Who Watches the Waymos? I do [video]
youtube.com281 points by notgloating a day ago
281 points by notgloating a day ago
https://x.com/fulligin/status/2003925653113184498
https://xcancel.com/fulligin/status/2003925653113184498
Very neat. I recently went to the Waymo depot in Bayshore (Toland St) and snapped a couple of pictures of the new Zeekrs for Wikipedia. [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waymo_Zeekr_Vehicle_... [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waymo_Zeekr_Vehicle_... The line scan photo of the Shinkansen train is amazing! https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Line_scan_photo_of_S...
(If you're confused by that page, then so was I. It contains the full photo but it's so long that it gets compressed into a line a few pixels high.) How are Google allowed to get Zeekr? Are they pre tariff or they have some loophole being corporate? Tariffs are easy, just pay them. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards are harder... But maybe there's a loophole for commercial transport? or maybe they paid to have the testing done? They do have a loophole; they import them as kits and “build” them at a Magna facility in Arizona (similar to how early Sprinter vans were re-assembled in the US and sold as Freightliners). But, they are FMVSS compliant (besides steering wheel) and have had several NHTSA organized recalls like any other compliant car might. > some loophole being corporate Presumably they use the loophole called "paying the tariff". Which isn’t even really that prohibitive because Chinese vehicles beat Western pricing by five figures. Plus, all the sensor equipment is made in China anyway. There’s almost certainly no way to have it manufactured in the US. On top of that, fleet sales don’t have to deal with the antiquated dealer network laws in the US. And of course American market car manufacturers refuse to produce vehicles that are like this one: space efficient and reasonably sized, instead opting for gigantic bean shaped SUVs with sloping rear roofs that rob you of cargo space while taking up maximum curb real estate. I would pay lots of money for an electric minivan (or van I guess) with removable seats that can fit a 4 ft x 8ft board. Ford E-Transit is an electric van for a lot of money. But it looks like Ford wants to stop making them, and 2 seat models look much easier to find. But you'd be able to fit your board no problem. Not sure if it's sold in the US (assuming you are from there), but the Kia PV5 is probably your best bet. On top of that it's very reasonably priced (in contrast to the ID buzz) Not sold in the US. On the bright side the ID Buzz is deeply discounted, it is really not selling. The problem is that the Kia EV9 beats it in basically every spec at roughly the same price. I think the VW ID buzz is probably the closest thing you’ll find in the US. Ignore the crazy high MSRP, they are selling poorly and you should be able to get one brand new or lightly used one in the 40s. I think in a short couple of years they could be a steal on the used market. How did you get in? These were parked on Hudson Ave, which is a public street, and not inside the fenced area of the depot. So I just walked up to them. Your Transamerica pyramid picture is incredible among really cool pictures you have there. Quite cool to photograph for wikipedia like this, the world needs more people like you! Indeed. May I ask the GP, how did you produce those scrollable images of the Shinkansen? It was done with a line scan camera. More on the technique here: https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/2025-09-21-line-scan-camera-... This was a great read and would be worth a submission of its own if it hasn't been posted recently. Thanks, I posted it 4 months ago already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44996938 That art fixture's placement at the Mission Waymo Depot is kinda cool. It's evocative of a future in which humanity lives a life of indolence propped up by automation. I don't think the goal is indolence. The goal is freedom. We want a post-need society propped up by automation. That doesn't mean that we should spend our reclaimed time idling, though, but certainly we could. Looks like it's GAIA by Marco Cochrane, I remember seeing it out in the desert. It looks like it might not be related to Waymo and just on the adjacent property Spot on! I confirm it here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C1CxhN-J2T_/?hl=en It makes me think that we need more representations of humans on and in our cities, to remind us about who they are for. We can shift a small amount of architectural scale towards the human. Love the moonrise! Beautiful shots. When most road transport is automated it will seem crazy that everyone had to drive for themselves, or sit in the car with a complete stranger, who may prioritise their comfort over the traveller's with regard to audio, navigation noise, air 'fresheners' / diffusers, temperature. Perhaps