[doppio19]

I can believe it. I rode in a Waymo for the first time a couple days ago and it was incredible. No problems with the rain or bad San Francisco drivers. It was a really smooth ride and I felt extremely safe.

[dabeeeenster]

I was under the impression the LIDAR approach was compromised by rain? Did something change or did I not understand it right?

[ra7]

That's just some good old Musk/Tesla propaganda. Waymo has developed a really high resolution lidar + some software magic means rain is no longer an issue for them.

[jessriedel]

Thanks. Any recommended reading links on this?

[ra7]

Their 5th gen Lidar point clouds compared it to previous gen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COgEQuqTAug&t=11601s

They have a ton of literature at https://waymo.com/research/ and tech talks on YouTube (search talks by Drago Anguelov). They make heavy use of simulators [1] where they simulate weather events and create their own weather maps [2]. It's a very sophisticated stack.

[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2021/06/SimulationCity.html

[2] https://waymo.com/blog/2022/11/using-cutting-edge-weather-re...

[guiomie]

The kind of comment I expect from hacker news, thanks!

Its impressive how the lidar resolution evolved as per the youtube video. The color added, i wonder if its post-processing.

[jessriedel]

Thanks!

[altgoogler]

The current Waymo driver uses cameras, RADAR and LIDAR, which are meant to compliment each other's capabilities.

https://wondery.com/shows/how-i-built-this/episode/10386-the...

[itslennysfault]

I thought the opposite. I thought this was one of the main reasons in favor of LIDAR vs regular cameras.

[WawaFin]

there are many video showing waymo trips during rain or even (heavy) fog

few examples : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4aBNYcBoLI ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8TGFA6SfAo

[gumballindie]

Probably using remote human operators to make numbers look better.