8 ms·
Same here (downtown Phoenix area) -- the driverless Waymos have been awesome. Occasionally they get confused but it seems pretty rare. They're better than a lot
by icey 3y ago
Same here (downtown Phoenix area) -- the driverless Waymos have been awesome. Occasionally they get confused but it seems pretty rare. They're better than a lot of the other drivers on the road out here.
I'm mostly excited that they upped the allowed passenger count from 3 to 4. Usually we take a car if we're going out to dinner with friends but the 3 passenger limit made taking one of these a pain in the ass or impossible.
- drusepth 3y agoDoes the fourth passenger sit in the "driver's" seat, or is it a three-packed-in-the-back kind of situation? Never seen a self-driving-car in person, but I assume it's the standard 4-seater sedan layout, right?
- ilaksh 3y agoThey are vans.
- boulos 3y agoPart of this announcement is the completion of retiring our Pacifica fleet. So while we used to have the vans on the road in Chandler, you'll now see the same vehicles that were in Downtown Phoenix and San Francisco.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> They are vans I was in a Jaguar. The one they show on their site [1]. [1] https://waymo.com/phx/ https://waymo.com/phx/
- eep_social 3y agoThey were vans: https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/13559409?hl=en https://support.google.com/waymo/answer/13559409?hl=en
- icey 3y agoI haven't taken one since they announced the change (I'm in a part of Phoenix that's pretty walkable), but I think it will be 3 in the rear bench and one in the passenger seat. They've been pretty clear that they don't want people sitting in the driver's seat, and I'm guessing that will continue to be the case with this change.
- boulos 3y agoYep, three in the back and one up front, driver seat empty. (The door won't open for you anyway)
- rwmj 3y agoI wonder if there's some regulation behind why they haven't got rid of the traditional front-facing layout entirely and replaced it with train carriage style seats around a table?
- windowsrookie 3y agoThese cars still have to meet all federal crash safety standards. Modifying the seating position would also require modifying the airbags, seat belts, seat belt pre-tensioners, etc. Then the vehicle would have to be crash tested again to ensure it is safe for the passengers.
- HyperSane 3y agoThat would be a very expensive modification to make on all their cars.
- dangus 3y agoIt blows my mind that someone living downtown in a city the size of Phoenix (relatively large) needs to use a car at all. It’s really a shameful failure of urban planning.
- School-Cotton 3y agoYou’re right, but it’s a bit of a cherry-picked example. Phoenix is probably the most car-required major city in the world.
- 0zemp2c 3y ago[flagged]
- icey 3y agoI drive a couple of times a month... It's not the most walkable city but the downtown area is fairly walkable
- sib 3y agoPhoenix is like LA without the positives
- agensaequivocum 3y agoThis is definitely not true.
- sib 3y agoLike LA: Large, sprawling, full of concrete, car-dependent Without the good parts: No media industry, very little tech industry, much less diverse, far fewer good restaurants, no ocean
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoHonestly there's not much to recommend about any Southwestern city (outside of Texas), LA included.