Starting next year, we may see Waymo driverless robotaxis operating in downtown San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe and my husband are out tonight and we\u2019re probably going to use a rideshare to go home,\u201d Cari Heisner-Koch said.<\/p>\n
San Diegans and tourists could soon get around town using driverless cars on the street.<\/p>\n
A Waymo spokesperson told NBC 7 they\u2019re planning to roll out their autonomous all-electric vehicle in San Diego.<\/p>\n
To operate it users can call Waymo with the app.<\/p>\n
Right now, the company is working to get a permit to operate in town, and if everything goes as planned the cars could roll out some time next year.<\/p>\n
The decision to bring driverless cars to neighborhoods like downtown is causing concern among San Diego City Councilmember Sean-Elo Rivera.<\/p>\n
He worries those Robo-Taxis could price rideshare drivers out of their jobs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to figure out what we can do to protect workers, to protect the families who depend on that work , but also to make sure we have a conversation about local say in technologies like this that can really upend a community,\u201d Sean Elo-Rivera said earlier this week.<\/p>\n
This week the Metropolitan Transit System’s Taxi Advisory Committee came out against Waymo.<\/p>\n
They voted on several recommendations for their board of directors, including urging governor Gavin Newsom to give cities control over whether autonomous cars can operate there, and allow community members to vote on their use.<\/p>\n
Vicky Gomez has seen Waymo in another city.<\/p>\n
She and others say they\u2019re not sure how to feel about their arrival.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh crap, nobody is driving that car,\u201d Gomez said.<\/p>\n
But some said they\u2019re not quite sure how to feel about Waymo coming to San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen the driverless pizza cars, have you seen those? I haven\u2019t seen that, but I have seen the robots deliver your food,\u201d Evelyn Gribble said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, we\u2019re in the future now and that\u2019s weird and I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m ready for it,\u201d Tracy McGarvey said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust not quite trustworthy yet, until there\u2019s a record out there about them,\u201d Cari Heisner-Koch said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s fine. I have a Tesla and I use autopilot all the time soI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a difference,\u201d Scott Cook said.<\/p>\n
The company quoted Mayor Gloria in a statement it released Monday saying in part, \u201cBy welcoming innovative and promising technologies like Waymo\u2019s autonomous vehicle service, we\u2019re exploring how to make transportation more accessible, more sustainable, and more connected to everyone in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
After rolling out the service in Downtown, the company plans to expand it to Pacific Beach, Temecula Heights, Mission Hills, Liberty Station, Montecito Point, and Grant Hill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starting next year, we may see Waymo driverless robotaxis operating in downtown San Diego. \u201cMe and my husband…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":398657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,38150,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-398656","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-mts","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115597860140115506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}