Riding in a Self Driving Car - With Nobody Up Front | JJRicks Rides With Waymo #1

Yeah Cruise announced this Walmart delivery with self-driving cars in Nov 2020 to launch in 2021 [1] and it is now available at the first location in Arizona. Cruise has been testing here but probably more on proving grounds like Apple has. Apple just bought a proving ground this year that they have been leasing since 2017 [2]. Testing picking up as well as competition. I am sure Cruise will expand it in Arizona. Most of the self-driving operations are in the East Valley (Chandler, Gilbert, Tempe) as the roads are pretty simple and square. The Scottsdale area this is in also pretty simple and by the reservation. Self-driving cars are everywhere with Waymo in Arizona as well, many entirely unattended. If you drive anywhere you see them. For Waymo samples, this JJRicks Studios channel [3] did a series on it for a while to show rides with no driver. Waymo does have a team that follows cars in trouble, on the infamous "cone" one you can see it [4]. For the most part the operation is solid, very few incidents like the "cone" incident where the cone was just in between LiDAR and CV detection and probably caused a covering of the line that confused the decision process. These types of issues are best to resolve in a baseline test with little change before the more challenging ones. [1] link [2] link [3] this video [4] link

this video can't you get a ride in phoenix like today with waymo? or is not open to the public? I mean I understand that their AI is not perfect but it doesn't seem like a pipe dream

yeah I reckon they started on the easiest place to implement. but it's still impressive seeing the thing driving around a shopping mall parking lot with pedestrian traffic, they put a lot of trust in this thing: this video