#1 The Future is Here - Waymo
This past weekend I got lucky to try out my first ride in a self-driving vehicle, Waymo. My parents and another family friend of ours were in San Francisco staying at a hotel in the Nob Hill neighborhood and wanted to go to Pier 39. We decided to try out a Waymo and I am glad we did as it turned out to be an incredibly safe, futuristic, and comfortable experience. We ended up taking several Waymo rides over our trip and were literally blown away. Below I will break out my experience in detail:
Pre-Boarding: The experience of ordering a Waymo from the app was seamless. The UI was uncluttered and there were plenty of Waymos available nearby. A few clicks on the app and a Waymo was on its way to us in less than a few minutes.
Boarding: One of the coolest features Waymo has is to help passengers easily find and board their respective Waymos. This is one of the challenges with existing car services like Uber and Lyft - every time we are at an airport, we literally have to look for the car make and model and license plate to confirm our ride but not with Waymo. The self-driving car displays your name initials on the top display area near the LiDAR sensor. Given that every Waymo is a white Jaguar right now and many people were waiting for their own Waymos, it was very helpful to spot yours easily. Another interesting thing was how Waymo stopped on the road with emergency blinkers on as there was no curbside space for it to park itself. The car was locked, but we could open the lock via the app or turn it to auto-unlock, which would unlock as it would detect our phone via Bluetooth. In all, it is a very intuitive and simple boarding experience.
Driving: This is the most complex part, and it took them more than 15 years of training and practice since Waymo started in January 2009. After we all boarded the car and fastened our seatbelts, we pressed the Start button on the touchscreen (there are two touchscreens, one in front and one in back). Immediately, the car started moving just like any other ordinary human driver. This is the second time I have been so impressed with technology, the first time being the launch of ChatGPT. Even after the many times I went into Waymo during this trip, I do not have a single complaint about how it drove. It seems to have the perfect balance between safety and speed. I can imagine a car that is super safe but drives slowly, stops for every single human, etc. The Waymo was even able to enter the intersection while taking a left turn, where it waited for humans to cross. Just about everything it did was like a human, but better, as it will never get distracted. We could play music of our own choice but more importantly, could laugh out loud or discuss anything we’d like without worrying about a stranger listening to our conversation.
Getting off: Waymo again did a great job dropping us off - when available, it used the right curbside for dropoff and when not available, it would stop next to parked cars allowing us to still get down where we wanted to. One time, when we were going to the Warriors game (yes they lost 120-128 to the Nets), we also used the “pull over” feature to pull over and get down as it was faster to walk than drive in the traffic in that neighborhood. One improvement I think Waymos can make is to pay attention to where to drop/pickup - e.g. one time, it dropped us next to a big tree box and although we were very careful in opening the door, it would not be surprising if people would hit their doors while getting out. Finally, dropoff was painless as there was no reminder to tip. I hope Waymo continues to work like that and hope we will not be tipping to robots and AI in the future.
Overall, a very well-designed end-to-end experience. No one feature sticks out. It’s the combination of very thoughtful well-designed features complemented with a safe and comfortable driving experience that makes the overall experience magical. Well done Waymo team! The future is already here and it indeed is unevenly distributed, thanks to the Waymo investments over the years.
Such a well written and informative piece!