California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]

cpuc.ca.gov

348 pointsra7405 comments

I love Waymo and use it all the time.

One aspect I'd still like to see them figure out:

As a bike commuter, I share the road with Waymo often. When cycling, you're always checking the eyes of other drivers to confirm if they see you.

I've had a couple incidents where I was a little thrown/unnerved because I couldn't confirm if a Waymo was registering me. It ultimately behaved fine, but I had to put my guard way up because I just couldn't tell.

I've wondered if they could use the light/display on top to signal acknowledgment? How do you simulate the precision of a gaze with a machine that's "seeing" everything at once?

They have tried many variations out, but so far they don't seem to think they work better than doing nothing. The only communication the Waymo's currently do it to signal that they are stopping for pedestrians, both to the pedestrians themselves and also to the cars behind.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/13/23913251/waymo-roof-dome...

I don't know how aware Waymo cars are of their surroundings. Why don't they have a (or something like a) 360 degree string of LEDs (for example on the roof) that lights up a few in the direction of human obstacles if they're close enough? Bonus points if they're colored to indicate everything is ok or there's potential caution/danger.

They're still trying to do this weird universal signage when they need some way to replicate eye contact and 1-to-1 signaling. I feel safe biking or driving around other cars because I can directly communicate and negotiate with other traffic participants. I can't do that with an automated car as they're currently designed, and I feel like that's a huge flaw.

> I don't know how aware Waymo cars are of their surroundings.

Waymo cars are extremely, extremely aware of their surroundings. They have a category, distance, speed, and distribution of possible future paths for all cars, pedestrians, and bicyclists within sight over 360 degrees.

> Why don't they have a (or something like a) 360 degree string of LEDs (for example on the roof) that lights up a few in the direction of human obstacles if they're close enough?

I don't think it's so obvious this helps. What is the threshold for how far away something is before it's indicated on the ring? If I'm standing just outside that distance, how will I know it's because of distance rather than because I haven't been seen? If the distance is set long, how will I know it sees me and not something behind me?

The natural way to get around these problems is for the car to "point out" everything it see using, e.g., fake eyes. But now you have a car covered in eyes surveilling the neighborhood, and people don't like that either.

> What is the threshold for how far away something is before it's indicated on the ring? If I'm standing just outside that distance, how will I know it's because of distance rather than because I haven't been seen? If the distance is set long, how will I know it sees me and not something behind me?

I feel like this is a non-issue. The LEDs can be a certain size. They could be dimmable so their brightness can be modulated by distance.

All the things you mention are an issue with real drivers too, but we make it work because we can signal and communicate. Give these cars the same functionality and experiment. This isn't an insurmountable issue, but it is one that needs to be addressed that isn't being addressed at all. Throwing up your hands and saying it's too difficult is less than helpful. They're putting these things on the road with people. They have a responsibility to figure this stuff out. Especially if they want to go beyond a handful of cities.

Even if the cars had a "I'm currently deciding" indicator it would be a major improvement. My only issue with these sorts of anti-socialized services is not being able to promptly and easily sue for remedy. Maybe a blood price on a few mid-level managers (or possibly higher depending on the situation) if the service ends up killing people. That would put my heart at mind in the marketplace of the future.

> My only issue with these sorts of anti-socialized services is not being able to promptly and easily sue for remedy.

What do you mean by that? Do you think if their cars hurt someone or cause damage to property you can't sue them? What is the basis of this belief?

Maybe we can start with putting a blood price on human drivers, since they have direct culpability?

When a human driver is negligent or reckless, they don't potentially endanger millions of people at once. So there's a difference

> "I'm currently deciding" indicator

Million dollar idea right there

Isn't that constantly happening? Every millisecond it's "deciding" what to do.

Japanese already tested it, with googly eyes. It seems to work. Modern cars are expensive, some extra plastic and servos is not going to break the bank.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3543174.3546841

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11250965/Jap...

https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2022/09/26/56244997...

British used a LED matrix. More "output" options (frowns and smiles, text), similar results.

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/first-ever-uk-ghost-driver...

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/pedestrian-study-...

Joking, not joking: Cylon scanner [1] at the top the windscreen that locks on to you when it's giving way

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faukADr0_6g

Maybe they should have two screens in front of the car that show eyeballs, like the ones in the first picture here:

https://theoatmeal.com/blog/google_self_driving_car

Cylon + vehicle = KITT (Night Rider)

Both shows produced by Glen Larson. Some call it a Larson Scanner.

I have very little BSG in my head but I still jumped to this solution. Odd.

As a biker, I feel MICH safer around self driving cars because I know they are paying attention.

I don’t need to check if they see me. They do.

Going forward - I think it's important to not just categorically say all self driving cars are safer than human drivers. It's probably better to say I feel safer around Waymo and <insert other trusted company> self driving cars.

With such complexity and unknowns within the codebase - there is likely going to be a much higher amount of variability w.r.t. safety and AI decision making. I'm not so sure I'd categorically say a self driving car from say Nikola or some SPAC'd startup would make me feel all that safe.

"I feel so safe around commit 07cc283a8344 of the Waymo software."

I'm the exact opposite. I've had a couple incidents that make me not trust them.

(Weird this was down voted, just sharing personal experiences)

With Waymo? Or others?

Waymo and Cruise.

I live right near Oracle Park where there was a big Cruise Yard, and there is a ton of traffic and cruise, zoox, etc self driving cars circling the neighborhood endlessly.

It's not as if I've had a overtly terrible single incident. It's as though they're causing unsafe driving conditions for pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists regularly.

Driving unreasonably slow and erratic, stopping in the middle of streets, blocking traffic, not responding to the need for them to move or respond as human driver would.

They're problematic. I could start a youtube channel or something it happens enough in my day to day life.

Because you didn't share why. Also, please don't complain about downvotes, it's in the HN guidelines.

Seeing a bike and recognizing a bike are two different things with self driving cars. I like OP's idea of having a visual cue that it recognized a bike.

That's the exact opposite assumption I'd make. As a biker, a pedestrian, or a driver.

> they do

Until you're being dragged under them.

> I've wondered if they could use the light/display on top to signal acknowledgment?

They have started trialing exactly this as of about two weeks ago. [edit: But I haven’t seen it operate up close yet.]

So like Apple Vision Pro's EyeSight but for a Waymo?

Combine this: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-prev...

and this: https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/17fjv1h/emoji_sph...

Assuming that they will eventually have displays around the sides to show ads, they could also use those to show nearby people who they see and how they plan to maneuver around them.

So if they are showing an ad on the display on your side it means that either it doesn’t see you or thinks you are far enough away that it does not have to account for you in its short term planning.

If it sees you and is taking you into account it could show a diagram showing you and what it plans to do.

If they will be running around with displays showing ads I'll never be without few rocks in my pocket just to keep things balanced and maintaining healthier society.

I know it sounds harsh, but force feeding me ads I definitely don't want to see while being unable to avoid them (stay home ain't no argument in civilized world) is unacceptable, and there is no but XYZ to make that stance any weaker.

Ads are a cancer of society, not the worst one but the core principle is rotten beyond reason - manipulate general population at your will, against their default choices, for money or power (or worse).

How do you feel about billboards?

Ditto as a motorcyclist.

Making eye contact with drivers makes riding a lot easier. You know they see you.

When I'm on a motorcycle, I assume they are never seeing me - but it's still useful to see them, and I can often tell what they are about to do before they've started doing it. I have not yet had the chance to share the road with a robot, but I wonder whether that feeling for traffic will still work.

