Aldie Anderson

Waymo and Zoox first impressions I use self driving on my Tesla all the time, but I finally got around to trying the commercial autonomous ride hailing services this week in Las Vegas. The biggest issue by far is the very limited pickup and dropoff points, and only having a couple minutes to get to them resulted in a bit of a rush. If you are going to have a small-integer number of locations, you should make it super-obvious where those locations are. Waymo included a picture, but it was a rather undistinguished parking garage image and it wasn’t clear which floor it was on. Being able to switch the map to an aerial photography view might be helpful in some cases. Pan-able 360 photos of the target points might also be helpful. The first Zoox ride was flawless, but we had a lengthy walk to get to our actual destination. The first Waymo ride was a little rougher. It felt more indecisive with steering, like Teslas did a couple years ago. This was still early-access in Vegas, so it is probably better in the active commercial markets. The second Zoox ride had a small incident – there was another Zoox ahead of us at a stoplight (and a Waymo and another Zoox next to us!) that repeatedly tried to back up into our Zoox, to the point that ours actually honked at the one ahead of it a couple times. Eventually, after multiple light cycles, ours started to tentatively try to get around it, which left it partway into the next lane and distressingly close to a fast moving semi. The one ahead finally moved, and the ride continued normally. Overall, the Zoox experience felt a bit more charming than the Waymo, with several nice little touches, but they both get the job done. I still need to try a Cybercab.