California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations

I didn’t think I’d be so pro Waymo but anecdotally I had a fantastic experience with one recently.

I was at a music show very late ~1-2am in SF and walked out to grab an uber to the airbnb I was staying at. I kept getting assigned an uber, then I’d wait 10 minutes, then they’d cancel. Rinse and repeat for 30 minutes, mind you I even resorted to calling Lyfts at the same time and nothing bit. Then I say screw it and download Waymo. 1 minute and it’s accepted my ride, and I know it’s not going to cancel because it’s a robot. 3 minutes and it picks me up. The car is clean, quiet, I can play my own music in it via Spotify, and it’s driving honestly more safely than some uber drivers I’ve had in SF. It’s one of the few things where the end result actually lives up to the promise from a tech company.

Curious why didn't you try Waymo until then? Was it just that it never had a reason to, or was something holding you back?

From my experience, lot of people actively seek out Waymo if it is available.

Not saying this HAS to happen. But I remember when Ubers were clean, quiet, cheap too. I think you are just looking at a product before the enshittification, when they still have to pretend they care about your comfort.

> then I’d wait 10 minutes, then they’d cancel. Rinse and repeat for 30 minutes,

This is such a common problem in SF (esp in odd times / from the airport). Waymo has been a lifesaver in these situations.

It will undoubtedly get enshittifed in its own way, probably higher prices, but at least it will be reliable when booked. Ubers seem to be a crap shoot these days if they're actually going to come and get you.

I don't know what it is but in basically every major airport I have struggled to get an uber/lyft. I expect at minimum one cancellation...

"I know it’s not going to cancel because it’s a robot"

I won't be at all surprised when they start calculating their profits in real-time, if they aren't already, and cancelling or delaying trips that are deemed unprofitable in the moment. They are robots after all.

Uber, when it was launched, was limos only, and would come (with ETA) when cabs would not. It was expensive.

The story they told is that they were unable to get a ride. That’s not enshittification, that’s simply scammers on the platform not doing their job.

That won’t happen with robots.

They might raise the prices, or clean the cars less frequently, but if it shows up and runs the program, it won’t ever get worse than that.

Used to happen to me constantly trying to go across the bay bridge in either direction when I lived in Oakland. I didn’t even mind the cancelations so much but the worst was when they would try and hide around the block, close enough to say they’ve “arrived” to try to get me marked as a no show and pocket the fee.

I took one in SF on a rainy, dark night when I was visiting a year ago. I was pretty impressed. That's not an easy city to navigate even on a sunny day and it did fine.

Waymo already does that through its surge pricing mechanism and limited availability of cars at busy times. And if they really don't want to serve you they'd just not let you book.

I wonder what the non-subsidized price of a Waymo ride would be.

In-Ride Ads coming soon to a car ride near you

No 3rd party arbitrage, much reduced pressure to accept fares they don't want (there's probably still some).

Lower prices for recommended destinations, ads played during trip, LLM engages the customer.

I once got stuck at the vista point at the north end of Golden Gate, because it turns out it's nearly impossible to approach from the Marin side even though that's closer. So like ~4 drivers in a row tried, got lost on the way and canceled.

The same exact thing happened to me last time I was in San Fran. I wanted uber because it was cheaper. Ended up taking a Waymo for more because no one else would take me.

They have a cancellation rate metric on their end that they are trying to avoid.

I have similar problems when I dated someone across the bridge.

They also lose a ton of money leaving SF at prime time / etc.

Uber still is like that if you choose that option. It just defaults to UberX because that's cheaper. I dunno, I've never been in a dirty Uber/Lyft.

But yes, I originally switched to them because Bay Area cabs just will not pick you up if they don't feel like it.

the same exact problems we had with Taxis. Sigh.

Same. I assume it depends on the destination

Person wants to go somewhat far from airport? That's more time on this single ride and less time pocketing peak demand money

You're not allowed to smoke cigarettes in a Waymo, whereas UberX drivers are allowed to, I believe, off the clock.

