the amount of logistics they do. Self driving long haul trucks would work for them, as would cars to the grocery store.

 

[Hinton]

I think the problems of the arms length relationship is way overstated, upfitters have been moving thousands and thousands of customized production units for forever with little or no cooperation from the OEM. I don't think anybody is realistically looking at millions of units at this stage in the game, if it does look like Waymo's tech is up to that level of quality then I'm sure they'll be able to find a partner or somebody willing to buy them as an Alphabet spinoff.

Not to mention the tech itself has to be mass produced.

ultimately until the end of the 2020's I don't expect self driving cars to be more an expensive taxi style service which means a million cars at the high end.

To get them into consumer hands requires the tech itself to drop Dollar wise. currently a self driving car is a $150k investment. With the car being only $35k of that(price of a pacifica).

That will be the big barrier to adoption.

Why would there be a need to get them into consumer hands?

If there's cheap selfdriving cars driving around, I wouldn't to purchase a car. Why pay for a car, when I can simply share the costs with all the users. Not having to pay insurance is a boon as well.

 

[Abraham42]

Self driving cars are coming, but I think the more important thing will be all the accident avoidance systems in cars that are using some of the self driving technology. Aging baby boomers behind the wheel scare the crap out of me. And they're the ones who can actually afford to buy the cars with these advanced systems.

 

[Kilroy420]

The amazing thing to me is that we seem to have shifted from a "can they do it" to a "how do they do it" mindset around self-driving cars. Will it be hard? Yes. But no one seems to be arguing against the fact that in 5-10 years this will be a mostly solved problem. What a huge shift...

I am skeptical until these self-driving systems are on the roads in significant numbers and we see how well the systems manage sharing the road with idiot drivers, poor road and weather conditions, etc.

I hope they meet or exceed everyone's expectations.

 

[ChickenLegs]

I honestly wish companies would first launch level 3 autonomy vehicles first. I.e., I want a car I can be driving manually to be able to enter an automatic driving mode that just keeps me in my lane, doesn't hit anything, stops at red lights, etc. I don't even care if it doesn't know how to change lanes or turn onto different roads. Just let me get in a lane, press a button, and then zone out until the next 10 miles of my commute down the freeway are done.

 

[Snarky Robot]

I'd love to see a comparison between this and Uber's self-driving cars. As other commenters have noted, this is a potential revolution of the need for car ownership in the first place. I live in a big city, and the only time I drive is to leave it. But I order Uber/Lyft (whichever is cheaper) a couple times a week. The car-sharing aspect of it is going to change ownership habits a lot, I think. This is where Uber has a pretty good advantage.

Well that, and the fact that, you know...they already have real cars, driving by themselves, on real roads, serving real customers. For all the talk of how Waymo has a "sizable lead" in the technology, and how others are coming out with the service in the future...Uber already has a "self-driving + saftey-driver" system that you can actually experience. Waymo's tech may be better, but it's hard to say they're ahead of everyone, when Uber is actually using theirs, right now.

Maybe I'm just missing some special sauce in what Waymo is offering, but...why isn't what Uber has been doing considered "ahead" in this particular race? Is the Waymo tech that much better?

Edit: Uber's self-driving car pilot for customers actually started over a year ago.

 

[isparavanje]

I'm surprised that Delphi wasn't mentioned in the part regarding competition. They just purchased nuTonomy, which has been operating trial services in Boston and Singapore for a year now.

 

[Snarky Robot]

I honestly wish companies would first launch level 3 autonomy vehicles first. I.e., I want a car I can be driving manually to be able to enter an automatic driving mode that just keeps me in my lane, doesn't hit anything, stops at red lights, etc. I don't even care if it doesn't know how to change lanes or turn onto different roads. Just let me get in a lane, press a button, and then zone out until the next 10 miles of my commute down the freeway are done.

Having recently gotten a chance to drive a Tesla for a long weekend, all I can say is that the experience redefines what it's like to drive. I was still aware of things around me, but since I wasn't constantly focusing on making decisions, my stress level was minimal. Even in heavy traffic conditions, it kept me calm because I didn't care about people cutting me off.