The motorcycle safety courses teaches NOT to assume a driver sees or will yield the right away because of "eye contact".

Agreed.

It would be nice if there were a simple directional light on the top of robotaxis that indicates where it’s intending to go next (directional light) and how imminently it will begin moving (perhaps how fast the light blinks) when e.g. at a stop sign.

Yeh, the only time I assume a driver has really seen me is when we make eye contact.

(But - twice in 20 years I’ve had the chilling experience of a driver making eye contact and pulling out in front of me anyway.)

I don't think that's actually all that uncommon. I'll give them the benefit of doubt and assume that they habitually turn to look, but don't actually see or that they grossly misjudge your speed.

That was more of a problem in my 'Sturm & Drang' time. These days grannys on their electically-assisted bicycles are faster than me, hence I don't surprise car drivers any more.

As a motorcycle I have been pleasantly surprised by the fact that they always seem to see me and give way when lane splitting.

I was very harsh about the extremely poor interactions with Cruise, but I have yet to see anything to sour me with Waymo.

since I'm out walking the dog often, in the dark and in daytime:

Often you can't tell if a human sees you. Even in day, they may have tinted windows, or the sun might make it impossible. At night, you definitely can't tell.

As a constant pedestrian, my main concern is people turning right at a light as I'm starting out in the crosswalk. In that case you can usually check their eyes from the side even at night. If I don't have confirmation they see me, or if they aren't obviously stopping for me, I don't go.

If it's someone at a 4-way stop, you can usually tell when they come to a stop far from back the crosswalk. Otherwise I don't walk out in front of them. I also try to be aware if I'm in their blind spot.

yes. Always cautious. And yell "Stop!!!" if in any doubt. Better to have them be pissed off than running over you.

You can imagine some ominously humorous implementations of this. Red dot laser for pointing out people?

In the now defunct Apple Car, the windshield exterior was a giant OLED that rendered weird big eyes using the same code as on the Vision Pro. Apparently Johnny Ive insisted on this expensive external screen to make the car feel more human.

(Not really. But you never know?)

Jobs already worked on this during his time at Pixar:

https://cdn.webshopapp.com/shops/70489/files/113563271/600x6...

as a biker, they are seeing you and that is how i always assume

I agree that the UX could be better but it's definitely seeing you better than a human would. It can see you behind shit and around corners and in blind spots. Whether it reacts correctly is another story, but additionally, there's a strong incentive for Waymo not to hit you because of the regulatory regime. They have to report all collisions to a regulatory body and they have to send in all the data they had showing why they hit you. If they're at fault, you're almost certainly getting a big payout.

There was a Honda concept car years back that had LCDs in front of the headlights. They used them to make eye expressions to signal things

I really like the idea, maybe eyes and gaze come across as a bit creepy though.

The cars could see you at one moment, and then not see you the next. They lack any good object permanence unlike humans, so I'm not sure surfacing this information would help.

even without eye contact i'll take a waymo over a sf driver every time when biking in the city...

Yeah, I agree there is opportunity for improvement here.

Maybe they should take a note from the Apple Vision Pro and display a pair of eyes on the windshield looking at you? (/s ?) :)

Hell yeah. This is the best news I've read today. Waymo has completely replaced all usages of Uber for me whenever possible. Expanding the range makes me thrilled. Hopefully they're able to put more vehicles on the road, too, because wait times have been going up.

The app isn't updated yet, though. I wonder how long it'll take?

New Waymo operating area: https://twitter.com/saferroadsorg/status/1763687210447196417

Does this mean they can go on the highways? If so that’s a significant upgrade to the Waymo service in the SF Bay Area, as it can now take you between towns.

They’ve always had approval to go up to 65 mph, but it was Waymo’s decision not to go on the highways. They’re starting to do it [1] and do a lot of freeway testing, so it might happen sooner.

[1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/01/from-surface-streets-to-freew...

I've already seen self-driving waymos on freeways (as they are called here) within SF.

Not surprised they stopped short of Glendale in LA:

https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/news/tn-gn...

Is there any underlying reason for the high traffic incident rate from the insurance company? Glendale seemed relatively safe when I was driving there.

I wonder if they're allowed at SFO?

They are not. SFO, owned by the city of SF and at the behest of city officials, have been notorious in blocking Waymo: https://missionlocal.org/2023/11/waymo-rebuffed-by-sfo-sf-gu...

Which is strange. You'd think officals would be jumping at the chance to bilk Google out of money that they can line their pockets with.

i've struggled to get an uber for some early morning flights and can see it being easier to waymo to millbrae bart and connect to SFO than waiting a long time or paying insane surge prices for uber

You could also waymo to millbrae and uber to SFO. The price ($5.20) for BART to SFO makes it unattractive, especially since you often have to wait for a while. I've caltrained to millbrae and taken uber to SFO for $12, which is often worth the time tradeoff for me.

This changes the calculus for Google employees to live in SF and commute to Mountain View. They already run shuttle buses but with this, they can make it easier for their employees to commute at off hours by giving them priority for rides.

Still no Oakland :( Hopefully that's next.

Wow, it's huge that they'll be doing LAX (dropoffs only I assume?)

when does this roll out?

Approval is effective immediately, but no idea when Waymo will deploy vehicles in those areas. Their fleet size is small (~700 cars).

Not for long!

shit I hope this doesn't raise prices if I'm now competing with all of South Bay

Waymo is awesome. Got to try it 3 months ago in Phoenix, love the whole experience. Amazing to see how the car deals with every trick thing that you find in traffic. Plus the Jaguar they use is a great car.

Fantastic news. I use them all the time in Phoenix. My mom uses them to get to her doctor appointments. I think people underestimate how much of a quality of life improvement these are for people even when compared to Uber/Lyft.

> people underestimate how much of a quality of life improvement these are for people even when compared to Uber/Lyft

I do underestimate it. What are quality of life improvements? Seems to be the same thing from a customer perspective.

I guess if you are concerned for your safety from the uber driver it is an improvement but it is the only one that comes to mind.

A recent Uber driver of mine encountered bay bridge traffic, said, "I know a shortcut!" and veered out of the line waiting to enter the bridge. Then, Uber Safety called my phone asking if everything was alright. Then, the driver realized he didn't know where I was trying to go, asked me, realized I needed to go to Oakland, and spent 10+ minutes going in a slow circle to get back to the line of traffic.

A few drives later, I had a group dinner reservation at a restaurant downtown. I'm not a big sports person and I didn't realize I was asking to go downtown on the Saturday before the Super Bowl. Uber told me I had to wait 4 minutes for pickup, but that turned into a 20+ minute wait as driver after driver canceled on me when they saw where I was asking to go. I had to text all of the guests and apologize for being late to my own reservation.

A few drives later, I had a long conversation with a gay driver who recently fled from Iraq because his sexual identity wasn't respected there. I'm a mid-thirties, single male. The first question the driver asked me when I got in the car was if I had a family. I said no. Then he asked if I had a girlfriend. I said no. Then he slowly engaged with me in conversation for 10 minutes trying to figure out if I was a potential date for him and had trouble understanding that while I fully supported his sexual identity that that didn't mean I was an opportunity for connection.

Last weekend, as I was espousing the benefits of Waymo to a friend, they called an Uber while we were heading down from a restaurant at the top of an elevator. When we got down to the bottom floor, he was dismayed. Someone else had gotten into the Uber, the driver didn't check names, and they were now travelling on his dime.

