https://waymo.com/blog/2025/10/hello-london-your-waymo-ride-is-arriving
If it's anything like the delivery robots in Northampton, the Waymo taxis will be there for ages until they can detect that all routes are clear of approaching traffic. Though, at least the robots ask for a human to press the button when they get to a pelican crossing!
OR even more challenging - when there is (just) room to pass but the autodriver is (for safety reasons) programmed to determine that there isn't (or would have to mount the pavement or do something else mildly illegal). Human driver correctly judges that there is room so presses on - does autodriver hold its ground or reverse to safety (assuming that for once there is nothing behind it) ?Or along a side street lined with double parked cars when someone else comes in the other direction and doesn't want to give way... and someone else comes up behind you and also won't budge. Aha all the fun of UK driving, i hope the Waymo AI is ready for such joys.
I'm interested to ride one as soon as I can simply to try this out.
Or along a side street lined with double parked cars when someone else comes in the other direction and doesn't want to give way... and someone else comes up behind you and also won't budge. Aha all the fun of UK driving, i hope the Waymo AI is ready for such joys.
When I took them in San Francisco a couple of months ago, I was surprised at how they drove. They were much more assertive than I expected; for example on a busy 2 lanes street with pretty blocked up traffic, if they needed to change lanes to turn they forced themselves into the other lane. It was safe, but it was a case where I'd expected them to be unable to do it.
I believe in San Fransisco Waymo only serves a (large) set of predetermined pickup/dropoff points. So presumably they would simply not set any in the field
Makes sense - becomes more of an issue for those advocating wholesale adoption of autonomous vehicles, though.
So it's bassically a private bus service. You can only be picked up and dropped off at Waymo stops. You have to walk to or from your driverless taxi unless the Waymostop is outside where your going which won't be you relatives house.
Putting a more positive spin on it (from the point of view of an autonomy sceptic) it might be more a case of there being various stretches of road where for safety reasons they are instructed not to stop /wait. I assume that, unlike a bus, it will wait for you for a certain length of time, rather than the other way around!
The density of stopping points in served urban areas is very high.
Current taxi fares usually consist of a distance element and a time element so that if you do end up in traffic the driver will still be paid for their time; remove the human element and there's really no need for the time element to be charged.
I'd expect the operator to keep some degree of a time element in the price, as a journey taking a longer time means the vehicle isn't released to be available for its next hire. So either the fleet can serve fewer customers, or it needs more vehicles. I'd agree that should probably be a smaller proportion of the fare than where a human driver is present though.
Plus endless very strong views on immigration?
Yep. Tesla self-drive simply ignores red lights, stop signs, even ignored a train on a level crossing in one video.
