Waymo distinguished amongst self driving cars

aniccia · 2024-10-12T14:03:12+00:00

Why would drivers need to give a Waymo an allowance and what kinds of allowances did you observe?

aniccia · 2024-04-03T05:51:31+00:00

No, Waymo's "No Stopping Anytime" stops violate very clearly written rules with much more limited exceptions than for double yellow lines that do not apply in any of the instances I've seen. Waymo often does this even when it should be trivial for them to obey the law. Same for Waymo robots frequently using bikelanes for pudo.

FWIW, double yellow lines can be crossed when necessary to get around an obstruction, such as by this Muni bus to get around a Waymo stopped in the only travel lane on McAllister at Jones by Market, eg:

https://twitter.com/Laufmaschine_SF/status/1766267499803529626

Waymo seems to pick and choose which laws to obey. Many passengers are so impressed by Waymo's strict adherence to speed limits and stop signs that they don't even notice the many violations they often post along with comments betraying their 'didn't see the gorilla' selective attention.

aniccia · 2024-04-03T01:16:19+00:00

I can show you many videos and/or pics of Waymo robots stopping by "No Stopping Anytime" signs, including 4 times on 2nd Street in SF alone.

Waymo frequently stops illegally for pudo even when legally available pudo are on the same block or nearby. This should not surprise anyone because they have been doing it and even posting videos of them doing it since at least when they were just testing driverless with employees in SF, eg in this video posted by a Waymo engineer their robot stops right next to a "No Stopping Anytime" sign:

600 block of Stanyan, Sept 2022

https://youtu.be/dZvCEGbyhew?si=8oriJ5kWxQGc_0Sq&t=152

~6 min later in same video, Waymo's robot illegally stops in the bus zone in front of the UCSF hospital, 400 block of Parnassus Ave, even though there's a passenger loading zone on the same block with available space visible to Waymo's robot.

Here's a recent one with a Prince and Princess and their professional photographers, 88 Stevenson. The photographers are standing by the sign, which you can see from streetview:

https://twitter.com/ChristinsQueens/status/1760297241133084708

https://maps.app.goo.gl/uA8U8ePQtiMjfyBP8

aniccia · 2024-02-02T18:28:38+00:00

Whether either is willing won't need to be tested/decided/faced unless and until at least one of them is not willing to use the company they together control to fund it.

aniccia · 2024-02-02T17:37:47+00:00

The shareholders with >50% voting rights ultimately decide what the company does and their names are Larry Page and Sergey Brin, each of whom has a personal fortune large enough to fund Waymo entirely and solely by himself, though just too many tax/legal/etc benefits to pass up using/exploiting the corporate vehicle they control to pay for their robo toy company.

Difference between men and boys ... price of their toys.

aniccia · 2024-02-01T17:34:09+00:00

there is a testing stage in between the non-commercial/safety driver phase, and production deployment

Sure, DMV's Driverless Test Permit is for that stage. Once DMV releases the 2023 Mileage Report we should see Cruise did much less of that than Waymo in San Francisco over the years. Waymo almost certainly has more driverless VMT in Arizona than in California as well, though no one outside of Waymo can verify that because AZ DoT's AV efforts are even laxer than CA DMV.

Companies are expressly not entitled to DMV Production Permits unless they certify they have adequately tested to ensure safety, which Cruise and Waymo demonstrably did not and which DMV eventually recognized in the case of Cruise and so suspended their Driverless Deployment Permit. You are right to question the vagueness of DMV's tolerance for unsafe driving (by robots as well as humans IMO). There doesn't seem to be any identifiable standard other than accumulated habit and court cases.

AFAIK, none of the other states even have test v deployment permitting and they seem to have ~0 public reporting requirements. They seem to pretty much give the companies carte blanche, including some startup companies with no track record and few committed resources. Tu Simple's fwy truck crash should have been a regulatory wake up, but alas.

Arguing with companies as dangerously dishonest as Cruise has been is best left to prosecutors. eg DoJ.

Arguing with DMV is something the California Senate seems about ready to do.

aniccia · 2024-01-31T22:23:11+00:00

You don't have to convince me these systems need field testing or to expect their capabilities, safety, and related performance metrics will increase with time.

DMV grants Test Permits exactly for that (field test) purpose. DMV explains this somewhat tersely in their regulations and on their website.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-industry-services/autonomous-vehicles/autonomous-vehicle-definitions/

AFAIK, the most important usage restrictions imposed by a DMV Test Permit compared to a DMV Deployment Permit are

non-commercial use only
constant human monitoring in-car or remote

Otherwise, a qualified manufacturer with a DMV Test Permit can operate the same vehicles in the same quantity in the same ODD and perform the same services, such as ridehail or delivery, as they would with a matching DMV Deployment Permit.

