“Hello, Tripp,” a disembodied female voice said over the speakers of a driverless taxi about to pick up a fare near the colorful Victorian houses known as the Painted Ladies.
“This experience could be futuristic,” said the voice. “Please do not touch the steering wheel or pedals during the ride. For any question, you can find information in the Waymo app, like how we keep our cars safe or clean.”
For several years, the hilly, congested streets of San Francisco have doubled as a test track for hundreds of driverless cars operated by Waymo, an autonomous vehicle company owned by Google parent company Alphabet, and General Motors-owned Cruise.
The New York Times sent three reporters across the city to test Waymo’s robot taxis. I started in Alamo Square, home of the famous Women’s houses are painted. Yiwen Lu began his ride on Marina Greenalong San Francisco’s northern waterfront, and Mike Isaac began his drive near the historic site Mission Dolores Basilica.
Our destination: the Beach Chalet restaurant, where San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park meets the Pacific Ocean. Waymo only offers limited trips into the downtown area of San Francisco, so we tried to duplicate the experience a tourist might have getting around the city in a driverless taxi.
The nearly five-mile journey was in two parts”Miss Daisy driving” and a part NASCAR. Two rides carefully avoided congestion, and one seemed to embrace it.
Waymo’s robot taxi ride begins as tensions rise over driverless cars in San Francisco. City officials and activists are urging state officials to reverse or slow a plan for Waymo and Cruise to begin charging passengers for rides across the city, all the time.
Last week, a Cruise driverless car collided with a fire truck responding to an emergency. Another cruise vehicle was stuck on the wet pavement. Last week, several Cruise vehicles blocked traffic in the city’s North Beach neighborhood. On Friday, state regulators asked Cruise to halve the number of vehicles it operates.
Waymo has had fewer headline problems. In May, one of the its cars collided and killed a small dog. A few years ago, a driverless Waymo car with a human safety driver operating the wheel hit a pedestrian that needs to be taken to the hospital. The company has been collecting fares in the Phoenix area for several years and now has a fleet that navigates about 200 miles throughout that region, including to and from the airport.
Waymo’s app, Waymo One, looks and works just like Uber does. Riders enter their destination and get an estimated wait time for a ride. Once you’ve entered your requests, the company dispatches from its fleet of 250 white Jaguar cars that it drives around the city. The cars are very expensive, equipped with high-tech sensors and cameras, and cost up to $200,000.
Each of us waited five to 10 minutes for a ride.
The Waymo experience can be confusing for a first timer. When the car stopped at the curb next to the Painted Ladies, I reached for the door handle. But the handles are leaning against the door and won’t open. I have to press an “unlock” button on the app. When I did, the handles shot out from the door and I was able to climb inside.
My ride was so smooth, the novelty started to wear off, turning the future trip into just another trip across town. The car is precise and deliberate, though without the flexibility or interactions you’d have with a human driver. It stopped for pedestrians and yielded to emergency vehicles.
Like my ride, Yiwen’s ride was very sleepy. The car is dry precisely. It didn’t exceed the speed limit, used its turn signal early before changing lanes and yielded to pedestrians in crosswalks that fast drivers might ignore.
Mike’s robot taxi, however, is more aggressive. It jumped off the starting line faster than he expected. He was surprised by the way the car zipped through some tight neighborhoods before settling into the drive to the beach.
When my Waymo approached a construction project blocking the right lane, it slowed to 20 miles per hour from 30 mph and turned its turn signal to stop in the left lane. Moments later, the car was at a stop sign as a fire engine approached with flashing lights. Waymo hesitated. A touch screen displayed a brief explanation: “Yield to the emergency vehicle.” He waited until the fire truck passed by to accelerate to the intersection.
The steering wheel turned and turned on itself. I wondered what would happen if I held the wheel, so I held it as Waymo merged from one line to another. The car ignored me and drove off.
Yiwen’s trip began with a complication: an accident, not involving Waymo, next to a parking lot in Marina Green. Police cars were blocking part of the road, so the Waymo car quickly changed its route. Instead of taking the main street, the Waymo car drove onto a nearby residential street and spun around in the accident.
Cars respond quickly to pedestrians. My ride waits patiently at intersections and crosswalks as people walk their dogs, sip coffee and ride their bikes to Golden Gate Park.
But at the top of a hill, Mike’s car meets a man crossing the road at a crosswalk but keeps creeping forward waiting for him to get to the other side. The pedestrian gave the car — and Mike — an annoyed look.
Cars offer more bells and whistles than an Uber or a taxicab. The touch screens in the back seats are equipped with a button to turn on the music. There are a range of playlists to choose from, including jazz, classical, rock and hip-hop.
Mike wanted to listen to a punk band called Armed and tried to find the group’s music on the Waymo app. But to do that, he had to download an app called Google Assistant and request a specific song by speaking into his phone’s microphone. His first attempt brought up the wrong band, and his second brought up a live version of the song he requested.
Instead of taking the most direct route to the beach on a congested street, my Waymo cut through Golden Gate Park and drove down a less congested street, but that added a few minutes to the trip. Puttered almost all the way to 29 mph – a mile per hour under the speed limit – and deferred to other drivers. At one point, it sat for several minutes behind a car waiting to turn left instead of merging into the right lane to go around that car.
My Waymo pulled into a parking lot six minutes later than it initially predicted. It flew across the parking lot to a small, empty space where the map on the touch screen showed a circle. As it pulled in a circle, it stopped.
“You’re here,” said the woman. “Please make sure it’s clear before exiting.”
When I got out of the car, it was filled with the meditative electronic music that greeted me at the beginning of the trip. After a while, Mike arrived.
Yiwen’s car was less direct. At the beginning of his journey, he told him that it was a two-minute walk to the restaurant from his drop-off point. The car reminded him of it when it arrived and encouraged him to use the app to guide him as he walked to the Beach Chalet.
Waymo rides are affordable, ranging from $18 to $21, about the same as an Uber. It will take years — if not decades — for Waymo to recoup the billions of dollars it has invested in its service. Although there is no driver, each ride is supported by staff at a Waymo site who can be summoned if a vehicle runs into trouble.
But that’s Waymo’s problem. For the rest of us, it’s easy to forget that no one is behind the wheel of robot taxis. The only reminder comes as you begin to thank the driver before getting out of the car. A glance at the empty front seat reminds you that you are alone.
