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Waymo drops waitlist, opens driverless car services to anyone in San Francisco
By Ross Terrell,
5 days ago
A Waymo self-driving car in front of Google headquarters in San Francisco. Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
If you were hoping to take a spin in the self-driving Waymo cars , now's your chance. The company announced Tuesday anyone in San Francisco can now hail a ride instead of needing to be approved off a waitlist.
Why it matters: San Francisco is the second city in the U.S., after Phoenix, where the robotaxis are open to anyone.
How it works: You can request a ride on Waymo using the Waymo One app, and the process is much like using Uber or Lyft. The pricing structure is also similar — riders are charged a base fee plus time and distance traveled.
By the numbers: The Alphabet-owned company said in a press release that nearly 300,000 people had signed up on its waitlist to use the service while it was scaling operations in the city.
Catch up quick: The company received approval last August to operate its driverless cars around the city 24/7 after initially only being allowed to charge for rides with a safety driver.
In March, it received a permit to operate on San Francisco freeways and other highways in the Bay Area. The company has been operating in San Francisco since 2009.
Reality check: The autonomous vehicle roll out here hasn't always been smooth.
Cruise, which lost its permits to operate autonomously in the city after one of its vehicles dragged a pedestrian 20 feet in October, was fined $112,500 last week by the California Public Utilities Commission for withholding information about the incident. The company is still unable to offer rides in California.
The big picture: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced in May that federal regulators were investigating Waymo for crashes and traffic violations, according to USA Today.
NHTSA had received nearly two dozen reports of incidents such as collisions with stationary objects.
The other side: "We are proud of our performance and safety record over tens of millions of autonomous miles driven, as well as our demonstrated commitment to safety transparency," Waymo told the Arizona Republic .
According to company data, Waymo cars are involved in 0.4 collisions per million miles driven compared to a rate of 2.78 for human-driven cars.
My thought bubble: I tried Waymo earlier this year in Phoenix and seeing a car turn, brake, accelerate and even use its blinker (something I fail to do) with no driver in the front seat was quite a futuristic experience.
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