Waymo new service area in Silicon Valley
Waymo has announced the expansion of his Robotaxi service to 27 square miles of Silicon Valley for a limited group of clients. Most importantly, is the area including the new Waymo headquarters in Mountain View, as well as the Google and “X” headquarters, both organizations that were born Waymo. It includes parts of Los Altos, Palo Alto and a small piece of sunnyval.
I made a trip to the territory from the new Waymo headquarters to the old one. The journey was, as expected, calm, but sure-better than last year in San Francisco, except for a slightly annoying bounce for a quick lump. Waymo employees had begun calling vehicles in the headquarters whose parking lot knows well.
The last time I boarded a Waymo in the area was on the 85th highway in 2012, but then I was working for the team and was behind the wheel in the role of security driver to provide reactions for the team. I had taken the special course of school school that someone who took that role had to take on a hypnotics in the north of San Francisco to improve one’s reactions. And indeed, at the time, the car came in a way where it was trembling and I had to take control. Something that happens today in my Tesla with FSD.
For my annoyance, the new service area does not include my home. It is the excess of the area, though within the Waymo operation permit. I hope they will expand the area soon.
Progress during those 13 years is of course extraordinary. Then, I was about to catch the wheel. Today, I sat down in the back seat and soon I was not paying attention to the trip, though the whole purpose of the trip was to do it.
View from the rear seat of my Waymo journey to Mountain View
I also hoping that they add an additional service to it, to connect the Silicon Valley and San Francisco service areas. I would like to take a robotax to my house, and take it to a small extras near one of the highways. There, I would like to see a kind of common service, such as cars or vans that leave every 5-10 minutes that would take others to a similar place in San Francisco, where a group of personal Waymos would wait for us all to ride to reach our final destination. (If 2 or more of us would have the same destination, we can use the same vehicle.) This transfer can be a robotax for 4, or a van or even bus, now man -driven, but eventually a robot. Because all of us will share it, the cost for most miles would be low. The cost for door -to -door travel would be more than a $ 8 Caltrain ticket but much less than a Uber $. If the ship leaves every 5 minutes, I will wait. If you leave every 10-15 minutes, we would set my pickup to meet it accurately. (Every 30 minutes and this can lead me to train-waymo has a deal with several transit lines to subsidize the trip if you take a way out in it.)
This makes the service much more valuable. Almost everyone in Silicon Valley owns a car (seemingly always a Tesla but attitudes are changing for political reasons.) Parking is almost always free to make competition more difficult. A long journey creates a greater chance of value; Without the need to drive open options. Indeed, with typical SF downtown parking that costs $ 30 or more, plus 100 miles of cost of use in the car, it is possible to become very competitive. However, as Caltrain’s low fraud shows, travel time should not increase much.
Today you need to get an invitation to use the Silicon Valley service. Past models suggest that this will end a long time ago. Even soon it will be the ability to use highways-waymo is already getting employees, in the back seat, for them. Also high in the desired list would be access to SJC and SFO airports. SFO Airport faces problems because it is operated by the city of SF, which is not a Waymo fan. SJC Airport is not in their permitted service area.
Also interesting will be Waymo’s planned experiments with reconciliation fees rather than Uber -style taxi service with tax prices. The real goal of the robotax is not to replace Uber or Uber drivers, even though today’s pilots look like this. The biggest goal is to replace cars (and replace many other forms of transport.)
The team in Waymo is clearly excited to see their product come where they live. I was actually a little surprised that it lasted so long. Always is always good for your staff to really use your product all the time; You get an understanding that does not come from watching others. And Tesla Engineering HQ is just outside the service area-you can walk it-so it is also good for people to use competition products regularly.