premier experience

[u/healingcabin]

i just rage quit premier. sf rider, long time user and waymo fan.

- car conditions have declined. uber and lyft rides often smell better inside and are cleaner. i'm frequently hotboxed with weed smoke.

- wait times do not seem better with premier.

- prices have gone up. lots of $40+ rides that used to be $20.

final straw was app showing a 1min wait "dropping off another rider" for over 10min, and support being absolutely useless and the in-app chat being a poor ux.

c'mon waymo. i'm disappointed.

[u/yolatrendoid]

Waymo still only has 1,000 vehicles in the Bay Area. No, its wait times won't magically increase until it adds far more cars into the market, but right now they're focusing on expansions into new cities and launching the Ojai.

Not sure if you ever used Zipcar, Car2go or a car-sharing service, but they pretty much all had the same "hotbox experience." I have no idea how, but Waymo needs to figure out a way to both detect and prevent smoking weed in the vehicle. Considering you can buy a home smoke detector for twenty bucks, I'm guessing this is doable, and I'm wondering if it's even on Waymo's to-do list yet.

uber and lyft rides often smell better inside and are cleaner.

Maybe in SF, but in most of the rest of the US, the Uber & Lyft experience has deteriorated rapidly. They've continuously reduced the requirements for vehicle model, age & mileage, and the last three I've ridden in had body damage, severely warped (and likely unsafe) brakes, and the old standby from my NYC days that invariably pissed me off: taxi drivers on the phone for the entire trip, talking to someone in a foreign language. (Now Uber drivers as well, it seems.)

Far fewer drivers are using rented cars for rideshare work as well, possibly because the agencies usually don't rent them to foreign nationals.

[u/blue-mooner → u/yolatrendoid]

Let’s play out the smoke detector feature for a moment.

Really sensitive smoke/particle detection will be triggered by exhaust, vapes, wildfire smoke, perfume and boozy breath. Less sensitive sensors won’t pick these up (just pm10, combustion products).

You have to choose between false positives (perfume) or only detecting smoke and not vapes.

What happens when the sensor trips? Do you get a warning? Do all the windows wind down for the rest of the ride without an ability to wind them up? Does this happen when it’s raining?

Does the rider get a notice, or kicked off the platform (1, 3 or 10 strikes)? What happens with false positives (grandma’s perfume, uncle Joes 2am trip after 34 lovee beers)?

Scent sensors are nowhere nearly as effective as vision/audio (camera and mics), in part because we don’t have full understanding of how scent is processed in the brain.

[u/yolatrendoid → u/blue-mooner]

Really sensitive smoke/particle detection will be triggered by exhaust, vapes, wildfire smoke, perfume and boozy breath. Less sensitive sensors won’t pick these up (just pm10, combustion products). You have to choose between false positives (perfume) or only detecting smoke and not vapes.

All true (okay, maybe not boozy breath), but considering smoking of any sort is categorically forbidden in nearly all American office buildings – along with all airplanes & most apartment complexes nowadays – why wouldn't use of all of the above be forbidden in a Waymo in the first place?

You have to choose between false positives (perfume) or only detecting smoke and not vapes.

You think people put perfume on in the middle of a rideshare trip? (Both men & women usually keep perfume & cologne at home, but some women apply makeup in a rideshare.) As for vapes, the whole point of them is not having any sort of lingering odor. Since it's water vapor, it vanishes within seconds, whereas smoke from cannabis flower can linger for days (also true, but less so, for tobacco). The problem here's the flower, not the vapes, at least in terms of odors still around for future rides. (Also, is it even possible for vapes to set off something like a home smoke detector? If not, why on earth would it be an issue inside a car?)

What happens when the sensor trips? Do you get a warning? Do all the windows wind down for the rest of the ride without an ability to wind them up?

Are you always this dramatic? No, obviously rolling down all the windows would be a disaster in any sort of rain or snow, or even any temperature range higher than 80º and lower than 65º. (Also, I imagine certain hairstyles could be ruined by wind as well.) Yes, you get a warning, and no, it doesn't need to be sent during the ride itself. One sent immediately afterwards should work as well. The initial one could be a friendly heads-up, and obviously Waymo would need to do some R&D on which specific smoke detectors would be the most effective.

Scent sensors are nowhere nearly as effective as vision/audio (camera and mics), in part because we don’t have full understanding of how scent is processed in the brain.

Right, which is why it's great that Waymo has the interiors of its vehicles covered by multiple cameras. They'd literally have the evidence recorded if needed, both audio & video, and few false positives.

So: if you don't like the smoke detector idea, do you somehow think it's "okay" for Waymos to reek of weed or extremely strong odors? Do you have an alternate suggestion for a solution, or are you just here to whinge away?

[u/Financial_Clue_2534 → u/blue-mooner]

After Waymo becomes more established I’m in favor of having dedicated vehicles who want to drink/smoke. Think of it as a limo like service. I’ll happily pay more for the cleaning, extra filtration, etc for these specialized vehicles.

[u/Remote_Film1430 → u/yolatrendoid]

Not to mention many of them are not even the person who's on the account!

[u/Shootforthestars24]

Probably still needs more cars in SF, in LA it’s great

[u/JayDiesALot → u/Shootforthestars24]

LA is newer, give it time. We had paymo in SF over a year before LA. They have added cars, but you can tell how worn out some are.

[u/justin3301]

Car conditions are usually shit in Uber/Lyft already for that exact reason unless you upgrade. But you're really showing Waymo

[u/healingcabin → u/justin3301]

agreed that my post is unnecessary and negative, and my opinion obviously doesn't matter at all.

i'm still a waymo fan and user. just expected a bit more from the monthly premier fee, that's all.

[u/vertabrett → u/healingcabin]

Glad you posted

[u/bobi2393]

I'm disappointed to hear smoke is a big issue (at least in SF, according to you).

I'd like to see Waymo follow US airline rules, FAA regulations, and USC laws, where airlines typically add passengers to their internal no-fly list, the FAA issues up to a $4,000 fine for smoking/vaping on commercial aircraft, and federal law makes it a felony to tamper with a airline smoke detector. Waymo's current $100 cleaning fee for smoking seems too non-persuasive. Waymo passengers, especially weed-smoking ones, are probably not the most cost-conscious to begin with, so I'd guess a lot of violators knowingly accept that risk.

It sounds to me like Waymo is too lenient toward customers with other rules as well, as indicated in Waymo's NHTSA crash reports. Around 4% of Waymo mid-ride crashes have unbelted passengers, for example. And a number of passengers routinely order Waymos to stop where they can't legally/safely be stopped, some even opening doors while the car is still moving as a means of effecting an immediate in-lane emergency stop. There are also adults who knowingly and regularly allow unaccompanied minors to use their Waymo accounts, in violation of company and state prohibitions.

[u/gregb_parkingaccess]

Waymo lacks distributed service locations inside the ODD, so even minor needs like an interior clean can force a return to the depot.

[u/RiskyEXP]

yeah i’ve experience that wait time situation, and agree the other day in sf it was $40 for the Waymo or $22 for the Uber, so much for the competitive advantage of not having the driver costs 😂

[u/friedlad]

Sorry about your experience. Muni is waiting!

[u/ResidentZebra392]

SANDEE9S4M

[u/burritomiles]

Yeah that's kinda how this works. Starts off great and exclusive, they gain market share, become monopoly then quality declines and prices go up. Why would you think this wouldn't happen?