Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing traffic jams

Re:Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing tr... by MuffinFlavored on Sunday December 21, 2025 @05:27PM (#46349228)

What if there was a herd of people off-shore on-call willing to basically "RDP in" and take over control (human takeover) of the entire fleet when needed? I could see that being an attractive pitch.

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Re:Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing tr... by scottbez1 on Sunday December 21, 2025 @07:49PM (#46350197)

Latency makes this hard even with local connections, it’s essentially impossible due to physics to do it offshore.

And I believe Waymo remote access only allows providing high level instructions (like pull over, take the next right, go around this car, etc) precisely because full direct control with a highly and variably latent system is very hard/dangerous.

And in an emergency situation you’re likely to have terrible connectivity AND high level commands are unlikely to be sufficient for the complexity of the situation.

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Re:Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing tr... by Smoosh on Sunday December 21, 2025 @05:45PM (#46349380)

I suspect that in a large scale disaster/emergency the communications systems may be disrupted and it may not be possible to remotely control the vehicles.

Perhaps in such cases they can pull over in a safe place, or if they have an occupant ask them if they wish to continue the journey or stop.

Perhaps they already do this, I have no experience with autonomous vehicles.

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Re:Waymo halts service during S.F. blackout after causing tr... by bombcar on Sunday December 21, 2025 @05:44PM (#46349363)

This very scenario could involve no cell signal.

[ Parent | on HN ]