Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

It's fascinating seeing all the comments elsewhere anytime Waymo starts testing in another city along the lines of, "ah, but how will they handle X, Y, and Z here?? Checkmate, robots!" despite having already launched service in several other cities.

Granted, NYC is the biggest city in the US, so maybe that sort of reaction is more reasonable there than when people in Dallas or Boston do it.

NYC is also one of the most regularly built out cities, in stark contrast to Boston, for instance. OTOH roads here may be 3 or even 4 levels high at the same point (e.g. where Manhattan bridge meets Brooklyn), and GPS is sometimes way off in canyons between skyscrapers.

Yeah I’m skeptical that robots will ever be perfect drivers but the bar isn’t perfect it’s better than human and that’s certainly possible.

>despite having already launched service in several other cities.

Why does having launched in other cities matter if the new city brings up things that none of the other launched cities do?

For example the first thing I can think of new for New York is snow and ice.

It's my understanding that self-driving cars don't really account their acceleration and braking for roads that could sometimes be very slippery due to snow and ice.

Roads in Texas specifically just seem to do whatever they want, whenever they want. It's really apparent that Texas local roads used to be wagon trails.

The grid system in NYC seems like a good alternative for a rollout. Though the current NYC human drivers will hate these things. I also expect LOTS of vandalism.

> OTOH roads here may be 3 or even 4 levels high at the same point

And here I thought Chicago was complex with lower lower Wacker (just 3 levels).

> GPS is sometimes way off in canyons between skyscrapers

This is probably very challenging for human drivers using navigation, but probably no nearly as much of a problem for a Waymo car with onboard 3D maps of the entire operating area.

Since Waymo is very reliable in LA and SF, you will be just fine in NYC.

Your grid system is far less of a challenge than the amount of hills, twists, narrow streets and low visibility back streets in California.

I genuinely think the most complicated challenge for Waymo in NYC will be…winter snow and ice.

HD mapping gives much better than GPS I would imagine.

> "Why does having launched in other cities matter if the new city brings up things that none of the other launched cities do?"

New requirements come up all the time in technology. The existence of a new requirement isn't in and of itself justification for skepticism - is there a particular reason to believe that Waymo is not capable of solving for the new requirement?

The answer may be yes, but simply "ahah! It would need to do [new thing]!" is insufficient. "[new thing] is likely intractable because [reason]" would be more justification for skepticism.

> "It's my understanding that self-driving cars don't really account their acceleration and braking for roads that could sometimes be very slippery due to snow and ice."

Sure, but like above - is there a reason this is an intractable problem?

I'll throw this out there: your human-driven car already accounts for acceleration and braking on slippery roads, without the need for the human. Traction control systems and electronic stability control systems exist! They're in fact incredibly common on modern cars.

A fair point about weather, but a lot of the assertions are like "how will they handle the double parking and suicidal pedestrians jaywalking across the street??" I'd say most of the concerns just don't sound very unique at all.

For weather, Waymo has clearly started out in warmer climates while slowly building out towards places with colder and colder weather, I'm guessing they're just incrementally getting better at it.

Launching in other cities with new problems gives experience dealing with new problems, and the meta-learnings transfer to better processes for adapting to new issues. But yeah, ice and snow are definitely major new environmental factors for New York (and DC, and many other places we are starting to see more serious testing).

Autonomous vehicles can and do take into account surface conditions, there’s not really any reason not to. There are pretty good generative models of the physics of vehicles with different surface conditions, and I imagine part of the data collection they are doing is to help build statistical of vehicle performance based on sensed conditions.

Yup, the data so far seems to indicate that Waymo is substantially safe than average drivers. Obviously it's not inclusive yet since the tech is still new (and while the study I'm thinking of was done by a third party, it's still Waymo that handed over the data and paid them to analyze it).

I would argue those two areas are very different though. The Bay Area is not as dense or as many aggressive drivers as NYC.

There is a question, NYC driving gets by with everyone driving aggressive and breaking road rules. That is something that does not exist as much in other markets.

My complaint with Tesla city FSD is that it’s not quick or aggressive enough. It will come to long and complete stops and other things that will not work well in NYC.

NYC (at least the parts I've spent a bit of time in) is pretty grid like with fairly simple roads. The drivers are the hard part :)

I am excited to see them tackle Boston at some point because of how strange some of those roads are. The first time I had ever been I came to an intersection that was all one ways and there were like 7 entry/exit points. My GPS said turn left, but there were three paths I'd consider left. Thank god I was walking.