Surely it's not that hard to envision the scenarios in which an autonomous driver might be desirable?

This is misanthropic tech vision at its finest. I got a job recommendation from an Uber driver. My aunt (against TOS) built a private driver business based on her personality after driving Lyft from the airport. I had a great conversation with a Somalian driver who’s favorite music artist was Dolly Parton. Once a driver saved me from a hairy situation with an irate customer who was chasing me and throwing things, I tipped him $20 and we laughed about it—I was just happy to have someone to witness the crazy.

Not to mention the thousands of people who currently make a respectable living driving people around.

But maybe I’m just one of those extroverts who doesn’t mind being around people.

Great. I am happy you are satisfied with the quality of service you're given by human drivers. I would hope you would be equally happy with the increased enjoyment I experience from an automated driving experience.

We will have to agree to disagree on whether it's a beneficial change to society to disrupt human drivers with autonomous drivers. Personally, I found the argument that artists shouldn't be disrupted by AI much more defensible than saying drivers shouldn't be disrupted. It always seemed easy to look at previously disrupted jobs, like people getting up at 4AM to act as manual alarm clocks via peashooters on windows, and say yes, we should replace this simple act of labor with technology.

>But maybe I’m just one of those extroverts who doesn’t mind being around people.

Maybe. I had a very boring experience overall with mine. I wouldn't have noticed if they were replaced with bots. That could be my lack of extroversion (or maybe getting all introverts myself. Few gave a vibe of wanting to chat. Just a job, after all).

But for the short term, I'm paranoid right now about autonomous driving because it is far from technologically sound. Probably more sound than the average driver, but we know that we hold tech a lot more accountable than humans. humans hold liability in human issues, companies are liable for tech issues and have the money to spend to fight any issues that arise (as we can see in real time with Tesla).

> maybe I’m just one of those extroverts who doesn’t mind being around people

Sometimes I want a chauffeur, usually one I have a relationship with, often I want a reliable ride. We’re all better off for having the choice.

>But maybe I’m just one of those extroverts who doesn’t mind being around people.

Maybe. Or you've just been "lucky" with the kinds of experiences you've had on Uber.

I've had some really annoying drivers, shitty drivers. People have reported assaults and some have ended up worse.

If this were a daily thing for people (which it could be in the future), I wouldn't want a 1on1 experience every day (twice a day) with a new driver each time, each with their own personalities, driving abilities, and needs at the moment. Forget that.

And how many people are killed by taxi or Uber drivers? Their stories matter too. If you're a pedestrian or cyclist you quickly realize how dangerous "professional" drivers are.

Your assumption is that Uber/Lyft will now disappear and you'll HAVE to ride Waymo?

Seems dubious to me. Can't you still call an Uber in SF, where they've had Waymo for a while?

How will waymo help with something like the super bowl? It's going to be overcapacity too.

> How will waymo help with something like the super bowl?

It will commit to the ride and not cancel.

Waymo said it would take 30 minutes to arrive, but would've arrived in 30 minutes. I can plan around that.

> How will waymo help with something like the super bowl? It's going to be overcapacity too.

Ability to scale the amount of Waymo cars to an area is immensely easier than scaling the amount of Uber/Lyft drivers available and willing to go to said area.

> Stuff where I want to be surrounded by robots all my life.

I mean, if a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? Even if yes, does it matter?

If we're just going to let the robots be the only thing we see all day long, why not just call it - hang up the hats build full AGI and blow up the humans.

I don't consider driving in traffic to be a pinnacle of human experience worthy of preservation. I certainly have concerns about AI automating away some jobs, but I thought stop-and-go city driving was something everyone could agree on as being worthwhile to eliminate.

I'm surprised there's such a staunch defense.

> we're just going to let the robots be the only thing we see all day long

This is an uncharitable reading of someone wanting peace and quiet from time to time.

Yes it makes a sound and it matters as much as you want it to.

> A few drives later, I had a long conversation with a gay driver who recently fled from Iraq because his sexual identity wasn't respected there...

Avoiding talking to humans altogether is one thing but couldn't we also just say "sorry I don't feel like chatting" or something like that?

> couldn't we also just say "sorry I don't feel like chatting"

I’ve been hit on by a few Uber drivers. (Early thirties guy.) They stop talking then forget after two seconds. Unfortunately, the person who crosses the first boundary isn’t deterred by the second.

That said, I do appreciate the chutzpah of the driver who tried to invite himself to my date for a threesome.

Yeah, I could definitely set better boundaries. It's not a strong suit of mine.

I don’t need to be given a numeric rating by my chauffeur on how well I sit in the back of a car. The social play-acting part of ridesharing apps became exhausting to me (admittedly: an introvert) sometime during the first ride.

I agree. Not everything in life needs to be a personal interaction. I just want to get from A to B. One of the reasons I like an actually functioning mass transit system is that you just get on and get off. Subways don't rate people (yet) and that is something I think good regulation could enforce here too. The problem is we have a long history of bad regulation when it comes to mass transit so we will see.

Is it better to leave it to an AI algorithm watching you in the back of the car? One way or another passengers are going to get rated.

But the safety of the driver is increased if bad passengers are eliminated from the job. Taxi driver is more dangerous that Police Officer in USA

....you can just not participate and keep to yourself and I guarantee you'll have a 5 star rating from every driver in america

I've used Waymo a couple of times now and absolutely find the experience superior.

As mentioned, the driving is sane... with other taxi and taxi-like services that can be hit or miss. But it's more than that.

When I get in taxi I can't help feel like I'm invading the driver's space in some way. The awkward conversations, the awkward silences, the music I'd never choose to listen to on my own, and that list goes on along similar lines; not to mention that many drivers feel like they have to engage in one way or another order to get a decent gratuity I feel more like I'm continuing to be "sold" something after the ride starts. It's just not pleasant.

In a Waymo, I don't feel any of that. I put something I want to listen to on the sound system or just enjoy the ride. Sure, I know there is staff somewhere watching me, but that doesn't bother me nearly so much as being in an incidental, albeit fleeting, social relationship with someone I might not otherwise chose to engage with.

So yes. A self-driving car is my first choice if my pickup/dropoff allows it.

It’s one of those experiences you didn’t realize you wanted until you have it.

- No need for chit chat, you can just work / talk on the phone / play music

- No 18-hour shift sweat and deodorant smell

- No cursing at other drivers or awkward apologies because of fear of a bad rating

- Smooth, predictable driving. I have yet to have a “holy shit” moment in a Waymo, but this happens regularly in Uber / Lyft.

Also on safety, about 50% of the population has to worry a lot more about being abducted/hit on/stalked/etc. Uber and Lyft know this and have gone to great lengths to recruit female drivers, set up safety hotlines, etc. Not having to worry about the driver is a big deal.

IDK, It just sounds like some people have bad experiences and is using negativity bias to justify early tech (and ofc a skewed audience who seems to abhor socialties). All my uber rides were boring and uneventful. I see no need to pay a premium to guarantee that.

Meanwhile the driving experience of autonomous drivers is still not at a satisfactory stage for me. Maybe it worked fine in SF, but LA has some pretty rough, unmaintained roads to navigate.

Just the safe driving alone is a big improvement. Every time I get into an Uber, I hope and pray the driver isn’t aggressive and erratic. You always know what you’re going to get with a Waymo.

Plus, nice and clean Jaguar I-Pace vehicles. No person to talk to and no tipping.

You trust an entity you can't interact with over a human being?