analogous to having a flatmate; it's mostly done out of necessity rather than choice. Makes me think of Miniatur Wunderland's "self-charging" system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC8aOLWR134 It's the world most complex model railway with cars (not just trains) that go around in predetermined routes, and also go to the charging station when their battery is low. And I guess Waymos are a version of that but with human-scale! (Oh they still need humans to plug the charging cables into them). I wonder if they park themselves or if the maintenance people park them... Also, the footage feels like Satellite Reign https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFZVXG0g40Q (or the original game, Syndicate Wars) If anybody is wondering, the music in this video appears to be "Alonia" by Valante. Very soothing. Thank you, I was about to start searching for it :) ! It has a similar feel to Vletrmx21 by Autechre if you dig the spooky ambient feel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-fhfYhqBr4 Very interesting to see the workers in yellow presumably cleaning and manually plugging in the cars to charge. I had to replay that to appreciate how the transitions from night to day were done so very, very well. The dynamic range of the shots always seemed spot on. That isn't easy to get right. Gave me a new appreciation for the scale of the investment /bet that is being made on transportation of the future. Very impressive video! What you can clearly see: If you scale this over the next years, "manual driving is over" :-D This is just the very very early beginning, like the first seconds after big bang, we haven really started this whole thing: If you put just more ressources here, we will have giant parking houses for just self-driving-cars, like "coming home over night and recharge" And this technology will come on a mass scale, Im pretty sure - there is nothing that can stop this? How will this affect transportation jobs? If you are today a big insurance like Munich Re, and you see already today that self-driving produces already much less accidents (90% or so I read days ago?), and the tech is really new & "not 100% reliable" and you believe that this tech will be rolled out - one day you will start lobbying politicans that manual driving needs to be forbidden, except some rare cases. Lets come back in 10 years! :-) The accident rate isn't even the biggest advantage over human drivers. The big game changer is that the computer doesn't need sleep!! Human truck drivers in the US are only legally allowed to drive 10-12 hours per day. Which usually means the truck is parked half the time. With a computer driving, trucks can run non stop 24/7. This is revolutionary change! Twice the delivery speed at half the cost. Should improve a lot of things across the economy. Unless some luddites find the power to stop it. > How will this affect transportation jobs? The human long distance truck driver will fade away as a career. It will probably take a decade or two, so people will have time to adjust. The transportation industry should end up substantially larger, which normally creates a bunch of new jobs/professions, but I won't pretend to know how that will play out. > If you scale this over the next years, "manual driving is over" :-D I ride a motorcycle. Unless you make this illegal, then no, "manual driving" is not over anytime soon. Some people actually _like_ driving, although, none of them appear to frequent hacker news. > there is nothing that can stop this? We learned the lesson of over automation in aviation very quickly. The best solution is very often, turn off autopilot and autothrottles, then hand fly the plane. You don't want pilots with their heads down in a computer making changes when they can, and should, just fly the plane. It also tends to reduce over all competence and harms safety particularly during equipment failures. > and you see already today that self-driving produces already much less accidents The utility of these statistics are harmed by the fact that "self-driving" does not occur in all the circumstances that "manual driving" does today. They're barely past the foundation stage, in a limited operational scope (cabs), and in a limited operational area (where it never snows). > Lets come back in 10 years! :-) I think this technology will eventually be prevalent. I think hacker news constantly gets the time lines wrong. You're going to need 25, minimum, and possibly more like 50. >If you are today a big insurance like Munich Re, and you see already today that self-driving produces already much less accidents (90% or so I read days ago?), and the tech is really new & "not 100% reliable" and you believe that this tech will be rolled out - one day you will start lobbying politicans that manual driving needs to be forbidden, except some rare cases. Why would insurance companies lobby for that? 90% reduction in accidents means 90% reduction in premiums, which means 90% reduction in profits. Do insurance companies have a history of lobbying for safety regulations? You have a point. At the same time insurance companies are getting out of insurance because they can't afford it. Apparently (I didn't verify this), the cost to repair cars has gone up so much that the economics don't work out. So they're leaving the market. Maybe less crashes would bring them back? Pick a source: https://www.google.com/search?q=car+insurance+companies+leav... Oh sure, they have! e.g.:
