Waymo and the Rise of the Robotaxis | Test Drive | 3

0:07David Brown:Hey there, I'm David Brown and welcome to Business Wars.

0:30David Brown:We're starting this episode off a bit differently, and that's because we begin today far from the cozy confines of the studio. We're on the streets of Austin, Texas, where we're trying a little experiment. Having finished the first two episodes in our series on the rise of autonomous vehicles, I couldn't help but wonder what it's really like to be a passenger in a car with no driver. Hey, hey, hey, I think we may have a Waymo. It says, nice, your pickup is right on time. Hello, from Waymo. Coming up, you'll get to ride shotgun with my daughter and me. We went downtown to hail one of these robo-taxis and document what it's like to take a ride in one of these cars of the future.

1:13David Brown:See, recently there was a story in the New York Times that basically made the case for the inevitability of self-driving cars. According to that article, the data that's already been gathered suggests that from a public safety standpoint alone, it seems undeniable that we're headed toward a driverless revolution. The only remaining question is how close we are to that tipping point. After the ride-along, we'll hear from Larry Burns. He's a former automotive executive and author of Autonomy, the Quest to Build a Driverless Car and How It Will Reshape Our World. He literally wrote the book on what a driverless future could look like and spent 10 years consulting for Waymo to help turn these sci-fi sounding dreams into a reality.

1:57David Brown:Larry talks about how he got involved with Google's self-driving cars and how he sees self-driving cars reshaping our society for the better. But as a reporter, I tend to be a little suspicious of the hype around things that are called the next revolution in transportation. So before we get into it with Larry, let's hit the streets and see how these robo-taxis work, shall we? All that's coming up.

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3:32David Brown:Welcome back to Business Wars. Right now, my mission here on the streets of Austin is simple. Hail a driverless taxi and check out what it's like firsthand. This should be easy, but it's not. I've been trying to get from South Congress Avenue to Waterloo Records, my favorite vinyl record shop, for several minutes now, but I keep getting assigned a human driver, and then I have to cancel the request and try again. Several cities across the U.S. now allow driverless taxis, but here in Austin, it's still considered experimental. You can't just hail a Waymo through the Waymo app. Instead, Waymo has partnered with Uber for a limited rollout of their fully autonomous cabs.

4:12David Brown:You have to go to the Uber app, opt in to driverless rides in your settings, and then get lucky enough to get a signed one. And word on the street is you won't get a signed one unless you're downtown and making a shorter trip of, say, a couple of miles. So we adjusted our pickup point to see if we could get lucky. Hey, hey, hey, I think we may have a Waymo. Hang on a second, if I can read this right. Pick up in one minute. Lucky for me, I had a co-pilot, my daughter, Magnolia. Oh, you say, hello, Magnolia. Hello. And she's holding the microphone while I try to figure out exactly where the pickup point is.

4:52David Brown:It says, Home Slice Pizza Pickup Spot 1. So let's pick. Aren't we outside of Home Slice? Once the pickup point was secured, it was time for our next challenge, figuring out which Waymo was ours. Looks like it's coming up on us. Oh, there it is. All right. Ah, there's the Waymo. Is there anybody behind the wheel? Nope. Nope? Oh, my goodness. Okay, the little spinny light on top says CP, and now the doors have opened. And let's get in. But we made a big rookie mistake. Oh, really? Good afternoon. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Alright, someone else got a Waymo and we got into the wrong vehicle.

5:37David Brown:Turns out the initials on top should match your own. Oops. We quickly spotted another vehicle sporting DB on the top. We opened the doors to find a screen wishing us good afternoon. Soft, new-age music flowed out of the speakers, creating a spa-like atmosphere. A cheerful, soothing voice greeted us. Hello from Waymo. As we get going, just give us one minute to cover a few riding tips. This experience may feel futuristic, but the need to buckle up is the same as always. So keep your seatbelt fastened, please. Can I buckle up, please? If you're traveling with me... That whisper you're hearing is my daughter.

