Waymo cool! What it’s like taking a driverless taxi

The future is here — and on the streets of some major American cities. San Francisco has been allowing autonomous vehicles on its streets for years now, but fully driverless rides are a fairly new phenomenon. So I was eager to try out the driverless taxi service from the best-established company, Waymo One, on a recent trip to the City by the Bay.

When the Hyatt Regency Downtown SOMA offered me 25% off my first two rides just for downloading the Waymo One app, it was a no-brainer.

In short, it was fantastic. I highly recommend trying it next time you’re in one of the few U.S. cities where driverless cars are already available.

What is Waymo One?

Waymo One is currently the market leader in driverless taxis, also known as autonomous vehicles or robotaxis. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, owns it.

Various companies have been testing driverless cars for years in places like Las Vegas, Toronto, Pittsburgh and multiple California cities. However, the development and rollout have been plagued with accidents and some spectacular failures. Most recently, Cruise — a company that’s majority owned by General Motors and was also offering rides in San Francisco — exited the business after a few horrific accidents. In October 2023, one of its robotaxis struck and injured a pedestrian.

Waymo is having better luck, though. It recently announced a major expansion in Los Angeles, with the service now available all over the city. It is also set to begin testing Waymos on LA-area freeways. Waymo also now serves a 315-square-mile area of Phoenix (including trips to the airport), and it’s available in parts of Austin as well.

In San Francisco, the Jaguar Waymo vehicles are everywhere. In fact, that’s why I first became curious about them. I couldn’t believe how many were on the streets of the city: They’ve become tourist attractions in their own right.

Using the Waymo One app

The Waymo One app is fairly easy to use: You input your destination and confirm your current location just like you would on the Uber or Lyft app. Note that in the Bay Area, Waymo is only available in San Francisco and Daly City. You cannot yet take it to the airport.

I traveled from the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco’s Union Square to the Castro neighborhood. On the way back, I came from near Mission Dolores Park back to Union Square.

It was a fairly straightforward process, but if you are in a hurry, you are better off taking a traditional ride-hailing service; the Waymos are very careful and can be a bit slow (safety first).

It’s also not cheap. Even with the 25% discount, one ride was $17.50 and the other was more than $23. The good news? Since there is no driver, you definitely won’t be tipping.

My rides on Waymo One

My Waymo One rides were like something out of a science fiction movie from my childhood. It is so fun to take a ride in a car that has no one sitting in the front. The door unlocked automatically, and when getting inside, I could see a large screen in the back seat prompting me to push the “Start ride” button.

Once I started the ride, not much happened for a while. As I was busy snapping photos, I could tell the car was stuck. It had pulled up behind a giant shuttle van type of vehicle that didn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. To me, it looked like it was parked illegally right in front of the hotel. The vehicle was very confused. After a few minutes of sitting there, a notification came on the screen saying, “Our team is working to get you moving.” I assume the car’s software was communicating with a central dispatch to come up with a solution.

After about a five-minute wait, the car decided to hit the road and did a sharp pullout into the busy Stockton Street. I was a bit surprised by some of the sudden moves the car made during the ride. In any case, we didn’t have any more major roadblocks.

The car drove itself fairly well, much to my delight. I had fun exploring the screen in the back seat and tracking the trip’s progress.

The car kept me up to date on approximately when we’d arrive and showed me objects in the car’s path, like pedestrians and other cars. The technology is pretty cool. Soon enough, I was at my destination. I saw a couple get in just a few feet from where I got out on Castro Street.

My ride back to the hotel was more uneventful. It picked me up in a residential area and had me back to the hotel even faster (no traffic this time).

I was already getting used to the idea of a robot car whisking me around the city. Overall, I cannot recommend Waymo One highly enough. It was an exciting way to ride, and I can’t wait to see it roll out to more cities (and pick me up from the airport someday soon).

What’s ahead for Waymo One?

Waymo isn’t the only ride in town. The Amazon-funded car company Zoox is testing its custom-built robotaxis in both San Francisco and Las Vegas. The boxy vehicles don’t have steering wheels, and they are already being tested on the streets of one San Francisco neighborhood.

Zoox also has a fleet of Toyota Highlander hybrids testing software all over San Francisco.

Of course, Tesla has been promising self-driving taxis for many years. Friends of mine crow about the features of their Teslas, but the cars can’t yet drive themselves safely.

With the demise of Cruise and the pullback from other companies, it will probably be a while before we see robotaxis in every city in America. But in the meantime, if you are in LA, San Francisco or Phoenix, definitely give the cars a try. I can’t wait to see what they do next.

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