In August Waymo reported about 300,000 driverless taxi trips carrying 500,000 passengers in California. All (or nearly all) of this was in San Francisco.
This amounts to 10,000 rides per day. The average Waymo taxi ride is about six miles, fairly average for taxis.
Usage has been growing 30% per month over the past quarter. Waymo reported 55 minor collisions over the most recent reporting quarter (June-August) with no injuries or fatalities.
Here's hoping they roll out soon to my region. I cannot drive due to disability and cheap driverless taxis would be life changing for me.
Don;t count on it. So far it takes close to a decade for a city to get the infrastructure in place for driverless taxis. And there is no money for that.
Which cities are putting-in driverless vehicle infrastructure? I thought the mapping and such was all private.
What infrastructure does a city need for driverless taxis?
I own a non-emergency medical transportation company and keeping a close eye on this. We're already losing trips to Uber and Lyft.
Our future success won't be based on locking other people out of short trips, but by building relationships and solving problems for medical facilities and others.
I've learned that the industry is very labor intensive and very hands on and doesn't lend itself to scaling like some industries.
I live in SF, yeah, they're suddenly all over.
Haven't used one yet, but I can say I don't like driving around them. It is a little hard to describe, but they don't "flow" like most human drivers and hesitate at weird times. Especially here, where traffic is always between heavy and jammed, a certain level of carefully aggressive makes things work better, and most locals drive that way. The robots don't.
I think they are a real boon to women.
The only time I’ve seen them having problems was at the SF Symphony. Several of them bunched up competing with human drivers for space to pick up passengers after the show.
I'm sure they're terrible in some way but I would much rather have this company succeed than Uber, Lyft, or Tesla.
Took my first ride in a Waymo last week up in SF. It felt remarkably safe. I hope they bring it to other cities down the Peninsula.
My daughter who lives in SF uses Waymo all the time and prefers it.
I’m not holding my breath for Rockport Maine
Took Waymo in Phoenix. It dropped us off several blocks from our resort with no explanation. We had to hoof it. Luckily it wasn't hot or anything... or raining, nor did we happen to have luggage.
But we were lost. I don't think we will chance it again.