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

(techcrunch.com)
277 points nharada | 1 comments | 12 Nov 25 16:06 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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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embedding-shape ◴[12 Nov 25 16:59 UTC] No.45902557[source]▶
> 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

Maybe my memory is failing me, but I seem to remember people saying the exact opposite here on HN when Tesla first announced/showed off their "self-driving but not really self-driving" features, saying it'll be very easy to get working on the highways, but then everything else is the tricky stuff.

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1. richardubright ◴[12 Nov 25 20:04 UTC] No.45905657[source]▶
I think the key is, it's easy to get "self-driving" where the car will hand off to the driver working on highways. "Follow the lines, go forward, don't get hit". But having it DRIVERLESS is a different beast, and the failure states are very different than those in surface street driving.