Self-driving cars are famously bad at left turns. That is, they’re inhumanly slow. But the goal is not human-like performance. Maybe the self-driving cars are doing the right thing; super-human patience is not a difficult task for computers. But once you’ve decided that you’re going to wait a long time to make left turns, you should change your routing algorithm to avoid left turns. UPS stopped making left turns in 2004. Why is Google/Waymo still making them? In 2016, Google’s other W-driving subsidiary reduced left turns. Maybe they just reduced Waze lefts down to Maps lefts, but even so, it should make this parameter salient. Or maybe they do avoid left turns, but the few that they do make are seen and mocked. Talking to riders should give an unbiased sample, and, indeed, the rider talks about it going out of its way to avoid left turns.
But the Waymo spokesman was defensive, insisting that they do make left turns regularly. Similarly, GM/Cruise brags about its ability to make left turns. It’s hard for me to articulate why, but I think that this is bad and they should brashly embrace the difference; of course self-driving cars will be different! But this option is not open to Tesla with its incremental approach. Humans would probably be upset if it navigated them through lots of right turns.
Self-driving cars are famously bad at left turns. That is, they’re inhumanly slow. But the goal is not human-like performance. Maybe the self-driving cars are doing the right thing; super-human patience is not a difficult task for computers. But once you’ve decided that you’re going to wait a long time to make left turns, you should change your routing algorithm to avoid left turns. UPS stopped making left turns in 2004. Why is Google/Waymo still making them? In 2016, Google’s other W-driving subsidiary reduced left turns. Maybe they just reduced Waze lefts down to Maps lefts, but even so, it should make this parameter salient. Or maybe they do avoid left turns, but the few that they do make are seen and mocked. Talking to riders should give an unbiased sample, and, indeed, the rider talks about it going out of its way to avoid left turns.
But the Waymo spokesman was defensive, insisting that they do make left turns regularly. Similarly, GM/Cruise brags about its ability to make left turns. It’s hard for me to articulate why, but I think that this is bad and they should brashly embrace the difference; of course self-driving cars will be different! But this option is not open to Tesla with its incremental approach. Humans would probably be upset if it navigated them through lots of right turns.