This sentence was a bit cute: "Waymo has received our pilot permit allowing for commercial operations at San Francisco International Airport." Yeah, that kind of pilot.
I really had to read through it twice to make sure they were just talking about car taxis picking up travelers, rather than some kind of prototype pilotless commuter helicopter or something.
The hard part of automated driving is dealing with all the ground clutter that planes serenely fly over. If pedestrians could charge out in front of a 777 going 650 mph at 34,000 feet... well... we'd be living in pretty different world! And in that world, flying would be much more difficult. Not just for computers but for humans too.
Flying is obviously much harder than driving, but it's a sort of harder that is generally more amenable to automation, though I still think pilots are a good idea because when it goes wrong it goes wrong much worse.
Flying is almost always easier than driving. landing is hard. Bad weather is hard. But just flying - human pilots have napped many times over the years and it only rarely is an issue. Airplanes with primitive autopilot are very good.
In the abstract yes but in practice the economic (ratio of cost of pilot to pax miles) and safety context of aviation mean fully autonomous flying has to be extremely robust before it has actual utility in industry.
In practice, you're also currently very reliant on infrastructure that is definitely not as solid as you want (eg: ILS and GPS can be interfered with quite nastily).
ILS being under maintenance and unavailable for certain runways is also far from unusual.
On the happy path, yes. Though I don’t think takeoff is automated yet.
Currently we rely very much on the problem solving abilities of human pilots to deal with troublesome situations. Autopilot will disengage in many scenarios.
Drones (both autonomous and remote piloted) have much higher mishap rates than crewed aircraft. Taking off is "easy" until something goes wrong, like a mechanical failure or runway incursion. It's impossible to anticipate and explicitly code for every possible failure mode, so developing autonomous flight control systems that would be safe enough for commercial passenger flights is extremely challenging.
Category IIIC ILS (full auto-land) does exist but requires special equipment for both the aircraft and airport. Human pilots have to actively monitor the system and take back control if anything goes wrong (which does happen).
Garmin also has the Autonomí auto-land system for certain general aviation aircraft which can attempt to land at the closest suitable airport. But this is only used for single pilot operation in case the pilot becomes incapacitated. It isn't suitable for regular flights.
OTOH takeoff and landing could in theory be operated by people on the ground, flying simulator style.
I still believe that having an actual pilot inside the plane that care for his own life is not a bad idea vs someone remote feeling a bit disconnected with the reality of a crash.
I am not sure why you were down voted. The original meaning of the word pilot is someone who comes aboard a ship for "the last mile" - getting in and out of the harbor and what you are talking about is kinda like that - a person associated with the airport rather than airplane to guide the planes in and out - perhaps using more reliable local communication technology vs what is used to control drones half way around the world.
I have no idea if that works but I thought you were making a good contribution to the conversation by proposing a potential solution to the exact problem everyone is talking about.
Remote piloting is how the military operates certain drones like the MQ-1 Predator. The mishap rate is very high relative to crewed aircraft due to network lag and sensor issues. The military is willing to accept some level of equipment loss in order to accomplish their mission but this would never be allowed for commercial airliners.
Depends on the size of the plane, really. One of the reasons a few companies were investing in fully autonomous air taxis is because the math on a small piloted aircraft wasn't realistic for a low enough price point to be competitive.
The problem is actually safety. As automated systems get better, the pilot is left with not much to do, and has to maintain vigilance while being really really bored. It is almost better to have fewer automated systems and give the pilot more things to do during the flight so it is easier to keep them paying attention, or all automated with no human pilot to mess things up.
Don’t have a ref but heard that it’s been safe for quite a while but they keep the pilots around due to consumer fear rather than actual improved performance. Curious if anyone can confirm.
No. Airliners can't even take off on their own yet, and are only allowed to auto-land with zero visibility at a few dozen airports when the pilots, plane, and runway are all current/recently checked.
Look up the Airbus ATTOL project's first automated takeoff a few years ago.
Also, there's virtually no automation when it comes to interacting with ATC.
An airplane will take off when it is properly configured and it hits a certain speed. It's simple aerodynamics/physics. Pilots are there to react to failures and unexpected events.
There's a bit more to it since you do need to do last bit of configuration (pull up the nose) just as you hit the target speed. But yeah, automatic take-off is quite a bit easier than automatic rejection of take-off.
If you can design the product and environment to fit automation, then automation can be quick and effective.
The less you can change about the product and environment, then automation run slower and less effectively.
Air liner operations could be automated, but the minimum equipment list would be more stringent, the destination airport would not be able to take any equipment out of service for maintenance, visibility minimums would increase, takeoff and landing operations would require more slack time.
Besides all of that, the owner of the airplane would still want to have some crew on board.
In short, it's not worth it yet.
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There is also the paradox of automation: Automation generally makes the hard parts harder and the easy parts easier.
That “just” is doing some heavy lifting! The car still has to deal with all the normal hazards of the road while pulling over, plus the hazards it is itself creating by acting abnormally.
Yes, but autopilot usually just keeps the plane flying in a straight line at some specified altitude, which have been around since 1912. It isn't full self-flying (although we definitely have drones that can fly themselves already, so that tech already exists).
Auto-landers are not simply classified with autopilots. An autoland system is an advanced function that is part of a modern aircraft's overall autopilot capabilities. A basic autopilot can control an aircraft's attitude and heading, but an autoland system can automatically execute the full landing procedure.
As a European, I can’t help but feel a bit sad that we’re missing out on the driverless side of things. It seems like most of the meaningful deployments are happening in the US (Waymo, Cruise).
I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here. The regulatory environment is obviously more complex, but it’d be great if we didn’t end up years behind on something this transformative.
Cars of any sort, self-driving or otherwise, do not solve traffic any more than Uber does because you need to have enough of them to get everyone to and from work at basically the same time. Trains are the only way to address traffic. Trains are self-driving. Europe already has the better self-driving system. It's just boring because self-driving is much easier when you build the road to support it instead of removing all constraints and adding GPUs, lidar sensors, cameras and an army of fall-back operators in overseas call centers.
Trains will fairly unreliably take you from one place that is not your home, to another place, which is not where you want to go, at a time that is probably not exactly when you wanted to arrive. Freedom of movement is incredibly important, and trains are very rigid in this aspect.
Well That’s certainly not been my experience when visiting Europe. In fact, it many cases it’s been the opposite - having a car would have been restrictive in any major city and a source of friction.
