Walt, you're in London. I just got back from Silicon Valley. We're on the road. We're always learning about autonomy. While you and I are on the road learning about autonomy, the PR spin machines inside autonomy companies were revving up. While they were revving up, Waymo was actually doing the work and expanding. Let's start with London. How is it? How are you? I missed you.
And Waymo, I saw doing the work in London. I didn't see Wave. I saw Waymo doing work in London. I had a lovely time in London. I'm currently in the Cotswolds. And to get to the Cotswolds, I had to drive several hours, which for me is now disconcerting because, as you know, Grayson, and as our listeners know, the vast majority of my miles driven are fully FSD on my Tesla at home. So, it was very odd not only to be driving again, but to be driving on the wrong side of the road, or I guess here they would say left, right. Who knows where I am, but I got here safely. For the night, I'm in the Cotswolds.
That's good to know. While you were doing that, I was busy in Silicon Valley, because in London they call it the boot. So, I opened up the back of the Waymo boot. I tried to see what compute was in there. Wee wee wee wee wee wee. All the alarms started going off. So, the listeners and viewers, don't try and open it up.
You tried to open the trunk? I put my baggage in the back of the Jag. I've opened the trunk and put my baggage in there. Did you go into the sub-trunk of the trunk?
I tried. I tried. I wanted to be the inspector. Wee woo wee woo. So, oh boy. Down it goes.
Did they revoke your app access, or what happened? Did anyone get on the live camera? Or did anyone from the Philippines tap in and say, 'Excuse me, sir, what are you doing?'
Nobody tapped in. And the good news was I wasn't using my Waymo account. So, that's a little trick there.
So, now you were talking, I think this week, about getting highway access. Was that in the Valley, or was that back in Florida?
So, we got highway access coming here in Florida, not activated yet, but Waymo very kindly granted me highway access, and to Waymo a huge thank you. They gave me SFO access. And you know me, Mr. Curmudgeon when it comes to things. The Walt in me comes out with certain situations. And I was able to experience it at SFO. It was really interesting. Well, I have to tell you, so I flew United and we were at the second gate in the United Concourse. I timed it. I said, 'Okay, I got to do my field work.' 19 minutes gate to the time I was in the Waymo. I got to say it wasn't that bad. That's me who doesn't like to go far saying it wasn't that bad.
So, the person on this very podcast who has bitched and moaned about wanting curb access — you walked to, I guess, where was it? Was it the kiss and fly, or was it somewhere closer?
No, the kiss and fly would have been better. It was the rental car center. So, I had to go where if you're going to go into the dinosaur, that's a human-driven car, you go straight, or if you're going to get on the tram, you go right up the stairs. So, I had to ride the airport tram to the rental car center. And lo and behold, it sounded like, 'Oh, this is easy. This is great.' So, I go down two floors. God, I wanted to get some exercise. The escalator was broken to go down the last three floors. And no sign though. Pain in the butt, but still well worth it.
So, if you're willing to get on the tram, then if they get to that garage where Uber typically picks up — not the Uber Black, but the regular Uber — I assume now you're good with that, and that can really help Waymo if they can get into that garage. And is there anything about what you saw at that rental car place that's different or easier that would say like, 'Oh, well, it's clear they can do the rental car company where they couldn't do the garage?'
So, putting on my Walt hat here for a moment, I timed it. So, just to walk to the Uber and Lyft is 12 minutes. So it's an additional 7-minute walk, tram ride. What Waymo had, which was really nice, they had a dedicated curb. There was a sign at the vehicle pickups branded for Waymo. No traffic. Zoop. Right out going by United where they do all of the cleaning and refurbishing of the airlines. And years ago United hosted me there. A lot of cool stuff happens there. But right onto the 101, very little traffic. So once you got there, massively convenient. Getting there, a pain in the neck.
Well, that's fine, no traffic. But I mean, Waymos can handle traffic. We've all, you know, everyone's been in a Waymo that can handle traffic. So again, my question to you is: is there anything that you sense is more complex about the garage versus the rental car agency? Or is the issue continuing to be not about a Waymo capability, but really more about the powers that be restricting Waymo from that closer access where the Uber and Lyft pickups are?
