Waymo is asking DoorDash drivers to shut the doors of its self-driving cars | Hacker News Reader

Waymo is asking DoorDash drivers to shut the doors of its self-driving cars

techcrunch.com

31 pointsmfiguiere17 comments

Sounds like something that engineers can solve near them and good findings of field testing.

It is already solved. But motors are expensive and the safety software also.

Might be cheaper to stick to DoorDash than replace doors when the "safety software" keeps the customers locked inside the car.

I don't think it's terribly expensive or difficult. Many modern vehicles have power lift gates. Minivans have had power sliding doors for ages.

Yes, it has cost, but this is a solved problem.

Japanese taxis have "normal doors" that are powered: https://www.youtube.com/v/8DZK9jyyxAg

> Yes, it has cost, but this is a solved problem.

What I tried to say: somebody has to pay for it. /s

The only way a door gets left open is if someone orders a ride and leaves it open. That person is charged a fee, which pays for the Doordash person - which is cheaper than installing motors/automatic doors in every ride. And, there's good availability of Doordash (or Uber Eats, etc.) drivers in every market Waymo is in right now.

Seems like a pretty good solution, honestly.

Why isn't the loud audible warning? Maybe send notification? It seems insane to charge for this instead of adding big flashing warning light for example.

The car announces on the outside speaker that the door isn't closed, turns its hazard lights on, and they send an app notification. Some people will still miss all of the above, or ignore it. Sometimes the seatbelt is jammed and stops the door from closing, and they assume the car is 'wrong' and walk off. There will always be edge cases, you build operational policies like the doordash one to cover them.

They could solve this in software by accelerating backwards and then hitting the brake.

or just do a burnout forward.

I considered this, but actually it's a bad strategy if the door is only slightly ajar and not all the way open. The nice thing about my approach is that it works no matter what. Obviously even better if the vehicle can rapidly change from reverse to drive instead of merely slamming the brake.

I hadn't thought of that. Yes your strategy works more reliably.

I've thought about this further. You said it's even better if the vehicle can rapidly change from reverse to drive.

More generally, the bigger the acceleration in the forward direction, the better.

So the best solution is to reverse and crash into a wall. It would bring your speed to 0 almost instantly. Meaning the acceleration would depend on how big your inertia is, not how powerful your brakes are (and the limits of your tyres' traction).

Well yes, obviously, but then we need to balance the cost of closing the door against the cost of repairing the car. And also what if there isn't a convenient wall nearby? :)

eh... they're insured. If lacking a convenient wall, the car behind them will do almost as well

I kinda expect Google to have their own internal insurance company.

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