Safety is the most important point across all customers. But as someone who is less concerned with safety, I still get enormous value out of Waymo. Let me try to explain:

Consider the distribution of Uber/Lyft drivers you have had. All the way from smooth driving, well-maintained car, through to erratic behavior and unpleasant environment. Imagine if the next time you got a driver you really like, you said "this driver only from now on" and that was the consistent experience you always got out of Uber/Lyft.

That is what Waymo is like. It is the same every time I get in. I do not have to think or adapt to a new environment. It is like sitting on my own couch at home.

That's because the cars are all brand new Jaguars that are impeccably maintained. If Waymo succeeds in becoming a widely used service that is price competitive with Uber, the experience won't be this good forever.

Having a car to yourself is honestly just way better, maybe I'm just antisocial

Like I will easily pay a premium to have self-driving most of the time. I can play my music on the speakers, I can work more comfortably in the car, etc. etc.

Also, I find Uber drivers are pretty bad drivers often - comparative advantage

The incentive to race through traffic is felt from the back seat in my experience

Owning a car yourself is the most costly option, so I would hope that it is the “best.” Purchase price, depreciation, maintenance, insurance, fuel.

Edit: to be clear I’m putting “best” in quotes because personal car ownership is pretty terrible in terms of value.

> Like I will easily pay a premium

which would probably be the same as Uber after tip

It's pedantic to most, I'm sure. Just FYI, though, antisocial is to be opposed to society - like Timothy McVeigh. Asocial is probably what you're looking for.

- Safety: My gf much prefers to Uber/Lyft at night.

- Consistency: You know what you're getting.

- Privacy: Especially nice when traveling with a group.

- Instant pick-up estimate: It can take a while to find a driver with Uber/Lyft, and often the initial estimate is not fulfilled. While Waymo times are generally higher, you know before you press the button what the exact wait time will be.

I usually have a good experience, but just in the last few weeks it’s been bad:

- Driver started watching TikTok videos on his dashboard-mounted phone while driving

- Driver going way over the speed limit in stormy weather

- A driver was clearly sick, coughing and sniffling and sneezing the whole ride

- Got in a car and it reeked of marijuana

- Got in a car and it reeked of BO

At this point I’d probably prefer a robot driver.

Some of these will still happen, even in a self-driving car, because of prior passengers. In fact they might be more of a problem because passengers won't have another human in the car inhibiting their impolite or gross behavior.

I look forward to Snow Crash's self-cleaning public restrooms.

For now they are still just cars with no driver. Once they are fully trustworthy though, the interior of the car could be repurposed in some interesting ways. Take out all the driving controls, add a desk, move the climate/radio control to a central console, captains chairs. The possibilities are endless.

I've been thinking exactly along these lines myself. I bet a lot of people are thinking that self-driving + electric will bring van life to a whole new level. It may become the reality that a large number of people actually, purposefully, live in self driving vehicles/homes since removing the 'car' part greatly improves the living part.

You can check out the Hyundai Ioniq 7 for an idea of a non-conventional interior. Even then it still needs a driver's seat for the current day, so it can radicalize even further.

Though I'm not sure if we'll ever fully get to such a state. I can see driver's seats still being mandated in case of failure and a need to revert to manual driving.

I’ve wanted a lay-flat ride between San Francisco and the South Bay for ages.

The big one: dealing with people, any people, sucks.

Nothing is better than being able to go about your business without have to worry about social niceties and endless other tedious things associated with human beings.

> Seems to be the same thing from a customer perspective.

Have you never been "forced" to talk to an Uber driver? :)

Have you accepted Jesus into your life yet?

It makes me super anxious when drivers run stop signs, drive in the shoulder, or perform other maneuvers that I'd never perform while driving myself. Knowing I'm in a car with no risk of an accident due to knowingly breaking the law would bring me a great deal of peace.

> What are quality of life improvements?

Not having to tip. Having the car take a sensible route and not some idiotic detour Waze thought was clever. Having a car that’s always paying attention instead of being on a perpetual phone call. Being able to make phone calls without feeling obnoxious or worrying about one’s rating. Being in an objectively safer ride. Not having to listen to a rant about how the angel Mohamed saw was actually a demon because he was scared or get given a sermon about why being gay is evil. Not having drivers cancel on you because they don’t want to go where you need to.

You don't have to tip anywhere for any reason.

Consistent driving and ride quality could be a benefit

When i was in florida at Orlando, my wife and i experienced several of the worst Uber/Lyft drivers i can imagine. We're talking regularly breaking the law while driving, drivers. My wife also regularly encounters drivers she is uncomfortable around.

In general i'd vastly prefer a non-human experience.

Yeah that one comes to mind. Personal safety is often a factor influencing public transit decisions as well.

Private transit*. Uber and Waymo are private transit.

Something to note is that actual public transit (buses and trains) has something like 10x fewer annual deaths than private vehicles, because fatal accidents almost never happen in them.

Personal safety is a much less statistically relevant concern compared to personal injury.

I think the "improvement" is that it ought to be cheaper. Whether it actually is remains to be seen.

Some people, like his mother, can't drive anymore. They might be encouraged to stay in the homes they're used to, instead of moving to assisted living.

Today my Uber driver wore so much cologne it made me wanna puke after a 5 minutes ride. The other day, one tried to convert me to his religious group.

I can't even buy fruit from a certain grocery store because some kid there must were cologne. The fruit absolutely reeks of it.

Waymo cars will be no different. All it takes is one Armenian guy visiting Glendale slathered in cologne to nuke one of those cars permanently for all time.

Super minor but I've gotten sick in ubers like 3 times in the past year from erratic driving. Has not been the case for waymos.

Yea, rideshare drivers are aggressive to the point of making me feel unsafe. I’d rather have granny Waymo drive me around.

George Hotz said it best: “self driving is already here, it’s called Uber”

I was about to ask the same thing; I have a hard time seeing the ways it ends up a net gain when driving is still a decent job for a lot of people, and rideshare drivers keep to themselves anyways

You might find it easier to understand if you had lost a friend or loved-one in a car accident.

Society will have to adapt to the advancements in AI and robotics.

The status quo is not a good option because (globally) cars cause over a million fatalities each year and over 20 million injuries. Driving, riding, or walking near vehicles is one of the most dangerous activities in modern life.

An extremely high percentage of deaths and injuries will be prevented as self-driving cars are deployed, since almost all accidents are due to human error.

A car that can drive itself will always be the better option to the companies that can afford the market share. Nobody cares about how automation will remove jobs for folks. These things are important to note. Your opinion as a customer is secondary to the cost to the provider.

I use Waymo all the time in Phoenix and Scottsdale too, and it's great.

Dumb question but does it have a person monitoring in the driver seat? Or are you the only one in the car?

You’re the only one in the car.

How does the pricing compare?

I've found it to be 10-15% more expensive for local SF rides than Uber/Lyft.

Varies. Sometimes it's lower, sometimes it's about the same, sometimes it's higher for some reason. It really just depends.

How is it better than Uber/Lyft?

I feel like no one in this thread lives in LA. This is going to be an absolute catastrophe. Driving out here is like Thunderdome. There is zero way in hell I'd ever trust some Waymo car to make some insane left turn across 6 lanes of rush hour traffic out here, let alone the freeway.

> There is zero way in hell I'd ever trust some Waymo car to make some insane left turn across 6 lanes of rush hour traffic out here, let alone the freeway.

This quote highlights why I would trust it more. I have been an Uber that essentially tried to make that turn, and it was insane. I'm hoping Waymo would be smart enough to try alternate routes (that said, I've had Google Maps route me in West Hollywood going across major boulevards without a light during rush hour, which is basically impossible).

