As soon as I walked out of Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport’s Terminal 3, I spotted a young woman trying to open the trunk of a driverless Waymo robotaxi and get her luggage out. You can’t open the doors or trunk of a robotaxi without pressing the right button on your smartphone app. The robotaxi, a sleek white Jaguar, had pulled over at the curbside, behind where a long queue of arriving passengers were waiting for their internal combustion engine-based ride-hailing vehicles from Uber or Lyft.
I had failed in my efforts in trying to hop into a robotaxi since July last year. First, there was a long waitlist to ride in robotaxis operating in San Francisco and Phoenix. There were over 300,000 people on the Waymo waitlist in San Francisco alone. Then, a year ago, Cruise, the robotaxi subsidiary of General Motors, suspended all its operations after an incident in San Francisco in which a pedestrian was dragged 20 feet by its robotaxi, after she was first struck by a human driving a regular taxi.
Three months ago, Waymo abandoned its waiting list, opened up its on-demand robotaxis to everyone and announced it was expanding to more US cities including Los Angeles, Austin in Texas and Atlanta, Georgia. And Cruise is expected to relaunch its operation over the next few weeks in several US cities.
Over the past three weeks, I have been crisscrossing America ahead of the fiercely contested Nov 5 Presidential elections, hopping from one swing state to the other. My two-day trip to Arizona was part of a swing through the states that will decide the electoral college and who takes over as the most powerful person on earth in late January. Election aside, Phoenix is also Ground Zero in the battle for supremacy of self-driving cars.
A month ago, electric vehicle (EV) pioneer Tesla unveiled its own Cybercab amidst much fanfare at the Warner Brothers film studios. But while Tesla’s mega billionaire CEO Elon Musk has promised a robot almost every other year now for over six years, real Cybercabs on American streets are still at least a year away. Many analysts who cover Tesla believe Cybercabs might be more like a 2026 story. Meanwhile, about 800 or so Waymo robotaxis are already plying the streets and several hundred Cruise cabs are ready to return to the streets within weeks. Several other firms are testing autonomous vehicles on public roads in US cities. Among them: Zoox, a subsidiary of e-commerce giant Amazon.com, and upstarts like Wayve.
My robotaxi experience
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I had vowed only to use robotaxis during my sojourn in Arizona. Just before noon, one sunny day in mid-October, outside a Phoenix airport terminal, I was ready to embark on a journey to discover the world of state-of-the-art robots on wheels that drive themselves. Seeing several Waymo cars pull up outside Gate 9 of the terminal, I wheeled my carry-on luggage to the curbside and opened my iPhone’s Waymo One app to hail a robotaxi. When I finally managed to request a Waymo, the app informed me that one would arrive in 16 minutes. I looked up the Uber app where the waiting time was just 3 minutes despite the long queue of passengers at the terminal all logging on to hail an Uber. To my surprise, within a minute or so, the waiting time for Waymo dropped from 16 minutes to just 7 minutes. Waymo had somehow found me another car near the terminal.
I spotted my ride with its distinct rapidly spinning Lidar (light detection and ranging) tube on its roof from far away. Though I could not read the car’s licence plate number, I knew that it was my cab because my iPhone was buzzing. The map on the Waymo One app, akin to Tesla’s driving map, showed the car approaching my digital twin on the app. The robotaxi instinctively knew where I was because I had turned on the Bluetooth function on my iPhone. It stopped just a few steps from where I was waiting.
The app prompted me: “Press” to open the door. As I pressed the button on the app, the door handles of the Jaguar suddenly sprang out. I reached for them, opened the door and put my backpack into the car. I still needed to put my carry-on luggage in the trunk. With the car door still open, I walked to the back, where I guess Waymo’s radars and sensors sensed what I wanted. The app prompted me to “Press” the button again to unlock the trunk. I placed my luggage inside and then climbed into the back seat and shut the door.
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The Waymo-Jaguar is a four-seater SUV. Once seated, both my smartphone app as well as a screen in the car instructed me to fasten my seatbelt. Until the seatbelt was securely fastened, the robotaxi refused to budge. As the car began to move, music started playing. The screen on the dashboard showed the estimated arrival time in bold letters: Arriving in 14 minutes at 12.17 pm. Another screen, at the back of the front seat, displayed the song name: “Palm Tree” by hiphop artiste Purrple Cat. You can use the touchscreen to move to the next song or keep toggling to seek a song you like. You can also adjust the volume, or use Bluetooth to play songs from Apple Music or Spotify on your smartphone. It’s such a relief that while riding we are not forced to hear only the songs curated by some Waymo software engineers!