Try a bicycle or a stroll instead of embracing the WALL-E. Keep in mind when evaluating the freedom that these vehicles are extremely expensive and access to the good ones is exclusively on subscription. It's freedom of movement for a few who have other options.
> I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here
I think you’ll see American and Chinese self-driving kit in Europe once it matures. It’s just easier to iterate at home, so while the technology advances that’s where it will be.
Maybe there just not enough interest? After all there is good public transportation (especially rail), increasing biking habits and just loving the driving experience.
…What? What kind of terminally online loser would spend his free time “virtue-signaling with Europe” to some anons on a tech forum? What a dull and intellectually uncurious reply.
I think self-driving cars may eventually become common in areas where cars are currently common. I think public transit will continue to dominate in parts of the world where it currently dominates, because it is simply a superior user experience for the majority of people if the government cares to invest in it. (Not to mention far cheaper and more egalitarian.)
Don't worry, we're missing out on a lot of "progress" on this side of the ocean thanks to Trump's dislike of wind farms and RFK Jr's whole anti-vaxxer thing
One thing you are missing out on: mandatory loud (97 to 112 db) 1000 Hz audible beep when the vehicle reversing, oh so slowly, such as at the recharging station. Also, constant shop vac five horsepower vacuum cleaner sound. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Oh wait, you thought those would be in the middle of nowhere? Nope.
I'm surprised and incredibly impressed at this announcement. It seems trivial, but the general feeling in the industry has been that SF would fight tooth and nail against robotaxis at SFO.
Recent changes in the composition of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (i.e. Peskin being out of government) may have something to do with it being easier than expected.
Waymo got approval for SJC last week. That probably accelerated approval for SFO, which had been stalling. Nice.
When they get clearance to drop people off at the main terminals, that will be more convenient. Pickup at the terminals is harder. There will be a need for a staging area somewhere in the parking structures.
Few major airports I've been to allow Uber/Lyft anywhere near the pickup area, so many fliers are already accustomed to walking a quarter mile or so to their rideshare. But their inability to use the drop-off area is a new inconvenience, and I can see it limiting the appeal.
I'm talking about Uber/Lyft drivers being required by many airports to pick up away from the normal pick-up area, usually down the road a bit or in a parking garage.
Oh, this makes a bit of sense. The Avis/Budget fleet team will be part of managing the vehicles, so they can be quickly cleaned and fueled up when they slide into the airport, too.
Same. I go to the rectal car center at least 4 times each year. I just was there on Saturday and had no idea either. Still don't know what it is other than Waymo pickup.
I did always find the term kiss and fly confusing and weirdly intimate, as if everyone is getting a ride to the airport from a spouse or parent. Definitely a throwback to another era.
I'd hope so. As an aside, I wish Waymo was more transparent on the app that their cars are not allowed to take passengers on the freeway. I was unaware of this restriction when I booked a ride from SF to Burlingame last month and I was stuck in a Waymo for an hour going down residential streets!
I wonder how that'd feel. I took a Waymo in SF last fall and I was pretty impressed. But it was also slow city speeds. I wonder if it feels different going at freeway speeds with "no one" at the wheel.
While the margin of error is much lower on a freeway due to the speeds, other drivers are generally a lot more predictable (also in part due to the speeds).
Sure - a good freeway is actually a lot more predictable in most circumstances than city driving, so as a problem to solve it's likely a little bit less complicated. What I wonder about is what it feels like as a passenger. I wonder if it would be more or less frightening than being a passenger when my 17 year old is driving.
I use adaptive cruise control a lot, where I rely on the car for keeping a safe distance.
I have a limited version of SuperCruise which means it operates hands-free on freeways but nowhere else. My wife's Equinox EV has the regular version, which operates on a lot of arterials near us and has more capabilities. The first time that the Equinox signaled, changed lanes to pass, signaled, then changed lanes back was shocking.
We moved to a small town and drive a lot more than we used to and I find that having those capabilities really helps relieve the stress.
I will say that I move to the center lane when going through a notorious set of curves on I-5 in Portland because my Bolt doesn't steer as smoothly as I'd like near the concrete barricades. I wanted SuperCruise because it has a fantastic safety record. There are lots of times it's not available but when it is, I have near-total confidence in it.
There's the big sign there telling you to go to arrivals for drop-off. This is probably a stupid question but can Waymo cars interpret those temporary display signs and follow them? Would it?
It seems to handle the standardized ones (think "construction ahead, detour left") perfectly well from the rides I've taken, but there's all sorts of ways they could be 'cheating' on that.
I'll be honest, I think LAX's traffic is better than SFO's.
It feels like there's a lot less spaghetti at LAX, the shortcuts are reasonable, and you don't have separate international and domestic loops.
I'll take JFK over LAX. The construction going on right now at JFK sucks, but LAX is comically bad. Just last week I was on a rental car shuttle at LAX and watched 3 separate groups of people at different terminals miss their flights because traffic just wasn't moving.
Can you handle parking structures? I heard a lot of the autonomous cars were using 2D maps and couldn't handle multiple levels. Haha! This was just a year or two ago.
Google maps has been able to figure out parking structures for me recently. Not sure what technology is involved (gps isn't great for vertical) but it's clearly possible.
Hopefully Waymo does a better job than SF Uber drivers. I can't tell you how many times I've had drivers make a wrong turn trying to find their way to the pickup point.
Not sure if you have a recent side-by-side example with Uber, but this seems like it would have to happen if the demand is there. How else can you offer a quality product (i.e., car shows up in a reasonable amount of time) if you don't have enough cars to satisfy the demand? Pricing is the primary demand lever.
There's so much polarizing opinion on Tesla's offering and whether they'll get to Waymo's level sooner than later, but this seems like it's going to be or already is a huge issue for Waymo where they can't manufacture the vehicles fast enough to satisfy the demand as they expand both locally (because they capture more of the market) and into new geographies. Will they try and acquire a manufacturer? I don't think that's economically feasible for Waymo (Geely market cap is $25b, per Google snippet fwiw), and obviously being in the car business is different than autonomous, but I'm sure Google would bankroll a purchase if they thought it was the right growth strategy.
I guess Tesla, even if their autonomous is on par with Waymo tomorrow, also has to manufacture the fleet, but it seems extremely beneficial to have that capacity in house vs. relying on partners. Maybe I'm wrong and it's not that much of an advantage, but at first glance it would seem to be.
Not sure why you're downvoted. I've tried Robotaxi a few times and has been great. They still have a safety driver these days and wait time is a big high though.
