Comment by SR2Z
1 day ago
When it comes to controlling the wheels to prevent sliding and slipping, the AV control system is unbeatable. The ABS and traction control on a regular car has to cope with whatever control inputs the driver has made; on an AV, the computer models the grip limits of the wheel and plans a trajectory to not exceed them. It's not just for snow but also for changing pavement surfaces and the rain.
The main limitation is still sensors in the snow, but it seems to not be that big of a deal to build sensor packages that are better at seeing in the snow than a human is.
This is the "works in a textbook" take.
Being able to plot a series of inputs that can more efficiently use available traction than a human doesn't prevent you from blundering your way into a dumb situation where the laws of physics dictate that the only possible outcomes are various flavors of bad ones.
It's not clear how often the software will chose poorly and need to brute force its way out with traction/handling. The fact that they seem to be hedging against this by putting the hardware on particularly performant cars indicates it must happen enough to matter or be rare but bad enough to matter when it does happen.
Waymo will probably also rack up a ton of technically not at fault accidents by being obtuse in traffic since there's when there's snow there's a lot less margin for the "two people trying to pass each other in a hallway" type missteps that behavior tends to create.
They put the hardware on performant cars because it would be stupid to choose gas for stop-and-go city driving. Electric cars are fast; a new Honda Civic does 0-60 in 6 seconds!
No, this is not a "works in a textbook" take. The path planner is aware of surface conditions on the road. This is already a big deal because otherwise the AV would not be safe to operate in the rain.
Waymo will not be touched in most of those accidents. I've been driving in snow long enough to know that there are always going to be idiots who drive too fast for conditions and lose control of their car; I'm sure some of them will blame Waymo because it's nearby. I once watched a guy with a TX license plate spin out on a perfectly empty, perfectly straight freeway. Waymo doesn't really need to do anything for human drivers to crash.