Does this mean the self-driving cars are finally here? Where next?
Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
21–30 of 651 posts
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#22Living here for the last 10 years, it's been jarring how just in the last few years, driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" The Waymos are genuinely good drivers. I look forward to taking them every time.
> driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" That's still far away, these are not driverless cars, there is always a driver monitoring, but they monitor not one but many cars, ready to take over.
Highly recommend people read how Waymo's fleet response works before throwing out phrases like "remote drivers take over cars": https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response/
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#23Living here for the last 10 years, it's been jarring how just in the last few years, driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" The Waymos are genuinely good drivers. I look forward to taking them every time.
> driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" That's still far away, these are not driverless cars, there is always a driver monitoring, but they monitor not one but many cars, ready to take over.
Where did you get this information? There are definitely people ready to respond to any requests from the car or passenger when they come up, but I've never read anything to indicate that each ride is actively monitored by a person.
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#24I highly recommend everyone try it out if you're in SF. It's an incredibly smooth and sure ride. The cars are really nice too (Jaguar I-Pace electric cars), clean and spacious. The first time you ride in one, it feels truly sci-fi. But within 5 minutes, you're almost bored of it - that's how good it is. If I had to choose between an Uber of questionable cleanliness and driver temperament and a Waymo with a slightly l…
Another comment, another thread mentioned that Waymo requires more walking than an equivalent Uber ride - to the pickup location, from the drop-off location. Anyone know why this might be true?
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I haven't taken a ride in one of those yet, what does it feel like? Like grandma driving. In a good way. Less jerky motion, cars don’t smell bad, less motion sickness while looking at your phone.
Ubers don't smell bad until someone shits or pukes in one. I can't imagine these will be any different...
How do you they stop you from trashing these? Or getting into one that isn't clean?
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#26I haven't taken a ride in one of those yet, what does it feel like?
> I haven't taken a ride in one of those yet, what does it feel like? Like grandma driving. In a good way. Less jerky motion, cars don’t smell bad, less motion sickness while looking at your phone.
so "Driven by Ms. Daisy"
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#27I'm always struct by how much more slowly driverless cars has been deployed than what I expected when the first won the darpa grand challenge. I guess I understand the need for caution. By the time this goes nationwide, I expect it will be pretty damned solid.
The need for caution is one reason, but the other reason is the huge capital expenses which are needed to deploy a fleet of cars in a major city.
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#28Does this mean the self-driving cars are finally here? Where next?
London hopefully. Maybe one day soon I can get rid of my car.
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#29I highly recommend everyone try it out if you're in SF. It's an incredibly smooth and sure ride. The cars are really nice too (Jaguar I-Pace electric cars), clean and spacious. The first time you ride in one, it feels truly sci-fi. But within 5 minutes, you're almost bored of it - that's how good it is. If I had to choose between an Uber of questionable cleanliness and driver temperament and a Waymo with a slightly l…
Another comment, another thread mentioned that Waymo requires more walking than an equivalent Uber ride - to the pickup location, from the drop-off location. Anyone know why this might be true?
I'll hazard a guess: because Uber drivers are sometimes willing to stop for a minute in an illegal spot to park to do a quick pick up or drop off, and Waymos are never willing to do that (presumably).
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#30Living here for the last 10 years, it's been jarring how just in the last few years, driverless taxis went from "it'll never happen" to "is this the default now?" The Waymos are genuinely good drivers. I look forward to taking them every time.
I don’t look forward to taking them and choose other drivers, mostly because the price and wait time dynamics are a little funny, but I am glad I did take a ride or two. They’re much better drivers in the sense of “not interested in pushing any limits.” They navigated around a parked truck effectively, queueing and waiting their turn to go into the opposing lane behind some other cars. The perception display of surrounding people and cars was very comforting. My only moment of fear was a sudden stop because a wrong-way bicyclist had lurched out into traffic — that’d happen with any driver, unless we hit the guy. Yeah, I guess you can cone them, they’re that conservative of drivers.
It’s clear that they’re not the cars for me to worry about out there on a bike / on foot / etc.