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California Approves Waymo Expansion to Los Angeles and SF Peninsula [pdf]
- robterrell 3y agoI've seen Waymos on the 280 between San Jose and SF countless times over the past year. I guess those were not operational rides, just tests?
- whimsicalism 3y agoyes or perhaps returning home? i have frequently wanted to go to south bay, it doesn't even let you go to the airport
- npinsker 3y agoWaymo employees can use the cars in a larger area, though most of those are likely tests.
- cdme 3y agoNo thanks — driving in LA is dangerous enough.
- konschubert 3y agoThanks to Waymo, it will beocome a little bite safer.
- cdme 3y agoHaving spent years driving there and the complexity/lackadaisical traffic patterns and enforcement — I quite doubt it. I'd expect them to have their own Cruise moment.
- ra7 3y agoNew Waymo operating area: https://twitter.com/saferroadsorg/status/1763687210447196417 https://twitter.com/saferroadsorg/status/1763687210447196417
- Kronopath 3y agoDoes this mean they can go on the highways? If so that’s a significant upgrade to the Waymo service in the SF Bay Area, as it can now take you between towns.
- dekhn 3y agoI've already seen self-driving waymos on freeways (as they are called here) within SF.
- ra7 3y agoThey’ve always had approval to go up to 65 mph, but it was Waymo’s decision not to go on the highways. They’re starting to do it [1] and do a lot of freeway testing, so it might happen sooner. [1] https://waymo.com/blog/2024/01/from-surface-streets-to-freeways-safely-expanding-our-rider-only-testing/ https://waymo.com/blog/2024/01/from-surface-streets-to-freew...
- SeanAnderson 3y agoStill no Oakland :( Hopefully that's next.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- whimsicalism 3y agowhen does this roll out?
- ra7 3y agoApproval is effective immediately, but no idea when Waymo will deploy vehicles in those areas. Their fleet size is small (~700 cars).
- superkuh 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- renewiltord 3y agoThis is fantastic news. Waymo is great and the best road companion I've had.
- afhjafh3883 3y agoHas anyone tried it recently? Does it work well? How does the price compare to Uber?
- jeffbee 3y agoI take them in SF regularly, for trips that aren't well-served by Muni. It works well. I've never had even the slightest criticism of how it drives. Compared to Uber, it costs more but never drives on the sidewalk and doesn't operate a Prius with 900,000 miles on the odometer and no windshield wipers.
- milesskorpen 3y agoMy impression, using it ~1x/week in SF: Slightly more expensive than uber (+10%?). Takes a bit longer to show up (+25%?). Utterly magical experience.
- whimsicalism 3y agowhere I live, show up time is usually around 7-20 minutes compared to around 2-4 for Uber. in the west of the city, it is more commonly ~15-20
- Kronopath 3y agoIn SF, up-front prices have been comparable to Uber’s, except that you don’t have to pay tip, which automatically makes it 15–20% cheaper. The few times I’ve tried it, the service has been good and its driving was safe. The only downside is that there seems to sometimes be longer wait times.
- bossyTeacher 3y agoIn europe, you don't pay tips to uber drivers. Surely, if the tip is compulsory, it should be called a service fee
- whimsicalism 3y agoit's not compulsory and culture is different in US
- austinkhale 3y agoFantastic news. I use them all the time in Phoenix. My mom uses them to get to her doctor appointments. I think people underestimate how much of a quality of life improvement these are for people even when compared to Uber/Lyft.
- jseliger 3y agoI use Waymo all the time in Phoenix and Scottsdale too, and it's great.
- afhjafh3883 3y agoDumb question but does it have a person monitoring in the driver seat? Or are you the only one in the car?
- bigmadshoe 3y agoYou’re the only one in the car.
- tempest_ 3y ago> people underestimate how much of a quality of life improvement these are for people even when compared to Uber/Lyft I do underestimate it. What are quality of life improvements? Seems to be the same thing from a customer perspective. I guess if you are concerned for your safety from the uber driver it is an improvement but it is the only one that comes to mind.