6:16David Brown:Now, here was my second robo-taxi party foul. I took too long to buckle up, which got us in a bit of trouble. Oh, I guess I need to buckle up. That's the point. That's what they just said.

6:30David Brown:Seconds later, the car had called up Waymo support. Hi, this is Rose with you. Sir, for interrupting your truck, you just received a seatbelt from the core guarding with your ride. And upon checking here, it's because the seatbelts are unbuckled. Okay, it looks like we're buckled up now. Once we were all buckled up, it was time to hit the road. A message on the steering wheel reminds riders to keep their hands off and that the Waymo driver is in control, a.k.a. the computer. A screen sits between the driver and passenger seats. You can see all the cars. You can see the cyclist who just went by on the side.

7:05David Brown:And it actually, it shows you if there's other Waymo cars. All of the other cars are in blue, but any other Waymo is not in blue. And then there's us with the Happy New Year flag on it. Very nice. Now, as a car guy, I couldn't help but notice the car's interior. I asked Magnolia what she thought about the vehicle. Would you want to have a Jaguar based on sitting in this car? Me personally? Yeah. Yes. I think this is kind of a decent sales technique for Jags. Yeah, and also because by Uber using it for a self-driving car, they're basically telling you it's safe. They're telling you that, you know, in the crazy world, maybe where this gets into like an accident, right, you're going to be safe because we want you to believe or at least we want you to know that we're using like a top-of-the-line car.

7:54David Brown:Yeah, yeah. So that way, you know. Yeah, there's not rattles in here. It seems like it's really nicely built. Very quick. Very quick, yeah. Once we arrived at our destination, we stopped for some lunch and then mentally prepared for the second leg of our Waymo journey. Inhaling this next one, I experienced my third robo-taxi party foul of the day. This time, I knew to look for the car that said DB on top, but I didn't know where exactly I should meet it. I think this might be it. Hello, maybe? Let's go over here. Wait for it to get to its spot because it's holding up. Okay, two Waymos meet in a parking lot.

8:30David Brown:If you stand in front of its sensors, it will think that you're asking to get into it, but it won't know for sure. Oops. With a human driver, I could wave at them from across the street. We could just walk up, they'd unlock the doors, and we'd tumble in. But with a robo-taxi, the car has to come to you. Okay, noted. Once inside, I buckled up right away so we could hit the road. Happy New Year. Oh, that was cute. Wishing us a happy new year. This time around, our robot driver pulled off an impressive maneuver in a congested area. Oh, look, now it's going to do a three-point reverse, like a U-turn.

9:07David Brown:Three-point turn to get out of a parking lot. Do you see? Everyone's just constantly... Hey, we're famous. Yeah, it's funny because I've seen these all over town, but people still can't help but gawk. Gotta say, I was even more impressed by this second ride. The things the Waymo could pick up on were akin to what a human driver might do. For example, look at this. Now this one, the Waymo has just figured out that car in front of us was just stopped. That it wasn't like a line of traffic. That's pretty smart. Did you notice that? Yeah, so it went around. So it went around the car in front of us.

9:40David Brown:That's pretty cool. But there was one moment where the car took a slight detour that had both of us a little spooked. I was not expecting that. I thought we were just going straight into traffic there for a second. And oh my gosh. So it is it is recalculated a back way, which I've never been on. Very unfamiliar back way. But it really sped up around that detour. It sure did. It's like, where are we going? Yeah, that was that was a wild detour. Once our heart rates returned to normal, I asked Magnolia how she felt about taking Waymo versus an Uber from the perspective of a teen. I still have misgivings.

10:15David Brown:I have ideas about like that detour I just took. It didn't tell us it was rerouting. It didn't tell us it was taking a detour. It just went. And I feel like it would be, I think maybe something that they could do is say like rerouting. Or just say we're taking a different route. Going the fastest route. Because if you're sitting in a Waymo and you don't know that, you're like, where the heck am I going? You don't know that it's still taking you there. Pros for regular Uber? Yeah. I guess you don't worry as much about there being like a computing error, right? You don't worry about like anything like that.

