←back to thread

Waymo robotaxis are now giving rides on freeways in LA, SF and Phoenix

(techcrunch.com)
281 points nharada | 1 comments | 12 Nov 25 16:06 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
NullHypothesist ◴[12 Nov 25 16:24 UTC] No.45902077[source]▶
This is a huge sign of confidence that they think they can do this safely and at scale... Freeways might appear "easy" on the surface, but there are all sorts of long tail edge-cases that make them insanely tricky to do confidently without a driver. This will unlock a lot for them with all of the smaller US cities (where highways are essential) they've announced plans for over the next year or so.
replies(11): >>45902083 #>>45902240 #>>45902312 #>>45902557 #>>45902757 #>>45902766 #>>45902824 #>>45902829 #>>45903817 #>>45904393 #>>45904891 #
1. 0_____0 ◴[12 Nov 25 16:42 UTC] No.45902312[source]▶
Waymo (prev. Chauffeur) were cruising freeways long before they were doing city streets. Problem was that you can't do revenue autonomous service with freeway-only driving.

The real reason I see for not running freeways until now is that the physical operational domain of for street-level autonomous operations was not large enough to warrant validating highway driving to their current standard.