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Comment by shreezus | Hacker News Reader

I have been riding Waymo around LA for over a year with no issues. To me, it's just an Uber with an invisible driver, and more predictable experience.

Riding it is now a mundane experience, and that's a marvel in itself. Every time I'm forced to get an Uber in another city (or do airport rides as Waymo doesn't do pickups/dropoffs in LAX yet), I feel like I went 5 years back in time.

My Tesla has FSD and that has gotten progressively better the last few updates, however Waymo still feels ahead. I can truly "relax" in a Waymo, where FSD still makes me uneasy at times, like I'm supervising a teenage driver.

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It's been a consistently excellent experience for me in both SF and LA.

The cars are well maintained and clean inside and out.

They are very careful and considerate drivers.

They navigate complex and ambiguous situations with unprotected turns, pedestrians, bicyclists, double-parked cars, construction zones and narrow streets.

They're better than Uber in every respect.

And I dare say I think they're now a safer and more capable driver than I am, at least within their designated operating territories.

I heard Tesla has no real FSD. Just a broken prototype with customers used as Guinea pigs.

I wonder how much of that uneasiness comes from (the collective) you ceding control to the car vs being a passive passenger in a Waymo.

I've been taking Waymo in LA for about half a year now, and I love it and it's a great party trick (always pick up my dates in one lmao), but a handful of times it's (a) accidentally blocked traffic and gotten incessantly honked at (kind of hilarious considering there's no driver), and (b) went the wrong way on a one-way back alley and got stuck when a lady was going the opposite direction lol. Again, kinda funny when she started honking, got out of the car, and realized there's no driver. In the latter case, we actually had support call us in the car.

I think if there's something weird/bad going on, someone manually takes over (but not sure if that's confirmed or not). Still a cool experience, but the real world is a lot more complicated than it first seems.

Even with all that, it definitely feels like the future.

> I think if there's something weird/bad going on, someone manually takes over (but not sure if that's confirmed or not).

Remote agents give the cars "advice" or label objects, but the car is free to not believe them. There's no actual remote control.

If the advice is not enough, roadside assistance goes and drives the car manually.

> a handful of times it's (a) accidentally blocked traffic and gotten incessantly honked at (kind of hilarious considering there's no driver)

Interesting. Are you sure they aren't honking at you? I think your framing might be right but I'm not totally sure

It was right as we were getting picked up, the Waymo was kind of weirdly diagonally positioned, they were 100% honking at it hah.

I love that so much

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