I do worry in general about what the enshittification of Waymo will look like, though.

In many cities this is solved with the "Uber rank" system, where you simply get in the first car in line, give the driver a code, and then it loads up your journey. Fast and avoids any hassles with drivers rejecting your destination.

I once had a Waymo cancel on me too! I was pretty bummed: dang, let down by a robotaxi too?!?!? To be fair, it has happened only once.

Ironically it is the very problem taxis had that allowed Uber and Lyft to grow in popularity. Funny how that works!

Trying to find a specific ride hail driver at the airport seems like a huge waste of time. Just go to the taxi stand.

Oh they reinvented taxi stands. The code for a pre programmed destination in the app is actually a nice touch.

earlier price is steep because they still have huge RnD cost but if we scale that to one planet, it would been cheaper in the long run

This is what radicalized me. “Uber is 4 minutes away” so I call them, and it tells me it’s trying to find drivers for the next 6-8 minutes, then a driver is selected and they are 11 minutes away, then they sit at their location for 4-5 minutes, then they start moving toward me, then they’re 5 minutes away and cancel and uber changes to finding me a ride. Infuriating.

Yeah, drivers want to maximize their hourly revenue, and this is frequently at odds with the wants of passengers. For a while, VC subsidies meant Uber and Lyft could pretend they were fundamentally different somehow, but that's all over now that they're public, and the classic misaligned incentives between drivers and passengers are back in play.

The cars are increasingly beat-up too, another thing we incorrectly believed was Uber being fundamentally different from and better than yellow cabs.

I can't guarantee that Waymo won't be enshittified, but one fundamental difference with Uber is that Waymo doesn't need to compete in the labor market for drivers. When the low end of the labor market got red hot in 2023-24, that's when Uber prices climbed rapidly because drivers had other options; Waymo won't have this problem. It won't be affected by other things like ever-rising health care costs or local regulations guaranteeing driver wage floors either.

If you're playing it via Spotify, it's not your music, it's Spotify's. Waymo is cool technology but I am disappointed at how the app requires a Google account plus access to google play services on an Android phone, and how the streaming music feature requires some kind of protocol that only Spotify and some proprietary Google music app support. All of my music is stored on a personal server that I stream to my phone via Jellyfin, and this does not work in a Waymo.

It's not your music unless you own the copyright, even if its on a disc or drive.

Seeing a lot of people confused on why drivers do this. What I was told after it happened to me is that I was getting an Uber at the busiest time of the week (Friday afternoon) and going a few miles (I lived near an airport at the time). Others were going much further, so drivers wanted those. But they can't deny the ride, that dings their account. So they do that garbage to annoy everybody instead. Meaning, maybe, your ride just wasn't worth it for them. Robots don't have salaries but also Waymo I guess has no systematic issue that causes such a mess in the first place

> For a while, VC subsidies meant Uber and Lyft could pretend they were fundamentally different somehow

You must have very rosy glasses because calling a tired/rude Taxi operator at 1am and not knowing whether your cab was coming in 5 or 20min was a major drag, so you always had to plan for 20min+ and sit patiently without social media to fill the void.

Having 2 ubers cancel before you get a 3rd commitment, within a short time frame, and only at the airport or a busy concert isn't that bad at all. Modern entitlement IMO

> The cars are increasingly beat-up too

Regular taxis never had an anonymous review system and they often just bought old police cars, used by 2 drivers across 2 day/night shifts . Good chance the night driver drank on the job too

Uber requires them to have a newish car which in my experience is usually a decent hybrid. A big improvement IMO (although I do love old crown Vic's from back in the pre Uber days).

If anything the biggest issue is Uber not strictly enforcing reuse of other authorized drivers accounts, usually by immigrants without official company clearance

Maybe the last rider puked in it or something?