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Google Spin-Off's Newest Self-Driving Minivans Start Road Tests This Month (theverge.com)
"We're at an inflection point where we can begin to realize the potential of this technology," the CEO of Waymo said today. An anonymous reader quotes The Verge:
Waymo, the self-driving car startup spun-off from Google late last year, will be deploying its fleet of self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans onto public roads for the first time later this month, the company announced at the North American International Auto Show. The minivans will be hitting the roads in Mountain View, California and Phoenix, Arizona, where the company's self-driving Lexus SUVs have already driven thousands of miles over the past few years...
But here's the thing about these minivans. Waymo says that for the first time, it's producing all the technology that enables its cars to completely drive themselves in-house... This allows the company to exert more control over its self-driving hardware, as well as bring the cost down to ridiculously cheap levels. In a speech in Detroit, Waymo CEO Jeff Krafcik said that by building its own LIDAR sensors, for example, the company was shaving 90 percent off its costs. That means sensors that Google purchased for $75,000 back in 2009 now only cost $7,500 for Waymo to build itself.
Waymo's CEO says that using high-resolution LIDAR sensors "helps us more accurately predict where someone will walk next."
But here's the thing about these minivans. Waymo says that for the first time, it's producing all the technology that enables its cars to completely drive themselves in-house... This allows the company to exert more control over its self-driving hardware, as well as bring the cost down to ridiculously cheap levels. In a speech in Detroit, Waymo CEO Jeff Krafcik said that by building its own LIDAR sensors, for example, the company was shaving 90 percent off its costs. That means sensors that Google purchased for $75,000 back in 2009 now only cost $7,500 for Waymo to build itself.
Waymo's CEO says that using high-resolution LIDAR sensors "helps us more accurately predict where someone will walk next."
Sounds good to me. They can't do any worse than the ones with humans behind the wheel.
soccer Moms. Now that automation will affect women, maybe we can start taking its effects seriously.
That means sensors that Google purchased for $75,000 back in 2009 now only cost $7,500 for Waymo to build itself.
I'm guessing cost was waaaaaay down on Google's list of priorities when they picked experimental sensors for their highly experimental cars. I doubt anyone thought it had to be these exact sensors that go on production models. Also this has very little to do with in-house, since 2009 there are tons of new, much cheaper LIDAR sensors. Minus the PR blurb it's basically "Waymo follows industry, pretends it's a miracle".
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Sad to see Google try to destroy our country like this.
Nice to see even more competition in this space. This has gone from the realm of science fiction to (soon to be) reality.
With LIDAR, these cars should see better than any human possibly can and shouldn't run into the problem of differentiating clouds and trucks, or be blinded by the sun, rain or fog. So all that's left is the software, and Google's been working on that for ages. Of all the self-driving cars around, I think this is the closest to a truly self-driving car, one that doesn't need a driver to babysit it constantly.
And before all the cynics start moaning about bad weather performance, let me just remind everyone how well humans drive in the snow.
But this is waymo impressive.
When I heard about this on the radio last night, I kept hearing "Whamo!" instead of "Waymo". Kind of a bad name for self-driving car tech.
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