Waymo’s Backseat Drivers: Confidential Data Reveals Self-Driving Taxi Hurdles
That&#x27;s useful info. I wonder where they had trouble with erratic steering. One Cruise video shows that where driving is alongside parked cars on a narrow street and the parking is irregular. The self driving vehicle is trying to stay in its half of the street unless absolutely necessary.<p>Waymo still has to use &quot;safety drivers&quot;. So far, nobody seems to have full self driving without &quot;safety drivers&quot;. Which makes it useless. That&#x27;s the big milestone to look for. When Waymo can get rid of the safety drivers, which they tried briefly last year, they&#x27;re getting close to something useable.<p>Some products take a long time to bring to market. Xerography - first copy made in 1939, commercial success 1959.  Although we&#x27;re now 15 years after the DARPA Grand Challenge, so we&#x27;re coming close to that 20 year wait.<p>Television - first broadcast, 1928, commercial success, around 1948. So 20 years agaon.<p>Roller bearings - Timken founded 1898, Timken bearings in 80% of US cars by the 1920s. 20 years again. (Although it took a really long time for them to convert railroads. First locomotive with roller bearings, 1923. In 1949, they were struggling to get railroads to put roller bearings on freight cars.[1] In 1991, roller bearings became mandatory for US inter-line interchange of freight cars.) Air brakes and automatic couplers only took 7 years, but that&#x27;s because the U.S. Congress made railroads convert and standardize between 1893 and 1900.<p>What took a really long time, in post-1900 technology? (Before 1900, manufacturing infrastructure wasn&#x27;t really ready for fast deployment.)<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=R-1EZ6K7bpQ" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=R-1EZ6K7bpQ</a>