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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

#91

Post by JumpCrisscross »

vineyardmike wrote: post #51
perfectstorm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’d love to take it to the airport, but I imagine it’ll be a mess trying to pull up and park at departures. It’s already incredibly chaotic with the way humans are, and I don’t expect they’ll even pretend to extend any curtesy to a robot. Maybe I’m wrong though? I think they go to the airport in phoenix, I just haven’t heard any reports on the experience.

> it’ll be a mess trying to pull up and park at departures

I’ve taken it to and from the airport at Phoenix. Pick-up was an in-airport light-rail station to the first stop. Drop-off was right to the curb late night.

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

#92

Post by crazygringo »

wanderingstan wrote: post #20
TigeriusKirk wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my experience they are very strict about finding a “safe” place to pick up and drop off, which often means turning onto a small side street or looking for a gap in parked cars. They won’t block traffic like a Lyft/Uber driver might.

> They won’t block traffic like a Lyft/Uber driver might.

Wow, then I don't know how they'd ever expand to NYC.

In most areas there's no such thing as a "safe place" that doesn't block traffic.

If there are sides of the road that aren't traffic (or bicycle) lanes, then they're taken up by parking.

Taxis, Ubers, delivery trucks -- literally everything just stops in the street (or bicycle lane) and traffic temporarily goes around it.

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

#93

Post by thesandlord »

acchow wrote: post #90
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…

Does that 10% markup account for the Uber/lyft driver tip?

In my experience, after tip Lyft/Uber are more expensive. The exception is during surges when Waymo's price shoots up like crazy.

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

#94

Post by Alupis »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #88
Alupis wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By this logic public transportation should be the cleanest of them all. But, it is unfortunately far from that.

> public transportation should be the cleanest of them all Privately operated public transport ( e.g. jitneys and ferries) frequently are when positioned at a premium, as Waymo is.

This is counter to my personal experiences - but I'm certain it does depend on location/region.

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

#95

Post by worstspotgain »

Some curiosities from seeing them on the road a lot. You can tell it's them even when you can't see the extra protuberances:

- They take extended stops at stop signs, around 3-4 seconds.

- They have extra-bright headlights and brake lights.

- When waiting for a ride, they pull up next to parks and parking lots to avoid bothering residents. Their brake lights are on the whole time. If demand is low, they'll hang out in batches of 2-4. If a block has a hazy red hue at night, you know you've found a Waymo nest.

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

#96

Post by akira2501 »

alooPotato wrote: post #86
akira2501 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The metric will be "cost of time spent cleaning" / "cost of sending out a dirty car." If this ratio is > 1 the "recommended cleaning schedule" will be the lowest priority item in the entire fleet.

The cost of cleaning goes way down when you do it in bulk at a service center rather than individual lyft/uber drivers trying to do it. A standardized car also helps.

If you can incorporate the cost of large horizontal demand spikes into the off hours and you can find cheap enough labor to fill it, perhaps.

The time spent travelling out of service, in cleaning, and back into service are all lost opportunities. Hopefully you can clean a very large number of cars in a very short period of time.

The cars may be standard. The messes, obviously, will not be.

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

#97

Post by lern_too_spel »

laluser wrote: post #84
paxys wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience prices for Waymo are at least double that of an equivalent Lyft/Uber ride and wait times are usually 20+ minutes. It is a great novelty but nowhere near where it needs to be to handle real scale.

This won’t last long. Waymo has a treasure chest waiting to be deployed as soon as they start expanding more.

It will be more profitable for them to deploy cars to new cities at a premium than to deploy them to existing cities to capture more of those cities' markets. We won't see affordable driverless taxi service for many years unless competition appears. After Uber and Cruise imploded, I don't have much hope for that.

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

#98

Post by ssl-3 »

fhub wrote: post #77
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…

> You can choose a soothing music play list in the car and it automatically resumes in the next ride Oh wow! There is a non zero chance that was implemented because of some feedback I provided as a trusted tester many months ago. I napped my son in them a lot when they were free and just spent my time thinking up things they should do and reporting them in app.

Man. My daughter's head would sometimes detach from her body and fly around the room by itself.

Strapping her down in a car seat and taking her for a drive usually rectified the situation.

I look forward to a future where this process can become more automated.

(/s, sorta)

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

#99

Post by semi-extrinsic »

tanvach wrote: post #24
ndesaulniers wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You take ride share with a baby? How does that work, with regards to car seats?

We take an infant car seat and use the European belt routing (or if that fails due to short belts in American cars, American belt routing) to secure to the back seat.

WTF belt routing? Don't you guys have Isofix over there?

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

#100

Post by primedteam »

RJIb8RBYxzAMX9u wrote: post #46
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…

> - Consistently [...] clean [...] I don't expect this to hold true once Waymo become generally available, alas.

They have some rider rules around keeping the car clean (screenshot link below). I'm not sure if they are enforced to this level but they do have at least one camera in the car (above the middle rear seat).

https://i.imgur.com/vCRvWOc.jpeg

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