> I have been an Uber that essentially tried to make that turn, and it was insane

This announcement makes me more willing to travel to LA for work.

I've taken Waymo in LA and Santa Monica and honestly it's fine. Some drivers freak out because it actually stops at stop signs and it doesn't speed, but it feels much safer than 90% of Ubers I've taken.

The cars also has much better depth perception than I do, which makes it pretty good at those unprotected left turns

I see it as a trial by fire. If Waymo can handle LA, it can handle anywhere (that doesn't have awful weather).

One step at a time. Computers are already better than humans in terms of braking with ABS brakes. Driving in awful weather conditions is just a matter of sensors - as a human I can't see in the dark, but IR sensors can. Same for snow. Something with radar on different frequencies than visible light can see through snow and do better than humans can.

SF traffic seems harder to handle than LA traffic.

Fire indeed. Good luck to everyone else, but I won't be in that kitchen.

As someone who doesn’t live in LA: I can’t imagine what your freeways are like given your characterisation of an ordinary road. Our “freeways” max out at 4-5 lanes each way. From what I can tell, getting from A to B is a stressful full time job for the people of your good city.

I speak to VCs quite a bit and recently I was hanging around with a bunch of them, they were all making fun of the state of self-driving cars, ah, stupid industry, will never work, whatever.

But to me it's strange, if you go to San Francisco today you can see cars driving around with nobody inside. They drive around, they pick people up, they mostly don't crash into shit. There's nobody behind the wheel. I know that everyone is incredibly quick to point out their flaws and relative safety rating and remote interventions and so on but can we just take a step back, even for a moment, and acknowledge that they freaking did it, they basically did the thing that a lot of people said would never happen - the car drives around all day with nobody inside, of it's own volition!! It's amazing! Am I a deranged silicon valley optimist for thinking this?

I agree that there's still endless work to do, some companies are probably behaving in a way that is dangerous, they aren't half as good as you want them to be, it's not clear whether they are good for society or financially viable etc. etc. but it just seems weird that so few people are willing to be like, "fair play, they basically pulled it off, round of applause", even just for a second.

The only real reason that would make sense to me is if this is actually just a giant fraud and they are driving the things over LTE/4G a much larger fraction of the time than I have been led to believe. Anyone know the realistic ratio of self-driving to remote control? The fact that the safety statistics are 100X worse or whatever is obviously deadly serious but on a scale of six or so orders of magnitude it remains meaningfully impressive to my dumb brain.

> I agree that there's still endless work to do, some companies are probably behaving in a way that is dangerous, they aren't half as good as you want them to be, it's not clear whether they are good for society or financially viable etc. etc. but it just seems weird that so few people are willing to be like, "fair play, they basically pulled it off, round of applause", even just for a second.

They're victim of the self-driving hype machine, which is not entirely Waymo's fault. Lots of people and companies were really promising the world with self-driving cars after making the initial "novelty" proof of concept stuff possible. But now they're in the nitty gritty of actually making it safe, dependable, reliable, and trusted, in less than ideal conditions (or in non sunny California conditions at all) and people and companies are finding that it's far harder to follow through on that.

To Waymo's credit, they have been steadily plugging along without crazy marketing or PR to overhype their product. They just have to win the long-game, if they can.

> or in non sunny California conditions at all

It does at least rain in San Francisco, and I've taken Waymo in the rain. It did more than fine. Plus, you know, night time.

Having lived in SF and elsewhere, even heavy SF rain is nothing compared to further up the West coast. I remember parts of the infra in SF failing when it rained more than one inch.

> they were all making fun of the state of self-driving cars, ah, stupid industry, will never work, whatever.

As Sinclair said, "it is difficult to get a man to understand something on which his salary depends on him not understanding."

The road to self driving cars is a capital intensive and entrenched in regulatory quagmire. Those two things are enough to keep VCs away.

But if you think about it, every trip that someone takes in a self-driving vehicle is a trip that they didn't take their own car or a taxi. Most trips are not complex, and most problems are with other human drivers. As the market grows the difficulty of the problem domain will shrink. If you can reach critical mass, infrastructure can be adjusted to specialize for self-driving cars.

That said, the illusion of self driving cars is that you can provide mass transit at affordable prices using existing infrastructure and specialized hubs/depots/fuel/roads for the vehicles. But we already have that, they're called busses. But busses are for poor people, so we don't invest in them.

This is incredible news. In the next 10 years more and more transportation will shift to self driving and save thousands of lives and prevent many more injuries. Already in San Francisco waymo's are and feel much safer than human driven rideshare.

I made a similar observation just yesterday. SAE level 5 will reset our current understanding of parenting to where it was 30 years ago. Groups of children will be able to safely travel around town without adult supervision.

While autonomous driving helps a bit on safety, that's just one of the many issues with the car dependence in our society. It might even expand the issues, if it ends up with less people using public transport and relying on these kinds of things.

Waymo is public transport, but you mean mass transit.

People don't use mass transit because it sucks, blaming other modes of public transit doesn't cut it. The design and implementation of it is what keeps people from using it.

The good news is automated vehicles will add flexible options for new types of public transport that are between single-trip taxies and mass transit and will lower costs to all kinds of public transit.

European and Asian nations tend to have perfectly usable mass transit (including developing countries). Sure there are some us cases for cars, but for daily commute its not needed.

To add to it mass transit is generally heavuly subsidized that means that less well off people can get to work/school at low costs. It reduces poverty and income inequality.

Mass transit is great when it's available, which means in places of high density, which is why you list Asia and Europe. It's right there in the name.

I live in Europe in a village of about 1500 people are there is no usable public transport (2 buses a day).

Relative to total area, mass transit is almost nowhere. That's also true for for total road kilometers.

I agree with your last sentence, but for those who live outside of cities or other places of high density, public transport is unusable or unavailable. Governments roundly ignore people who live in these places (due to expense and political irrelevance) so there is always a fairly decent percentage of the population that is "public transport poor".

Most trips in Europe are by car. 80% of passenger-km. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/e...

Subsidizing public transit to make it affordable is a terrible idea. If you want good public transit with stable funding, you must build it primarily for the middle class. For people who pay more taxes than they receive benefits and who could choose to drive instead.

Driving has high fixed costs and low marginal costs. If you have a car anyway, using it for yet another trip is cheap. If you want to make public transit competitive with driving, you must make the fares low enough. That often means paying a substantial fraction of the expenses from taxes. But why would you do that? Because once a city grows large enough and dense enough, public transit becomes cheaper than car infrastructure. Because it requires less subsidies than driving.

Waymo is not public transport in the sense that most people mean it, which describes only state entities, as opposed to the private sector. Public transit exists to serve the public good, doesn't need to turn a profit, and is accountable to government (ideally elected) officials. Waymo is a for-profit entity that can do more or less whatever it wants within the bounds set by CPUC. I think it's a net good, but it's still private industry.

> Waymo is public transport

Is it? Doesn't "public transit" at least somewhat imply that it's a business that has to operate under the rules of some democratically elected institution?

Waymo will ban you, price you differently based on who/where/when you are, etc. I wouldn't expect any of that from "public transit".

Yes, it's public transit. Public doesn't mean "there aren't any rules" it just means public. You can't light barbecues in my local public park, and the bloke who tried to knife a bus driver isn't allowed to ride the public buses here.

