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Does it make money? No Does it make you drive your car safely while sleeping ? No

Does learn to drive such a hard thing? No

Then why do we need this kind of company? I don’t know.




> Then why do we need this kind of company? I don’t know.

Why bother doing anything at all with this attitude?

Let's freeze in place and wait until the sun dies out. I don't know.

To me, Waymo is exciting because it could unlock a next step function of capabilities, patterns, and economics. Everything we take for granted in transportation -- highways, traffic signals, parking, traffic itself -- we could potentially get to reevaluate a lot of previously-held assumptions. The second- and third-order effects could be wild.

Maybe it'll all go bust. It's worth a shot, though. The rewards, if they succeed, will be tremendous.


> It's worth a shot, though.

waymo is 14 years old, maybe it is enough for a shot and time to move on something more proven? Like poor billions into smarter public transportation for example.


Agreed. Cars still destroy cities. No matter if they are driven by a human or not.


this comment would make sense if there werent a fleet of 100 cruise and 100 waymo sucessfully operating for months in SF now


100 people is about one train carriage. That is not a lot of bang for the buck.


At some point in history there were 100 single-celled organisms (or protocellular organisms?) presumably around some hydrothermal vent. Not a lot of promise there, either.

I get the self-driving car skepticism. I'm a skeptic. But the expected value is insanely positive and warrants our attention.


what is the point of this comment? if i need to get to an appointment im not going to go take the bart, risking missing the interval or delays + walk a mile to get to my destination

theres obvious value in last mile transportation that trains will never provide. please go outside


for businesses, successfully means it is profitable and does not require layoffs.

But it sounds this kind of business may be not scalable.


> Then why do we need this kind of company?

I come from a place that has in the last 13 years more than 500K people died, in almost 28% of the cases it happened roads/highways due to illegal overtaking and over-speeding.

I would like to have in my lifetime a car that had some sort of technology that could prevent some of those accidents, and autonomous cars could help on it.


Mandatory speed governors would help.


Except it does not.




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