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  • - Steering wheel's moving. Seat belt's fastened.

  • No one's behind the wheel.

  • Robotaxis are real, at least here in Chandler, Arizona,

  • where Waymo has been offering fully driverless rides

  • for more than a year.

  • Waymo's looking left, Waymo's looking right. All right.

  • And in August it expanded to San Francisco,

  • but rides here still have a driver behind the wheel.

  • The supporting driver does have hands on the wheel,

  • not always gripping the steering wheel,

  • but always hovering around the wheel.

  • It's an important test for the company,

  • as it could provide a roadmap for expansion

  • into other cities, but the race is on.

  • General Motors Cruise is also testing driverless cabs

  • in San Francisco.

  • - You could really build a sizable ride-hailing business

  • if you set up operations here.

  • - But rising costs and tech limitations

  • have slowed driverless car companies down.

  • So can Waymo, with operations in Phoenix

  • and now in San Francisco,

  • pick up the pace and bring its robocabs

  • to more cities and more passengers?

  • To find out, we spoke to company leaders,

  • and yes, took a couple of rides.

  • (bright music)

  • We're here at Waymo's depot in San Francisco,

  • a city that represents an important test for the company

  • as it looks to expand its service, and well,

  • it's got a lot of cars.

  • Waymo's ride-hailing service, Waymo One,

  • is new in San Francisco, but the company,

  • formerly known as Google's self-driving car project,

  • has been testing here for more than a decade.

  • - San Francisco provides

  • a wide diversity of not only geographies,

  • but also a diversity of the kind of interactions

  • that we'll have on the road itself.

  • - So you can see, we're in a little bit of a busier part

  • of the neighborhood here.

  • There are cars parked along the right.

  • There's a truck here, stopped on loading.

  • Waymo rides in San Francisco, like the one

  • the company invited "The Wall Street Journal" to take,

  • are currently done with a driver at the wheel.

  • But the company says it's the tech aboard its vehicles

  • that are making the majority of the decisions.

  • The tech that I can actually see here,

  • what are the main components?

  • - The LiDAR, which is the 360 degree at the top,

  • while the smaller ones are on the side,

  • the perimeter LiDAR.

  • We have cameras, 29 different cameras,

  • positioned throughout the vehicle,

  • and radar is a third kind.

  • And then lastly, within the trunk

  • is where we have the majority of our compute systems,

  • so the systems that take all those signals together

  • and combine it, run it through our software,

  • to help the car determine what it should do next.

  • - All of Waymo's passengers, or Trusted Testers,

  • in San Francisco have signed nondisclosure agreements

  • that prevent them from sharing their experience.

  • Well, except for me.

  • So right now, Waymo's driving us around

  • a pretty residential area.

  • Lots of stop signs. No stoplights on the route so far.

  • I think seeing the supporting driver's hands

  • hovering and sometimes grabbing the wheel itself

  • is providing a little bit of additional security for me.

  • Waymo really likes to stick to the speed limit.

  • Last week, a Waymo car hit a pedestrian in San Francisco.

  • The company said the vehicle was being driven

  • by a human driver in manual mode

  • when it struck the pedestrian,

  • who was treated for injuries at the scene

  • and transported to a hospital by ambulance.

  • The company said, "The trust and safety of the communities

  • in which we drive are paramount to us,

  • and we will continue investigating this incident

  • in partnership with local authorities."

  • So far, seven companies, including Waymo and Cruise,

  • have received permits from the State

  • to test autonomous vehicles without a driver.

  • But Waymo wants to be the first

  • to offer its service to the public.

  • How far off do you think you are from being able to

  • pull the autonomous specialists from the vehicle?

  • - Our current focus is really continuing to develop

  • a safe and convenient experience for all of our riders,

  • so no specific timelines to share at this time.

  • - [Adam] Success in San Francisco could help provide

  • a revenue-generating business for Waymo.

  • Analysts estimate its cars cost $200,000

  • and it can't yet charge passengers for rides in the city.

  • - They don't need to operate a robotaxi fleet

  • in a ton of markets

  • because if you look at the business performance

  • and results of Uber and Lyft, they mostly come from

  • just a handful of cities around the world, like 10 cities.