And I don't really pose much doubt because it seems like Waymo's rollout plan has been solid, but I'm just interested to see how well they tackle different cities.

>I'll throw this out there: your human-driven car already accounts for acceleration and braking on slippery roads, without the need for the human. Traction control systems and electronic stability control systems exist! They're in fact incredibly common on modern cars.

These systems don't help with the problems I am talking about.

You have to drive completely differently in heavy snow, significantly slower, brake sooner, turn less sharp, accelerate much slower, leave significantly larger gaps, leave space to move out of the way and be ready to move if someone behind you is coming at you too fast and can't stop in time, etc. I've spend my entire life in the midwest.

The traction control system in my 2023 camry didn't help one bit when I applied the brakes on black ice and the car didn't react at all, it just kept sliding at the same speed across the ice.

The interesting snow & ice problem for me is that humans will drive in winter conditions that are unsafe -- for example white-out blizzards. Robocars won't be able to drive in a white-out blizzard, so they'll likely refuse to do so. Humans should also refuse to drive, but people drive anyways.

NYC doesn't generally get white-out blizzards, so refusing to drive in them is quite feasible.

What I don't get about the "checkmate robots" mentality is that, like, get it working in sunny California with no snow, and then get it working in the snow, seems like the way to do it, not, solve all possible problems before anyone knows you're even trying and can make fun of you.

That all sounds like something that should be easier for a robot to do than the typical human. If programmed for how to drive in heavy snow, a robot should be able to switch driving modes much easier than the typical human brain.

Waymo has been trained in Buffalo NY for winter conditions, unlike most NYC drivers.

LA and SF are not close to close to the complexity of nyc traffic and pedestrian culture

NYC is a new set of challenges. As you already mentioned snow and ice is new. But also missing the high density of people and cars per square area. Behavior of drivers and pedestrians are different and much less polite. I can see it working in NYC but "just fine" is a bit of an over confidence... at least not for the first few years before they learn to deal with these issues that they don't face yet in LA and SF.

What snow and ice? We don't get much of that anymore. That was actually the last thing I am worried about here. I really want to see how Waymo does with NYC drivers and obstacles(double parking on block where sometimes you have to pull in your mirrors just to get by(if you even take the chance instead of just laying on your horn). In some neighborhoods it can be so annoying.

The thing is waymo at least in LA specifically geolocks you from those hilly areas. Imo it also is not assertive enough and drivers seem to be learning one can bully a waymo on the road.

My point wasn’t to say they are the same, more that SF and LA (I would guess) have covered and defeated almost every single challenge and obstacle for an urban environment (sans..weather).

LA also has far denser areas than SF, places like DTLA and Koreatown are more dense than most boroughs in NYC (sans Manhattan).

TIL.

LA doesn’t have complex traffic? What sort of traffic do we have in LA then?

LA is walkable, it’s lazy (and mostly incorrect) to say LA isn’t walkable.

LA County is massive, and depending on where you want to pick a comparison from, you may prove yourself either right or wrong.

Is it possible to train a machine to drive in snow? Yes. But consider that humans are trained to do so by means of things like: actually crashing, observing others crashing, talking to people who crashed, and all of the above is highly localized. Where I live there are many days in winter when someone not from the immediate area should not drive at all. But I might if there was a good reason because I have 25 years experience with the specific roads, conditions, how those conditions relate to wind and on and on. Training a machine to know all that seems feasible but unlikely to be commercially viable. It's just not a problem that can be solved with a simple closed loop control system like ABS or traction control.

there is nowhere in LA with the complex intermingling of pedestrian, car, bicycle, and motorbike traffic of anywhere in the boroughs other than Staten.

LA it’s gridlock or go. There’s nothing complicated about it other than strategizing where is gridlock and where is Go.

If white-out visibility is the only problem to be addressed then machines seem pretty well placed because they can use very accurate positioning and non-visible light sensors. Unfortunately they probably wouldn't know that there's a 50 yard section of the road that always drifts in when the wind comes from the south and the snow is dry.

Also snow and ice in NYC is a rare event now, not a given like it used to be.