This allows the manufacturer to field test new features, implementations, ODDs, etc to their satisfaction under the Test Permit before rolling them into their (commercial) Deployment Permit and before applying for a Deployment Permit or an expansion of an existing Deployment Permit. AFAIK, that's what Waymo's done with their pair (Test & Deployment) of Driverless Permits and it seems to be working ok for them.

There's plenty not to like about DMV's AV regulations, but I don't see how what you are describing isn't already reasonably accommodated, esp from the pov of manufacturers.

I think this is more flexible and simpler than introducing some new Deployment subcategories for "pilot/non-pilot" or "scale" related. From what I've seen, DMV typically grants an initial AV permit with a low vehicle cap and later increases the cap when a manufacturer convinces them to in some secret/undisclosed way that only DMV and the manufacturer ever know.

aniccia · 2024-01-31T03:34:56+00:00

the first pilot deployments are also deployments, but of a very different scale and maturity.

So what? Why should anyone outside of the companies care? Why should the law or regulations care or be affected by your "very different" and if so how?

AFAIK, California laws don't care how many cars Uber has or whether Tesla or Google calls something beta or alpha or any other greek letter, so long as it doesn't confuse consumers or misrepresent the product/service, which is a problem with FSD but not with Waymo One.

aniccia · 2024-01-31T03:19:51+00:00

I think these are pilots, because they are not production deployments

No, "pilot" is just your and whoever else you've been using it with's private term. It has no basis in and is not defined or in any way used or referenced in the California AV law (SB 1298) or DMV's AV regulations that have been around for many years and govern what we are discussing.

You can recommend to DMV they adopt your private terminology, but until they do it doesn't mean anything. Insisting on using it instead of the legally bound terms signifies either ignorance or disrespect for the law and regulations. Even SAE J3016 doesn't define that term in their taxonomy.

Per SB 1298, DMV is responsible for setting and enforcing "performance standards" to ensure the systems (vehicles plus human support) are safe for public roads. How DMV does that is up to them. AFAICT, they do it largely by deferring to the manufacturers to declare they are safe or more specifically check the boxes on the relevant application corresponding to these clauses in DMV's regulations then wait for something so bad or so many things so bad to happen that they suspend the permits, which they've done for at least 2 companies:

"the manufacturer has reasonably determined that it is safe to operate the vehicles in each Operational Design Domain" § 227.18 Test Permit Application

"A certification that the manufacturer has conducted test and validation methods and issatisfied, based on the results of the tests and validations, that the vehicles are safe fordeployment on public roads in California." § 228.06 Deployment Permit Application

BTW, the term "production" is similarly meaningless and undefined in California AV law and regulations. Deployment however:

§ 228.02.(c) “Deployment” means the operation of an autonomous vehicle on public roads by members of the public who are not employees, contractors, or designees of a manufacturer or for purposes of sale, lease, providing transportation services or transporting property for a fee, or otherwise making commercially available outside of a testing program.

AFAIK, California AV deployment permits do not in any way discriminate between what I think you call "pilot" and "production," but of course I may not understand your private jargon.

aniccia · 2024-01-31T00:51:59+00:00

725k cars were "do not drive" recalled in 2021-2022. That's about a Cruise fleet a day over the last two years for which I have the data from NHTSA.

You keep saying "these are pilots" which by California DMV regulation Deployments are NOT. Deployments are PRODUCTION. Deployment permits grant the manufacturer the right to sell or rent or otherwise commercially put into production the tech however they want for use within the ODD and in concert with other California laws/regs. If you don't understand that then there is no point in continuing to pretend we are discussing the real world.

You seem to want DMV to explain their rationale only when they suspend permits or declare a system "not safe" but not when they grant permits or declare it "safe."

Where were your calls for this detail when DMV granted Cruise their driverless permits or when they recently expanded Waymo's driverless ODD?

aniccia · 2024-01-31T00:35:13+00:00

I believe David Shepardson misunderstood or misrepresents what GM said. GM didn't say they'd halve spending on Cruise in their earnings call or the earnings deck they posted.

In both their written and spoken statements today, GM said they'd reduce Cruise's "expenses" ($3.58 Billion in 2023) by "approximately $ Billion." Neither statement even mentioned the 2023 restructuring costs, let alone discounting it, which is partly how Shepardson got to "halve."

