Comment by tcoop25
3 days ago
Took my first Waymo in Austin, TX last weekend and it did not go well. Was supposed to be a 9 minute drive, then randomly it tells us the ride has been 'slightly extended' to 45 minutes. Customer support dropped us off at a restaurant and said sorry. We ordered a human Uber.
Honestly the last thing I thought would happen would be that it would get lost. I thought maybe it would get confused on the road, but it drove better than most human drivers.
I used them all the time when I lived in LA and they worked great. I didn't have a single bad experience. In general they were much more pleasant than having a human Uber, but that's just my opinion.
Super weird! I've been using Waymo's regularly for 3 years now, couple of times a week and this has never happened.
I’ve definitely been in Waymos that take forty minutes compared to an Uber’s 10 to fifteen because they use very circuitous routes.
A lot of that is Waymos not taking highways, but that's changing.
For a period of time Waymos were avoiding highways.
I went to Austin a few months ago and half the interchanges weren't on Google Maps because they were built so recently. In the week I was there I think they finished building a new one near my hotel.
I wonder how reliant self-driving cars are on unchanging road infrastructure.
Unless Austin is ahead Waymos currently don't go in freeways anyways because the fail more of simply stopping isn't an option there
Uh, bullshit? It takes more than a year to build a modern interchange. Plenty of time for Google to update its maps. Can you provide a couple example satellite photos of the interchanges that are not yet mapped by Google?
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ryE7MoAhZEfH1t3T7?g_st=ac
Here's the interchange near my hotel that's not on satellite but is on Google Maps. Unfortunately satellite coverage on Google Maps is older than Google Maps is, but you can see on streetview in April 2025 it mostly wasn't there and in May 2026 it mostly was. I think I visited a month or so after which is why it was so recent.
Google doesn't always update when the new ramp goes into effect and can sometimes lag by a few weeks or more from what I've personally experienced, living around places experiencing rapid redevelopment.
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There's something about the Uber-hailed Waymos that makes them so much worse than regular Waymos IMO.
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Average driving speeds in London are already very low. How can they possibly be sufficiently slower as to be noticeable?
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There's no way their slowness is going to make a difference in London. I would have thought the real problem is that they'll just get completely stuck at places where you have to be a bit aggressive to make any progress at all. They don't really have that in America.
That and cyclists/pedestrians can be kind of anywhere at any time. Again not a quite the same in America.
We'll see I guess.
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Did you get a refund and/or bonus credits for future rides?
Was there a traffic jam or closed road or something?
Did it think it needed to take a very out of the way route?
Really? Bad luck, I have literally never had that happen! What time was this? Because Austin is closing down 35 in the evening and it is just doing crazy things to traffic. Maybe it was that?
The perfect driving equivalent of AI slop