I come from way up top on that globe of ours. I have driven in frankly apocalyptic snowstorms. They're an insidious problem to solve, but I remain optimistic. Back home, they will close specific roads due to snowstorms, but what do you do about the cars already on the road? You can't stay put for 16 hours can you? So you move as slow as possible, sometimes as low as 5 kilometres an hour. Cause that's the thing about a snowstorm; it's about visibility. You're not risking your life if a dude in skis can go faster than you.

We do have narrow streets in LA with double parked cars, cars parked in the street only allowing one car through the middle at a time, and plenty of construction closures and obstacles.

Why do so many NYC people think there’s comically no cars in LA or neighborhood streets?

Also, I can assure you LA drivers are a tad bit more aggressive than NYC drivers (less honking and flicking off though, LA people are more a drive you off the road or into the shoulder sort of passive aggressive).

I was born and raised in NYC and have lived in LA for quite some time, still going home often for family. I’m really struggling with reading these “NYC is unique” comments regarding Waymo traffic.

> I genuinely think the most complicated challenge for Waymo in NYC will be…winter snow and ice.

Nah, I'm betting it'll be the locals. They'll get pissed off at it remaining stopped when it shouldn't and do shit like start ramming into it. I've had it happen on the island when I stopped at a yellow. NYC is a lot more chaotic than any other US city I've driven.

Oof I don’t know about that. Driving in NYC is much different than San Francisco. Frequent lane departures, cutting into heavy traffic despite technically lacking right of way, and other moderate rule breaking is required to get anywhere. Boston will be even more challenging due to the hundreds of convoluted intersections.

Traffic on the sidewalk is a daily occurrence and often necessity in NYC. I'm not sure exactly how every area in LA is but often (as in pretty much constantly every day) in Manhattan or Brooklyn drivers don't obey the lines on the road, don't care to bump objects and cars to fit into a spot, literally threaten to hit other cars to get anywhere.

There's a bit of a "do what you have to" mentality with NY traffic that I haven't seen in any other east coast or mid-western city. I think that poses some unique challenges that I've often seen video of Waymos freezing up when facing similar scenarios, which could cause huge issues in most of the city.

I think you'd be surprised how aggressive driving has become normalized throughout the world?

is it just me or its common that in nyc people bike in most cases like there is no traffic lights at all? this to me is prob the most challenging

We've been getting less and less of those, though. And even then, it's just for a few days. Last year was a bit worse, but two years ago it was very, very mild, I think. Yay global warming?

I think what OP means is Waymo's most challenging rollouts will be to places that do get lots of snow and ice.

There's a weird thing where people like to brag(?) that their city has the craziest, worst, drivers/roads.

I think the main difference for NYC is that quite a few streets and intersections routinely have 10x to 100x the pedestrian traffic of the busiest such intersections in pretty much any other American city.

That's not to say that I don't think it'll be able to handle it, just that it'll be a new challenge. I wonder if their current program of apparently trying to positively track every single moving object in range will survive that, or whether they'll need to figure out some algorithm to prioritize objects that are more likely to be of concern to it. And there probably are more than a few places where pedestrians are numerous and densely crowded enough that you can't positively track all of them, even with a bunch of LIDAR sensors.

My point was that it will be interesting to see how well it works in NYC where the only way to drive is aggressively in city streets breaking the rules. LA has its share of aggressive driving but as someone who has driven in both, NYC felt like I had to break the rules to go anywhere, LA not so much.

Hard to really compare a tiny piece of LA and say it’s more dense and compare it to borough that is in the same range but also magnitudes larger total pop.

> You're not risking your life if a dude in skis can go faster than you.

Sure you are. You can still drive off the road and into the ditch where nobody can see you. People then die because they don't clear their tail pipe and get carbon monoxide poisoning or they try and walk for help and freeze to death.

I drive when I travel, though not in NYC these days but being a pedestrian gives you a good enough view. LA from a city driving perspective at least for me is not comparable to most of NYC.

You articulated this very well, thanks.

LA is extremely similar. Often can only make unprotected turns at lights while it’s red and you’re in the box, you have to wait at the top of a hill and have your car sideways while the oncoming car has space to drive up a hill, cars trying to give you space so you can drive through a line of traffic into the adjacent traffic pattern.

The “freezing” issues are very real though (and frustrating), and it’s what most everyone who uses Waymo in any city right now jokes/complains about. Waymo can often get into a weird game of “chicken” when there’s a four way stop with pedestrians, and any slight movement from the intersection can often make the car stop - so the pedestrian stops - the the Waymo finally moves again, but then pedestrian also started moving so the Waymo stops again and the pedestrian stops caring.

