As I said, the real penalty for waymo would be the multiyear license suspension. I really don't get how people defend them. In effect they are operating with a commercial carry passenger license, and yet drive like a teenager with a new license that doesn't know all the rules. And then unlike the human, they don't get the ticket/fine/suspension a human would get, because well, it is learning, we'll roll out an update. Try that approach as a human when the officer pulls you over and see how that goes. And I certainly don't see waymo pulling a scully type emergency driving. People get tired, people get drunk, people get distracted... But when people are actually driving, I put their ability way above these self drive things. Maybe I'm odd man out, no accidents and have avoided numerous accidents that could have been in my million+ miles.

And just one more point about their defense of infractions. Compare say their response (and other defenders of them) about the complexity of all those driving rules from various jurisdictions. I'd point out that those tax prep software companies sell tax software for 50 states/federal regs that change every year. They get them right. Why, because some customer is going to sue them (and win) if they make a mistake on your taxes. There is accountability. In a morass of rules that is far more complex than driving. I mean just the full set of federal IRS regulations is voluminous.

I never said humans were perfect. I have seen many people run red lights. Especially at one intersection near me with long lights. I even braked hard to avoid some crazy person traveling in the right lane of a one way road turning left in front of me. So no I am under no illusion that human drivers are perfect. What I have not seen in all those years is someone pass a school bus when the sign was out.

As to ignorance of the law, you may want to check that. Many on this forum and others have complained they still got a ticket/fine because the were ignorant of the rule. Ignorance is not a defense.

As to reporting, yes but if you check the reporting is different than humans. And Tesla as an example has been caught deleting evidence to avoid looking at fault. Do I think waymo would do similar? Absolutely. And waymo has not just hit a cat and now a dog. They killed them. Check my other post on this topic. I reference TX DMV reg's. As a minimum waymo would be looking at 37grand in fines for the 19 infractions. Minimum. They would likely be looking at a multi-year license suspension as well. And god help them if they hit someone and hurt them. Years in prison. But only applies to humans eh? Pretty soon we will have to take waymo's just to avoid the rules like they do.

For others. As others have said, I don't see his 400lbs fitting, or if it squeezed in, the suspension would probably collapse.

Me too. For giggles I looked up the relevant statute in TX. It is not pretty. https://www.dps.texas.gov/inte... Relevant pieces are on page 23. Briefly, 1st offense 500-1250, 2nd 1000-2000, possible suspension of license 6mo, hit someone lightly, 4K and up to 1 year in jail, hurt someone with a prior offense of passing a bus,felony, fine up to 10K and 180-2yrs in jail.

So what price should a corp be given when they offend? Waymo with 19 offenses if it were a person would likely be looking at 2-5 year license suspension and some serious cash.(2000x18 + 1000=37 grand). Now 37 grand to waymo is barely petty cash, but license suspension would be devastating.

And have the bus pointer the wrong way? I think worse, now you have a bus full of kids structured for a head on crash with oncoming traffic. It just is not that complicated. Bus pulls over (giant yellow thing), yellow flashing lights come on high up on rear/front of bus and many other flashing yellows elsewhere. Big stop placard extends on street side of bus with flashing red. More red lights start flashing. You now have a giant yellow bus that looks like a christmas tree it is flashing so much. Stops for a minute or so, kids exit to sidewalk and if need be, walk across the street with the now virtual safe crosswalk.

I've just never seen anyone that doesn't have the fear of god (and losing their license) not stop. Perhaps other countries don't have our sized buses, so not as obvious. In Austin the bus is the size of a train freight car. They are HUGE. Even for carrying 5 kids. Everything is bigger in TX as they say.

I think really it is a problem of transparency. Austin was all in to get waymo, being the "tech" capital of TX. As a result they (and the state to also take the mantle of tech away from cal) gave carve outs to waymo such that all data was "proprietary" and so the state/city had no access to crashes, accidents, you name it. So what you are seeing is things like the school bus issue, which have cameras to detect cars that pass illegally so drivers can get severe tickets automatically are picking up waymo's. And there is an official record of it. I occasionally see a waymo in the burbs, rarely. To have 19 documented cases of illegal passing of a school bus is just amazing to me. I've never seen a human pass a school bus, and I see school buses daily. I see waymo's every couple of weeks. The math says waymo just ignores the bus. I'll posit a question, has anyone on /. seen a waymo stop for a bus?

What really should be happening is NHTSA/TxDot/your state's DMV safety org should get copies of ALL self drive vehicle video until they prove they are safer than humans. At the moment, we simply must take their word for it that they perform. And much like the cig companies proved, for profit may not tell the truth.

Are they 700M unique users? How many are paying? For reference the US total population is around 350M. So 2 USA's. And the USA population includes everyone, babies, kids, working people and retired. I'd expect maybe 30% use AI, maybe. I don't and I am a techie. Could they be fudging the numbers????

By your uid number I'm guessing you missed the Netscape bubble. I recall asking engineers why would netscape be so valuable if they lose money? They'd just shrug it off and say because. I also recall a finance guy reminding me that while there may be no basis for the valuation, I wouldn't short it. The bubble may last longer then you would. I took that sage advice. But I also don't invest in bubbles. The music can stop. Ask anyone from black friday october 87. And usually in a bubble, the music stops like a firewall with a new rule blocking the traffic.

Or ants as Gates flew over the stadium with Homer.

I blame the US education system. I mean when a multi-billion dollar co comes a knockin at city hall promising 10 jobs to build a fabu DC in town if they can just get the 10GW of power and 10M/gal/day water allocated, I mean, the math adds up, right?

Depends. Alcoa was pretty famous for running their own plants next to the smelter. And I expect some of the DC's using the latest chip coming from Nvidea that packs 600KW load on a single server rack would dwarf Alcoa's smelter consumption. 10K racks of those NVidea racks would be 6GW. And 10K racks is a very small DC.

I think the key word is residential. My utility whacks you hard over around I think 5000KWh/mo. Industrial is a whole different billing structure. Gets complicated. Even industrial can get charged a nasty premium for high sparse demand. They usually get a break for smooth high consumption. Which I expect is the very definition of a DC. Near constant load with main variability being cooling load between summer/winter.

I can't even believe you are that dumb. Of course they don't have to sell the shares they OWN. But the shares that have to be vested/milestones achieved are NOT part of their net worth. Ergo that tranche of stocks to hit the T mark is not part of his current net worth, and may never be if he doesn't hit the milestones, or if tesla tanks in the interim. SpaceX on the other hand has government contracts to back its value. You really aren't the brightest star.

And I think the problem is we will never know. Waymo will be allowed to keep the video it surely has secret, and will never even be seen by CalTrans or NHTSA. Transparency is what should be happening. Not closed door meetings at waymo. All these self drive programs are granted way too much leniency in this area. gm got caught basically because there was 3rd part video of their human dragging scene. And it did not turn out well. As I recall gm tried to bury it. And these large corps are usually very good at burying, google I imagine could make it disappear.

Pretty clear self drive makes some significant mistakes still. TMZ initially reported and was picked up by the national news. https://www.tmz.com/2025/12/01... Pretty crazy the AI decided to drive thru what was an active crime scene. With passenger Other stories about passengers being held captive while the car drives around in circles. https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/07... and I thought another circled around a McD's parking lot.

He's not going to get all the incentives, well unless they rig it. He will need to sell a piece of spacex on the market to cross that magic threshold. Now who is stupid?