  • - [Adam] WSJ reporter Tripp Mickle covers Alphabet.

  • He lives in San Francisco and, like many residents there,

  • has been seeing Waymo's cars a lot.

  • - They seem to be on a rotation or a loop

  • in terms of what routes they drive.

  • - To see what Waymo could look like in future markets,

  • we went to Waymo's first location,

  • a 50-square-mile area around Chandler, Arizona.

  • Here, Waymo has pulled the driver support

  • and riders can now hail robotaxis themselves.

  • The wheel is moving by itself.

  • When did you know it was time to pull the driver

  • out of the Waymo here in Chandler?

  • - We evaluate the performance of the driver,

  • the Waymo driver, on a given operation domain.

  • We evaluate it against general features of topography,

  • geography, weather, and also specific features

  • such as the unprotected left turns

  • and ability to handle a large parking lot.

  • That is the process that we used to release our technology

  • here in Chandler.

  • (bright music)

  • - After traveling more than 65,000 miles around Chandler

  • without a human behind the wheel, Waymo opened up

  • its ride-hailing services to passengers like me,

  • willing to try.

  • While there, I spent about an hour in the back of a Waymo.

  • We're turning. (laughs) There it goes.

  • I took three separate rides, including one in the dark.

  • Waymo encountered construction,

  • an emergency vehicle, (siren wailing)

  • and took three rights to avoid a left,

  • though I did experience one unprotected left turn.

  • Waiting for intersection to clear,

  • and it is starting and stopping a lot.

  • Okay. You may be good now, Waymo.

  • Ooh. (exhales) All right, we did it.

  • - [Waymo] Arriving shortly.

  • - [Adam] Waymo was a defensive driver,

  • but the experience took some getting used to.

  • The biggest hurdle, trusting the tech.

  • - Trust needs to be earned

  • and we earn it by our excellent track record.

  • And we also earn it through transparency

  • and really engaging with the public.

  • - [Adam] Before opening up its ride-hailing service

  • to the public,

  • Waymo published safety data from its tests around Chandler.

  • It reported 18 collisions

  • over a span of about 6 million miles driven.

  • - None of those collisions were serious in nature,

  • but regardless, every single event is a learning experience.

  • - Do you have any updated data

  • since launching the ride-hailing service here in Chandler?

  • - And I'll tell you that the positive trends that we saw

  • in that first report, where we evaluated 6 million miles,

  • has continued through our service.

  • - [Adam] The company says it completes hundreds of rides

  • in the Chandler area each week

  • and has served tens of thousands of riders there.

  • - It's put them at the forefront

  • of the driverless car effort,

  • but it's also Chandler, Arizona.

  • It's not, you know, in 50 states, or much less two states.

  • It's really in one, you know, one suburb of Phoenix.

  • - Waymo's ambitions, however, are greater.

  • It's now testing in 25 cities across the US,

  • though the company wouldn't say

  • where it plans to offer rides next.

  • What's slowing Waymo down

  • from expanding to cities across the US?

  • - It's technology, really.

  • There's been a realization, broadly,

  • across the self-driving industry

  • that their ambitions and hopes of creating

  • something that was like a computer model

  • that can be scaled and dropped anywhere, in any city,

  • is not totally realistic.

  • - It took Waymo three years of on-the-streets testing

  • before it offered its ride-hailing service

  • in the Chandler area alone.

  • What can we draw from that pace

  • for Waymo's future expansion?

  • - I don't know if that's a great proxy.

  • We build on our experience and our technology

  • such that it takes us less and less time

  • to learn the intricacies and be able to drive safely

  • and reliably in any market.

  • - Because of this, Waymo expects to pick up the pace,

  • and it might need to.

  • Cruise has raised more than $9 billion

  • to support its robotaxi efforts.

  • Waymo has raised nearly 6 billion.

  • But just how many riders will hop in the back

  • of one of these robotaxis, remains to be seen.

  • Ride done.

  • - [Waymo] We've arrived.

  • (bright music)

- Steering wheel's moving. Seat belt's fastened.

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Watch Waymo’s Self-Driving Taxis Put Urban Terrain to the Test | WSJ

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    moge0072008 發佈於 2021 年 12 月 31 日
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