hailing service coming to San Diego – San Diego Union

Copyright San Diego Union-Tribune

Some time next year, the taxi taking you around town may not have a human behind the wheel. Officials at Waymo have announced they are laying the groundwork to bring fully autonomous ride-hailing services to San Diego in 2026. San Diego ranks “in the top 15 cities in America for ride-hailing demand,” said Aman Nalavade, group product manager for Waymo, a tech company based in Silicon Valley. “As a business, that’s important to us so that we can actually fill our vehicles that we put on the ground.” Waymo has already mapped out portions of San Diego roads and highways and Nalavade said as early as next week, passersby may see a fleet of all-electric Zeekr RT minivans on area streets, further testing and assessing Waymo software. The cars will have live humans behind the wheel, but the vehicles will be in autonomous mode. The company said it will take a step-by-step approach that includes working with local officials to receive the necessary permits to move forward. Nalavade would not say exactly when in 2026 Waymo intends to begin ferrying customers. Waymo’s robotaxis will be concentrated in central San Diego, in areas such as the Gaslamp Quarter, downtown, Grant Hill, Logan Heights and Pacific Beach — but not as far north as La Jolla, Nalavade said. Waymo has already logged hundreds of thousands of fully autonomous trips in five U.S. cities — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Atlanta and Austin. On the same day the company announced its foray into the San Diego market, it also revealed plans to expand to Detroit and Las Vegas. Autonomous driving has caught the imagination of tech companies and the auto industry, who predict a sea change in the transportation sector. Tesla has implemented autopilot and self-driving features on its vehicles that include traffic-aware cruise control, semi-autonomous navigation, response to traffic lights and the ability to summon the car from a parking space. Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he’s staking his company’s future on investments in robotics, autonomous vehicles technology and artificial intelligence. But what about potential customers who may be leery about hopping into a vehicle without a human doing the steering? A survey released by AAA in February said 6 in 10 drivers in the U.S. are afraid to ride in self-driving vehicles — although the percentage who say they are fine riding in them increased from 9% last year to 13% this year. Nalavade said he empathizes with those who might be reluctant: “It is new technology. It is something that’s novel that most of the country has not seen or experienced firsthand.” But, he said, “just give us one chance. Take that first ride with us and we believe it’ll be a quite a magical experience … Usually, in my experience, 5 to 10 minutes in, you’re kind of just back to doing what you do in a normal ride-hailing or taxi cab, which is probably checking your phone and talking to your friends.” Waymo touts its safety record, citing company research saying that compared to a human driver, Waymo vehicles reported a 91% reduction in serious injury crashes, 79% fewer airbag deployments and 80% fewer injury-causing collisions. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria came out in support of Waymo’s plans. “By welcoming innovative and promising technologies like Waymo’s autonomous vehicle service, we’re exploring how to make transportation more accessible, more sustainable, and more connected for everyone in our community,” Gloria said in a Waymo news release. With headquarters in the Northern California city of Mountain View, Waymo is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company.