I stayed in my lane, set with a max speed just over the speed limit, and when traffic was clear enough to go that speed, I did. When it wasn't, it handled braking and stopping for me.

So, I concur. I expect a Tesla is my next vehicle anyway, but every manufacturer should be rushing to integrate at least level 3 on as many vehicles as possible.

 

[Blarglefartz]

I don't know if technology is fast enough...I still have images of Jetsons in my mind... By those accounts, 2020 should see me flying to work in 2 mins as the crow flies and not 25 mins through traffic

The problem with flying is noise. We've had flying machines almost as long as we've had cars, but they make a lot of noise. VTOL tech solves the launch/landing problem but it's still noisy and also creates a prop-wash problem.

Until someone invents a quiet way to lift things without prop-wash (anti-gravity anyone?) normal mortals (the great unwashed) aren't flying to work.

 

[duedadew]

I honestly wish companies would first launch level 3 autonomy vehicles first. I.e., I want a car I can be driving manually to be able to enter an automatic driving mode that just keeps me in my lane, doesn't hit anything, stops at red lights, etc. I don't even care if it doesn't know how to change lanes or turn onto different roads. Just let me get in a lane, press a button, and then zone out until the next 10 miles of my commute down the freeway are done.

Having recently gotten a chance to drive a Tesla for a long weekend, all I can say is that the experience redefines what it's like to drive. I was still aware of things around me, but since I wasn't constantly focusing on making decisions, my stress level was minimal. Even in heavy traffic conditions, it kept me calm because I didn't care about people cutting me off.

I stayed in my lane, set with a max speed just over the speed limit, and when traffic was clear enough to go that speed, I did. When it wasn't, it handled braking and stopping for me.

So, I concur. I expect a Tesla is my next vehicle anyway, but every manufacturer should be rushing to integrate at least level 3 on as many vehicles as possible.

yeah why should your brain have to focus & make decisions while operating tons of steel at high speeds let the guy who made billions off of paypal(not a profit since but sime tax payer bailouts) & had to be shamed into suporting Teslas name before stealing it as if he was a genius do it ...

 

[isparavanje]

I don't know if technology is fast enough...I still have images of Jetsons in my mind... By those accounts, 2020 should see me flying to work in 2 mins as the crow flies and not 25 mins through traffic

The problem with flying is noise. We've had flying machines almost as long as we've had cars, but they make a lot of noise. VTOL tech solves the launch/landing problem but it's still noisy and also creates a prop-wash problem.

Until someone invents a quiet way to lift things without prop-wash (anti-gravity anyone?) nobody's flying to work.

Fuel consumption is also a huge problem.

 

[jgee43]

Only lightly related to the article, but kudos to Aurich on that headline image--and the graphics work in general!

[moonsharksays]We'll throw an extra treat in his cage for Halloween![/moonsharksays]

 

[Gigaflop]

I honestly wish companies would first launch level 3 autonomy vehicles first. I.e., I want a car I can be driving manually to be able to enter an automatic driving mode that just keeps me in my lane, doesn't hit anything, stops at red lights, etc. I don't even care if it doesn't know how to change lanes or turn onto different roads. Just let me get in a lane, press a button, and then zone out until the next 10 miles of my commute down the freeway are done.

Having recently gotten a chance to drive a Tesla for a long weekend, all I can say is that the experience redefines what it's like to drive. I was still aware of things around me, but since I wasn't constantly focusing on making decisions, my stress level was minimal. Even in heavy traffic conditions, it kept me calm because I didn't care about people cutting me off.

I stayed in my lane, set with a max speed just over the speed limit, and when traffic was clear enough to go that speed, I did. When it wasn't, it handled braking and stopping for me.

So, I concur. I expect a Tesla is my next vehicle anyway, but every manufacturer should be rushing to integrate at least level 3 on as many vehicles as possible.

yeah why should your brain have to focus & make decisions while operating tins if steel at high speeds let the guy who made billions off of paypal & had to be shamed inti suporting Teslas name before stealing it as if he was a genius

I can safely say I won't be missing much after blocking you.

