Waymo really impresses me. It just seems way more confident in a human way. For example, negotiating that narrow road with an oncoming car at 9:12, it knows to move over to let the car pass but when it saw that the other car was yielding, it just went, there was no awkward "who is going to go now" moment. The unprotected turns with oncoming traffic is also way more confident. And it seems to handle drop offs much better too. It does not just stop in the road but moves over and finds a good spot to the side.
This is an interesting series. Thank you, Mr. Chen. ----- Might viewers who know more about IT, robotics, and tele-metrics than I do (that means all of you) offer opinions on whether or not it is technically feasible for a person at Waymo Ops HQ to be monitoring Mr. Chen's trips in real time and actually driving the car by remote control most of the time, instead of letting the computer system make all of the decisions. I ask the question because I speculate that Mr. Chen's prominent RUclips channel might have prompted Waymo to flag his client profile as "VIP Influencer" or similar. They would want Mr. Chen's trips to be as flawless as possible.
It is probably not feasible because of network limitations (cellular data dead spots) and economic reasons (I am not important enough to set up a dedicated procedure)
Hey Kevin, nice videos! Your content is the best I could find on YT in terms of testing AVs. How did it know at 4:20 that the black car was going to turn right? I watched that part numerous times in 4K and couldn't see it blink right.
It's likely tracking the kinematics of the car - you can see the car seems to be slowing down as it's coming to the intersection. My guess is this slow down (even without the blinker) gives the Waymo high confidence that it's turning right. It might also estimate that given the slower speed of the black car, in the unlikely scenario it's actually going straight, the Waymo has time to mitigate any risk.
@@nautilik I wouldn't make that assumption in real-life. Some people slow down before intersections without any intent for a right turn. I wasn't there to experience the whole thing, so maybe the slowdown was more drastic, but it's safe to not turn left without seeing the oncoming car blink.
the assumptions seem to me that whether it was turning right or going straight, there was still no car behind it and also in the lane next to it. so i assume it felt safe to go ahead and enter further, knowing that either scenario means it will proceed with the turn. however, if that car prevented the waymo from proceeding, then it would block the lane. but at the same time, it could be considered a safe bet that that car would choose either to go straight or turn right, not stop in the middle.
I use Tesla FSD in this part of town all the time and can say without a doubt that it currently handles those types of unprotected lefts much better than Waymo did here. After v12 on Tesla most if not all of the twitchy steering wheel is gone and it definitely waits until vehicles like that black one start to turn their wheels before it commits
That last drop-off at 22:00 was quite bad, slowing and pulling over at the edge of an intersection while still coming out of the left-turn, with a car behind them. That's a recipe for a rear-ender. Any normal cab driver would have dropped-off up the road a few more tens of meters with the turn signal on for a few seconds, where there was plenty of room to pull over.
I haven't tried, but I don't think the car would do anything about it. However, there are cameras in the car, so it's possible that actual people monitoring the ride could stop the car and have you get out of the car. Also, touching any driver controls (stalks, shifter, steering wheel, brake, gas, etc.) does automatically make the car pull over, and I think give you some kind of "strike" towards not being able to ride the car.
During the whole ride I noticed something that, when done by a human driver slightly annoys me and makes the ride itself less comfortable, that is little micro corrections of the steering wheel going in a straight line that you can usually avoid telling the driver to look further so I presume that setting the focal point of the sensors further above might correct this behaviour. What do you think?
Wow! At 4:20 ish I can’t believe it was doing the thing humans do when we’re in a yield green arrow to go left 😂 wtf that was extremely human like. Love it. I think I would have anxiety so I could never get in one 😂
4:20 - I never turn left when incoming traffic come with the turn signals - sometime drivers just forgot to turn it off and go straight, but Waybo do. In general the driving looks pretty good, at least better than Tesla.
I would be wary of an AI driven taxi in a high pedestrian area downtown. So many people dart suddenly off the sidewalk that no sensor is going to act fast enough to transmit an alert to the server, get a response back from the server, then give a correct response to the car. I’m a relatively newbie to self driving cars, so I don’t know if this is correct or not. Am I missing something here?
