In my experience Waymo has been much worse compared to Lyft/Uber for longer rides.
A big problem with Waymo in its current state is how its routes are terribly inefficient.
It purposely avoids freeways and higher speed roads, opting to take more inefficient routes without regards to the number of stop signs, hills, and other factors which will inevitably lead to a longer travel time. It's almost like it's using a worse version of the "Avoid highways" feature on Google Maps, and getting to a further destination can take almost twice the amount of time as compared to a Lyft/Uber.
Another problem is its lack of human intuition and strategies when driving in the city during some kind of event where many of the roads are blocked off. A human driver would have been navigating the blocked roads throughout the day and already know where to go to avoid the crowds, where as Waymo naively follows its navigation system and gets stuck in a bunch of traffic for no reason.
It also drives annoyingly slowly which leads to frustration from human drivers who constantly try to overtake you.
I get around by bike, foot, transit, and car in that order and have mostly lost my ability to not get motion sick in a car when I'm not driving. I prefer taking Waymos any time I'm not in a hurry in SF, but usually traffic is bad enough during the hours I take it that it's not a huge factor anyway and if you can get a MUNI that's close to your start and end points, it's significantly faster. Rideshare and taxi drivers in most of SF are constantly changing lanes, cutting off pedestrians, or speeding from light to light to try and make up the extra 10-15% time lost that Waymo eats and can make for an unpleasant experience for me, but yes if I'm in a hurry I do prefer a human driver.
(There's a slight component where as primarily a cyclist I feel that Waymos are much nicer to cyclists than human drivers are and it gives me affinity to Waymos that I don't feel for human drivers in the city.)
I find Waymo the most useful to take after a concert far from a MUNI stop because usually surge pricing makes Lyft and Uber really expensive and I'm usually tired enough to not want to walk to a stop or it's late enough that MUNI headways are far apart.
> ability to not get motion sick in a car when I'm not driving.
As someone who lives in a city without Waymo, I'm curious -- are you allowed to ride in the front seat?
I can generally tolerate riding in the front passenger seat, as long as the driver is competent, but I suffer a bit riding in the rear. And don't get me started on what it's like riding in a limo...
I could definitely see that. If you're not pressed on time it can be a smoother ride for sure. But if you're trying to get somewhere fast or efficiently like going to the airport, you'd want to get a regular Lyft/Uber otherwise you might miss your flight.
It would be cool if you can configure the ride preferences for how aggressive you'd like it to drive.
Well it doesn’t go to the airport today, because it doesn’t go on highways or out of the city. So i don’t think anyone has missed their flight.
I suspect with their new permits approved, you’ll see them drive on the highway soon, which will result in much faster trips where applicable.
I am really glad it’s not aggressive at driving - they drive how humans are supposed to - cautiously. Humans kill people regularly from aggressive driving.
I tried it in Phoenix in May and it wouldn’t take the freeway. And it’s definitely not generally available in the Bay area. (I take them every week or two.)
Do you mean they were doing testing with employees and special customers? Or do you mean anyone who had gotten off the waitlist could ride on the freeway in Phoenix?
This seems like a pretty low price to pay for the huge upsides of safer rides and potentially lower car ownership, on top of the more comfortable experience discussed elsewhere here.
I believe it is fairly accurate at estimating the ride time. The first time I took it though, I mistakenly thought it would take the same amount of time to get to my destination as Google Maps estimated since that is usually the case for Uber/Lyft.
So I was pretty annoyed after I got into the car and then realized that the route it selected was going through a bunch of hills and side streets that would take twice as long as the most direct route (via Google Maps) and there's nothing I could do to change that once the ride started.
ime it consistently overestimates ride time by 50+% or so. usually like 10-20% slower than google maps, but the estimate is often 2x what google maps says.
A big problem with Waymo in its current state is how its routes are terribly inefficient.
It purposely avoids freeways and higher speed roads, opting to take more inefficient routes without regards to the number of stop signs, hills, and other factors which will inevitably lead to a longer travel time. It's almost like it's using a worse version of the "Avoid highways" feature on Google Maps, and getting to a further destination can take almost twice the amount of time as compared to a Lyft/Uber.
Another problem is its lack of human intuition and strategies when driving in the city during some kind of event where many of the roads are blocked off. A human driver would have been navigating the blocked roads throughout the day and already know where to go to avoid the crowds, where as Waymo naively follows its navigation system and gets stuck in a bunch of traffic for no reason.
It also drives annoyingly slowly which leads to frustration from human drivers who constantly try to overtake you.