>price you differently based on who/where/when you are, etc

public transit already does this

https://www.bart.gov/tickets/discounts

-Seniors 65 and over get 62.5% off -Youth 5-18 years old get 50% off

People can (and should) be banned from public transit, too.

It sucks because we don't fund it. Europe does fine.

I hate the comparisons to Europe, because they're apples to oranges. I've been in European cities and I totally agree, it's a joy to be able to take public transit and/or walk everywhere. But most European cities were built long before the car.

Older US cities (Boston, NY) have great public transit/walking options, though I agree deferred maintenance is taking its toll. But if you look at cities designed around the car, for many of them it's just prohibitively expensive to add things like light rail or subways now. Austin TX will be adding more light rail, but the price tag keeps exploding and the route keeps getting shorter.

I'd be curious if anyone could point to any city that was built around the car where they subsequently made substantial public transit improvements that carry more than, say, 10% of commuters.

Europe doesn't really do fine. Outside a handful of cities, cars are the dominant form of transit there too.

Almost everything where people ask for "more funding", that service is junk and adding money just means you go from getting junk for cheap to getting junk for expensive. I've seen zero cases of it going from junk to even mediocre. I've seen numerous examples of junk going from cheap junk to expensive junk, especially in US public services.

The "more funding" is always allocated towards existing rent-seekers.

And my opinion with getting junk is that if I'm getting it, I want to be paying as little for it as possible.

As a quick test for what you feel, try this. You read a headline that says "This city school received the most government funding of any school in the US". Do you think that school is "great" / "mediocre" / "crap"? My personal immediate inclination is that the school is probably shit.

Unfortunately self-driving seems to be an easier problem to solve than improving public transit policy anywhere in the U.S.

It's not an either-or situation, one helps the others.

AVs more or less solve the last-mile problem with public transportation - if you don't live on a transit route, or the one you live near is infrequent, taking it can be infeasible.

But also, it directly helps one of the major pain points of transit logistics - you cannot effectively respond to demand by scaling up/down the size and quantity of busses when you have human drivers that expect to have regular routes and regular hours. In contrast, you can have a whole fleet of electric short/medium/large busses which spend most of their time idling at the charge stations (which reduces maintenance costs) and go in and out of service as the daily traffic demands it, even pre-emptively going to a destination hub during off-peak times to await peak one-way demand (e.g. busses going to loiter downtown at 3/4ish to wait for all the businesspeople going back to the suburbs)

For longer travel, a convenient way to get to the bus or train station might make public transit more popular.

Ya, smaller door to transit center transportation is something we can even begin to consider once autonomous driving works. Like how old retired PLA soldiers used to drive tuktuks from Beijing subway stations to your apartment in the 1990s for a 5 mao or one kuai.

My biggest objection with cars is parking them. It's wasting space dedicated to inefficiency.

Self driving cars have much less use for parking garages in the middle of the city, so I think it's a net-positive.

Maybe one day, when the last human driver is banned, I’ll be able to ride my bike without fear.

An underrated thing about Waymo:

If you open Uber and the app says a car is 9 minutes away that’s really anywhere from 5 to 15.

With Waymo if they say it’s 9 minutes to get a ride they mean 9 minutes. They’re not waiting for a human to accept your ride, they’re scheduling resources.

The lack of variance makes delays much more tolerable, IMO.

I've seen Waymos on the 280 between San Jose and SF countless times over the past year. I guess those were not operational rides, just tests?

yes or perhaps returning home? i have frequently wanted to go to south bay, it doesn't even let you go to the airport

Waymo employees can use the cars in a larger area, though most of those are likely tests.

I was very bummed on a recent trip to SF to find there was a waitlist for Waymo and I couldn't use the service! But I've since been 'accepted' so my next West Coast trip I'll definitely be taking a driverless car. I was a long time SF resident so I'll use my local knowledge to choose the most ratchet route possible.

The potential for self-driving cars to bring down the cost of rides is very exciting to me. I've been carless for decades and though I'm a huge proponent and user of mass transit, we have to be realistic. Most of this country is exceptionally ill-suited to mass transit and is custom-built for car traffic.

For now, Waymo in SF costs significantly higher than Uber. I just checked and was quoted double - $25 to go from the outer richmond to Japantown.

Hmm, in my (limited) experience, I've seen Waymo being within +/- $1-2 of Uber.

This is what I'm more accustomed too, in this particular instance though there was a 25 minute wait.

I'm guessing the rain right now might be increasing demand for rides.

From my not-so-limited experience, it's often double.

It is still a fun novelty mode of ride with limited supply and is priced accordingly and is not a mass transport option yet. Once the supply of cars rises the prices will fall to establish a new equilibrium hopefully much lower than Uber.

There are tons of waymos, pretty much everywhere you look. I think it's beyond the novelty stage now.

I don't know about bringing down costs. The amount of money that's been invested in this wants to get paid back, so they're gonna be charging as money they can for this to be worth it.

As long as there is competition the prices will be low (eventually). Labor is almost always the most expensive part of any service and these technologies reduce the need for labor considerably.

That's only true if there's competition with similar costs, though. Uber and Lyft can't reduce prices without collapsing, so Waymo has no incentive to charge anything less than what they charge minus one cent and they'll have all the demand they can handle.

> As long as there is competition the prices will be low (eventually).

We don’t have to wait here. Is BigCo lowering prices on YouTube subs? Are they lowering ad spend for people?

You could claim that they’re a monopoly in those cases, but then that would undercut your expectations above.

> amount of money that's been invested in this wants to get paid back, so they're gonna be charging as money they can

As they should be. They’re currently competing with Uber and Lyft, and charging a novelty/quality premium. There will be a halcyon period as they scale and print money, but others will notice and start fighting that monopoly.

If I’ve learnt anything over the last 10 years it’s that self driving is hard and Google has a huge moat with how good Waymo already is.

If apple spent 10B on their car, I wouldn't be surprised if Waymo spent 50 or 100 over 15 years and they invented the modern robotaxi. I think they've earned the ability to charge whatever they like. I'd also happily pay more than Uber rides whenever it comes to my area. Riding a couple in Arizona was amazing.

> I think they've earned the ability to charge whatever they like.

They can charge what people will pay, not whatever they want.

Look at these comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568066

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568076

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568083

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568119

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568226

That's the value-sell of self-driving cars: placating an anti-social techno-"patrician" class that fears people, a class who now has the luxury of avoiding them.

Self-driving cars seem to be a technological solution to a modern socio-cultural pathology, nothing more. That's not healthy. Seems like the better solution would be to address the pathology directly and eliminate it, rather than create workarounds for it.

How did you find yourself in a low-trust society, with anti-social leanings? And how can we fix that? That needs to be addressed.

I dont think you can create a high trust society deliberately; It takes multi-generation level time-spans, and in a low trust environment there is no mechanism to guarantee your plans will be carried forward; even if you currently have dictator level control over society.

Creating highly trustworthy technology is the best we can do, and reliable transportation is a big part of this.

I also suspect targeting and removing the worst interactions people have with strangers (and for many this is the random nature of a human driver, either from a taxi or other drivers) would create a higher trust society overall, as there is less cause to be wary.

Just yesterday, walking in the inner sunset neighborhood of SF, I saw an old lady in a 1980s Volvo come to a 4-way stop. She looked really old, as in probably even 90+. She wasn't sure about the rules of the stop sign: she came to the stop and was hesitating to go. Other cars were waiting for her and some of them started just going through, creating a very dangerous situation. Eventually she mustered the courage to just make her turn. That made me think: her life would be so much easier if she didn't have to drive at all to go run her errands. She was creating an unsafe situation for everyone, not just herself.

