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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

"In addition to ongoing trips to Truckee, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Upstate New York and Tokyo, the expansion includes testing in San Diego and Las Vegas, with more cities yet to be announced."

Pitching my own book here, but I think Jackson Hole would be a great place for Waymo. It's clearly delineated, has basically no freeway driving, affluent residents and a constant influx of tourists for brand building. The only challenge is snow, but the roads are well plowed and drivers generally careful. If you're working in Truckee, I can't imagine it will be a much-bigger challenge.

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I imagine they'll need a ton of testing and adjustments for driving in snow for all the conditions the car needs to detect and plan around, like the wheels slipping, or the car as a whole sliding down a hill. This is probably a separate effort from mapping out a city, but then needs to be tested in the real world.

I think Truckee and Tahoe offer this environment within reasonable driving distance to the main Waymo development campuses.

They're testing in Upper Minnesota and upstate New York. Upstate New York contains the snowiest city in the US, Syracuse.

Ah, good point then!

Not so much snow, as you have rapidly changing road conditions such as ice and freezing rain. And then factor in poor road markings and not always abundantly clear path finding.

The nice thing about EVs like they're using now. The electric motors are pretty good at responding and handling different road conditions, much faster than ICE vehicles since you can never quite predict what the engine is doing at a given moment.

Truckee/Tahoe is an extremely popular test area for bay area AV companies. Waymo's been testing there regularly since at least 2017.

Biggest difference is climate. Truckee's average highs never dip below 40F. Jackson has 2 months average highs below freezing -- that means a LOT more residual ice and snow.

calgary could be a good spot

theyd want to shut off on the odd snow day that makes lines invisible, but its a lot like phoenix on having big wide roads, and the places to consistently play with snow cover are pretty empty/safe to screw up in

> theyd want to shut off on the odd snow day that makes lines invisible

It'd sure suck if they go into cities run the local taxi companies and human drivers out of business only to shut down every time there's bad weather leaving people without access to transportation.

I didn’t realize there is a private equity and investing scene in Jackson Hole.

> think Jackson Hole would be a great place for Waymo

billionaire class wouldn’t be too happy with getting beta tested on raw tech. They will push back because “NIMBYism” runs deep.

> they will push back because “NIMBYism” runs deep

Waymo is being adopted in wealthy areas first. To the extent there is NIMBY sentiment, it's towards rideshare drivers. (Also, billionaires probably wouldn't be taking Waymo. If their properties aren't fly in they're driving themselves.)

In SF, a lot of billionaires love taking Waymos

Yes, we agree. I meant in Jackson our billionaires either love driving, in which case they drive themselves, or don’t, in which case they fly straight in. The middle ground between those isn’t enough to found a market on.

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