- The interiors are nice, well air conditioned and don't smell
- You don't have to talk to a person, which I don't always hate but have had some bad experiences. This just removes the roll of the dice from the equation entirely.
- They are currently at par or cheaper with Uber/Lyft prices and typically it's faster for the car to arrive
- You get to play your own music
My partner has been propositioned and harassed over a dozen times by Uber drivers.
I think for many this is going to be a killer feature.
Edit: to be totally clear: I did not agree in either situation, but tried to gracefully divert or redirect without escalating the situation. I didn't confront as, frankly, I wasn't sure if the person would have responded violently.
Uber is valuable, but I have kind of accepted the premise that an Uber drive is just a public transit experience with a customized destination. I should expect some potentially weird and possibly unpleasant interactions as part of the process.
I would 100% convert to Waymo only away from Uber just based on those two experiences and dozens if not hundreds of generally positive Uber experiences.
I think Uber has solved this to some degree with their rating system, but it's still a big problem.
- they’re cheap. $5/ride.
- they’re fun. It’s a self-driving car! That’s cool! I genuinely had fun every time I was taken around in one.
If they scale, that will become a problem:
- people puking in car
- people having sex in car
- people eating greasy fries in car
These happen in public transportation too (the sex one not as often, but puking, eating smelly/gross food definitely), but the big difference here is that users won't be anonymous. The next waymo rider (or waymo staff if the car stops by some inspection checkpoint between rides, or some extra in-car sensors) will be able to report the incident, which would flag repeating bad riders over time.
Overall the experience would be as good as a Uber today, as like you said, no roll of the dice on the driver.
Another new problem specific to self driving and not seen for public transportation: muggers driving a high speed bike targeting isolated rides (they'll know how easy it is to make the car stop, smash a window, and get the rider's valuables). Basically the modern version of stagecoach robberies.
One could argue these already happens in Europe on highways with traffic jams, but I can see the muggers being more active at night, since in addition to knowing the rider can't try to escape, there's also less crowds around. It'll be very dependants on regions : In Phoenix, I'd assume less often as muggers won't know if the rider is carrying.
Just warnings and sirens. Nothing drastic, such as "Your Google account has been terminated for violating Google's terms of service".
Muggers won't be an issue since it's complicated to get people's stuff out of the car through a broken window.
Eh, I've used public transport regularly for 10+ years in two countries as a resident and in many, many cities as a visitor, and I can count on one hand the number of incidents I've had where someone has thrown up/left vomit on the bus or train I was on. The greasy/smelly food thing is slightly true, but let's be real, someone eating a McDonald's on a train for 10 minutes out of a 4 hour journey is partially because there's no other choice for food on that train on a long journey. On short distance transit (within the city/region) I genuinely can't remember the last time I had an issue with someone eating on the bus.
> Another new problem specific to self driving and not seen for public transportation
This is just FUD. If someone stepped out in front of me in a car in my city, I would stop. It's just as likely that two people step in front of me, one smashes my window and grabs my valuables and the other stops me from driving off, as it is that they pinpoint driverless cars.
So great to hear. Seeing videos of self-driving Tesla made me fear for the worst.
Right. Because Tesla FSD “beta” is not guaranteed, even if you pay for the monthly subscription.
And even if you did have Tesla FSD beta, it’s a pile of shit. It’s gets worse every quarter as they continue to remove safety sensors from vehicles due to supply chain issues.
Have they removed the "you need to be fully aware and ready to grab the wheel" requirements of FSD? If not, how is this comparable? There is no driver.
Tesla is developing a general solution which works everywhere and can take left hand turns! ;)
Ah yes, the classic comparison between a product you can literally go out and use, today, versus some hypothetical Tesla future state. No matter how good the technology is, Tesla promises something better and people act like it exists.
Given that they are a Google/Alphabet company this seems like a missed opportunity for running ads on loop.