Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by gambiting on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @04:02AM (#38010402)

>>less traffic, no more parking.

These two goals are incompatible. If the idea is that self driving cars don't need to park, they can just drive around in circles until needed(which is an absolutely insane idea for a whole number of reasons, but let's stick with it for a second), then that will only increase not decrease traffic.

>>I could see them make the way to Europe too

I've love to see a Waymo navigate some narrow British roads where there is no road signage and there is no defined priority.

Like, this is a real situation encountered on a road here by myself just few months ago, skip to 1:30 to see the interesting bit - I'd love to hear proponents of self driving cars explain to me exactly what the car would do in this case. Hand over to a remote operator? There is no signal there, sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_OsjSRnEU

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by n2d4 on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @04:26AM (#38010567)

Less traffic and no parking is compatible because there are fewer total cars, as Waymos are shared.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by gambiting on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @04:29AM (#38010579)

I don't see any indication(other than some people on HN saying this) that people would not want to own a personal vehicle anymore just because self driving cars are a thing. Whether the car drives itself or not, people want to have their own personal space. Not to mention the (very common) need for things like child seats which don't really work with shared cars.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by n2d4 on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @05:33AM (#38010966)

Well, that is Waymo's plan, which is explicitly a robotaxi, that this article is about. If we were talking about Teslas, the self-driving vision for instance would be different.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by gambiting on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @06:08AM (#38011175)

Well yes, let me rephrase that - I don't see any indication that people would switch to robotaxis over owning a personal vehicle. I see that now already - it would be cheaper for me to take a taxi(you know, normal human operated kind) to work every day and back than to own my own car. Once you add up the finance payments, insurance, maintanance and fuel, I could easily just Uber every day to work and back and it would actually save me money. I don't want to do that though, as I like the flexibility of owning my own car - and that feeling doesn't change even with robotaxis. Maybe I'm an outlier?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by n2d4 on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @07:29AM (#38011665)

That might be normal in the US, but in Europe it's very common to take public transport to work every day.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by gambiting on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @07:42AM (#38011737)

I know, I'm in Europe. And yes, public transport is an option but a lot of people still own and drive cars(just on my street every single house has at least 2 cars each, even though our public transport options are excellent).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by lozenge on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @04:50AM (#38010704)

If 60% of people want to travel at 8:30am and they don't want to share a vehicle, then there needs to be that many cars and space for them to park.

You can park them further away from their destination, this increases traffic massively driving to the parking.

As well, if the ride is comfortable then people will be willing to plan longer commutes. An induced demand which increases the number of miles driven and hence traffic. Watching TV in the car is a major appeal of self driving.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by n2d4 on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @05:38AM (#38010996)

If at peak time only 60% of people are driving that means we saved 40% of parking space at no traffic cost, even if we just park the cars normally! That is significant.

I'm also convinced that the peak share of vehicles in use is less than 60% at any time of the day and year, but happy to be proven wrong.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are s... by oakesm9 on Wednesday October 25, 2023 @04:08AM (#38010442)

No idea what a driverless car would do, but that VW driver acts like they’ve never reversed in their life…

[ Parent | on HN ]