Even After $100 Billion, Self-Driving Cars Are Going Nowhere

[Laird]

Oh I have no credentials, no account.

But yeah it's not working anymore...only thin[g] I can think of is a friend or family member logged in with their access at some point and it was still on or I got a free article temporarily.

Curious. Yep, I guess it must have been something like one of those explanations.

Driverless Waymo cars still honking despite software fix

Amy Larson, Lezla Gooden

Every day, Waymo’s driverless autonomous vehicles gather in the parking lot on 2nd and Harrison streets to park in-between rides and recharge. Periodically, the high-tech vehicles start honking at each other.

Humans who live in apartment buildings next door said overnight and early morning honking is too loud to sleep through. Since the issue began on July 28, Waymo’s engineers have updated their software at least twice trying to fix the problem. But last weekend, the honking returned. 

Resident Sophia Tung devised a tech-centric response after she was woken up around 5 a.m. by a chorus of car horns. She created a 24-hour livestream with two cameras pointed at the parking lot.

The stream, titled “LoFi Waymo Hip Hop Radio Self Driving Taxi Depot Shenanigans To Relax/Study To,” has attracted a global following. Viewers from as far away as Europe watched the parking lot stream on Monday.

Group of Waymos Get Confused, Clog Up San Francisco Street

Noor Al-Sibai

In San Francisco, Google's Waymo's driverless taxis are once again causing way-mo problems than expected.

In a video posted to TikTok, a bemused onlooker documents one of the company's Jaguar I-Paces as it causes an autonomous pileup in the city's notoriously traffic-riddled streets.

"The Waymo is stuck because the Waymo is trying to go behind the Amazon [truck]," the bystander explains, "but then it's stuck behind the Waymo, and oh, my god, there's another Waymo!"

Indeed, as the 35-second clip shows, an Amazon truck got trapped between four of the white Waymo cars. As explicated by the user behind the video, who goes by the handle romokris, there ended up being a 19-car pileup resulting from the mishap.

Tesla Full Self-Driving is getting more dangerous as it gets better

Fred Lambert

The risk of complacency is scary.

Last weekend, I went on a road trip that covered about 200 miles from Shawinigan to Quebec City and back, and I used Tesla’s (Supervised) Full Self-Driving (FSD), v12.5.4.1 to be precise, on almost the entire trip.

Here’s the good and the bad, and the fact that the former is melting into the latter.

There’s a four-way stop near my place on the south shore of Montreal that I’ve driven through many times with FSD without issue and yet, FSD v12.5.4 was seemingly about to blow right past it the other day.

Again, it’s possible that it was just braking late, but it was way too late for me to feel comfortable.

Also, while it is getting better, and better at a more noticeable pace lately, the crowdsource data, which is the only data available as Tesla refuses to release any, points to FSD being still years away from being capable of unsupervised self-driving

Tesla would need about a 1,000x improvement in miles between disengagement.

I’ve lost a lot of faith in Tesla getting there due to things like the company’s recent claim that it completed its September goals for FSD, which included a “3x improvement in miles between critical disengagement” without any evidence that this happened.

I'll say this about the FSD.  They gave another free month of the service to all Tesla owners recently.  I do still find it pretty amazing in terms of how well it works.  That said I have no confidence in its ability to be "autonomous".  But that brings up another point about current safety levels: WHen you put your Tesla in FSD the car forces you to be almost MORE aware of the roadway than when operating the vehicle manually.

There is an internal camera that "watches" you when in FSD.  If it detects your eyes wandering or, heaven forbid, you checking your cellphone it will beep incessantly.  Again, based on my own driving habits and what I see in others around me, using FSD in its current form is MUCH safer than letting people manually operate their cars as the are often not even watching the road but glued to their cellphone.

I'll say this about the FSD.  They gave another free month of the service to all Tesla owners recently.  I do still find it pretty amazing in terms of how well it works.  That said I have no confidence in its ability to be "autonomous".  But that brings up another point about current safety levels: WHen you put your Tesla in FSD the car forces you to be almost MORE aware of the roadway than when operating the vehicle manually.

There is an internal camera that "watches" you when in FSD.  If it detects your eyes wandering or, heaven forbid, you checking your cellphone it will beep incessantly.  Again, based on my own driving habits and what I see in others around me, using FSD in its current form is MUCH safer than letting people manually operate their cars as the are often not even watching the road but glued to their cellphone.

Can't we just put the internal camera in without the FSD then?

It's been noted that a lot of tech could be purposed toward helping human drivers, but there is a lack of investment interest given all the focus on the - IMO pipe dream - of AI driving based on machine "learning"....

Again, using it as its been "free" for a while I will say it is noticeably better and much more "natural" in its driving than before.  I made a relatively long drive today (2 hours) and while I took control of the vehicle many times it was NOT due to the FSD failing.  I'm pretty confident it could have driven the entire trip without intervention.  I'm just not as patient as the FSD so would take control typically to drive faster or make a more aggressive lane change.

Video shows self-driving Waymo car nearly crash into oncoming traffic in Arizona

by "Storyful"

Stacy Van Horne was travelling with her daughter down West Broadway Road in the self-driving vehicle when the vehicle, preparing to cross a lane with oncoming traffic, appeared to stop.

Video by Van Horne shows her screaming as the vehicle crosses the road. Van Horne can be heard shouting "Oh my God. So many cars. Oh my God," while her daughter laughs at the situation.

Van Horne shared the footage to TikTok and labelled the incident "another Waymo ride, another close call."

Recall that Waymo has fought legal battles to keep its accident rate hidden.