- simplicitea 3y agoI was about to ask the same thing; I have a hard time seeing the ways it ends up a net gain when driving is still a decent job for a lot of people, and rideshare drivers keep to themselves anyways
- ilaksh 3y agoYou might find it easier to understand if you had lost a friend or loved-one in a car accident. Society will have to adapt to the advancements in AI and robotics. The status quo is not a good option because (globally) cars cause over a million fatalities each year and over 20 million injuries. Driving, riding, or walking near vehicles is one of the most dangerous activities in modern life. An extremely high percentage of deaths and injuries will be prevented as self-driving cars are deployed, since almost all accidents are due to human error.
- clay_the_ripper 3y agoAs a resident, I don’t support this at all. Waymos are annoying to have on the road - they go extremely slowly (with good reason) and make weird traffic moves. Do we want our roads getting clogged up with super slow taxis that steal jobs from ordinary people and give them to the tech industry?
- gkoberger 3y agoThey’re much safer, and tech has already stolen from drivers (via 50% cuts). Yes, we do want safer transportation. Evolving as a society is important.
- kriiuuu 3y agoShow me indenpendant research that they are safer. I can’t find any.
- Aloisius 3y agoIf they were less safe than human drivers, one would there would be more accidents where Waymo was at fault than another party. Having personally gone through several years of AV collisions reports to California a few months back, that wasn't the case. Indeed, in most of the small number of cases where Waymo was at fault, there was human driver in control of the vehicle. The were a four cases where the Waymo was at fault. One hit a chain strung across parking lot. There was a minor collision with a parked car. One ran over and killed a dog. One hit a vehicle while trying to reverse. There were dozens where the other party was at fault (lots of rear ends).
- subarctic 3y agoNow that you put it that way, it's probably tough to get in an accident with a waymo without being found at fault. How often does a car stop suddenly and unexpectedly, get rear ended, and get found at fault?
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- SeanAnderson 3y agoHell yeah. This is the best news I've read today. Waymo has completely replaced all usages of Uber for me whenever possible. Expanding the range makes me thrilled. Hopefully they're able to put more vehicles on the road, too, because wait times have been going up. The app isn't updated yet, though. I wonder how long it'll take?
- zk 3y agoThis is incredible news. In the next 10 years more and more transportation will shift to self driving and save thousands of lives and prevent many more injuries. Already in San Francisco waymo's are and feel much safer than human driven rideshare.
- matsemann 3y agoWhile autonomous driving helps a bit on safety, that's just one of the many issues with the car dependence in our society. It might even expand the issues, if it ends up with less people using public transport and relying on these kinds of things.
- wilg 3y agoUnfortunately self-driving seems to be an easier problem to solve than improving public transit policy anywhere in the U.S.
- skybrian 3y agoFor longer travel, a convenient way to get to the bus or train station might make public transit more popular.
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoYa, smaller door to transit center transportation is something we can even begin to consider once autonomous driving works. Like how old retired PLA soldiers used to drive tuktuks from Beijing subway stations to your apartment in the 1990s for a 5 mao or one kuai.
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoWaymo is public transport, but you mean mass transit. People don't use mass transit because it sucks, blaming other modes of public transit doesn't cut it. The design and implementation of it is what keeps people from using it. The good news is automated vehicles will add flexible options for new types of public transport that are between single-trip taxies and mass transit and will lower costs to all kinds of public transit.
- milesskorpen 3y agoHow long will it take for this to go into effect?
- Jmetz1 3y ago[flagged]
- bossyTeacher 3y agoCan't wait until they expand to europe
- MaxHoppersGhost 3y agoI foresee protests and lots of regulations/special taxes with driverless taxis coming to Europe.
- n2d4 3y agoDoes anyone know/have a hunch which European cities are most likely to get these cars first?
