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by 83 751 days ago
I'm rooting for you, but I live in snow country and always have a chuckle any time someone says self driving will be ready soon. There's so many situations that need to be handled when driving in winter and some of them I can't even imagine how you'd address in software.

Winter here changes daily between

- no road lines visible

- snow packed into ice randomly making the road a a camouflage pattern

- snow is fresh/deep so no road is visible and you navigate based on the slight hump in the snow where you know there's a curb

- same as above, but instead of a curb a slight indent where there's a ditch

- slush piles outside the tire lanes, which if hit will suck you in or cause you to spin out

- ice/snow on hills, so time your arrival for rolling stops at intersections because stopping is not an option

- active snowfall (limited camera vision, and I'm guessing reduced/useless signal from lidar)

- hail

- sporadic black ice (its easy to slow down when its icy everywhere, but knowing when and where black ice is likely when it's sporadic is a skill)

- the "lanes" formed by peoples tires in the snow often don't align with the official road, and sometimes a lane goes missing in this situation

And all that's after you deal with sensor cleaning.

2 comments

What will happen is that you just won't be able to go anywhere until the roads are cleared. That is probably not a bad thing, it will allow plow trucks to clear the roads more quickly without having to navigate around people driving (or trying to drive) on the uncleared roads, spun out/stuck vehicles, crashes, etc.
We're not really at self driving if the solution for poor conditions is "don't drive".

Snow drifts in the wind, side roads don't get regularly plowed, and conditions change rapidly so unless they can handle the majority of the list above then they won't be able to handle winter period.

I'm saying that the limits of self-driving cars will be an excuse to force us to behave the way the authorities want us to behave. For better or worse.
Winter here is 4 to 5 months out of the year. When it snows, everyone goes about their day normally, just at a slower pace. The authorities have no problem with that, and having drivers on the road does not affect plowing in any meaningful manner.

I'm not sure why you are trying to justify such a large shortcoming - for most people having your car be randomly unusable for 1/3 of the year would be a big deal.

I’m not saying I would trust getting into a Waymo now in those conditions, but I also wouldn’t assume the same things that are difficult for humans will be difficult for self driving. I’m optimistic these hurdles can be overcome.
Oh I'm also optimistic they can be overcome, I'm just less optimistic on the timeline. I'll be pleasantly surprised if self driving can handle winter a few decades from now.