Drivers… we have a lot to worry about in 2020. With the threat of contracting COVID, pandemic-related lockdowns, new rules to enforce, mastering the vehicle sanitization process, evading civil unrest, dealing with pre and post election anxiety, and watching the entire rideshare and delivery environment change before our eyes … haven’t we dealt with enough??
We certainly have. That’s why, when we hear about something that could give drivers even more to worry about, we take charge of figuring out what’s going on. In this case, we’re talking about Waymo.
A subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, Waymo One (Waymo) made a big announcement recently.
After two years of operating its service with driverless technology, accompanied by a driver to make sure nothing goes wrong, the company has taken the next step.
Waymo has determined that its technology is now safe enough to allow passengers to receive fully autonomous rides. As an October 8, 2020 Waymo blog headline states: “Waymo is opening its fully driverless service to the general public in Phoenix.”
Words like “fully driverless service” are enough to make any driver squirm, but when you learn more, you’ll be able to relax again. Sure, there are some changes in the autonomous vehicle arena, but there are plenty of reasons not to panic. In this post, we’ll go through those reasons for you, covering:
- What Waymo has actually done
- How close is Waymo’s service to being fully autonomous, and profitable?
- Why most of the ride-hailing world will still need drivers
You can also watch our YouTube video on the subject below!
What Waymo has actually done
Waymo’s latest announcement to stop using backup (human) drivers in their cars has created quite a stir. Does it mean autonomous vehicles will be rolling around in cities and suburbs all over the country? No, it doesn’t mean that. Waymo’s work on autonomous vehicles is still in its very early stages. Let’s look at what the company has done, and what it’s doing now to make such cringe-worthy headlines.
Waymo has been testing its service in a 50-square-mile area in suburban Phoenix, Arizona, in three cities: Chandler, Tempe, and Mesa. Why would the company choose to roll out the service in suburban Arizona?
Because the terrain is quite flat, the roads don’t have many curves, people don’t walk around in the streets much, the weather is predictable, and the population is rather sparse. While it’s not quite as easy to navigate as a test track, it’s as close to real streets and roads as it could possibly be.
For the last two years, the Waymo ride-hailing service has been operating like most any other app-based platform, but with autonomous vehicles—and mostly with backup drivers on board. Things were going well in 2018 and 2019, and then … the pandemic happened. Like all other ride-hailing services, Waymo One suffered setbacks due to the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Prior to that, Waymo was providing up to 2,000 autonomous rides per week. Most of these had human drivers onboard, but about 5 to 10 percent did not. These driverless rides were restricted to a select group of Waymo passengers who were asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Now, that small group of riders is going to expand. According to the October 8, 2020 article on the Waymo blog, “over the next several weeks” the company will remove backup drivers from the vehicles. This means the vehicles will operate fully autonomously, although human intervention will still be possible.
A team of Fleet Response Specialists will be available in case a vehicle gets into a situation it doesn’t know how to navigate. Their function will be to send advanced instructions to the Waymo vehicle, in order to get it out of “trouble,” in the event of such difficulties as a road being unexpectedly closed or impassible.
Notice, also, that Waymo is only removing drivers “for the next several weeks.” In essence, this is a test to prove autonomous vehicles can work without human assistance. Then, the plan is to begin to expand to other places, beginning possibly California.
After the test period, onboard drivers will return to the vehicles, especially to any vehicles that are deployed outside the test area where Waymo operates now. Even if this all goes well, and Waymo One becomes available in more areas, drivers will still be needed, at least on a temporary basis. Plus, “fleet response specialists” are not going to go too far away anytime soon. They will be needed to assist the operation of the vehicles when trouble on the road comes along.
How close is Waymo’s service to being fully autonomous, and profitable?
If Waymo were not part of Alphabet, and under the same corporate umbrella as Google, it would be natural to wonder how the company could stay afloat. Backed by Alphabet’s money and technology, they’ve been able to sustain huge quarterly losses, in the tens of millions, and maybe even the hundreds of millions. Most of this has been to support the cost of developing the technology.
Some of the money has been allocated to paying the drivers who’ve been riding in the vehicles, plus the support “drivers” (highly paid software engineers) who are on call to support the vehicles and drivers from a remote location.
These fleet response specialists will be needed, at least at first, to monitor vehicles closely. At first it may be one-to-one, but eventually, if the company is to become profitable, each fleet response specialist would have to be able to handle at least 10 and as many as 20 cars at once.
That may be possible if the technology continues to develop to a point where it needs little or no intervention. For now, though, the vehicles still need a fair amount of oversight, if not from onboard drivers then certainly from very watchful fleet response specialists.
Specialized hardware is another huge cost. Waymo vehicles are equipped with sophisticated sensors and computer gear that are necessary to make them run; and this electronic equipment is delicate and not especially durable. Not only does it have to be purchased when each vehicle is first brought into the fleet; it must be maintained regularly, and probably, frequently replaced.
Rolling out the service to a wider area will take a lot of time. Almost three years passed before Waymo was able to map out the area in its small test region in Arizona, and test the software thoroughly enough to begin driverless operations. It’s likely that this process will be shortened as time goes on, but it will still not be an overnight deployment.
Furthermore, there’s the obstacle that all new services face: government approval. The controversy surrounding autonomous vehicles is large and complicated, with local, state, and federal authorities involved. Public safety is a major concern for these government entities, and other considerations, like road use taxes, compliance with local traffic laws, driver accountability, and liability for potential passenger injury could come into play.
To say the least, these obstacles stand in the way of that dreaded army of robo-taxis, bent on the instant eradication of all human drivers. It will be an undetermined amount of time before we have to worry about losing our jobs to autonomous vehicles, so don’t peel off your Lyft or Uber sticker and hang it up quite yet.
Why most of the rest of the ride-hailing world will still need drivers
Waymo’s experiment in its 50-square mile haven in the Phoenix suburbs has been successful so far, but as we said earlier, they’re working under ideal conditions. Not every locality is blessed with roads straight as arrows and almost constant sunny weather.
Most areas of the country, particularly densely populated urban areas, will not be as welcoming to the limitations, and frankly, the dangers, of autonomous vehicles. Increasingly, cities require drivers to yield the right of way to bikes and scooters, and of course to pedestrians. Can you imagine this vehicle finding its way through a Bay Area fog, or navigating alleyways within the Wall Street area of Manhattan?
Even in more remote areas, challenging topography, winding roads, snow, ice, and pouring rain could put a definite damper on the autonomous vehicles’ ability to make human drivers obsolete. Other companies have deliberately chosen to test autonomous cars in areas where these obstacles are present, and they have found their progress to be quite slow.
Then, of course, there is the public’s perception of autonomous vehicles. The Pew Research Center developed a poll, and found that there are fewer people who are ready to jump in and take a riderless journey than there are those who seem reluctant, or even afraid.
See? The public still needs, loves, and appreciates drivers. You really don’t have to worry about losing your rideshare or delivery driver job quite yet. At least it gives us one less thing to lose sleep over during the endless nightmare of 2020.
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