I never thought I'd be so interested in a parking depot. Lol

The "time out" spot is where cars that need to be deep cleaned are sent, for example if someone spills something or damages the interior.

Eating breakfast on a Sunday morning, watching a video about depots... Doesn't get better than this.

15 minutes flew by, amazing coverage and insights!!

typically youtube recommends me tiny channels that have boring or low quality videos, but this is clearly an exception. nice work!!

I'm ready for the heist movie that features these. 6 man job. Everyone has two cell phones. That's 12 getaway cars... We can do this.

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. I used to drop off packages near the main location and I remember before when amazon had a warehouse and when waymo started buying that area. crazy how fast it changed and it’s a depot there now

It's only when you see the Waymo depot in operation that it really highlights how far ahead Waymo are in providing a RoboTaxi service than Tesla with their FSD. Even if Tesla's FSD was capable there is so much more to providing a taxi service other than the automated driving. Waymo have made so many advances such as improving their interaction with emergency responders, allowing the emergency services to geofence an area from Waymo vehicles and having Waymo remote operators take over or give advice, and to train the emergency responders on how to interact or take control of a Waymo vehicle. There is a big difference going from an always supervised vehicle to one that has no driver. If a Tesla FSD disengages, the driver takes over, for a Tesla RoboTaxi after a disengagement there would be no one to take control, and that part of the service needs to be addressed before they can be let loose on the road. Waymo and Tesla FSD are often compared to one another when really there is no comparison. There is very little that Tesla FSD can do that Waymo can't, while there would seem to be a stack of things that Waymo can do, that Tesla FSD can't.

Honestly what a fantastic video. I’m in Australia, & the thing of a driverless taxi is crazy. For a small channel I think you’ll expand good. Your quality is very good.

This was definitely super neat! The slow speed is probably to also ensure the safety of the many staff roaming that same parking lot. Really appreciate you putting this together!

this is awesome ! thanks for showing this

Really cool. Great narration as well.

They should have a Waymo always parked at the exit of the depot, so that it can get to customers faster rather than having to slowly navigate the entire parking lot. A standby car for the depot

Been looking for a video like this!!

i guess waymo is keeping the ipace line alive.

The coolest thing about these cars is you don't have to worry about tipping

Thanks for sharing this. Great video, great production values!

Thanks, was curious about this.

That is interesting and informative! I have many questions about Waymo and this is a good start to understanding the technology 👍🏾

Very cool, thanks for doing this!

Terrific job, Kevin

wow kevin! loved the way you walk through the video and the audio , video , content quality is top notch !! loved the aerial view ... Hope to see you big !! cant believe 15 mins went by soo fast!

I'm willing to bet that the reason the cars use hazard lights and drive agonizingly slow is due to insurance guidelines. I notice similar activity at our local amazon depot.

Awesome video of behind the scenes

I live down the street from this depot, it's really cool to watch sometimes.

Great video Kevin. I agree with your guesses at about 13:00 on data swapping going on during the trunk visits by the Waymo staff. I'd say the main reason for the disk swapping vs. wireless data transmission is speed (and maybe cost). Historically wired data transfers occurred at least an order of magnitude faster by wire than wireless. That ratio may have gone down somewhat recently with new WI-Fi and cell standards, but we don't know what they are doing with this data. If they just retain it briefly, then they might not even transfer it off the swapped drives Instead, they might just schedule the drives to be reused once the data was retained long enough to be sure there wasn't a big problem, like an accident that was reported somewhat later. BTW, two possibilities for the wired connection are USB or Ethernet. I believe most (if not all) of the 40 sensors (28 cameras, 6 radars, and 6 lidars) are networked to the Waymo computer in the trunk via one or more Ethernet switches, also located in the trunk. I believe the data drives you are talking about are external to the rest of the Waymo computer and either are connected via Ethernet (like a NAS unit) or as an external drive using USB or eSATA. Maybe some former Waymo or Cruise employees can comment on this, since those working with this onboard storage (probably mostly to archive the sensor data) would know best which drive types (although I'd guess big SSDs) and which wired communications (Ethernet, USB, or SATA?) are getting used in the latest self-driving systems like Waymo's.

never had issue with waymo in arizona. like it

I love the idea of the naughty corner 😂

Good work Kevin

Great coverage. I'm looking forward to when they get to my city.

Very interesting.

Great video, Kevin. Greetings from Canada. I took one of these while on vaca in SF recently. It was very cool ride. I wondered where the depots were. Now I know. James.

Nice!

These are so cool

Brilliant

My first thought was that they should have induction charging so that a human didn't have to plug them in. But since a human needs to check the car to make sure it's clean and ready, he might as well plug it in as well. It takes a second human visit to unplug it to put it back in service.

Great stuff! So silly that the autonomus vehicle service hasnt figured out how to automate the security gates lol

I see them throughout the day and night in SF zooming around with no one driving-LOL---now I know where they go to get serviced. Cool.

The UK needs these! But they need to be able to be chatty if thr rider wants to chat.

it is amazing

Great video. Engrossing. I can't wait for Waymo to be available in West LA. Waymo is multiple times safer than driven vehicles including Lyft & Uber.

Seems like the language we use for AI entities is just wrong. It's not "as they please", it's "as needed" or "as necessary".

