AI #11 - What It’s Like to Ride in a Self-Driving Waymo in Phoenix
Taking a fully autonomous ride to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport
After a celebratory lunch for my niece’s graduation (ASU - Go Sun Devils) my wife and I finally got to ride in a self-driving Waymo taxi. While Waymo does have cars in my hometown of Austin, they are fairly sparse and you cannot select to ride in one. The Jaguar-based cars are randomly assigned to Uber users in Austin. So far my Waymo card has not come up.
Until now.
Hailing the Car of the Future
In Tempe/Phoenix you can download the dedicated Waymo app and summon one of the fleet of specially equipped Jaguar SUVs. I pulled up the app while we were saying our goodbyes in the parking lot of a restaurant. I mention this detail because the pickup spot is super accurate. When our taxi arrived it went to that exact spot. Later, I did see I could have adjusted the pickup spot but this was completely fine with us.
When the car arrived the app instructions on my phone were pretty clear, although it was slow to unlock the doors. We pressed the button on the left passenger door several times and it didn’t open at first. Additionally, I tried to put our luggage in the trunk but couldn’t figure out how to get it open. So instead I squeezed our roller bag from the backseat into the front - a bit awkward. As I was shoving the bag forward I wondered if there was sensor that would catch me and yell out, “stop.” But thankfully it was fine.
And We’re Off!
The departure was smooth and pleasant. A rear-facing screen mounted to the center console welcomed us and explained a few safety related items in both video and voiceover. The screen had controls for ac temp, sound volume and music choice. It also kept us updated on our progress to the airport. It was a busy Saturday afternoon and so the five mile trip took about 20 minutes, on moderate speed surface streets.
The first turn was a bit unsettling.
We’ve all been there. The tricky left across multiple lanes. Our car chose a route going left on a busy, divided road (two lanes each way plus a center turn lane). Since traffic was heavy, cars were backed up and blocking our access to the center turn lane. So, cars are coming from our left and the lane we need to be in is full. What to do? This gave us an immediate example of how humans and machines interact differently.
A driver in our intended lane saw us struggling and tried to wave us in. He didn’t realize he was waving at a robot taxi. I assume the Waymo algorithm doesn’t comprehend or obey friendly waves from other drivers.
So after sitting at that intersection for several minutes, unable to proceed, our taxi went into “emergency” mode. I assume that means it was “stuck” or “confused.” But shortly after that the car did what any smart human would do: give up and “make the block.” We turned right to avoid the whole situation and looped around to an easier intersection. Problem solved.
Riding with the Bot
I was giddy with the newness of it all once we got going. I looked over all the controls and nav screen as the taxi navigated down the road. The music was fine and the ac did well enough in the hot Phoenix sun. I changed the music to a different channel. I took a video with my phone.
The nav screen was interesting to watch. Similar to Teslas, the nav system displays much richer, interactive detail than typical car mapping systems. For what seemed like a couple hundred feet radius the screen displayed all the other moving vehicles and stationary objects, like buildings and trees, around us. According to Waymo, the Jaguar I-PACE SUV uses LiDAR, RADAR and cameras for navigation. That’s where this rich visual experience is coming from.
Stopping Power
Our Waymo ride went well enough except for one thing that stood out: stopping. My wife and I both agreed on this.
On several occasions, when approaching red lights or stop signs, the car did a “stutter stop.” Instead of gradually slowing like a human driver, the car would lightly jerk (stutter?) multiple times until it stopped. I’m usually immune to motion sickness, but even I got a little queazy at these moments. It happened several times throughout the stop and go drive.
I searched around and read a bit on ChatGPT about this stutter-stop behavior. It seems others have experienced it too. I’m sure this will get worked out in future tweaks to the system. I could not find much detail on the issue, but some Reddit users report a similar problem. ChatGPT thinks the problem involves the iterative nature of the car’s nav brain making multiple observations of its situation and the safety of the surroundings and so essentially it is “checking” for safety multiple times before fully stopping.
Onward
Waymo: We’re now providing more than 250,000 fully autonomous paid rides each and every week. The robotaxi future is here, and it’s powered by our generalizable Waymo Driver.
I love the ride-sharing experience, having tried Uber first among most (all?) of my friends about eleven years ago. I’ve enjoyed many conversations with taxi and ride-share drivers over the years. I would miss that if I went 100% driverless. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pro-technology. But I might not be completely ready to let go of the personal connection of the taxi driver.
Short phone video, with nav screen at the bottom.