The touchscreen at the back has a button labelled “Pull over” in case you need to stop the car. There is another button for “Support”. Press that and you will be instantly connected to a Waymo support staffer who will happily help you.
For now, there are no videos or ads on any of the touchscreens, but given the fact that Waymo’s owner Google is an advertising behemoth which also controls YouTube, it won’t be a surprise if eventually Waymo is pushing ads and videos down riders throats as a key part of its business model. Long-time readers of my tech column might recall a line that I often repeat: With Google, Facebook, Instagram and other ad-supported platforms, you are always the product, not the customer. Their only customers are their advertisers.
The robotaxi took off from the airport terminal very slowly and carefully but confidently got on to the main streets buzzing with lunchtime traffic. At one point, it deftly changed lanes as traffic was building up in its lane. As it approached my destination, it suddenly slowed just as the green light was turning to yellow; in the neighbouring lanes, two human drivers raced past the yellow light.
It was a comfortable, fairly uneventful trip. It took about 14 minutes. I was told that cars driven by humans take about 12 minutes for the same distance. The cost was just over US$12 ($16), about the same as what I would have paid Uber or Lyft. The only thing is Uber and Lyft both prompt you to leave a tip for the driver. With the driverless Waymo, however, there was no reason to add a tip.
From sci-fi to reality
It’s still early days yet for robotaxis. Though they are driverless, Waymos still need human engineers to intervene in unexpected scenarios, remotely, from command centres. Waymo now averages more than 100,000 weekly trips for passengers in Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco.
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A few weeks ago, Waymo began a partnership with rival Uber to launch its robotaxi service in Austin. Early next year, Waymo-Uber will begin operations in Atlanta. You can also use the Uber app in Phoenix or San Francisco to hail a Waymo: On your Uber app, after typing in your destination, select the Waymo option. In practice, the whole process of requesting a Waymo through Uber is far too cumbersome. I had to change my settings and it still took far too long. I will bet not many people are actually hailing Waymos from their Uber app in San Francisco or Phoenix right now.
Though Waymo and Cruise are still losing bucketloads of money on their commercial services, money is pouring into autonomous vehicles and robotaxi start-ups. This past week, Waymo closed a US$5.6 billion external funding round to expand its robotaxi service across the US. In July, Alphabet’s outgoing CFO Ruth Porat had announced that it would commit up to US$5 billion in a multiyear investment to Waymo. The autonomous vehicle venture is owned by Google’s parent Alphabet, which led the third round of investments in Waymo, alongside earlier backers including venture capital powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz (or a16z), mutual fund giants Fidelity and T. Rowe Price as well as other Silicon Valley VCs including Perry Creek Capital, Silver Lake and Tiger Global. The latest series C funding brings total capital raised by Waymo so far to more than US$11 billion. It had raised US$3.2 billion and US$2.5 billion in two earlier rounds.
Here is the thing: Though they have been around for years, robotaxis are still considered new. The way I see it, Americans will take to Waymos, Cruises and Cybercabs like a fish takes to water as long as their robotaxis are safe, comfortable, priced competitively, and take about the same time to arrive at a destination as other ride-hailing alternatives like Uber. Waymo and Cruise have shown they can deliver on everything except safety.
Take it from me. Robotaxis are safe. With over 22 million rider-only miles driven through the end of June this year, Waymo robotaxis have been involved in 84% fewer crashes with airbag deployment, 73% fewer injury-causing crashes, and 48% fewer police-reported crashes compared to human drivers. Still, robotaxis have to prove themselves as safer than other ride hailing options. Some of the surveys I have seen show that only a third of Americans will readily ride a Waymo, Cruise or a Cybercab if one was available next time they needed a cab ride. I will bet over time people will have more confidence riding robotaxis.
One time, when I got off the Waymo at the driveway of my hotel, an older couple, who were probably waiting for their Uber ride, asked if it was scary and whether it was my first ride. To be honest, although I was a little nervous at first, after the first two trips, taking a robotaxi seemed as normal as an Uber ride.
After two days of travelling around Phoenix in Waymos, I can only remember one slightly scary moment. One night, the robotaxi was cruising merrily back towards my hotel. A jaywalker ran across the street. The robotaxi spotted him and slowed down. It sped up again only when he was on the other side.
Robotaxis are no longer some pipe dream or a page in sci-fi thrillers. Hyper-connected robots on wheels are here. They are safe and becoming safer. They will transform our cities, save lives and make commuting for work or travelling for pleasure a far better experience than us humans navigating the streets in our gas-guzzling sedans.
Assif Shameen is a technology and business writer based in North America
