Disruptive

Technology

Waymo’s self-driving minivans are now offering rides to real people in Arizona

Waymo, the self-driving car startup spun off from Google late last year, announced today that it’s offering its services to members of the public for the first time. Waymo is calling it an “early rider program,” intent on cataloguing how on-demand, driverless cars will factor into people’s everyday lives. Interested participants can sign up on the company’s website, and Waymo will select riders depending on the the types of trips they want to take and their willingness to use the self-driving service as their primary mode of transportation. 

A Waymo test driver will be behind the wheel at all times, but the company insists that the vehicle will drive without human intervention as much as possible. Rides will only be available to residents of Phoenix and the surrounding towns, like Gilbert, Tempe, and Chandler. Waymo describes the service areas as twice the size of San Francisco.

DYI:  This technology will arrive faster than the naysayers yet slower for the early adopters; the safety issue will have to be over come and will have to be shown as significantly superior to a human driver to be accepted.  Closed courses will be used first in a totally driverless capacity such as hospital complexes, universities, military bases, etc. all within a very controlled traffic environment.  Once the bugs are worked out this will spread to other less controlled closed courses such as city busses (if the union will permit) once that is accomplished then its off to long haul trucking and then lastly individual renting or ownership.  All in all my best guess market saturation at all levels will arrive around 2035 to 2040.

DYI