At their scale of millions of miles, Waymo are almost certainly making all safety-critical decisions onboard. The network is for receiving high-level commands like "go pick up at this address," "disregard that police car," etc. Without internet, the AV might get stuck more often, but shouldn't have additional collision risk. Another thing I've noticed is the extreme defensive driving around pedestrians/cyclists. Starting ~10 minutes in this video you can see it gives lots of space to pedestrians even if they are on the sidewalk. ruclips.net/video/TOV0ndPr0Dk/видео.html (I have some more on my channel at night time in LA)
Waymo never makes driving decisions on the go by some "server" or any remote operations. The Waymo Driver can autonomously stay safe on the streets well enough around pedestrians that it's likely as safe or safer than a good human driver. Sensors and CPUs operate very fast at 60 cycles per second, so the Driver is reacting in some way every 17 ms; that's much faster than a normal pedestrian can dart out. If the pedestrian isn't hiding behind an obstacle, the Waymo Driver is likely monitoring its position and velocity faster than a human can. If there are hundreds of pedestrians all around, which I've seen in Manhattan, a robocar will be more cautious than many human drivers would be. If a person jumps out from behind an obstacle in front of a fast car, any car would struggle to stop quickly enough, given the physics involved, but otherwise a good robo-driver has a safety advantage over us.
No server involved. The decisions are all made by an onboard computer with extremely low latency. So low in fact that the car can make decisions in a fraction of the time a human can. And if it needs to slam on the brakes? It doesn't have a foot that needs to move from one pedal to another -- it can activate the brakes in FAR less time than a human can.
Waymo really impresses me. It just seems way more confident in a human way. For example, negotiating that narrow road with an oncoming car at 9:12, it knows to move over to let the car pass but when it saw that the other car was yielding, it just went, there was no awkward "who is going to go now" moment. The unprotected turns with oncoming traffic is also way more confident. And it seems to handle drop offs much better too. It does not just stop in the road but moves over and finds a good spot to the side.
Waymo walks the walk, and Tesla talks the talk.
I’m super impressed at this technology. Can’t imagine how far this will go and its adoption rate in 5 years. History in the making..
excellent well made video. The shot is great and really stable, all of the annotations, the counter is helpful, well thought out and edited.
17:46 Bless you
Thats impressive. :O
I would be super interested in unprotected left turn in rush hour
I’ve done many of those, it handles them fine.
ruclips.net/video/HU8Xb_mYSqQ/видео.htmlsi=WVDUD-cx5h3UfOED
Not always...
Where can I buy waymo cars?
@@CancelRUclips026 buy from waymo, it only cost 200k per an economic car
Do they have a 1984 Pontiac Firebird?
Who knows
Super cool !
I wonder ..if the car committed a traffic violation how the police proceeds …hahaha that’s may be a blast 😂😂😂😂
This is an interesting series. Thank you, Mr. Chen.
-----
Might viewers who know more about IT, robotics, and tele-metrics than I do (that means all of you) offer opinions on whether or not it is technically feasible for a person at Waymo Ops HQ to be monitoring Mr. Chen's trips in real time and actually driving the car by remote control most of the time, instead of letting the computer system make all of the decisions. I ask the question because I speculate that Mr. Chen's prominent RUclips channel might have prompted Waymo to flag his client profile as "VIP Influencer" or similar. They would want Mr. Chen's trips to be as flawless as possible.
It is probably not feasible because of network limitations (cellular data dead spots) and economic reasons (I am not important enough to set up a dedicated procedure)
Waymo technology can be equipped on any car eventually?
Hey Kevin, nice videos! Your content is the best I could find on YT in terms of testing AVs.
How did it know at 4:20 that the black car was going to turn right? I watched that part numerous times in 4K and couldn't see it blink right.
It's likely tracking the kinematics of the car - you can see the car seems to be slowing down as it's coming to the intersection. My guess is this slow down (even without the blinker) gives the Waymo high confidence that it's turning right.
It might also estimate that given the slower speed of the black car, in the unlikely scenario it's actually going straight, the Waymo has time to mitigate any risk.
@@nautilik I wouldn't make that assumption in real-life. Some people slow down before intersections without any intent for a right turn. I wasn't there to experience the whole thing, so maybe the slowdown was more drastic, but it's safe to not turn left without seeing the oncoming car blink.
the assumptions seem to me that whether it was turning right or going straight, there was still no car behind it and also in the lane next to it. so i assume it felt safe to go ahead and enter further, knowing that either scenario means it will proceed with the turn. however, if that car prevented the waymo from proceeding, then it would block the lane. but at the same time, it could be considered a safe bet that that car would choose either to go straight or turn right, not stop in the middle.
