This sentence was a bit cute: "Waymo has received our pilot permit allowing for commercial operations at San Francisco International Airport." Yeah, that kind of pilot.
I really had to read through it twice to make sure they were just talking about car taxis picking up travelers, rather than some kind of prototype pilotless commuter helicopter or something.
Cool, I wonder if this means they will finally start letting foreign visitors also use the app. I'm an American living abroad now for many years, and I was initially super excited to try Waymo in LA and SF this summer when I visited with my family. Unfortunately they only make the iPhone app available via the US app store, and while I actually have a US credit card that I could have in theory used to make the switch, Apple makes it an absurd pain to change your region as they require you to both a) cancel any existing subscription AND b) wait until they all expire. Most tourists have it worse as they have no option to even switch in theory.
I'm surprised and incredibly impressed at this announcement. It seems trivial, but the general feeling in the industry has been that SF would fight tooth and nail against robotaxis at SFO.
Hopefully Waymo does a better job than SF Uber drivers. I can't tell you how many times I've had drivers make a wrong turn trying to find their way to the pickup point.
Waymo got approval for SJC last week. That probably accelerated approval for SFO, which had been stalling. Nice.
When they get clearance to drop people off at the main terminals, that will be more convenient. Pickup at the terminals is harder. There will be a need for a staging area somewhere in the parking structures.
Can you handle parking structures? I heard a lot of the autonomous cars were using 2D maps and couldn't handle multiple levels. Haha! This was just a year or two ago.
As a European, I can’t help but feel a bit sad that we’re missing out on the driverless side of things. It seems like most of the meaningful deployments are happening in the US (Waymo, Cruise).
I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here. The regulatory environment is obviously more complex, but it’d be great if we didn’t end up years behind on something this transformative.
What do you think degrowth and decline means? Vibes and essays?
It's not just driverless cars either - delivery drones (e.g. in China), a lot of health tech (as they have more check-ups in the USA), Starlink, Neuralink, a space programme, etc.
I think navigating European roads is a massive step more difficult than US cities. They've got wide lanes and a really strict grid layout generally. At least in the European cities I'm familiar with we have much narrower lanes, residential areas with parking turning 2 lanes into 1, old towns, and layouts that are completely unpredictable. Maybe I'm wrong but I think this is the bigger hurdle than regulation.
I feel the opposite. Self driving cars seem like a meme because driving is fun and trains are better. If either of those premises is not true in your geolocation then self driving is not the solution either.
In Switzerland the Airport has 28 trains per hour that connect it directly to almost every part of the country. In addition to that there is a tram line and many bus lanes.
But I guess in SF they can take a taxi that might be a little cheaper because the company operating it is fine with losing 100s of millions a year.
I don’t think wages in europe are high enough to sustain this model business very well. When you track waymo deployment its in placed where plenty of high income price insensitive people are to be found.
Cause what this country needs is to automate away even the gig economy jobs that are out there. Let's keep making a few people rich and screw all the normal people out there.
Okay what're the odds on how long it is until there's a stray Waymo on the tarmac. Hopefully with enough warning to divert any planes about to land on it.
It’s wild that $goog is so undervalued (p/e 27) given Alphabet owns Waymo in addition to everything else, and yet Tesla is so overvalued (p/e 243!!!) despite zero Robotaxis in the near (or far) future and lackluster sales.
Goes to show empty promises and fraudulent showmanship sell better than actual working products that people use.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 73.4 ms ] threadThe title makes it sound like GA but it's still in testing
I really had to read through it twice to make sure they were just talking about car taxis picking up travelers, rather than some kind of prototype pilotless commuter helicopter or something.
It’s waaaay mo’
When they get clearance to drop people off at the main terminals, that will be more convenient. Pickup at the terminals is harder. There will be a need for a staging area somewhere in the parking structures.
how good it compared to Tesla FSD/Robotaxi ???
I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here. The regulatory environment is obviously more complex, but it’d be great if we didn’t end up years behind on something this transformative.
Because they are.
Across Europe you can randomly encounter a major town with a taxi cartel still blocking rideshares, as if its 2012
It's not just driverless cars either - delivery drones (e.g. in China), a lot of health tech (as they have more check-ups in the USA), Starlink, Neuralink, a space programme, etc.
But I guess in SF they can take a taxi that might be a little cheaper because the company operating it is fine with losing 100s of millions a year.
My personal use of a car has declined pretty dramatically the past few years. Trains are pretty good here in the UK.
Goes to show empty promises and fraudulent showmanship sell better than actual working products that people use.