> And no one knows what the heck Google / Waymo is doing. All we know is that its working, today, in Phoenix Arizona, where anyone can use Google / Waymo's taxi

> And no one knows what the heck Google / Waymo is doing. All we know is that its working, today, in Phoenix Arizona, where anyone can use Google / Waymo's taxi service TODAY. This is false. There are, to the best of anyone's knowledge, a handful of people in the Waymo One program (I'm fairly confident it's less than 10). Everyone in the Early Rider program is still under NDA. In order to be accepted to either, you have to apply. The application process being open to the public does not mean the service is public, anymore than the application process to Google being public means anyone can work at Google. As to regards to how well it's working...they are definitely in the lead, and they do really have cars driving around, but all of them are still with safety drivers. Until they pull the safety drivers you can't really call them driverless and it shows a lack of faith in their product because it's not ready yet to actually be driverless. Waymo lost their goodwill when they said they'd have the service you mentioned in 2018, basically pulled a bullshit PR event in order to "fulfill" their promise. It's pretty obvious though it was just so whoever was in charge could get some bonus attached to the timeline, very similar to how Google seems to launch products already - they do it so people can get promoted and then all the important people leave before the product is useful to anyone. It's no secret that almost the entire original team has already left and most of them have started competing against Waymo, so it seems they are confident they can take on Waymo and win - and they'd know better than anyone because they built Waymo. And Waymo has since gone silent on when they'll expand their program, or pull the driver from the car, or pretty much anything. I agree it's a good idea for them to play their cards close to their chest, but compared to their past posturing that's a sign that it's not around the corner.