In recent months, San Diegans may have spotted the white or light blue Waymo vehicles with large cameras and sensors driving along city roads.
Now, Waymo said after months of testing with drivers behind the wheel, those vehicles will soon begin driving fully autonomously in San Diego.
“We will begin gradually ramping up our fully autonomous operations in the coming weeks,” a Waymo spokesperson said in a written statement. “Rides will initially only be available to Waymo employees. We plan to welcome the public later this year.”
While some are excited about the launch of the new technology, others are concerned.
“Drivers will struggle. We will lose a lot of jobs,” said Mikaiil Hussein.
He’s President of United Taxi Workers of San Diego, which represents hundreds of drivers.
“This is not fair competition. It's a machine; it's not going to get tired doing whatever it wants. It's going to be very difficult for us,” he said.
Hussein is advocating for more local oversight on the issue.
San Diego City Councilmember and MTS Taxi Advisory Committee chair Sean Elo-Rivera proposed an MTS resolution on autonomous vehicles that passed in January.
It urges the state to restore the right of cities to choose to allow driverless cars.
“I think it's fair for us to question why at the local level we don't have more control or say over where this testing is happening,” Elo-Rivera said. “San Diego is not a testing lab; San Diegans are not lab rats.”
He’s concerned about job loss and public safety.
Waymo points to its own data that shows its vehicles are safer than the average human driver.
“We don't just accept that San Diegans will get replaced by robots,” Elo-Rivera said. “And we won't just accept that an unproven technology in the big picture of safety and accountability when things go wrong. We won't accept that we have to allow these vehicles to operate wherever they want, however they want, whenever they want,” Elo-Rivera said.
Before full launch in San Diego, the company faces one more hurdle.
Waymo said they're authorized to provide fully autonomous rides in San Diego. But they're awaiting permission from the California Public Utilities Commission “to charge fares for those rides, so that we may extend our commercial service and bring the safety and mobility benefits of our service to Californians in San Diego.”
Waymo said they had about a dozen vehicles when they entered San Diego, and they're gradually expanding their fleet.
The company has already been testing their driverless vehicles around much of the city, with an employee in the driver's seat.
They're collecting information from Pacific Beach and Normal Heights to Point Loma and South Crest and the numerous neighborhoods in between.
Upon official launch, San Diego will become the 11th city where people can download an app and hail a fully autonomous Waymo vehicle at any hour of the day.