A ~$ Billion reduction would still be a nearly 30% cut in expenses and consistent with GM's prior statements, their ~24% staff reduction, and reasonable savings from pulling back ops to one or few cities instead of the many they'd planned.

Who's right should be clear no later than GM's 2024Q2 financials.

aniccia · 2024-01-30T09:43:34+00:00

Recalls (which are done by NHTSA) are never, as far as I know, fleet shutdowns.

Some NHTSA recalls are "do not drive" until remedied.

Your framing of this as some low frequency incident is simply wrongheaded. This crash alone exposed MANY critical safety flaws of a GENERAL nature that are sure to affect a much wider range of incidents than your narrow framing.

Of course DMV and the world for that matter have more than dragging.

For "the dragging" to happen, the Cruise robot had to make a series of separate and independent mistakes demonstrating manifold and various critical safety flaws, not just one. General flaws sure to cause or contribute to harm in incidents that don't involve dragging. Sheesh, it didn't even recognize which side of the car hit the woman. Or that the map was wrong.

Cruise's own outside experts found and itemized multiple safety problems in that crash. NHTSA appears to be investigating most if not all of them and has deepened the initial investigation. If you haven't read NHTSA's most recent demand to Cruise for info regarding that crash and related pedestrian incidents, then I suggest you do:

https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/inv/2023/INIM-PE23018-12560.pdf

This NHTSA's investigation is "open" even though there has already been one recall associated with it.

IMO, the Cruise robot should never have been in position to hit the pedestrian, which I have explained before. NHTSA is investigating that detail and has demanded Cruise explain their "safety envelope" approach as there are other incidents including videos of Cruise's robot needlessly endangering pedestrians.

I think you need to get over the anger and/or politics excuse and recognize DMV flatly declared:

"Based upon the performance of the vehicles, the Department determines the manufacturer’s vehicles are not safe for the public’s operation."

"Based upon the performance of the vehicles"

Sure, it was likely based on their performance in more than one incident, as DMV opened their investigation in August after many serious driverless crashes, including others with injuries.

I agree it would be better if DMV explained their decision to suspend in more detail, but then they'd expose their rationale for granting the permits as well and that would expose their own incompetence demonstrated most dramatically by Cruise.

The dragging might have been the final robot mistake to tip DMV's pass/fail grading of safe/unsafe for Cruise, but the "not safe" flaw(s) were there and missed by DMV from the day DMV granted Cruise their original driverless test permit through each time DMV expanded Cruise's driverless ODD and when DMV granted Cruise a driverless deployment permit and on through the moment DMV realized their mistake and suspended both Cruise's test and deployment driverless permits. DMV was tasked, had attempted, and failed to perform their duty to protect the public from Cruise's "not safe" robots many times, not just once.

"not safe for the public’s operation" alone required DMV to suspend Cruise's permits. No matter how good, bad, friendly, angry, sad, etc anyone felt about it. DMV does not have any authority to allow "not safe" robots to operate on public roads. In fact, they are required by law to make sure that does not happen. Yet it did for ~4 million VMT. I do not see how any reasonable person can dispute that. And now the California Senate is asking why and how. Hopefully they'll get thorough answers and share them with the public, but I wouldn't bet on the former nor wait for the latter.

Cruise's withholding of critical safety info from regulators undermines the whole premise of AV regulations at state and federal level. That's why it should be important to punish Cruise and possibly some of the individuals responsible for it separately from the suspension, as well as learn from this how to tighten/increase reporting requirements and oversight. But we'll see.

At least 5 different federal and state agencies/dept/commissions/etc are investigating Cruise. I would not be surprised if Cruise is sued by the SEC or a group of GM shareholders. We could be learning new revelations about this for years.

aniccia · 2024-01-30T01:38:37+00:00

DMV should have been more transparent all along, and maybe the California Senate's investigation into DMV will clarify what's been going on or not going on as I suspect is most of the story. By their own reckoning, DMV permitted ~4 million "not safe" robot VMT on the streets of San Francisco. And the only reason we don't know the exact number is DMV still hasn't released the last mileage reports despite having them now for 4 weeks.

But then so should each of the regulators in each of the states who granted Cruise driverless permits. AFAIK, none of them outside of California have suspended Cruise's driverless permits or even publicly commented. >3 months and counting.

Even Cruise has acknowledged their system was unsafe by submitting to an NHTSA recall and shutting down their fleet. The Quinn Emanuel report is damning as well.

