When David de Clair traveled to San Francisco last year, there were a few must-dos on his itinerary. It's about going to Alcatraz. Let him try new restaurants. Then get into a self-driving car.
Self-driving cars, also known colloquially as robotaxis, have been on San Francisco streets in some form since 2009 and have been operating commercially since August of last year. Automobiles are also shaping up to be the city's newest tourist attraction.
Mr. De Clerc, 42, is an avid traveler who divides his time between New Jersey and Sardinia, where he runs a restaurant and bar and rents a vacation home.
“I love exploring and doing new things,” he said. “I definitely wanted to ride it while I was in town.”
what, where and how to ride
There is a lot of conversation going on on Reddit. XVisitors are looking for advice on how to ensure they get a ride while in San Francisco, and how to position self-driving cars to be easy to find when they're out and about.
When planning your own robotaxi ride, you'll need some basics. First, while his AV companies like Cruise and Zoox have proliferated in recent years, his Waymo, owned by Alphabet (Google's parent company), is currently the only company offering rides to the public in San Francisco.
Waymo also operates in the Phoenix metropolitan area, offering rides to and from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. We are currently slowly rolling out our ride-hailing service in Los Angeles and testing ride-hailing in the San Francisco Peninsula and Austin, Texas. In Phoenix, you can hail a Waymo using the Uber app. All other locations require you to download the Waymo app. (The app is very similar to other ride-hailing services, and the prices are comparable.) Also, nearly every service area has a waiting list to be granted access.
Waymo public relations manager Angelica Price Rocha could not provide specific estimates of waiting list wait times in various cities, but said wait times in San Francisco are shorter than in Los Angeles. (I signed her up for the app in San Francisco in late April, and she got off the waitlist just a week later.)
“We encourage anyone visiting San Francisco to get on the waitlist as soon as they book their trip,” Price-Rocha says. Want to find her Waymo car on the go? Popular pick-up and drop-off locations include tourist spots like the Ferry Building, Pier 39, Coit Tower, and Japantown Peace Square, according to Price-Rocha.
futuristic attraction
Don't have in-person access in time? Ask friends, family, or co-workers if they'd like to take you on a ride. Jason Kirsch, a 38-year-old San Francisco resident who works as a technology marketing executive and consultant, regularly “calls out” his Waymo car and offers to ride in it as a tourist activity.
“San Francisco has been getting a bad rap from visitors lately,” Kirsch said. “This is a reminder that San Francisco is also a place that's several years into the technological future.”
The Waymo vehicle is an all-electric Jaguar I-PACE with radar, lidar, sensors, and internal and external cameras. Use the app to unlock your car when it arrives and play music during your ride. Passengers can take advantage of his four seats. You can sit in the front, but not in the driver's seat (the car won't start if you try). Our live customer support team will remotely monitor your ride for unsafe activity and respond if you need assistance.
“They immediately pulled out their phones and started filming, as if they were recording a celebrity or a concert,” Kirsch said of a recent drive with a group of coworkers.
Indeed, a Waymo ride can turn you into the main attraction: On a recent trip to San Francisco with my visiting in-laws, we not only filmed most of the ride, but we also spotted a group of tourists pointing and staring at our driverless car, and even pulling out their phones to take videos of themselves.
Mr. DeClair, visiting from New Jersey, described his journey home from a night out in Chinatown as “very interesting and futuristic.” It was very cautious and quite slow. ”
According to the company's safety data, Waymos is much safer than human drivers. However, this has not prevented the public backlash against AVs. California has stopped cruise cars from operating on San Francisco streets after a pedestrian was hit and dragged by a car. Waymo has received regular complaints that its cars are interfering with traffic and emergency vehicles, resulting in crashes involving mostly stationary objects, leading to a federal investigation into Waymo. .
However, in Kirsch's experience, Waymo's driving can be overly cautious and less than smooth.
“If a car with its hood is stopped on a two-lane road, the human driver knows to take a detour. Waymo might just be sitting there,” he said.
From awe and joy to near normalcy
But perhaps the most notable thing about riding a Waymo for the first time is how fast it feels normal.
“For the first few minutes, it's exciting,” Price Rocha said, “but pretty soon, you see people quickly warming up to the experience.”
Kirsch witnessed this change happening firsthand on a recent trip to New York City, where her family opted to take a yellow cab.
“My three-and-a-half-year-old son turns to me and my wife and says, 'Look, daddy, it's the driver!' He was kind of shocked.”
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