Waymo’s driverless taxis are now open to the public in Los Angeles. Starting Tuesday, anyone with the Waymo One app can hail a fully autonomous ride in specific parts of the city. Previously, only riders on a waitlist could use the service. While LA joins San Francisco and Phoenix as Waymo cities, the service area in LA is smaller, covering areas from Playa Vista and Marina del Rey up to Santa Monica and West Hollywood, with Little Tokyo as the eastern edge.
We parked at Kroger the other day next to three of these, all Jaguars, charging up. A driver was there waiting and we chatted a bit. In the time we shopped, his car went from 57% to 77%, maybe 20 minutes. My wife asked him if they could see red lights, and he said yes, they have drivers here now, just tooling around I guess checking them out. I guess they will go "live" (sort of) in a year or so.
I think this is a "coming thing", and in five years perhaps all taxis will be autonomous in cities (???). Is this a better way to handle mass transit in effect?