It will remain higher for a while. From reporting I have seen, they are close to maxing out their vehicles, and many people prefer it to other options, so are willing to pay a premium. As long as that is true, it's going to be priced as a premium product. It won't be until fleets grow significantly in size and/or another driverless taxi service enters the market that we will maybe start to see prices driven down closer to marginal cost of a ride.
-edit- multiple other comments apparently disagree with this. I'll defer to people who actually use them over the reporting. Odd that there is that disconnect though.
Yeah they need scaling and competition before the prices get lower. As long as supply is saturated with demand and nobody else is on their level, there's little reason to lower prices.
Yeah, and just to add even though it's implied in your comment, there's plenty of reason to keep prices where they are independent of a desire to increase revenue. Customers will not wait forever for the car and so if the demand is high you have to keep the price high to discourage people from using it so wait times remain in check. Tricky tightrope they're going to be walking while they optimize the fleet size for local adoption and geographic expansion.
It's also higher right now because it is a novely. Plenty of people are booking it just to say they rode in a Waymo and take pictures. When that wears off they will have to start competing strictily on price and wait/ride time.
To be fair, Waymo claims to not record or transmit audio without you either manually engaging such (by requesting support), or a very unambiguous announcement (presumably when the car gets into some sort of emergency situation). And lying about that claim would probably run afoul of California's 2 party consent law. So still a step up in privacy versus having someone in the car listening in on your conversation.
That said, even if they were listening to you, there's a lot of things that are completely inconsequential from a perspective of an anonymous call center employee far away listening in on, that I probably wouldn't want to talk about in front of a taxi driver.
In my experience so far, Waymo costs about the same as an Uber when you take into account tipping, but takes longer (they're not yet doing freeways). With the addition of SFO to their zone, I can't imagine freeways are far behind, because getting from the city to SFO without using the freeways would be... a novelty.
I've used Waymo countless times in SF. It's typically 15% cheaper than an Uber/Lyft and trip time/wait are generally the same. I much prefer the Waymo.
They still have to compete with alternate modes of transportation such as buses, bikes, trains, e-scooter rentals, self-owned cars, Uber with human drivers.
If it would be "too much", then there's no reason why taxis (incl uber/lyft) wouldn't be too much today.
from what I heard, the intention is to make it much more affordable than it is now. I don't remember the source right now but I did think it was a blog post or something like that.
I think if it's affordable then people will easily take that. instead of drinking and driving at night or other unsafe activities. if it's affordable then people can just take a waymo home and then back again to get their car when it's safe again.
L5 means the car can drive everywhere a human can. Waymo's refuse to drive outside of a constrained area, and occasionally stop to ask for assistance, so that makes them L4.
This whole autonomous driving levels kinda muddies the waters. Some would argue this isn't full L4 even. But it is a self driving car in the places it offers its services.
I think there's an implicit "where a decent human driver could drive safely" for L5, otherwise you get increasingly ridiculous scenarios like, "can Waymo drive safely in a whiteout blizzard?" or "can Waymo safely escape an erupting volcano??"
What’s special about the airport is that the City of San Francisco owns and regulates it (as opposed to the streets that are regulated by the state CPUC), and the Board of Supervisors previously were regulatory captured by taxi medallion owners and Teamsters union (https://missionlocal.org/2024/12/waymo-rolls-toward-san-fran...). Specifically, Aaron Peskin (BoS supervisor from 2001–2009, 2015–2025, and board president for the last 2 years) said, “Their entire M.O. is, ‘The state regulates us; we don’t have to work with you, we don’t have to partner with you.’ My response is: There are things we do control. Including where you charge your cars. And the airport. What I intend to do, is condition their deployment and use of the airport property on their meeting a number of conditions around meeting this city’s minimum standards for public safety and transit.” https://missionlocal.org/2023/11/waymo-rebuffed-by-sfo-sf-gu...
I’d say it puts a lot of Uber (and similar) drivers at risk because airport rides are a good source of income. Waymo undercutting them will reduce the amount of passengers available for pick up.
Not saying it’s a bad or good thing. Just that it has real world impact on people and the economy.
Usually you'd have to take the BART one stop then the waymo, which seems to be a common tourist attraction for fresh deplaners. Perhaps the airport was afraid without that step of friction, too many people would try this and cause a waymo-jam
haven ridden in both a few times, yes, Waymo is head and shoulders better. It's smooth and I don't think I've ever seen any false alarms or behavior that made me feel unsafe in a Waymo, while I've had a few scary or annoying situations in the Teslas. I took a 6-minute robotaxi in drizzling weather where it parked in intersections twice because the cameras were obscured. Meanwhile Waymo can drive perfectly in heavy fog.
Both the Waymos and Teslas have that central display that shows you what the car sees (pedestrians, dogs, traffic cones, other cars, etc). The Waymo representation of the world reaches pretty far is is pretty much perfect from what I've seen. Meanwhile the Tesla one until recently had objects popping in and out.
Neither is perfect, of course; both will hesitate sometimes and creep along when (IMO) they should commit. But they're both still way better in that regard compared to the zoox autonomous cars I see in SF.
Tesla doesn't have a real robotaxi yet, they're still in the testing/prototyping phase where they need a safety driver or safety monitor in the car.
They might be close to a real robotaxi in some areas, but it's hard to say until they actually pull the trigger on removing any employees from the car.
Inside SF, my experience is that Uber and Lyft are ~10-15% cheaper than Waymo, but that's before tipping. I don't have to tip a robot, so they work out to nearly identical prices.
The inherent problem there is the edges, most food delivery isn't the trip, it's the person getting out of the vehicle and putting it on your doorstep or going through the building. Zipline and their droneports for buildings seem to have the better solution, at least until waymo has some sort of legged robot that can bring the bag the last meter(s)
I think the frustration with tips is so prevalent that the advertising could just be "Skip the tip, simply walk to the street to pick up your order!"
Would work great in suburbs where a robot car could pull in front of home for a minute or two, your food will be bid to another customer if you don't pick it up in 5 minutes. maybe the little robots in NYC are better.
I would argue that the sidewalk robots are too hard to coordinate and not strong enough to hold up against crime, the solution is somewhat closer to my other comment below, a vehicle with maybe 4 or 8 food cells that can fill up at various locations then make its journey around the city. At that point the problem would be idle timeouts and how to handle disgruntled consumers that lost their window for pickup
Aren't the "first meters" also pretty problematic? Are Waymos going to double park in front of a restaurant waiting for someone to come out and put the right order in the right vehicle?
