Orlandoans could be hailing a driverless ride as soon as 2026.
Waymo — the autonomous vehicle company launched in 2009 — has already logged over 10 million paid robotaxi trips in cities like Austin, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Phoenix. Now, it’s steering toward expansion plans for Orlando, Miami, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio.
To get a feel for the future, we — with a little help from our sister publication, ATXtoday — hopped into a fully autonomous Waymo with the company’s product communications manager, Chris Bonelli. Here’s what our editors wanted to know as first-time riders.
What do you say to skeptics or people who have concerns about AVs?
Bonelli: “It’s a very mundane answer, but the literal best way of convincing someone is to experience it. Everyone is hesitant until they try something like this. That’s not going to be the answer for everyone, of course, but it is the best or most effective way.
... As the data continues to grow, I think that safety argument gets better. And then the last bit, I’d say, just on the experience and what we offer as a service, in comparison to a human-driven ride hail, is it’s private. It’s secure for most folks.
... It’s true accessibility.”
Would a Waymo car ever drive over the speed limit?
Bonelli: “There are circumstances where a passing maneuver, a merging maneuver, or something that would be more unsafe to not exceed (the speed limit) temporarily. We have some videos we’ve shown online of people going the wrong way down a street where the car has to react quickly. Not that they would accelerate necessarily, oftentimes just quick driving, (the car will do) whatever is required to safely maneuver, if that means going over by two miles per hour.”
How would a collision be handled?
Bonelli: “If someone else were to hit the car and then legally, stay at the scene — we have hit and runs, we have other things that have happened — but if somewhere to hit the vehicle, our rider support team would immediately get notification of a collision alert based on the vehicle telemetry, based on other sensors and things. (Support) would call into the car pretty much immediately to ask the riders: ‘Are you okay? What’s going on? Do you feel safe? Do you need emergency services?’
The front window would roll down as well, so an outside person, a law enforcement officer or the other driver, could speak to their rider support agent, and our Waymo roadside assistance team would be just dispatched. ... We’re very connected to do that very quickly, but to the point of hit-and-run drivers or other collision incidents, we have 29 cameras on the car.”
How do you prevent somebody from potentially trying to steal or crash the car?
Bonelli: “If you were to reach over to mess with the steering wheel, it’s gonna, as best it can, prevent you. It runs controls from actually turning the wheel, but if it senses that input that is unexpected, it’s going to go through a series of escalations. It may give you an alert on the screen or audibly say, ‘Please keep your hands off the controls.’ If someone were to continue to do that, the vehicle would come to a safe stop, try to pull over, and do what it can to prevent anyone causing harm to themselves or others by way of the vehicle.
If someone were to get into the (driver’s) seat, there are seat sensors that would immediately alert our rider support team to call into the car and potentially place a hold on it. We can contact law enforcement quite quickly as well.”
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