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Comment by a-wu | Hacker News Reader

I can’t wait for wheelchair accessible vehicles to be equipped with this technology. It looks like they’re using Chrysler Pacificas which already have wheelchair ramp conversions from VMI and Braun. Since the self driving equipment seems to be on the top of the vehicle, it seems trivial to mount it on a converted Pacifica. As a quadriplegic who doesn’t drive (yet), the possibilities with this excite me greatly.

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I'm sure others are working on this as well but Panasonic recently had an exposition in Tokyo and one of the things they showed was a self driving vehicle platform. The vehicle was basically just a base. The motors, wheels, battery. It about as high as the wheels only. Then, depending on what the customer orders there were different tops that could be snapped on. A camper top, a cargo carrying top, a food stand top, a passenger top, a billboard top, ...

https://response.jp/article/2018/10/31/315608.html

Sadly, one big barrier to this is that a lot of regulations prevent them from charging more money for this than for a regular ride in many jurisdictions. It’s obviously more expensive to provide so many companies don’t bother. An Uber is almost never accessible for a wheelchair van.

In Vancouver Canada, the government mandates taxi companies have x% accessible vehicles. I don't see why they can't do the same to Waymo, since they own the vehicles (note we still don't have Uber here.)

> It looks like they’re using Chrysler Pacificas which already have wheelchair ramp conversions from VMI and Braun.

How common is this for other makes/models? If it is rare, I wonder if it influenced Google's choice of vehicle?

In terms of minivans, most American makes and models have conversions from at least one of the conversion manufacturers. Braun even has a converted Ford Explorer. The one issue I can see is that Waymo is using Pacifica Hybrids which can't be converted because the floor of converted vans is lowered ~12-14 inches which gets in the way of the batteries. But I can't imagine it would hurt to use a handful of gas-powered vehicles.

The batteries are under the second row. This is where the 2nd row seats fold into the floor in a conventional Pacifica.

Interesting. I think the lowered floor in a conversion still removes that space as there isn't a 2nd row of seats in a converted van.

Rear entry is probably going to have physical fitment issues depending on the amount of space in the chassis to work with. Minivans are pretty homogeneous now (it's not the late 80s anymore) so this isn't really an issue but I bet there's a model or two out there that are simply a no-go because some component that can't practically be relocated is in the way.

Side entry is going to be able to fit a wider range of vehicles because the installation is less invasive so you can support more vehicles for cheaper (kind of like how a static webpage can be viewed on basically anything but a fancy web app has a narrower range of browsers).

You can get a rear entry kit for pretty much every minivan that's on the market. You can get a side entry kit for that and more. I didn't bother checking but I know I've seen side entry but never rear entry kits on full size vans (also it makes sense that you can't put a rear entry kit on a full size van because there's a frame in the way).

Fundamentally you're limited by head room. You can't have people smashing their faces into the top of the door opening.

Google's choice was probably not influenced by the availability wheelchair van conversion kits.

The electronics for the self-driving are apparently in the trunk (the cars have a sticker on the back that says rear storage is not available) so a rear entry is not likely to happen.

Yeah i was hoping that waymo would make those a priority. It's a small market for smaller companies to invest in, but it should be very successful.

It would be huge for the wheelchair using community because while there's UberWAV and LyftAssist, those are contingent on someone owning a wheelchair accessible vehicle to start, which is rare. Uber is starting to partner with local paratransit companies but rollout is slow and doesn't offer great availability. A big advantage I can see with wheelchair accessible Waymos is that once they're comfortable running them without supervision, a wheelchair user could call them at all hours. Right now it's really hard to request paratransit service after-hours so my social life is pretty much restricted to daytime hours unless I have someone to drive my converted van.

Could significantly impact the paratransit industry. I know those to be government subsidized here in the northeast. If those subsidies were offered to self-driving vehicles, it could help a startup not only establish itself but also begin to compete with Uber/Waymo giants.

Which got me recalling, I believe there is a self-driving startup dedicated to helping the elderly get around.

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