- bossyTeacher 3y agoProbably cities with good road infrastructure
- atum47 3y agoWaymo is awesome. Got to try it 3 months ago in Phoenix, love the whole experience. Amazing to see how the car deals with every trick thing that you find in traffic. Plus the Jaguar they use is a great car.
- modeless 3y agoIs this the only approval they need? I guess they will need to build some facilities in various places. Maybe they can start right away with the facilities they already have in Mountain View?
- standardUser 3y agoI was very bummed on a recent trip to SF to find there was a waitlist for Waymo and I couldn't use the service! But I've since been 'accepted' so my next West Coast trip I'll definitely be taking a driverless car. I was a long time SF resident so I'll use my local knowledge to choose the most ratchet route possible. The potential for self-driving cars to bring down the cost of rides is very exciting to me. I've been carless for decades and though I'm a huge proponent and user of mass transit, we have to be realistic. Most of this country is exceptionally ill-suited to mass transit and is custom-built for car traffic.
- fragmede 3y agoI don't know about bringing down costs. The amount of money that's been invested in this wants to get paid back, so they're gonna be charging as money they can for this to be worth it.
- standardUser 3y agoAs long as there is competition the prices will be low (eventually). Labor is almost always the most expensive part of any service and these technologies reduce the need for labor considerably.
- hypothesis 3y ago> As long as there is competition the prices will be low (eventually). We don’t have to wait here. Is BigCo lowering prices on YouTube subs? Are they lowering ad spend for people? You could claim that they’re a monopoly in those cases, but then that would undercut your expectations above.
- GeneralMayhem 3y agoThat's only true if there's competition with similar costs, though. Uber and Lyft can't reduce prices without collapsing, so Waymo has no incentive to charge anything less than what they charge minus one cent and they'll have all the demand they can handle.
- pjs_ 3y agoI speak to VCs quite a bit and recently I was hanging around with a bunch of them, they were all making fun of the state of self-driving cars, ah, stupid industry, will never work, whatever. But to me it's strange, if you go to San Francisco today you can see cars driving around with nobody inside. They drive around, they pick people up, they mostly don't crash into shit. There's nobody behind the wheel. I know that everyone is incredibly quick to point out their flaws and relative safety rating and remote interventions and so on but can we just take a step back, even for a moment, and acknowledge that they freaking did it, they basically did the thing that a lot of people said would never happen - the car drives around all day with nobody inside, of it's own volition!! It's amazing! Am I a deranged silicon valley optimist for thinking this? I agree that there's still endless work to do, some companies are probably behaving in a way that is dangerous, they aren't half as good as you want them to be, it's not clear whether they are good for society or financially viable etc. etc. but it just seems weird that so few people are willing to be like, "fair play, they basically pulled it off, round of applause", even just for a second. The only real reason that would make sense to me is if this is actually just a giant fraud and they are driving the things over LTE/4G a much larger fraction of the time than I have been led to believe. Anyone know the realistic ratio of self-driving to remote control? The fact that the safety statistics are 100X worse or whatever is obviously deadly serious but on a scale of six or so orders of magnitude it remains meaningfully impressive to my dumb brain.
- beezlebroxxxxxx 3y ago> I agree that there's still endless work to do, some companies are probably behaving in a way that is dangerous, they aren't half as good as you want them to be, it's not clear whether they are good for society or financially viable etc. etc. but it just seems weird that so few people are willing to be like, "fair play, they basically pulled it off, round of applause", even just for a second. They're victim of the self-driving hype machine, which is not entirely Waymo's fault. Lots of people and companies were really promising the world with self-driving cars after making the initial "novelty" proof of concept stuff possible. But now they're in the nitty gritty of actually making it safe, dependable, reliable, and trusted, in less than ideal conditions (or in non sunny California conditions at all) and people and companies are finding that it's far harder to follow through on that. To Waymo's credit, they have been steadily plugging along without crazy marketing or PR to overhype their product. They just have to win the long-game, if they can.
