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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

#31

Post by tanvach »

firloop wrote: post #18
tanvach wrote: 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…

A rarely discussed negative to Waymo is that they drive slower than human drivers. Anecdotally they can be 10-25% slower than the rest of traffic, and it's not uncommon to see human drivers do unsafe moves to pass a Waymo.

That's quite true, but still surprisingly human like to me when compared to, say, Tesla FSD. It will also take longer to call one due to less supply.

If we want nice, relaxing ride with no time pressure then we call a Waymo. Uber is still our go to if we are in a rush.

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

#32

Post by Karrot_Kream »

athoun wrote: post #26

In my experience Waymo has been much worse compared to Lyft/Uber for longer rides. A big problem with Waymo in its current state is how its routes are terribly inefficient. It purposely avoids freeways and higher speed roads, opting to take more inefficient routes without regards to the number of stop signs, hills, and other factors which will inevitably lead to a longer travel time. It's almost like it's using a wor…

I get around by bike, foot, transit, and car in that order and have mostly lost my ability to not get motion sick in a car when I'm not driving. I prefer taking Waymos any time I'm not in a hurry in SF, but usually traffic is bad enough during the hours I take it that it's not a huge factor anyway and if you can get a MUNI that's close to your start and end points, it's significantly faster. Rideshare and taxi drivers in most of SF are constantly changing lanes, cutting off pedestrians, or speeding from light to light to try and make up the extra 10-15% time lost that Waymo eats and can make for an unpleasant experience for me, but yes if I'm in a hurry I do prefer a human driver.

(There's a slight component where as primarily a cyclist I feel that Waymos are much nicer to cyclists than human drivers are and it gives me affinity to Waymos that I don't feel for human drivers in the city.)

I find Waymo the most useful to take after a concert far from a MUNI stop because usually surge pricing makes Lyft and Uber really expensive and I'm usually tired enough to not want to walk to a stop or it's late enough that MUNI headways are far apart.

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

#33

Post by BurningFrog »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #19
tanvach wrote: 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…

I'm curious why they can't pick up and drop off at exact locations, as long as the location is in their operating boundaries.

When an Uber is near people wave to it, and the driver can stop where they are.

The Waymos probably don't have that kind of social skills.

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

#34

Post by whiplash451 »

ortusdux wrote: 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.

You need to work on the real problem head-on. « Solving » retirement zones might lead to a tech stack that is totally unfit to dense areas.

Also, the risk aversion of people in retirement zones does not make it a great target customer base.

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

#35

Post by tanvach »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #16

Waymos are fantastic, I actually look forward to riding them every time. It's a quiet, peaceful space where you can relax for a bit on the way to your destination. Haven't had any issues with them except for one time where the car was super hot on the inside for whatever reason and the AC was not working.

Same! It's funny how I actually look forward to get into a ride. I've been so used to a crappy experience in Lyft/Uber.

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

#36

Post by joecasson »

steelframe wrote: post #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, b…

How would you design that system?

I can't imagine a self-driving car request via an app could be accomplished without _someone_ knowing / tracking your travel patterns. You can't do cash transactions because that would be rife for smash-n-grabs from others.

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

#37

Post by standardUser »

athoun wrote: post #26

In my experience Waymo has been much worse compared to Lyft/Uber for longer rides. A big problem with Waymo in its current state is how its routes are terribly inefficient. It purposely avoids freeways and higher speed roads, opting to take more inefficient routes without regards to the number of stop signs, hills, and other factors which will inevitably lead to a longer travel time. It's almost like it's using a wor…

Does it do a decent job of estimating the ride time?

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

#38

Post by quqalx »

astrange wrote: post #28
qlaotht wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Pretending they're being tracked and that people are making money from it makes them feel important, more like. You aren't actually that valuable.

It isn't actually a secret:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/04/smile-you...

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

#39

Post by Karrot_Kream »

firloop wrote: post #18
tanvach wrote: 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…

A rarely discussed negative to Waymo is that they drive slower than human drivers. Anecdotally they can be 10-25% slower than the rest of traffic, and it's not uncommon to see human drivers do unsafe moves to pass a Waymo.

Honestly as a cyclist who takes Waymo, all the Waymos I've seen are much nicer to cyclists than any human driver. Most human drivers in SF either buzz past the 3 ft legal limit going 15 mph over (good luck when their mirror taps you at 40 mph) to try and overtake the cyclist or they'll just edge the cyclist out any time there's space to merge into the lane. Waymos usually give cyclists the whole lane comfortably and take time to merge out properly.

(I've read comments that if you're on a skateboard this isn't true but I've never used a skateboard in SF so I don't know much about the experience.)

Sometimes I wish I could load my bike into a Waymo. I hit a flat yesterday and left my replacement tube at home and it would have been so much nicer if I could have loaded my bike into the car and gotten a ride home.

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

#40

Post by tanvach »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #19
tanvach wrote: 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…

I'm curious why they can't pick up and drop off at exact locations, as long as the location is in their operating boundaries.

The app forces you to pick locations that the car can park safely (no double parking) that's closest to the requested locations. They can be 1-2 minutes walk.

Not a big deal for us to be honest, except when going to the theaters in SF, where the car can stop a block away in sketchy Tenderloin.

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