Have you ever noticed that most self-driving cars don't have any passengers?
"Deadheading" is an industry term for keeping driverless cars in constant motion, even when they have neither a passenger nor a destination. Waymo & Cruise rely on deadheading to avoid paying for parking.
Why pay the city for public parking when you can store your car on the road for free (as long as it's moving)?
Since I've started keeping track, I've noticed that over 90% of the self-driving cars I see are empty...
Tonight I spent one hour at the corner of Cesar Chavez & Guerrero St counting driverless cars.
Between 5-6pm, I counted 27 driverless cars, but only 1 appeared to have a passenger.
During rush hour in #SanFrancisco, 96% of the Waymos, Cruises, and Xoops on this busy street were empty!
edit: driverless cars can operate 24/7 in SF, but I've been informed that some are only taking passengers during certain hours (ie 9pm-5am). So the cars I saw today were probably not accepting any paid rides.
Tonight I spent one hour at the corner of Cesar Chavez & Guerrero St counting driverless cars.
Between 5-6pm, I counted 27 driverless cars, but only 1 appeared to have a passenger.
During rush hour in #SanFrancisco, 96% of the Waymos, Cruises, and Xoops on this busy street were empty!
edit: driverless cars can operate 24/7 in SF, but I've been informed that some are only taking passengers during certain hours (ie 9pm-5am). So the cars I saw today were probably not accepting any paid rides.
@docpop A first order estimate of the number of cars going to pick up people is the number of cars with passengers.
But even doubling the number of passenger-initiated relocations would still keep "productive" moves below 10%.
Of course, there are other reasons to continue driving besides the parking fees: 1. Acquiring more training data; 2. improving the statistics: Distance driven, distance without accident, …
But there should be disincentives of clogging the streets during rush hour.
@docpop Cruise is only available to the general public 10 pm - 5 am. employees and friends and family can ride outside those hours but the map is still restricted so it’s not the whole city. Also not every car is assigned to being part of the taxi fleet. Some are still mapping and testing.
Waymo is still in beta. Last I heard 80,000 on the waitlist.
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