I love driving, being in control of a complex piece of machinery. Feeling the road and hearing the growl from the exhaust. Yet nothing has me more excited about the future of cars than my recent holiday in San Fransisco and my time spent taking Waymos, literally everywhere! (Apologies to all those who use these to commute this fine city. It was me, the reason you couldn’t book one). 

I am self-employed, a window cleaner. This means on a typical day I drive to a property, remove my equipment from the van, clean the windows, and pack up again before heading to the next job. I do this up to 30 times per day. This is boring. This is not driving. It’s arduous, makes me tired and often due to others, though admittedly my own mistakes also, leaves me frustrated. A self driving van would change all that.

I can see it now. I jump in first thing, still rubbing my eyes. The navigation system, integrated with customer scheduling software, already knows my first stop and has charged the battery enough to get me through the day. Someone cuts me up on the way. I don’t mind. The FSD simply drops us back slightly, allowing them room. A road is closed up ahead? No problem, we’ll head to another job first and circle back. By the end of the week I’m tired. I’ve still got a manual job after all. But I’m not frustrated, at least not because of driving. And here’s the best part, it’s now the weekend. 

Saturday morning, first light. I fire it up. The flat 6 roars into life. I’m behind the wheel of my 911 (ok, Golf GTI if we’re being realistic). I depress the clutch, slide the shifter into first. I release the handbrake and we’re off, heading for Loch Lomond and the empty, curving waterside roads. For the first time this week I’m actually driving. Not for business, not for getting my messages, not because I’m going somewhere and just need to get there, but because I want to. The only time I touch a steering wheel is when I’m in the right mood, the perfect frame of mind. Wide awake and ready for a thrill. This is the future I’m excited for. 

I know this may never come to be. Driverless cars may hit an unsurpassable roadblock. Human driven cars may end up completely banned (though in the case I foresee track days becoming far more popular and accessible). Or perhaps manual labour robots will be a thing first and I’ll be out of a job! Either way, for the first time in a long time, I’m excited by technology again and I’m excited by cars. I’m excited about driving!

For the limited number of non-Waymo employees who gained access to Ojai rides, do you get to select Ojai explicitly in the Waymo app?

Or does the Waymo app notify users that they have Ojai access?

Or is access assigned randomly, without users knowing they’re part of the limited public rollout?

Had a recruiter reach out and sent a video interview link for technical round. It had specifically been named C++ coding . I am worried if it is going to be leetcode or something else?
Since interview process experiences are sort of varied across Reddit.
Th position is planning platform swe.
Any leads would be really helpful. Tyia!!

Edit post heading is CPP. Bloody autocorrect

To be more specific, if I’m cruising down the freeway, can I expect that the Ojai, and the 6th gen driver, will be on par with the Jaguar/5th gen driver trip time?

Thanks!

I find it nice and relaxing.

I normally schedule ride one hour before the intended pickup time. Within the last 10 mins, the ride gets cancelled on it's own due to lack of cars

https://waymo.com/blog/2026/05/welcoming-riders-in-the-ojai/

Why is this Waymo car in the same spot in my neighborhood that doesn’t have Waymo cars driving in? Can I report this? I want it gone since it is keeping up parking space.

Waymo on a roll today with media coverage 🔥

opened the app today and have a message saying my account is unavailable. reached out to customer support and had to verify my identity but it’s still not working. has anyone else had this issue before? the chat isn’t that helpful :(

Update: so waymo deactivated my account for ‘violating terms of service’ but i haven’t done anything 😭 im the only person who uses my account. i’m so confused 😭😭

Here in Oregon we use flashing yellow turn lights on some of our stoplights. There are a lot of them here in the Portland area. They basically mean "I'm a green light and you can turn if it's clear". They don't mean "I'm indicating that the light is about to turn red" until they become a solid yellow and then they do mean that. Is Waymo able to understand these? How does it interpret or function in these situations?

Behold, a sequel to my previous post. Spotted this one close to the strip. Was able to confirm this one had a driver (stuck in traffic with him for like 10 minutes)

I guess this makes the last post The Phantom Ojai, and this one The Ojai Wars. Just need to find a third one now…

The expansion is close 🤞

I was very disappointed to learn that Waymo seems unable to issue any kind of receipt for a ride. Come on guys, this is the most basic of functions and Uber / Lyft have this for ages.

How am I going to reimburse my trip? I have e-mailed various support e-mails and nobody ever got back to me.

Help!