And for the record, I'm nearly 40, with 2 kids, "dropped plenty of panties," (feel dirty using your vernacular) and I only got my driver's license this past April. Wish I didn't have to. Really had hoped driverless cars would already be here, but the two kids forced me into suburbia, and now I have to risk life and limb daily as I get on the roads with meatbags who, judging by the statistics, are really bad drivers.

 

[Snarky Robot]

really? youd trust an uber branded self driving car with your life?

That, and the backup driver, yeah. But then I trust other drivers not to kill me every time I get behind the wheel, and that's a hell of a lot worse.

uber isnt ahead because its a ponzi scam 80% of the rides dont cover drivers cost in 90% of markets its literally 80% slavery & if you didnt tip least $5 a ride and didn't go more than 7-10 miles your driver lost money.

if you don't get the same driver regularly theyre unmatching from you ; )

So what you're doing is taking my comment about a very specific thing that Uber does, and using as a launching point for every petty grievance you have with the company, completely ignoring what the discussion was about?

Yeah, great. I get it, you don't like Uber. Cool story.

Regardless of your personal feelings, Uber has had an actual program dropping customers off in Pittsburgh for over a year. Waymo is just now launching their own. While I'm prepared to accept that Waymo's tech is better, I think the article, in claiming that Waymo is "launching a self-driving car service before anyone else", isn't factually accurate. Uber did the same a year ago.

Whether you hate them or love them, they're one of the groups pushing the technology ahead, and it seems odd to claim that Google is the first to launch. Maybe the technology is so much better. But it doesn't sound like Ars has used the Uber service, so I'm just interested in why they don't seem to be considering it.

There may be a perfectly valid reason for that. Your spleen-venting about Uber, however, isn't that.

 

[Snarky Robot]

yeah why should your brain have to focus & make decisions while operating tons of steel at high speeds let the guy who made billions off of paypal(not a profit since but sime tax payer bailouts) & had to be shamed into suporting Teslas name before stealing it as if he was a genius do it ...

I did focus. I just didn't have to make every choice. All your petty anger at technology companies is cute and all, but your argument seems to boil down to "whaaaaarrrrgarrrbl, technology companies BAD!"

Great, your opinions are noted.

Regardless, driving a Tesla with autopilot is a fantastic experience and getting stuck on a highway with tons of traffic is perhaps the best selling point of the technology as it stands. We drove hundreds of miles and despite the traffic, I was as calm getting out as I was getting in. If you haven't experienced what it's like to be able to pay attention without having to make every decision, you honestly have no real understanding of what it's like. It's fantastic, and it's something I hope more and more car companies do.

 

[Blarglefartz]

I'd love to see a comparison between this and Uber's self-driving cars. As other commenters have noted, this is a potential revolution of the need for car ownership in the first place. I live in a big city, and the only time I drive is to leave it. But I order Uber/Lyft (whichever is cheaper) a couple times a week. The car-sharing aspect of it is going to change ownership habits a lot, I think. This is where Uber has a pretty good advantage.

Well that, and the fact that, you know...they already have real cars, driving by themselves, on real roads, serving real customers. For all the talk of how Waymo has a "sizable lead" in the technology, and how others are coming out with the service in the future...Uber already has a "self-driving + saftey-driver" system that you can actually experience.

I'd say the "self-driving + safety driver" model will certainly prevail in the commercial trucking business and very likely prevail in the short term (say 10 year horizon) taxi business. I'd personally be very cautious around a truly autonomous taxi and I expect most soccer mom's would have a lot of trouble with the idea of loading their kids into a robot car. There might be a few early adopters out there that would do it, but I doubt it's a mass market.

 

[Snarky Robot]

I'd say the "self-driving + safety driver" model will certainly prevail in the commercial trucking business and very likely prevail in the short term (say 10 year horizon) taxi business. I'd personally be very cautious around a truly autonomous taxi and I expect most soccer mom's would have a lot of trouble with the idea of loading their kids into a robot car. There might be a few early adopters out there that would do it, but I doubt it's a mass market.

