Waymo is getting ready to tackle Los Angeles’ freeways. How have the robotaxis fared so far?
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Waymo’s fleet of electric, self-driving taxis has been on the streets of Los Angeles for a few months now. And in a post on X this week, the company announced it was set to take on the most L.A. of frontiers: the freeways. At first, only Waymo employees will be able to ride along as the driverless SUVs navigate the 10 or the 405 and the company did not say when it expects to open up the new terrain to paying passengers.
After launching in San Francisco and Phoenix, Waymo arrived in Los Angeles in November. It attracted an initial wait list of around 300,000 people before becoming available to anyone who downloaded the service’s app, a company spokesperson said. Expansion plans include Atlanta, Miami and Austin, according to the company’s website.
Waymo has already driven 1.9 million miles in Los Angeles. Its short history, perhaps inevitably, hasn’t been without some bumps that have raised concerns and prompted a series of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigations. Last month, for example, a customer posted a video of the Waymo he was riding in repeatedly driving in circles and deviating from the set route, he said. The customer was delayed for five minutes and then driven to his destination, Waymo told The Times.
How did Waymo make it to Los Angeles?
Waymo operates around 100 taxis in Los Angeles, which are currently confined to a 79-square-mile area that spans from Santa Monica and Marina del Rey to West Hollywood and downtown Los Angeles. Until the announcement this week, the taxis had been programmed to steer clear of highways and freeways within the city.
The company got its start as the Google Self-Driving Car Project, which began in 2009 and put its first autonomous car on the road in 2015. The project rebranded as Waymo in 2016 under Google’s parent company Alphabet and launched its driverless ride-hailing service known as Waymo One in 2020.
Angelenos can hail a robotaxi with the Waymo One app starting Tuesday. There are about 100 taxis in the Los Angeles fleet — but they don’t drive freeways.
Before coming to L.A., Waymo launched in Phoenix and San Francisco, where collectively the vehicles have driven tens of thousands of riders more than 30 million miles without a human driver.
Waymo spent months testing vehicles in Los Angeles with humans in the driver’s seat before launching fully autonomous service, available 24/7 through an app that functions similarly to Uber and Lyft.
How safe are Waymo vehicles?
Waymo’s stated goal is to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities through autonomous driving technology, which they describe on their website as “the world’s most experienced driver.” Although incidents involving Waymo vehicles generate attention, the vehicles are safer than human drivers, according to data collected by insurer Swiss Re.
Based on data collected by Waymo, their driverless vehicles had 81% fewer airbag deployment crashes, 78% fewer injury-causing crashes and 62% fewer police-reported crashes than traditional vehicles driving the same distance. Waymo vehicles rely on cameras, sensors and a type of laser radar called lidar to operate autonomously.
Despite its solid track record, there have been several accidents and technological blips since the rollout of Waymo One. The company recalled 444 vehicles last February after two minor collisions in quick succession, and the NHTSA opened an investigation in May into 31 incidents that raised safety concerns.
A Waymo taxi collided with a cyclist in San Francisco last year and another vehicle crashed into a pole in Phoenix in May. Customers have reported various glitches on social media, including one Reddit user who posted a video of a Waymo driving the wrong direction into oncoming traffic.
Even when someone tries to get in the driver’s seat, Waymo cars are designed so that people cannot override the automatic driving system, the company said.
The company has also faced scrutiny over security concerns after members of the public have interfered with the vehicles, damaged them and attempted to steal them. In October, two pedestrians stalled a Waymo by standing in its path and demanded the customer give them her phone number.
Earlier this month, a man in downtown Los Angeles got in the driver’s seat of a Waymo vehicle and attempted to drive off before being stopped by police.
What happens when something goes wrong?
While riders can contact a human Waymo representative by clicking a button during their trip, some have taken to social media to report their dissatisfaction with the company’s problem-solving abilities and customer service.
Mike Johns, a Los Angeles man who got stuck inside a circling Waymo in Arizona, said the person who answered his help call was not able to immediately get his vehicle to pull over. Another customer in San Francisco said they waited more than 45 minutes for roadside assistance after their Waymo malfunctioned and stopped its trip.
Waymo vehicles cannot be controlled remotely by a human, the company said, but trained drivers can operate a vehicle in-person when necessary. The company also has a “fleet response” program that allows human agents to communicate directly with vehicles in challenging situations.
According to the company, if a Waymo encounters a situation it cannot navigate, it is programmed to contact a human fleet response agent who will evaluate the Waymo’s surroundings and provide the vehicle with assistance on how to proceed. In some cases, a human can remotely map a route for a Waymo to take to avoid an obstacle.
Has the company had success?
Waymo, which operates more than 100,000 paid rides each week and has around 700 white Jaguar I-PACE SUVs across its markets, was valued at more than $45 billion in November after its latest round of funding.
By putting fully self-driving vehicles on public roads, Waymo has achieved what Elon Musk and Tesla have not yet been able to. Musk often exaggerates the abilities of the so-called Full Self-Driving mode available in Teslas, which cannot function without a human driver present. Musk unveiled a prototype for an autonomous Cybercab in October, but it’s not clear when the product will launch.
Waymo once faced competition from Cruise, a driverless taxi company founded in 2013, but the company was effectively shut down last month when its owner, General Motors, said it would stop investing in its self-driving vehicles.
Cruise’s demise followed a grisly crash in San Francisco in 2023, in which a driverless Cruise vehicle struck a woman and dragged her for several feet, causing critical injuries. The company suspended all operations after the incident, but began testing with a human driver present several months later in Phoenix, Houston and Dallas.
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