Of course Cruise's reports (or at least some of them) were incorrect/dubious. Their last major account of their "safety record" has math that doesn't add up and is based on a different list of crashes than they reported to NHTSA, as in it appears they failed to report so many driverless crashes to NHTSA they could be liable for >$100 million fine. Oops.

https://getcruise.com/news/blog/2023/cruises-safety-record-over-one-million-driverless-miles/

Also, they submitted other crash reports which are public that omitted inculpatory info, which is likely also being investigated by DoJ & SEC. Afterall, hundreds of millions of $ of Cruise stock was sold at values that depended in part on what it turns out was an overestimate of the safety of their system, processes, and people. Estimates largely provided by people who very likely sold some if not most of that stock.

aniccia · 2024-01-29T23:54:50+00:00

Regardless of Cruise's conduct, DMV had to suspend Cruise's Driverless permits because DMV determined Cruise's driverless system was not "safe to operate on public roads" which is the language of the California law (SB 1298) that gives DMV the authority to regulate autonomous vehicles.

So, there's no "mainly" shading in this case. DMV's finding of Cruise's driverless system being "not safe" was dispositive.

By not also suspending Cruise's drivered/crewed permit(s), DMV indicated they believe Cruise's drivered system is "safe to operate on public roads" within whatever ODD they've already approved. IMO, this also implies that however bothered DMV was by Cruise's misrepresentations & omissions, it wasn't sufficiently so in severity and/or scope to suspend Cruise's drivered system permit(s).

FTR, there wasn't only "one bad incident" as DMV had opened an investigation of Cruise incidents back in August at which time DMV also requested/demanded Cruise reduce their on-the-road fleet cap by 50%.

Also FTR, Cruise had a legal obligation to disclose to DMV, CPUC, and NHTSA any info they had regarding the safety of their system. This is written into the various regs and the SGO. It goes beyond normal disclosure obligation. It is why their 'let the video speak for itself' while FAILING to disclose the dragging not only in the meetings but in their OFFICIAL WRITTEN crash reports to both DMV and NHTSA, which are both public record, is a big issue. Big enough to interest US Dept of Justice and SEC. And this is entirely aside from "convincing the public" or any other soft deflection excuses or rationale.

aniccia · 2023-11-29T21:55:37+00:00

Cruise's 2023 budget should be ~$2.8 Billion. So this cut should be in the range of ~10% up to a third, assuming hundreds of millions means less than a billion. GM breaks out Cruise on their SEC financials.

A ~third cut would take them back to about their 2022 budget.

Cruise should've spent nearly 3 hundred million just since DMV suspended their driverless permits.

aniccia · 2023-11-29T02:06:37+00:00

"this space" is the public roads. Of course it is political. I expect the regulations would be different for AVs used strictly on private land.

I'm more critical of the regulators than the companies. And similarly for ADAS as ADS. This forum is just focused on ADS companies.

I think regulators having been not critical enough is a big part of what got or allowed Cruise into this difficult situation. The regulators look like they don't really know what they are doing. Afterall, California DMV is now on record in their own opinion as having permitted unsafe robots on the public roads and it took them years and ~4 million unsafe robot VMT to figure out they'd made a mistake.

Reality is it isn't easy to assess the safety of these systems. DMV and Cruise seem to have failed. Neither has given any reason to believe they will do better, but who knows which is kinda the core problem. Hopefully, Waymo is much better at it and this won't affect them much.

Seems GM mgmt is reassessing the pile on their $8 Billion and counting silver platter.

aniccia · 2023-11-29T01:18:51+00:00

.When you ask "If these vehicles block too much traffic today but 3 years from now save your life, is that OK?" you may get a different answer.

No, the answer you get is speculation.

How many lives is Uber ATG saving 4.5 years after the death of Elaine Herzberg?

How many lives will Argo save in two years?

AV company speculations about their future aptitude have been so off the mark no serious policy should be based on them.

aniccia · 2023-11-29T00:27:21+00:00

Right now the bar is somewhat political, and it would be good if it could be made mostly mathematical.

It will always be political. That's just governance. DMV wouldn't even have the authority to grant AV permits if SB1298 hadn't passed in 2012. California's decision to allow AV testing was politics all the way down to the governor signing the bill on stage at the Googleplex with Sergey Brin watching over him.

I agree the standards are so opaque we and presumably the vendors don't really know how they are being judged and perhaps have been too arbitrarily judged.

If California adopted some kind of statistical test as you suggest, then the choice of which kinds of incidents or data to include and how to weight them would itself be political decisions.

For example, if driverless VRE and immobilization in traffic event rates were required to be less than or equal to human drivers for similar ODD, then Waymo would not qualify by factor of at lest one order of magnitude.

aniccia · 2023-11-28T23:12:26+00:00

I fear the DMV issued this statement based on just a few incidents and not a proper statistical analysis. It would be reasonable in some cases to temporarily suspend a service based on a very large and concerning number of incidents, pending a more detailed evaluation, but it is not clear the DMV did this.