Absolutely. I love me some technology, and I like being a first adopter. But unless we are on a campus with nothing but self-driving cars, I will be taking the "self-driving + safety driver" route for any trips I'm on as well. The tech may be cool, but unless someone can make an emergency decision, I don't trust the robots that much yet.

Though, when we do get to the point where we can get into a cab with a robot driver, I hope we've managed to colonize Mars as well. I've got a great Halloween costume planned for that time period.

 

[mmnw]

There is a big challenge not discussed in the article, and it could lead to significant delays for the whole business model: It's the legal and regulatory factor.
Currently, completely autonomous cars at not legal anywhere. A driver is always required.
It's one thing to have dedicated pilot programs in certain areas with an employee watching the wheel. It's a totally different thing to get nation- (or world-) wide approval for fully autonomous vehicles. (Which they need for a successful business model).
It might take years of lobbying, laws and new regulations to get that far. In my opinion Google and other newcomers to the car market (Uber) underestimate that challenge. The established players already have their lobbyists in place, and a couple of years in regulatory hell might completely erase Googles advantage.

 

[Snarky Robot]

There is a big challenge not discussed in the article, and it could lead to significant delays for the whole business model: It's the legal and regulatory factor.
Currently, completely autonomous cars at not legal anywhere. A driver is always required.
It's one thing to have dedicated pilot programs in certain areas with an employee watching the wheel. It's a totally different thing to get nation- (or world-) wide approval for fully autonomous vehicles. (Which they need for a successful business model).
It might take years of lobbying, laws and new regulations to get that far. In my opinion Google and other newcomers to the car market (Uber) underestimate that challenge. The established players already have their lobbyists in place, and a couple of years in regulatory hell might completely erase Googles advantage.

The interesting thing about the regulatory changes that will have to happen isn't with drivers, I think. There are plenty of local mayors and politicians who will push to allow the testing and they'll follow public demand for these things. This is the exact model for why Uber is (mostly) legal in the states in the first place. They got people to want it, and then pitted public opinion against regulators to get their product allowed. Now it's a de facto standard.

The interesting legal challenge I think will be insurance. I'm sure people will still buy private vehicles (I will, for certain), and those will eventually be autonomous, too. What happens to the legal requirements to buy insurance if you aren't driving your car? If the car makes a mistake, it's a product liability case, and the manufacturer is responsible. If it's another driver's fault, you're not responsible for the damages, so you're getting paid, not vice versa.

Upends the entire insurance model. With enough saturation, the automotive insurance business model is going to be essentially untenable.

 

[Blarglefartz]

no need to learn how to read cuz audio books

a decent car costs $10-$15 a day, insurance included... humans like the freedom of being able to get 400+ miles for $40 gas anytime they please without having to depend on electricity, internet, cell phone, enough credits, a high rating to leave their dwelling. They also would never trust any of these companies software with their life or loved ones lives, some may also not like being recorded the entire trip which will be occuring gotta charge for the wiped snot on the seats and deter leaving condoms on the floor plus ad placement duh, probably pretty prudent to own a vehicle if you enjoy the opposite sex, i mean ive owned a car since 16 & i dont think as a man if i didnt own one i would be as prosperous with the ladies, but hey if the next gens panties drop for boys who dont own a vehicle more power to ya some guys not into women.

id say less than 1% of cities make sense not to own a vehicle as an adult & driving will be a useful skill for least 50 years

its cool to own things but life as a subscription is the current model ween em off owning anything. i didnt know poor people could afford private drivers, chauferres, self driving cars? i mean you do know its NOT goung to be cheaper than a human driver who gets $2 AND is responsible for all costs in a 3-7k car and cant do more than 29-30 rides a day. a sdc out the gate will be least 50+K itll take 50,000+ rides to equal one human

or do you think they gonna give out free subsidised 41% of actual cost rides forever?

