[wnissen]

Serious crash rates are a hockey stick pattern. 20% of the drivers cause 80% of the crashes, to a rough approximation. For the worst 20% of drivers, the Waymo is almost certainly better already.

Honestly, at this point I am more interested in whether they can operate their service profitably and affordably, because they are clearly nailing the technical side.

For example data from a 100 driver study, see table 2.11, p. 29. https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/37370 Roughly the same number of drivers had 0 or 1 near-crashes as had 13-50+. One of the drivers had 56 near crashes and 4 actual crashes in less than 20K miles! So the average isn't that helpful here.

[Terr_]

Hmmm, perhaps a more-valuable representation would be how the average Waymo vehicle would place as a percentile ranking among human drivers, in accidents-per-mile.

Ex: "X% of humans do better than Waymo does in accidents per mile."

That would give us an intuition for what portion of humans ought to let the machine do the work.

P.S.: On the flip-side, it would not tell us how often those people drove. For example, if the Y% of worse-drivers happen to be people who barely ever drive in the first place, then helping automate that away wouldn't be as valuable. In contrast, if they were the ones who did the most driving...

[chii]

the nature of the accidents also makes a difference tho.

A small fender bender is common in human drivers. A catastrophic crash (like t-boning into a bus) is rare (it'd make the news for example).

Autodriving, on the other hand, almost never makes fender benders. But they do t-bone into busses in rare occasions - which also makes the news.

[asielen]

It may be more fair to compare them to Uber drivers and taxis and at least on that comparison haven't ridden in thousands of Uber and taxis and a couple dozen waymos, it is better than 100%.

Anecdotal of course but within my circle people are becoming Waymo first over other options almost entirely because of the better experience and perceived better driving. And parents in my circle also trust that a waymo won't mow them down in a crosswalk. Which is more than you can say for many drivers in SF.

[seizethecheese]

With a distribution like this, percentile would be misleading, though

[dangus]

I saw a transit enthusiast YouTube video try out Waymo from the most distant part of the network to fisherman’s wharf in SF and it cost twice as much as an Uber while having a longer wait time for a car.

It also couldn’t operate on the highway so the transit time was nearly double.

One shouldn’t underestimate how economical real human operators are. It’s not like Uber drivers make a ton of money. Uber drivers often have zero capital expense since they are driving vehicles they already own. Waymo can’t share the business expense of their vehicles with their employees and have them drive them home and to the grocery store.

I’m sure it’ll improve but this tells me that Waymo’s price per vehicle including all the R&D expenses must be astronomical. They are burning $2 billion a year at the current rate even though they have revenue service.

Plus, they actually have a lot of human operators to correct issues and talk to police and things like that. Last number I found on that was over one person per vehicle but I’m not sure if anyone knows for sure.

[orangecat]

I saw a transit enthusiast YouTube video try out Waymo from the most distant part of the network to fisherman’s wharf in SF and it cost twice as much as an Uber, had a longer wait time for a car, and cost about double.

That's literally an edge case. For shorter trips, I've found it to be slightly cheaper (especially factoring in the lack of tips) with maybe a slightly longer wait.

[homefree]

The wait times have gotten better, they're getting freeway approval shortly which will be nice, the price is still at a premium (but worth it imo). I only take Waymo in SF now.

The only time I take Uber in the bay area is to the airport (and when they approve Waymo for SFO I won't take Uber then either).

[Mawr]

Fascinatingly, every argument you make is wrong.

> it cost twice as much as an Uber

Surely incidental since the typical price per ride is about the same. Generally though, the relationship between the cost to operate a service profitably and the price presented to the user is very complex, so just because the price happens to be x right now doesn't tell you much. For example, something like 30% of the price of an iPhone is markup.

> while having a longer wait time for a car

Obviously incidental?

> It also couldn’t operate on the highway so the transit time was nearly double.

Obviously easily fixable?

> One shouldn’t underestimate how economical real human operators are.

There's nothing to underestimate, human drivers don't scale the way software drivers do. It doesn't matter how little humans cost, they are competing with software that can be copied for free.

> Waymo can’t share the business expense of their vehicles with their employees

They can share parking space, cleaning services, maintenance, parts for repair, etc.

> I’m sure it’ll improve but this tells me that Waymo’s price per vehicle including all the R&D expenses must be astronomical.

Obviously, they're in the development phase. None of this matters long term.

> They are burning $2 billion a year at the current rate even though they have revenue service.

"The stock market went up 2% yesterday so it will go up 2% today too and every day after that."

> Plus, they actually have a lot of human operators to correct issues and talk to police and things like that.

Said operators are shared between all vehicles and their number will go down over time as the driving software improves.

---

To sum up, every single part of what Waymo is trying to do scales. Every problem you've mentioned is either incidental or a one-off cost long term.

