I’ve been on a few trips to SF in the last few years where I got to take a Waymo. I’ve currently taken 11 Waymos. They are crazy! So futuristic. And yet, now they are doing over 100,000 paid rides per week.
In May 2024, they were doing 50,000 rides per week. In late 2023 it was 10,000 rides per week. So that is 10x in 1 year. They are already here. They are public in major cities like SF, LA, and Austin, and yet they are still a secret. They have felt like technology that was “a few years away” for the last 10 years but they are actually just here.
I have been interested in self-driving cars for a while, and just found a blog post I wrote speculating when they would come to LA back in 2015. Well, it was this year, 2024 – that they started offering rides in LA
https://waymo.com/blog/2024/03/scaling-waymo-one-safely-across-four-cities-this-year/
You get into the car, it starts talking to you. But the thing that is most noticeable is it just feels like a safer driver. I am a regular user of Uber and Lyft, in particular when I’m traveling and very regularly I get Uber drivers that are just unsafe. They are swerving, they are driving aggressively, they are speeding, and I really do not want that. The human drivers are already unsafe as is.
The first couple rides seem weird but after that it seems normal. I don’t live in SF enough to use more often, but if they were in Chicago I would take them over a Lyft or Uber. Then you can sit on the back, use your phone and get to your destination. It just feels calmer. Also helps that they have the futuristic music playing.
The thing I’ve noticed in the last few times that I’ve been to SF is the number of Waymos just seems to be increasing. It was relatively common on my last trip to see several Waymos in a row. Before it was a rare sight to see even one self driving car.
Prediction market on # of Waymo rides in 2025 and 2026. 2025 estimates currently at 400k-800k rides per week, and 2026 estimates at 1-2 milion rides per week.
https://manifold.markets/JoshYou/how-many-paid-driverless-waymo-ride?play=true
Not sure if Waymo (Google) or Tesla will be the major self driving player but exciting that the technology for both has developed so much.
A few clips below.