> But even the most bullish believers in autonomous transportation acknowledge the tech still has a ways to go before it’s reliable enough for widespread deployment on U.S. roads.
I will give tempe/scottsdale credit though - they have their roads around the major tourist hubs in GREAT shape - the lines crisp and the lights bright and new - I think it makes it much easier for a waymo to get around.
Waymos drive fairly fast and aggressively in rush hour traffic too, which is why I enjoy sharing the road with them. I was initially worried they'd drive like a grandma but that hasn't been the case. Also as a cyclist I enjoy riding near them because they know I'm there and they give you enough space in the bike lane.
That's why they've done winter testing in Tahoe (since 2017) and Buffalo NY (last winter).
It is also funny to watch them get stuck behind busses, having followed too close to safely go around them when the bus stops to pickup/dropoff.
Also Ive seen multiple instances of them trying to turn left on red and pull far enough into an intersection to cause issues.
Finally when I am on my skateboard they dont seem to recognize me as they drive very very close and fast, though I havent felt risky enough to really test this.
The hard thing is that every other human car acts randomly because they don't say, have winter tires, and unlike waymo, don't have the very quick control loop.
They seem to undercut Uber and Lyft by a hair. Given the longer wait times, and lack of a need to tip, that seems fair. (In San Francisco, they undercut by a wider margin. But human ride shares are more expensive there for a variety of reasons.)
Hmm, I used them this weekend and was comparing pricing. Waymo was cheaper. That said, I wasn’t riding during peak traffic. And in peak traffic, I’d vastly prefer a Waymo. So I get the premium pricing.
Waymo is a real business serving 50,000 rides each week delivering paying customers to their destination. If you haven't tried it yet, the product is amazing. Private, doesn't cancel, safe, and smooth. I will never take Uber again if I have the choice.
How much money is Waymo bleeding every quarter? Maybe the investors don’t care, but it’s relevant if you want to call it a real business.
The biggest (only?) complaint I had is that it would not pickup/dropoff at the curb at our hotel. So if it was raining, we'd have had to walk out in the rain to meet the car in a parking spot.
I can’t see trusting that a robot sees me, otherwise I guess I’m just giving deference to them now?
At least with humans I can see if they are distracted, I can yell at them to get attention, perhaps others. With a robot taxi, I can’t tell anything about it, and I’m a software dev so I absolutely don’t trust anything running software made by a corporation in search of profits, or any other software really, to operate a car in open roads. Not yet at least, maybe in a few decades.
“In 2022, 13,524 people died in alcohol-impaired driving traffic deaths.”
Source nhtsa.gov
You’re gonna briefly glimpse a passed out drunk driver before it plows through you at 40 mph
your reading comprehension sucks
"With a human I can look at their face to see that they see me."
The real business is an entire transit system, with purpose-built vehicles of various sizes, centralized routing, etc.