Here we go.
We have just requested our first self-driving car in Miami, and we’re waiting for the Waymo to arrive to take us across town.
Driverless cars may sound like science fiction. But the future is here. And we’re ready to get inside.
You may have already seen Waymo cars on Miami streets. They’re the white electric vehicles with spinning sensors on top and no drivers in the front seat. And as the company, a Bay Area-based subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet, begins to invite riders on a waitlist to start requesting rides in Miami, you may be able to get around the 305 in a driverless car soon.
Waymo offers robotaxi services in 10 cities, including Phoenix, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco and Orlando. The company has logged more than 200 million paid rides, and as of late last year, Waymo was clocking around 400,000 rides per week, Reuters reported.
MORE: Where will Waymo take you in Miami? How do you get a ride? What to know
We took our first Waymo for a spin on the morning of Wednesday, Feb 25.
Come along for the ride.
What happened when we rode in a Waymo in Miami? Miami Herald reporter Catherine Odom boards a Waymo self-driving car at the Miami Herald offices. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com
Our journey started at an office park near Miami International Airport at 11:11 a.m., when we requested a ride on the Waymo app to take us to Brickell City Centre.
Don’t use Waymo without some extra time on your hands. Our white Jaguar I-PACE pulled into the parking lot 26 minutes after we ordered it.
The drive to Brickell spanned 56 minutes, and we reached our destination at 12:34 p.m., nearly an hour and a half after we first called our ride.
The estimated wait time for an Uber to the same destination? Between two and three minutes, and the ride would have taken about 20 minutes. And at $30.88, the Waymo ride cost nearly $10 more than an Uber to the same destination.
Waymo vehicles only use city streets for now, so instead of traversing speedier toll roads or interstates, our route snaked us south on Northwest 57th Avenue, east on Southwest Eighth Street and eventually north on U.S. 1 to reach our Brickell destination.
According to Google Maps, the most direct route from the airport area to Brickell on that Wednesday morning, using the Dolphin Expressway and I-95, would have taken about 20 minutes.
A screenshot from the Waymo app showing where you can call a driverless ide-share in the Miami area. Perks inside the Miami Waymo car
Miami Herald reporter Michael Butler waves from the window of a Waymo self-driving car on Southwest Eighth Street as the autonomous vehicle heads toward Brickell City Center. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com
Waymo has started testing its vehicles on Miami highways, said company spokesperson Sandy Karp.
As we got into our Waymo at the airport area office park, a recorded message reminded us to buckle our seatbelts and informed us that we were on camera.
“This experience may feel futuristic, but the need to buckle up is the same as always,” the message said.
The Waymo experience comes with perks similar to those available in an Uber Black, the premium version of Uber’s ride-share service.
Like in an Uber Black, you can customize some of your vehicle’s settings. A screen in the backseat lets riders adjust their legroom and the temperature in the vehicle. You can also connect to Spotify and play your own music.
We were greeted with calming, nondescript music as we got in the car, but we decided to replace the generic elevator music with Bad Bunny.
A work in progress A Waymo self-driving car stops at the intersection of Southwest Seventh Street and South Miami Avenue in Brickell. Pedro Portal pportal@miamiherald.com
As innovative as Waymo is, it’s still working out some basics. Not having a driver means the small changes in traffic that a human may be able to respond to more quickly and intuitively can slow down the ride.
As we drove south on Northwest 57th Avenue, we hit our first snag. The car seemed to struggle to merge left into a turn lane, stopping about 30 feet short of the intersection and blocking a lane of traffic.
As we sat still for about three minutes, we heard a hail of honking as ticked-off drivers went around our mysteriously frozen car. But several of the agitated drivers then slowed and even started shooting video when they realized this was a driverless Waymo.
We may have been in a confused car, but we were momentarily famous.
We weren’t the first Waymo in Miami to cold-stop in the middle of the road. Earlier this year, video bounced around social media showing a stalled Waymo blocking traffic on the Venetian Causeway between Miami and Miami Beach.
We ran into the left-merge issue again as we drove into Brickell. By then, even more drivers and pedestrians were pointing and staring at our driverless car.
Aside from the glitches, our Waymo ride went smoothly. After a while, we didn’t think much about being in a driverless car.
Billionaire Ken Griffin said at a Miami high school in February that self-driving vehicles like Waymo “will help tremendously” with improving traffic on Miami roads. Judging from the Waymo’s driving patterns, it seems like for now, self-driving cars are more likely to cause traffic than fix it.
But research published by Waymo last year suggests that the company’s driverless fleet is causing significantly fewer crashes, injuries and traffic deaths than human drivers do.
Arriving at our Brickell destination
Even though riding in the back of a Waymo felt similar to taking an Uber, we didn’t quite get used to the disconcerting sight of the steering wheel spinning on its own.
A third hiccup with our Waymo came as we arrived at Brickell City Centre. Our ride didn’t let us out in a designated drop-off zone. Instead, we blocked traffic again as we hurried out of the stopped car on the side of the street near the mall. This has been a common complaint among Waymo users posting about their experiences online.
After we arrived at Brickell City Centre, we checked to see how long it would take to call a Waymo for a ride back to the airport area so we could get back to work. The ride would have cost $31.14 and taken an estimated 37 minutes longer than an Uber to the same destination. And with the Uber price clocking in at $21.95, we opted to order a car with a driver.
Our Uber arrived a few minutes later, and we hopped in the back, exchanging greetings with our driver. He began to drive us back to our starting point, a 20-minute drive along I-95 and the Dolphin Expressway.
But as our Uber driver merged onto I-95, he began honking and cursing at other drivers after a near collision with another car.
“They’re crazy,” he said to us, gesturing at the other drivers on the road.
And just as we were pulling back into the office park, our Uber driver took a turn too quickly — and ran up onto the curb.
Miami Herald staff writers Michael Butler and Catherine Odom, who teamed up to take a Waymo ride, report for the newsroom’s consumer team.
Miami Herald
Catherine Odom covers real estate for the Miami Herald. She previously interned on the Herald’s government team and has worked as a journalist in Germany and Armenia. She is a graduate of Northwestern University.
 Cropped.jpg)
Miami Herald
Michael Butler writes about minority business and trends that affect marginalized professionals in South Florida. As a business reporter for the Miami Herald, he tells inclusive stories that reflect South Florida’s diversity. Just like Miami’s diverse population, Butler, a Temple University graduate, has both local roots and a Panamanian heritage.