Well. That's Also
Different. San Francisco, California

I've already written about riding a Zoox in Las Vegas. And I liked it. So when I found myself in San Francisco, where Waymo has been running for a while, I figured I should complete the set.

Waymo is easy to hail. Download the app and everything else works like Uber. No reinventing what already works. You call a car, you wait, it comes.

You won't miss it when it arrives. The lidar sensors sit on every corner of the car like bulky afterthoughts, and the fleet runs mostly in solid white. In San Francisco you see one every few minutes as you walk around. It's not a novelty here. It's just traffic.

Before the car arrived, the app gave me a small directional prompt with an arrow and a distance count, pointing me to a specific pickup spot, a designated area or a particular side of the street. It was precise. I didn't wander. When the car pulled up I hit unlock in the app and the door handle popped out of what is, underneath everything, a modified Jaguar. I got in. I could start the ride from a swipe in the app or tap the screen mounted to the back of the center armrest. And away we went. They also made it very clear I should put my seat belt on.

The ride was smooth. The car threaded traffic logically, positioned itself well for turns, and was patient around pedestrians. At one green light on a one-way street, a cyclist came the wrong way down the hill fast and swerved in front of us. The car slowed, waited, let it happen, then continued. No drama.

The rear seat screen shows you what the lidar sees. Cars get labeled by size. Pedestrians appear at crosswalks. Cyclists get their own category. You sit there watching the city get processed in real time, which is a strange thing to experience.

Now. The Jaguar. Leather seats, leg room, music if you want it. Comfortable. But there's something odd about it that I keep coming back to. The steering wheel moves on its own. Sometimes fluidly, as if someone confident is at the wheel. Other times in small back and forth corrections, the car thinking out loud. And the driver's seat just sits there empty, taking up a third of the interior for no functional reason. Waymo and Toyota are apparently building something new together, and it still has a steering wheel. I understand why, technically. I just think it's the wrong direction.

The Zoox nailed this part. No steering wheel, no front-facing orientation, no windscreen, hard plastic seats but a clear statement of intent. You couldn't pretend a human was supposed to be driving. That forced a kind of trust that I found genuinely useful.

The Waymo is more comfortable. The Zoox was more honest about what it was.

Both work. I want one for home. I know that's not happening yet. But I got in a car in San Francisco, told it where to go, and thought about nothing else the entire ride. That still feels like something worth noting.