Top all-time · #1177
Waymo
Company blog · blog.waymo.comaihardware
Waymo is the company blog at blog.waymo.com, writing about ai and hardware. Since 2020, 59 different Hacker News readers have linked it 101 times, most often “Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 4 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Waymo's company blog for updates on its driverless service, safety data, mapping and simulation. It is often cited as the primary source for claims about robotaxi operations.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The latest news, updates, and stories from Waymo.
Most-linked posts?
- Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2020-10-08
- Off road, but not offline: How simulation helps advance Waymo Driver5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-04-28
- Waymo developing fully driverless car with Geely3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-12-28
- How we’ve built the World’s Most Experienced Urban Driver3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-08-19
- Using cutting-edge weather research to advance the Waymo Driver3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-11-14
- A fog blog: Understanding a challenge inherent to driving in San Francisco2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-11-15
- The 5th-generation Waymo Driver2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-03-04
- Trucks help advance our self-driving technology2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-13
- How we've built the Waymo Driver to share the road with cyclists2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-06-14
- Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-08-24
What Hacker News says?
What is your definition of "replace"? Waymo operates a driverless taxi service in Phoenix. Sign ups are open to the general public. IMO this counts as replacing some drivers as there is less demand for taxi service in the operating area. https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr...
Comment linking /2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-driverless.html
on “GitHub Copilot”Submitted Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco as a story · 620 points
HN discussionThere's of course legal ways to do similarly. I thought this was a good example of John Krafcik's resignation which to a certain extent meets the same aim: Official resignation letter: https://blog.waymo.com/2021/04/capstone-of-my-career-email-f... "Interpreted" letter: https://gist.github.com/ChuckM/ff5fc8c800c7fe9160483b68ec45a...
Comment linking /2021/04/capstone-of-my-career-email-from-john.html
on “How People Get Rich Now”Submitted Waymo begins driverless rides in San Francisco as a story · 548 points
HN discussionWhy is this considered a big stride when Waymo is doing it for 6 months already? https://blog.waymo.com/2021/08/welcoming-our-first-riders-in...
Comment linking /2021/08/welcoming-our-first-riders-in-san.html
on “Cruise is opening driverless cars to the public in San Francisco”Submitted Waymo will start testing self-driving cars in New York City as a story · 279 points
HN discussionIt's not that simple, for example Waymo has external investors alongside Alphabet, https://blog.waymo.com/2020/03/waymo-raises-first-external-i...
Comment linking /2020/03/waymo-raises-first-external-investment.html
on “IBM is splitting itself into two public companies”Submitted Waymo is opening its driverless service to more people in Phoenix as a story · 263 points
HN discussionDisclosure: I work at Waymo. This is big news, and I encourage you to apply if you're in San Francisco. For the HN crowd, I'd also recommend last week's blog post [1] which includes some more technical material on "how" we're driving. [1] https://blog.waymo.com/2021/08/MostExperiencedUrbanDriver.ht...
Comment linking /2021/08/MostExperiencedUrbanDriver.html
on “Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco”Submitted Expanding our testing in San Francisco as a story · 251 points
HN discussionWaymo is currently the only SAE Level 4[0] self-driving car in use, right? The wheel must not be used. Even though it is limited to two cities. Their technology seems an order of magnitude above the rest, although factoring in its cost could make it look worse. (Can it turn a profit, when including the development costs?) Tesla FSD is at best SAE level 3 (can need human fallback), and at worst level 2 (needs constan…
Comment linking /2020/10/revealing-our-approach-to-safety.html
on “Welcoming our first riders in San Francisco”Submitted Waymo raises first external investment round as a story · 217 points
HN discussion> Once Waymo can replace some human drivers some of the time, things will start changing very quickly. But that happened 1y+ ago [1][2] without much changing since? [1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/9/21000085/waymo-fully-driv... [2] https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr...