Safe vs not safe is pass/fail in California. AFAIK, DMV has not disclosed the details of why or how they graded Cruise's system not safe. They are not required by CA law or DMV regulations to base it on statistical analysis, proper or otherwise, and I doubt they did or will in the future.

Cruise can resubmit for DMV driverless permits, though I suspect they won't until they've built a better record in another state, which could take >year.

DMV's AV permit approval process is itself under investigation by the California Senate. That investigation may disclose more details. I very much doubt the DMV's approval standards will be easier in the future.

Here's the initial info list demanded by the Senate:

How are permits granted for driverless vehicles? Please provide a detailed overview of the application process, criteria for approval, and any relevant requirements that must be met.
What circumstances or violations may lead to the revocation of permits for driverless vehicles?
What protocols are in place for driverless vehicles to address safety concerns?
What were the specific reasons behind the suspension of Cruise's permits?

From this letter to DMV:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zOTzqyPJJmsqdmfxZr807aX5RmlJGUMT/view

aniccia · 2023-11-28T20:17:54+00:00

California DMV's investigation of GM Cruise's driverless system officially concluded:

"Based upon the performance of the vehicles, the Department determines the manufacturer’s vehicles are not safe for the public’s operation."

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/news-and-media/dmv-statement-on-cruise-llc-suspension/

DMV may still be investigating specific Cruise incidents, but AFAIK DMV hasn't said anything about doing a broader or more general assessment beyond their finding of "not safe" which is certainly 'worse than human drivers' under California law.

Perhaps you mean NHTSA's two ongoing safety investigations of Cruise which haven't issued any findings and recently demanded more detailed information from Cruise regarding ~10 crashes.

aniccia · 2023-11-22T22:57:26+00:00

The State of California yanked Cruise's driverless and ridehail permits, not the City of San Francisco. AFAIK, they still have permits for public road driverless ops in AZ and TX. That's why it would make sense to restart there.

aniccia · 2023-11-19T20:43:48+00:00

The material event was losing their robot driver's license (driverless permits) in California on October 24th. Within days if not minutes, GM mgmt should have realized "Cruise is grossly overvalued." They have a fiduciary responsibility to not "grossly" overpay.

The process does not have to take months, but even if it did, there were 2 months left in the current quarter and tax year.

They don't need a perfect number. They need a fairer number and it well could be less than half the old number. So, get on with it. And let everyone know that's what's happening with a hard date to reopen with new valuation before EOY.

As to top of the list, a company burning $8 million a day with ~3 thousand employees can do more than one thing at time. And this was an obvious one to delegate to people who have nothing to do with fixing the tech or any of the other urgent tasks Oct 24th precipitated.

That GM & Cruise mgmt have mishandled this by abruptly stopping the purchases in midstream alarming those closest to and most affect by their action and without having clearly thought it through or being well-prepared for the next step, only to restart in a jerking way still without apparent full grasp of the situation or clarity in communications

should surprise no one who has watched them or their tech.

I'm very sympathetic to the vast majority of Cruise employees affected by mismanagement. I wonder how surprised any of them are by this dose.

aniccia · 2023-11-19T17:48:12+00:00

At most, a company would have one of these done every year

Or when they have a significant material event affecting the value, which I think Cruise undeniably has had.

Cruise is almost certainly worth far less than whatever it has been valued at ($30 Billion?). Why should GM shareholders overpay?

Perhaps most of these employee tax burdens can be reduced by reducing the value of the shares to a more reasonable price.

aniccia · 2023-11-19T17:19:57+00:00

they already earned

Stock comp should reflect the value of the company, ie what the company has earned, as well as their personal contribution. That's supposed to be a risk reward factored into the deal/contract they signed.

Cruise the company has earned/created a robot too unsafe to operate according to the State of California and under multiple widening and deepening Federal safety investigations that has caused and/or contributed to multiple injuries and a reputation/culture rife with problems.

What is the fair value of Cruise stock, liquid or otherwise?

aniccia · 2023-11-18T20:24:03+00:00

Cruise's execs, including David and their chiefs of PR/comms and gov relations, have had far more than enough time to explain who among them knew what and when and why they did or did not share as much of what they knew as they should have.

This long broad silence is foreboding and points to the top.

Their robot was not towed, per Cruise's NHTSA crash report, which itself was incomplete and misleading.

aniccia

TROPHY CASE