https://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/200-wrr/Safer-from... And sure, insurances are fine with making profits, but if they can get less catastrophes, they are fine with that as it reduces overall risk etc. Feel free to check the corp publishing section on https://www.munichre.com/en/insights.html Insurance is cheaper on safer vehicles. A 90% reduction in accidents is a 90% reduction in _paying out_. That reduces operating costs. Reduction in premiums doesn’t mean reduction in profit. It generally does. If accidents (and payouts) drop by 90%, revenue will ultimately drop and profits will follow. Profit margins may increase, but total profit $$ will likely drop. Aren't insurance profits capped to some percentage of revenue in most jurisdictions by law? Yes, this is true - but it’s still beneficial enough to have fewer claims. Claims incur cost in many ways and running a business with fewer claims would be more predictable and likely worth the minimal trade off. > you see already today that self-driving produces already much less accidents (90% or so I read days ago?) This is like saying skydiving is safer than driving because you're looking exclusively at accidents and ignoring the total number of events. There are way more cars than there are skydivers. Now in the realm of autonomous vehicles: there are way more manually driven vehicles than there are autonomous ones, so of course there's going to be significantly more accidents from manually driven vehicles. Unless it comes down massively in price, it's not going to displace manual driving for anything other than Uber/taxi. It's far cheaper to drive your own car in most of the us. If parking lots disappear and the parking that remains becomes similar in price to that of major cities and insurance rates skyrocket, then maybe that will change, but only by increasing the overall cost of transportation. Self driving taxis should absolutely be cheaper to use than current regular cars. Because they don't need a steering wheel, backseat, and many other things. They can also run close to 24/7. How "massive" the price drop becomes I don't date to guess though. > They can also run close to 24/7. In practice, if you provide enough cars to meet the demand to travel from suburbs to city at 7am-9am and back again 8 hours later, I’d expect a large fraction of them to be idle outside of peak hours. And even at peak hours, to be spending half their time empty, as almost all the demand is in one direction. And if you don’t provide enough capacity to meet rush hour demand? Good luck convincing people to give up their cars. You're right that travel demand is impossibly uneven for a 24/7 taxi fleet. My best answer is that they can deliver goods/packages in the off hours. That may even end up being the main business. > If you are today a big insurance like Munich Re, and you see already today that self-driving produces already much less accidents Insurance companies don't really care that much if accidents are more or less likely, what they care about is that they can be underwritten effectively. The most interesting shift here as it pertains to insurance is the fact that losses might be correlated in brand new ways. Today there's no simple way for 100,000 cars to all crash a few minutes apart, worldwide, for the same reason. In the future that may in fact be plausible. I'm sure that an insurance company would reject larger premiums and make itself obsolete, assuming that claims you make are true. Hint: Normies outside the tech world are not hell bent on making themselves unemployed. That phenomenon only exists among software engineers. This is actually rather beautiful to look at, covering a full day/night cycle. Well done. Great clips and editing. New perspective on the scale of self driving cars deployed currently. Pretty cool. How do they get charged? The same way they get cleaned. You can see the workers in high-vis are coming out to service them. Getting Bladerunner vibes from several things but mostly that giant translucent synthwave Marco Cochrane statue. There are also neighborhood self-help groups who try to "stack" the Waymos into alleys so that they can sleep: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/25/us/santa-monica-waymo-bat... The juxtaposition of the Google Captcha in front of this self driving car article to train it on motorcycles and crosswalks for a full minute. Can't they get out and kill the Ubers already instead of sitting in the lot?
