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It’s impossible to underestimate how surreal it is to ride in a car with an empty driver’s seat. The wheel is spinning on its own, the pedals are depressing without any feet on them and the autonomous vehicle’s touchscreens are visually reassuring you that, don’t worry, it can see those pedestrians, too. It’s seemingly just as strange for those onlookers as they all gawk, point and snap photos.
These self-driving cars are about to become a much more common occurrence on the streets of Los Angeles, and average Angelenos will be able to go for a ride in them—for free. That’s thanks to the arrival of around-the-clock service from Waymo, the autonomous vehicle division of Google’s parent company Alphabet.
You might’ve already seen Waymo’s cars cruising L.A.’s streets with a human in the front seat over the past year, but starting this month the company will offer 24/7 autonomous passenger service that ditches the test drivers. The “early access” Waymo One Tour starts on October 11 in Santa Monica before moving on to Century City, West Hollywood, Mid City, Koreatown and Downtown L.A. into early 2024.
Though the rides are free, you’ll need an access code (valid for a week) to start using the app. To get one, you can either join the waitlist (which will prioritize people in each service area) or nab a physical ticket at an in-person pop-up. Look out for ones at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market on October 11 (Arizona Ave and 3rd St, 8am–3pm) and on November 3 during First Friday on Abbot Kinney, near the Brig (4:30–9pm).
The area for each tour stop is actually pretty extensive: This first one in “Santa Monica” covers the entirety of that coastal city, plus Brentwood, Sawtelle and a sliver of Venice. (And, no, Waymo won’t be driving you on the freeway at all for these tour stops.)
Waymo invited me to go for a ride before the service’s wider launch this week. For my trip, summoned on a busy Saturday afternoon with cyclists, scooters and pedestrians all about, I opted for a two-mile drive from the southern edge of the Venice service area to the dead end between Crescent Bay Park and Hotel Casa del Mar in Santa Monica (and back again).
Riding in a self-driving car for the first time is anxiety-inducing, exciting and oddly normal—basically in that order. Even if you routinely drive a car outfitted with advanced assistance features, it can’t prepare you for the radically different sensation of sitting in the back seat of a car with nobody in the driver’s seat. Even the outside of the white Jaguar I-PACE feels strange; it’s impossible to miss the spinning lidar unit on the roof as well as the array of cameras and radar sensors (which collectively let it see 360-degrees for roughly the length of three football fields).
Physically, it’s not a white-knuckle experience at all—but good luck telling your brain that at first. The barf bags tucked into the seatback pocket certainly don’t instill confidence, and the inherently zippy pickup of an electric vehicle has you questioning each start, stop and turn, no matter how gradual or tight they are. But that anxiety starts to fade the more time you spend inside, and it’s easy to see how a Waymo ride could become perfectly ordinary the more you use it. Yes, there are wheel turns and creeps forward that you’ll scrutinize as well as some occasional jerky movements, but all-in-all it’s a (mostly) smooth experience.
That said, my rides weren’t flawless. The car picked me up at a corner and just barely clipped the curb as it reoriented itself back into traffic. On one stretch of Pacific Avenue, the display seemed to hallucinate a “do not enter” or stop sign that wasn’t actually there and the car came to a near halt for a brief second. And just ahead of Marine Street, the light was green but the road was too gridlocked to cross the intersection. My Waymo inched forward into the crosswalk and inevitably was stuck blocking part of it as the light turned red. But it at least didn’t get stuck in the middle of the intersection—something that countless human drivers would’ve done.
On the other hand, I could also pick out multiple occurrences of the car being cautious and courteous in ways that your average L.A. driver might not. It always signaled, of course. It always left plenty of room for cyclists and scooters. And in one instance, it even anticipated that a pair of pedestrians would cross the street before they even stepped onto the road.
That mostly covers the on-the-road experience, but what about actually summoning a car? Hailing a ride feels familiar if you’ve ever used Uber or Lyft: You plug in a destination and confirm a pickup spot on the Waymo One smartphone app, after which you’ll be matched with a car and given an estimated wait time. But there are some distinctly autonomous tweaks to that user experience. To start, your pickup and dropoff locations are limited to places where Waymo can legally and safely pull over, which for this initial area is basically anywhere but Ocean Avenue.
When securing a ride, it’s possible that you’ll be told the service is too busy right now. (While Waymo wouldn’t give an exact figure, the company says it’s currently running a “limited number of vehicles” but it’ll gradually scale up over time.) Thankfully, that wasn’t the case during my time with Waymo; for my first ride I was given a 10-minute estimated wait, which was probably mostly due to hailing the car from the very southern edge of Waymo’s narrow Venice service area. As is often the case with all ride-hailing apps, traffic caused that ETA to tick up a few minutes while I was waiting. But the delay seemed way more transparent thanks to a little icon that would pop up letting me know each time the car was stopped at a red light.
Each car can hold up to four people (three in back, one up front in the passenger seat). If you have small kids, you’ll need to bring your own car seat. And if you have pets, well, sorry: While service animals are welcome, other pets are not.
As the Waymo rolled up—a few car lengths past where I was standing, as it needed an unoccupied curb—my initials were illuminated atop the car. (Using the app, you can set the color and a pair of letters to display on the rooftop LED, or even honk the horn if you’re having trouble finding the car.) I unlocked the car using the app, and as I shuffled into the back seat, a touchscreen greeted me with my name, destination and an invitation to start the ride with a single tap. And then that was it: An audible safety spiel walked me through the basics as it pulled into traffic.
As far as amenities, Waymo is an introvert’s dream. You can change the temperature or turn on the radio using the touchscreen in back. You can also charge your phone from here and order the car to pull over or get in touch with support, if necessary. You’re not completely alone, though: The car is outfitted with interior cameras (I spotted two) that’ll keep tabs on cleanliness and rules, though the microphones only turn on when you’re connected to support.
Oddly enough, the most futuristic part of the entire experience comes once your ride is over. After you’ve gotten out onto the curb, the car pauses for a few moments and then just starts driving again. Maybe it’s answered another request already or maybe it’s just setting out in search of a parking spot to idle in. Without access to the map and in-vehicle touchscreen anymore, you have no clue what the car’s robot brain is processing, and it’s hard not to assign it some sort of personality to explain how you’re seeing a completely empty car drive itself to who knows where.
Though both rides were free (as all rides will be during the entirety of the Waymo One Tour), I was given a receipt showing how much it would’ve cost: A 2.1-mile, 14-minute ride was $7.61, and a 2.2-mile, 15-minute ride was $7.32. This puts Waymo’s pricing pretty much in line with the base fares for Uber and Lyft, though unlike either of those you won’t be leaving a tip. Similar to other ride-hailing apps, the price does fluctuate depending on how busy the service is. Don’t get too hung up on any particular pricing details, though, as Waymo says it’s “evaluating a number of different types of pricing models” for its eventual commercial launch in L.A.