The self-driving car is targeted at the urban metrosexual, not rural folk. The earlier comment about the "level 3 self-driving car" (I'm not certain I really know what that means) that lets me drive to a freeway, set my destination off-ramp, and fall asleep for 200 miles is much more attractive as far as I'm concerned and I think that will be the true "mass market" for smart cars in the next 30 or so years. Think of it as assisted driving and it makes sense. There's really no skill involved in it and it has real value for most people.

Self driving electric taxis in cities make sense, but I still think it'll take time to convince parents to let their kids use them.

EDIT: Clearly, no one on this board understands humor. Or, perhaps, there are a large number of urban metrosexuals who take themselves far too seriously?

 

[co-lee]

no need to learn how to read cuz audio books

a decent car costs $10-$15 a day, insurance included... humans like the freedom of being able to get 400+ miles for $40 gas anytime they please without having to depend on electricity, internet, cell phone, enough credits, a high rating to leave their dwelling. They also would never trust any of these companies software with their life or loved ones lives, some may also not like being recorded the entire trip which will be occuring gotta charge for the wiped snot on the seats and deter leaving condoms on the floor plus ad placement duh, probably pretty prudent to own a vehicle if you enjoy the opposite sex, i mean ive owned a car since 16 & i dont think as a man if i didnt own one i would be as prosperous with the ladies, but hey if the next gens panties drop for boys who dont own a vehicle more power to ya some guys not into women.

id say less than 1% of cities make sense not to own a vehicle as an adult & driving will be a useful skill for least 50 years

its cool to own things but life as a subscription is the current model ween em off owning anything. i didnt know poor people could afford private drivers, chauferres, self driving cars? i mean you do know its NOT goung to be cheaper than a human driver who gets $2 AND is responsible for all costs in a 3-7k car and cant do more than 29-30 rides a day. a sdc out the gate will be least 50+K itll take 50,000+ rides to equal one human

or do you think they gonna give out free subsidised 41% of actual cost rides forever?

The earlier comment about "level 3 self-driving cars" (I'm not certain I really know what that means) that let me drive to a freeway, set my destination off-ramp, and fall asleep for 200 miles is much more attractive as far as I'm concerned and I think that will be the true "mass market" for smart cars in the next 30 or so years. Think of it as assisted driving and it makes sense.

Level 3 cars absolutely do not let you fall asleep for 200 miles. Think adaptive cruise control and lane keeping on steroids: they assist you but you, the driver, are still required to pay attention and be ready to take over at any instant.

Level 4 does fully automated driving in some circumstances: perhaps freeway only will be one of those, although I'm betting it'll be geofenced to downtown urban areas.

4 and 5 are the only interesting levels. Current cars with level 2 are nice to drive and it'll be ok if some level 3 capabilities sneak in, but I'm still driving the car. It's just easier and less stressful when the car watches lanes, distance I'm following, etc.

 

[Stinkles]

Amazon. I could see them buying or partnering with someone in self driving cars. They have both the software scale and the person/physical location scale, especially with the wholefoods purchase and the amount of logistics they do. Self driving long haul trucks would work for them, as would cars to the grocery store.

Bonus to that is it would pair nicely with their own shipping service, at least last I heard they were trying to get into controlling the shipping of product ordered through them to reduce delay's.

 

[arcite]

The amazing thing to me is that we seem to have shifted from a "can they do it" to a "how do they do it" mindset around self-driving cars. Will it be hard? Yes. But no one seems to be arguing against the fact that in 5-10 years this will be a mostly solved problem. What a huge shift...

I don't know if technology is fast enough...I still have images of Jetsons in my mind... By those accounts, 2020 should see me flying to work in 2 mins as the crow flies and not 25 mins through traffic

Dubai drone taxi service within 5 years.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41399406

 

[karoc]

I think the problems of the arms length relationship is way overstated, upfitters have been moving thousands and thousands of customized production units for forever with little or no cooperation from the OEM. I don't think anybody is realistically looking at millions of units at this stage in the game, if it does look like Waymo's tech is up to that level of quality then I'm sure they'll be able to find a partner or somebody willing to buy them as an Alphabet spinoff.