That's easier to do with training, and the business is usually more willing than a consumer as it increases their business. Anecdotally, see how many of them (at least locally to myself) have adopted the doordash/grubhub tablets in their kitchen ordering system. I imagine it would be a co-packing situation with lockers on wheels similar to the vehicle KFC uses in China: https://www.mashed.com/284555/the-futuristic-way-kfc-is-sell...
Nuro is an independent company from Uber, the latter just has a partnership with and some investment in the former. Uber has similar relationships with more than half the industry at this point.
I have a relative in Texas who is looking into leasing a drone to operate for food delivery. Apparently, that's already a thing there? If we could get food/small packages delivered to our building's roof instead of the front door, it would be a huge win for everyone in the building.
Self-serve ordering terminals already often ask for tips. Presumably to be legal they're being paid to the kitchen staff, but I think sticking to "tips are for workers who have to pretend to like me" is a pretty firm boundary to stick to.
(Also, arbitrarily reclassifying things as tips is hard, because legally 100% of tip revenue has to go to workers, not management, and certainly not the company's investors or coffers).
Tax-free tips paid to robots go to the hardworking AI engineers -> AI engineers voluntarily donate part of their tips to a 501(c)(3) that helps support struggling venture capitalists.
Something like that. We'll work it out the details once the right PAC donations are in place.
Cause what this country needs is to automate away even the gig economy jobs that are out there. Let's keep making a few people rich and screw all the normal people out there.
This sentence was a bit cute: "Waymo has received our pilot permit allowing for commercial operations at San Francisco International Airport." Yeah, that kind of pilot.
I really had to read through it twice to make sure they were just talking about car taxis picking up travelers, rather than some kind of prototype pilotless commuter helicopter or something.
The flying kind is a license, not a permit.
That was my first interpretation, and I was very surprised and kind of afraid. Glad to know they aren't trying for autonomous flight yet.
I have zero expertise for my claim, but I feel like autonomous flight is easier than autonomous driving.
The hard part of automated driving is dealing with all the ground clutter that planes serenely fly over. If pedestrians could charge out in front of a 777 going 650 mph at 34,000 feet... well... we'd be living in pretty different world! And in that world, flying would be much more difficult. Not just for computers but for humans too.
Flying is obviously much harder than driving, but it's a sort of harder that is generally more amenable to automation, though I still think pilots are a good idea because when it goes wrong it goes wrong much worse.
Flying is almost always easier than driving. landing is hard. Bad weather is hard. But just flying - human pilots have napped many times over the years and it only rarely is an issue. Airplanes with primitive autopilot are very good.
In the abstract yes but in practice the economic (ratio of cost of pilot to pax miles) and safety context of aviation mean fully autonomous flying has to be extremely robust before it has actual utility in industry.
In practice, you're also currently very reliant on infrastructure that is definitely not as solid as you want (eg: ILS and GPS can be interfered with quite nastily).
ILS being under maintenance and unavailable for certain runways is also far from unusual.
On the happy path, yes. Though I don’t think takeoff is automated yet.
Currently we rely very much on the problem solving abilities of human pilots to deal with troublesome situations. Autopilot will disengage in many scenarios.
I'm pretty sure drones can already take off on their own. Taking off is a lot easier than landing, and planes have auto-landing tech already.
Drones (both autonomous and remote piloted) have much higher mishap rates than crewed aircraft. Taking off is "easy" until something goes wrong, like a mechanical failure or runway incursion. It's impossible to anticipate and explicitly code for every possible failure mode, so developing autonomous flight control systems that would be safe enough for commercial passenger flights is extremely challenging.
Category IIIC ILS (full auto-land) does exist but requires special equipment for both the aircraft and airport. Human pilots have to actively monitor the system and take back control if anything goes wrong (which does happen).
Garmin also has the Autonomí auto-land system for certain general aviation aircraft which can attempt to land at the closest suitable airport. But this is only used for single pilot operation in case the pilot becomes incapacitated. It isn't suitable for regular flights.
Takeoff at a commercial airport is a very challenging and potentially dangerous situation. There’s way more margin to abort a landing than a takeoff.
OTOH takeoff and landing could in theory be operated by people on the ground, flying simulator style.
I still believe that having an actual pilot inside the plane that care for his own life is not a bad idea vs someone remote feeling a bit disconnected with the reality of a crash.
I am not sure why you were down voted. The original meaning of the word pilot is someone who comes aboard a ship for "the last mile" - getting in and out of the harbor and what you are talking about is kinda like that - a person associated with the airport rather than airplane to guide the planes in and out - perhaps using more reliable local communication technology vs what is used to control drones half way around the world.
I have no idea if that works but I thought you were making a good contribution to the conversation by proposing a potential solution to the exact problem everyone is talking about.
Remote piloting is how the military operates certain drones like the MQ-1 Predator. The mishap rate is very high relative to crewed aircraft due to network lag and sensor issues. The military is willing to accept some level of equipment loss in order to accomplish their mission but this would never be allowed for commercial airliners.
It's kind of funny how you can both be right.
It's the failed takeoffs that lead more often to jets leaving the run way and crashing into buildings or trees.
I also feel like the demand is way, way lower. A pilot can't be that large a % of the cost of a flight. Maybe if we lived in the jetsons era.
Depends on the size of the plane, really. One of the reasons a few companies were investing in fully autonomous air taxis is because the math on a small piloted aircraft wasn't realistic for a low enough price point to be competitive.
The problem is actually safety. As automated systems get better, the pilot is left with not much to do, and has to maintain vigilance while being really really bored. It is almost better to have fewer automated systems and give the pilot more things to do during the flight so it is easier to keep them paying attention, or all automated with no human pilot to mess things up.
Don’t have a ref but heard that it’s been safe for quite a while but they keep the pilots around due to consumer fear rather than actual improved performance. Curious if anyone can confirm.
No. Airliners can't even take off on their own yet, and are only allowed to auto-land with zero visibility at a few dozen airports when the pilots, plane, and runway are all current/recently checked.
Look up the Airbus ATTOL project's first automated takeoff a few years ago.
Also, there's virtually no automation when it comes to interacting with ATC.
An airplane will take off when it is properly configured and it hits a certain speed. It's simple aerodynamics/physics. Pilots are there to react to failures and unexpected events.