All this to say, I really don’t think there’s much that will be different. Go to Hollywood or Santa Monica

> talking to people who crashed

A reasonable counterargument is that autonomous vehicles can actually do that to a degree that is much, much more effective than humans. You might have 25 years of experience, but at 8 hours a day for 365 days of those 25 years we'd only need 8 cars driving for a year to match that. After all, training data and event logs generated by cars can be shared, and models can be upgraded all around. And of course that scales to more than 8 vehicles rather easily.

I think a well designed winter specific FSD system is probably more safe in snow and ice than a human. For instance downshifting to ensure wheels continue to spin on slippery surfaces, subtle corrective steering to keep the vehicle within its lane, etc. should be easier for a FSD car since it won't panic and over-correct like most people do in those situations.

And if the car reduces speed when appropriate and some assholes start tailgating it, it won't suffer the anxiety of holding up 10 cars that want to drive beyond the safe, reasonable speed for the snowy/icy conditions.

Pretty much all electric cars have single speed transmissions, so there's no downshifting. And modern vehicles have electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, automatic emergency braking, and several other safety systems. It's pretty hard to overreact with those enabled. The main issue is that people exceed safe speeds for the conditions, making them unable to brake or turn in time to avoid a collision.

Right now, most self-driving software will refuse to activate in conditions of poor visibility. I've had that happen with Tesla's FSD, though in that case it was snowing so much that the road should have been closed. Also when the snow is deep enough that your front bumper becomes a plow, it will refuse to activate.

This type of edge case covering is pretty essential to the jobs of most on this board. It doesn't surprise me to see it.

Don't forget the unique NYC challenge of people waiting to cross the street not on the sidewalk but just into the street itself.

People in LA wait to jaywalk on the street or even in the suicide lane all the time. The Waymos handle it fine; generally by asserting it has right of way unless collision is obviously imminent. They'll even happily swerve around you if you're too far out.

> And modern vehicles have electronic stability control, anti-lock brakes, automatic emergency braking, and several other safety systems

In ice none of these really stop overcorrection, or at least they don't in my 2020 truck on icy hill/mountain roads in Maine. And I've seen nice recent Volvos and BMWs with presumably the best safety tech in ditches up in the ski towns. The correct safe speed to drive on icy roads is not to drive at all of course, but people have to get places and people make mistakes. IME the assistive technology defaults don't do great on ice roads on some kind of up/down grade.

AFAIK drivers can still steer and brake themselves into a loss of control situation on ice regardless of safety features. So I guess I'm hoping once you take those two variables out of their hands, the FSD vehicles will be safer. Who knows though.

I went many years without a loss of control and the one time it did happen (logging roads with ice pack) was enough for me to buy Nokian studded winter tires to minimize the effect of ice as much as possible.

Not sure why you have the impression Waymos follow written driving rules. Here in LA they break every rule that LA drivers would with the aggressiveness to match. It really does seem like they try to make them drive as "human" as possible, with all the typical behavior found in the locale. I can't imagine it'd be any different in NYC.

The big difference is that NYC is less law abiding and more devious. Unless you've lived here, you have no idea the lengths new yorkers will go to scam and vandalize.

Source: grew up in NY, moved 25 years in SF. Love Waymo, big investment in Google.

Here in Santa Monica, the Waymos will happily cut off pedestrians in crosswalks as soon as it decides it has waited reasonably long enough and it won't hit them.

Same with 4-way stops: once it thinks it waited long enough, it doesn't matter whose turn it rightfully is, if it sees an open path it will just take it.

What is a "suicide lane"?

The problem with places that have real winters is that lanes migrate. They are not absolutely positioned. Nor are the sides of the road edges which may project well out into the street and parked cars even further. No road markings visible. Humans make their own lanes. This situation can happen for many weeks-long periods in a typical winter in, say, Minneapolis or Buffalo suburbs.

If a self-driving car does the right thing staying "in lane" while all the human drivers do the wrong thing flocking to new emergent paths (which swing back and forth across the "lanes"), then the self-driving car is wrong and dangerous. I'm not talking about when it's actively snowing either. I mean the snow on the ground just remaining there, covering things.