Not to mention the tech itself has to be mass produced.

ultimately until the end of the 2020's I don't expect self driving cars to be more an expensive taxi style service which means a million cars at the high end.

To get them into consumer hands requires the tech itself to drop Dollar wise. currently a self driving car is a $150k investment. With the car being only $35k of that(price of a pacifica).

That will be the big barrier to adoption.

Why would there be a need to get them into consumer hands?

If there's cheap selfdriving cars driving around, I wouldn't to purchase a car. Why pay for a car, when I can simply share the costs with all the users. Not having to pay insurance is a boon as well.

Because, unless you live in a truly dense urban core that supports ubiquitous taxi service, waiting for a car to show up every morning to take you to work will be annoying as hell. It's not like it's going to be profitable for these companies to keep fleets of cars roaming around every low-density cul-de-sac in America (apologies if you live in Amsterdam or whatever). And god forbid you go in an hour late, after the vast majority of the fleet has taken people into downtown and is now idling waiting for them to head back.

Or what if you need to drive to someplace out in the countryside for the day? You'll be paying a premium to the company for the car to wait for you all day instead of returning to an economically productive (for the company) part of the region, or else waiting a long time for a car to get back out to you when you want it. The level of control over your own schedule will be a lot lower than if you owned a vehicle.

And of course with ownership comes an ad-free, other people's crap-free, "premium" experience.

It's possible people's expectations may change over time. But there's no technical solution for the fact that lots of people live in low-density areas but work in high-density areas, that travel demand is peaked (i.e. rush hour exists), etc. Owning will provide a far superior experience in many cases.

 

[Tim Lee]

I'd love to see a comparison between this and Uber's self-driving cars. As other commenters have noted, this is a potential revolution of the need for car ownership in the first place. I live in a big city, and the only time I drive is to leave it. But I order Uber/Lyft (whichever is cheaper) a couple times a week. The car-sharing aspect of it is going to change ownership habits a lot, I think. This is where Uber has a pretty good advantage.

Well that, and the fact that, you know...they already have real cars, driving by themselves, on real roads, serving real customers. For all the talk of how Waymo has a "sizable lead" in the technology, and how others are coming out with the service in the future...Uber already has a "self-driving + saftey-driver" system that you can actually experience. Waymo's tech may be better, but it's hard to say they're ahead of everyone, when Uber is actually using theirs, right now.

Maybe I'm just missing some special sauce in what Waymo is offering, but...why isn't what Uber has been doing considered "ahead" in this particular race? Is the Waymo tech that much better?

Edit: Uber's self-driving car pilot for customers actually started over a year ago.

I need to do more reporting on this, but I've talked to a number of industry insiders and none of them see Uber as a leader. Their cars were running red lights in San Francisco less than a year ago (http://fortune.com/2017/02/26/uber-self ... ed-lights/) and I don't imagine the chaos of the last year has given them room to catch up. I wouldn't count them out, but I highly doubt they're in the top tier at this point. A research firm called Navigant did a ranking earlier this year and rated them near the back of the pack. (https://www.navigant.com/insights/energ ... ng-systems)

 

[Tim Lee]

There is a big challenge not discussed in the article, and it could lead to significant delays for the whole business model: It's the legal and regulatory factor.
Currently, completely autonomous cars at not legal anywhere. A driver is always required.
It's one thing to have dedicated pilot programs in certain areas with an employee watching the wheel. It's a totally different thing to get nation- (or world-) wide approval for fully autonomous vehicles. (Which they need for a successful business model).
It might take years of lobbying, laws and new regulations to get that far. In my opinion Google and other newcomers to the car market (Uber) underestimate that challenge. The established players already have their lobbyists in place, and a couple of years in regulatory hell might completely erase Googles advantage.

As I say in the article, Arizona's governor seems to believe there are no regulatory barriers to launching a driverless car service in Arizona. And the feds are bending over backwards to allow these things on the roads. It's certainly possible that once a company tries to actually launch a service they'll encounter regulatory obstacles, but right now it doesn't look like it'll be a significant problem.