10:49David Brown:You're not worried about the computing error. In a regular Uber. Oh, in a regular Uber, okay. Right. But also, there's always like a worry of like, you know, your own personal safety in an Uber. There's been countless examples of like, you know, Uber drivers taking you to such a place that's not your home, stuff like that, right? Someone who is a bad Uber driver. Yeah, right. Right. But as a teenager, I've kind of refused to take Uber because I feel more unsafe. Sure. And I think that seeing how this operates, I feel a little bit more safe. As well as the fact that there's support watching. And even if you don't even plug in your seatbelt all the way, right?

11:28David Brown:Right. They tune in. They say, hey, just saw that you didn't plug in. So if something freaky happened, you could reach down and touch support and you know that somebody would get out. Or if I felt unsafe or I was unsure or I just wanted to double check, I'm like, hey, you know, I'm a minor, you know, I'm in this car alone. I just want to make sure like it's where I need to go. Despite the bumps in the road, I have to say that overall, I was impressed. We went from a very busy shopping district to a more relaxed area. There's a button that says pull over in case you need to stop the ride suddenly.

11:59David Brown:The Waymo was able to identify an easy drop off point. When you're near your destination, the car reminds you to grab your keys, phone, and wallet. The cars were clean, and it felt like a more private experience without a human driver to listen in on your conversation. Oh, we were still being recorded by Waymo for security purposes, which they do disclose to you. That's a little weird, but it didn't make me feel unsafe. If anything, it all feels a little magic. As we reached our final stop, we bid farewell to our robo-taxi pal. All right. You're here. Please make sure you're here for exiting. Thank you, Waymo.

12:38David Brown:Thank you, Waymo. See you next year. It kind of sounded like it responded to us there. Until next time. Reporting live from Austin, Texas. I'm David Brown. Oh, I'm Magnolia Brown. I wasn't ready for that. I'm David Brown. I'm Magnolia Brown. And we'll talk again later next time. perhaps on Business Wars. Coming up. It's going to be very disruptive to the auto industry. And I think much of what I'm talking about isn't 100 years away. I think it's 20, 30 years away. Now that I've had a taste of the autonomous vehicle experience, we're going to talk to the man who literally wrote the book on how these cars will shape our future.

13:17David Brown:Stick around.

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14:59David Brown:Welcome back to Business Wars. As Waymo robo-taxis catch on in cities across the U.S., now that I've had my own Waymo experience, I wanted to speak with an expert on the subject to get to know these cars a little bit better. Larry Burns is an automotive industry executive with nearly 40 years of experience. He served as the VP for General Motors Research and Development Division and later consulted for Waymo from 2010 to 2022. He's the author of the book Autonomy, the quest to build the driverless car and how it will reshape our world. Larry is optimistic about the future of these vehicles, citing their ability to improve physical and virtual access for so many populations worldwide.

15:40David Brown:and he joins us now to talk about it. Larry Burns, welcome to Business Wars. Thank you very much, David. How did autonomous vehicles become something you're so passionate about? Is there a moment from your own life that sparked your interest in innovating in this space? Actually, there was. When I became head of research and development at General Motors in 1998, my boss, who was subsequently the CEO of GM, Rick Wagner, he asked me a really profound question. He said, Larry, if we were inventing the car today rather than 100 years ago, what would you do different? That's what I want you to think about as my head of R &D.

16:17And one of the things that was very much on my mind at that time was the fact that over 40 ,000 people per year were dying in car crashes. And driver distraction had become a very hot topic. And I concluded that maybe driving was the distraction. Why would someone possibly go 70 miles an hour on our freeway and send a text or look at their phone. So this opportunity to rethink the car in terms of a different design DNA, an electric vehicle that was autonomous, that was connected virtually to everything that's going on around it. What might that be like as the alternative to the hundred-year-old DNA of the car?

16:57So that was the moment that really got my attention.

17:00David Brown:Larry, let me ask you about something because that ride in the Waymo is still so fresh with me. And I remember sitting in that car and having that thought, you know, that, wow, if everyone were in these self-driving vehicles, what a much safer world this would be in a sense. But at the same time, I love driving. And I know you got to be a car guy too, you know, if you're working at GM. Is there a tension there between the fact that so many of us identify with the cars that we drive and love to drive, have a passion for the road, you know? And yet it does really feel like this safety factor is going to win out.