- Animats 3y agoI'm in the new service area, and look forward to this being available. Do you have to have a Google account? Do you have to accept the Google Play Store?
- fragmede 3y agoYou do need a Google account. I'm on iOS so don't have a Google play store though.
- VoodooJuJu 3y agoLook at these comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568066 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568119 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39568226 That's the value-sell of self-driving cars: placating an anti-social techno-"patrician" class that fears people, a class who now has the luxury of avoiding them. Self-driving cars seem to be a technological solution to a modern socio-cultural pathology, nothing more. That's not healthy. Seems like the better solution would be to address the pathology directly and eliminate it, rather than create workarounds for it. How did you find yourself in a low-trust society, with anti-social leanings? And how can we fix that? That needs to be addressed.
- oajsnfbejaj 3y ago[dead]
- flask_manager 3y agoI dont think you can create a high trust society deliberately; It takes multi-generation level time-spans, and in a low trust environment there is no mechanism to guarantee your plans will be carried forward; even if you currently have dictator level control over society. Creating highly trustworthy technology is the best we can do, and reliable transportation is a big part of this. I also suspect targeting and removing the worst interactions people have with strangers (and for many this is the random nature of a human driver, either from a taxi or other drivers) would create a higher trust society overall, as there is less cause to be wary.
- _acco 3y agoI love Waymo and use it all the time. One aspect I'd still like to see them figure out: As a bike commuter, I share the road with Waymo often. When cycling, you're always checking the eyes of other drivers to confirm if they see you. I've had a couple incidents where I was a little thrown/unnerved because I couldn't confirm if a Waymo was registering me. It ultimately behaved fine, but I had to put my guard way up because I just couldn't tell. I've wondered if they could use the light/display on top to signal acknowledgment? How do you simulate the precision of a gaze with a machine that's "seeing" everything at once?
- whimsicalism 3y agoas a biker, they are seeing you and that is how i always assume
- SeanAnderson 3y agoYeah, I agree there is opportunity for improvement here. Maybe they should take a note from the Apple Vision Pro and display a pair of eyes on the windshield looking at you? (/s ?) :)
- heliophobicdude 3y agoSo like Apple Vision Pro's EyeSight but for a Waymo?
- s0rce 3y agoCombine this: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FUQQmcv3Y5Bo2N5xywnzDKCZHZk9H8UjpFI6gkyXVruY.jpg%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D23b4d38ef00cfaaf86f65da5189d0a9b35d3e07c https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-prev... and this: https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/17fjv1h/emoji_sphere/ https://www.reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/17fjv1h/emoji_sph...
- andbberger 3y agoeven without eye contact i'll take a waymo over a sf driver every time when biking in the city...
- afhjafh3883 3y agoWhat kind of car is the Waymo underneath?
- SeanAnderson 3y agoJaguar I-PACE
- afhjafh3883 3y agoSurprised they would go with a luxury car
- konschubert 3y agoMoney is not the object here.
- travoc 3y agoIt’s a Ford.
- om154 3y agoThis is awesome. I think I'd honestly prefer a Waymo from Los Angeles to San Diego over a flight through LAX!
- lulznews 3y agoSo Google is betting the farm on this right?
- oajsnfbejaj 3y ago[dead]
- 1970-01-01 3y agoI think they should go to Las Vegas next. They would fit in nicely with the LV experience.
- anon373839 3y agoSo, will these be geofenced to a small area, or turned loose on the whole Southland? If it’s the latter, I’m genuinely impressed: LA’s roads and freeways have a florid variety of edge cases unlike anywhere else.
