Waymo is adding driverless taxi service zones to both Los Angeles and San Francisco, and is currently testing in Austin before offering rides to the public soon.
While we’re all waiting for Tesla’s forever-delayed robots or FSD to actually drive themselves, Waymo, Google’s self-driving robot service, has been offering private self-driving taxi rides to the public in its self-driving I-Pace electric vehicles for some time now.
The cars currently only operate in specific geographic areas that Waymo has mapped well, in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles. But today, Waymo is adding coverage to new parts of Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, increasing coverage by about 26 total miles between the two areas.
San Francisco received a relatively modest addition of 10 square miles, most of which covered Daly City, south of the city itself.
In Los Angeles, the expansion was a bit more significant, including Westwood, Marina del Rey, Hollywood, Chinatown, and filling in some other areas south of Highway 101 and some larger parts of Culver City.
It’s worth noting that two new areas are tied to student populations – Westwood, which is densely populated with UCLA students, and Playa Vista/Del Rey, where many Loyola Marymount University students live.
Late last year, we tested Waymo’s self-driving taxi on a chaotic weekend in Venice Beach, and were absolutely blown away by what the car could do, despite some serious challenges — and some major bugs. We’ve got a full report and a video of the test if you want to see more.
But at this point, the system is open to the public, so you can also ride it yourself if you’re in one of the covered areas.
In Phoenix, Waymo covers 315 square miles, including Sky Harbor Airport, and has partnered with Uber to offer Uber rides and select UberEats deliveries. In both Phoenix and San Francisco, rides are available by downloading the Waymo One app.
In Los Angeles, you can also download the Waymo One app, but Waymo is currently working on a waiting list of about 150,000 riders, inviting them to join the service in batches. So you’ll have to wait a bit, but it doesn’t cost you anything to sign up to wait.
In Austin, the service isn’t ready yet, but Waymo said it will be available “later this year,” which the company confirmed today. It’s currently testing the vehicles with employee passengers, but you can also join the waitlist in Austin through the app.
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