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Waymos crash less than human drivers

(www.understandingai.org)
345 points rbanffy | 2 comments | 26 Mar 25 20:57 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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wnissen ◴[26 Mar 25 21:37 UTC] No.43487648[source]▶
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.

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dangus ◴[26 Mar 25 21:46 UTC] No.43487761[source]▶
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.

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1. Ferret7446 ◴[27 Mar 25 06:44 UTC] No.43490975[source]▶
> 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.

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2. consteval ◴[27 Mar 25 14:00 UTC] No.43493768[source]▶
The misconception here is that technology just magically runs on its own.

No, it’s created by and maintained by humans. You’re shifting the cost of a driver to software engineers, data analysis, people mapping out roads, etc.

This is why Uber doesn’t make any money, despite being more expensive for the customer as compared to traditional taxi services. Coordinating Ubers across the country costs a lot of servers and a lot of engineers. Sure, the system is automatic - maintaining it isn’t.

So you end up with a lose-lose-lose scenario. The ride is more expensive for the customer. The driver makes less money. And Uber bleeds hundreds of millions a year.

Technology is neat, yes, but often we don’t stop and think “wait… does this make sense?”

We don’t know if autonomous cars make any economic sense. They could end up not. It doesn’t help that 99% of tech companies in the transportation space are just making trains with extra steps. Like, guys - have we even done feasibility analysis?