凄い時代ですね😮

Also, there's a charging station right in downtown on Jackson Street that I always see them stop(about 8 cars) at and a live person cleans them while they are being charged-FYI

13:13 -- There are plenty of wireless antennae on the building. Look at the edge of the roof. Each light installation along the edge has two wireless network access points on it. That's plenty of antenna coverage to do full wireless data transfers.

the slow speed is probably the most efficient way to move vehicles in/out. if they're constantly stopping and braking, it would just cause traffic.

no matter where you want to go,your destination will be hell.😂😂😂😂

Thanks 👍🏿😁👍🏻🇨🇦🇺🇸🇵🇭

Waymo Gone Wild

3:15 There is a huge statue of a woman lying on her side on top of the building just on the left side. I noticed it from the freeway, and it seems that the amusing statue is on the top of a building inside the Waymo parking lot. I would be curious to know more about this strange statue story.

Small contribution to say thanks

gread video, thank you!

Wait do u get your money back after you cancel your trip?

Weird seeing Waymo do it's thing on its own around in the parking lot. We need Waymo here in the Orange county, Ca area

We have those in Las Vegas how to call them for a ride

Gotta love all the grafitti

sick HTK throw up

The Waymo driverless cars seem to be better drivers than many humans. Maybe people who lose the drivers license for being bad drivers or DUI could be ordered by the court that they may only use driverless cars.

I assume the slow driving in the lot is a safety measure for the people working there.

I think there may partially be a safety speed limit in the parking lot - any loading zone at Amazon is signed at 5mph.

4:33 Not a Focus, but Escape/Kuga

I don't think you could hide in the back seats, the rider support camera can probably see what you're doing so it wouldn't be effective

Feels like I'm doing research for a GTA mission

interesting I wonder how these cars are cleaned

Not confident like Tesla FSD. How much does all that equipment cost? How reliable is it? Is it redundant or single point of failure?

You do understand that GOOGLE doesnt give a fig about people needing rides or the taxi business right? The purpose of all these WAYMO cars is that they are all test mules. Each is testing the software & the sensors and each is involved with perfecting the self driving tech. Teslas FSD they are so proud of is rated by the NTSB as a 2 out of 5 while the WAYMO system is the most advanced of them all at a 4.5 blowing TESLAS FSD out of the water. Once they perfect this tech, GOOGLE will be offering their tech for sale to car companies & simi truck companies whoever has the $$$$. They intend to corner the self driving tech market. And they are very close. !

0:54 why turn right first. There was a lot of space to just turn left

Cool, can you show the remote location in India and the workers who are co-piloting?

I find it interesting that Google went with Jaguar and not the Autonomous leader in Cars like Honda.

Stack push stack pop 😅

We need Waymo Indian guys(AI) with simulators

Just realized they use Jaguar EVs.. seems like a kinda strange choice hahaha

Cars are so slow in the depot area due to so many people working around. It was programmed that way.

Feels like watching ant colonies

You keep saying “slow” but I don’t understand if self driving should be like F1 racing or just normal safe driving. Idk but seemed just fine to me. Any faster without a person behind the wheel wouldn’t feel right to me.

This is how i feel when i watch the beamng ai cars trying to do things

Do you know if those chargers are Superchargers or standard 6 kW to 12 kW chargers?

How does this work?

Who knows, maybe there are humans in those depots who are driving the cars remotely. Or those humans are from some third-party countries like the Philippines, India, etc.

Is spray paint free in the US or something? What a mess…

Isn’t that the normal speed for a parking lot? In Germany at least, it needs to be at “walking speed” so about 4-7 km/h

It’s probably people in offices controlling these cars

Of course the autonomous driving industry should get better. It's erratic at best and a danger to other vehicles. There is no substitute for competent and attentive drivers.

There’s actually one more depot not in this video. 350 Pacific Avenue in SF

Can you get in the drivers seat and take over ?

Just because the WAYMO cars dont drive like you does not mean it is wrong, it just drives differently. Maybe your driving style is wrong. Maybe you should strive to drive more like WAYMO. !

Actual autonomy.

This is so bizarre

but what happens to the drivers of taxis now they no longer needed?

😁👍🏻(Waymo) 😁👍🏻(⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐)

So they just sit there idling? That’s pretty bad why not have an idle mode and internal battery?

米国などは土地が広いのでスペースが取れますね、回転式の立体駐車場とかにすると数１００台オーダーで格納できると思う

waymo has a loooooong way to go. just took my first ride in one in Phoenix... ride was ok but it took 1 min to take off at a green light and we got honked at by everyone

Interesting there is no EV Charging (Opportunity Charging) at the first parking lot. Their intention is to only have them wait there briefly and they wait until later to charge 🔋

I think I saw a total of 5 to 10 people at the site. While the tech is impressive, I am afraid this is going to be another case where big tech firms dominate more of our life.

Lil Waymo

bro had the balls to fly over the goverment. lucky you not in trouble

This is the BlackBerry product before iPhone came online.

With three depots, the last one looks to handle at least 40 cars, can we speculate there are at least 100 cars operating in SF?

I'm disappointed in how painfully slow and inefficient they are in the parking lots lol, would've thought such a controlled environment would be their best performance area where they could drive closer and faster to each other since it's safe to assume the random variables of the public aren't there. Do these cars "talk" with each other in some sort of cross networking setup? They should be able to coordinate amongst themselves to maneuver and avoid each other instead of relaying only on sensors like they have to on public streets.