- 1024core 3y agoJust yesterday, walking in the inner sunset neighborhood of SF, I saw an old lady in a 1980s Volvo come to a 4-way stop. She looked really old, as in probably even 90+. She wasn't sure about the rules of the stop sign: she came to the stop and was hesitating to go. Other cars were waiting for her and some of them started just going through, creating a very dangerous situation. Eventually she mustered the courage to just make her turn. That made me think: her life would be so much easier if she didn't have to drive at all to go run her errands. She was creating an unsafe situation for everyone, not just herself. The City (SF) has a fleet of transport vehicles that transport Seniors (old folks) around town. It would be much more cost effective to just have a bunch of Waymos available to Seniors.
- johnnyanmac 3y agoSafer, maybe. cost effective, I don't see it. especially compared to this aforementioned fleet of transport vehicles.
- mlyle 3y agoYou don't think fleets without drivers will be cheaper than fleets with drivers?
- zht 3y agosomeone needs to get the seniors in and out of the cars...
- 1024core 3y agoIf they can get into the drivers seat and attempt to drive themselves, surely they can get into a car as a passenger?
- zht 3y ago"The City (SF) has a fleet of transport vehicles that transport Seniors (old folks) around town. It would be much more cost effective to just have a bunch of Waymos available to Seniors." this is what I meant. The drivers of the fleet of transport vehicles are helping old folks in and out of the vehicles, which you wouldn't get with a waymo
- rangledangle 3y agoAny reason why Waymo is so much more expensive than alternatives? I went across SF last weekend and Uber/Lyft was around $16. Waymo was $56.
- AuthConnectFail 3y agothey are usually couple of dollars more (for $20 range rides) but I think their demand supply is so skewed that it surges almost all the time it feels like
- huytersd 3y agoWaymo is absolutely fantastic. I’ve used it two dozen times and it feels really safe and competent.
- LuciBb 3y ago[dead]
- nox101 3y agoIf Waymo was not too expensive and easy to get at rush hour in LA I'd certainly consider it. If I want to leave work between 5:30 and 6:30 pm, my commute can be 60 mins. At 8pm it will be 20 mins. That sucks but if I could use the 60 mins then it sucks less. On the other hand, unlike Uber/Lyft, Waymo can't scale like they do. For them, demand pricing means more drivers with their own car driving when there's lots of people to pick up. For Waymo, they'd go broke trying to have enough cars for high demand times that would all sit idle (and have to drive somewhere to park) off peak. Taking it up a notch. I'd be nice to redesign cars that have no driver. A bench, a desk, small buses for shared rides, or something.
- jraby3 3y agoThere’s probably a smart way to ride share during peak times using a service like Waymo. Could be the best of both worlds. I could also envision a future where a car owner allows his car to be used for Waymo if he isn’t using it, and receives some compensation.
- nmca 3y agoThe driving is extremely smooth in general --- much smoother than many taxi journeys I've taken in that past. I found myself in a corner case recently, with an illegally parked car blocking the street, we got partially round, blocked by another vehicle and then a fire engine with sirens approached from behind, the waymo handled it excellently!
- anon115 3y agoim beginning to see them in my neighborhood i feel unsafe around them tbh
- habosa 3y agoAn underrated thing about Waymo: If you open Uber and the app says a car is 9 minutes away that’s really anywhere from 5 to 15. With Waymo if they say it’s 9 minutes to get a ride they mean 9 minutes. They’re not waiting for a human to accept your ride, they’re scheduling resources. The lack of variance makes delays much more tolerable, IMO.
- slater- 3y agoLet’s solve our societal car problem with more cars.
- ildjarn 3y agoJust what LA needs, more traffic.
- xyst 3y agoGreat, more cars on the road. I don’t know why people are excited. Whether it’s self driving or driven by a meat bag, it just means one more car on the road. One more car sitting in a parking lot/street/parking garage or driving around aimlessly until it gets assigned. Instead of helping to alleviate traffic. TNCs were shown to actually increase traffic in urban areas [1]. I expect this won’t be any different with “self driving” vehicles. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00678-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00678-z