Comment linking /2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-driverless.html
on “Alphafold”Submitted The 5th-generation Waymo Driver as a story · 214 points
HN discussionI think this blog goes into more detail: https://blog.waymo.com/2021/06/beyond-the-bike-lane.html
Comment linking /2021/06/beyond-the-bike-lane.html
on “Waymo begins driverless rides in San Francisco”Submitted CEO of Waymo John Krafcik is leaving as a story · 149 points
HN discussionWaymo blog talking about change detection and automated information sharing — https://blog.waymo.com/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-map... Waymo patent portfolio related to mapping — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uf-5cimWzA Cruise blog about detecting and rolling out map changes "in minutes" — https://medium.com/cruise/hd-maps-self-driving-cars-b6444720...
Comment linking /2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-mapping.html
on “Driverless robotaxi fleet paralyzed for hours in San Francisco”Submitted Waymo and Daimler Trucks partner on the development of fully autonomous trucks as a story · 142 points
HN discussionThe box isn't as black as you might think; they're not training some monolithic AI model, there are separated systems involved. Also, the models aren't entirely freeform; i.e. engineers embed knowledge of how the world is structured into those networks. They can use those intermediates to project a kind of thought process others can look at - and you've probably seen videos and images of that kind of thing too; i.e.…
Comment linking /2021/08/MostExperiencedUrbanDriver.html
on “Video of Tesla FSD almost hitting pedestrian receives DMCA takedown”Submitted Replaying real life: how the Waymo Driver avoids fatal human crashes as a story · 139 points
HN discussionIt's in the official waymo statement and was pretty easy to find: https://blog.waymo.com/2019/08/a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against... "Recently, we received an unexpected email. One of our suppliers specializing in LiDAR components sent us an attachment (apparently inadvertently) of machine drawings of what was purported to be Uber’s LiDAR circuit board — except its design bore a striking resemblance to Waymo’s unique L…
Comment linking /2019/08/a-note-on-our-lawsuit-against-otto-and.html
on “Levandowski sentenced to 18 months in prison as new lawsuit against Uber filed”Submitted Next Stop for Waymo One: Los Angeles as a story · 123 points
HN discussionThey've claimed they can map efficiently and the maps are self-updating from the fleet [1]. Waymo and other SDCs have said in the past that mapping isn't as big of an issue, but we will have to wait and see. [1] https://blog.waymo.com/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-map...
Comment linking /2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-mapping.html
on “Mercedes-Benz wins approval for Level 3 autonomous driving on the Autobahn”Submitted Waymo and Uber partner to bring autonomous driving technology to Uber as a story · 49 points
HN discussionThey also train in simulation, where they modify real scenarios to run through variations and edge cases. [1] As of last year, they'd driven 15 billion miles in simulation - which is more than a typical person will drive in a million years. Still a ways to go to get to a billion though. [1] https://blog.waymo.com/2020/04/off-road-but-not-offline--sim...
Comment linking /2020/04/off-road-but-not-offline--simulation27.html
on “Waymo will start testing self-driving cars in New York City”Submitted Off road, but not offline: How simulation helps advance Waymo Driver as a story · 42 points
HN discussionWaymo claims their cars can detect environment changes and share it with the rest of the fleet in real time, with most of the map update process automated. They've written a blog post on this topic: https://blog.waymo.com/2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-map... As for traffic cops, here's a video of Waymo obeying hand signals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OopTOjnD3qY . No reason this couldn't be replicated in NY…
Comment linking /2020/09/the-waymo-driver-handbook-mapping.html
on “Waymo will start testing self-driving cars in New York City”Submitted Waymo expands its rider-only territories as a story · 40 points
HN discussionThe round is $3B, it is the first and only round Waymo has raised (open since March): https://blog.waymo.com/2020/05/t-rowe-price-perry-creek-capi...
Comment linking /2020/05/t-rowe-price-perry-creek-capital.html
on “Waymo has raised $3B in the last two months”Submitted How we’ve built the World’s Most Experienced Urban Driver as a story · 40 points
HN discussion
