[the-rc]

I saw one of these on Chambers Street just yesterday afternoon, but it must have been in manual mode, of course.

[nine_k]

Downtown Manhattan is the hardest-to-navigate area of NYC. I thought they would start somewhere in Midtown, where the grid is regular, streets wide, and demand for taxis still pretty high.

[bryanlarsen]

We already know that Waymo can handle regular American cities quite well. I woul expect them to spend most of their expensive human-supervised training and testing budget in the most unique locations, like downtown Manhattan.

[ryoshu]

Midtown on a busy Saturday or Sunday afternoon with a driverless vehicle would be... amusing. No one-including busses-give af about traffic rules.

[xyst]

The Waymo’s I see in Austin just circle the same path to pump the number of miles their fleet is training on. Unless they are on an actual ride.

Is Chambers St busy during the afternoons?

[the-rc]

No, especially after congestion pricing, it doesn't get very busy. I assume the car was mapping the area and collecting background truth in general. Downtown and the financial district have interesting peculiarities, like the highly irregular grid and the patches of open air construction that have been in the middle of Greenwich St for many years, exposing tens of pipes and cables carrying who knows what.

[kccqzy]

I saw them in downtown Jersey city right across the Holland tunnel. I guess that's where they are parked when the human operator is off duty.

[Sohcahtoa82]

I would expect an "automatic, but human ready to intervene" mode for development and testing.