I use Tesla FSD in this part of town all the time and can say without a doubt that it currently handles those types of unprotected lefts much better than Waymo did here. After v12 on Tesla most if not all of the twitchy steering wheel is gone and it definitely waits until vehicles like that black one start to turn their wheels before it commits
2:38 R1S!!!
9:12 That narrow oncoming was insanely impressive and smooth
Yeah I thought the same, better than most humans I reckon. I also like that orange sportscar, gives me GTA 5 vibes the way it's parked there. :D
That last drop-off at 22:00 was quite bad, slowing and pulling over at the edge of an intersection while still coming out of the left-turn, with a car behind them. That's a recipe for a rear-ender. Any normal cab driver would have dropped-off up the road a few more tens of meters with the turn signal on for a few seconds, where there was plenty of room to pull over.
You'are supposed to have your nose in their ass...
What happens if u go in the driver seat
You cant because the waymo driver is in control of the car at all times 🤖🚘
You will get ejected from the car and AI will take off without you because he’s mad that you were in his seat lol
I haven't tried, but I don't think the car would do anything about it. However, there are cameras in the car, so it's possible that actual people monitoring the ride could stop the car and have you get out of the car. Also, touching any driver controls (stalks, shifter, steering wheel, brake, gas, etc.) does automatically make the car pull over, and I think give you some kind of "strike" towards not being able to ride the car.
It won't move
U can’t the drivers side is always locked until waymo side assist unlocks it
During the whole ride I noticed something that, when done by a human driver slightly annoys me and makes the ride itself less comfortable, that is little micro corrections of the steering wheel going in a straight line that you can usually avoid telling the driver to look further so I presume that setting the focal point of the sensors further above might correct this behaviour. What do you think?
I watched a waymo cut off another waymo on a video a couple of days ago.
Thanks for counting down at the long stops. I feel like LA has longer traffic light cycles than most other places.
5:22 what in the heck was that car doing . Literally was a car length past the stop sign.
Can’t wait to get rid of my car and never have to drive again
Wow! At 4:20 ish I can’t believe it was doing the thing humans do when we’re in a yield green arrow to go left 😂 wtf that was extremely human like. Love it. I think I would have anxiety so I could never get in one 😂
But can it pull over and make catcalls??
Why should it?? Are you that desperate????
That's crazy.
4:20 - I never turn left when incoming traffic come with the turn signals - sometime drivers just forgot to turn it off and go straight, but Waybo do. In general the driving looks pretty good, at least better than Tesla.
What happens if you hop in the driver seat? Haha can you steal the car?
GPS system. No
I would be wary of an AI driven taxi in a high pedestrian area downtown. So many people dart suddenly off the sidewalk that no sensor is going to act fast enough to transmit an alert to the server, get a response back from the server, then give a correct response to the car. I’m a relatively newbie to self driving cars, so I don’t know if this is correct or not. Am I missing something here?
At their scale of millions of miles, Waymo are almost certainly making all safety-critical decisions onboard. The network is for receiving high-level commands like "go pick up at this address," "disregard that police car," etc. Without internet, the AV might get stuck more often, but shouldn't have additional collision risk.
Another thing I've noticed is the extreme defensive driving around pedestrians/cyclists. Starting ~10 minutes in this video you can see it gives lots of space to pedestrians even if they are on the sidewalk. ruclips.net/video/TOV0ndPr0Dk/видео.html
(I have some more on my channel at night time in LA)
Waymo never makes driving decisions on the go by some "server" or any remote operations. The Waymo Driver can autonomously stay safe on the streets well enough around pedestrians that it's likely as safe or safer than a good human driver.
Sensors and CPUs operate very fast at 60 cycles per second, so the Driver is reacting in some way every 17 ms; that's much faster than a normal pedestrian can dart out.
If the pedestrian isn't hiding behind an obstacle, the Waymo Driver is likely monitoring its position and velocity faster than a human can. If there are hundreds of pedestrians all around, which I've seen in Manhattan, a robocar will be more cautious than many human drivers would be.
If a person jumps out from behind an obstacle in front of a fast car, any car would struggle to stop quickly enough, given the physics involved, but otherwise a good robo-driver has a safety advantage over us.
No server involved. The decisions are all made by an onboard computer with extremely low latency. So low in fact that the car can make decisions in a fraction of the time a human can. And if it needs to slam on the brakes? It doesn't have a foot that needs to move from one pedal to another -- it can activate the brakes in FAR less time than a human can.
I seen them at busy K-town with lots of cars and pedestrians. No problem 😅.
Its crazy to me how everyone in LA are rich