The City (SF) has a fleet of transport vehicles that transport Seniors (old folks) around town. It would be much more cost effective to just have a bunch of Waymos available to Seniors.

Safer, maybe. cost effective, I don't see it. especially compared to this aforementioned fleet of transport vehicles.

You don't think fleets without drivers will be cheaper than fleets with drivers?

someone needs to get the seniors in and out of the cars...

If they can get into the drivers seat and attempt to drive themselves, surely they can get into a car as a passenger?

"The City (SF) has a fleet of transport vehicles that transport Seniors (old folks) around town. It would be much more cost effective to just have a bunch of Waymos available to Seniors."

this is what I meant.

The drivers of the fleet of transport vehicles are helping old folks in and out of the vehicles, which you wouldn't get with a waymo

If Waymo was not too expensive and easy to get at rush hour in LA I'd certainly consider it. If I want to leave work between 5:30 and 6:30 pm, my commute can be 60 mins. At 8pm it will be 20 mins. That sucks but if I could use the 60 mins then it sucks less.

On the other hand, unlike Uber/Lyft, Waymo can't scale like they do. For them, demand pricing means more drivers with their own car driving when there's lots of people to pick up. For Waymo, they'd go broke trying to have enough cars for high demand times that would all sit idle (and have to drive somewhere to park) off peak.

Taking it up a notch. I'd be nice to redesign cars that have no driver. A bench, a desk, small buses for shared rides, or something.

There’s probably a smart way to ride share during peak times using a service like Waymo. Could be the best of both worlds.

I could also envision a future where a car owner allows his car to be used for Waymo if he isn’t using it, and receives some compensation.

Any reason why Waymo is so much more expensive than alternatives? I went across SF last weekend and Uber/Lyft was around $16. Waymo was $56.

they are usually couple of dollars more (for $20 range rides) but I think their demand supply is so skewed that it surges almost all the time it feels like

The driving is extremely smooth in general --- much smoother than many taxi journeys I've taken in that past.

I found myself in a corner case recently, with an illegally parked car blocking the street, we got partially round, blocked by another vehicle and then a fire engine with sirens approached from behind, the waymo handled it excellently!

Great, more cars on the road.

I don’t know why people are excited. Whether it’s self driving or driven by a meat bag, it just means one more car on the road. One more car sitting in a parking lot/street/parking garage or driving around aimlessly until it gets assigned.

Instead of helping to alleviate traffic. TNCs were shown to actually increase traffic in urban areas [1]. I expect this won’t be any different with “self driving” vehicles.

[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00678-z

Has anyone tried it recently? Does it work well? How does the price compare to Uber?

It's cheaper than Uber if you're the type of person to tip your Uber driver 20%. Very infrequently it's cheaper without tip, but usually it's a bit more expensive.

Crucially, it doesn't care if you ask it to drive into heavy traffic. I'm so over Uber giving me an estimated time for pickup, having the driver get within range to learn additional details about the trip, then cancelling on me because it doesn't fit their desires. I was late to a reservation a couple of weeks ago because I wanted to go downtown during Superbowl Weekend and an estimated 3 minute pickup morphed into a ~20 minute delay as I waited for an Uber driver to commit to the drive.

> I'm so over Uber giving me an estimated time for pickup, having the driver get within range to learn additional details about the trip, then cancelling on me because it doesn't fit their desires.

I remember waiting for a Lyft that was perpetually 8 minutes away, because driver after driver canceled the ride when they saw the destination and presumably didn't want to drive that far. After about 9 or so cancelations and about 45 minutes, I finally got a pickup. Not having to deal with that shit is worth a few extra bucks to me.

Post Prop 22 [1], ride shares in California have gotten expensive. I think that created the opening for Waymo.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_...

I routinely see it priced at double Lyft or Uber in SF.

It's certainly going up in price as people get off the waitlist and the number of vehicles allowed in service stays fixed. I'm optimistic, though. I would travel a lot more if the price was cheaper, I assume Waymo has enough data to realize that, and they will act in a way that creates a larger market, rather than squeezing the existing market, once they have the legal ability to do so.

My impression, using it ~1x/week in SF: Slightly more expensive than uber (+10%?). Takes a bit longer to show up (+25%?). Utterly magical experience.

where I live, show up time is usually around 7-20 minutes compared to around 2-4 for Uber. in the west of the city, it is more commonly ~15-20

I've tried them about three months ago. They're a good experience, but maybe slightly worse pickup/dropoff than an Uber, and no less expensive, so they're kinda more "fun to have done once," than anything else.

In SF, up-front prices have been comparable to Uber’s, except that you don’t have to pay tip, which automatically makes it 15–20% cheaper.

The few times I’ve tried it, the service has been good and its driving was safe. The only downside is that there seems to sometimes be longer wait times.

In europe, you don't pay tips to uber drivers. Surely, if the tip is compulsory, it should be called a service fee

Legally, it’s not compulsory. Socially and culturally, it definitely is. In the US, if you don’t tip 15%, you’re either an asshole, or you’re saying there’s severe issues with the service.

I’m not going justify this culture—I don’t like it either—but that is the way it is.

I don't tip on Lyft. 5 stars. 800 rides.

I don't tip on Uber. 4.89 rating. 700 rides.

I have friends who tip and tbh when I don't get a ride, they don't get a ride and when they get a ride, I get a ride. So obviously the tipping means nothing.

Occasionally I might tip, but only if I got something out of it. And it's rare. I think I might have tipped on 10 out of the 1500 rides.

Tipping sucks but people rely on it and I have enough money to tip or I don’t use the service. https://www.npr.org/2021/03/22/980047710/the-land-of-the-fee

I'd only tip a uber/rideshare driver if the experience was above and beyond... I do not expect this kind of service from every driver, nor do I expect them to try to provide it every time.

It should be a reward for exceptional service, not a default assumption for average (or so help me, sub average) service.

Uber didn't originally have tips but the US Uber drivers wanted tips and pushed to implement it.

it's not compulsory and culture is different in US

I take them in SF regularly, for trips that aren't well-served by Muni. It works well. I've never had even the slightest criticism of how it drives. Compared to Uber, it costs more but never drives on the sidewalk and doesn't operate a Prius with 900,000 miles on the odometer and no windshield wipers.

For the free rides they've been doing in LA, they still tell you what it would normally cost. It's usually been within a couple bucks of Uber/Lyft, but Waymo doesn't ask you to tip.

It works pretty well. Sometimes it makes nonoptimal choices for where to drop off, but I can't say that it's worse than humans at making those decisions.

The screens in the car showing it's view of the environment are super impressive. It often sees pedestrians before I do, and it has some really cool features like warning you about relevant traffic when you get out of the car (not generic warnings but detailed info like "there's a scooter passing on the left" when you unlock the doors).

Some minor annoyances: storage space isn't great. I don't think the frunk is user accessible. Driver's seat isn't usable.

Ranges from slightly cheaper to a lot more than uber (usually about equal or slightly cheaper if you count tip)

Pickup time is significantly more, especially if you are trying to get picked up in the west of the city

Let’s solve our societal car problem with more cars.

This is fantastic news. Waymo is great and the best road companion I've had.

So, will these be geofenced to a small area, or turned loose on the whole Southland? If it’s the latter, I’m genuinely impressed: LA’s roads and freeways have a florid variety of edge cases unlike anywhere else.

Is this the only approval they need? I guess they will need to build some facilities in various places. Maybe they can start right away with the facilities they already have in Mountain View?