17:38I think it's a great question. I do a lot of public speaking and I ask my audiences, how many of you like to drive? And like you, David, most hands go up. Then I ask, how many of you like to drive in traffic? A lot of hands go down. Then I ask, how many like to stop to buy gas? How many like to be tethered to their steering wheel? And the simple fact is, when you observe the people's behavior, most driving is pretty boring. Now, when horses were popular, people loved their horses, and they had horse races, and they had equestrian, and we still have that today. I don't think anyone's walking around saying you won't be able to drive in the future.

18:15I think what we're saying is there's going to be another mode out there, which is the opportunity to just take a ride in what I call the ultimate riding machine rather than the ultimate a driving machine. And that's going to appeal to a lot of people, but certainly no one's out there saying that we shouldn't allow people to have the freedom to drive. You know, Prince wrote Little Red Corvette. He didn't write Little Red Laptop Computer. So people do fall in love with their cars. There's no question about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

18:47David Brown:But, you know, I could have easily fallen in love or fallen asleep in the back of that Waymo because that was a real, real easy ride. Do you remember the first time you actually, you know, sat in an autonomous vehicle? That must have been way before any of us were really thinking about it. There's two moments I want to share. First was in the development of the vehicle that GM sponsored for the DARPA Urban Challenge, which took place in November 2007 in Victorville, California. We sponsored Carnegie Mellon University, and we created a vehicle with Carnegie Mellon called Boss. The founder of GM Research was named Boss Kettering.

19:25That's why we named it Boss. And since we were sponsoring this university, I had to go out there to see this vehicle. And I kept insisting to Red Whitaker and Chris Urmson, the two key people on the Carnegie Mellon team, I want to ride in it. And they said, well, I don't think you do. I said, no, I want to ride in it. So they let me ride in it on the test facility. But David, it wasn't unengineered for riding. It was herky and jerky, and I was getting car sick. And they were laughing and everything. So that was not a good experience, but it was my first time. The more profound experience is when, after this race took place, Google created Google Self-Driving Cars, and one of the key people on that team was a guy named Chris Urmson.

20:06And I'd gotten to know Chris very well through the Carnegie Mellon sponsorship. And Chris called me up and said, Larry, you know, we're doing this development work. It's been pretty quiet so far, but New York Times is going to break an article on this. Would you talk to them? Because it would help with our credibility. And I said, sure, but I want to ride in your car. And he invited me out. This was late 2010. And let me ride in their Prius on 101 in the San Francisco Bay Area. And it was remarkable. I'm in the lane. I'm riding autonomously in this Prius. And this great big truck comes up on my right.

20:43And my Prius nudges over to the left, just like I would do if I was driving. A little later on, David, a Volkswagen came and cut in front of me, and I realized my Prius had already started to back off and create a gap for that car. And I'm going, geez, this is 2010. This is going to work. I mean, we had a lot of work to do going forward from that point in time. And then Waymo brought me on as an advisor, sort of the gray beard advisor. They needed someone who understood the auto industry to come in and help them as they took their journey. And it was just a fantastic experience.

21:16David Brown:When you started working at Waymo, what was your approach to the work, and did it line up with Waymo's sort of slow and steady strategy? It did line up. I think this is a tortoise and a hare kind of a comparison. And I wrote a paper in a magazine called Autonomous Vehicle Engineering in 2019, and I made the case in that paper that the safety leader in autonomous vehicles will be the market leader, and vice versa. the market leader will be the safety leader. I think you've seen that play out. Waymo's safety record is pretty impressive. You know, they've been pretty transparent with their data, and you can pick different ways of measuring safety, whether it's for pedestrians and bicyclists versus people in the car.

21:58But it looks like they're five to ten times safer than human drivers. That's pretty darn profound. Then you look at what happened to Cruz when they had a very sad incident in San Francisco.