There's a bit more to it since you do need to do last bit of configuration (pull up the nose) just as you hit the target speed. But yeah, automatic take-off is quite a bit easier than automatic rejection of take-off.
Sure. It'll also land if you don't care about anyone surviving.
If you can design the product and environment to fit automation, then automation can be quick and effective.
The less you can change about the product and environment, then automation run slower and less effectively.
Air liner operations could be automated, but the minimum equipment list would be more stringent, the destination airport would not be able to take any equipment out of service for maintenance, visibility minimums would increase, takeoff and landing operations would require more slack time.
Besides all of that, the owner of the airplane would still want to have some crew on board.
In short, it's not worth it yet.
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There is also the paradox of automation: Automation generally makes the hard parts harder and the easy parts easier.
In a pinch, a car can just put on its hazards and pull over
That “just” is doing some heavy lifting! The car still has to deal with all the normal hazards of the road while pulling over, plus the hazards it is itself creating by acting abnormally.
"Autopilot" already exists when it comes to flying.
Sure but it's not autonomous in the sense of Waymo (ie, driverless)
Landing can be: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland
In fact, it's pretty routine. Don't have the source at hand, but somewhere around 1% of all landings (at airports with ILS) are autolands.
I think it was Boeing that even requires at least 1 autoland per plane every 30 days or so.
You can find videos of this on YouTube. Completely hands-off.
Yes but it should have been obvious that in the context of Waymo + SFO, the implication was autonomous flying of commercial airlines.
Yes, but autopilot usually just keeps the plane flying in a straight line at some specified altitude, which have been around since 1912. It isn't full self-flying (although we definitely have drones that can fly themselves already, so that tech already exists).
That's an oversimplification of autopilot systems. They can follow flight routes, avoid traffic (TCAS), even auto land to name a few.
Auto-landers are not simply classified with autopilots. An autoland system is an advanced function that is part of a modern aircraft's overall autopilot capabilities. A basic autopilot can control an aircraft's attitude and heading, but an autoland system can automatically execute the full landing procedure.
See also: garden-path sentence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence)
lol deniable demand-gauging :)
As a European, I can’t help but feel a bit sad that we’re missing out on the driverless side of things. It seems like most of the meaningful deployments are happening in the US (Waymo, Cruise).
I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here. The regulatory environment is obviously more complex, but it’d be great if we didn’t end up years behind on something this transformative.
Cars of any sort, self-driving or otherwise, do not solve traffic any more than Uber does because you need to have enough of them to get everyone to and from work at basically the same time. Trains are the only way to address traffic. Trains are self-driving. Europe already has the better self-driving system. It's just boring because self-driving is much easier when you build the road to support it instead of removing all constraints and adding GPUs, lidar sensors, cameras and an army of fall-back operators in overseas call centers.
Trains will fairly unreliably take you from one place that is not your home, to another place, which is not where you want to go, at a time that is probably not exactly when you wanted to arrive. Freedom of movement is incredibly important, and trains are very rigid in this aspect.
Well That’s certainly not been my experience when visiting Europe. In fact, it many cases it’s been the opposite - having a car would have been restrictive in any major city and a source of friction.
Try a bicycle or a stroll instead of embracing the WALL-E. Keep in mind when evaluating the freedom that these vehicles are extremely expensive and access to the good ones is exclusively on subscription. It's freedom of movement for a few who have other options.
Fairly unreliably? Unlike cars, trains do not typically suffer from traffic jams.
[dead]
Mobileeye in Munich https://www.mobileye.com/blog/self-driving-robotaxi-sixt-ger...
Moia (Volkswagen) in Hamburg https://www.moia.io/en
Mercedes autonomous driving https://group.mercedes-benz.com/innovations/product-innovati...
Yes, but they said "meaningful".
There's some self driving tech being developed in Europe, but AFAIK nothing is at the current deployment level of Zoox or Aurora, let alone Waymo.
Does it matter where it's developed though? Once it's good enough to expand into all major US cities they could look into deploying in Europe too.
Im happy to let Americans be the beta testers
> I’d really like to see either a Waymo competitor emerge in Europe, or even Waymo themselves operating here
I think you’ll see American and Chinese self-driving kit in Europe once it matures. It’s just easier to iterate at home, so while the technology advances that’s where it will be.
Maybe there just not enough interest? After all there is good public transportation (especially rail), increasing biking habits and just loving the driving experience.
> As a European, I can’t help but feel a bit sad that we’re missing out on the driverless side of things
I don't know about other countries, but Spain will probably be one of the last ones to get it, thanks to the Uber-powerful (heh) taxi driver lobby
Wayve?
As an American with extensive time spent in Europe, I’d much, much rather have European-style metros and tramways than self-driving cars.
Waymo is a bandaid over our inability to build and maintain public infrastructure. Be sure to cherish what you’ve got.
EU’s amazing infrastructure is the Minitel that will prevent it from getting the internet of self-driving.
Subways don’t solve last-mile problems or trucking.
As an American, I think you’re naive and short-sighted.
You must realize that, at some point, self-driving cars will be ubiquitous. Maybe not for 50 years, but they will be.
What you’re actually saying is “I’m virtue-signaling with Europe because that’s what the cool kids do”
…What? What kind of terminally online loser would spend his free time “virtue-signaling with Europe” to some anons on a tech forum? What a dull and intellectually uncurious reply.
I think self-driving cars may eventually become common in areas where cars are currently common. I think public transit will continue to dominate in parts of the world where it currently dominates, because it is simply a superior user experience for the majority of people if the government cares to invest in it. (Not to mention far cheaper and more egalitarian.)
Apollo Go (the Chinese Waymo owned by Baidu) is planning to start road testing in Germany and the UK in 2026, in partnership with Lyft.
Regulation and under investment
Those darn regulators, don't they realise companies just want what's best for us?
Don't worry, we're missing out on a lot of "progress" on this side of the ocean thanks to Trump's dislike of wind farms and RFK Jr's whole anti-vaxxer thing
One thing you are missing out on: mandatory loud (97 to 112 db) 1000 Hz audible beep when the vehicle reversing, oh so slowly, such as at the recharging station. Also, constant shop vac five horsepower vacuum cleaner sound. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Oh wait, you thought those would be in the middle of nowhere? Nope.
https://www.karmactive.com/waymo-charging-noise-blasts-112-d...
Unless and until those noises that you mention are as annoying as those made by present time ICE vehicles, your point will remain irrelevant.