(half-serious, but I have been wondering what are the reasons they don't just push the price towards zero during low hours?) Surreal. Almost like an optimistic science fiction film. After all, self driving cars have some of the highest positive to negative externality ratio of any modern technology Can you explain more why you think this? As I see it, cars in general remain very highly negative-externality, and self-driving doesn't change it much. Regular ICE cars:
- air pollution from tire wear and brake dust
- air pollution from exhaust
- embodied carbon
- noise
- endangering other road users
- traffic congestion
- land use (sprawl)
- long term health impacts (encouraging sedentary lifestyle) Switch to all-electric and you lose a bit of noise and all the tailpipe emissions, but gain whatever emissions generated the power (sometimes solar, great, but sometimes lignite, boo), whatever environmental damage resulted from the battery materials, and probably marginal worsening of safety as the same ranger requires a heavier vehicle Switch to self-driving and you may increase safety (feels like Waymo basically yes, Tesla probably no based on their track record with stat manipulation), but also vastly increase use, worsening congestion and land-use. The others stay the same. So I don't understand why you're saying the externality ratio is good. From my perspective self-driving cars don't really move the needle. You could build 1000 units of housing in the lot where these cars are kept. The bigger picture isn't exactly clear. Seeing all these Waymos together like this... is depressing. You get a sense of the scale at which machines are replacing humans. This could be a scary movie made in 1970s about the robotic future... and that future has now arrived. What will the world look like 10, 20 years from now? What would a scary movie made today contain? Curious if you have ever seen footage from a modern industrial farm, which has already replaced humans with domesticated animals and associated machinery, by a wide margin. Unfortunately those videos are a lot less appealing to most people. It reminds me a bit of a very small scale version of a robotic harbor, which very much exists in many places across the world already. I once toured the one in Hamburg, which is highly recommended if you ever get the chance. Nothing else has quite given me that feeling of being tiny next to this giant city-scale robot since. Robots and technology have been replacing humans for many decades. It's a positive thing and change is a natural part of life. It's hardly depressing, it's progress. It's not like humans are somehow put on this earth only to do certain jobs or the same job forever. Contrary to 100+ plus years of predictions, humans will never become obsolete. What amazes me about Waymo is how expensive the rides are. They're at least 20% more expensive than Uber (the much more expensive Uber of today, not the Uber of 2-4 years ago), sometimes 100-150% more expensive. If they can't be cheaper, then what's the point? Having ridden a few of them in the area, I think they're worth it. Waymos are 100% reliable. If you book it and it says it's coming at X time, it will definitely actually show up at X time. No more of, driver cancelled at the last minute because they don't actually want to drive to destination Y but Uber etc gave it to them anyways and they get dinged if they just cancel instead of claiming not to be able to find the rider etc. Or driver got lost or stopped for food or gas or something so is late. It also gets to the destination exactly when it says it will. No weird routes because of the driver's whim or driving too fast or too slow. And no chance of bad music, loud conversation in some foreign language, annoying commentary, etc. And I want them to be profitable to run too, so they have plenty of incentive to expand the program. > Waymos are 100% reliable. There is nothing in this world that is 100% reliable. The vehicles are new. Wait until they start clocking more miles. > it will definitely actually show up at X time. In what city and at what time of day? Waymo is just one vehicle in a sea of them. If traffic starts choking the city I don't see how they're not as vulnerable as every other vehicle. the jaguar ipace base vehicle is uber black eligible in some markets, compared to the shitty check engine light hoopties you could risk with uberx No need to make small-talk with someone is a positive for many people. That might make it worth it? The novelty premium? There are people that will wait for a self-checkout kiosk to be available instead of going to a cashier. There are definitely people that will pay for a solo car ride. Waymo's been doing for the past 5 years what Elon's promised to deliver 10 years ago (and is still not delivering) Probably because their CEOs are focusing on their job and not fooling around. Plus: Waymos are safer - they have Lidar and Radar in addition to vision Waymos have human fallback to remote operators Google takes responsibility for Waymos, vs Teslas being privately owned Google took a more regulator savvy incremental approach Watch the Zoox test vehicles please. They do absolutely terrifying things, _in every encounter_. [flagged] Most of it is not drone, but you have to think a bit about the angle and duration to realize this. Merry Christmas Just wanted to thank you for the Sutro Tower work (https://vincentwoo.com/3d/sutro_tower/), it was truly beautiful and I’ve been looking at it so many times, very nostalgic for me. This one is great too! Could you please review and follow the site guidelines? "Oh, who cares." is not an ok way to respond to someone's work on HN, and is particularly bad when a thread is just getting underway. "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (of course I understand that it's disappointing when you're hoping for certain content and end up with something else, but still - please don't express that in a hostile way) I actually quite liked it, was somehow soothing, especially the car park that was used as a temporary location during the night.
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