Politics. At the end of the day, it's politics. Waymo, in my opinion, can handle where the Uber and Lyft pickups are. Waymo can handle curbside. It's entrenched interest and politics that's stopping it. And I'll go on here and I will make a very bold prediction. If and when Waymo is allowed to pick up curbside at SFO, within the first 12 months of active service, Waymo will take 30% market share at the airport from Uber and Lyft.
I'm not as — I don't think curb is as important as you think it is. I think if they can get down to the garage, they can get to 15-20% share pretty quickly. And at least they're getting closer. I don't know if kiss and fly is closer than this rental car company or what, but still getting held back, which is, I think, important, which we talked about last week, and important for our listeners to consider in terms of the impact that Waymo has had on Uber and Lyft to date in this market. They're still tying their hands behind their back because of politics more than anything. Let's move on to the ride itself. How much did it cost you? What was the — you know, where did the car drive? I assume you're on a highway there, right? So you had to get on the highway there. How did that whole ride go?
My ride was $89.92 to be exact. So, it was SFO down to Mountain View. I looked at Uber X was roughly $60. Comfort was around 90. SUV was around 120. So, going from SFO down to Mountain View, roughly I was going about a mile from Google's headquarters, to put that into perspective. So, as I said, Waymo very kindly granted me highway access. And I had no idea what to expect, but I had the GoPro there and we'll play some video here now for you of that. It was a smooth experience. It was a wonderful experience. The vehicle went in all three lanes. The vehicle did not go in the HOV lane. It went all the way to the left and all the way to the right, all three lanes. And a really interesting thing was the Waymo is in the far left lane next to the HOV lane. And there's this individual who must have been going 90-plus miles an hour, cuts the Waymo off. The Waymo honked at it. It was pretty neat. Great experience.
Come on. Hold on. Hold on. The Waymo honked? Do you have that on video? I think that's the first I've ever heard of any autonomous car actually making a sound. Are you sure about this?
I'm 100% sure. I was busy. Your partner Brandon would be very proud. I was playing some Phish. I had it blasting. I thought it was Trey on the guitar and lo and behold, no. It was the car.
You might be breaking news here, Grayson. I think I've ever heard of anyone having their Waymo hit the horn. Let's go back up though. In terms of the feel, you know, we've both been in FSD most recent software. Mad Max mode, lane changing hesitation — how would you compare it? I know it's not back-to-back, but how would you compare it to the FSD on the highway?
It's more conservative, especially if you're in hurry mode or if you're in Mad Max mode. The Waymo is much more conservative, a lot less lane changes, but from a comfort perspective, it's just as equally comfortable. If you were to ride in an FSD in similar settings to the Waymo, I don't think you'd be able to tell from a comfort standpoint. Extremely comfortable ride. It was just refreshing not having to deal with an individual in the vehicle and you're there by yourself in this little cocoon. It was a magical, magical experience.
What about speed? Did it go over the speed limit, under? Where were you pacing at on this ride on the highway?
California Highway Patrol probably loving Waymo. Well, it did not go 1 mile an hour above the speed limit. It obeyed the speed limit perfectly.
All right, I don't like that. I don't like that. It's okay to go a little bit above the speed limit. In some cases, it's safer to do it, but good info. That is great info. I can't believe you just delivered all that info, especially with the honking horn without putting on the Inspector Clouseau hat. So, if I had my clappy hat here in the Cotswolds, I would say, 'Well done, sir. Brilliant and lovely.' I'll give you an honorary clappy.
And a tip of the hat to you. What I realized more than anything of riding around in the Waymo vehicle this week in and around Mountain View in Silicon Valley and having highway access, this is the future. The one thing that Waymo has to overcome from an operational standpoint, drop-off and pickups. Had some challenging incidents. We had some challenging incidents around drop-off and pickup, but I decided I wanted to go stretch my legs and I went to one location over by Stanford University. There was a dedicated Waymo drop-off and pickup, so it's something that they still have to overcome, but you realize you don't want to go back. You get used to the experience. And on the pricing standpoint, because we get a lot of feedback about that, the Waymo on average was more. What I did notice, and I don't know if it's because I don't use Uber anymore, 20% off your ride, 15% off your ride, slashing prices because if the Uber discount was not in my app, it would be on par with Waymo. But Uber is offering me discounts because I was comparing them, and I still went to the Waymo because I want that consistent experience that Waymo offers.