I'm in the new service area, and look forward to this being available.

Do you have to have a Google account?

Do you have to accept the Google Play Store?

You do need a Google account. I'm on iOS so don't have a Google play store though.

No thanks — driving in LA is dangerous enough.

Thanks to Waymo, it will beocome a little bite safer.

Having spent years driving there and the complexity/lackadaisical traffic patterns and enforcement — I quite doubt it. I'd expect them to have their own Cruise moment.

So Google is betting the farm on this right?

Can't wait until they expand to europe

I foresee protests and lots of regulations/special taxes with driverless taxis coming to Europe.

Does anyone know/have a hunch which European cities are most likely to get these cars first?

Probably cities with good road infrastructure

This is awesome. I think I'd honestly prefer a Waymo from Los Angeles to San Diego over a flight through LAX!

Waymo is absolutely fantastic. I’ve used it two dozen times and it feels really safe and competent.

I think they should go to Las Vegas next. They would fit in nicely with the LV experience.

How long will it take for this to go into effect?

What kind of car is the Waymo underneath?

Jaguar I-PACE

Surprised they would go with a luxury car

Money is not the object here.

It’s a Ford.

Just what LA needs, more traffic.

im beginning to see them in my neighborhood i feel unsafe around them tbh

As a resident, I don’t support this at all.

Waymos are annoying to have on the road - they go extremely slowly (with good reason) and make weird traffic moves.

Do we want our roads getting clogged up with super slow taxis that steal jobs from ordinary people and give them to the tech industry?

I regularly drive on roads with driverless Waymo cars and they're fine, at least where I live in San Francisco. They do drive the speed limit and, as compared to other drivers, they don't take the same sorts of chances that I see typically taken... which I appreciate. The only discomfort I have with them when I'm in a driving situation (as a driver) is that I find comfort in seeing the other drivers around me see me: if I make eye contact with someone I can hope there is awareness of my presence. That might not be a completely rational thing to get comfortable with... that person may have seen you or seen right through you... but it does ease my emotional tension right or wrong. Natrually, with a Waymo, that can't happen.

But all in all I've not had a problem with them doing anything unexpected or strange when I encounter them on the road. My couple rides in a Waymo at this point over the past several weeks have been great.

Needless to say, I wholeheartedly support their presence on the road and am glad to hear the program is expanding.

This is a complicated comment.

Do they really drive that slow... Or just, like, the speed limit? Or generally safe(r) driving speeds? All things equal, slower is safer!

Why would roads be anymore clogged than they are already? Because transportation becomes cheaper? So should we jack up fuel prices or insurance prices so there are fewer cars on the road? Real questions.

And onto the "stealing jobs" comment... Under this ethos, why would anyone automate any task?

> Do they really drive that slow... Or just, like, the speed limit? Or generally safe(r) driving speeds? All things equal, slower is safer!

So i have no idea about Waymo, but man i can only imagine how much drivers will rage over them the more of them there are. God knows they'll go the speed limit, and so many drivers absolutely loathe that.

As it is, i drive 5 over just to reduce the insanity of people passing/etc. Which, i still get aggressively passed quite a bit, but that 5mph matters. I'm used to drivers going ~10-15mph over the limit, and every mph under +10 is a significant problem for them.

I look forward to these on that point alone. The more cars there are on the road normalizing ideal speeds (whatever they may be) the better. People are far too aggressive on the road in my experience. At least as a WA native.

As a nitpick that I'm sure varies from state to state... All things can't be equal if you're going slower than the rest of traffic since by definition there's a speed differential relative to the vehicles around you. In drivers-ed in California for example the advice from the dmv is actually to go the speed limit /or/ keep with the flow of traffic. If everyone around you is doing 80 in a 65 zone then you should still speed up at least a little or move into a lane where the flow of traffic is slower. Automated vehicles interestingly are an odd case because no company is going to tell their vehicles to break the law even if social norms encourage otherwise.

I expect it'll help - though. Ie reduce the average, making more lanes of traffic safer by body blocking the speeders.

Though, I do expect there to be an initial surge of aggression when people are forced to reduce their speeds by 15mph.

they drive conservatively but at reasonable speeds

Not at all my experience and I get a ton of value out of Waymos.

> steal jobs from ordinary people and give them to the tech industry

technological progress is good, it is good to reallocate people's talent if we no longer need drivers

That’s not how humans actually work. Driving is one of the last big job sources for millions of Americans and when it disappears there will be many people out of work. Expect more homeless and drug use when people have difficulty transitioning in a post driver world.

It is not a good thing to employ a bunch of people in pointless jobs just because we don't have anything else for them to do. That's not labor, that's toil.

Were you also against the introduction of the plough?

Driving the speed limit is a feature not a bug - and crucially all of the Uber drivers I've had in SF drive terribly. It's like I'm in Mario Kart.

We should be excited about not having humans drive and automating them out of this task they clearly don't want to do.

They’re much safer, and tech has already stolen from drivers (via 50% cuts). Yes, we do want safer transportation. Evolving as a society is important.

NIMBYs don't want progress if it makes their lives more difficult, even if it's only in their mind.

Show me indenpendant research that they are safer. I can’t find any.

Waymo worked with Swiss Re a reinsurer to evaluate the data. I think they have a paper that is going through peer review.

https://waymo.com/blog/2023/09/waymos-autonomous-vehicles-ar...

If they were less safe than human drivers, one would there would be more accidents where Waymo was at fault than another party.

Having personally gone through several years of AV collisions reports to California a few months back, that wasn't the case. Indeed, in most of the small number of cases where Waymo was at fault, there was human driver in control of the vehicle.

The were a four cases where the Waymo was at fault. One hit a chain strung across parking lot. There was a minor collision with a parked car. One ran over and killed a dog. One hit a vehicle while trying to reverse.

There were dozens where the other party was at fault (lots of rear ends).

They have been submitting data to the DMV for some time. Do you believe they are falsifying their data?

>> Do we want our roads getting clogged up with super slow taxis

Can't we just pass some laws that require Waymos to drive above the speed limit at all times, like normal drivers?

Or, we could recognize how farcicle it all is, and abolish the limits and make them guidelines, with tickets still being given for being reckless. If we're all safely doing 79 mph anyway, because it's not the 1950's and technology has advanced, just let us do that without risking a ticket.

Speed limits in a school zone should be 15 mph, but we care more that the children are safe than some number. If we have robots that are able to react inhumanly fast and are proven to be able to stop and not run people over, then they should be able to go at whatever speed that has them not running people over.

> Can't we just pass some laws that require Waymos to drive above the speed limit at all times

A law that sets the legal maximum speed as also the legal "must not meet or fall below" speed.

I dunno, seems problematic.

How about this: Since they are statistically better than average drivers, we study the results of sending them around town 10% faster than the speed limit.

It's well known that speed differences on the road are a major cause of safety problems, so unless you are going to have segregated self-driving corridors, having them operate at a higher speed than other traffic is dangerous even if the speed would be safe for them if the other traffic was also self-driving at similar speeds and safe for the non-self-driving traffic if the other traffic was non-self-driving at the lower speed.

Please be irony.

I don’t think our speed limits are universally set to be obeyed. If they were set at 25 with the expectation of 30 to 35, it does make sense to acknowledge that if autonomous vehicles will actually do 25.

While we're at it, do we really want our textile mills getting clogged up with dangerous mechanized looms that steal jobs from ordinary people and give them to the capitalists?

Yes.

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