![]() ![]() At the beginning of her journey, it told her that there would be a two-minute walk to the restaurant from her drop-off point. “Please make sure it’s clear before exiting.”Īs I climbed out of the car, it filled with the meditative electronic music that had greeted me at the start of the drive. Once it pulled into the circle, it stopped. It glided through the parking lot to a small, empty space where the map on the touch screen showed a circle. My Waymo pulled into a parking lot six minutes later than it had initially predicted. At one point, it sat for a few minutes behind a car waiting to turn left rather than merging into the right lane to go around that vehicle. one mile per hour under the speed limit - and deferred to other drivers. Instead of taking the most direct route to the beach down a congested street, my Waymo crossed Golden Gate Park and drove down a less congested street, but that added a few minutes to the journey. The cars are staggeringly expensive, outfitted with high-tech sensors and cameras, and are worth as much as $200,000. Once you enter your requests, the company dispatches from its fleet of 250 white Jaguar vehicles it operates across the city. Riders enter their destination and get an estimated wait time for a ride. Waymo’s app, Waymo One, looks and works just like Uber’s does. The company has been collecting fares in the Phoenix area for several years and now has a fleet navigating some 200 miles across that region, including to and from the airport. A few years ago, a driverless Waymo car with a human safety driver operating the wheel hit a pedestrian who needed to be taken to the hospital. In May, one of its cars struck and killed a small dog. Waymo has had fewer headline-worthy troubles. On Friday, state regulators asked Cruise to halve the number of vehicles it operated. The week before, several Cruise cars blocked traffic in the city’s North Beach neighborhood. Another Cruise vehicle got stuck in wet concrete. Last week, a Cruise driverless car collided with a fire truck responding to an emergency. City officials and activists are urging state officials to reverse or slow a plan for Waymo and Cruise to begin charging passengers for rides throughout the city, round the clock. Waymo’s robot taxi rides began as tensions escalated over the driverless cars in San Francisco. ![]()
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