So, you're in the Valley, San Fran, heart of technology. Waymo's not the only potential opportunity there. Did you tap into that Tesla Robo-Taxi app, and how did that go?
Yes. You know me, I want to try everything. I'm a kid in a candy store when I'm in the Valley. Oh, I got to try, I got to try, I got to try. And I had some free time and I wanted to go get some really good authentic Chinese food, and I was like, 'Oh, great. Let me try the — let's take Robo-Taxi now. Let's try it.' It was a 32-minute wait. Can't do that. Okay, so I take the Waymo there in 5 minutes. I come back from the Chinese restaurant to go back to the hotel. Vehicle unavailable. Try it again. Another time, 27-minute wait. I couldn't try it because I think the shortest wait was 25, 26 minutes. It was a short wait, and if you look at Robo-Taxi tracker, this is 244 vehicles in the Bay Area, but I can't use a service if I have to wait 25-plus minutes. I don't know. I just don't understand the whole point of this. Like, just get the technology, get the driver out, and what's the point of this? I mean, do they need the extra miles with someone in there? And if you're not really doing — if it's a 30-minute wait, I mean, I don't know. I just don't get it in terms of what they're doing in California.
What I did see was really cool over in Palo Alto by the Tesla engineering office. I saw a Cybercab mirrorless and testing on public roads.
I hope it's mirrorless. Was there a wheel in there?
I cannot confirm that. I'll post a photo right now and we will let our audience determine that. I cannot make that clarification if there was or there wasn't, but for the audience, please let us know. It was cool to see it though.
There was a human in there though, right? So the human driving a mirrorless car, is that what we're led to believe?
I don't understand how that's allowed in California, but...
You know what else I saw? I saw a Zeekr with no human testing by Alphabet's headquarters and then sure enough on X Waymo goes, 'Oh hi.' I go, 'No, Zeekr.'
Yeah, how dare you? How dare you? It's not a Zeekr, it's an Oh hi. Why don't you just call it a Geely? Let's just skip over the Zeekr and call it Geely. What about our friends at Nuro? Were you able to see any of their cars out and about?
So Nuro was very kind to host us at Nuro. We went there. We saw their new Lucid Gravity. Saw all the components, and we got a complete walk-through of how they're building it. And then so Robin and I are on our way to go meet with the team at Lucid. And so what do we do? We see a car we've never seen before. We pull on the side of the road. We get out our cameras. Wow, what's this Lexus? There was a black Lexus cruising around Mountain View with hardware that looked familiar. Lo and behold, we're coming out and Nuro says, 'Okay guys, time for a ride.' We went for a ride in a black Lexus. Nuro is testing on a black Lexus with their hardware. Comfortable ride. They're making a lot of really good progress and for the audience, I'll give you a little tease. There's something big coming at Nuro and not what you think. So stay tuned for that.
Well, the last time I was in Nuro, I think they had their stack on a Toyota. So I mean, they could buy anything, right? I mean, that's the whole point of this in terms of Nuro, their opportunity to partner with any of these OEMs and you can slap that equipment on any car, I suppose, with some modifications and then, over time, expand to get more OEMs and build it in. So, glad to hear that Nuro is still progressing. What about — did you take a taxi? Did you take an Uber? Did you take a Lyft, or did you just have too much time in the variety of autonomous opportunities to not even bother with old school?
I did old school back to the airport because I wanted to see if I was right about the experience and it was horrible. And next time I'm never doing it again. It's over. Every time I go to San Francisco, which I will be there next month, and I will tease for the audience, we are filming a podcast in a prototype and it is not a vehicle. We are filming live on location next month, so stay tuned for that and I'm using Waymo.
