Comment by alexpotato
21 days ago
Some other comments have posted about the laser safety being the issue but I have a more physical story:
Recently got a Waymo for the first time to take my kids and I from one hotel to another in Phoenix.
- Car pulls up
- I walk up to the trunk as I have a suitcase
- Out of habit, I go to open the trunk by pressing the button under the "handle" (didn't realize you have to unlock the car via the app first)
- My hand moves by the rear trunk laser that is spinning and "whacks" my hand.
Not a big deal but seems like an interesting design choice to place a motorized spinning device right next to where people are going to be reaching to open the trunk.
The externally spinning Waymo Laser Bear Honeycombs do indeed cause whacking and pinching and occasionally get gunked up with wet leaves and debris. One reason why they are like that is because these have very large fields of view. A cylindrical plastic cover seriously degrades optical quality especially when the beam is hitting it at a steep angle. Another reason is that it has a heatsink on the back of the spinny part. Earlier Waymos like the Firefly in fact cover up this lidar, e.g. on the "nose" and the side mirrors [1]. But they went back to leaving it exposed for better performance.
Likewise with the big spinning lidar on top, which was covered in the older Chrysler Pacificas but externally spinning in the newer Jaguar I-Paces.
[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waymo_self-driving_c...