I'm surprised and incredibly impressed at this announcement. It seems trivial, but the general feeling in the industry has been that SF would fight tooth and nail against robotaxis at SFO.
Probably because SFO felt the heat after Waymo acquired SJC approval quickly: https://sfstandard.com/2025/09/05/phoenix-has-airport-robota...
I genuinely think things have changed with Lurie as mayor and 6 growsf endorsed people on the board.
It's going to take a long time for SF to overcome the reputation it built for itself in the 2010s.
Recent changes in the composition of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (i.e. Peskin being out of government) may have something to do with it being easier than expected.
Waymo got approval for SJC last week. That probably accelerated approval for SFO, which had been stalling. Nice.
When they get clearance to drop people off at the main terminals, that will be more convenient. Pickup at the terminals is harder. There will be a need for a staging area somewhere in the parking structures.
Few major airports I've been to allow Uber/Lyft anywhere near the pickup area, so many fliers are already accustomed to walking a quarter mile or so to their rideshare. But their inability to use the drop-off area is a new inconvenience, and I can see it limiting the appeal.
> Few major airports I've been to allow Uber/Lyft anywhere near the pickup area
Few major airports have Waymo at all. Phoenix has allowed pick-up at the airport for ages. (EDIT: Never mind.)
I'm talking about Uber/Lyft drivers being required by many airports to pick up away from the normal pick-up area, usually down the road a bit or in a parking garage.
Uber black and at least lyft extra room have no problem picking you up at the arrivals
Looks like this Kiss & Fly area where pickup will be is at the car rental center.
Oh, this makes a bit of sense. The Avis/Budget fleet team will be part of managing the vehicles, so they can be quickly cleaned and fueled up when they slide into the airport, too.
https://www.avisbudgetgroup.com/avis-budget-group-announces-...
(Dallas, but they do this in other cities, too.)
huh. I didn't even know this existed.
Same. I go to the rectal car center at least 4 times each year. I just was there on Saturday and had no idea either. Still don't know what it is other than Waymo pickup.
>rectal car center
Known nickname or typo?
Definitely phone autocorrect issue. I'm gonna leave it though
How often do you type "rectal" for that to become an autocorrect default for you??
If you are over 50, and serious about not getting colon cancer, maybe a little bit more than one would expect.
I use Google keyboard without customized auto correct.
It really likes to change random words to inappropriate things.
But I guess that's the people who are typing on phones a lot are typing about.
OP is a urologist
Otherwise known by its popular name “Cloaca-Rent—A-Car”
Or both :-D
It - along with cell phone waiting lots - are ways for people to drop others off and avoid the traffic around the terminals themselves.
Which can be bad - I often find it easier to just pay for a few minutes parking on dropoff/pickup.
I did always find the term kiss and fly confusing and weirdly intimate, as if everyone is getting a ride to the airport from a spouse or parent. Definitely a throwback to another era.
> rectal car center
That's way mo' information than needed thanks.
But seriously. I wonder why they have a designated pickup point if it would make sense to spread the cars out to alleviate traffic bottlenecks.
What's even better is the variety of names this thing has. I'm my area, it's the "cell phone lane"
Does this mean they'll be able to take the freeways to get there? Surface streets from SF to SFO would be pretty slow.
I'd hope so. As an aside, I wish Waymo was more transparent on the app that their cars are not allowed to take passengers on the freeway. I was unaware of this restriction when I booked a ride from SF to Burlingame last month and I was stuck in a Waymo for an hour going down residential streets!
Doesnt it show the route and the ETA before your book the ride?
No, they need to add a pop up with even more text users will not read.
They have had permission to be on freeways for a while [0], although so far they have only done employee testing (I believe)
[0] https://sfstandard.com/2024/03/01/waymo-san-francisco-cpuc-e...
I wonder how that'd feel. I took a Waymo in SF last fall and I was pretty impressed. But it was also slow city speeds. I wonder if it feels different going at freeway speeds with "no one" at the wheel.
While the margin of error is much lower on a freeway due to the speeds, other drivers are generally a lot more predictable (also in part due to the speeds).
Sure - a good freeway is actually a lot more predictable in most circumstances than city driving, so as a problem to solve it's likely a little bit less complicated. What I wonder about is what it feels like as a passenger. I wonder if it would be more or less frightening than being a passenger when my 17 year old is driving.
I use adaptive cruise control a lot, where I rely on the car for keeping a safe distance.
I have a limited version of SuperCruise which means it operates hands-free on freeways but nowhere else. My wife's Equinox EV has the regular version, which operates on a lot of arterials near us and has more capabilities. The first time that the Equinox signaled, changed lanes to pass, signaled, then changed lanes back was shocking.
We moved to a small town and drive a lot more than we used to and I find that having those capabilities really helps relieve the stress.
I will say that I move to the center lane when going through a notorious set of curves on I-5 in Portland because my Bolt doesn't steer as smoothly as I'd like near the concrete barricades. I wanted SuperCruise because it has a fantastic safety record. There are lots of times it's not available but when it is, I have near-total confidence in it.
They're still working on freeways, doing employee riding testing.
The surface street route that bypasses 101 near Brisbane is surprisingly often faster than 101.
People love crashing there.
I see a monopoly about to take shape. DOJ/FTC is sleeping on breakup schemes. USDOT should start government/private ventures in this space.
Boy, if they could actually navigate terminal traffic, I’d give ‘em true self driving.
SFO traffic is not bad at all. Send them to LAX and we're talking.
Its not true self driving until the Waymo asks if dropping you off at arrivals is ok.
There's the big sign there telling you to go to arrivals for drop-off. This is probably a stupid question but can Waymo cars interpret those temporary display signs and follow them? Would it?
It seems to handle the standardized ones (think "construction ahead, detour left") perfectly well from the rides I've taken, but there's all sorts of ways they could be 'cheating' on that.
Thats AGI
I'll be honest, I think LAX's traffic is better than SFO's. It feels like there's a lot less spaghetti at LAX, the shortcuts are reasonable, and you don't have separate international and domestic loops.
LAX's many parking lots with left lane entrances definitely threw me for a loop the first couple of times.
Overall though, I think I agree with you.
JFK is probably the 10th circle of hell
Send them to BOS and we're talking
Is the mark of intelligence being able to navigate to BOS, or refusing to drive through the big dig in the first place?
JFK has entered the chat
I'll take JFK over LAX. The construction going on right now at JFK sucks, but LAX is comically bad. Just last week I was on a rental car shuttle at LAX and watched 3 separate groups of people at different terminals miss their flights because traffic just wasn't moving.