[agildehaus]

Both the longer wait time and the double price can likely be explained by the lack of highway.

Highway is coming.

And scale will make it cheaper. It's only cheaper than Uber sometimes currently. That will change.

[whyenot]

My experience using Waymos in SF is that they are a little less expensive than an Uber. The other advantage is that you aren't stuck with a driver who hits on you or wants to share his opinions on the best way to slaughter goats.

[TulliusCicero]

I mean yeah, right now they've hit the point of being quite safe, but they're not necessarily as fast as human drivers. They'll keep making incremental progress and will get there eventually, probably.

So far, every time there's been self driving car progress, someone's been like, "okay yeah, but can they do <the next thing they're working on> yet??" like some weird gotcha. Tech progress is incremental, shocking I know.

[Ferret7446]

> One shouldn’t underestimate how economical real human operators are

That's such a silly statement. One shouldn’t underestimate how UNeconomical real humans are.

In the past 12,000 years, human efficiency has improved, maybe, 10x. In the past 100 years, technological efficiency has improved, maybe, 1,000,000x.

Any tiny technological improvement can be instantly replicated and scaled. Meanwhile, every individual human needs to be re-trained and re-grown. They're extremely temperamental, with expensive upkeep, very short lifespans and even shorter productive lifespans.

In fact, humans have improved so little, that every time, they scoff at the new technology and say it will never take off, and they're still doing it 12,000 years later, right now, right above this post.

[VirusNewbie]

In LA, wait times were the same as Uber and the price was the same as well (for a nicer car some of the time).

[radpanda]

Waymo rides are also potentially slower because they strictly follow speed limits. Not really problematic in downtown SF but it’ll be interesting to see how it’ll be received by riders when they expand to highway driving where most people generally expect to drive over the speed limit.

[jonathantf2]

Miles?

[Zigurd]

That's the correct indicator to look for: the number of Waymos on the road is still very small compared to the number of other vehicles. Alphabet wouldn't risk the cost of expanding to the current number of cities without very strong confidence that they're not going to lose their shirt doing it.

The evidence so far is that they are throttling demand by keeping the prices above that of an Uber. It's definitely still an experiment. If the experiment is successful, expect to see more cities and more vehicles in each city in expanding service areas.

There are step changes that have to be made to keep waymo expanding. The tariff situation is blocking plans to have dedicated vehicles from China. That has to get sorted out. The exact shape of the business model is still experimental.

Of course it's got to be safe. But there are dozens of dull details that all have to work between now and having a profitable business. The best indicator of a plausible success is that Waymo appears to be competent at managing these details. So far anyway.

[happyopossum]

> The evidence so far is that they are throttling demand by keeping the prices above that of an Uber.

I've only been in a handful of Waymo rides, but in each case it's been about half the price of an Uber.

[londons_explore]

> One of the drivers had 56 near crashes and 4 actual crashes in less than 20K miles!

There would be a strong argument to simply banning the worst 1% of drivers from driving, and maybe even compensating them with lifetime free taxi rides, on the taxpayers dime.

[jillesvangurp]

Nah, just revoke their licenses and make it much harder to get one to begin with. Autonomous driving removes the economic necessity of having one. Just get a proper car that can drive you to work. No need for you to do anything. Catch up on lost sleep (a common cause of accidents is people being to tired to drive) or whatever.

Expect to pay for the privilege of driving yourself and putting others at risk. If you really want to drive yourself, you'll just have to skill up to get a license and proper training, get extra insurance for the increased liability, etc. And then if you prove to be unworthy of having a license after all, it will be taken away. Because it's a privilege and not a right to have one and others on the road will insist that you are competent to drive. And with all the autonomous and camera equipped cars, incompetent drivers will be really easy to spot and police.

It will take a while before we get there; this won't happen overnight. But that's where it's going. Most people will choose not to drive most of the time for financial reasons. Driving manually then becomes a luxury. Getting a license becomes optional, not a rite of passage that every teenager takes. Eventually, owning cars that enable manual driving will become more expensive or may not even be road legal in certain areas. Etc.

[eptcyka]

Perverse incentives will just balloon the bad driver population. Funny, since the brits have a history with these kinds of things.

[pc86]

You don't have a right to free transportation.

I'd immediately donate money to and vote for any politician stupid enough to say we should revoke licenses from the worst 1% of drivers.

Revoke their licenses, let them figure it out. Get a ride from friends. Take the bus. Move closer to work. You're a danger.

If they break the law and drive anyway, put them in jail.

[HamsterDan]

Great idea. And people who start fires while cooking should be given free private chefs too.

[mattlondon]

It kinda works already without outright banning them: the mandatory insurance will get more and more expensive the more accidents they have.

