Waymo ditches the waitlist in LA

Top Stories of the Week

Waymo opens robotaxi service to anyone in Los Angeles, marking its largest expansion yet (link). The vehicles are all over LA and every time I take a ride, you still have lots of people pointing and staring. Seems like it’s going to be a while before the novelty wears off! 

Waymo also began fully autonomous driving for employees around their South Bay (San Francisco) offices this week (link). The company continues to expand and grow, it’s all part of their master plan.

Tesla’s social media posts falsely implied that its cars are robotaxis, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) warns (link). From a marketing perspective, FSD (Full Self Driving) is a great name. From a product standpoint, it’s a great Level 2 ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) product. But from a veracity standpoint, it is most definitely not Full Self Driving. See Waymo for that.

Announcements | New Stuff

Zoox is partnering with F1 racing team, Williams Racing (link). Another F1 story for all you DTS fans - not much here other than the standard marketing stuff but cool for the optics.

Neat Rides

Just saw the new zoox self-driving toaster out in the wild (link). I’ve been trying to put my finger on what the Zoox vehicle looks like and Broke ass Stuart totally nailed it. It looks just like my toaster 🙂

Waymo as a blind person finally gave me that feeling most people get at 16, driving independently for the first time. MAGIC!!!! (h/t Ethan Teicher). I’ve been critical of Waymo in the past for touting their synergies with public transportation, but this is an area where Waymo and AVs more broadly could really shine. AVs don’t discriminate. They’re happy to pick up anyone within their service area, transport service animals and go wherever the passenger would like to be dropped off. I think it would be smart for Waymo and other AV players to lean into areas like this where they have a distinct product advantage over Uber/Lyft.

Bonus: Listen to my recent interview with a blind Lyft rider about her experience with rideshare for more insights on this.

I just found out who wins: Waymo vs Zoox in San Francisco 🙌 (link). Guess that Williams Racing partnership is already paying off for Zoox! But it will be interesting to see how different companies have different driving styles, preferences and more. I love all the customizable features in my Tesla (seating, acceleration, braking, etc) so hope Waymo adds that level of customization soon.

AVs/Humans behaving badly

I got out of my Waymo to ask someone to take this pic, and the f&$ing waymo drove off with everything I own in the car (link). This might be user error but the exact same thing happened to me on the way to our Mobility Mixer earlier in the week. I added a stop and got out of the Waymo at the first stop, and the Waymo drove off. I still had the option to ‘request a Waymo’ that was just 5 minutes away, but that really isn’t the same as a quick stop. I’m not sure if this is by design but Uber/Lyft drivers typically hate waiting for riders and making stops since you don’t get paid much during this time. For optimal utilization, you want a passenger in the car and wheels moving. Uber has always passed this ‘waiting time’ cost on to drivers, but when you own the fleet, you have to charge for your time accordingly

Driverless cars enter pop culture. Jimmy Kimmel put his 85 year old aunt, who knows nothing about driverless cars, into a Waymo and had it drive off. She was PISSED! You know you’ve made it when you start getting featured on the late night shows. Reminds me of this epic TK interview with Stephen Colbert, love the tuna fish sandwich line.

Other Stuff

Waymo now up to #12 in the Apple App Store after waitlist removal in LA (link).

How long has this feature been available?? Play a melody when the Waymo arrives. I assume to help you find it. Very soothing lol (link). Not sure how I missed this for so long but those Waymo engineers are hard at work. Lot of cool features being added and easter eggs.

The weirdest part about using Waymo robotaxis in SF is getting into a regular Uber or getting on a public bus after (link). I don’t think Waymo is a real threat to Uber and Lyft but there’s an argument to be made there. Comparing Waymo to transit though is not even close. Muni does 500,000 trips a day in San Francisco and I’d estimate that Uber/Lyft do around 50,000 per day. Waymo is likely 1/10 of Uber and Lyft in SF.

Private for hire rides like Uber, Lyft and Waymo don’t come close to public transit’s scale and aren’t in the same universe as transit’s efficiency. If you scale up ‘for hire rides’ to the level of transit, there wouldn’t be enough physical space or demand. And of course for Waymo to be competitive, capital and operating costs would need to drop big time. Bottom line: AVs aren’t a real threat to public transit. But they’re also not a great partner.

Waymo compiles ‘largest ever’ dataset of pedestrian and cyclist injuries (link).

California agency boosts reporting requirements for autonomous vehicle incidents (link). According to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), AV operators must now report incidents where AVs get stuck during operations. AV operators will also be required to provide detailed trip-level incident reports that capture both collision and non-collision incidents, including citations and stoppage events. All AV operators, regardless of their pilot or deployment status, will now be required to simultaneously file reports to the CPUC and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) within one day of any collision.

Until next week.

-Harry