They already do in PHX.
Can you handle parking structures? I heard a lot of the autonomous cars were using 2D maps and couldn't handle multiple levels. Haha! This was just a year or two ago.
Google maps has been able to figure out parking structures for me recently. Not sure what technology is involved (gps isn't great for vertical) but it's clearly possible.
Do taxis need to park tho?
I mean, depending on the situation, of course. Do taxi drivers in US drop people right in the middle of a busy street?
one of the waymo depots in SF is a multi level parking building
Hopefully Waymo does a better job than SF Uber drivers. I can't tell you how many times I've had drivers make a wrong turn trying to find their way to the pickup point.
Waymo ride costs are getting really expensive in SF.
Not sure if you have a recent side-by-side example with Uber, but this seems like it would have to happen if the demand is there. How else can you offer a quality product (i.e., car shows up in a reasonable amount of time) if you don't have enough cars to satisfy the demand? Pricing is the primary demand lever.
There's so much polarizing opinion on Tesla's offering and whether they'll get to Waymo's level sooner than later, but this seems like it's going to be or already is a huge issue for Waymo where they can't manufacture the vehicles fast enough to satisfy the demand as they expand both locally (because they capture more of the market) and into new geographies. Will they try and acquire a manufacturer? I don't think that's economically feasible for Waymo (Geely market cap is $25b, per Google snippet fwiw), and obviously being in the car business is different than autonomous, but I'm sure Google would bankroll a purchase if they thought it was the right growth strategy.
I guess Tesla, even if their autonomous is on par with Waymo tomorrow, also has to manufacture the fleet, but it seems extremely beneficial to have that capacity in house vs. relying on partners. Maybe I'm wrong and it's not that much of an advantage, but at first glance it would seem to be.
Waymo is a premium ride product that happens to be self driving.
just use Robotaxi. 1/3 of the price, sometimes less
What's that? An app? I see a Chinese app of that name in the android play store, but it only has about 1k downloads
Only for iPhone at the moment
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tesla-robotaxi/id6744257048
The Tesla service is colloquially called "Robotaxi".
Not sure why you're downvoted. I've tried Robotaxi a few times and has been great. They still have a safety driver these days and wait time is a big high though.
Seems like Tesla keeps talking big, while waymo conquers city by city.
I wonder what the ultimate price of this service will be compared to alternatives.
It will remain higher for a while. From reporting I have seen, they are close to maxing out their vehicles, and many people prefer it to other options, so are willing to pay a premium. As long as that is true, it's going to be priced as a premium product. It won't be until fleets grow significantly in size and/or another driverless taxi service enters the market that we will maybe start to see prices driven down closer to marginal cost of a ride.
-edit- multiple other comments apparently disagree with this. I'll defer to people who actually use them over the reporting. Odd that there is that disconnect though.
Yeah they need scaling and competition before the prices get lower. As long as supply is saturated with demand and nobody else is on their level, there's little reason to lower prices.
Yeah, and just to add even though it's implied in your comment, there's plenty of reason to keep prices where they are independent of a desire to increase revenue. Customers will not wait forever for the car and so if the demand is high you have to keep the price high to discourage people from using it so wait times remain in check. Tricky tightrope they're going to be walking while they optimize the fleet size for local adoption and geographic expansion.
It's also higher right now because it is a novely. Plenty of people are booking it just to say they rode in a Waymo and take pictures. When that wears off they will have to start competing strictily on price and wait/ride time.
Lots of people, myself included, pay a premium to not have a human at the steering wheel; it's nice to have the car to yourself.
Yourself and three dozen recording devices and call centers full of people tracking the car and reviewing the footage, yes.
To be fair, Waymo claims to not record or transmit audio without you either manually engaging such (by requesting support), or a very unambiguous announcement (presumably when the car gets into some sort of emergency situation). And lying about that claim would probably run afoul of California's 2 party consent law. So still a step up in privacy versus having someone in the car listening in on your conversation.
That said, even if they were listening to you, there's a lot of things that are completely inconsequential from a perspective of an anonymous call center employee far away listening in on, that I probably wouldn't want to talk about in front of a taxi driver.
I still count that as a win.
Like, the driver's presence bothers you? Even if they don't talk?
Their goal is to have lower cost Hyundai models hit the market though, right? So the Jags probably remain the premium/higher cost option.
In my experience so far, Waymo costs about the same as an Uber when you take into account tipping, but takes longer (they're not yet doing freeways). With the addition of SFO to their zone, I can't imagine freeways are far behind, because getting from the city to SFO without using the freeways would be... a novelty.
I've used Waymo countless times in SF. It's typically 15% cheaper than an Uber/Lyft and trip time/wait are generally the same. I much prefer the Waymo.
I've never encountered it being cheaper, what hours do you generally use it?
Generally between 11a and 7p. Going to lunch/dinner.
Cheaper than uber rn. Long term once they own the market? Too much.
They still have to compete with alternate modes of transportation such as buses, bikes, trains, e-scooter rentals, self-owned cars, Uber with human drivers.
If it would be "too much", then there's no reason why taxis (incl uber/lyft) wouldn't be too much today.
from what I heard, the intention is to make it much more affordable than it is now. I don't remember the source right now but I did think it was a blog post or something like that.
I think if it's affordable then people will easily take that. instead of drinking and driving at night or other unsafe activities. if it's affordable then people can just take a waymo home and then back again to get their car when it's safe again.
That's great to hear
The title makes it sound like GA but it's still in testing
Too bad waymo is more expensive than uber most of the time
Why is that too bad?
Is Waymo L5?
L5 means the car can drive everywhere a human can. Waymo's refuse to drive outside of a constrained area, and occasionally stop to ask for assistance, so that makes them L4.
This whole autonomous driving levels kinda muddies the waters. Some would argue this isn't full L4 even. But it is a self driving car in the places it offers its services.
What would be the argument that Waymo is anything except L4?
No, L5 is a car that can drive itself anywhere in any conditions.
I think there's an implicit "where a decent human driver could drive safely" for L5, otherwise you get increasingly ridiculous scenarios like, "can Waymo drive safely in a whiteout blizzard?" or "can Waymo safely escape an erupting volcano??"
Wait, what is special about driving to/from airports?