So they price themselves out.

Of course, they may then decide not to have insurance at all. In most countries that is illegal and doing that in a premeditated way is criminality and something else entirely.

Not sure if insurance is mandatory in the US or not - I assume instead you just get into a gunfight with the other party instead?/s

[pc86]

> 4 actual crashes in less than 20K miles

Sorry if you're having a car crash every 6 months or less, you shouldn't have a license.

Driving a car is privilege granted to you by your state, and this state is negligent in its protection of everyone else by letting this idiot continue to drive. Sell your car, take the bus, move closer to work, I don't care.

More than 3 at-fault crashes in a year or more than 10 at-fault crashes ever and you should permanently lose your license forever. That seems more than generous enough.

[derf_]

> Sorry if you're having a car crash every 6 months or less, you shouldn't have a license.

Actual traffic enforcement does not seem to produce this result. This woman is fairly famous on Reddit for her erratic driving, and was reported in 2019 as having been involved in 31 crashes since 2000: https://www.wral.com/story/lawyer-stayumbl-driver-a-victim-o...

She is still driving (with a new license plate after 2019): https://old.reddit.com/r/bullcity/comments/1ji3y82/jesusdos_...

[eightysixfour]

There is already a mechanism for this that the government doesn’t even have to be directly involved in - insurance. At some point you become prohibitively expensive to insure.

However, the government still has to do its part and actually enforce insurance requirements.

My pet hypothesis is that there is a tipping point where the feedback loop between driver safety, ai advancements, and insurance costs will doom manually driven cars faster than most people think.

[magicalhippo]

Here in Norway we've got a point system[1], and I'm sure we didn't invent it.

Each point lasts for 3 years, and if you accumulate more than 8 you lose your license for 6 months.

A speeding ticket is at least two points, and running a red light or tailgating is three for example. You get double points the first two years after getting your license.

[1]: https://www.vegvesen.no/en/driving-licences/driving-licence-...

[potato3732842]

It's probably some old "bingo and church" driver who has a 50-50 shot of winding up in the ditch if it snows during Bingo and that "20k" is actually "8yr", the kind of thing insurance would never know about if you're not getting towing coverage through them.

[jonplackett]

Is Waymo doing ‘easier’ miles than an average human in any way? How limited is their range and types of roads they’ll use?

[danaris]

Yes, vastly easier.

As I understand it, they limit their range to a few cities in the American Southwest and West Coast, and don't operate in bad weather.

[nickvec]

Interesting. Pareto principle in action. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

[motorest]

> Serious crash rates are a hockey stick pattern. 20% of the drivers cause 80% of the crashes, to a rough approximation. For the worst 20% of drivers, the Waymo is almost certainly better already.

I would wager that those 20% of drivers also are disproportionally under the influence of drugs, impaired in any way (i.e., stroke, heart attack, etc), or experiencing sudden unexpected events such as equipment malfunction.

Defensive driving is risk mitigation.

[MichaelRo]

You forgot "being an idiot" and it's strange, because the vast majority of the accidents are caused by that. Have you never watched "idiots driving" videos on YouTube?

[timewizard]

You'd be correct. At least as far as fatalities are concerned. 50% of all fatalities involve drugs or alcohol. Around 50% of all fatalities are single vehicle accidents though. 15% are motorcycles. 15% are pedestrians.

And of course around 80% involve youth, testosterone and horsepower in some combination. The rest are almost always weather or terrain related in some way. Massive pileups on the highway in the winter and upside down vehicles on waterways in the summer.

Very rarely does a fatal accident happen without several factors being present.

[michaelmrose]

What about the benefit to the 80% if the 20% were obligated to use software instead of their own wetware in a hypothetical world where this was feasible in all respects. Imagine if you transitioned to most new drivers for instance being issued only permits to use self driving vehicles and older drivers being obligated to switch at 65.

[tim333]

As someone getting on towards 65 I have to point out that insurance rates are less for the 65-70s than for any group younger that 55, and claim rates are lower than for any of the under 65s. My relatives didn't really start crashing into stuff till they got to about 90. And then it was kind of slow motion. (for this data https://www.abi.org.uk/products-and-issues/choosing-the-righ...)

[TehCorwiz]

New drivers become better drivers by driving and gaining experience. This is why some states implement a mandatory minimum practice duration before you can get a license. Mandating they don't practice would be detrimental to the driving culture as it would skew in favor of AI by preventing learning in the first place.

[threatofrain]

Perhaps drunk drivers should be obligated to use automatic cars for some duration.

[sharken]

I think that no matter how good Waymo is doing, there is still the problem of who is responsible when a self driving is involved in a serious accident.

The only solution to that is probably to only let self driving cars onto the road, in an all-or-nothing solution.