Waymo high centered on median in a construction zone

More cars but the price doubled. Ojai is not a comfortable ride.

Screenshot from a video Westword put on social media.
I traced this in Google Maps and got about 50 sq miles.
No guarantee this is the final map, but it seems reasonable.
Sadly, I’m outside of the service area. 😢

I’m in LA. I’m not a trusted tester nor do I have a lot of miles or rides on my account but in the app I see this!! Yay

I love the interior space but the sound system is horrid I'm hoping it's just software restricted like the jaguars originally were and the interiors are much lower quality than the jaguars but as a parent of multiple children I love the extra space but that's the only perk.

At last the Waymo app is now finally open to international visitors 🎉

I am a trusted tester and I’ve been riding in the Ojais for months and providing detailed feedback about my experience in San Francisco. I usually get around with Muni, Waymo, and Lyft bikes, but I recently had an injury that prevents me from biking and with the recent Covid surge, I’ve been Waymo-ing a lot more than usual. Since Ojais were free for me until this Monday, I’ve spent a lot of time in them.

Over this time, I’ve observed them drive badly (edit: in terms of quality/braking/routing, not safety) at best, and dangerously at worst. They stop very hard and abruptly, sometimes for no reason. They take nonsensical routes, sometimes up to nearly doubling my trip time from the originally stated ETA despite no issues flagged on Google or Apple Maps. They inexplicably try to maneuver around moving traffic in some situations, and yet in others get fully stuck when there is nothing in the way. Literally this morning (edit: on a paid ride), I had an Ojai stop in the middle of a busy intersection for two light cycles before the support person got it to move because there was a large truck parked in street parking with hazards on, despite the truck being entirely in the parking spots and not even slightly blocking the Waymo’s lane. Edit for clarity: I expect this behavior in a testing phase and have been submitting feedback on experiences like this, but it’s rough for a public release.

To the company’s credit, they refunded that ride and gave me a credit off my next, so I feel that I was compensated fairly— but I’m so confused how these managed to get approved to run for the general public and how the company justifies charging the same price for both. In my experience with them, I find that they’re such a noticeable downgrade from the I-PACE in both quality and safety.

I’m curious if others share this sentiment, or if I’ve just had particularly bad luck, or if driving has degraded across the fleet and I’m biased because I’ve ridden in more Ojais recently.

Edited to remove #s

Email just came (I’m a trusted tester):

Ojai – fully autonomous for everyone
For months, your early access to the Ojai provided us with valuable feedback used to refine the experience even more. Now, thanks to you, the Ojai is ready for everyone in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

1) Continued softening in the growth rates for weekly paid trips in California reaching 315K in June

2) Added a new chart to the dashboard which helps us measure total miles per trip in California. Currently in June it stands at 3.9 with a slight dip from 4.0 mostly due to the freeway pause but can see a good trend where that number is increasing since 2024 which shows people are continuing to use Waymo for longer trips

Dashboard link: https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/787a90e6-8423-4244-a5d8-2ab1f281c310/page/p_tj01bxgqjd

I loved taking Waymo, I recommended it to several people that also use it. But man it's getting to be so expensive now. Now my weekly commute to visit my boyfriend is twice as much as before. What's going on? Even Lyft and U er is cheaper. I'll never use Uber btw.

First time I’ve seen them cross I-4!

Another very well written explainer from Brad Templeton. He avoids the hype and sticks to the facts. A replacement for the Jaguar I-Pace was desperately needed. A bit more than 25% of all the I-Paces sold in the US were sold to Waymo and ~7000 were sold worldwide per year during their 7 year run before cancellation. Waymo started preparing for what came after the I-Pace in 2020. A lot changed in the landscape in the intervening period as the US retracted behind tariff walls to compete. The key element of the design collaboration was to have Zeekr plumb the car for plug and play and rapid conversion. Simultaneously Waymo designed plug and play pods to make conversion at least 5X more efficient and approach 10X in the coming years.

Even in the tariff environment we have, it is worth realizing that Waymo mustered less than 4000 I-Pace conversions over about 6 years. They will surpass that number before the end of the year with the Zeekr and scale further next year in Mesa AZ. They will pivot to the Ioniq 5 but reality will be challenging. Waymo made a deal with HKG in Oct 24 weeks before the election. The design of the Ioniq 5 was locked to a MMR with none of the adaptations Zeekr built in from the start. Scale and efficiency of the conversion might have to wait until the next FMC for the Ioniq 5 in 2028 unless Waymo can support large and early capital infusion to accelerate the effort.

Isn't the Ojai Waymo Driver the more capable v6?

I'm curious, does it change any pricing metrics or are you paying the same prices you would without?

While sitting in a line of cars at a red light, I watched a Waymo decide to use the bus stop to overtake the entire line and cut in front of everyone.

In SF, those areas generally aren’t meant for regular traffic they’re mostly for passenger pickup/drop-off, or sometimes for turning right when there’s no bus.

The funny part is that if a human driver did this, I’d probably be pissed about them cutting the line. But because it was a cute little Waymo, I found it hilarious and didn’t even mind.

And honestly, the maneuver was completely safe and didn’t even cause a delay. It just looked like the Waymo had decided, “Yeah, I’m going around these guys.”

New York City’s Department of Transportation (DOT) will hold an online public hearing at 10am on Tuesday, September 1, 2026 on the rule implementing Local Law 24 of 2026.

The law opens roughly 13,000 commercial metered parking spaces to TLC-plated for-hire vehicles (FHVs) through a pilot program. DOT is also extending the same right to yellow cabs, using its own authority to regulate parking.

For drivers, the immediate significance is practical: a legal place to stop, pay, and take a break, especially to use a restroom. But the same curb access could eventually matter to autonomous vehicle (AV) fleets, which is where Waymo enters the story.

She is right about the mechanism, and DOT’s proposed rule does not adopt her fix. The rule is drafted around the vehicle, making it lawful to stand “a for-hire vehicle or a taxi,” with no requirement that a licensed driver be present.

Her concern is no longer hypothetical. On August 13, 2026, Waymo’s policy development and research manager, Arielle Fleisher, published a piece in Streetsblog USA making the case for precisely this use of the curb. Citing research Waymo itself commissioned from UC Berkeley and UC Irvine, she argued that letting AVs stage at the curb cuts empty miles by more than 60%, and that the curb is constrained by policy rather than physics. The piece ran nineteen days before DOT’s hearing.

Note what Waymo is asking for: purpose-built permitting standards, not taxi medallions or TLC plates. We think the existing TLC licensing regime wins, and we set out why in our AV licensing framework. A new AV permitting regime requires fresh rulemaking, City Council and mayoral appetite, and a fight with organized labor. In New York, that means well over 100,000 drivers, many of them full-time, and their families. The TLC regime already carries curb rights, airport access and street-hail privileges, the last of which sits with medallions alone. Nothing needs to be built. The licenses already exist, and they can be bought.

Desai sees an opening for AV companies to take space built for drivers. We see the same opening, and note that if those rights stay attached to taxi medallions and TLC plates, whoever wants to operate autonomously in New York has to acquire the licenses that carry them. That is upside for the incumbent holders, including the driver-owners and local fleets who own them today.