Self-driving cars are officially taking off in the US. Los Angeles and San Francisco have authorised self-driving cars operated by Waymo, and San Diego is joining them next year. The driverless cars are already serving customers in Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta.
Waymo – part of the Google-led Alphabet Inc. – has also commenced its testing operations in other major cities: Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Orlando, Tampa, Minneapolis, Detroit, Las Vegas and New Orleans.
The company is touting plans to start offering rides to customers in London and Tokyo some time next year.
“Our approach to every new city is consistent,” the company said in a statement. “We compare our driving performance against a proven baseline to validate the performance of the Waymo Driver and identify any unique local characteristics. As needed, we then refine the Waymo Driver’s AI to navigate these local nuances – which are becoming fewer with every city.”
The customer experience with Waymo is simply an Uber without a driver. A ride is booked via the app, the car arrives and is unlocked with your phone, you get in and away you go. In cities like Austin, where the Waymo fleet is smaller, the driverless cars are operating via the Uber network.
The cars themselves are currently manufactured by Jaguar. Waymo has also entered a partnership with Hyundai.
The big questions relate to self-driving cars as a social development and how they will impact the culture.
Some have speculated that self-driving cars will make raising children more affordable and less time-consuming. The vast majority of parents would baulk at sending their child off alone in an Uber, but that reticence may not apply to a driverless ride. So Waymo may lead to time-poor parents shifting the burden of driving children from school to home, sports or friends’ houses onto the robots. This could potentially enable parents to work more hours, and even for women to take less of a financial hit when becoming mothers.
Depending on the speed of take-off and popularity, we may also see more differentiation in the service. For instance, the cars may allow the customer to set up a laptop and begin work during the drive. This could potentially partially off-set the trend of inner-city land having higher value than outer-suburban land, which would become more accessible and appealing to professionals with families.
A roll-out in Australia is sure to be a long way off. Still, Waymo’s look set to be the most significant technological advance in daily life since LLMs and mRNA vaccines.
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