How much do these cost? Is it cheaper then uber/lyft, taxis? Muni? That would be pretty crazy
Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
31–40 of 651 posts
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#32Do these need a significant amount of local infrastructure (parking, charging, etc) specific to Waymo that would make them moving into a new city (Austin is next) a big investment? Like will there need to be a big Waymo fleet center/office built in each city?
I'm not sure if these park and someone plugs them in or what, who maintains the actual Jaguars, etc.
Can't wait to never have to drive a car again.
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#33I 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…
Wouldn't the Ubers potentially be cleaner? Who's cleaning the Waymo between rides?
Potentially. But, with each driver exercising quality control over their own vehicles, the actual result will likely vary from hitting as good or better a standard to being worse. The Waymo standards, thus far, are pretty high, so I would expect on average Uber/Lyft/Etc. would fair worse on average.
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Search for "driver monitoring system". As soon as there is something unexpected there is an actual driver taking care of it. Also the reason why it's not level 5, but stuck at level 4 self driving.
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
They do have cameras pointed inwards, so passengers are monitored and I'm sure the remote operators can see car condition as well.
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't the Ubers potentially be cleaner? Who's cleaning the Waymo between rides?
Potentially. But, with each driver exercising quality control over their own vehicles, the actual result will likely vary from hitting as good or better a standard to being worse. The Waymo standards, thus far, are pretty high, so I would expect on average Uber/Lyft/Etc. would fair worse on average.
I have no doubt that Google is waiting for more adoption before starting to cut costs everywhere and before you know it your puked out ride will direct you to www.waymo.hr/help to find an article which resolves your issue
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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/
There is someone to take over as soon as the car encounters something it cannot handle. It's not self driving. By definition it's not driverless, there is always a driver assigned who will take care of it if needed. One of the reason they cannot scale beyond small areas.
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#38The app is not available in my region (EU). But I visit SF from time to time. What should I do?
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
Last night a waymo dropped me off near the giants game. Presumably somewhere you aren’t meant to stop as I heard a security guard on loudspeaker asking “the car with the display on top” to move along as I was walking away, but the car wouldn’t move as there was still relatively fast traffic moving past it.
I’ve had to walk a few times near steep hills, I was wondering if partly it was due to the angle of approach and the sensor view being blocked so they avoid the area?
Re: Waymo One is now open to everyone in San Francisco
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Search for "driver monitoring system". As soon as there is something unexpected there is an actual driver taking care of it. Also the reason why it's not level 5, but stuck at level 4 self driving.
That's not "always a driver monitoring". They're not actively monitoring all of them all of the time, they're responding to requests from the car.
And they're not drivers, they're supervisors. They don't take over driving, AFAICT they issue high-level commands like "safe to proceed", "take the right lane", et cetera.