Robotaxi — Blog — Healy Chen

You son of a beach, I'm in

I am officially in on the Waymo app. I can now hail a fully autonomous car to take me anywhere (?) in San Francisco. Bad news for me is unlike the early invitees, rides are no longer free. But, I am excited to see what it is all about. Hopefully there won’t be any crashing into emergency vehicles. There definitely will not be any sex.

Can we trust computers fully? This morning, my Apple Watch did its hourly thing of reminding me to stand up. Problem is: I was already standing for the past 20 minutes! Kind of disappointed it wasn’t completely foolproof to detect that. I guess the Apple Watch doesn’t use a proximity sensor to gauge how far it is from the floor? That makes sense, actually. Otherwise, you can fake standing by sitting on a bar stool.

Pilots trust autopilot programs on airplanes, and by transitive properly, so do we as passengers. Obviously, there are way less airplanes in the sky compared to cars on the road. Also, there aren’t pedestrians and other objects to potentially run into.

I think the so called robotaxis are perfect for the introverts like myself. I almost never (want to) talk to the UBER driver, and always sit in the back passenger space. (Are there UBER drivers out there using two-door coupes?) With robotaxis, even the subtle pressure of making conversation with the driver will be gone! It is a completely silent car ride - there’s nobody else but me. I would totally watch a Youtube video during a Waymo ride, if I weren’t prone to carsickness.

Will I get annoyed at how strictly a Waymo ride follows the rules of the road? Example: everybody’s going 10 above, while the robotaxi is pegged to the speed limit. Unlike a human driver taxi, there isn’t (yet?) a financial incentive for a robotaxi to get to the destination as quickly as possible.

Who's driving the car?

Lake Merced is where I do my weekly running. It is also where I first learned how to drive. Indeed, that concrete parking lot have played host to many a young driver’s first time behind the wheel of a car. It always warms my heart to see one of them out there learning how to drive, all the while I am prepared for my run. Because that was exactly me, exactly two decades ago.

I’ve been driving for twenty years? Jesus Christ that is amazing and sobering at the same time.

I wonder if the kids of the future will even learn how to drive, especially those living in big cities. UBER and LYFT remains ever convenient, plus the looming prospects of self-driving cars. Honestly, who wants to drive when they could be driven? I certainly would rather get chauffeured around. Drivers these days are freaking crazy. I’ve said it before: if I didn’t love cars, I probably wouldn’t own any right now.

California recently allowed “robotaxis” to operate in San Francisco unrestricted, 24/7. Meanwhile I am still waiting to get off the waitlist at both Cruise and Waymo, the two highest profile robotaxi companies. I am actually quite excited to try riding in a true driverless car. Though not nearly as excited as the person who had sex in the backseat of one recently. I want to ride in one just for fun; if I need to get somewhere promptly, I will still call an actual human driving car.

Because you can’t count on a robotaxi to be quick. Its first order of responsibility seems to be safety. I witnessed a Cruise taxi waiting behind a double-parked ambulance for way longer than a human car would have waited. The Cruise vehicle was stationary for such a long time than those of us watching wondered if it were going to move at all (it did, eventually). If that were me in the car, I probably would have gotten out and called an UBER.