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Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

sfchronicle.com

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Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#2
Cool. Can I take one without my identity and travel patterns being tracked? Like, suppose I want to get picked up from work and dropped off at my girlfriend's house in San Mateo. Something I might not want my soon-to-be-ex's lawyer to be able to subpoena. There's one of those machines onboard that are all over the place in supermarkets where I can feed bills right?

Or maybe not. Okay then, Luxor Cab it is. Cheaper, better conversation, more aggressive about squeezing through traffic, and doesn't violate my privacy.

I'm not against automated taxi services in principle. I'm just not interested if it's a package deal where I have to surrender my physical comings and goings to a scummy data broker like Google.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#4

Cool. Can I take one without my identity and travel patterns being tracked? Like, suppose I want to get picked up from work and dropped off at my girlfriend's house in San Mateo. Something I might not want my soon-to-be-ex's lawyer to be able to subpoena. There's one of those machines onboard that are all over the place in supermarkets where I can feed bills right? Or maybe not. Okay then, Luxor Cab it is. Cheaper, b…

Obviously you do surrender all of your travel privacy to the data broker. That's why they are making self-driving cars in the first place. But you're already doing all of that by carrying an Android phone.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#6

Cool. Can I take one without my identity and travel patterns being tracked? Like, suppose I want to get picked up from work and dropped off at my girlfriend's house in San Mateo. Something I might not want my soon-to-be-ex's lawyer to be able to subpoena. There's one of those machines onboard that are all over the place in supermarkets where I can feed bills right? Or maybe not. Okay then, Luxor Cab it is. Cheaper, b…

[deleted]

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#7
We recently started using Waymo more often:

- Quality of Lyft and Uber rides have gone down significantly.

- Consistently spacious, clean and quiet cars. You know what you'll get.

- AC always works and not up to the whim of the driver.

- No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby.

Negatives:

- Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber.

- Pick up and drop off tend to be a small walk from requested locations.

Forgot one more positive - you can choose a soothing music play list in the car and it automatically resumes in the next ride. Small but really nice detail when traveling with a baby.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#8
post #4

Cool. Can I take one without my identity and travel patterns being tracked? Like, suppose I want to get picked up from work and dropped off at my girlfriend's house in San Mateo. Something I might not want my soon-to-be-ex's lawyer to be able to subpoena. There's one of those machines onboard that are all over the place in supermarkets where I can feed bills right? Or maybe not. Okay then, Luxor Cab it is. Cheaper, b…

Obviously you do surrender all of your travel privacy to the data broker. That's why they are making self-driving cars in the first place. But you're already doing all of that by carrying an Android phone.

Strange this is downvoted no ?

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#9
post #7

We recently started using Waymo more often: - Quality of Lyft and Uber rides have gone down significantly. - Consistently spacious, clean and quiet cars. You know what you'll get. - AC always works and not up to the whim of the driver. - No chatty driver to disturb our sleeping baby. Negatives: - Rides have usually 10% mark up over Lyft and Uber. - Pick up and drop off tend to be a small walk from requested locations…

do you have to tip the 'driver'? jokes aside, i would be happy to take them once the expand to SFO region so i can have a consistent experience.

Re: Self-driving Waymos secure final clearance for expansion beyond S.F

#10
post #5

I'm still surprised that they, and most of their competitors, chose to start off in such difficult to navigate regions. I would have started off in a retirement community or the like.

They kinda did that - they were operating in the suburbs around Phoenix AZ for years before launching in SF.

Not operating in difficult areas would slow them down because progress in this domain is bound by the breadth of edge cases encountered in the wild.

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