10 years of autonomous vehicles at Google and Waymo | Dmitri Dolgov and Lex Fridman

TL;DR

The Google Self-Driving Car Project, now known as Waymo, went through several milestones to achieve fully driverless vehicles on public roads.

Transcript

so can we uh give an overview of how is way more born how's the google self-driving car project born what's the what is the mission what is the hope what is it is the engineering kind of uh set of milestones that it seeks to accomplish there's a lot of questions in there uh yeah i think you're right it kind of the urban challenge and the upper and ... Read More

Key Insights

• 🥅 The Google Self-Driving Car Project started in 2009 with the goal of better understanding the challenges of autonomous driving.
• ✋ Initial milestones focused on achieving high-mileage autonomy and navigating complex routes without any human intervention.
• 🥺 The project's success led to the creation of Waymo in 2016, with a shift towards building fully driverless vehicles.
• 👰‍♀️ Waymo achieved significant milestones such as the first fully driverless ride in 2015 and regular driverless operations on public roads starting in 2017.
• 🥳 The early days of the project involved rapid learning and prototyping, while the later stages focused on engineering a scalable and safe product.
• 🏛️ Building a driver assist system versus a fully driverless vehicle required different approaches and considerations.
• 🏑 Waymo's journey highlights the belief in the feasibility of autonomous driving and the continuous pursuit of innovation in the field.

Questions & Answers

Q: How did the Google Self-Driving Car Project begin?

The project started in 2009 with a small team of about a dozen people who aimed to understand the complexities of autonomous driving. This was inspired by the success of the DARPA Urban Challenge and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin's belief in the technology.

Q: What were the initial milestones of the project?

The project set two initial milestones: driving 100,000 miles in autonomous mode, which was unprecedented at the time, and completing 10 routes, each 100 miles long, without any human intervention. These routes were intentionally challenging to sample different driving conditions.

Q: What did the project learn from these early milestones?

The project gained confidence in the feasibility of autonomous driving and a deeper understanding of the complexities involved. It also highlighted the difference between building a driver assist system and a fully driverless vehicle, leading to a pivot towards the latter in 2013.

Q: What were some key milestones after the pivot to Waymo?

In 2015, Waymo achieved the world's first fully driverless ride on public roads with a custom-built vehicle. In 2017, regular driverless operations on public roads began, marking a significant step towards commercializing the technology.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• The project started in 2009 with a small team aiming to better understand and learn about the challenges of autonomous driving.

• The initial milestones included driving 100,000 miles in autonomous mode and completing 10 routes, each 100 miles long without any human intervention.

• In 2013, the project pivoted towards building fully driverless vehicles, leading to the creation of Waymo. Key milestones since then include the first fully driverless trip in 2015 and regular driverless operations on public roads starting in 2017.