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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: 0.202s | source
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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.
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1. sjducb ◴[12 Nov 25 17:15 UTC] No.45902766[source]▶
Slow roads are easier because you can rely on a simple emergency breaking system for safety. You have a radar that looks directly in front of the car and slams on the breaks if you’re about to crash. This prevents almost all accidents below 35mph.

The emergency breaking system gives you a lot of room for error in the rest of the system.

Once you’re going faster than 35mph this approach no longer works. You have lots of objects on the pavement that are false positives for the emergency breaking system so you have to turn it off.