It's not about dealing with slippage or skill driving, it's about complete lack of context markers. I don't think any current or near future self-driving solution can adapt to this.

on the contrary, no amount of safety systems can compensate for a loss of traction on ice and snow.

The surest way to be safe on snow covered roads is to not drive at all. Also, none of the electronic trickery is a replacement for real winter tires, which many people do not buy.

A single middle lane shared by both directions for left turns. Also unofficially used as parking for food/package delivery drivers in LA.

>Also, I can assure you LA drivers are a tad bit more aggressive than NYC drivers (less honking and flicking off though, LA people are more a drive you off the road or into the shoulder sort of passive aggressive).

>I was born and raised in NYC and have lived in LA for quite some time, still going home often for family. I’m really struggling with reading these “NYC is unique” comments regarding Waymo traffic.

Slightly OT, but that reminds me of a cartoon I saw many years ago (I can't remember the publication though :( )

It had two identical panels with two cars and two drivers on a road:

One panel was marked "Los Angeles" where the driver of one car had a "speaking" bubble that said "Have a nice day!" and that same driver had a "thought" bubble saying "Fuck you!"

The other panel was marked "New York," where the driver noted above's "speaking" bubble said "Fuck you!" and the the "thought" bubble said "Have a nice day!"

I've always thought it was a great metaphor. Then again, I'm a native NYer. ;)

Crossing the street as a pedestrian without a walk signal in NYC goes:

- look in the direction of oncoming traffic as you approach the intersection, cross if you think you can make it without breaking your stride

- if there is traffic, step off the curb into the street and wait for a large enough gap in traffic to walk against the light

- if there is backed up traffic, find a gap to walk in between

Wait until New Yorkers figure out that Waymos will detect you and yield in order to avoid hitting you. People will just disregard and cross right in front of them.

Also, yes, you can walk in LA, but the major difference here is that the sidewalks are for commuting here in NYC. We don't just walk for pleasure.

Pedestrians always have the right of way on city streets. Jaywalking is just walking.

No, you cannot just step in front of a moving car such that they cannot stop.

My experiences have been different with Waymo. It drives with far less aggression than NYC, like I already said. It will be interesting to see as I see NYC as an interesting challenge.

Shared turning lane.

Having driven in both LA and NYC+NJ, LA drivers feel almost serenely calm to me most of the time.

In LA, as long as you don't do anything obviously stupid and give plenty of room for people to see you coming, people will just chill and leave you be. Every now and then I will see someone do something unfathomably crazy though.

In NYC (NJ especially), this didn't work. I had to be actively psychologically manipulating other drivers in order to get even a simple lane change done. Make the other guy think he won by signaling earlier than normal so he'll gun it sooner and leave space behind him, or don't signal until I'm halfway into the lane already.

This is what they tell you in driver's education to try and reduce the odds you hit pedestrians, but it's not legally true in most jurisdictions.

> Wait until New Yorkers figure out that Waymos will detect you and yield in order to avoid hitting you. People will just disregard and cross right in front of them

This is true everywhere. Waymos have learned to time an aggressive run up. Same as every New York driver.

> Robocars won't be able to drive in a white-out

My Subaru can lane keep in Wyoming blizzards better than I can because it follows the car in front with radar.

The world, for sure. But not in America. I've driven in most major US cities and I drive daily in NYC. There really is no comparison in any other major US city to how we drive in NYC.

Yeah it’ll be interesting to see how it deals with our pedestrian traffic. I’m sure they’ll figure it out, but pedestrians are a whole different sort of thing here than on the west coast. I notice I don’t really jaywalk in LA, and do less in SF, but here in NYC it’s just what everyone does at every intersection in the entire city.

That's fair and I've certainly experienced this where I live, which is north of Buffalo in latitude. Also frost heaves are no joke in non-city/non-highway roads and present another obstacle to FSD. I guess my point, if I had one, is I would hope FSD would be programmed to be as conservative as possible in adversarial winter conditions and not overreact to such conditions and that alone is enough to increase safety because humans, for various reasons, are not conservative enough. Hard to imagine for sure.

Next time go below 14th street. The grid is great but very misleading. NYC has had 400+ years of development, and it's deeply not homogenous in its design.

I don't think they've really launched anywhere challenging yet though. Nothing like London for example, and that's probably middle of the scale.

Obviously starting in the easy places is the right move, but I don't think you can dismiss the comments like that.