Traffic laws and rules of the road are an effect, but the big reason here is that Waymo doesn’t currently go on the highway/freeway (I believe they are approved to, but haven’t yet done so). Like in the LA case that went around before, the slow down is that they are taking surface streets the whole way. This is probably also part of why they don’t serve SFO, while you can get to SFO by surface streets it’s exceedingly awkward to do so from most places (you’d think it would be the chaos of the curb drop-off / pick-up and luggage handling, but for the former SFO already dedicates part of the main parking garage to ride-share etc. which would be easy to man with a fixer and prob worthwhile to do so).
“Waymo’s speed disadvantage does add up on longer trips, like this comparison showing Waymo 50 minutes slower than an Uber if traversing the entire length of the covered area down to Burlingame, due the whole ‘always obey all the traffic laws and rules of the road and almost never have an accident’ thing.”
Traffic laws and rules of the road are an effect, but the big reason here is that Waymo doesn’t currently go on the highway/freeway (I believe they are approved to, but haven’t yet done so). Like in the LA case that went around before, the slow down is that they are taking surface streets the whole way. This is probably also part of why they don’t serve SFO, while you can get to SFO by surface streets it’s exceedingly awkward to do so from most places (you’d think it would be the chaos of the curb drop-off / pick-up and luggage handling, but for the former SFO already dedicates part of the main parking garage to ride-share etc. which would be easy to man with a fixer and prob worthwhile to do so).