Waymo is starting driverless taxi tests in Los Angeles:
Late last year, Waymo secured a Driverless Pilot permit from the state of California, bringing the alphabet-owned brand one step closer to launching its autonomous taxi service in the state. Now, Waymo is already expanding its service area, announcing plans to begin testing driverless cars in Los Angeles. The company tells Engadget that the test will mark the first time that fully autonomous cars will roam the streets of LA, and that thanks to successful tests in San Francisco, its been able to roll out autonomous drivers in new cities with "little-to-no on-board engineering work."
That doesn't mean the company is ready to launch its Waymo One taxi service in California, however. The LA test will likely follow the same course as Waymo's fleet in San Francisco: a limited number of vehicles only available to riders in the Waymo Research Trusted Tester program. Waymo didn't have any details to share regarding when the full driverless taxi service will be available to customers in Los Angeles, but it probably hinges on the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issuing the firm a Driverless Deployment permit. Until it can clear that final legal hurdle, Waymo's paid taxi service will remain exclusive to Phoenix AZ. So far, GM's Cruise robotaxi service is the only company permitted to charge for driverless rides in the state, so long as those rides take place during daylight hours.
[...] Waymo didn't give any specific dates for when the test will begin, but noted that its 5th-generation Jaguar I-Pace cars will start rider-only testing in Santa Monica, and only outside of rush-hour. Then, the program will expand in accordance with Waymo's safety framework before eventually launching to consumers. Oh, and in case you were worried that the cars might make LA traffic even worse, the company promises that its continuously updating its self-driving software to avoid stalling traffic, as one stopped Waymo vehicle recently did in San Francisco.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01, @06:26PM (5 children)
I would definitely not call that a feature
(Score: 2) by SomeRandomGeek on Wednesday March 01, @06:55PM (4 children)
Were you mocking TFA for using the word continuously when it should have used the word continually, or were you getting the creepy crawlies about the idea of self-driving software that changes frequently, and therefore is perhaps not fully tested?
If the former, don't be a grammar nazi.
If the latter, please note that the regression test suite for something like a car needs to be fully automated. Consequently, every test will be run against every release, even when the release schedule is frequent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 01, @07:44PM (1 child)
You do maintenance in the garage, not on the road. We all know how well automatic updates go, may as well lay out tire spikes
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Wednesday March 01, @09:45PM
I would guess that it's not designed to do an update/reboot while driving down the road. I still find the idea of a driver-less taxi (that I can't control) to be absolutely terrifying. It's one thing when you have a person, who you can probably guess won't want to turn the vehicle into a weapon at the wheel instead of yourself. It's another to assume that automated vehicle will properly assess how to handle unknown scenarios. Or just to not decide to turn itself into a half a car, because oops, that was left turn, not right turn or something stupid.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by http on Wednesday March 01, @10:44PM (1 child)
I find your faith disturbing. Have you met corporations? Absent regulations with enforced penalties, they'd feed you fentanyl laced with arsenic if it offered an increased ROI. And might still, if the penalties aren't high enough or the enforcement not consistent enough.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by SomeRandomGeek on Wednesday March 01, @11:18PM
I'm just as cynical about corporations as you are (well, maybe not quite as much as you.) But corporate malfeasance and negligence tend to work in specific ways. If they build the tests, they will run them for every release. Now, they may not build all the tests, and they may not test the right things, and the tests may fail and they might choose to release anyway. But they are unlikely to simply fail to run the tests because it's too much work to run the tests. So, I am just as confident of frequent releases as infrequent ones, and what that level of confidence should be is still TBD.