The robots are coming, and soon, you’ll be able to hail a ride from one.
Beginning in early 2025, Austinites will be able to take an autonomous rideshare via a new partnership between Uber and Waymo.
City Editors Figi and Morgan recently took a fully autonomous Waymo ride with the company’s products communications manager, Chris Bonelli. Here are a few questions we asked during the experience.
When was your first Waymo ride? How do people usually react?
Bonelli: “My first ride was in Phoenix, two years ago. That first one is always a little jarring, maybe for most riders. I say 30 seconds to a minute before they’re kind of like, ‘oh, okay, this thing’s doing pretty good,’ then they might get distracted on their phone quickly by emailing or texting. We definitely see that with people.”
How does the cost compare to a human-driven taxi or rideshare?
Bonelli: “Across our markets where we are commercially open — Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — our prices are comparable currently to Uber and Lyft. That’s comparable at the base rate, not factoring in tipping above and beyond what the fare is. That can vary, in complete transparency, based on supply and demand.
We’re in a unique, different scenario where we have a fixed fleet. We only have a certain number of vehicles at any time, so we do have to use pricing as a variable to produce demand, to make sure that the people who are hailing aren’t getting ungodly ETAs. Structures evolve, right? As we partner with Uber, pricing is a little bit out of our hands.”
Since there’s nobody in the car, how do you prevent somebody from potentially trying to steal or crash the car?
Bonelli: “If you were to reach over to mess with the steering wheel, it’s gonna, as best it can, prevent you. It runs controls from actually turning the wheel, but if it senses that input that is unexpected, it’s going to go through a series of escalations. It may give you an alert on the screen or audibly say, ‘please keep your hands off the controls.’ If someone were to continue to do that, the vehicle would come to a safe stop, try to pull over, and do what it can to prevent anyone causing harm to themselves or others by way of the vehicle.
If someone were to get into the (driver’s) seat, there are seat sensors that would immediately alert our rider support team to call into the car and potentially place a hold on it. We can contact law enforcement quite quickly as well.”
What do you say to the skeptics or the people who have concerns over AVs?
Bonelli: “It’s a very mundane answer, but the literal best way of convincing someone is to experience it. Everyone is hesitant until they try something like this. That’s not going to be the answer for everyone, of course, but it is the best or most effective way.
(Waymo has completed) over 22 million miles of fully autonomous driving, which is with no one at the wheel. ... As the data continues to grow, I think that safety argument gets better. And then the last bit, I’d say, just on the experience and what we offer as a service, in comparison to a human-driven ride hail, is it’s private. It’s secure for most folks.
... It’s true accessibility.”
Is there anywhere in the area where Waymo cars are not permitted to drive?
Bonelli: “I wouldn’t say no, in the sense of, like, never. Especially airport wise, it’s regulatory.
The example being in Phoenix — we are currently operating with Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. ... It’s actually our number one most popular destination, but it’s taken time and partnership and growth. We’re hoping to work through that process with SFO, LAX, and then obviously here too, in Austin.
We don’t currently offer service to the public on freeways, but we are testing in San Francisco and Phoenix fully autonomously with employees, so no one at the wheel up to 65 miles an hour on the freeway, to in the near future, open up to public. It’s a simpler driving task. It’s straight, there’s no cross traffic, but just the risk, higher speeds, higher severity if something were to happen. So we’re really taking our time, to be really deliberate and safe with that robot.”
Would you ever see a Waymo car going over the speed limit?
Bonelli: “There are circumstances where a passing maneuver, a merging maneuver, or something that would be more unsafe to not exceed (the speed limit) temporarily. We have some videos we’ve shown online of people going the wrong way down a street where the car has to react quickly. Not that they would accelerate necessarily, oftentimes just quick driving, (the car will do) whatever is required to safely maneuver, if that means going over by two miles per hour.”
In the event of a collision, how does that situation get handled?
Bonelli: “If someone else were to hit the car and then legally, stay at the scene — we have hit and runs, we have other things that have happened — but if somewhere to hit the vehicle, our rider support team would immediately get notification of a collision alert based on the vehicle telemetry, based on other sensors and things. (Support) would call into the car pretty much immediately to ask the riders: Are you okay? What’s going on? Do you feel safe? Do you need emergency services?
The front window would roll down as well, so an outside person, a law enforcement officer or the other driver, could speak to their rider support agent, and our Waymo roadside assistance team would be just dispatched. ... We’re very connected to do that very quickly, but to the point of hit-and-run drivers or other collision incidents, we have 29 cameras on the car.”
Learn more about Waymo in Austin and join the interest list.