What’s special about the airport is that the City of San Francisco owns and regulates it (as opposed to the streets that are regulated by the state CPUC), and the Board of Supervisors previously were regulatory captured by taxi medallion owners and Teamsters union (https://missionlocal.org/2024/12/waymo-rolls-toward-san-fran...). Specifically, Aaron Peskin (BoS supervisor from 2001–2009, 2015–2025, and board president for the last 2 years) said, “Their entire M.O. is, ‘The state regulates us; we don’t have to work with you, we don’t have to partner with you.’ My response is: There are things we do control. Including where you charge your cars. And the airport. What I intend to do, is condition their deployment and use of the airport property on their meeting a number of conditions around meeting this city’s minimum standards for public safety and transit.” https://missionlocal.org/2023/11/waymo-rebuffed-by-sfo-sf-gu...
I’d say it puts a lot of Uber (and similar) drivers at risk because airport rides are a good source of income. Waymo undercutting them will reduce the amount of passengers available for pick up. Not saying it’s a bad or good thing. Just that it has real world impact on people and the economy.
Usually you'd have to take the BART one stop then the waymo, which seems to be a common tourist attraction for fresh deplaners. Perhaps the airport was afraid without that step of friction, too many people would try this and cause a waymo-jam
Isn't it by far and wide the most common use of taxi services? It certainly is basically the only time I ever use one.
Waymo getting into that space seems like a pretty big step up in market penetration.
Looks like this would (eventually) include service to not just San Francisco, but also the Peninsula (Silicon Valley) via freeways.
is waymo really that good???
how good it compared to Tesla FSD/Robotaxi ???
haven ridden in both a few times, yes, Waymo is head and shoulders better. It's smooth and I don't think I've ever seen any false alarms or behavior that made me feel unsafe in a Waymo, while I've had a few scary or annoying situations in the Teslas. I took a 6-minute robotaxi in drizzling weather where it parked in intersections twice because the cameras were obscured. Meanwhile Waymo can drive perfectly in heavy fog.
Both the Waymos and Teslas have that central display that shows you what the car sees (pedestrians, dogs, traffic cones, other cars, etc). The Waymo representation of the world reaches pretty far is is pretty much perfect from what I've seen. Meanwhile the Tesla one until recently had objects popping in and out.
Neither is perfect, of course; both will hesitate sometimes and creep along when (IMO) they should commit. But they're both still way better in that regard compared to the zoox autonomous cars I see in SF.
Tesla doesn't have a real robotaxi yet, they're still in the testing/prototyping phase where they need a safety driver or safety monitor in the car.
They might be close to a real robotaxi in some areas, but it's hard to say until they actually pull the trigger on removing any employees from the car.
Until just now I had no idea Tesla had a taxi service. Otoh I've seen hundreds of Waymos in SF and the west side of LA.
tesla robotaxi is worse than waymo was 3 years ago when I was a tester
Hope you like traffic!
How would this reduce or increase traffic? The demand is staying the same.
Presumably the increased supply of "drivers" going to SFO will lower rideshare prices for everyone and make public transit less appealing
surge pricing FTW!
Have you priced this out compared to a regular taxi or Lyft?
It’s waaaay mo’
Inside SF, my experience is that Uber and Lyft are ~10-15% cheaper than Waymo, but that's before tipping. I don't have to tip a robot, so they work out to nearly identical prices.
You don't have to tip an Uber or Lyft driver either.
Preach.
You also don't have to tip a taxi driver. They get paid for giving rides, it's not an extra service.
Yup, but it is kinda culturally expected to tip. You're right, you dont need to, but then again we do a lot of things just because it is .. polite.
Waymo food delivery will be incredible. You won't even get your food if you don't tip your ubereats.
The inherent problem there is the edges, most food delivery isn't the trip, it's the person getting out of the vehicle and putting it on your doorstep or going through the building. Zipline and their droneports for buildings seem to have the better solution, at least until waymo has some sort of legged robot that can bring the bag the last meter(s)
I think the frustration with tips is so prevalent that the advertising could just be "Skip the tip, simply walk to the street to pick up your order!"
Would work great in suburbs where a robot car could pull in front of home for a minute or two, your food will be bid to another customer if you don't pick it up in 5 minutes. maybe the little robots in NYC are better.
I would argue that the sidewalk robots are too hard to coordinate and not strong enough to hold up against crime, the solution is somewhat closer to my other comment below, a vehicle with maybe 4 or 8 food cells that can fill up at various locations then make its journey around the city. At that point the problem would be idle timeouts and how to handle disgruntled consumers that lost their window for pickup
Aren't the "first meters" also pretty problematic? Are Waymos going to double park in front of a restaurant waiting for someone to come out and put the right order in the right vehicle?
That's easier to do with training, and the business is usually more willing than a consumer as it increases their business. Anecdotally, see how many of them (at least locally to myself) have adopted the doordash/grubhub tablets in their kitchen ordering system. I imagine it would be a co-packing situation with lockers on wheels similar to the vehicle KFC uses in China: https://www.mashed.com/284555/the-futuristic-way-kfc-is-sell...
Uber's NURO seems to be developing a vehicle with a similar form factor as seen on this page: https://www.nuro.ai/first-responders
EDIT: see comment below, uber does not own NURO
Nuro is an independent company from Uber, the latter just has a partnership with and some investment in the former. Uber has similar relationships with more than half the industry at this point.
A lot of restaurants already have dedicated parking spots where they'll bring the food out.
I have a relative in Texas who is looking into leasing a drone to operate for food delivery. Apparently, that's already a thing there? If we could get food/small packages delivered to our building's roof instead of the front door, it would be a huge win for everyone in the building.
Using an otherwise empty 5 person vehicle to move a grocery bag worth of food is pretty stupid though
>I don't have to tip a robot
Now that tips are tax free, it's only a matter of time before some clever SV accountants figure out how make everything a tip.
Self-serve ordering terminals already often ask for tips. Presumably to be legal they're being paid to the kitchen staff, but I think sticking to "tips are for workers who have to pretend to like me" is a pretty firm boundary to stick to.
(Also, arbitrarily reclassifying things as tips is hard, because legally 100% of tip revenue has to go to workers, not management, and certainly not the company's investors or coffers).
That's why they're clever accountants.
Tax-free tips paid to robots go to the hardworking AI engineers -> AI engineers voluntarily donate part of their tips to a 501(c)(3) that helps support struggling venture capitalists.
Something like that. We'll work it out the details once the right PAC donations are in place.
Cause what this country needs is to automate away even the gig economy jobs that are out there. Let's keep making a few people rich and screw all the normal people out there.