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Waymo granted permit to begin testing in New York City

(www.cnbc.com)
597 points achristmascarl | 2 comments | 22 Aug 25 17:02 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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TulliusCicero ◴[22 Aug 25 17:30 UTC] No.44987256[source]▶
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.

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testfrequency ◴[22 Aug 25 17:40 UTC] No.44987366[source]▶
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.

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kubectl_h ◴[22 Aug 25 19:06 UTC] No.44988541[source]▶
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.

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1. superkuh ◴[22 Aug 25 20:27 UTC] No.44989427[source]▶
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.

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2. kubectl_h ◴[23 Aug 25 05:36 UTC] No.44993492[source]▶
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.