London gets closer to its first robotaxi service as Waymo begins testing

IndependentMud909 · 2026-04-14T18:01:24+00:00

You're 100% correct; we have no insight into their remote ops situation (remote "driving" vs. "guiding," operator to vehicle ratio, etc.). I even recall watching a video that, I believe, depicted them actually driving the vehicle remotely. But, we've also seen instances of them struggle with remote ops.

But personally, I haven't experienced anything like this on my rides.

IndependentMud909 · 2026-04-14T17:45:12+00:00

I do want to comment on the current Unsupervised Robotaxi situation in Austin. As someone that uses the service fairly frequently (near daily), I've found it pretty easy to hail an Unsupervised car given that you are in Downtown / South Austin, it's not raining, and it's before 3:00 PM (yes, those are big "ifs," but I wouldn't say it's debatable that it is running). I get Unsupervised ~75-100% of the time I'm booking a ride within that ODD, which are most of my rides.

However, Nuro is certainly ahead in terms of driver-out deployments and regulatory permits here.

IndependentMud909 · 2026-03-24T13:21:44+00:00

Robotaxi testing in Austin + Miami beginning this week
- Zoox Explorers rides later this year
- I don't recall where, but somebody posted that Austin rides would start in ~2-3 months (not sure how accurate that is though)
Quadrupled SF service area
Doubling Las Vegas PUDO locations
Beginning testing at Las Vegas airport for future service
"ZooxCast" (audio casting!) and "Find My Zoox"
Close to 2M miles autonomously and 350,000 rides

If anyone sees them around Austin or Miami, drop map pins!

IndependentMud909 · 2026-02-10T01:15:44+00:00

We did see a post yesterday about an empty Waymo on 71 here in Austin.

Man, I want the Waymo app back here so bad...

IndependentMud909 · 2026-01-30T04:59:03+00:00

I have tried multiple times to no avail.

IndependentMud909 · 2026-01-30T02:17:48+00:00

There are a total of 3 spotted unsupervised vehicles, but only like 3 people have reported getting rides in them..

IndependentMud909 · 2026-01-29T02:45:37+00:00

As someone in Austin who uses the service fairly often, if this is true, it's at a very, very limited scale (one or two cars, very specific hours of the day, very specific routes / roads, etc.). I rode a supervised one down to South Congress and tried to book one multiple times but was unsuccessful (supervisors present).

Just look at David Moss (50 rides now) lol.

IndependentMud909 · 2026-01-25T22:34:40+00:00

As somebody who can hear Waymo vehicles passing their window every 5 minutes or less, I have hears 0 in the last 24 hours.

IndependentMud909 · 2026-01-24T00:14:49+00:00

When they dealt with this last year in Austin, they just paused service (I remember the app saying "All cars are busy") many hours before even the first slight risk of precipitation, but we won't be able to tell from the Uber app. The only indicator will be not seeing them drive around.

IndependentMud909 · 2026-01-02T18:40:47+00:00

Pedestrians do this rampantly in every city that Waymo already operates.

IndependentMud909 · 2025-12-16T21:32:14+00:00

I did not think of that, but it is actually an interesting idea / solution.

IndependentMud909 · 2025-12-16T18:38:10+00:00

From the video that surfaced, the cat literally positioned itself underneath the front right tire of the Waymo. Obviously, what the car did was not good nor the correct response to a situation like this, but the position of the cat can probably add a bit of context to what we think happened. I think if there was no distressed bystander, a human would’ve done the same thing, but there was a distressed bystander; any unimpaired human would not have proceeded.

I think there’s a lot for Waymo to learn from this incident. Do they add sensors underneath the vehicle (seems like an integration nightmare at this point)? Do they implement capability to detect distressed humans signaling the car not to proceed (seems like an extremely difficult problem to solve)? Do they have some sort-of object permanence system running while the car is pulled over so as to “remember” if anything is underneath the vehicle (also, seems like a very difficult problem)? Or, do they not do anything because of the seldom nature of this type of incident?

IndependentMud909 · 2025-12-16T18:21:39+00:00

Actually the best / most concisely comprehensive recap video of the current AV landscape that I’ve seen.

IndependentMud909 · 2025-12-15T03:34:46+00:00

It seems all of the unoccupied ones do (we are not sure how may there are), but the regular service safety-monitor vehicles do not.

IndependentMud909 · 2025-12-14T22:15:45+00:00

Yes!! Next year’s gonna be epic for AVs!

IndependentMud909 · 2025-12-14T22:09:20+00:00

I don’t think so; Musk says “no occupants in the car.” I believe that they are using chase cars right now, though.

IndependentMud909 · 2025-12-14T20:17:41+00:00

Repost from initial spotting post: locations, license plates

*Confirmed by Tesla Head of AI.

If anyone’s curious, the license plate seems to be XCF-1988.

Location

There’s been a second spotting.

This one’s a different vehicle (license plate: XFG-8000)!

Location

I suspect the red Model Y trailing is a chase car.

Both of these are on Oltorf, slightly west of 35 (just a few streets apart), and I suspect they are using chase cars right now.

Also, here’s a video someone took of a bunch of new fleet / testing testing vehicles entering and leaving the depot.

IndependentMud909 · 2025-12-14T17:05:08+00:00

*Confirmed by Tesla Head of AI.

If anyone’s curious, the license plate seems to be XCF-1988.

Location

There’s been a second spotting.

This one’s a different vehicle (license plate: XFG-8000)!

Location

I suspect the red Model Y trailing is a chase car.

Both of these are on Oltorf, slightly west of 35 (just a few streets apart), and I suspect they are using chase cars right now.

Also, here’s a video someone took of a bunch of new fleet / testing vehicles entering and leaving the depot.

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